Sitting of 12 August 1896

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY BILL.
  Lords' Amendments considered (by Order).
  SIR JOSEPH SAVORYmoved to disagree with the Lords' Amendment by which the clause preserving the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, in the City of London, was struck out, and a new clause was inserted by which the proceeds of the sale of the church should be handed over to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In the City of London, he said, there was a very strong feeling that this church, which was the central parish church, ought to be preserved. ["Hear, hear!"] First of all, it was an interesting historical monument. Before the Norman conquest this church was a Christian church, and had been so used ever since; and, indeed, the earliest records in the possession of the Lord Mayor and Corporation showed that, even before that time, a Pagan temple stood on its site. The church was valuable not only as an historical monument but for the beauty of its architecture. Standing at the western end of Lombard Street, facing the Mansion House, and within sight of the Bank of England and the Royal

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  Exchange, it had a beautiful exterior, and its interior was also singularly attractive. And not only did they value the church as an historical monument and as the parish church of the City, but for the many remarkable men who had worshipped within its walls, and had been interred there in bygone centuries. An intense interest and affection were also felt for the church, owing to the remarkable men who had ministered within its walls—men like the Rev. John Newton, who was beloved by everyone who took an interest in the Church of England. This was not the first time that the Lord Mayor and citizens of London had been called upon to defend the church. In 1863 an attempt was made by the post office which adjoined the church, and which in former days used to be the General Post Office of the City of London, to take the church in order to increase the size of the post office. Owing to the agitation and efforts then made by the Lord Mayor and citizens, the church was preserved. He earnestly hoped that they might again be successful in saving the church. All that the citizens asked was that the clause which was inserted in the House of Commons for the protection of the church should be reinserted. It might be urged that the rector of the church was in favour of its disappearance; but the rector wrote a letter to The Times the previous day, in which he stated that he was utterly opposed to the church being destroyed. But the rector must be judged by his deeds rather than by his words. Early this year a large meeting was held in the Mansion House, when resolutions were passed earnestly protesting against the destruction of the church, and petitioning that it might be saved. The rector declined to attend that meeting. The Church of England had rectors and clergymen, some of whom were of great benefit to those among whom they ministered; there were others who harassed and injured the flock among whom they dwelt. The rector of St. Mary Woolnoth lived at Hendon. The church, which was formerly open every day of the week, was now closed except on Sundays, and it was impossible for a clergyman living at such a distance adequately to minister to the flock whose spiritual care was intrusted to him.
  MR. R. B. MARTINsupported all that the last speaker had said, but on other grounds. He wished to call the attention of the House to the gratuitous manner in which it was proposed to destroy what was practically one of the adornments of the City of London. He had no hesitation in saying that there was no building in the City of London which was so completely suited to the position which it occupied, or was more universally admired for the fine character of its exterior than the Church of St. Mary Woolnoth. He did not think that for the sake of a few pounds, none of which might find their way into the coffers of the Church, that such an ornament should be destroyed, when, in reality, they were endeavouring to beautify the City. The real history of the case was this. The railway company, which was not an undertaking likely to pay in the immediate future, was got up for the purpose of putting money in the hands of the promoters. A notice was served on the rector that the church would be within the limits of deviation, and an agreement was made to sell the church. A large Scotch banking firm wished to set up a high suite of offices over the railway, and in this way something might be done to reduce the cost incurred; but he maintained that no necessity existed for a station at this particular point. A station was absolutely not wanted, because there was a station 300 yards on either side—one at the Bank of England and one at the Monument. It was, indeed, an excuse to get hold of the site for the contractors, who would be enabled to dig the soil out, and this, no doubt, would be a great convenience to them. Otherwise, there was no necessity for pulling down the church or destroying it. If the church was saved by the reinsertion of the clause, it would carry out the idea of the railway company and would be quite as much as they could now expect. There was one objectionable feature in the Bill. It was that any extra expense to which they were put in reinstating the work was to be taken out of the compensation fund, for the right to make a station under the church. But there was nothing to show that the making of a station would not entail quite as much cost, by having to pull the church

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  down and rebuilding it. Altogether, the whole affair was in a most unsatisfactory state. In an important matter of this kind the City were at the mercy of the contractors, who got into a place where they had no business to be without the permission of the, central authority. He hoped that the House would reject the Amendment of the Lords.
  SIR JOHN KENNAWAY, as Chairman of the Committee which considered the Bill, said that there was an undoubted feeling on the part of hon. Members that this object of historical interest should if possible be preserved. With that view an Instruction was given to the Committee to consider what provisions could reasonably be made for its preservation. In accordance with that view a clause was inserted providing that the company should not purchase the church, but should make an underground station beneath it. That was passed with the consent of the railway company, and the Bill went to the House of Lords in that form. He understood the feeling which had been expressed by the hon. Baronet, but if the City considered that it was aggrieved, they had only themselves to blame, for they allowed the railway company a few years back to obtain possession of the church, and the company had enjoyed the power to pull it down for the last five years. In the House of Lords the rector was allowed to go in and do what he liked, and apparently the City did not interfere in the way they might have done. He took exception to what the last speaker said that those railways were not of importance. Those who had to do with the communcications of London, and on whom the responsibility was thrown of deciding what reasonable communications were necessary for the enormous population of the metropolis, felt that there were few points which came before them of more importance than the fact as to how this traffic was to be carried. Further, the undertaking should not be cited as a speculative one, because a great public benefit was conferred by it. It was of great importance that the House should be careful not to inflict an injustice in this matter on a railway which had endeavoured to meet the obligations thrown upon it by Parliament. If this clause was struck out, and the Amendment was
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  accepted in another place, he hoped that whatever happened the railway company would not be deprived of the Bill.
  *THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS (Mr. J. W. LOWTHER,), thought that the hon. Baronet had called the attention of the House to an important factor in connection with the Bill. Supposing the House now reinstated the clause and the Bill went back, and was either not accepted there, or if the company refused to proceed with the Bill, what would be the effect on the church? The hon. Baronet had pointed out that under a former Act, of which this Bill was really an extension, the company already had the power to take the church. They had already issued a notice to treat to the rector and churchwardens with regard to the church. He thought that their powers expired about the 24th of this mouth, and they had issued their notices to treat. If, therefore, the Bill did not go through, the company had still practical possession of the church. They might therefore consider that the church had gone. It was possible, however, that the railway company might accept the Bill with this clause reinstated. He did not know what the company would do, because they had not instructed him one way or the other, but it was possible that the promoters and the House of Lords might say that they would accept the Bill with the clause reinstated. It was obvious that the hon. Baronet the Member for the Appleby Division of Westmorland really voiced the general view of the House, which was that the House was anxious to retain this church. It was built by a famous pupil of Wren's, and was an object of some artistic, and he might almost say historical, value to the City. At any rate they would rather see this church on the site than a big block of buildings. On the whole he thought the House might wisely reinsert the clause and take the risk of the company's refusing to proceed with the Bill. In the other House this clause was struck out apparently at the instigation of the rector, without his having consulted the churchwardens. That was unfortunate, and by introducing this clause they would show that it was the opinion of the House that the church should be preserved; and it was quite possible that, in these circumstances, the

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  Company might take the Bill as it stood, and that the church might be preserved to the public.
  Lords' Amendment disagreed with.
  SIR JOSEPH SAVORYbegged to move that Clause 7 be re-inserted.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Committee appointed to draw up reasons to be assigned for disagreeing with certain of the Lords' Amendments.

  WESTON-SUPER-MARE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
  DR. R. FARQUHARSONmoved—
  "That, in the case of the Weston-super-Mare Urban District Council Bill, Standing Order 246 be suspended, and that the Lords' Amendments to the Bill be taken into consideration forthwith."
  Motion agreed to.
  Lords' Amendments agreed to.

  STANDING ORDERS.
  *THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSrose to move a series of Amendments to the Standing Orders. He explained that they were for the most part drafting Amendments, and that many of them were now rendered necessary because there had been no Amendments to the Standing Orders for two or three Sessions. Some of these Amendments were designed to bring the phraseology of the Standing Orders into accord with the phraseology of the Local Government Act of 1894; but the object generally was to bring the Standing Orders of that House into accord with the other House. He begged to move—
  Standing Order 1, line 18, after "Gas Work," insert "Improvement charge, unless proposed in connection with a Second Class work to be authorised by the Bill."
  Part II., Heading, line 4, after "Tramroad," insert "the term 'lessee' includes a person holding an agreement for a lease."
  Standing Order 3, line 17, leave out 'Special."
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  Standing Order 5:—
  Line 2, after "products," insert "of gas or sewage."
  Line 3, after "ground," insert "crematorium."
  Lines 5 and 6, leave out "limits within," and insert "lands in or upon."
  Line 7, leave out "and," and insert "or."
  Line 8, after "ground," insert "crematorium."
  Standing Order 9, line 6, leave out "sanitary."
  Standing Order 10:—
  Line 3, after "subway," insert "when such Bill contains powers authorising any alteration or disturbance of the surface of any street or road."
  Line 4, after "every," insert "such."
  Line 4, after "street," insert "or road."
  Line 5, leave out from "along," to "subway," in line 6, inclusive.
  Line 7, after "street," insert "or road."
  Line 9, after "street," insert "or road."
  Standing Order 11:—
  Line 2, leave out "by which," and insert "for power to take."
  Lines 2 and 3, leave out "are intended to be taken or," and insert "compulsory or for."
  Line 4, leave out "is sought," and insert "or to impose an improvement charge on any lands or houses, or to render any lands or houses liable to the imposition of an improvement charge."
  Line 6, after "all," insert "such."
  Lines 6 and 7, leave out "so intended to be taken, or which may be taken as being within the limits of deviation defined upon the plan," and insert "inquiring whether they assent, dissent, or are neuter in respect of such application."
  Leave out Standing Order 12A.
  Standing Order 15:—
  Line 4, after "products," insert "of gas or sewage."
  Line 5, after "ground," insert "crematorium."
  Line 7, leave out "limits within," and insert "lands in or upon."
  Line 9, after "ground," insert "crematorium. '
  Standing Order 22:—
  Line 9, after "section 3," insert "and Schedule A."
  Line 10, after "case of," insert "such schedule."
  Lines 10 and 11, leave out "Tramways situate within the area of the county of London."
  Line 12, after "Works," insert "urban district council" for "local board," and "rural district council," for "vestry, select vestry, or other body of persons acting by virtue of any Act of Parliament, prescription, custom, or otherwise, as or instead of a vestry or select vestry."
  Standing Order 24:—
  Line 4, leave out "by," and insert "under the powers of."

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  Line 4, leave out "are intended to," and insert "may."
  Line 4, after "taken," insert "compulsorily."
  Line 5, leave out "Special."
  Line 7, leave out "Special."
  Line 7, leave out "connection with," and insert "respect of."
  Line 35, leave out "sanitary."
  Line 38, leave out "sanitary."
  Line 40, leave out "sanitary."
  Standing Order 29:—
  Line 4, leave out "intended to," and insert "are situate which may."
  Line 5, leave out "are situate," and insert "compulsorily, or on which an improvement charge may he imposed, or which are rendered liable to the imposition of an improvement charge."
  Line 6, after "shall" insert "(subject to the provisions of Section 17 (7), of the Local Government Act 1894)."
  Line 13, leave out "Session."
  Line 13, after "clerk," insert "of the parish council."
  Standing Order 29A:—
  Tune 2, after "any," insert "urban authority in England or any."
  Line 3, leave out "England or."
  Line 5, leave out "intended to," and insert "are situate which may."
  Lines 5 and 6, leave out "are situate," and insert "compulsorily, or on which an improvement charge may be imposed, or which are rendered liable to the imposition of an improvement charge."
  Lines 7 and 8, leave out "that Sanitary," and insert "the."
  Standing Order 33, page 45, line 18, leave out "sanitary," and insert "urban."
  Standing Order 33B, line 7, after "county," insert "urban district, urban."
  Standing Order 35, lines 2 and 3, leave out "the House," and insert "this House."
  Standing Order 38:—
  Line 4, leave out "sanitary."
  Line 5, leave out "sanitary."
  Standing Order 39:—
  Line 4, leave out "at the same time," and insert "also."
  Line 8, after "on," insert "or before."
  Standing Order 40:—
  Lines 2 and 3, leave out "in the case of Bills of the First Class."
  Line 3, leave out "intended to," and insert' which may."
  Line 3, after "taken," insert "compulsorily, or on which an improvement charge may be imposed, or which are rendered liable to the imposition of an improvement charge."
  Line 4, after "shall," insert "also."
  Line 8, leave out "shall," and insert "may."
  Standing Order 46:—
  Lines 3 and 4, leave out "in the line of the proposed Work, or within the limits of deviation as defined upon the Plan," and insert "which may be taken compulsorily."
  Line 5, leave out "special," and insert "improvement."
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  Lines 5 and 6, leave out "a special," and insert "an improvement."
  Line 6. leave out "in connection with any improvement."
  Standing Order 60A:—
  Line 2, after "any," insert "county council."
  Line 3, leave out "Local Board, Improvement Commissioners," and insert "District Council."
  Line 13, leave out "and."
  Line 15, leave out "sanitary," and insert "urban."
  Line 19, leave out "and."
  Line 23, leave out "and."
  Standing Order 61:—
  Line 15, after "has," insert "(subject to the provisions of Section 17 (7), of the Local Government Act 1894)."
  Line 18, leave out "Session."
  Line 18, after "of," insert "the parish council of."
  Line 19, after "and," insert "with."
  Line 20, after "which," insert "each."
  Page 52, line 19, leave out "be optional, and not compulsory," and insert "not be necessary."
  Standing Order 63, line 9, leave out from "2. Or empowering," to "thereof," in line 17, inclusive.
  Standing Order 65, line 15, after "thereof," insert "or in which any such provisions originally contained in the Bill have been materially altered in that House, or by which any such powers are conferred on any company, society, association, or co-partnership not being the Promoters of the Bill."
  Standing Order 167:—
  Line 12, leave out "four" and insert "three."
  Line 36, leave out "shall," and insert "may."
  Line 40, leave out from "If in any case," to the end of the Standing Order.
  Standing Order 170A:—
  Line 2, after "acquire," leave out "or."
  Line 2, after "lease," insert "or work."
  Line 5, after "constructed," leave out "or."
  Line 5, after "acquired," insert "or worked."
  Line 7, leave out "or."
  Line 8, after "lease," insert "or working."
  Standing Order 171:—
  Line 1, leave out from the beginning of the Standing Order, to "lease," inclusive, in line 33. Line 34, leave out "the," and insert "a."
  Standing Order 172:—
  Line 2, leave out "Local Board, Improvement Commissioners," and insert "District Council."
  Line 4, after "jurisdiction of," insert, "the Board of Trade or,"
  Lines 5 and 6, leave out "without the sanction of the Local Government Board."
  Line 7, leave cut from "within," to "Acts," in line 9, inclusive.
  Line 9, after "shall," insert "except so far as the exercise of the borrowing power is made subject to the sanction of the respective Board."

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  Standing Order 183A:—
  Line 9, leave out "sanitary."
  Line 10, leave out "sanitary."
  Standing Order 188:—
  Line 3, after "products," insert "of gas or sewage."
  Line 4, after "ground," insert "crematorium."
  Line 6, leave out "limits within," and insert "lands in or upon."
  Line 7, after "ground," insert "crematorium."
  *MR. SPEAKERsaid that, with the consent of the House, he would put the Amendments en bloc.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKEobserved that a change which had been made in the House of Lords was not made here. It was as to notice to occupiers, and he thought the Lords ought to alter their Orders back again.
  Amendments agreed to.
  *THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSmoved the following new Standing Order, 45B:—

  DEFINITION OF IMPROVEMENT AND LIMITS OF IMPROVEMENT AREA
  In the case of Bills containing power to impose on any lands or houses, or to render any lands or houses liable to the imposition of any charge in respect of any improvement, the plan shall define the improvement, and also the improvement area being the limits within which the charge may be imposed, and, in the case of a street improvement, the plan shall show in figures the breadth of the street as intended to be improved, and the centre line of the street, and shall define the improvement area, comprising therein all properties which, or any part of which, are within a uniform distance from any part of the centre line of the street, and such uniform distance shall not exceed three times the breadth of the street as shown on the plans, or where the breadth of the street is not uniform, three times the breadth of the narrowest part.
  Ordered, that the said Order be a Standing Order of this House.—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)

  EAST INDIA (BENGAL GAOLS).
  Return [presented 6th August] to be printed.—[No. 356.]
  TECHNICAL EDUCATION (APPLICATION OF FUNDS BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES).
  Return [presented 11th August] to be printed.—[No. 357.]
  PIERS AND HARBOURS (UNITED KINGDOM).
  Return [presented 11th August] to be printed.—[No. 358.]
  CIVIL SERVICE (TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT).
  Return [presented 11th August] to be printed.—[No. 359.]
  FLEETS (GREAT BRITAIN AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES).
  Return presented,—relative thereto [ordered 2nd June; Sir Charles Dilke]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 360.]
  TAXES AND IMPOSTS.
  Return presented,—relative thereto [ordered 4th May; Mr. Goddard]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 361.]
  SAVINGS BANKS.
  Return presented,—relative thereto [ordered 29th June; Sir John Leng]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 362.]
  BANKRUPTCY ACT, 1883 (PROCEEDINGS).
  Account presented,—showing the Receipts and Expenditure on account of Bankruptcy Proceedings during the year ended 31st March, 1896 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 363.]
  COMPANIES (WINDING-UP) ACT, 1890.
  Account presented,—showing Receipts and Expenditure on account of Proceedings under the Act during the year ended 31st March, 1896 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 364.]
  HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE AND COURT OF APPEAL, ETC.
  Copy presented,—of Account showing the Receipts and Expenditure in respect of the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal during the year ended 31st March, 1896 [by Act]; to lie upon upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 365.]
  SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1887.
  Copy presented,—of Return for the year ended 31st March, 1896, of the Army and Navy Officers permitted, under Rule 2 of the Regulations drawn up under Section 6 of the Act, to hold Civil Employment of profit under Public Departments [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 366.]
  LOCAL TAXATION RETURNS (ENGLAND).
  Copy presented,—of Part II. (Accounts of County Councils and Pauper Lunatic Asylums); Part III. (Municipal Borough Accounts, etc.); Part IV. (Accounts of Metropolitan Vestries and District Boards, etc.); Part V. (Accounts of Commissioners of Sewers, etc.); and Part VI. (Accounts of Highway Authorities in Rural Districts and Turnpike Trustees) [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 367.]

  ROYAL PATRIOTIC FUND.
  Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence, brought up and read;
  Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 368.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.
  Lords' Amendments considered.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): Before the House proceeds to the detailed consideration of the Amendments I think it will be convenient to hon. Members that I should indicate shortly the course that the Government
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  propose to pursue with respect to these Amendments. This is all the more desirable, inasmuch as, following the usual practice, we have not ourselves placed upon the Paper the Amendments which we intend later on to move. The Lords' Amendments extend to something like 12 pages, and are very numerous, but the vast majority of them are practically drafting Amendments. Many of them were inserted at the instance of the Government in the other House, and with regard to those Amendments I do not suppose that there will be much difference of opinion or much discussion. There are, however, certain substantial Amendments in which the Government are prepared to acquiesce. In this class I would include the new Turbary Clause, the first Sub-section of Section 1, and the Amendments introduced in connection with procedure on sale. There still remains a residue, not very large indeed, but important in character, which the Government cannot accept, at all events in the form in which those Amendments appear upon the Paper. I do not think that their number extends beyond five or six. There is an Amendment which provides for an appeal in the case of estates sold to tenants in the Landed Estates Court. We are prepared to accept that Amendment in principle, but we shall move to it certain Amendments, the object of which is to prevent vexatious or frivolous appeals by persons who, perhaps, are but remotely interested, and who, being very likely men of straw, would not be able to pay the costs if the decree should be against them. Then there are three other Amendments detailed in pages 2 and 3 of the Lords' Amendments. The first is in connection with the right of occupation vested in the tenant. That Amendment appears to us ambiguous; but we can see that the intention of it is not to prevent the occupation interest being taken into consideration as an element in the fixing of a fair rent, but to prevent any such interest being taken into consideration a second time. We do not think, if that is the intention of the clause, that the words are very well calculated to carry it out, and we shall therefore ourselves move words to carry out that view more distinctly and with less ambiguity. The next point is in connection with pasture

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  holdings. On that subject the Government are not able to give way. ["Hear, hear!"] We have inserted in our Bill the limit of, £100, in place of the present limit of £50, and to that limit we intend to adhere. The third of the important Amendments is Lord Macnaghten's Amendment to leave out Clause 5. Clause 5 was inserted in the Bill in order to provide that the term "ordinary agricultural farm" should not exclude pastoral or mixed farms. To this clause we continue to adhere, but if there exists any apprehension in the minds of hon. Members who are landlords that the Government proposes, under cover of this Amendment, that a person who is not using his holding bonâ fide as a farm is to be included in the benefit of the Act, we shall insert words to make it perfectly clear that such a person shall not be included in the Act. I have now very briefly indicated what the course is we intend to pursue on the critical points raised by these Amendments. May I now say a few words in conclusion? We introduced this Bill in the first instance believing it to be a just and reasonable Measure having regard to all the circumstances of the case. We tried to pass it through this House in an impartial spirit, and I believe we succeeded. At all events, apart from the procedure clauses, it left this House substantially unchanged in any of its main principles. It went to the other House and there changes were introduced of which it must be said that they do in some sense substantially and materially alter our original Measure, and most of these alterations are to the tenants' disadvantage. I do not complain of it. It is perfectly natural in the circumstances that the House of Lords should have inserted Amendments of that kind; but I do most sincerely hope that if the House of Commons disagrees with these Amendments—especially the Amendments which I have already described—the House of Lords will accept that decision and that the Bill will be allowed finally to pass into law in the shape in which it will leave the Commons after this discussion. If, unhappily that is not the case, and if in consequence the Bill will have to be dropped, I have not the slightest doubt that it will be a calamity to Ireland and a calamity not least to the landlords themselves. I think this
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  is a critical moment in the relations of Ireland, not only to the Unionist party, but to the Imperial Parliament itself. Nobody who has followed the changes that have taken place in Ireland during the last few years can have failed to note that there has been a very great change of feeling apparent there, and that the intense bitterness which existed some years ago has to a very large extent died down, at all events for the moment. Well, it appears to me that Parliament now has an opportunity which has not occurred for a considerable number of years, and which if now neglected, may perhaps, not occur again for a considerable number of years. Are we going to take that opportunity? Are we going to seize that opportunity to reinforce the kindlier feelings which happily now prevail, or are we going to justify those who are only too ready to inculcate that most pernicious lesson that for an Ireland which is tranquil and peaceful, nothing is done, but that to an Ireland which is trammelled and disturbed and crime-ridden no concession is to be denied? That appears to me to be the issue not only that this House but Parliament has now to decide, and in arriving at its decision, I most sincerely pray that it may be wisely guided. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman moved that the House do agree with the Lords in their first Amendment.
  MR. VESEY KNOXrose to move to insert after "holding" the words "to which the Ulster custom does not apply."
  *MR. SPEAKER: I think the hon. Member would not be in order in moving the Amendment on the Paper. It opens up a general question which does not appear to be consequential to any Amendment by the Lords. Sub-section 1 has been struck out and practically re-enacted with certain alterations; out of some 23 or 24 lines there are alterations in five or six lines only. The greater part, therefore, of what has come down as an Amendment is really what both Houses have agreed upon, and in that part there can be no Amendment moved. This is an Amendment to a part to which both Houses have agreed.
  MR. KNOXsaid his contention was that if the sub-section was read with the new schedule, which was not in the

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  Bill when it left the House of Commons, but was incorporated with the Bill by the Lords at the end of the sub-section, it entirely changed the nature of the sub-section, and, therefore, it was a question whether it was intended to apply to Ulster certain holdings provisions which he contended were inapplicable to them.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must move an Amendment of that description in the schedule.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved to amend the Amendment by striking out the words "the form set out in the first schedule to their Act, or in such other." He said the Amendment did not strike at any matter of principle. He certainly had objections in principle, but in view of the desirability of making concessions on both sides he had not attacked the Lords' Amendment as a whole. He did, however, submit that the latter portion of the Amendment was mischievous and dangerous, and he would propose to the Government that the form of the schedule should be left to the Land Commissioners to devise. It was perfectly plain that the schedule had been hastily drawn and put together. He submitted to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, and to those who represented the Irish landlords, that the form referred to should be consistent with the sub-section. The Land Commission might be trusted to set down all necessary particulars.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid that it could hardly be said that the hon. Gentleman was not justified in the remarks he had made with regard to the form of the schedule. He hoped, however, that the hon. Member would not press his Amendment at that moment, but would leave the matter to be dealt with subsequently, so that a form might be drawn up on the general lines of the schedule which would be free from difficulty, and which would form a general guide in the matter.
  MR. KNOXsaid that although hon. Members in that House might perfectly understand the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman, difficulties might arise in the construction of the sub-section in the Courts. In these circumstances he thought that it would be impossible to leave the words of the sub-section as they now stood. The better course
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  would perhaps be to state in the schedule what they meant, but, at the same time, to declare that the schedule should not affect the interpretation of the Act. If they adopted that course they would undoubtedly be extending the area of agreement between the two Houses of Parliament.
  MR. J. A. RENTOUL, was afraid that if the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman were adopted, it would simply mean that the Court was to draw up the schedule in any form they pleased.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that he found no fault with the Government in reference to this matter, because they were not responsible for the insertion of this Amendment in the House of Lords. He suggested that the words "that nothing in the schedule contained shall affect or qualify any other portion of the Act," should be inserted in this sub-section. The only workmanlike method would be to provide that the construction of the schedule ahould not affect the construction of the Act.
  *SIR JOHN COLOMBthought it very satisfactory that the Government had recognised the importance of laying down broad and common sense rules for the transaction of the business of the. Sub-Commissioners. He did not think the schedule laid down any new principles not contained in the Act. The only alteration in the schedule was that there was an extra column, against the area in statute measure, for the fair rent per acre.
  MR. JOHN DILLONsaid that some of the provisions in the schedule were inconsistent with Subsection (1), and would necessitate some discussion, and he could not understand why the Government retained the schedule in the Act. Sub-section (1) gave the Commissioners a far more detailed direction than they had ever had before, and he urged the Government to leave the matter in the hands of the Land Commission under the Sub-section.
  MR. EDWARD CARSONsaid the object of the Amendment proposed by Lord Temple-town was to give landlords and tenants an opportunity of testing the value put upon holdings by the Sub-Commission. The Government, however, had thought

  595
  it more convenient to bring up a schedule, but if the schedule were now-struck out Lord Templetown's Amendment would practically be struck out altogether. If on the other hand the matter were left entirely in the hands of the Sub-Commissioners then the Commissioners would again have the power of striking out what the Lords considered a very material benefit. He thought the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Londonderry would be a much better one if there was any difficulty in having the schedule brought up.
  MR. T. M. HEALYthought they were entitled to some reply upon the point.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,)said it was evident, he thought, from the discussion, in the first place that, as the hon. Member for Cork had pointed out, in the schedule as it stood there were certain defects, while it had been pointed out on that Bench, and also by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, that it would be inconsistent with the Amendment which was proposed in the House of Lords, and with the view which they entertained in common with the House of Lords, that it should be left entirely with the Land Commission to give the go-by to the provisions in Clause 1, and to fix the schedule after their own sweet will—not that he believed that they would abuse that right, but it was the intention that they should frame their schedule in accordance with the Act. The question remained whether there was not sufficient latitude allowed by the clause as it now stood to remedy the admitted defects in the schedule. They had to face the inevitable in this matter, but he would suggest that there was probably sufficient machinery in the clause as it stood for correcting the admitted defects.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYasked leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that he wished to move at the end of the new subsection to insert the words "nothing contained in the first schedule of this Act shall affect the construction of any other portion of the Act." He contended that it was impossible to apprehend at
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  that moment what would be the bearing of these directions in the schedule on the Act, and it was unfair to ask them to consider these tangled schedules at the end of the Session. He suggested that they might strike out the sub-section now, and after a conference with the representatives of the landlords and tenants, they could insert it in the Lords when it could be agreed to on both sides after it came back to the House of Commons. The pink schedule would have been acceptable as far as they were concerned, but the Government had struck out the pink schedule and inserted a schedule of their own.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYthought there could be no objection to their accepting the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman. It was admitted that the schedule had been drawn up hastily, and that there were imperfections in it. It was possible that there might be something in the schedule which might be found to be inconsistent with something in the Act, and if there was any inconsistency it was clear that the schedule must go, and not the Act. If it was the practice to interpret the Act by the schedule of the Act, he thought that that course ought not to be taken, as they were all agreed that if there was any conflict between the schedule and the Act the schedule must go. ["Hear, hear!"]
  Amendment agreed to.
  On the Lords' Amendment dealing with "the occupation rights of a tenant on fixing a fair rent,"
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid he was not able to accept the Amendment as it stood as follows:—" No deduction shall be made from the fair rent named in this section by reason of the mere right of occupation vested in the tenant." He thought that what was in the minds of the movers of this Amendment in the House of Lords was that when once the occupation rights had been taken into consideration they should not be twice considered. In order, therefore, to remove all ambiguity he moved to insert words providing that, after a fair rent had been fixed for the first time on a holding no further reduction should take place by reason of the right of occupation vested in the tenant.
  MR. CARSONregretted very much the Amendment which the Government had thought fit to move to Lord Inchiquin's Amendment. There was no real difficulty in ascertaining what was the purport of the Lords' Amendment. There might be objection to the framing of it, but it was quite clear that what was meant by the noble Lord was, that no deduction should be made in the fixing of a fair rent by reason of the mere right of occupation vested in the tenant. He was informed the Government were now about to create difficulties with regard to the Amendment. If the Amendment was passed it would render the Bill a great deal worse from the landlords' point of view, than if no Amendment had been inserted by the House of Lords. For this reason—when this Amendment was moved in the House of Lords the Marquess of Lansdowne stated that it was already provided by the terms of the Act of 1881, that no such right of occupation should be taken into consideration at all. And it was then pointed out by Lord Macnaghten, that if that was so, as one of the Judges who had administered the Act had said, that if the right of occupation was to be taken into consideration, it would only be fair and proper that it should be so enacted in plain terms. Lord Lansdowne as a matter of fact accepted the Amendment in the House of Lords. [Nationalist cries of "No!"] Well, at all events he did not divide against it—[laughter]—and no argument whatsoever was put forward on the part of the Government in respect of Lord Inchiquin's Amendment.
  *MR. SPEAKERsaid the hon. and learned Member was entitled to discuss what had been done in the other House, but not to debate the Debates which had taken place there.
  MR. CARSONsaid he was entitled at all events to say this, that no explanation had been given this House as to whether under the Land Act of 1881, any such right of occupation as this Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman attempted to set up was given to the tenants. As a suggested concession to the Amendment moved in the House of Lords, the right hon. Gentleman proposed to enact, not that the right of occupation should not be taken into consideration, but almost in specific terms that it should, whenever the matter for the first time comes into
  598
  court, be taken into consideration. In other words the Amendment was a great deal worse than" the law, as it at present stood. Up to the present time, so far as he knew, there had been no legislative sanction to the claim, that this right of occupation was to be taken into consideration upon the fixing of a fair rent. The right hon. Gentleman's proposal was "that after a fair rent had been fixed for the first time no reduction should be made." What was that but an express enactment but that at the first time upon which a fair rent was being fixed this mere right of occupation was to be taken into consideration. What was more, if it had in the past been taken into consideration the Sub-Commissioners were not to have any power to disturb, and it remained as an element in the demands to be made as against the landlord. ["Hear, hear!"] What was this mere right of occupation? What did it consist of? How was it to be estimated, and what did the right hon. Gentleman suggest should be the limit? Mr. Morley last year put the right into the Bill, but he left out the words "for the first time," and the Amendment which was suggested as a concession to him and his friends was almost a transfer of the section. [Mr. MORLEY: "Hear, hear!"] It occurred to him that this was a very curious compromise, which not only reversed what he and his friends had been working for, but was an express enactment to their detriment. The rent to be fixed under the Act of 1881 was not to be a competitive rent. It was stated by Commissioner after Commissioner before the Select Committee that what was really the tenant right was the difference between the competitive rent and what the Sub-Commissioners were pleased to call a fair rent. The tenant got two matters under this Bill apart altogether from the proposed Amendment. He got still a right to go and have his rent fixed, and he had a right to have the difference between a fair rent and a competitive rent, and he had further the right to get his improvements excluded from the calculation. Last year, on the occasion of the Debate on Mr. Morley's Bill, Mr. T. W. Russell said—
  This question of occupation right was fully discussed in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords during' the consideration of the

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  Act of 1881, and it was never intended that this question of occupation right should he considered in estimating a fair rent.
  ["Hear, hear!"] He really would appeal, as deferentially as he could, to the Government that to put in this provision in the manner they proposed would be utterly hopeless and useless. So far as he was concerned he should much prefer there should be no Amendment dealing with this question at all than that the provision of the Government should be carried. If it was forced he would have to resist it to the uttermost of his power. ["Hear, hear!"] The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman was to add the words, "After the fair rent has been fixed for the first time no reduction shall be made." What was that but an express enactment that upon the fixing of the fair rent for the first time this mere right of occupation was to be taken into consideration by the Sub-Commissioners? It was more than a direct negative to the Lords' Amendment. It was a positive enactment that the occupation right should be taken as an element in fixing the fair rent. Last year the right hon. Member for Montrose proposed what the Government now proposed, except that the words "for the first time" were left out. For the Government to adopt that proposal was a curious kind of compromise on the Lords' Amendment. What, according to the Government, was this occupation right? He conceived it to be the right of the sitting tenant to have a fair rent fixed, and the right to have his improvements excluded from the calculation in the fixing of that rent. If the tenant had anything more, where did he get it? According to all the evidence given before the Morley Committee, the fair rent was not a competitive rent. Therefore, what the tenant had was the difference between the competitive rent and what the Sub-Commissioners were pleased to call a fair rent. Now, these rights would still be reserved to the tenant under the clause as amended by the Lords; therefore, what reason could there be for adding the words with respect to occupation right being considered as an element in the fixing of the fair rent? There was never any suggestion that it should be taken into consideration until Mr. Justice Bewley, in his evidence before
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  the Committee, said that it should be. Then it became material for the landlords to have a legislative provision that, in respect of the fixing of the fair rent, this mere occupation right should not give any further right to any deduction. That was the reason why Lord Inchiquin moved his Amendment in the Lords. Speaking on the Bill of the right hon. Member for Montrose, the hon. Member for South Tyrone said:—
  "This question of occupation right was fully discussed in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords during the consideration of the Act of 1881, and it was never intended that this question of occupation light should he considered in estimating the fair rent."
  Yet all that the Government offered as a concession on this point was to insert in the Bill the proposal of the right hon. Member for Montrose. That Amendment to the Lords' Amendment was utterly hopeless and utterly useless, and he should much prefer that there should be no Amendment at all.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that when he heard the hon. Member for East Mayo object to this Amendment, and heard him supported by the right hon. Member for Trinity College, he experienced what were described by the French Parliamentary reporters as mouvements divers. [Laughter.]
  MR. DILLON: I did not object.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that this was not at all the proposal in the Bill of the right hon. Member for Montrose, and it made absolutely no change in the law, if Mr. Justice Bewley was to be believed.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASUBY: It is quite manifest there is simply no difference of opinion as to the merits of this matter between either my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dublin University, or any hon. Gentleman sitting in any part of the House, and Her Majesty's Government. We should certainly not have touched the subject at all had it not been touched by the House of Lords. We feel now, what we have always felt, that nothing is to he gained by attempting to formulate in legislative language what has been clearly laid down by the tribunals under the existing law. If I am right, neither Lord Inchiquin nor any hon. Gentlemen opposite, nor my hon.

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  Friends on this side below the Gangway, and certainly not the Government, have the slightest intention or desire to alter the existing law on the subject. But it is urged that the existing law is not properly carried out by the Sub-Cmmissioners. It is said that the Sub-Commissioners have, at each fixing of a fair rent—although there has been no new improvements by the tenants and I no fall in prices to justify the reduction—whittled away the landlords' rent until it has almost reached the vanishing point, under the plea of occupation right of the tenant. Lord Inchiquin mentioned as the ground for his Amendment a case in which a farm had a fair rent fixed upon it on two occasions, and in which the reduction on the second occasion could only be accounted for by the fact that the Sub-Commissioners had taken into account again on the second occasion considerations which ought to be taken into account only on the first occasion. Now, what are the considerations that ought to be taken into account on the first occasion of fixing a fair rent, but not on the second occasion? They are considerations which my right hon. Friend the Member for Dublin University has with admirable lucidity laid before the House. By occupation right we mean nothing more than the right which at present the tenant has to have what is technically known as "a fair rent" fixed upon it, or, in other words, a rent that does not take into account the full competition value of the land. That occupation right may be, and indeed must be by the admission of my right hon. and learned Friend, taken into account when the rent is first fixed, but is never to be taken into account again. Well, we endeavour to embody that principle in the Amendment to which my right hon. and learned Friend takes such strong objection. It may be that my right hon. and learned Friend is right in contending that in endeavouring to deal with this most difficult and thorny question by statutory enactment we have done an injury to the landlord. Then the proper course for us is to withdraw our Amendment and to disagree with the original Amendment of the Lords, which, as my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland has explained, is unjust and ambiguous
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  in its character and cannot be admitted into the Bill.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid there was a very general agreement in the House on the point now under discussion. The Government saw it exactly as he and his hon. Friends saw it; but, unfortunately, the Sub-Commissioners in Ireland did not see it absolutely in the same light. Besides, the Amendment of the Chief Secretary made the matter worse. It stated that, after a fair rent had been fixed for the first time for a holding, the occupation right should not be taken into consideration. That meant that on the first occasion of fixing a fair rent the occupation right was to be taken into consideration. And what was this occupation right? It was of such an extraordinary and monstrous character that he really believed the House of Commons had not properly grasped it. It meant that, beyond the improvements the tenant had made—beyond the value which he possessed in his holding, and beyond the rights he had acquired under the Act of 1881—the tenant had some thing more in his holding. [Nationalist cries of "No, no!"] Those were lawyers who said "No, no!" He ventured to say he could get lawyers on his side of the House to say "Yes, yes." [Laughter.] What the Government had to do was to put into their Bill that there was no such right—to put into plain words in the Bill what they all meant—
  MR. T. M. HEALY: What Judge Bewley means.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid that what Judge Bewley stated was that the law had never been declared upon the point. Therefore there was a doubt about it, and he added that it was very desirable that Parliament should decide it.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Have you read the whole of what he said?
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: No; I leave that to the hon. Gentleman.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Is that a fair way of arguing a case?
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid he was arguing the case, not from a lawyer's point of view, but from the landlord's point of view. [Nationalist laughter.] All the landlords wanted was ordinary

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  fair play. [Renewed ironical laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laughed at that because they always laughed at fair play. All he asked was that the Government should embody in their Bill views which were held in common by all sides. Therefore, in asking the Government to act in this matter, he was not asking too much, and he would suggest that the further consideration of this sub-clause might be postponed until later in the day, and that time should be given to draw up a fair statement which would embody the views of 19–20ths of the Members of the House. ["Hear, hear!"]
  Mr. SPEAKERcalled upon Mr. KNOX, and then retired for the usual interval. Upon his return,
  MR. KNOXsaid he did not propose to address the House, and no other Member rising to continue the Debate,
  *MR. SPEAKERput the question that the words "after a fair rent has been fixed for the first time for a holding" be inserted.
  There was at the moment no Member of the Government present, and the Amendment was agreed to. Immediately afterwards a "count" was moved, and among those who came into the House were the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and other Members of the Government. A quorum having been made,
  *MR. SPEAKER, in answer to a question by an hon. Member, informed the House that the Amendment had been carried, and that now he understood there were certain consequential Amendments.
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: Do we understand, Sir, that the Amendment as moved by the Chief Secretary to the Lords' Amendment has now been carried?
  *MR. SPEAKER: Yes.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: What has occurred has put the House in something of a difficulty, because I understand that the words which have now been carried, and which involve further consequential Amendments, are not satisfactory to a large section of the House. We were in the
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  way of discussing the matter with a view of seeing whether some agreement could be arrived at. For the moment, I see no other way of extricating ourselves from the difficulty in which we find ourselves than by passing the Amendment proposed by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland, the first words of which have now been carried; but the Government hold themselves perfectly free, of course, to suggest modifications in another place.
  MR. J. MORLEY: On a point of order, we now assume that the Amendment of the Government to the Lords' Amendment has been carried.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The discussion on this subject has been cut short, and there appears to be no other alternative than for me to move the consequential Amendments. I beg to move that, after the word "no," the words "further or additional" be inserted.
  MR. J. MORLEY: May I ask how the clause will read if the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment is accepted? I may be excused for asking this, as the Amendment does not appear on the Paper.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I will read once more the clause as it will stand with the whole of my Amendments inserted—
  "After a fair rent has been fixed for the first time for a holding, no further or additional deductions shall he made from that fair rent on the occasion of any subsequent fixing of a fair rent by reason of the occupation of the tenant,"
  and so on in the words of the clause.
  Word "no" omitted; word "that" inserted.
  After words "fair rent," words "on the occasion of any subsequent fixing of a fair rent" inserted.
  Words "made in this section" omitted.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Perhaps, by leave of the House, I may be allowed to explain, now that the House is fuller than it was a few moments ago, what it is that has occurred. It appears that, by accident, the first words of this controverted Amendment were put from the Chair

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  and agreed to. It is impossible, in consequence of the rules of order, to go back on those words, and there appears to be no alternative but to complete the Amendment so as to make sense of the words already passed. That course has been adopted, but, of course, after what has passed, the Government hold themselves absolutely free in another place to make any suggestions or modifications in those words which the necessities of the situation and the exigencies of the case may seem to demand.
  *MR. SPEAKER: Will the right hon. Gentleman move that the House do agree with the Lords' Amendment as amended?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I suppose I had better move that the House do agree with the Lords' Amendment as amended, subject to the statement I have just made.
  MR. J. MORLEY: The right hon. Gentleman used an expression which I do not understand the full significance of, and which I think is barely justified. I refer to the reference which he made to the ulterior action to be taken by the Government in another place. The right hon. Gentleman said "after what has passed "the Government will hold themselves at liberty in another place to make whatever changes they thought fit.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Suggestions. Of course, it depends on the House of Lords what changes shall be made.
  MR. J. MORLEY: To make whatever suggestions to the House of Lords the Government may think fit. Surely, that is a very extraordinary position? The Government have come down to the House, and they find on the Paper a particular Amendment coming from another place. They move to that Amendment an Amendment of their own. That Amendment of theirs, so far as I could gather from what passed, commanded the assent of the majority of the House; and, therefore, I am at a loss to know what it was that passed that induces the Government now to place themselves in a position of perfect freedom with reference to their own Amendment.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: By the leave of the House, may I say that the Amendment which has just been introduced into the Lords' Amendment was put down with the
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  object of meeting the view expressed in another place? It does not appear to have been received with general favour in this House, and certainly I had hoped that before the discussion on this one Amendment had come to an end we might have been able to arrive at some agreement as to the manner in which the Lords' Amendment should be amended. We have, by general admission, failed to do that, and perhaps, after all, the easiest and simplest way of dealing with the whole situation would be that I should withdraw the Motion that we agree with the Lords' Amendment as amended, and that I should move that we disagree with the Lords' Amendment as amended. That would leave the whole matter open for discussion.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsubmitted that that was not exactly the most satisfactory way of dealing with the case. He did not attach much importance to the matter either way, but he thought they were entitled to see in some shape, other than the rags and tatters at present laid before the House, the phraseology of the clause as a whole.
  MR. J. MORLEYasked how the words would appear when the clause reached the Lords?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid that he proposed to move to disagree with the Lords' Amendment as amended, and he believed that in its amended form this Resolution would appear on the Paper as a thing which was negatived.
  *MR. SPEAKERsaid the proper course would be to negative the Motion already made, "That the House do agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid this was a very critical question between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. He denied that there was entire agreement on the subject; on the contrary, there was a very material difference as to the substance of the matter. One point was as to what was, or was not, the right of valuation by the Commissioners in respect of a specific tenant. The right hon. Member for the University of Dublin had said that, from his point of view, all the right was to have a fair rent fixed as contrasted with a competition rent. But, apart from that, others contended, that a man who had long been

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  a tenant had a right to something more than the fixing of a fair rent. [Ministerial cries of "No!"] It was so, and it was contended, and he thought reasonably, by hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House, that a tenant who had long been in possession was entitled to something more in the way of reduction of rent than a man who was merely a new comer. ["Hear, hear!"] That was what he understood Mr. Justice Bewley to say. In one of his answers before the Commission, he spoke of the allowances being variable, according to the length of time the tenant had been in occupation. Therefore the occupation interest of the tenant was to be considered. The Government had brought forward an Amendment to the Lords' Amendment which they thought would render the Lords' Amendment fair and just; that Amendment, which was supported by the Opposition, had been carried, and now the Government were going to proceed to negative it. The course they had adopted in regard to this Amendment was the course they had taken with reference to all their legislation. [Ironical Ministerial cheers.] That was so. Having put down an Amendment—and recommended it to the House—it was no sooner carried than the Government declared that they would negative the whole thing because the Amendment had been carried. [Laughter.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid the Government had made no such statement. Their proposal was perfectly clear and also their motives. It was evident that the words they had proposed did not carry out the views of both sides of the House, and they had been carried by mistake. They therefore proposed to negative the Lords' Amendment as amended. ["Hear, hear!"]
  SIR W. HARCOURTsaid he did not understand the Amendment of the Government being carried by mistake. ["Hear, hear!"] The Amendment was supported on that side of the House and was carried, and immediately it was accepted they proposed to disagree with the whole thing. [Laughter.] It appeared to him that the House was placed in a very awkward position, and he did not see how they were going to get on.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid he had failed to trace in the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition any interest in either the Irish landlords or tenants. [Ministerial cheers.]
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid he thought the right hon. Gentleman opposite had not quite understood the object of the Leader of the House. The object of the Government was to carry the Bill, and not to wreck it on a point on which landlords and the Government were absolutely at one. The right hon. Gentleman had with this view taken the only course he could under the circumstances—to negative the Amendment of the Lords as amended so that some modus vivendi might afterwards be arrived at. He heartily supported the Motion.
  MR. DILLONpointed out that Mr. Justice Bewley had laid it down that occupation interest should be taken into consideration in fixing a fair rent, and said that all the Nationalist Members wished was that the law as to the tenant's occupation interest should not be made worse than Mr. Justice Bewley had declared it to be.
  MR. J. MORLEYsubmitted that the best plan and the most regular course to adopt in the difficulty would be for the Government to allow their own Amendment to go up to the Lords, and to let the Lords deal with it as they thought right. They had discussed the matter in that House under pressure and in great haste, and no doubt the decision had been taken under accidental circumstances; but due regard to order in the House and self-respect should induce the Government to send up their Amendment to the House of Lords. He could not believe that those who were familiar with what passed in the House last year upon a similar clause in the Bill he introduced could think there was any open question. That clause was proposed in pursuance of the recommendation, or, at any rate, the language of the Chief Commissioner himself. It was pointed out by the late Lord Waterford and by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin University that the clause would involve a perpetual revision of judicial rents upon occupation right, and that the effect would be

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  that in the fulness of time the landlord's interest would be frittered away. His answer was that that was not in the least what the Government intended. Their intention was that a greater reduction should he given to a sitting tenant than would be given to a new comer; and, in order to meet the objection of the late Lord Waterford and the hon. and learned Gentleman, they expressed their willingness to introduce such words as would prevent a perpetual and recurrent frittering away of the landlord's interest under the name of occupation right. He certainly hoped that, for the credit of the House, this amended provision would be sent to the Lords for an expression of their opinion in respect to it.
  Motion negatived.
  On the Motion, "That the House do agree with the Lords' Amendment to leave out the word 'one' in line 5, page 3,"
  MR. KNOXsaid that upon the subject to which this Amendment related the two sides of the House of Commons were, in Committee, agreed. The hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh admitted that improvements were, in most cases, made by the tenants, and that he saw no reason why, in the case of an estate which had changed hands, there should be a different presumption of law than of fact. The hon. and gallant Gentleman did not see why advantages which were denied to old landlords should be conferred upon new landlords. An agreement arrived at in the House of Commons between the landlords' and tenants' representatives ought not to be interfered with except on grave cause shown; but, in the other House, Lord Ardilaun, who had bought his land since 1870, moved that an estate sold since; that year should be excepted from the rule. It did not appear to be bad form in the other House for a man to move an Amendment in which he was directly and personally interested. It would, he submitted, be a disgrace to Parliament as a whole if the Lords' Amendment became law, and he moved that this House do disagree with the Amendment.
  *SIR J. COLOMBtrusted the Government would stand by the Lords' Amendment.
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  No one who had any regard for Parliamentary honour and good faith could do otherwise than support the Amendment. The Government, in introducing the Bill into this House, said that in the case of sale, the presumption that the tenant had made the improvements unless the contrary was proved by the landlord was not to apply; and when an Amendment was moved the Attorney General for Ireland pointed out that a man, when he bought in the Encumbered Estates Court a property, he simply got a statement as to area, rent, and right exercised by the tenant. The purchaser was therefore absolutely precluded from being in a position to dispute the claim of the tenant that he and not the landlord had made the improvements. There was no gombeen man in the case, but there were interested Englishmen and Scotchmen of the middle class who had invested their money on the faith of the law as it stood. Were they justified in breaking faith with those people? It was wrong to say that those who spoke from the Government Benches spoke from a purely landlord point of view. In this matter he was speaking in support of a much larger number of people. The professional classes, the domestic classes, the friendly societies in England, Scotland, and Wales, all had interests in the Irish land question. It was not a question simply between landlords and tenants; it was a question of the stability of property generally, and of the faith of Parliament. There was no gombeen interest involved in it at all, for it very often happened that small properties had been bought in Ireland by those who had by their own industry and thrift realised money and become landlords. They had no right to call these gombeen men. They were going to say to a deserving and industrious and thrifty class of persons, "We deprive you of the improvements, although you bought the property on the presumption that they were not made by the tenants, and therefore you are to suffer, although the law under which you bought secured you against this danger." He did not think that was fair or right. It was against the interests of everybody who was identified with Irish land, whether landlords or not, and it would hit and destroy the 62,000 small landlords who had mostly been created by the process

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  he had described by throwing upon them the onus of proof that they made the improvements, Parliament having in the past prevented them from establishing their case. He hoped the Government would not give way.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURthought it a pity the speech to which the House had just listened was not delivered on the Committee stage of the Bill. The House would remember the circumstances under which the condition as originally embodied in the Bill was taken out. For half an hour the Government defended the position taken up in the Bill, which he believed was the correct position, but instead of receiving any assistance from hon. Gentlemen on the Ministerial side, the representatives of the landlords joined with the Nationalists in agreeing that the provision as it stood should be cut out.
  *SIR J. COLOMB: My hon. Friend near me (Mr. Smith-Barry) pointed out that the Government should not give way.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURreplied that he was in the recollection of the House when he said that the Government did not receive assistance from those who represented the landlords in carrying the Bill as it was; and when he found both landlords and tenants agreed on the matter he did not think it worth while to carry it further. Now it appeared from the landlords themselves that they had made a mistake. ["No!"] He regretted the remarks of the hon. Member for Derry because they could have no other effect than to embitter the Debate. He thought it might be reasonably allowed that they had all acted bonâ fide. In his opinion the compromise now proposed was a reasonable one, and he hoped the House would accept it.
  MR. DILLONcould not understand, and he did not think anybody in Ireland would be able to understand, the grounds of the Chief Secretary's decision. The right hon. Gentleman had
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  correctly described what occurred in Committee on this Amendment. An appeal was made to the representatives of the Irish landlords as to whether they were prepared to say that the new men who bought under the Landed Estates Court should be placed in a better position than the old landlords, and the landlords' representatives responded to that appeal. They thought the same measure should be applied to the new men as was meted out to the old. The right hon. Gentleman had offered no justification for this great and far-reaching change. The proposition was this, that, as the landlords who bought in the Landed Estates Court believed they were buying a power to rent the tenants' improvements, they should be secured in that power. Did the right hon. Gentleman see how far this carried him? It meant that these men bought the right to rob the tenants, to confiscate their property. It was to the honour of the old Irish party that they would not be a party to such a transaction as that. In this respect they were reasonable, because they did not recognise that a Parliamentary title carried with it the right to take away from the tenant that which was in equity his property. The result of the proposition of the Lords would be this, that in the case of a vast quantity of estates the tenants would lose the benefit which the law was wont to confer upon them, owing to the impossibility of their proving that they actually made the improvements, and the further back they went of course the more difficult the production of proof. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth had made an appeal on behalf of men whom he would not call gombeen men, but whom he would call investors of capital. The old practice in connection with the purchase of these estates was to hold out to English investors the inducement that the rents could be raised, and there had been some cases in which the raised rent had amounted to as much as 12 per cent. on the capital

  613
  invested. Men who bought land in the old days of the Landed Estates Court obtained still about 5 per cent. on their original capital, even where the rents had been reduced by the Land Commissioners. These people, therefore, were certainly not to be pitied.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that on three points the landlord party in that House came to an agreement with the Nationalist Members, but that in each case the landlords in the House of Lords had broken that Parliamentary compact and bargain. The hon. Member for North Armagh, when the question was discussed in Committee, said that personally he had no objection to the Amendment. He saw, from the "Parliamentary Debates," that on July 23 last, the hon. and gallant Member for Armagh (Colonel Saunderson) said that—
  "Personally he had no objection to the Amendment. There might be a case in which a man might have purchased land at a fair price in the Landed Estates Court, and have spent money upon the property and made it more valuable, and it would be hard upon him that he should be deprived of his property. He, however, admitted that, as a general rule, the improvements on Irish land were effected by the tenants and not by the landlords. As he had already said, he had no objection to the Amendment."
  The hon. Member for Cambridge (Sir Robert Penrose Fitzgerald) on the same occasion said that—
  "He entirely agreed with what had been said by his hon. and gallant Friend near him. The tenants upon the estates which had been purchased in the Landed Estates Court were in a worse position than those upon the old estates. He might take that opportunity of telling the hon. Member for Louth that there were some Irish landlords who did not date their estates from the Cromwellian settlement."
  The hon. Member for Hunts (Mr. Smith-Barry), following in the same Debate, said he
  "agreed with the hon. Member for Louth that land-jobbers had brought much mischief on the landlords, but that the proposals before the Committee required further consideration."
  The hon. Member for North Fermanagh (Mr. Dane)—
  "appealed to the Attorney General whether this would not be breaking Parliamentary title at all, but only doing an act of the simplest justice?"
  614
  The Chief Secretary then said that "in all the circumstances, he would accept the Amendment." The bargain was come to in Committee, and no attempt was made to reverse it on Report. How was it possible to entertain any regard for a Party which made a bargain in the House of Commons and then broke it in another place through their coroneted agents there? [Laughter.] It had been admitted by every Commission, from the time of the Devon Commission to that of the Cowper Commission, that the Irish tenants had made the improvements. All that the Nationalist Members asked was that the presumption of law should be brought in accordance with facts.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONremembered perfectly the circumstances to which the hon. and learned Member had alluded. They occurred in Committee, when daylight was making its way into the House. The opinions which he expressed on that occasion he still held, but they were his own personal opinions only, and it was a mistake to say that any bargain was entered into with hon. Members opposite. The right hon. Member for South Hunts and the hon. and gallant Member for Great Yarmouth expressed disagreement from his views at the time. What the Lords proposed was a compromise which might well be accepted by hon. Gentlemen opposite who called themselves the representatives of the Irish tenants. Improvements made since 1870 would be hold primâ facie to have been effected by the tenants; but as to improvements made before 1870, either party would be entitled to prove that they had been made by himself or his predecessors. This would impose no hardship on the tenants, whom the compromise amply protected.
  Question put, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—(Mr. Knox.)
  The House divided:—Ayes, 57; Noes, 143.—(Division List, No. 413.)
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to agree with the Lords in a new clause inserted by them providing that any enactment prohibiting the resumption of a holding until the expiration of the first

  615
  statutory term in a tenancy should apply only where the term began before the commencement of the Bill.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that after all that had passed it would only be fair on the part of the Government to omit this clause. The Lords had taken this proposition, which was cut down under the original Bill to town parks, and applied it to all kinds of holdings. He thought the least thing the Irish Members could do was to ask the House not to agree to the Amendment. He therefore begged leave to move that the House do disagree.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid it was true that the clause practically formed part of the original clauses of the Bill, and when it was agreed on both sides of the House to leave the clause with reference to town parks as it now stood, he had stated that if that was agreed to it would, of course, be understood that Clause 5 would go too; and if the hon. Member held him to that undertaking he thought he would be bound by it. He would, however, suggest that, as they had made one exception in reference to the law of town parks in favour of the tenant, some concession might be made by the hon. Member himself in connection with this resumption clause. While he thought it was unreasonable that the landlord should have the full right of resumption, at all events as regarded town parks, the right should be complete. He trusted the hon. Member would see his way to meet the question.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he could not complain of the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman had met his objections. He would have no objection to give the landlord the power of resumption in the case of town parks. He did not believe that the power would be exercised, because, he did not believe that the landlords would pay the price. No doubt the words would have a much more terrifying aspect to those who did not understand their meaning than to those who did understand it. He, however, asked leave to withdraw his Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  MR. T. M. HEALYmoved to insert, after the word "tenancy," the words "in cases in which the incoming tenant shall apply."
  *MR. SPEAKER: That Amendment is out of order, because the Lords' Amendment has already been agreed to.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that he had only withdrawn his Motion, "That the House do disagree with the Lords' Amendment," on the understanding that he should be in order in moving this Amendment. Would he be in order in moving the Amendment at the end of the Lords' Amendment?
  *MR. SPEAKER: Certainly.
  MR. T. M. HEALYmoved to insert, at the end of the Lords' Amendment, "in cases in which the incoming tenant shall apply."
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid that, as far as he understood the Amendment, it would not apply in the case of demesne lands.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYthought that the Amendment might be so framed as to carry out the intentions of the Mover without dealing with the demesne lands.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that in the circumstances he asked leave to withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELANDhoped that the following Amendment would meet the views of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Louth, to add, after "Act," the words "holdings to which the provisions of the Act respecting demesne lands or town parks apply."
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he should suggest that the Amendment should begin with the words "In the case of."
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELANDmoved to add, after the Lords' Amendment just agreed to, the following words:—" In the case of holdings to which the provisions of the Act respecting demesne lands and town parks apply."
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he hoped that if any doubt should arise as to the language of the Amendment it would be put right in another place.
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to agree with the Lords' Amendment to Clause 3, providing that where the judicial rent does not exceed £50 a year the amount of any deduction made by the tenant may be recovered from the person to whom the difference was paid or his personal representatives, and with the amendment to Clause 4, providing that the judicial term in cases of agreements should be held to date from the day on which the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, came into force.
  Motion agreed to.
  On Clause 5 (Exclusion of certain holdings),
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved "That the House do disagree with the Lords' Amendment providing that the Land Acts shall not apply to a tenancy (other than a holding let to be used wholly or mainly for a dairy farm) which is let to be used wholly or mainly for the purpose of pasture if it is of the rateable value of £50." The limit of £50 was originally fixed in order to exclude the class of large graziers who were not farmers in the ordinary sense of the term, but experience had clearly shown that the limit was too low, and that it excluded many farmers who were in no respect different from the class of farmers farming arable land or dairy farms who had a fair rent fixed on their holdings. It appeared to the Government that this exclusion had operated harshly and had led to a great amount of not unnatural discontent, and in order to obviate that they fixed the limit at £100.
  MR. SMITH-BARRY (Hunts,)said that he must protest against the Government's insistence on the £100 limit. His right hon. Friend said that the £50 limit had given a great deal of dissatisfaction to those left outside the Act; but, of course, whoever remained outside the Act would be discontented. These holdings were only technically pasture holdings, and those only were affected which had been let under a written contract to men with their eyes open. He objected to the course which the Government were taking because it was laying down a dangerous principle, and might lead to the limit being extended to £150 or
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  £200, or more. He was afraid, therefore, that he and his friends would have to vote against the proposal of the Government.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid his right hon. Friend, taking the view which he did of this matter, was perfectly justified in protesting against such a course as they proposed. But he did not regard this Amendment in the same light as his right hon. Friend did. It appeared to him to be one of those exclusions of a class not marked out by any natural distinction from those which were included in the Act, and a class which was excluded on perfectly accidental and arbitrary grounds. It was impossible to find a reason why a man who had a pasture farm which was not let as a pasture farm should be allowed to have a fair rent fixed, while another man owning a precisely similar farm in the same district, and cultivated in the same way, should be excluded because it was let as a pasture farm. That distinction was an arbitrary one, and, while he entirely agreed that they should jealously regard an extension of the Act of 1881, he was distinctly of opinion that it was their duty, in the interests of the landlords as well as the tenants, and of the peace and good government of Ireland, to see that these sporadic and unjustifiable exceptions should be done away with. It was for that reason—differing from his right hon. Friend, not in regard to the principles he held, but in their application, that he begged the House to adhere to the original limit which they had proposed.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONprotested against the action of the Government in refusing the Lords' Amendment. He maintained that the word "sporadic," which his right hon. Friend had used, might be applied to the £100 just as well as to the £50 limit. Nor was there any reason why they should stop there. Hon. Gentlemen opposite desired that there should be no exclusion whatever—["Hear, hear!"]—and held that this was but the commencement of the good things to come. He did not believe the present Government would in the immediate future bring in another Land Bill, but if the Party opposite ever came into power again—[laughter]—one of

  619
  the first things they would do would be to bring in a Land Bill of a drastic character.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: What would the Lords do then?
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: They would throw it out. [Laughter.] The Government had not offered any argument in support of this proposal. If a large class in Ireland had suffered injustice under the old limit there would have been a great agitation in Ireland on the subject. These men whom it was proposed that they should include bad entered into a contract with their eyes open.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYwas understood to say that they had entered into a contract before the Act of 1881 was thought of.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid that these men who had taken farms for grazing purposes were wealthy men, and had been deliberately excluded from the Act of 1881 by Mr. Gladstone on the ground that they did not require protection. The Leader of the House had stated that he hated the Act of 1881, and that he looked upon it as a bad Act. How did he seek to deal with it now? Why, he sought to extend and enlarge its operation, and if that was the principle upon which Conservative and Unionist administration was to proceed, it was well that they should be made aware of the fact. ["Hear, hear!"] If they were to act upon the principle of the Chief Secretary's proposal, he did not know where they were to stop. [An IRISH MEMBER: "How about your own constituency?"] There were no pastoral tenants in his constituency, but there were small farms partly pastoral. No doubt hon. Members opposite considered that he should have a warm time of it with his constituents over this Bill [laughter]; but he expressed to them exactly the same views that he was now addressing to the House. He did not believe that any injustice was inflicted upon the grazing tenants, and he felt quite certain that they were quite fit to protect themselves. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. CARSONsaid he had already expressed his views on the clause, and he must say that the Chief Secretary had advanced no argument in support of his proposal. Grazing tenants were excluded by the Bill of 1881 and by the
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  Act of 1870, where the presumption was that a tenant paying a rent of £70 was quite sufficient to protect himself. But all this was to be changed in 1896–26 years after a principle had been laid down, and adopted in every land Act since. Butchers, cattle dealers, and graziers were persons who could well afford to protect themselves, although there was a suggestion made to the contrary by Mr. Justice Bewley, and he might say in passing, of that learned Judge, that he was very fond of making suggestions. He was not aware that any hardships had existed through the exclusion of graziers. In Mr. Morley's Bill it was proposed to exclude them up to £200, but this had been dropped by the Government. He knew the case of a merchant in a town who had' grazed sheep on his holding for victualling ships; he was well off, and could protect himself in entering into a contract for a holding, and he had applied to have a fair rent fixed, and his rent was reduced.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: How much reduction did he get?
  MR. CARSON: I cannot say exactly, but I suppose by the usual 30 per cent. [Laughter.] He must vote against the proposal of the Chief Secretary.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYcomplained that they were having the same speeches over and over again.
  *SIR J. COLOMBasked whether any idea could be given them of the number of men who would be admitted between £50 and £100? There were no statistics on the point at all.
  MR. J. J. CLANCYreminded the House that the man must live on his holding or in the neighbourhood.
  Question put, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment"—(Mr. Gerald Balfour).
  The House divided:—Ayes, 176; Noes, 24.—(Division List, No. 414.)
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved to disagree with the Lords in the Amendment, page 4, line 38, leave out ("unless") and insert ("until").
  Motion agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved to disagree with the Lords in the Amendment, lines 39 and 40, leaving out the words "during the continuance of the tenancy."
  Motion agreed to.
  Lords' Amendments, page 5, lines 6 and 7, leave out "may if it think just," and line 8, after "common," insert "may if it think that it is just," agreed to.
  On the Lords' Amendment, page 5, line 9, after "occupied" inserting "provided that such order fixing a fair rent shall not have the effect of increasing the liability of the landlord for rates or taxes in respect of the holding, and such order shall not be made if the Court are of opinion that the interests of the landlord in the holding will be injuriously affected thereby, otherwise than by the mere fixing of a fair rent,"
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to omit the words "provided that."
  Motion agreed to.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid he proposed to move "That the House do disagree with the Lords' Amendment "in striking out Clause 5, relating to town parks, and that they should reintroduce the clause; but he proposed to add a proviso to that clause which he hoped might mitigate, if not entirely remove, the objections which were felt in another place to the original clause. It would be in the recollection of the House that his right hon. Friend's section with regard to town parks was altogether omitted, but, by common agreement on both sides of the House, the clause was introduced defining the word "agricultural" in reference to the subject, as that word appeared in the ninth section of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887. The word "agricultural" in that section was generally understood as including both agricultural and pastoral land; it was so understood, he believed, by the Houses of Parliament that passed it; it was certainly so understood by the legal Sub-Commissioners who administered the Act, and by the head of the Land Commission,
  622
  to whom an appeal was made; and it was not until the question came to the Court of Appeal in Ireland that that Court, on technical, but (if he might venture to say so) on perfectly sound grounds, decided that, inasmuch as wherever the word "agricultural" occurred in the Land Acts for Ireland it was always qualified by the addition of the word "pastoral," as in this case, the word "pastoral" was omitted, and "agricultural" could not be held in this section as including "pastoral." All sections of the House were unanimous that that defect of the Act of 1887 should be remedied, and that the word "agricultural" should be given the meaning which the original framers of the Act or authors of the Amendment intended. But it appeared to be clear to those who had studied the Act in another place that one result of including the whole of it would be that accommodation land would be gradually eaten into, and that land would be subjected to all the provisions of the Act of 1881, which was not in truth really farming land at all, but was in strictness accommodation land, which ought to be treated as accommodation land and ought not to be subjected to a fair rent. He thought that, under the provisions of the existing Acts, that danger was obviated so far as it was possible for the Legislature to obviate it. But he recognised that it would be a great hardship if land which was not really farming land, but accommodation land, should be included under the Act of 1881, and, in order to meet the view held in another place, he proposed to make the following addition to Clause 5 as it originally stood: "provided that this section shall not entitle a person to have a fair lent fixed who is not bonâ fide using the holding as an ordinary farm." If anybody criticised that addendum on the ground that it was already provided for in the Act of 1887 he would not venture to dispute it. He believed it was true, but as, nevertheless, under this section they were extending the definition given to the Act of 1887, as interpreted by the Court of Appeal in Ireland, it might be as well to reiterate the safeguards of the words introduced into that Act and prevent a hasty reader, however hasty he might be, from falling in any error with regard to the intentions

  623
  of the Legislature. He hoped that addition to the clause would mitigate the objections felt, not in that House, but in the other House, and that it would enable them to come to a satisfactory agreement upon what was the most thorny branch of the most thorny subject that the Legislature ever dealt with in regard to Irish land. He thought that to move that the House disagree with the Lords' Amendment would be the proper motion to make at this stage.
  *MR. SPEAKERsaid that the proper motion would be to disagree with the Lords' Amendment; that would restore Clause 5, and then, after the restoration of the clause, the addition of the proviso might be moved.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYmoved accordingly.
  MR. CARSONsaid he was sorry that his right hon. Friend had again, on one of the most material parts of the Bill, thought fit to disagree with an Amendment of the House of Lords. He had referred to what he had described as the unanimous view of the House in inserting Clause 5 as it went up to the Lords. In assenting to the words "partly pastoral and partly agricultural" he wished to state that he was entirely under a misapprehension as to the objects of the Legislature when they made a distinction in the Act of 1887, and he desired specifically to state this because the fact had been relied upon by the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, though he knew it was not his real opinion when it was brought to his notice. It arose in Committee quite suddenly. It was proposed by the Government to drop a particular clause dealing with town parks, and hon. and learned Members opposite acquainted with the technicalities of tin's interesting code were in favour of dropping it, but they mentioned the fact that by an accident the word "pastoral" had been left out of the Act of 1887, and the word "agricultural" put in.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It was in from the beginning.
  MR. CARSON: Not in this form—mixed up in a large section on an entirely different matter. He did not profess, like some persons, to be infallible, and he admitted that at that time he made a mistake as to the object of the legislature in 1887. By the Act of 1887 a great concession was made with reference to
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  these town parks, because the Legislature then enacted, for the first time, that although such holdings came within the exceptions as provided by the legislation of 1870 and 1881, although they fulfilled all the conditions laid down if held as an "ordinary agricultural farm," they were not to come within the exceptions of the Acts of 1870 and 1881; and it was then pointed out that, although they might be quite willing to admit small holdings around the town, still they ought not to admit to the benefit of the Act, people, such as butchers and dairymen, who had mere grazing fields and used them in connection with their business. The whole concession of 1887 was made under the assumption that these pastoral tenants were not to be included under the Act. When the matter afterwards came before the Courts the Sub-Commissioners held that "agricultural" included "pastoral." No one would blame them for that, because it had occurred to him that "agricultural" would include "pastoral," and it was upon that assumption that he assented to the matter. When the question came before the Court of Appeal, by their decision they exactly carried out and excluded in the particular case before them the land which was not an agricultural farm. So far as he knew the matter had worked out perfectly in the Irish Courts in accordance with what was the intention of Parliament. Persons had been excluded who were not bonâ fide farmers, and he contended that they ought to be excluded. Now what was it the right hon. Gentleman proposed to mitigate the section he wanted to put in? He was quite entitled to say that the section should be put in, but if it was done unanimously it was done under a misapprehension. The right hon. Gentleman now proposed to re-enact practically the words of the Act of 1887. If they were enacted it would make no change. Such re-enactment would in no way modify Section 5 as it originally stood, and would keep out no one. The class of persons whom they desired to keep out were persons carrying on business in towns, and who were not bonâ fide farmers at all. ["Hear, hear!"] Such persons ought not, in the case of these town parks, to be allowed within the purview of the Act. The right hon. Gentleman's own words would let in exactly the same class of persons who, it was anticipated,

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  might come in unless this word "pastoral "was excluded from the Act of 1887. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would meet them so far as to mitigate the evils of this section by saying it was not to apply to any person who was not a bonâ fide farmer. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. T. M. HEALYthought the right hon. and learned Gentleman had hardly done himself justice. He had told the House, with an air of injured innocence, that he thought the tenant in this case was a solicitor, that this clause made an enormous difference in the law, and that he was quite satisfied it was by no oversight the Parliament of 1887 did not remedy this at the time. He was sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman had heard the recommendation given by an eminent Queen's Counsel to a gentleman who proposed to swear an affidavit, he having already sworn an affidavit in exactly a contrary sense in the course of the suit. The eminent Queen's Counsel said:—
  "Never swear an affidavit when your previous affidavit to a contrary effect is in possession of the Court. My young friend, said he, "that would be a lie."
  [Laughter.] They did not in that House, make statements on affidavit, but he presumed the right hon. Gentleman would accept "Hansard." His own recollection of the Debate was that the words there attributed to the right hon. Gentleman were those actually and textually used:—
  "In regard to the application of the word 'agriculture' in the Act of 1887—as ruled by the Courts—which it was proposed to remedy by this sub-section, he argued for the tenant in that case."
  On July 16th, the right hon. Gentleman said he was a tenant, but now he had changed his mind and now he was an attorney. [Laughter.]
  MR. CARSON: Was he an attorney?
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The right hon. Gentleman said so.
  MR. CARSON: I said my recollection was that he was an attorney.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: His recollection on July 16th was that he was a tenant. Which am I to believe?
  MR. CARSON: Cannot an attorney be a tenant? ["Hear, hear!"] That is my point exactly. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid if that was the point taken, then it was met by the Amendment of the First Lord of the Treasury, which provided that the section should only apply to the case of bonâ fide farmers.
  MR. CARSON: No, not "farmers," but "farms." I will accept "farmers."
  MR. T. M. HEALYobserved that it was on the advice of the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself that the Government accepted the Amendment, and then he turned round and supplied Lord Macnaghten with the letter which that eminent Judge read in the House of Lords against that very Amendment, the right hon. Gentleman saying that, in assenting to it in the Commons, he did not know what he was about. [Laughter.] The right hon. and learned Gentleman in his speech on July 16th, went on to say:—
  "He would suggest, if the Chief Secretary decided to accept the Amendment, which would leave the law as it stood, that the defect in regard to the application of the word 'agricultural' should be remedied by a few words on Report."
  The effect was remedied by a few words on Report, and this terrible Amendment was passed. Lord Macnaghten, in moving to omit this sub-section, fortified himself with the letter of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and stated that what was done in the Commons was done at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. [Laughter.]
  MR. CARSON: There was no such statement in the letter.
  MR. T. M. HEALYdid not say there was, but it was the statement of the noble and learned Judge, who, he should have supposed, was a more sacred being. [Laughter.] An examination of the pages of "Hansard" would show that the Amendment in question must have been passed in the Commons at 5 o' clock in the afternoon. Even in the mouth of a learned Judge there was a difference between 5 o'clock in the afternoon and 5 o'clock in the morning. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] The idea presented to the House of Lords was that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was overcome by fatigue at 5 o'clock in the morning, that his faculties were obfuscated, and then that the lurking agents of the Land League stole a march upon him. [Laughter.] This clause

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  was in the Bill as it originally stood. For other reasons the Commons struck the clause out as a "whole, but on the suggestion of the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself, this particular portion of it was reinstated. ["Hear, hear!"] When the Act of 1887 was passed, everybody conceived that the word "agricultural" included "pastoral," and the Land Commission had so decided. ["Hear, hear!"] He would say, on the whole, that this was the smallest molehill that was ever converted into a mountain by the assistance of the House of Lords. ["Hear, hear!"]
  House disagreed with the Lords' Amendment.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYmoved to add to the end of the clause the proviso,
  "Provided that the section shall not entitle any person to have a fair rent fixed who is not bonâ fide using the holding as an ordinary farm."
  Proviso agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment—Line 27, leave out from "person" to "if," in line 31.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved, "That the House do disagree with the Lords' Amendment." It really seemed to him that these limitations were arbitrary and unnecessary, and although it was sometimes usual to lay down a hard and fast rule, it was not desirable to multiply hard and fast rules where it was not absolutely necessary to do so. As they gave the Court discretion not to entertain these applications unless they considered them to be reasonable, he thought any further limitations ought not to be imposed. He therefore moved that the House disagree with the Lords' Amendment.
  Motion agreed to.
  Line 33, after "or" insert "if it."
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  Line 34, after "date" insert:—
  "provided that the amount of land so sub-let shall not exceed one-eighth of the holding, nor one statute acre for each house or allotment, nor five acres in the aggregate."
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to disagree with the Lords' Amendment.
  Motion agreed to.
  Line 35, after "provided," insert "also."
  MR. GERALD BALFOURobserved that this was consequential to another Amendment which had been disagreed with, and he accordingly moved that the House do disagree with the Lords in this Amendment.
  Motion agreed to.
  On the Lords' Amendment to Clause 8 (Turbary and other profits, easements, and privileges),
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to agree with the Lords' Amendment.
  Motion agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved to add to the new clause the following subsection:—
  (3) "Where, during the continuance of a statutory term, the tenant is disturbed in the exercise of any such privilege as hereinbefore described which he had been accustomed to exercise as aforesaid, and on the fixing of the fair rent the same was fixed on the assumption that the continued exercise of such privilege would be permitted, but no express order with reference to the same was made, the tenant on being so disturbed may apply in the prescribed manner to the Court, and the Court may, if the landlord elects to discontinue such privilege, vary the fair rent for the remainder of the statutory term to such extent as may appear just, and if the landlord on such application consents to allow the tenant to exercise the privilege as of right during the statutory term under the same restrictions and conditions as theretofore, or such other restrictions and conditions as may be agreed on, the Court may secure such exercise to the tenant by order."
  He said the sub-section carried out a suggestion made by Lord Macnaghten in another place, in the Debate on the turbary question. The clause as proposed by the Government simply re-enacted what was the law already, but it did not make the smallest concession to the tenants. And in addition to making no concession it gave the landlord a new remedy which he never had before—the remedy contained in the

  629
  second sub-clause. It might be said of the clause that if it did no good, it did not do so much harm, and he sought to make it a little better. Lord Macnaghton suggested that if a tenant was disturbed in the exercise of any of these privileges it should be competent for him to go to Court to make a case that he was disturbed, and get such redress as the Court could give him. He thought that was a reasonable suggestion. It was inevitable that in a large number of the cases to which this section was intended to apply, the Court would through inadvertence, or from one cause or another, fail to take any cognisance at at the time of the hearing of these turbary and other privileges. He thought the Government would agree that, if an accident of that kind happened, it would be a misfortune if it should prevent the tenant from going to the Court.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid that, as it appeared on the face of the proposed Amendment, this new sub-section could only have effect in those cases where no express order had been made in reference to those matters, but where an assumption existed which had not been put into formal shape by the Court. Such cases would be extremely rare, and he did not think it was worth while or advisable to break up, to go back upon, the hearing of the fair rent, to do over again all the things that were done at considerable cost and trouble to meet a contingency which, he thought, was not one which would very frequently occur. On the whole, and quite seeing the object of the hon. Gentleman, and seeing that everything he wanted would come into full operation at the end of the statutory term now current, there could be no continuance of any wrong if any wrong had been done; and he would ask him, on a survey of the whole circumstances, not to ask the House to tear up by the roots, as it were, the decision arrived at by the Sub-Commissioners and to reinvestigate matters which they had already once judicially gone into. For these reasons he did not think it would be desirable that they should make this addendum to the Lords' Amendment, and he hoped the hon. Gentleman would not think it necessary to press it.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that in view of the statement of the Government, he
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  did not see why they should go to a Division on this subject. The clause, as he apprehended it, simply followed the existing practice, but it did impose on the tenant an enormous liability for costs, and he would ask why, when they made no change in the law, they should put the landlord in a better position than he had ever been before. He would be in favour of giving the landlord, in a case where there was a waste of bog, the right to make an application to petty sessions. It was a huge engine of oppression to drag a man from the bogs of Connemara to Dublin to make a motion in this regard. A summons at petty sessions would cost 1s., while a motion in Dublin would cost at least five guineas, and that would probably be equal to the man's rent for the whole year. No one was more in favour of preventing waste of bog than he was. He thought that ought to be restricted, and in that spirit he was with the Government in their proposal. What he would suggest, however, was that that the Government should omit Sub section 2 for the present, and that they should insert, in the House of Lords, a more simple remedy than that of bringing a man, say, from the island of Achill to Dublin, where he would be put to a large expense. In Deasy's Act there was a section dealing with waste. Let them apply that section to the case of turbary, and there they had the whole thing.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYsaid that in view of what the First Lord had said, he would not persist in his Amendment. He thought it would be more regular to take, the discussion on the Motion to omit Sub-section (2).
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. KNOXmoved, after Sub-section (1), in Clause 8, to insert, as a new sub-section, the words,
  "If the landlord, in the opinion of the Court, unreasonably withholds his consent, and if the privilege be a privilege of turbary, of taking or bringing sea wrackage, or of grazing over land other than demesne land, and if the privilege is, in the opinion of the Court, necessary to the reasonable enjoyment of the holding, the Court may make an order for securing the privilege to the tenant, upon such terms as to rent or otherwise and in such manner as the Court may think just, and such order shall be binding on ail estates and interests in the land."

  631
  He ventured to think that this was a reasonable proposal. The Government had yielded a great deal too easily in the other House to the opposition of the landlords, much of which he thought was due to the vagueness of the clause. The three substantial privileges of an Irish tenant which they wanted to protect were those of turbary, the taking of sea-wrack, and rough mountain grazing. He had never been able to see why they should be unable to fix a fair rent for five acres of potato ground and not for the grazing of three cows on a mountain side. He ventured to think there was no real ground of justice in the distinction, and if, under these conditions, a landlord was so cruel and unreasonable as to withhold his consent, in the opinion of an impartial tribunal the privilege was necessary to the reasonable enjoyment of the holding, if the privileges be one of these three kinds he ventured to think that in that case there could be no real reason for refusing the power to fix a fair rent on what was practically the holding of the tenant. What had been done in the other House could in no sense be regarded as a compromise satisfactory to Ireland. Those privileges affected an enormous number of the poorest tenants, whose interests that House ought most narrowly to safeguard. It also affected the most galling of all injustices—those which caused the most ill-feeling between landlord and tenant. The clause as it stood did not meet the requirements of the tenant. There were many cases in which the right of turbary and mountain grazing was one of far more importance to the tenant than any reduction of rent. He ventured, therefore, to move the Amendment, which he believed to contain the reasonable minimum, which the tenants could claim.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid the hon. Gentleman would see doubtless that his sub-section was merely a re-enactment, in somewhat different terms, of the clause as it was originally introduced, and which excited so much feeling and strong opposition even among those who were generally favourable to the Bill. He would suggest that it was desirable in the interests of everybody concerned to confine the re-enactment to preventing a gross injustice, and the clause as it had
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  come from the House of Lords would effectually do this. If the landlord desired to exercise the option he would have, in the sense of refusing the privilege to the tenant, the Court could, if it thought fit, fix the consequential rent in relation to that refusal. He thought the number of landlords who would act in the way the hon. and learned Member had suggested was extremely small. At all events, no specific case of the kind had come to the knowledge of the Government.
  SIR THOMAS LEAsaid he regretted that the Government had shown weakness on this point. [Opposition cheers.] There was a great deal to be said for the hon. and learned Member's proposal, and he had always regretted the strong language used on the subject by his hon. Friends below him. [Opposition cheers.] There had been undoubted cases in which the landlords, when the tenant applied to the Court for a fair rent, had served notices on the tenants that in future they would not be able to take turbary. In another way it was also a gross injustice to the tenants. Having applied to the Court to get a fair rent fixed, they had been deprived of the turbary. There were many estates on which large numbers of the tenants had not gone into the Court because they had seen how other tenants who had applied had been mulcted in this matter.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: It cannot be done in future.
  SIR THOMAS LEAwas glad to hear it. He hoped it could not, but he knew that in the past this state of things had created centres of disaffection among both classes of tenants.
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILLsaid he hoped the First Lord of the Treasury would accept the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman said the effect of it would be somewhat to restore Clause 8 as it stood in the Bill when it left that House. He confessed that to his mind that was its strongest recommendation, and he deplored deeply that the Government had not seen their way to disagree altogether with the Amendments of the Lords in excluding Clause 8 entirely from the Bill. He did not believe there was any question connected with the subject in which the tenant farmers, especially in the north

  633
  of Ireland, were more vitally interested than this question of turbary. In confirmation of that he would read the House a telegram which had just been handed to him from Londonderry:—
  "At a meeting of tenants representing the counties of Derry, Donegal, and Tyrone, held in Derry to-day, the chairman was requested to convey to the Leaders of Parties in Parliament their strong protest against the Lords' Amendments to the Land Bill, and particularly those affecting occupation rights, town parks, pasture holdings, turbary, and other easements, and they urgently request that the Commons will reject these Amendments and restore the Bill to the form in which it passed the Commons."
  Nothing could be more eminently reasonable than the clause as it passed that House, because it enabled the Court by their order to so direct matters that no injury would be done to the landlord's property in the towns. They all knew that there were an immense number of holdings, in both the north and south of Ireland, where land was valueless without the enjoyment of commonage or turbary. ["Hear, hear!"] If that enjoyment was acquired as a matter of right, of course an Act of Parliament was not required at all; but as a matter of fact it had been enjoyed for very many years without question. The object of Clause 8, as it left that House, was to give this security to the tenant when he went into Court to have a fair rent fixed, the Court should have the power of fixing the fair rent under the hypothesis that the landlord could not deprive him of that right—or the enjoyment of that privilege, and of imposing conditions on the tenant which would prevent any abuse of the right of turbary or any other easement. It was, he repeated, a matter of deep regret to him that this clause should have been deleted from the Bill, for in comparison with this almost every concession that had been made with the tenants was, in his opinion, more or less valueless. It did not appear to him that the Amendment substituted by the Leader of the House did anything but leave the law exactly as it was. The matter of the enjoyment of the privilege would depend on the consent of the landlord, and there were no means of compelling the landlord to give his consent. It merely said that if the landlord withheld his consent then the Court, on
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  estimating the value of the three or four acres, perhaps hold by the tenant, might regard that refusal in measuring the fair rent. He would appeal to the hon. and gallant Member for Yarmouth, who had taken such a prominent part against the Irish tenants in the course of the Bill, whether it was not a fact that in Kerry alone there were hundreds of very small farmers in which the matter of rent was of no interest to the tenant, compared with the right of commonage and turbary; and in such circumstances what reduction of rent could compensate for the deprivation of this right? ["Hear, hear!"] Let not the Leader of the House rest under the supposition that this Bill, and this clause especially, could in any sense be accepted by the tenants in any part of Ireland as anything approaching to a settlement of the Land Question. His conviction was that when this Bill did pass there would a blaze of discontent throughout the whole length and breadth of Ireland, in which blaze the Bill would actually be burnt in effigy. [Laughter.]
  MR. DILLONsaid the clause afforded no protection to the tenant. If a landlord had the power to say to a tenant, "You shall have no turbary if you get a fair rent fixed," how was the tenant to be compensated? Suppose the rent was reduced by one-half because of the loss of turbary, what would be the advantage of that if the tenant had to travel miles to get a sod of turf, or if he was boycotted as regarded fuel? By this clause they would leave in the hands of a landlord a weapon of coercion which might be used for the purpose of bullying tenants and preventing them getting fail-rents fixed.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Lords' Amendment."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 61; Noes, 139.—(Division List, No. 415.)
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, after the second word "order," to add—
  "Provided that the Court may remit application for hearing to any Sub-Commissioner who at the time the claim is made is actually sitting or about to sit in the district in which the holding is situated, and who shall have all the powers to hear and determine the matter of the application and to make an order thereon."
  Amendment agreed to; Lords' Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved that the House do agree with the Lords' Amendment:—
  Page 7, line 20, leave out from (" accordingly ") to the end of the sub-section, and to insert as a new sub-section:
  (2.) Provided that where a fair rent has after the passing of this Act been fixed for the first time in the case of a tenancy to which.
  Motion agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, Clause 9, page 7, line 9 of new Subsection (2), after "paid the" to insert "judicial."
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid that if the hon. Gentleman would accept the words "when judicially fixed" in place of his Amendment, he should not object to their being inserted.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYsaid that he would accept the words proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. He asked leave to withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved, Clause 9, p. 7, line 9 of now Sub-section (2), after "rent" to insert "when judicially fixed."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, Clause 9, p. 7, line 10, after "rent" to insert "for that portion of the statutory term then remaining unexpired."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, Clause 9, p. 7, line 11, after "that" to insert
  "by reason of any special circumstances not brought to the knowledge of the Court on the hearing of the application to have a fair rent fixed."
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid that he had no objection to the Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to; Lords' Amendment as amended agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved that the Lords' Amendment
  Page 4, line 31, after ("holding") insert (" the substantial part of ")
  be agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved that the Lords' Amendment
  Page 8, line 15, leave out from (" decree ") to ("had") in line 16, and insert ("for possession or writ of possession ")
  be agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to agree with Lords' Amendment:—
  Page 9, line 39, after ("lodged") insert ("in respect of the rent and arrears, exclusive of costs")
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved
  Page 10, line 1, leave out from beginning of line to ("shall") in line 2, and insert ("the date of the commencement of the proceedings in the ejectment, and the balance of the rent due to that date shall he recoverable by the landlord as if the same were a debt due to him by the person legally liable therefor, but ")
  Motion agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, Clause 15, p. 9, line 40 of Bill, after "shall" insert "in the case of any ejectment brought after the passing of this Act."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. ATKINSON,)thought that the objection of the hon. Member was not well founded. Where the amount of the arrears indorsed amounted to more than two years' rent the tenant should be discharged by payment of two years' rent, and when he did he would be discharged from the balance of the rent to be paid. But the clause left untouched the question of rent which accrued and was due after the service of the ejectment notice. This clause only dealt with the rent due and sued for.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYthought that the right hon. Gentleman had not

  637
  correctly apprehended the point. Take the case of a tenant owing four years' rent. It was the intention, if the ejectment was brought after the passing of the Act, that on payment of two years' rent the tenant should be clear of the ejectment.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid it was not possible to meet that point without falling into another difficulty. Supposing the action for ejectment was brought a fortnight or a month before the passing of the Act. Then all the evils which the hon. Member had submitted would arise in the particular case mentioned.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYsuggested that the words should be altered to "in the case of any ejectment in which judgment is recovered after the passing of this Act."
  MR. T. M. HEALYsuggested that the Government might fairly accept the Amendment, and if they found that there was any objection to it as going too far, and not carrying out the intention of the Government, then it might be struck out. But the clause as it now stood did not meet the expressed intention of the Government.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURwas afraid that the difficulty, which he did not deny, must be faced and the Committee must accept the clause as it stood.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, in the Lords' Amendment, page 10, line 1, after "ejectment" to insert—
  "in the case of any ejectment in which judgment was recovered before the passing of this Act."
  In the case of this Amendment it would be impossible for a tenant to spin out time, but the cases the Amendment was designed to cover were very hard ones. They were indeed the very class of cases in which the matter was urgent, namely, cases in which proceedings were pending. He pressed the Government to grant this concession because it was the hardest of all cases.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid it was only reasonable that this Amendment should be accepted. The spirit of it had already been accepted by the House,
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  and a little flaw had been discovered and remedied in another place. But the clause as amended was very hard on the tenant. The Bill was introduced last March, and some landlords, being aware of this two years' provision, had obtained ejectment notices which they would never have dreamt of obtaining except for the fact that the Bill had been introduced. That case was considered as the Bill went up to the House of Lords. The Government had caused judgments and ejectment notices to be brought forward by the introduction of this Bill, and now they were being told that the good landlord was to be hit and the bad landlord was to be let off. A mean landlord who had taken harsh proceedings betimes was to be rewarded for his alertness and astuteness at the expense of his tenants.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELANDthought the hon. Member would see on reflection that it was impossible for the Government to accept this Amendment. The only cases to which the Amendment could apply would be cases where judgment had been recovered and the landlord had given the tenant further time for the payment of his debt, during which time further rent had accrued. The hon. and learned Member proposed that the tenant's liability in respect of such additional rent should be wiped out on payment of the rent for the two preceding years. This Amendment would not encourage landlords to be lenient to their tenants. It would be contrary to all principle in cases where judgment had been recovered before the passing of the Act to interfere with the rights of the parties.
  Amendment negatived; Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made that the following Lords' Amendment be agreed to:—
  Page 10, line 3, after "distress" insert "provided, however, that (1) nothing herein contained shall relieve the tenant from paying or undertaking to pay costs as provided by the said sections; and (2) that this section shall not apply to any proceeding in ejectment in which an Order has been or shall he made under the 30th section of the Land Laws (Ireland) Act, 1887, nor to any arrears of rent the subject of any such Order."
  MR. T. M. HEALYobserved that nothing could equal in meanness this

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  Amendment introduced in the other House. It was a typical instance of the meanness of the House of Lords.
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  The following Lords' Amendments were agreed to:—
  Line 6, after ("manner") insert (" and subject to the prescribed rules and conditions"); line 18, after ("provision") insert ("in the agreement").
  On the following Lords' Amendment,
  Line 24, after (" same ") insert "(4) The said conditions shall, in the case of an agreement made by a limited owner or a mortgagor or mortgagee in possession, include such conditions as may seem necessary to protect the interests of the person entitled on the cessor of the interest or possession of such limited owner, mortgagor or mortgagee,"
  MR. T. M. HEALYmoved to leave out "seem necessary" and to insert instead thereof the words "be prescribed."
  Amendment agreed to; Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  The following Lords' Amendment was agreed to:—
  Line 33, leave out from ("be") to the end of the clause and insert ("a sale within the meaning of section one of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, but the provisions of the several sub-sections thereof other than subsection (6) shall not apply thereto ").
  On Clause 21, providing that every notice of appeal under the Land Law Acts should state the grounds of appeal, and that on the hearing of the appeal no grounds of appeal should, save by leave of the Court, which should be granted only on special grounds, be entered into except those so stated, the House of Lords had agreed to an Amendment omitting the words "which should be granted only on special grounds."
  MR. T. M. HEALYmoved to disagree with the Lords' Amendment and to reinstate the words. A tenant, he argued, was entitled to have notice setting forth all the grounds of the case to be brought against him. The Government had agreed in Committee to the insertion of the words which the Lords had struck out.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURthought that the House of Lords would certainly insist upon this Amendment. He appealed to the hon. and learned Member whether it was worth while to risk a contest upon this ground.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked why there should be a different rule in Ireland from that which prevailed in England. Here it was always necessary to state one's grounds of appeal.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELANDsaid that the practice of all Courts was to require the grounds for an appeal to be stated; but it was in the discretion of the Court to give leave to parties to go into other matters than those mentioned in the notice of appeal. Of course the leave should not be given, and was not given, as a matter of course, but the Court always required some excuse to be given for the omission from the notice of appeal of the particular point which a party desired to urge. If the words were struck out in accordance with the Lords' Amendment any party would still be able to apply to the Court for leave to put in some grounds of appeal in addition to those stated.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYsaid he understood the right hon. Gentleman to admit that leave would be granted as a matter of common form.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND: No.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYasked what was the good of striking out the words if the law was that leave would not be granted without special grounds being shown. The Irish Members believed that if the words were not retained leave would be granted as a matter of common form. This Amendment of the Lords was really designed to enable landlords to appeal on the simple question of value. If not, he could not understand why gentlemen who represented the landlords should resist the motion to disagree with the Amendment.
  *MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILLwished to remind the Attorney General that many Acts of Parliament required Judges of the High Court to state the grounds of their Order. Therefore there was nothing novel in making a Judge state on the face of his Order the special grounds on which he relaxed the rule requiring the grounds of appeal to

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  be stated. He would have thought the Government would wish to prevent the whole system being governed by some rule of thumb. He hoped the House would not agree to the Lords' Amendment.
  MR. J. P. FARRELLrose for the purpose of asking his hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Louth, to go to a division on this Amendment. It would be obvious to every reasonable man that, so far, the Members sitting on his side of the House had done everything they could to facilitate the passing of the Bill, and he certainly thought it was rather hard on them if an Amendment of this kind, which was accepted in the Report stage, was now to be left out of the Bill simply because the Government were afraid it would be put in again by the House of Lords. He thought that was playing it rather low down on the House of Commons. The Amendment which had been struck out opened up a very wide field, and unless it was restored the rich man would have an advantage over the poor man. The landlord had at his back all the power that wealth could give him and would be able to oppress the tenant with expensive litigation.
  MR. CARSONunderstood that what hon. Gentlemen all wished was that frivolous appeals should not be allowed, and with that view it was required that the grounds of appeal should be stated. The difference between the two sides of the House was simply this. On his side they wished to leave it to the Court to decide in their own discretion whether or not new grounds of appeal should be allowed; while on the other side it was contended that it should only be allowed on special grounds. "Special grounds" was a technical phrase known to the lawyer and entailed something beyond the ordinary discretion of the Court. Suppose a landlord or a tenant moved the Court to allow a new ground, and the only excuse was that it had not been put in the notice through ignorance. That would not be a special ground. He did not suppose that anybody proposed that every notice of appeal should be submitted to counsel in order that every ground that could possibly be raised should be stated. He thought that the fullest protection was given against frivolous appeals by allowing the Court
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  to consider all the circumstances of the case and to decide whether they would allow any further matter beyond the notice of appeal to be argued. He hoped the Lords' Amendment would be agreed to.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid it was with profound diffidence that he intervened, because he had but little knowledge of legal procedure. As he understood the argument, on his side of the House, it was that the matter should be left to the discretion of the Court, whereas on the other side it was argued that unless the words were retained every change, however trivial, was to be made as a matter of course. If there was any chance of the Court taking that course, the danger would have to be guarded against, and he apprehended that both sides of the House might be reconciled by introducing words in substitution which would provide that leave should not be given by the Court "as of course."
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I think that is very good drafting and very good sense.
  Lords' Amendment disagreed with, and Amendment proposed by First Lord of the Treasury agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to agree with Lords' Amendment—page 15, line 10, leave out ("persons") and insert ("person").
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to agree with Lords' Amendment—line 12, after ("1891") insert ("or the Redemption of Rent (Ireland) Act, 1892").
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to agree with Lords' Amendment—line 16, after ("1891") insert ("or the Redemption of Rent (Ireland) Act, 1891").
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to agree to Lords' Amendment—lines 28 and 29, leave out ("or persons personally ") and insert ("beneficially").
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to agree with Lords' Amendment—line 30, leave out (Sub-sections (1) to (8) of Clause 30 and to insert—

  EXTINGUISHMENT OF SUPERIOR INTERESTS.
  (1.) Where any land has been sold under the Land Purchase Acts, as amended by this Act, or where a lessor or grantor has signified his consent to the Redemption of Rent (Ireland) Act, 1891, the sale of such land, or the sale consequent on the lodgment of such consent, as the case may be, shall be made discharged from all superior interests as defined by this section or from any of them, and in every such case the land shall be vested accordingly in the purchaser in fee-simple, and such superior interests, or the value thereof, shall become a lien upon and to be redeemed or satisfied out of the purchase money of such land.
  (2.) A vesting order shall be subject to such exceptions and reservations as are specified in the order if they were contained in the agreement for purchase or subsequently agreed to by the vendor and purchaser, and have been approved by the Land Commission, and the Land Commission are satisfied that the effect of such exceptions and reservations was explained to and understood by the purchaser, or the purchaser is represented by a solicitor other than the solicitor of the vendor.
  (3.) The powers of apportionment given to the Land Commission by section ten of the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1885, and sections fifteen and sixteen of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887, shall extend to superior interest and be exercised in such manner as shall appear equitable, and shall not be limited to an apportionment between the land sold and the residue of the land subject to the superior interest.
  (4.) The price or compensation to he paid in respect of a superior interest, or of any apportioned part thereof, shall be determined in the manner provided by the said sections for the redemption of annuities, rent charges, and rents: Provided that, if the Court are of opinion that any such superior interest is of no appreciable value to the persons entitled thereto, the purchase money of the land may be distributed without regard to such superior interest.
  (5.) If a superior interest, or the benefit arising thereunder, is settled land within the meaning of the Settled Land Acts, 1882 to 1890, the person who constitutes the tenant for life, or who has the powers of a tenant for life under those Acts, shall have power to enter into any consent in relation to the sale being made discharged from such superior interest, and to the redemption or satisfaction of the same out of the purchase money.
  (6.) Where a superior interest is subject to an incumbrance as defined by the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887, the Court shall, for the purpose of distribution of the price or compensation payable in respect of such superior
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  interest, have the same powers as if such incumbrance had been charged directly upon the land sold.
  (7.) The expression "superior interest" shall include any rent, rent charge, annuity, fees, duties, or services payable or to be rendered in respect of the land sold to any person, including Her Majesty and Her successors, and any estates, exceptions, reservations, covenants, conditions, or agreements contained in any fee-farm grant, or other conveyance in fee, or lease under which such land is held, and, if such land is held under a lease for lives or years renewable for ever, or for a term of years of which not less than sixty are unexpired at the date of the sale, shall include any reversion or estate expectant on the determination of such lease or expiration of such term, and notwithstanding that such reversion or estate may be vested in Her Majesty and Her successors.
  (8.) Nothing in this section shall affect the rights of the public or of any class of the public in respect of the land sold, or the rights of any person or persons in respect of the waters of any stream or watercourse or of any right of way.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, Clause 30, page 15, in new Sub-section (1), line 3, after "the" insert "redemption of a rent under the."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, Clause 30, page 15, line 4, after "1891," insert
  "Or where land is sold by the Land Judge to the tenant thereof, and an advance under the Land Purchase Acts is made for the purpose of such sale."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, Clause 30, page 15, in new Sub-section (3) after "apportionment" insert "and redemption."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, Clause 30, page 15, after new Subsection (3), insert as new sub-section—
  (4.) Where a holding is sold by the Land Judge to the tenant thereof and an advance under the Land Purchase Acts is made for the purpose, the Land Judge shall have the powers of apportionment and redemption conferred on the Land Commission by sections fifteen and sixteen of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887, and by Section twenty of the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891, as the same are amended and extended by this Act in like manner as if the Land Judge were the Land Commission.
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, as an Amendment to the new subsection dealing with the powers of the Court where a superior interest is subject to an incumbrance as defined by the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887, to omit the words—
  "for the purpose of distribution of the price or compensation payable in respect of such superior interest."
  The Scheme, as he understood it to be agreed to by Lord Londonderry, was that the fee simple should, in all cases, be vested in the tenant free from any kind of superior interest or incumbrance.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid he did not see any objection to the omission of these words.
  Amendment to proposed Amendment agreed to; Amendment, as thus altered, agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment—
  "From page 17, line 32, leave out from 'any' to 'the' in line 33, and insert 'requisition as to title the making of which by a purchaser would be prevented by,' to page 19, line 7, after 'effect,' insert '(3) This section shall extend … necessary modifications,'"
  agreed to.
  On Clause 34 (Liabilities for arrears, etc.),
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, as an Amendment to the Lords' Amendment (line 9, leave out from "and" to "discharged" in line 12, and insert "is lodged with the Land Commission, the purchaser shall in the event of the sale being carried out, be"), to omit the words "in the event of the sale being carried out." What was intended to be provided was, he contended, amply covered by the final words of the clause. The words he proposed to omit were necessary in the Act of 1888, where they were in a different context, but mischief would be done if they were retained in the present Act, as it would then be possible for the landlord to maintain that his liability was not extinguished until the sale was ultimately sanctioned. They must, at any rate, secure that the tenant should not be worse off under this clause than he was under the Act of 1888. He protested against
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  the embarrassment and difficulties which the Government had got into by this wretched meddling with the Act of 1888.
  MR. T. M. HEALYrespectfully asked the Government what was the mystery about this business. He could not understand the mystery about this proposal. He believed it was due to the malice of an official behind the scenes connected with the Land Commission, and so far as he was concerned he denounced it. For eight years the law had remained untouched, and it had stood the test of the Law Courts. Let them leave the Act of 1888 alone. ["Hear, hear!"]
  *SIR J. COLOMBtrusted the Government would stick to the clause.
  MR. KNOXcondemned the clause as essentially inequitable and totally uncalled for.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELANDsaid he could understand the hostility of the hon. and learned Member for North Louth to anything which interfered with the Act of 1888. It must seem to him something like an injury and an affront. [Laughter.] He denied that the clause would have the effect suggested by the hon. and learned Member, and he hoped the House would approve of it.
  Amendment to Lords' Amendment negatived; Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment, page 19, line 16, after the word "rent" insert the words "and arrears," agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYproposed to add to Sub-section (1), in order to make its sense perfectly clear, the words,—
  "provided that no proceedings with respect to the said rent and arrears existing at the date of the Agreement shall be brought, pending the carrying out of the same."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment—
  page 19, line 23, after the word "shall" insert the words "as respects the periods subsequent to the date of the advance be applied in payment of the interest due under section twenty of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887, and subject thereto shall,"
  agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment, page 21, line 4, after the word "shall" insert the words "subject to the provisions of section thirty of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881," agreed to.
  Lords Amendment, page 21, line 34, leave out the word "and," and insert the words "discharged from," agreed to.
  On the Lords' Amendment to insert after the word "mentioned" in line 22, page 22, the following sub-section:—
  (e) Subject to the prescribed rules, any person aggrieved by any Order of the Land Judge made under this section may apply to the Court of Appeal to rehear the matter, and the matter shall be reheard accordingly,"
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to insert after the word "rules" in the Amendment, the words "including rules as to security for costs."
  MR. KNOXdid not think the Amendment would improve the clause. There were three parties in the matter, The incumbrancer or the landlord would probably have no difficulty in getting security, but the tenant might find difficulty.
  MR. CARSONsaid it was very often in the hardest case that security for costs worked in the wrong direction. It might be that the man who had the best case might be in the worst position to give security for costs, and security for costs had no relation whatever to the matter to be determined by the Court of Appeal. It would be fairer to all parties that security for costs should not be required.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELANDsaid that if the Amendment were not accepted the result might be that the clause would be practically inoperative. Each tenant would have the right of appeal, and if there was to be no security for costs every one of 20, 30, or 40 tenants might appeal on exactly the same ground, and thus prolong the proceedings indefinitely. It was, therefore, absolutely necessary, in order that the right of appeal should not be abused, that some security for costs should be required. An owner, too, might appeal on every question that arose unless he was required to give security for costs; he might carry on endless litigation, not at his own expense, but at that of the incumbrancer. Of
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  course the amount of the security for costs would always be at the discretion of the Court, and they would never require so large an amount as would mean a denial of justice.
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILLsubmitted that it would be better to strike out the appeal clause altogether than to require the parties to give security for costs. The rich suitor or the landlord would be able to give security, but not the poor and wretched tenant.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURwould prefer that the section was struck out altogether, but he felt that in a matter of this kind it was desirable to meet the House of Lords, who expressed a very strong opinion in regard to it. The Government endeavoured to retain the power of appeal, but at the same time they guarded it in such a way that it should not be possible for an appellant to make the proceedings under Section 39 practically inoperative. Those proceedings were for the must part administrative, and not judicial, and certainly in 99 cases out of 100, or perhaps in 999 cases out of 1,000 there ought to be no necessity for appeal.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYsaid he also was against the clause and would prefer to get rid of it if possible. He entertained that view most strongly, because this was practically a one-sided appeal; it was a landlord's appeal. The only appeal that would be objectionable would be the appeal of the dissentient owner, where there would be no surplus to go to the owner, and where the cost of resisting the appeal would fall upon the State. It therefore came to this, that in order to protect the owner in that one case, they imposed upon the dissentient tenants the necessity of giving security for costs in any case, and that in a case where, for the first time, they enabled a single Judge to insist upon the tenants compulsorily purchasing their holdings.
  Amendment to the Amendment agreed to.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved to omit the word "apply" in the Amendment, in order to insert the word "appeal."
  Amendment to the Amendment agreed to.
  MR GERALD BALFOURmoved to omit all the words after "Court of Appeal "in the Amendment, in order to insert the words "whose decision shall be final."
  Amendment to the Amendment agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment—Page 23, line 19, after "mortgagee," insert "in possession."
  MR. KNOXsaid this clause was inserted in the Bill on his Motion, and he was afraid that, if the Lords' Amendment was agreed to, most of the virtue of the clause was gone. The object of the clause was to enable the Land Commissioners to make advances for a sale from a mortgagee to a tenant in the same way as in a sale from a landlord to a tenant. He could not see that any evil would arise if that were allowed to be done. The Lords' Amendment would render the procedure less simple for the mortgagee, and therefore he opposed it. He saw no reason why, if the mortgagee had power to sell, he should not sell to the tenant, who in nine cases out of ten was the only purchaser in Ireland. He would have thought it would be to the landlords' interest that the mortgagee should have power to sell with as little expense as possible. That was the object of the clause, and that clause would be in a great measure rendered nugatory if the Lords' Amendment were accepted.
  Lords' Amendment agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment—Page 27, line 11, after the first "the" 'insert "heir or," and after "representative" insert "as the case may be."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment—Page 28, line 27, leave out "the" and insert "a."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment—Line 28, leave out "herein" and insert "in this Act."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment—Line 39, leave out from "where" to the end of the sub-section, and insert:—
  "a tenant would, if this Act had been in force at the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, he now a present tenant, and either the landlord has not, since the said decision, resumed possession of the holding, or if he resumed the tenant has redeemed, the tenant shall he deemed a present tenant for the purpose of any such application."
  MR. T. M. HEALYmoved to leave out "said decision "in Lords' Amendment, and to insert:—
  "passing of the said Act or the thirty-first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, as the case may he."
  Amendment to the Amendment agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved, alter "redeemed" to insert "or been reinstated."
  MR. MAURICE HEALYthought it would be a hardship if the case was not provided for.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURintimated that he could not accept the words.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYasked if the right hon. Gentleman would accept any other words?
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked leave to withdraw his Amendment, in order that other words might be brought up.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved to leave out, in line 5, the word "redeem," and substitute for it the words "has redeemed or been reinstated in his former tenancy."
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to accept the words. He did not think any lawyer would object to them. If a lawyer did, or they were objected to elsewhere, they would not be pressed.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURaccepted the words on that understanding.
  Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
  On the Schedules,—
  MR. MAURICE HEALY, in paragraph 7, moved to leave out the words "unsuitable to the holding."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYmoved to leave out, in paragraph 8, the words "on account thereof."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Remainder of Lords' Amendments agreed to, with slight alterations of a purely verbal character.
  On the Motion of Mr. GERALD BALFOUR, a Committee, consisting of the following Members, was appointed to draw up the reasons to be assigned for disagreeing with certain of the Amendments made by the Lords:—Mr. Gerald Balfour, the Attorney General for Ireland, the Solicitor General for Ireland, Mr. T. W. Russell, Mr. T. M. Healy, Mr. Serjeant Hemphill, and Mr. Renshaw.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.
  On the return of Mr. SPEAKER, after the usual interval,
  *THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBURY,)formally moved the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill.
  MR. CLANCYsaid that on this Motion he desired to draw attention to a subject of the greatest practical importance to Ireland, and on which Irish public opinion was unanimous—he inferred to the question of the promised acceleration of the Irish mail service between London and Dublin. An agitation on the subject had been going on in Ireland for three or more years, and the greatest interest was taken in it by all classes in the country. Some years ago, in the time of the late Government, things were brought to a head, and, after a good deal of agitation, a promise was made that the mail service should be accelerated by an hour each way in regard to both the night and day services. Irish public opinion rested satisfied that this promise would be kept, especially when the question of renewing the contract with the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company was under consideration, and when the result of that controversy was that new boats were to be built, and that in consideration of the
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  promised acceleration £100,000 a year additional grant was to be made. A few days ago, however, through questions put in the House of Lords by Lord de Vesci, the information was obtained from the Postmaster General that the promised acceleration would not be given, and that, were any change made, the advantage of it would not be given to Ireland. Similar information had been obtained from the right hon. Gentleman who represented the Postmaster General in that House. The fact had excited great astonishment and no little indignation in Ireland, and among those who were strongest in condemning what was regarded as a breach of faith about to be committed by the Post Office were some of the leading Conservatives in the city and county of Dublin. It was agreed by the late Government that there should be an hour's acceleration each way on both the night and day service; and further, that the whole benefit of the acceleration should be given to Ireland. But from the new time-table it appeared that no advantage at all was to be given to Ireland. It was, indeed, proposed that the day mail should start from Dublin at the same hour as now; that half an hour was to be saved on the journey at sea, and that the train would start for Holyhead half an hour earlier. But that would be of no value to Dublin; and it would be none to London either, because all the business houses would be closed when the mail arrived. The same remarks might be made of all the other changes. What Ireland wanted was that the steamer should leave Dublin half an hour later. In answer to that demand it was stated that it would be impossible to accommodate the connections at Chester and Crewe; but it was very curious that when the Post Office proposed that the mail should leave London half an hour earlier the connections were no obstacle to the change. It was, indeed, ridiculous to suppose that a few trains could not be changed to suit the Irish mail. The Secretary to the Treasury had recently been asked whether he could not postpone settling the new time-table till next Session, so that the question could be thoroughly investigated; but again the answer was that it was impossible. The motive underlying this eternal opposition to the smallest demands of Ireland on this question of

  653
  the mails was connected with a deep-laid plot wholly to discredit the Irish mail service, so that the Queenstown mail route might be abolished in favour of the Southampton route.
  *MR. HANBURYsaid that he could assure the hon. Member that the Post Office had no such ulterior motives as the hon. Member suggested. The Post Office readily admitted the extreme importance of this question to Irish trade. But there were two classes of difficulties in the way of hastening the transit of the mails between Holyhead and London. The first were Post Office difficulties. Under the now arrangement the Irish night mail would arrive in London nearly half an hour earlier than at present, and the Post Office were anxious for this earlier arrival of the mail in London, firstly, because it was occasionally late already, and a large portion of the area over which the Irish mail ought to be delivered by the first post was not so delivered, and secondly, because they were anxious that a still larger area should be served with the Irish mail by the first delivery. Meanwhile, under the proposed new arrangement the night mail would leave Dublin half an hour later than at present. With regard to the night mail leaving Euston this difficulty arose, that the mails from all parts of the south, of which London was the collecting area, only reached the General Post Office by 6 o'clock, except certain mails which had a certain rate of postage, and the result was that the work in connection with the Irish letters, which, of course, had to be separated from the other letters and specially arranged, really could not be got through before half-past 8 o'clock. He might be told that the Irish mail leaves London at 8.20. That was the case, but only a certain portion of the letters could be got through by 8.20. Those were dispatched by the Irish mail. The Scotch mail, leaving at 8.30, carried the remainder of the letters, and the Irish mail waited for it at Crewe, so that they were no better off at the time the letters started from Crewe, than if the whole of the letters had started from London at 8.30. In any case, whatever the railway companies might do, it would be impossible for the Post Office to send the whole of their letters off
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  by 8 o'clock. The other difficulties in the way of acceleration concerned railway companies. Whatever the hour might be at which it left London, whether 8 or 9 o'clock, the Irish mail would not be able, under the present arrangement, to leave Crewe before 12 o'clock, the hour at which it left now, and for this reason, that it had to pick up the mails from four different quarters. It had to pick up the mails from Birmingham, which reached Crewe at 11.33; from Bristol, winch reached Crewe at 11.35; from Stoke and Derbyshire, which arrived at 11.35; and from Manchester, which arrived at 11.50. It would be noticed, in the first place, that the Manchester mail arrived 15 minutes later than the others, and further, that 10 minutes was a sufficient margin of time between its arrival and the departure of the train from Crewe. Therefore, if they could get all the mails to reach Crewe at 11.35 the train ought to be able to leave at 11.45, which would be a saving of a quarter of an hour. Going a stage further they reached Chester, and the mail would not leave Chester till 12 38, because the Scotch mail, which came down from Scotland to Warrington by the limited mail, and reached there at 11.25, and then was carried on by special Post Office train from Warrington, did not reach Chester till 12.5, thus allowing a margin of 23 minutes. It struck him that there was rather too large a margin left for unpunctuality. They had some right to put some pressure on the railway companies, especially in regard to the mail trains, that they should run their trains a little more punctually. Then came the further question of getting the railway companies further to alter the times of their trains so as to arrive a little earlier in order to give them the extra quarter or half hour they might want. No doubt that necessitated the arrival of no less than five trains a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes earlier. At first sight that might seem a very easy thing, but they ought to recollect, in fairness to the railway companies, that that involved, not an alteration in the running of one train, but of every train which ran in connection with it, and so far threw all their arrangements out of gear.

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  On the other hand, he was bound to say that he could not help thinking that, considering the great privileges which the railway companies possessed, and the large amount of public money paid to them, the Government had some right to expect that they should put themselves to some little inconvenience to meet the public demand in this case; and that being so, he thought he might promise, on the part of the Post Office, that no arrangement should be permanently settled until next Session. That would probably mean that the new arrangement could not come into operation on April 1st. He thought his statement would have shown that the Post Office was anxious to meet the wishes of Irish Members in this respect, and that before any definite arrangement was come to, there would be an opportunity of discussing the whole subject.

  CRETE.
  MR. C. J. MONKcalled attention to the terrible events which were taking place in Crete—events which had shocked the public opinion of the civilised world. He was not quite satisfied with the reply of the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs when the right hon. Gentleman stated that the representatives of the Great Powers were in almost daily communication with the Porte, with a view to the suppression of the disturbances and the restoration of order in the island. Surely something more was required than mere "communications" with the Porte. It was notorious that the island was in a state of open rebellion against the Porte, and that the events which had taken place during the past six months were of a nature to justify the inhabitants of Crete in their attempt to shake off the chains which now bound them. ["Hear, hear!"] The answer of his right hon. Friend was almost identical with that given on July 6th, when, after admitting the gravity of the situation, he said that the Charge d' Affaires at Constantinople was urging the Porte to carry out remedial measures. It was time that this country should know what the remedial measures recommended to the Porte were. The Porte had refused any guarantee to carry out reforms in Crete. Something more than this was required,
  656
  because not even the presence of British ships of war on the shores of Crete could prevent the massacres and the desecration of churches. He had received a telegram that day stating that it was true that a priest had been roasted alive in the neighbourhood of Heraklion. Some announcement on the part of the Great Powers was being anxiously waited for. Was it intended to grant autonomy to Crete, or was it intended to allow Crete to be annexed to Greece? Could the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the Powers intended to intervene forcibly before the island was desolated and its inhabitants massacred in circumstances of the greatest horror, almost in the sight of British sailors? He had great faith in the Government, and still greater faith in Lord Salisbury, but he regretted very much that the mantle of Lord Palmerston had not fallen on the shoulders of the Prime Minister, so that he might recognise the soundness of that Statesman's views when he expressed his conviction in 1830, that the only true solution of the difficulties in Crete was to be found in the annexation of that island to the kingdom of Greece. He hoped that would be the policy of the Government. [Cheers.]
  SIR HENRY HAVELOCK-ALLANcoincided with the remarks of the last speaker and asked for some reassuring statement from the Government that the matter would not be allowed to drift. While having perfect confidence in the tact and judgment of Lord Salisbury, he hoped that the Government would be able to announce that evening that they had a clear, definite, and settled policy with regard to Crete, and that they intended to carry it out by diplomatic and peaceful means during the next six months. He did not agree that the island should be handed over to Greece; he should much prefer to see autonomy granted to the island under the guarantee of the Powers of Europe. It was because the Government in power in 1880 or 1881 did not interfere actively as they might have done in Egypt that the insurrection of Arabi subsequently occurred, and that we were led, against our will, into the war of 1882, resulting in the bombardment of Alexandria, and the bloodshed that was

  657
  caused. He hoped that a similar mistake would not be committed now. There were, no doubt, conflicting interests in Crete, and certain Powers had objects of their own to gain in Eastern Europe. The Government, he trusted, would endeavour to preserve the concert of the European Powers, but if the resistance of any Power with selfish interests should make common action impossible, he trusted that they should not see a repetition of the humiliating fiasco in respect of Armenia. It was said at the time of that fiasco that our ironclads could not sail over the, mountains of Armenia. The same excuse would be of no avail in the case of Crete, which was surrounded by sea. He hoped that the Government would watch closely the events of the next few weeks, and would do their best to bring the present abominable and hideous state of things to an end, remembering that Great Britain ought to be the predominant Power in the Eastern Mediterranean.
  MR. DILLONobserved that the concert of Europe was useless in matters like that which they were discussing. Not one life had been saved in Armenia through the agency of the concert of Europe. It now appeared that in these Cretan massacres a priest had been roasted alive. How long were they going to allow such atrocities to be perpetrated? If Great Britain were to send troops to Crete for the exclusive purpose of putting an end to such atrocities, what other nation would dare to find fault with her? It might, however, be necessary to give some guarantee of good faith, because the action of this country in Egypt in 1882 had created some suspicion. In 1882 Great Britain sent troops to Egypt for the purpose of restoring order, but, unfortunately, she had held the country ever since. European nations might fear that in the same way she would hold Crete permanently if she sent troops there to preserve order. Therefore, some guarantee might have to be given. He could not forget, and he was sure it must be present to the minds of many Members of the House, that in 1882 what was at stake was not the rights of the Christian people in Egypt—because the Egyptian people tortured no one before the English troops landed—but what was at stake when the English fleet did not
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  hesitate to bombard Alexandria, without any respect for the rights of Turkey, was the dividends of the bondholders. [Cheers.] But now, when it was only a question of murder and outrage, this country fell back on the concert of Europe, which had become the laughingstock and scorn of Europe.
  *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. GEORGE CURZON,): I do not at all deprecate the conduct of my hon. Friends on this side of the House or the hon. Member opposite in having raised this subject. The Cretan question is undoubtedly one calculated to cause great anxiety, and I think that before the House separates hon. Members are quite entitled to appeal to the Government for some statement of the policy they have been pursuing and of the policy they purpose to pursue during the time they will not be called upon to make any announcement to the House. ["Hear, hear!"] I will not not go behind or beyond the last occasion when Crete was discussed in this House. At that date the Porte had conceded the four points to which my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester alluded. I think, perhaps, he rather understated the fact when he said that these points had been only nominally granted. That is hardly the case, for, as regards the first—namely, the appointment of a Christian Governor, a Christian Governor has already been appointed, and has been in the occupation of his post for some weeks. As regards the second point—namely, the immediate convocation of the Assembly—the Assembly was convened; and, as regards the third, the suspension of hostilities, I am bound to say that although there has been one lamentable exception, yet in the larger towns and in places where the largest bodies of troops have been [collected together, there has been a general desire on the part of the Turkish troops and their commanders to observe the conditions imposed on them by their Government. As regards the fourth point—namely, the revival of the Halepa Convention—that is being made the basis of negotiations between the two parties, and subject to modifications, which, I think, are required, that Convention is capable of giving relief to the

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  situation. There are two main difficulties by which the policy of the Powers has been confronted in Crete. The first is the unremitting importation of arms and ammunition and volunteers into that island from Greece. The strongest possible representations have been addressed to the Greek Government on the subject, and I am bound to say, from such information as we possess, that I believe the Greek Government have done the very best with the means at their disposal to check this importation of inflammable material into the island. ["Hear, hear!"] But it must be remembered that public opinion in Greece is not unnaturally strongly excited, and that the Government of Greece itself cannot have the means at its disposal with which to guard a very long and indented line of coast, and that from the islands and mainland it not unfrequently happens that vessels sail across under cover of the night which no precautions that may be taken can altogether check. On the other hand, these importations of arms and armed men have undoubtedly rendered the work of pacification in the island more difficult, and have hampered the Powers in the efforts they were making. We hear from more than one source, that the Turkish troops and their commanders have, on the whole, done their best to observe the suspension of hostilities of which I have spoken, and I do not think it is quite fair that isolated cases, deplorable and horrible as they may be, should be mentioned in this House, if they have been so mentioned, as typical of what is going on in the rest of the island. ["Hear, hear!"] That is not so, and our latest reports are to the effect that if in particular cases outrages have occurred, yet over the bulk of the island the suspension of hostilities has been observed. Secondly, there are the local outbreaks of religious and political animosity in the island, as to which I gather from the reports that in the disturbed districts the terror that prevails is so extreme that the minutest incident, such as the casual firing of a revolver shot, is likely to lead to panic and almost to end in a massacre. I cannot attempt to divide the responsibility in the matter. One day one party is in the wrong and another day the other. It is not fair to say that in the majority of cases Christians
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  are the victims, and if the House could at all realise the intensity of the political and religious feeling that prevails, I am sure it would as far as possible try to avoid taking sides in the matter. ["Hear, hear!"] These two elements, distorted as they are by political and religious passions, and separated by generations of feud, can only be brought together and reconciled by the most careful language and conduct on the part of those who are trying to compose the quarrel, and any too strong expression of opinion either of censure or praise, can only really retard the Powers in their efforts. Hon. Members will have noticed in the papers a great deal about the proposed blockade of the island, and I think that before we part I should explain exactly what is the situation. The proposal has been made that the six Powers should themselves undertake a blockade of Crete, or that they should assist Turkey in enforcing a blockade of the island.
  MR. DILLON: Against whom?
  *MR. CUKZON: To prevent the importation of arms and men from Greece. I have no doubt that those suggestions were conceived with the best possible intentions, and that it was thought that by preventing the importation of arms and armed men into the island you would both narrow the area and dry up one of the fountain heads of the insurrection. We thought, however, we should look a little further, and take into our view the possible consequences of such action. In any case it is a somewhat doubtful operation for any Government or any group of Governments to interfere between a Sovereign and his subjects, but still more does that appear to be the case when that intervention is directed exclusively to the suppression of a rebellion for which there appears to be much excuse, and when, moreover, it would be a suppression by force of arms. The Government thought it was not their duty to take sides in this matter, but to hold the scales even. [Cheers.] If force was to be used to paralyse the insurrection on the one hand, some compulsion ought to be exercised upon the Sultan to secure a quid pro quo for the Cretans, and some guarantees for their better government in the future. [Cheers.] I think this will commend itself to hon. Members on both sides of

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  the House. It is obvious that there is no finality in a blockade. A blockade is essentially a temporary expedient, intended and calculated only to re-establish and, if I may so say, to crystallise the status quo. Lord Salisbury has expressed himself as willing to consider the question of joining in any guarantee with the other Powers for the observance of the conditions that may be arrived at between the Turkish Government and the Cretan population; but he found himself unable to consent to any arrangement by which the Government should join in an application of force alone, while they desisted from any attempt to find a remedy. That is the present situation of affairs. The hon. Member for Gloucester very strongly recommended the annexation of Crete by Greece. In connection with such a proposition, three parties, besides Turkey, have to be taken into account—Greece, the Cretans, and the Great Powers of Europe. I have no reason to believe that any one of these parties is willing to consent to such annexation. I doubt whether there is anything like a unanimity or even a majority of feeling in that direction on the part of the Cretans. Greece is not only unable but unwilling at present to assume such a responsibility, and I have no doubt whatever that annexation by Greece would be most unacceptable to all the Great Powers. Very well. What are the specific remedies that are capable of being applied? I think there are only two. One is temporary and local. We have not abandoned the hope that the insurrection in the island may be stopped. ["Oh!" and Mr. T. M. HEALY: "Crushed!"] We have not abandoned the hope that the Powers, through the agency of their Consuls in the island, may be able to bring the two parties to terms with each other. The hon. Member spoke of the island as surrounded by "a powerless British fleet." That is not an exact description. The British fleet off the coasts of Crete has already rendered almost invaluable assistance, and it is safe to say that at every port where ships, and more particularly where British ships, in consequence of their superior number, have been stationed, the insurrection has been nipped in the bud when on the verge of breaking out—[Mr. T. M. HEALY: "Shame!"]—or has
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  been composed where it had already broken out. The hon. Member says "Shame!" Does he really mean that, when you have two sections of the population in a state of physical and moral tension so extreme that at any moment there may be a fearful massacre, the presence of British ships in the harbours acting as a security to the people and a warning to turbulent elements—that that is "a shameful thing? "
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Why don't you take the side of the Christians?
  *MR. CURZON: I will not pursue the matter, but I will repeat that the Government have thought it their duty to take no side in the matter, but to hold the scales even. Of course, for a real settlement of the question, something more permanent is required, some lasting readjustment of the Government of Crete by which the abuses of which the inhabitants complain shall be secured. I do not say that any such permanent remedy is easy, but that, at any rate, is the object which the Government are pursuing. It is a little too much to expect that the situation should be solved with the promptitude which my hon. Friend expects. You cannot in five minutes, or five weeks, or even five months, solve a problem that has been growing up for generations. Let me implore the House before we part to realise that in this matter some self-restraint, some patience, some self-control are required. [Cheers.] I hope the House will trust that the Government during the next six months will pursue a policy which I believe will be backed up by the public opinion of this country. [Cheers.]
  MR. EDWABD MORTONhoped that the fact that this subject had been brought before the House by two of the supporters of the Government was an indication that the continued domination of the Turkish power over their subject Christian populations was no longer a party matter. ["Hear, hear!"] He hoped the Government would not be put off by any promises of reform. He did not wish to attack the Government for what they had done hitherto; but he was bound to say that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman had shown that there were still other entanglements existing, and existing in the Foreign Office itself, in regard to

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  that policy which all sections of the House wished to repudiate. The right hon. Gentleman, speaking as the mouthpiece of the Foreign Office, said that this was a question between two rival factions in the island, rather than a question between the population of Crete and the Turkish Government. He trusted that the Government during the recess would try not merely to hold the scales even, but would try to see that the majority who had risen in rebellion, against what the Government themselves admitted to be intolerable oppression, should not be subject to the ordinary deeds of the Turk when dealing with an insurrection. There was no case in the history of the Turkish Government where they had granted reforms which were worth anything to their subject Christian populations, and he hoped, therefore, that the Government would not be put off by any promise of reform.
  MR. SYDNEY GEDGEsaid the present Session had been a disappointment. He hoped some attempt would be made to cure the evils which had attended their method of doing business. Eleven Measures were announced in the Queen's Speech, but only three of them had been passed, although this was the strongest Government the country had had for 60 years. [Cries of "Order!"]
  *MR. SPEAKERruled that the hon. Member was not in order in discussing this subject.
  MR. GEDGEsaid he would call attention to the number of hours they had been sitting.
  *MR. SPEAKERsaid that the hon. Member would not be in order in doing so.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid he wished to call attention to the conduct of the home affairs of the country by the Government. There had been an enormous increase in the importation of foreign manufactured goods into this country, amounting, in the 12 months ending 31st July 1896, to the enormous sum of 80 millions of pounds sterling. He wished to call attention to the policy of the Government in regard to this matter.
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member can only deal with the administrative policy of the Government upon this question.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid he would be glad to hear in what way the subject was engaging the attention of the Board of Trade. This was no party question, and he was justified in asking what was being done by the Department with regard to the enormous increase in the competition of their rivals. Was the Board of Trade going to institute a Parliamentary inquiry? [A laugh.]
  *SIR HENRY FOWLER: I regret that two hon. Members opposite have interrupted a discussion in which attention was being called to the foreign policy of this country. ["Hear, hear!"] I regret that after the speech of the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs they should have intervened in this extraordinary way. ["Hear, hear!"] I do not say that it was a designed attempt to direct the Debate into another channel. [Cheers.]
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: Nothing of the sort. ["Oh!"]
  *SIR H. FOWLER: I think there are many Members of this House who would like to turn their attention to the statement made by the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. I am not going to discuss the subject myself, but I wish to point out that while the Under Secretary gave us his views in July with regard to Crete, no papers have been published and no information has been given as to what is the present state of affairs. We know that the Foreign Office has not known, or is inadequately informed, as to what the public Press has been informed of. ["Hear, hear!"] There is the question of the roasting of a priest.
  *MR. CURZONsaid that what he had stated was that they had not an official statement from the British Consul.
  *SIR H. FOWLER: I understood the hon. Member to say that there was a danger of the extension of the insurrection, and all I say is that it is desirable we should have all the information that it is possible to obtain. ["Hear, hear!"] But that, after all, is a small matter. The grave matter is, is the statement of the right hon. Gentleman as to the present policy and the future policy of the Government satisfactory? I, as a humble Member of the House, enter my protest against that policy. [Opposition cheers.] I do

  665
  not think it is the policy which Great Britain pursued in times past, nor is it the policy which, pursued to-day, will meet with the sanction of the people of this country. [Renewed cheers.] The hon. Member for Gloucester, in expressing confidence in the Goverment, and especially in Lord Salisbury, wished that on their shoulders had fallen the mantle of Lord Palmerston. No one will say that the policy which is being now pursued is the policy that Lord Palmerston would have pursued in the circumstances. ["Hear, hear!"] I am not going to discuss that policy. It is impossible for the House, without the Papers on the subject, to express any safe or wise opinion. It certainly would be unwise for the House to indulge in language of a provocative character, or say anything that would still further embitter the present difficult situation. But I do not think we ought to separate leaving the Government under the impression that there is a feeling in the House and in the country of agreement with the policy they are pursuing in regard to the state of affairs against which the better feeling of Europe protests as a public crime. [Cheers.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: It is our desire to lay Papers on the Table as soon as possible. I believe my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs has already laid in dummy Papers which will make information on the subject accessible to the public during the Recess.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Down to what date?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: The most recent Papers will be laid. The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has interpreted, or appeared to interpret, my right hon. Friend's speech as an indication that the Government were pursuing a pro-Turkish policy. I can assure him that there is not a word of truth in that. [Ministerial cheers.] The primary object of the Government in the interests of Crete, in the interests of the Christians of Crete, in the interests of Europe, and in the interests of Turkey itself, is to get good government for that island—["Hear, hear!"]—and no effort is being spared by the Government to obtain that object. [Ministerial cheers.] There are hon. Gentlemen in
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  this House who think that the Government have only got to send a sufficient number of ironclads to Crete, and, if necessary, to land a sufficient number of marines on the island, and the Cretans will get good government, the Eastern difficulty will be solved, and Europe will be relieved from the stress and strain which perennially arise from that difficulty. But the right hon. Gentleman knows that the Eastern Question is inextricably bound up with European politics, and involves the danger of a war which would not be restricted to a small area, or to one nation, if any one country, ignoring its connection with the other countries that form the European concert of which it is a member, should rush forward and attempt by its own power to solve problems which I hope are not insoluble, but which cannot he solved in a simple, rough-and-ready fashion. ["Hear, hear!"] The Government have, indeed, before them the interest of the Christian population of Crete; but they have not that interest alone before them in the policy they are pursuing in the East of Europe. We absolutely refuse to allow the power of England to be used for the suppression of the revolt of the subjects of the Porte, unless, indeed, the pacification of that population can be accompanied, not by promises—["Hear, hear!"]—but by something more solid and more durable than the promises of the Porte. ["Hear, hear!"] But, Sir, while we hold those views, and hold them strongly, we also have present to our minds the constant responsibility that lies upon us to maintain, with others, the peace of Europe, and to avert calamities incomparably greater than those isolated horrors which have been brought before the House to-night, and have been condemned in language none too strong. All this would sink into insignificance compared with what might happen amongst the family of European nations if by the rash action of one isolated Power we should provoke a crisis with which that Power, single-handed, would be incapable of dealing. I cannot say more without perhaps dealing in greater detail than I have a right to do with the European situation. But I trust I have said enough to show that in the first place the Government are deeply sensible of the misfortunes under which every

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  section of the Mussulman and Christian Cretan population is suffering from the present state of tension. On the other hand, they are equally sensible of the duty that rests upon them to put an end to this state of things in Crete as soon as possible. But, at the same time, it is not to be done by turning their eyes with too concentrated attention upon one small spot in the European map and provoking misfortunes which would not be confined to that restricted area and might have widespread effects on the future history of the world. [Cheers.]
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs spoke as if there were only three alternatives before us in regard to Crete. But other Turkish provinces had suffered from massacres and cruelties at the hands of the Mussulmans, and they had been brought to an end. The case of the Druses of the Lebanon was quite as abominable as that of the Cretans at the present time, but was settled by cautious and statesmanlike efforts, and he could not understand why the Government, by friendly intervention, in co-operation with the other Powers, should not secure for Crete the same good local administration and protection for the Christian population as was secured for the population of Lebanon.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he had never before spoken on any question of foreign affairs, but he desired on this occasion to say that the horrors in Crete had made their blood run cold. With regard to the general lines of the policy of the Government he would not offer any criticism. He knew the enormous difficulties of their position. But surely there was such a thing in this matter as playing into the hands of Turkey. If the Turks felt the dread of a European war was so great to most of the European Powers—and the jealousies of those Powers were enormous—it gave a certificate of indemnity to Turkey for all time. It was an appalling thing for any Christian man, he cared not what his tenets as to our Saviour might be, to know that non-combatants, innocent women, and the children and unhappy priests were subjected to such barbarities as had been inflicted upon the people in Crete. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. WILLIAM AMBROSEprotested against the notion which prevailed on both sides of the
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  House—that Great Britain's duty was to act as police for the whole world. Wherever there were massacres we were expected to interfere, and now it was suggested we should send our Fleet to the shores of Crete and engage in hostilities which would inevitably result in a European war. He listened with amazement to the speech of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton when he recollected that a few years ago the great policy of the Liberal Party was that of non-intervention. But when they heard speeches from gentlemen who were in the position of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton which, if they meant anything at all, meant that this country must go to war. Were hon. Members prepared to declare war against Turkey or against Russia? Could they conceive any step which the Government might take in Crete now that would not result in some such eventuality unless the Government were to make themselves ridiculous by crying, Peccavi, and submitting if they did not succeed immediately? He would like to see what the right hon. Gentleman opposite would do under the circumstances if he were occupying the Treasury Bench. They had these difficulties arising during the existence of the late Government, and they very properly took no steps. In his judgment the opinion of the hon. Member for Gloucester and the other hon. Member on that side of the House, who had spoken upon this subject, found little or no sympathy with the other occupants of those Benches or with the Conservative Party. He hoped the Government would realise—as he believed they would—the responsibility of their position and not be led to take a step which would lead them into a false situation, and which might bring about the greatest possible calamity to the whole world in a sort of knight-errant adventure from which they were utterly powerless to accomplish any satisfactory result.
  MR. J. COLVILLEobserved that neither the House nor the country could consider the present affairs in Crete without recollecting the shocking barbarities in Armenia and other parts of the Sultan's dominions, and without recognising their obligations both to humanity and Christianity to see that that abominable misgovernment and misrule was not perpetuated in the Island of Crete. The suggestion that

  669
  the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs mentioned as having been considered, of a British Fleet being called upon to assist the Sultan of Turkey was such a preposterous one that not even the present Government, one of the strongest of modern times, dare seriously entertain it. In the Recess, not only the great masses under the British Government, but the whole of Christendom would look with anxiety and concern upon the action of the Government, that whatever steps they took did not in any way tend to maintain and support the abominable misgovernment of the worst of all modern Powers.
  CAPTAIN BETHELLhad a great deal of sympathy with what had been said by the hon. and learned Member for Louth, and he often asked himself whether their overwhelming dread of a great war was not tending perhaps to render them fainthearted in upholding the great traditions of the past history of this country? He asked himself whether after all the dread of this great war, promised now for so many years, was as present as they were often persuaded it was? He frankly admitted how great the difficulties were which the Government had now to encounter. There was this to be said, which he thought was over-looked by some of the speakers—namely, that at this time there was probably now taking place a change in the policy they had been pursuing since the Crimean War. Since the Crimean War they had, on almost every occasion, supported Turkey. The blows which had fallen in America and in Crete had undoubtedly so affected the people of this country that no Government, at any rate for many years, could hope to support Turkey. He remembered thinking last year, when Lord Salisbury made that noted speech at the Guildhall on November 9th, that it would be interpreted to mean that if the advice he then gave to the Sultan was not complied with great events would take place. But behind that there seemed to be a much more tremendous threat for Turkey, which was that, if these things were not changed and these horrors were not stopped, the support this country had given to Turkey for the last 40 years in such full measure would be alienated from her, and that alienation would mean the very approximate destruction of the Power as a
  670
  European Power. If that was what was meant by Lord Salisbury, the meaning had not yet been taken to heart by Turkey, but it was one which met them, as he understood it, at the turning of the ways—the turning away for having supported Turkey for nearly half a century. Of course, considering the ramifications to which their policy had extended during the last 50 years, anyone could see how extremely difficult it was to change that policy suddenly. That was what, he conceived, made the great difficulty of the Government at present. That was what made him be content to say now that in the policy they were pursuing he personally was very willing to give his confidence, although hoping that, so far as in their power lay, they would do what they could to suppress the extension of these troubles in Crete, and, what was more important, that they would revert to the older policy of diverting their support from Turkey, which he thought had completely forfeited their support, and holding out the hand of friendliness to those Great Powers whose dominions they touched in every quarter of the globe.
  Bill read a second time, and Committed for To-morrow.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURbrought up the Report of the Committee appointed to draw up reasons for disagreeing with certain Amendments of the Lords to the Land Law (Ireland) Bill.
  Report agreed to.

  LABOURERS' (IRELAND) BILL.
  Lords' Amendments—
  Page 2, line 13; after "compulsory" insert "or of the agents of such persons," and page 29, leave out "section" and insert "Act."
  Agreed to.
  On Lords' Amendment—
  After Clause 4, insert Clause A, "Provision in case of lettings by sanitary authority to persons other than agricultural labourers,"
  MR. GERALD BALFOURmoved that the House do disagree with the Lords' Amendment. This was a clause which was in the original Bill as introduced by the Government, and in resisting its introduction into the Bill now he did so not on the merits of the question. He

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  thought it was a good clause when it was introduced into the Bill, and he was still of that opinion; but this Bill was, from the first, introduced as a non-contentious measure, and he abandoned the clause in Committee on the representation of hon. Members from Ireland that they regarded it as contentious. He considered that that practically imposed upon him a Parliamentary understanding that the clause should not be insisted upon. It was on that ground that he moved that the House do disagree with the Lords' Amendment.
  Motion agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment—
  After Clause 6, insert Clause B, "Conditions for sale of cottages not required for labourers."
  Agreed to.
  Lords' Amendment—
  After Clause (B), insert Clause (C) ("Provision as to rules made by the Lord Lieutenant in Council.")
  Agreed to.
  Committee appointed to draw up reasons, to be assigned to the Lords, for disagreeing with one of the Amendments made by the Lords to the Bill.

  BURGLARY BILL [H.L.]
  As amended, considered; road the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

  WILD BIRDS PROTECTION ACTS AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
  As amended, considered.
  MR. JAMES BIGWOODsaid an agreement was arrived at on the previous night that Ireland should be excluded from the Bill. In accordance with that arrangement he moved the following new clause:—

  EXTENT OF ACT.
  This Act shall not extend to Ireland. Clause read 1o and 2o, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clause 6,—

  APPLICATION TO SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.
  (1.) This Act shall apply to Scotland with the substitution of the Secretary for Scotland for a Secretary of State.
  (2.) This Act shall apply to Ireland with the substitution of the Lord Lieutenant for a Secretary of State, and of the grand jury for the council of an administrative county, and any expenses incurred in carrying this Act into effect in Ireland shall be defrayed out of the grand jury cess.
  MR. BIGWOODmoved to leave out Sub-section (2).
  Amendment agreed to; Bill read the Third time, and passed with Amendments,

  LIGHT RAILWAYS BILL.
  Lords' Amendments considered.
  Clause 5 (Special Advances by Treasury). Lord's Amendment, page 4, line 21, to leave out "notified" and to insert "informed," agreed to.
  Clause 7 (Consideration of Application by Light Railway Commissioners). Lords' Amendment:—
  Page 5, line 11; after Sub-section (1) insert the fallowing Sub-section:—
  (2) The applicants shall satisfy the Commissioners that they have

  (a) published once at least, in each of two consecutive weeks, in some newspaper circulating in the area or some part of the area through which the light railway is to pass, an advertisement describing shortly the land proposed to be taken, and the purpose for which it is proposed to be taken, naming a place where a plan of the proposed works and the lands to be taken, and a book of reference to the plan, may be seen at all reasonable hours, and stating the quantity of land required; and

  (b) served notice in the prescribed manner on every reputed owner, lessee, and occupier of any land intended to be taken, describing in each case the land intended to be taken, and inquiring whether the person so served assents or dissents to the taking of his land, and requesting him to state any objections he may have to his land being taken.

  The plan and book of reference shall be in the prescribed form, and for the purposes of this section the expression "prescribed" shall mean prescribed by rules made under this Act.
  Clause 9 (Consideration of Order by Board of Trade). Lords' Amendment, page 7; after "of the" to insert "lands," agreed to.
  On the Motion that the House do agree with the Lords' Amendment—
  Line 9; after "subject" to insert "and that nothing in this section shall authorise any

  673
  variation of the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts, 1845, with respect to the purchase and taking of land otherwise than by agreement,"
  MR. HERBERT LEWISsaid he had an Amendment to move to this Amendment of the Lords, and he presumed, as a point of Order, that he should move it before the Question was put from the Chairman, "That the House do agree with the Lords' Amendment."
  *MR. SPEAKERassented.
  MR. LEWISsaid the Amendment he wished to move was to insert before the word "section," in line 2, the word "sub," so that the words would read, "nothing in this sub-section shall authorise any variation of the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts, 1845," &c. He did not think the word "section" would cover sub-section.
  *MR. RITCHIEsaid the hon. Gentleman stated correctly that the Amendment could only apply to that portion of the sub-section he named.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Question again proposed, "That the House agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  MR. LEWISthought the insertion of the Lords' Amendment would work very prejudically in certain directions. It might happen that one or two landowners would stand out for the best terms they could get, and the Amendment would enable those landlords to obtain a considerably higher price for their land than would otherwise be the case. The Board of Trade's hands would be tied, and it would be absolutely impossible for them to modify the Order in such a way as to get rid of the provisions of the Lands Clauses Act.
  SIR HENRY FOWLERhoped the Government would dissent from the Lords' Amendment, which was clearly in violation of what the right hon. Gentleman had said. They had endeavoured by several Acts to cheapen the procedure of the Lands Clauses Act, and if the first section had any meaning at all it meant that the Board of Trade should have power to vary the provision of the Lands Clauses Act if it thought proper.
  *MR. RITCHIEsaid he could not assent to the proposition, because this amended clause was inserted in the Lords' expressly on his initiation. Throughout the discussions on this Bill, whether in
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  Committee or on Report, he had always refused to accept any Amendment which he thought would hamper the power of the Light Railways Commission or the Board of Trade to deal in a proper and economical way with the administration of the Act. If he thought the Amendment would have the effect which the right hon. Gentleman suggested, he certainly would not have been responsible for its initiation in the House of Lords. It was pointed ont in the House on both sides that to place in the hands of the Commission or the Board of Trade complete power of dealing with such an important Act as the Lands Clauses Act was not one which was likely to meet with the approval of Parliament. At that time he was under the impression that in order to fully carry out the policy of the Bill it was necessary that this power should be in the hands of the Board of Trade because he understood at that time that portions of the Act of 1845 were constanly being varied in private Bills, and therefore he contended that if the Order of the Board of Trade was to have the force of an Act of Parliament, the Board of Trade ought also to have the same power of variation. But after having heard the objection raised here, he made it his business to inquire as to what portions of the Lands Clauses Act were varied by private Bills, and he found that in every case it was only the procedure clauses that were so varied and not at all the compulsory clauses. That having been made clear, he considered that such a power ought not to be conferred in any public Department, but should be reserved entirely to Parliament itself. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the simplification of procedure in connection with the Compulsory Purchase Clauses, and said this clause ought to be modified and made more economical. The Government had done so, but they had done it in the Bill itself, which was a much more satisfactory way of dealing with it than by order of a public Department.
  MR. EDWARD STRACHEYsaid very much remained to be desired in the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, because to the ordinary mind it would appear that this provision in Clause 11 would affect Clause 13. This particular modification referred to Clause 11, which provided for making the Order. [Mr. RITCHIE dissented.] At

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  any rate it was not clear, and he thought the House ought to have the opinion of a Law Officer of the Crown. The particular Amendment was aimed at the increasing of compensation, but it was the object, when the Bill was passing through the House, to abolish this extra compensation to be given under the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act in order to lessen the expense of making light railways.
  MR. W. E. M. TOMLINSONsaid that the Amendment only applied to Clause 11, and pointed out that there was a misprint. Instead of "Lands Clauses Acts, 1845," it should be "Act."
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,)assured the hon. Member that there was no ground whatever for his apprehensions. The Amendment dealt only with Clause 11, and it was not intended to prevent the Board of Trade from making variations in the powers conferred by these clauses. Clause 13 rested on a different basis—on the authority of the Legislature—and it would not be affected by this modification. As to the word "Act," he pointed out in reply that there was a Scotch Act as well as an English Act.
  Question put:—
  The House divided:—Ayes, 85; Noes, 19.—(Division List, No. 416.)
  Subsequent Lords' Amendments as far as the Amendment in page 13, line 36, agreed to.
  *MR. RITCHIEmoved that the House doth agree with the Lords' Amendment in page 13, line 36, to leave out from "aforesaid" to the end of the subsection.
  MR. J. CALDWELLsaid the words struck out by the House of Lords were put into the Bill as an Amendment in the House of Commons and assented to by the Government. According to the Local Government (Scotland) Act, any borrowing of money must be with the consent of the Standing Joint Committee, but in this particular case they were dealing with light railways, and an Order under the Bill would authorise a county authority to borrow money and construct a light railway. Now the Order had the effect of an Act of Parliament. It was not only unnecessary but mischievous to allow the Standing Joint Committee to intervene
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  and refuse such consent. The consent of the Standing Joint Committee was all very proper in ordinary Acts of Administration under the Local Government Act, but this was an Act of a special character altogether, and this was not one of the cases in which the consent of the Standing Joint Committee was necessary, and indeed it must entirely stultify the object of the Order.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. GRAHAM MURRAY, Buteshire)explained that he had accepted the Amendment under a misapprehension. This Bill dealt with counties where the rate was half on owners and half on occupiers, and the Standing Joint Committee represented the interests of both. The words of the Act were very strong to the effect that no work involving expenditure should be undertaken in any county in pursuance of powers conferred by this Act or any other Act without the consent of the Standing Joint Committee. It was not correct to say that the Standing Committee would be able to stultify the Order altogether, for they would have to come in first.
  MR. HERBERT LEWISurged that the Council represented all parties, whether owners or occupiers. He hoped the Government would allow this useful provision to remain in the Bill, and not place another body above the County Council to control them.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 84; Noes, 17.—(Division List, No. 417.)
  Remaining Lords' Amendments agreed to.
  Reasons for disagreeing to one of the Lords' Amendments, reported, and agreed to.
  To be communicated to the Lords.—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)

  EAST INDIA REVENUE ACCOUNTS.
  Committee thereupon deferred till this day.
  Whereupon, in pursuance of the Order of the House of the 20th day of July last, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
  House adjourned at Half after Twelve o'clock.

Preamble
House met at 11.15 p.m.
EARL of KINTORE chosen SPEAKER.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House re-assembled at 12.30 midnight.

VEXATIOUS ACTIONS BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments. The said Amendments to he printed, and to be considered To-morrow.—[No. 251.]
QUARTER SESSIONS (LONDON) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; Read 1a; to be printed, and to be read 2a To-morrow; and Standing Order No. XXXIX. to be considered in order to its being dispensed with.—(Lord Belper.)—[No. 252.]
LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.
Returned from the Commons with several of the Amendments agreed to; several others agreed to, with Amendments; and several others disagreed to, with, reasons for such disagreement; and with consequential Amendments to the Bill. The said Amendments and reasons to be printed, and to be considered To-morrow.—[No. 250.]
LABOURERS (IRELAND) BILL.
Returned from the Commons with several of the Amendments agreed to; and with one Amendment disagreed to, with a reason for such disagreement. The said Amendment and reason to be printed, and to be considered To-morrow.—[No. 253.]
LIGHT RAILWAYS BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.

LONDONDERRY IMPROVEMENT BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
House Adjourned at a Quarter before One o'clock, a.m., till To-morrow, a Quarter past Four o'clock.