Sitting of 18 May 1898

Preamble
MR. SPEAKERtook the Chair at Twelve of the Clock.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  DUBLIN SOUTHERN DISTRICT TRAMWAYS BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.
  BAKEWELL GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  KEW BRIDGE AND APPROACHES BILL.
  As amended, considered; A Clause added; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
  TURNCHAPEL WHARVES AND WAREHOUSES BILL.
  Reported; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

  MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD (NEW WORKS) BILL.
  On the Order for the Second Reading of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Boards (New Works) Bill,
  MR. FIELD: I do not intend to oppose this Bill on its Third Reading, but I should like to know from the promoters when they intend to carry out their promises made to the House, or whether any steps are being taken to ensure their being carried out at an early date?
  MR. A. F. WARR: Instructions have already been given to the engineer to do the work, and we have no doubt that it will be proceeded with as soon as practicable.

PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL.
  "To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to the counties of Brecon, Cornwall, Devon, Monmouth, and Radnor"; ordered to be brought in by Mr. T. W. Russell and Mr. Chaplin.
  Presented, and read the first time; Referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 221.]

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL.
  "To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Blackpool, Gomersal, Nottingham, and Sunbury-on-Thames; Ordered to be brought in by Mr. T. W. Russell and Mr. Chaplin.
  Presented, and read the first time; Referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 222.]

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9) BILL.
  "To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Brighton and Hove, Ossett, Ripon, and Uttoxeter, and to- the Conway and Colwyn Bay and Tolworth United Districts; Ordered to be brought in by Mr. T. W. Russell and Mr. Chaplin.
  Presented, and read the first time; Referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 223.]

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (HOUSING OF WORKING CLASSES) BILL.
  "To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Devonport and Sheffield"; Ordered to be brought in by Mr. T. W. Russell and Mr. Chaplin.
  Presented, and read the first time; Referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 224.]

  METROPOLITAN POLICE PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments. [Provisional Order confirmed.]
  Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill, as amended, to be considered to-morrow.

PETITIONS.
  ADULTERATION (FOOD PRODUCTS)BILL.
  In favour, from Argyll; to lie upon the Table.
  BOILERS INSPECTION AND REGISTRATION BILL.
  For alteration, from Huddersfield; to lie upon the Table.
  CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY IN IRELAND.
  Against, from Oban and Peterhead; to lie upon the Table.
  COUNTY COURTS JURISDICTION BILL.
  For alteration, from Halifax; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA (CONTAGIOUS DISEASES).
  Against State regulation, from. Leeds (2), Glasgow, and Birkenhead; to lie upon the Table.
  ECCLESIASTICAL ASSESSMENTS(SCOTLAND) BILL.
  In favour, from Perth; to lie upon the Table.
  EX-OFFICIO JUSTICES OF THE PEACE(SCOTLAND) BILL.
  In favour, from Rothesay; to lie upon the Table.
  GROCERS' LICENCES (SCOTLAND) ABOLITION BILL.
  In favour, from Perth, Aberfeloy, Dundee, Reston, St. Abb, Nitshill, Glasgow, Dunfermline, Aberdeen, Banchory, Gourdon, Dalbeattie, Renfrew, Edinburgh (3), Mary Street, Grand Lodge of Scotland Independent Order of Good Templars, St. Andrews, Dumbarton, and Airdrie; to lie upon the Table.
  HABITUAL INEBRIATES BILL.
  In favour, from Glasgow, and United Presbyterian Church of Scotland; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND)ACT (1894) AMENDMENT BILL.
  In favour, from Argyll; to lie upon the Table.
  MINES (EIGHT HOURS) BILL.
  In favour, from Gornal; to lie upon the Table.
  POLICE SUPERANNUATION (SCOTLAND BILL.
  Against, from Rothesay; to lie upon the Table.
  POOR LAW (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  In favour, from Argyll; to lie upon the Table.
  PRIVATE BILL PROCEDURE(SCOTLAND) BILL.
  In favour, from Bute, Perth, Rothesay, Elginshire, Edinburgh, and Argyll; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS(IRELAND) AND SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  In favour, from Bristol; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  In favour, from Bradford (2), Halifax, Bushmills, Coxhoe, Shrewsbury, Colyton, Sidmouth, Hurworth-on-Tees, Loughborough, South Shields, Kirk Langley, Bolam, Hawick, Sheffield, Melton Mowbray, East London, Glastonbury, Ledbury, and Bradford Moor; to lie upon the Table.
  SHOPS (EARLY CLOSING) BILL.
  In favour, from Glasgow; to lie upon the Table.
  SMALLER DWELLINGS (SCOTLAND)BILL.
  Against, from Rothesay; to lie upon the Table.
  STEAM ENGINES AND BOILERS(PERSONS IN CHARGE) BILL.
  Against, from Huddersfield; to lie upon the Table.
  SUCCESSION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  In favour, from Perth; to lie upon the Table.
  TRUSTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  In favour, from Argyll; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND)BILL (LICENCE DUTIES AND LOCAL GRANTS).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 17th May; Mr. Dillon]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 207.]
  DISEASES OF ANIMALS ACTS, 1894 AND 1896.
  Copy presented, of Order, dated 13th May, 1898, intituled The Foreign Animals (Amendment) Order of 1898 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  THE TWELVE O'CLOCK RULE.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I have to give notice that at the commencement of public business tomorrow, I shall move the suspension of the 12 o'clock Rule for the Irish Bill, as there is still a large amount of business to be got through before Whitsun. I trust that it will be found to be for the general convenience of Members on both sides of the House.

  ASCENSION DAY.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I beg to move that to-morrow being Ascension Day that Committees do not sit till 2 o'clock.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 178; Noes 39.—(Division List No. 108.)

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND)REMUNERATION.
  Resolution considered in Committee—
  [Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith), CHAIRMAN OF WATS AND MEANS, in the chair.]
  (In the Committee.)
  Question put—
  "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of remuneration to any Commissioner of the Local Government Board for Ireland who may be appointed under any Act of the
  8
  present Session for amending the Law relating to Local Government in Ireland."
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon): I think we ought to have some explanation of this Resolution, because it was placed on the Paper without notice. I do not know if it has reference to the Bill we are discussing in Committee.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND (Mr. GERALD BALFOUB,): Yes, Sir, it has reference to the Bill we are now discussing.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: What is its object?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It is to enable the Local Government Board to appoint Commissioners for the purposes, of the Local Government Act.
  Question agreed to.
  Resolution to be reported to-morrow.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND)BILL.
  (In the Committee.)

  CLAUSE 41.
  Question put—
  "That clause 41 stand part of the Bill."
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 22, line 4, leave out sub-section (a)."—(Mr. Vesey Knox.)
  MR. VESEY KNOX: I venture to raise this question and press it on the attention of the Government. I believe it is one to which considerable importance is attached by all sections in Ireland. In drawing the line of exclusions under this section, the Government have drawn it too hard and fast, and considerable injustice may be caused in the poorer districts in Ireland, which are chiefly concerned. I do not say that the whole of Sub-section (a) is unreasonable. Some of these special charges may fairly be omitted, but I desire to dwell

  9
  specially on the charges under the Tramways and Public Companies Act, and the Relief of Distress Act. Under the Tramways Act of 1883, Parliament allowed railway guarantees to be imposed on some of the poorest districts in Ireland in the most reckless fashion. When the question came before Parliament whether the rich city of Manchester should be allowed to take on itself the liability of the Manchester Ship Canal, extending to about 1s. in the rates, it was considered most carefully, and all its pros and cons were gone into with great care. But Parliament has allowed poor districts in Ireland, possessing no representative local authority to become subject to charges amounting in some districts to five times the maximum charge which Manchester has had to undergo in connection with the Manchester Ship Canal. It may be said that the people of the districts in each case clamoured for a railway, and asked that it should be made. In most cases, probably, that is true. But they had no representative authorities. Although they might have signed petitions, they had no means of going into the question in such a way as to feel a sense of the responsibility they were incurring. They did not know what they were doing; they acted without expert advice, and I do not think it can be said that they ought to be considered morally bound as against the Imperial Parliament by these charges, or bound to the same extent as Parliament, which allowed the Act to pass under which they were imposed. In some cases these charges are enormous. In Kerry, owing to an accident on one of the lines, as well as the cost of making it, that charge is a serious burden. On the Leitrim and Cavan Railway, into which at one time I inquired very carefully, there has been no accident, and nothing special to make the charge go up beyond the normal. In Leitrim it is 1s. 9d., and in Cavan 9d. in the £. The arrangement was made in such a form that the company gets practically no advantage from the big railways to which it acts as a valuable feeder. The Board of Works allowed the arrangements to be carried out in such an extraordinary way that the Leitrim and Cavan Railway gets no ad-
  10
  vantage from either the Great Northern or the Midland, to both of which—especially to the Great Northern—it acts as a valuable feeder. This railway is a heavy charge on Leitrim and Cavan, and it furnishes a good example of how the proposals of the Government under this Bill will work out. In the case of Leitrim there will be paid out of the sum specially allocated half the cess over sixpence. Leitrim will accordingly get some substantial relief, but Cavan will practically get no relief. As a matter of fact, although the charge is larger in Leitrim than in Cavan, Leitrim gets more for it. In the case of Leitrim the effect of the railway has been to facilitate the carriage of agricultural produce, and to affect the price, of stock; but Cavan, being already fairly well served, got practically no advantage. The result is that Cavan will remain subject to this heavy charge with no prospect whatever of relief. Now the injustice is increased by the fact that the rate of interest guaranteed in the case of these, railways is 5 per cent., secured on the rates, which, having regard to the security, is really an absurd guarantee. If Parliament had, in 1883, instead of passing the Act it did, passed a Local Government Act for Ireland, empowering the Irish local authorities to issue stock, there is no doubt whatever that they would be able to raise money, even as the market then was, at something like 3½ per cent. Of course, they could raise it on very much better terms now; but owing to the absurd and inconvenient way Parliament arranged the matter, the money could only be raised at 5 per cent., and I therefore say that those charges are due to the financial stupidity of Parliament in framing the Act of 1883. But this is not all. Since the passing of the Act of 1883 Parliament has recognised how fatal was its mistake, and a most notable new departure in light railways was carried out by the First Lord of the Treasury, who practically abolished all these heavy guarantees for the cost of construction except some small guarantees, and guarantees to secure the working of the railways in some cases. The First Lord of the Treasury and the honourable Member for Leeds, who was then Financial Secretary to the Treasury, went on the wiser

  11
  principle of trying to get these light rail-ways worked by the big railways, and thereby preventing any heavy liability falling on the localities. The legislation by which these charges were imposed was merely foolish, but Parliament has recognised that, and I think the time has coma in connection with this Act for Parliament to step in and relieve the localities to a large extent of the burdens thrown upon them. There are many ways in which this can be done. The Government has chosen only to relieve the liability in cases where it is over 6d. in the £. That would work very unfairly. Compare Clare with Kerry. In the case of Kerry the railway guarantee was put on a small area, and it may be taken generally that the people who pay the guarantee do get some more or less direct benefit from the railway. In Clare the guarantee was spread over almost the entire county, and it falls, no doubt, not as severely on any one person, but it also falls on a number of people who practically never can use the railway at all. That is an illustration of the justice of the Chief Secretary's proposal. Kerry will get some relief, Clare will get none at all.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Oh, no.
  MR. KNOX: The relief will be very small. There are very few districts in which the guarantee is much over 6d. in the £, and if any relief is given at all it must be very small. That illustrates the injustice and unsuitability of the Chief Secretary's proposal. In some of the districts in the west of Ireland the construction of railways was practically as necessary as the maintenance of reads, and I cannot see why the agricultural grant should apply to the cost of main roads and not apply to light railways. As a matter of fact, the railways relieved the road expenditure in many cases, and they were regarded as substitutes for roads to a large extent by the local authorities when they allowed them to be guaranteed. I have figures here which I need not read, with reference to the Clogher Valley railway, which illustrates how this is. The result is that the construction of the railway has actually decreased the amount of the agricultural grant. This is a matter which has
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  aroused deep feeling in the parts of Ireland affected. It is the worst of the abuses of Irish local taxation at the present time. But Parliament is responsible, and I think the time has come when Parliament ought to step in and relieve the people, at least, to the extent of one-half, from the evil effects of a singularly badly designed Act of Parliament.
  COLONEL WARING: I appeal to the Chief Secretary to consider whether it is not possible, in some way or other, to meet this demand, if not in the exact terms of the Amendment. The demand appears to me to be unanimously supported by all the representatives from Ireland, no matter on what side of the House they sit, or what opinion they may hold on other parts of the Bill. These guarantees are very oppressive in poor districts, and I do not think the amount involved would be such as to alarm, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Any objection to it must, I am sure, come from the Treasury, and not from the Department presided over by the Chief Secretary.
  MR. FLYNN: I have a very strong argument in support of this Amendment. It is perfectly well understood by those acquainted with local government in Ireland that the construction of the light railways, guaranteed under the Act, has very materially reduced the maintenance charges on main roads on the districts through which they run. A leaflet, furnished by a conference of chairmen and deputy chairmen of light railways, shows that in one instance the contract for a road before the opening of a railway in the district was 4s. 9d., per perch; afterwards it was taken at 1s. 6d. a perch. In my own constituency there is a case similar to that referred to by the honourable and learned Member which illustrates the hardship of excluding these guarantees. I refer to the Kanturk and Newmarket railway, constructed on a guarantee given by the grand jury, for which the cesspayers are paying 10d. in the £. And there is general dissatisfaction because on the fringe of the area selected there is a large class who pay nothing at all, although they are to have their county cess reduced. Then,

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  again, the analogy between the construction of light railways and main roads is perfect. They come before the presentment sessions, afterwards before the grand jury, who levy charges on the cesspayers without consultation, just as in the case of main roads. It will work out in this way, that certain cesspayers in certain districts will be relieved of half their rates and will have no guarantee to pay, while other cesspayers will be very dissatisfied at having to pay 10d. or 1s. in the £ for secula seculorum. There is no doubt that in the vast majority of cases the promoters came before the presentment sessions and gave the cesspayers to understand that the guarantee was more or less nominal, that the scheme would pay, and that they would not be called upon to contribute anything, and so on, but it has not turned out that way. Very few light railways pay expenses, even those which deal with largo traffic, such as the Cork and Blarney line. The honourable and learned Member gave some illustrations from his constituency. I give one from mine—the Kanturk and Newmarket line. If there is any fault in connection with it I must take some share of the responsibility, for I myself worked very hard for the promoters 12 years ago in getting the Bill passed through its various stages, and I did so because everybody in the district was led to believe that the traffic would be so great, and the expenses so reasonable, that, the guarantee would be merely nominal, or something very small, whereas, alter 10 years' working, the cesspayers in the parishes between Kanturk and Newmarket have to pay 10d. in the £, and others 5d. or 6d., in accordance with the manner in which the charges are levied. That is a very great grievance, because as I understand there is no likelihood of the cesspayers being relieved for a very long time to come. They must continue to pay this additional charge, whereas other cesspayers in the neighbourhood will have their rates very much reduced. Honourable Members who hove large experience of grand juries will bear me out when I state that the maintenance charges on main roads have been very considerably reduced, because, owing to less traffic, they have been taken at very much lower prices than before
  14
  these railways were constructed. It is an obvious, grievance on cesspayers, and I do hope the Government, will see their way to make this concession. Otherwise a serious grievance will be perpetuated on a large number of cesspayers, and very great dissatisfaction will be occasioned.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: In connection with light railways, and other charges which the Government are asked to support, in the first place, it must be remembered that in this grant we are following, so far as conveniently can be done, the precedent of the English grant, and in the English Act there is nothing corresponding to this charge at all. In the second place, these railways must be regarded as having been started and carried on, more or less, in the nature of commercial undertakings, and in that respect they are different from roads. It is perfectly true that the promoters sought assistance, from the baronies, but assistance is also given by the Treasury. Sir, the honourable and learned Member for Londonderry appears to think that because these lines have not turned out as successful as was expected at the time Parliament should bear the cost of the mistakes of the grand jury, but I am unable to take that view. I cannot see that anybody can complain, because what was believed by the grand jury would turn out to be a successful undertaking did not turn out successful; and I cannot understand why on that ground Parliament should take over upon its own shoulders the burdens which have been incurred by the grand jury. But, Sir, in estimating the value of these light railways to the localities, we must regard these charges, in a certain sense, as improvement charges, and the honourable and learned Member for Londonderry and those who followed him can, I think, hardly have taken into consideration the benefit such railways are to the individual agriculturist and the facilities they offer him to reach the markets. Then, Sir, it is only fair to remember that a considerable number of these charges are of a temporary character. But even if these railways do not confer a benefit on the locality fully equivalent to the charges I still hold that they must be regarded, in some sense, as improvement charges. What

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  we are now asked to do is to give a grant in perpetuity in respect of railways, the charges for which in many places will cease after a certain number of years have passed. And, lastly, let me remind the Committee that we have already included this case. I admit that in some cases the burden is so heavy that it is eminently desirable that some relief should be afforded. I think, however, that we have very fairly hit the proper limit in fixing upon sixpence as the rate beyond which Government assistance shall be given. I will just give one or two cases. In the case of the county of Kerry, the excess over the sixpenny rate amounts to £12,206, so that the Government pay half. In Cork the excess amounts to £4,767, and we pay half that. The amount of excess in Leitrim. over sixpence is £2,762; in Tyrone, about £1,205. Waterford is also a ease in which the charge is heavy, and if nothing is done in connection, with the railway scheme to relieve that line the charge in 1899 will amount to £5,600. I think it will be seen that where there is a real hardship—that is to say, where the benefit to the locality is probably very greatly inferior to the charge—our plan will give adequate relief.
  MR. DILLON: Will you give us the total figures?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The total figures over sixpence are £28,750, and the Government contribute half of it—that is, £14,375.
  MR. POWER: Will you give us the figures for Waterford again?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The figures for Waterford in excess over the sixpenny rate amount to £5,600, and the Government pay half—that is, £2,800.
  MR. M. HEALY: The right honourable Gentleman says my Friend the honourable Member for Londonderry has put this hard case in Ireland as being one in which the Government is asked to redress the mistakes of grand juries. Now, Mr. Lowther, I will not put it in that way. I will say that we are asking this House to redress the mistakes of the Parliament of 1883. I take leave to say that the Tramways Act was as ill-considered a piece of legisla-
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  tion as ever emerged from the portals of this House. I quite admit that the object which the Government of that day had in view was an excellent object, and was undoubtedly intended to do good in Ireland. And there is this to be said for it, that if it was not a good Act in itself, it did subsequent good, because in the railway legislation of the Conservative Government of 1886 those mistakes were avoided. The railway legislation of 1888–89, with which the name of the First Lord of the Treasury is associated, proceeded on proper lines, and did an enormous amount of good. The railway legislation of 1883 had almost every possible vice which it could have. Now, Mr. Lowther, what was the result of the legislation of 1883? The Government of that day said—
  "We think it desirable that the construction of light railways should be assisted in Ireland, especially in those districts which, from their poverty, are unable to assist themselves."
  And accordingly, Sir, Parliament did what seemed to be a most generous thing, for it proposed that out of the funds of the Imperial Parliament we should Vote a subsidy, not exceeding two per cent, on the capital spent on these railways; and a most generous proposal that seemed to be, and I have no doubt that it was, as I have said, exceedingly well intended. But, Sir, owing to the method which the Government devised for giving that two per cent., instead of being a blessing to the districts for which it was intended, it has largely proved a curse. Now, Mr. Lowther, the Irish Members of that day said to the Government, "You are going to guarantee that two per cent, out of the Imperial funds. If you guarantee that two per cent. direct to the investor you will get your money practically at three per cent." Sometimes there are periods when it would be impossible to get the money even at 3½ per cent., and there were periods when it might have been possible to get it at two per cent. But, instead of giving the money directly to the investor, the Government left the investor to get his guarantee from the baronies. They said: "We will come to the relief of the baronies so far as their guarantee is over three per cent." Now, what was the effect which the baronies

  17
  had in most cases? Why, they had to offer a guarantee of five per cent., in order to get the investors to put their money in these concerns. The result is that the bulk of the light railways have had to be constructed on five per cent, guarantees. Well, of course, Mr. Lowther, the effect of that was to make the grants which the Imperial Parliament gave almost worthless for the purpose of assisting the localities. If the Imperial Parliament had said, "We will guarantee three per cent, and we will collect one and a half per cent, at the baronies," and if they had said, "we will guarantee two per cent, direct to the investor," the money would have been had at one-hall the rate of interest. Now, all these railways had to be constructed on five per cent, guarantees, and these are now paying three per cent., which, I say, was wantonly imposed upon them by the Government of that day, when they might have saved this money from the fund of the Imperial Parliament by simply saying, "We will give the guarantee direct to the investor." Well, now, Sir, what other mistake did the Imperial Government of that day make, in the face of the protest of the Irish Members! Why, they left the construction—they left the decision as to where these lines should be constructed, and as to where the guarantee should be given in Ireland, in the hands of the grand jury. I do not suggest that the grand jury did not do their duty under the Act. I have had a great deal of experience before the grand jury in Cork, and I think it did its work admirably under the Tramways Act. But, Sir, they made mistakes, and as the result of those mistakes there are some districts in the county of Cork in which the localities are at the present day paying from 1s. 6d. to 1s. 10d. in the £, in consequence of a guarantee imposed upon these localities against the wishes of the people of the locality. I quite conceive that the grant jury acted for the best, but if the grand jury, when they were arranging these guarantees, had known that half of the rate would be deducted from their own rate, they would have been a great deal more cautious than they were; and nothing can be more unsatisfactory than a grand jury dealing with a guarantee
  18
  made under the Tramways Act, as contrasted with their action when you go before them asking for a guarantee for a private Bill, when the rate is made divisible between the landlord and the tenant. It is almost impossible to get any guarantee from the grand jury for the purpose of a Parliamentary Bill, whereas in a large number of these Tramway Act cases they give guarantees, notwithstanding a very considerable opposition from the locality concerned. My honourable Friend has said that in most of these cases the localities were clamouring for the railways. That is not so, as far as my experience goes. A section of the locality was almost always in favour of them, or probably they would never have been made. In two cases I know of the tramways were fought fiercely by a very large section of the cesspayers of the district. Of course, there was no machinery for ascertaining whether a majority or a minority of the cesspayers were in favour of it, but one thing is certain, and that is that there was a very fierce opposition, and the grand jury, in the face of that opposition, would take no responsibility, so far as their own pockets were concerned, in giving these guarantees. May I be permitted to put to the Chief Secretary one consideration as regards the mode of relief which he proposes to give them, which, I think, ought to satisfy him that that method is certainly not efficient? He has taken the basis at 6d. in the £, and he has said that wherever the rate exceeds 6d. we will pay half, but wherever the rate is under 6d. we will make no contribution. That, Mr. Lowther, has this merit: that, no doubt, 6d. in the £ ought to be the extreme limit which any light railway ought to cost a locality. I think, Sir, that in an Irish rural area a rate in excess of 6d. in the £, for the purpose of a tramway guarantee is too large a charge, and is in Ireland in excess of any advantages which may be supposed to flow from it. But all these tramway rates are differential rates. All the railway rates—and, in fact, all the rates imposed by the Railway Acts, are differential rates. That is so. When the liability of the locality is being assessed, either the grand jury, in the case of the tramways, or the

  19
  arbitrators, in the case of the Railways Act, inquire into the matter, and they consider to what extent the various localities are to be taxed, and how they will be benefited by the lines, and they graduate the rate on which the locality is charged in proportion to the benefits which that locality is supposed to derive from the lines. Now let me point out what will follow from the right honourable Gentleman's proposal. Suppose a tramway or railway is made, and suppose there are two areas of taxation. The area in the immediate locality of the lines, of course, is most benefited, and is consequently most highly taxed. But the locality remote from the line derives comparatively little benefit, and, consequently, is lightly taxed. But, Sir, in making the tax heavy in the one case and light in another, the grand jury in the one case and the arbitrators in the other have, in computing the amounts, to consider the relative advantages which those districts will derive, and the localities near the lines ought to bear this heavy tax, because of the advantages which they will derive from it. Now, the right honourable Gentleman, in giving relief under this clause in Ireland, ignores that method. He will, Sir, relieve the locality near the lines where the rate exceeds sixpence, although, by virtue of the Act of Parliament, that portion of the line is supposed to derive special advantages from it. And, whereas he relieves that portion of the guarantee area, he gives no relief to the portion of the area which is some distance away. That, Sir, is very unjust, because the tax-in that case is under 6d. in the £.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The honourable Member lays down, apparently as his example, that of proportional advantage, but that has nothing to do with the proposal of the Government. My point is this, that where taxation in respect of these particular charges is so heavy as to be a pressing burden, there, and there only, we ought to grant relief.
  MR. M. HEALY: I quite perceive, Mr. Lowther, that that is so, but that is exactly what I am making a matter of complaint. I say that the system of relief which the right honourable Gentleman gives is in conflict with the original method of imposing taxation as provided
  20
  by the Act of Parliament. The original Acts of Parliament have laid it down that the contribution of a locality shall be in proportion to the advantage derived, from the scheme. The right honourable Gentleman, in giving his relief, says we, should not take into consideration at all the relative advantages which the different districts derive from the scheme, and we will only consider the fact that, the taxation is in excess of 6d. in the £, though as a matter of fact the taxation is in excess of 6d. in the £, precisely because, under that scheme of the original cost, it was computed that beyond those areas taxation ought to be higher than the taxation in the more remote districts. Well, now, Mr. Lowther, what I want to say is this: the Imperial Parliament made for the benefit of Ireland a legislative experiment. That experiment was full of mistakes, which inflicted grievous evil upon Ireland, and upon the localities supposed to be benefited. Let me take another point in which the Act of 1883 differs from the Act of 1888. Now, what did the Act of 1888 do? It limited the right of whatever benefits the legislation of that year might apply to cases in, which the new railway was worked by an existing railway. That was a most beneficial proposal, Mr. Lowther, because it prevented people from being mulcted in large sums for the working expenses of the lines. In most of the tramways made under the Act of 1883 they were not worked or constructed by existing railway companies. They were constructed upon a different gauge, and worked by separate companies at a large expense, with the result that in a great many cases the localities have had to find not merely the deficiency in dividends, but in some cases also the deficiency in the working expenses. But Parliament—after the experiment of 1883—when they were passing the Light Railways Act two years ago, avoided all the mistakes that they were warned against by the Irish Members, which were committed in the Act of 1883. I do say, Mr. Lowther, in view of the fact that these localities are being "blistered." in a way which people in this country have no conception of, because for these light railways heavy-guarantee taxes have been imposed on the ordinary taxes, and these are heavier than anything existing in England—in

  21
  view of this fact, Mr. Lowther, while there is something to be said for the principle that each district should contribute to some extent for this purpose, as being to some extent improvement charges—I think, Sir, that the right honourable Gentleman has made this mistake, at any rate, that the relief lie has given should have been given out of the agricultural grant, and not out of the licences which we are dealing with in a subsequent clause, where, Mr. Lowther, it will have this additional disadvantage, that every penny which is given under the relief of these railways may, in a few years' time, be money taken away from the support of lunatics, or from other local purposes which are provided for in this clause. I would press upon the right honourable Gentleman, if he is willing to undertake the whole burden of these charges so far as he has taken that burden in the case of county cess, that, at any rate, he should say that something more should be done for these localities than is being done in this clause, and that he should see that the relief which is to be given should be given out of the agricultural grant, find not out of the licences.
  MR. TULLY: I support this Amendment because I have personal experience of the way these light railways are thrust upon us. In my county of Leitrim there was one constructed under the Act of 1883, and I know that that railway was forced on the people by the grand jury, and will briefly explain to the right honourable Gentleman how it came to pass, and was constructed in the manner in which it was in Leitrim. There was a very clever gentleman there—an engineer—who also happened to be at that time one of the leading landlords in Leitrim, and he was able, by his influence, to rig the grand jury, and by that means he got this railway passed. In addition to being engineer of the line he took care that in purchasing the land the landlords should get full value for their land, and he managed that the line should run through most of his own property, and he secured 30 years' purchase, and besides that, whether the land through which it passed was mountain, bog, or waste land, he secured for the
  22
  other members of the grand jury, to whom it belonged, 30 years' purchase. The result was that the line was over-capitalised, and from that day to this it has never paid but little more than its working expenses. In the last Parliament I introduced a Bill on the subject of the Government guarantee of this line, and after a great deal of pressure, I was successful in getting the Treasury to take up the Bill in an emasculated form, and it wag eventually passed into law. The effect of that Bill in releasing some claim that the Government had was, that the taxes were reduced from 1s. 2d. to about 10d., which, I think, was the last cess. I should like to ascertain from the right honourable Gentleman some information on a point which is of considerable interest in the constituency—that is, whether this sixpenny limit applies to the charge for the year, or to a half-yearly charge? These light railway charges are guaranteed by the county cess, which is collected half-yearly, and that is 9s. in the £ at present in Limerick, and I want to know whether it will be a yearly charge or a half-yearly charge?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It will apply to a yearly charge for a light railway.
  MR. TULLY: The result then will be that the people who are paying 1s. 6d. will get an advantage of 1s.
  MR. JORDAN: My constituents are very much interested in this question, because one of these light railways runs for several miles through my constituency in the county of Fermanagh, and I have been inundated with resolutions from public bodies, and with private letters, asking me to do what is possible—which is very little, I am afraid—to obtain some redress, and I am sure that both the right honourable Gentlemen opposite must have had communications of a similar nature and personal interviews as well. This railway means an additional guaranteed tax of 8d. or 9d. in the £; I mean additional to the ordinary rate. That is a very serious tax upon poor people in the immediate locality that these lines run through, because many

  23
  of them live several miles from the railway; poor people living in mountainous districts are charged 8d. or 9d. additional to the ordinary county cess, and they feel it to be a very great tax. I was in the country before I came here, and one poor widow showed me her receipt for the county cess, and it appeared to me to be a very serious thing that she should have to pay county cess for these light railways. That is how it operates in the locality through which it passes; and although it may be a matter of no consequence to the Treasury Bench that a tax of this sort should press heavily upon the poor widow, yet to her and to other people it is a very serious matter. This railway is as much a road for all practical purposes as any main road in the district, and it is proved to be a road, because since it was made traffic has lessened upon the main roads in the district, and the maintenance charges for the main roads in that district have lessened to a very considerable extent. Those who live outside these taxed areas will be relieved to a very great extent, while those who live within the taxed area will have to continue to pay this additional rate, and we consider that it is most unfair to refuse out of this grant to relieve those who are within the area. The Chief Secretary, in reply to the honourable Member for Derry, said that this demand had no precedent in England. When it suits the right honourable Gentleman he can depart from English precedent quite easily, and I do not see why that argument of English precedent should be used in order that we should not get relief from this oppressive tax. He said that in certain cases be could not grant our request because these railways were of the nature of a commercial undertaking. Well, if it was a commercial undertaking, why did he ask for a guarantee? Any ordinary commercial undertaking should stand on its own merits, without any agricultural or rural guarantee whatever. Then the right honourable Gentleman assigned as another reason why he should not accede to our demands that it brought some benefit to the individual cesspayer. What benefit does it bring to the individual cesspayer who lives within the area of his railway?
  24
  The benefit that it brings to the individual cesspayer so far as this line is concerned is 9d. in the £ additional taxation. If the right honourable Gentleman calls that a benefit I do not. I do not think it is a benefit at all. I admit that there is some benefit, and I have said so to people who have spoken to me on the subject. I have said that better means of ingress and egress are an advantage. But certainly, although that is an advantage, it is not an advantage sufficient to compensate for this excessive charge. The Chief Secretary says that he has hit upon the proper figure in fixing 6d. in the £. That is a matter of opinion. He may think he has hit upon the right figure, but we think he has not. The only advantage that we get out of his consideration is 1d. or 1½d. in the £, and, when people are so poor as these people are, that seems to be a very small amount of reduction; and I think, under all circumstances, that the reasons assigned by the Chief Secretary for his persistent antagonism to this Amendment are not at all weighty, and quite unworthy of his high abilities, and I feel sure that if this Amendment did not involve money, and if the right honourable Gentleman were not influenced by the Treasury, he would not use such flimsy arguments. I hope he has not said his last word in relation to this question. We feel that this tax is pressing very heavily upon the poor people, and that it will press heavier in the future. Only this morning I had a letter from that locality in which it stated that the oats were being swept from the ground by cold and rain and frost, and it is expected that there will not be more than half a crop this year. It is so, whether the Attorney General approves of it or not, and to us who live in the country it is a most serious consideration that we are to have bad crops for another year, because, in proportion as we have bad crops, these taxes weigh far heavier upon us. I repeat, that to us in rural districts this is a vital question, whatever it may be to high professional gentlemen who, excellent though they may be, do not feel the pinch of these things with their high salaries. But, though we cannot expect them to have our feelings in the matter, we do

  25
  expect them to listen to us who are mixed up with the country and the people who know all about it, and who feel for these poor people, as we have a right to feel, under all the circumstances. I do hope that the Chief Secretary will not persist in ignoring the wishes and convictions of the Members who represent the people—Members on both sides of the House. All Irish Members are agreed upon this question, and I do not think that the Chief Secretary ought to refuse us so reasonable a request.
  SIR T. ESMONDE: I am sorry that the Chief Secretary will not agree to accept the Amendment. I do not know whether he has said his last word, but I should like to suggest to him this: would it be possible to include in the scope of the agricultural grant charges for light railways which have been already made, and to exclude charges in respect of railways constructed in the future? I will go further, and not ask quite so much. I would not ask to have the interest which is paid on the capital sum of these railways included in the agricultural grant, but I would ask the Government whether they would make a contribution towards the working expenses under the Agricultural Act. Under all circumstances I think the Chief Secretary ought to consider the suggestion I have made to him. I do not at all myself approve of the system under which these light railways have been built, and I do not think the effect of my proposal will be to encourage the make of these railways in the future. We grand jurors have proposals constantly made to us for the building of light railways; we have deputations from residents in the different localities coming and asking us to agree to these guarantees being given. We have engineers in swarms, with wonderful plans, and they ask us to believe that the railways will be for the benefit of the country. In my own country we have never yet agreed to a light railway, and, so far as I am concerned, we never will. Inasmuch as my proposal, at all events, will not encourage the making of these light railways, I think it is one which the Government might reasonably consider.
  MR. POWER: The right honourable Gentleman proposes to give relief to cer-
  26
  tain localities under certain conditions, but I very much doubt whether he will find funds available for that relief, because, remember, although for the first years you may have this fund, anyone conversant with local taxation in Ireland knows that the local taxes are steadily increasing, and I doubt very much whether there will be available funds from which to give the very small relief that the right honourable Gentleman proposes to give. The right honourable Gentleman professed that he was almost omnipotent, with the Treasury, and said that any claims he made on the Treasury would be adopted.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I never said that the Treasury would actually give me anything I asked. What I said was in connection with the distress of the west of Ireland, and only had relation to that distress.
  MR. POWER: I will admit that the remark which the right honourable Gentleman did make was in connection with the distress, but we can easily gather that if he placed the case of the ratepayers before the Treasury they would look with a favourable eye on his application. My principal objection to this sixpenny limit is this—that I believe that in my own case, where these railways have been constructed, it will give absolutely no relief to those who are the most aggrieved. As my honourable Friend the Member for Cork very lucidly explained, when these railways were first constructed arbitrators were appointed to apportion the tax, and they naturally imposed a heavier tax in the localities which were especially benefited by these railways, and in the remote baronies they lessened these charges considerably. Now, in the county which I have represented in this House for a good many years, we pay the railway an average rate of 11½d. in the £. We have paid it for 22 years, and we are liable for 18 years more. In the barony in which I live myself it is 11½d., and in the adjoining barony it is 1s. 3d.; but in various other baronies, the inhabitants of which have never seen the railway, it is 6d. and 4½d., so that these people will derive little or no benefit from this railway—will derive no advantage whatever from the proposal of the right honourable Gentleman. As has

  27
  been clearly and accurately put before the Committee, these charges should b apportioned in the different baronies according to the advantage which the would derive in the opinion of an arbitrator. I think it is most reasonable that the condition of these people—advantages which they derive from the railways should be taken into consideration As I have said, the various baronies in my constituency that are taxed to the tune of 6d. will derive no advantage; and I am sure, from my knowledge of that locality, that the vast number of people in these baronies have never even seen the railway in question, and have derived absolutely no advantage from the tax which they have paid.
  MR. DILLON: There are just two points in connection with this matter on which I should like to speak. These railways are being taken into account in raising the rents by the landlords although these railways are guaranteed, and the rates are paid by the occupier, and therefore, as far as I know, there is no provision to prevent the whole of the value from being carefully taken into account in raising the rent. That, therefore, is an additional reason why the unfortunate ratepayers, who are called upon to pay these heavy guarantees, should be taken into consideration. The benefit of the railway goes permanently to increase the rent of the landlords. The other point I want to draw attention to is this: the only real argument which has been used with, any force whatever against the Amendment was this, that this is only a temporary charge. There is very little weight in that argument. It is perfectly competent, as admitted by the right honourable Gentleman yesterday, for the Local Government Board, when they are making their certificate regarding the amount to be raised, to give effect to the fact that it is a temporary charge, and to vary the amount accordingly, so that an amount of relief might be given. Considering that the charges are not permanent, that would be practically open to the Local Government Board to do, and all the difference would be as between the system which he has adopted and the system which we claim, and that difference would be that one system would afford a
  28
  certainty of just relief to the ratepayers, and that the other system is uncertain, and, as was explained with much convincing lucidity by the honourable Member for Cork, it does not afford a just relief; and I think it would be impossible to put a case with greater force and clearness than was put by the honourable Member for Cork.
  SIR R. PENROSE FITZGERALD: I am very much inclined to agree with the honourable Members for Cork and Fermanagh with regard to light railways. I have sat upon some grand juries in the county of Cork where a great many of these light railways have been brought before us for a great number of years past, and if this Amendment dealt only with light railways I should be inclined to vote for it; but it goes a great deal further than light railways. I see that there is an Amendment standing in the name of the honourable Member for South Dublin which is only to leave out sub-section 1, the section which deals with railways. That Amendment will afford us an opportunity of recording our opinion about this question without involving us in an expression of opinion about the piers and harbours. Perhaps, therefore, it would be as well that this Amendment should be withdrawn, and the opinion of the House taken on the Amendment I have referred to.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): From my experience of the promotion of these light railways I can safely say that the approval of the various representative bodies, such as the poor law guardians, and so on, was one of the things most relied upon by the promoters when they came to make their application to the grand jury—that they should be able to show that the poor law boards of the poor law guardians in the district, as well as the presentment sessions, approved of that—and, certainly, my experience induces me to believe that he benefits that these light railways confer are very much under-estimated. I know myself that one of the most experienced agriculturists in the county of Cork, a man of considerable ability

  29
  and conspicuous honesty, swore that by the means of one of these light railways the price of three-year-old cattle at a fair was increased by as much as 7s. 6d. That was a guaranteed railway. Then there is another matter. When guaranteed light railways are made, the valuation of the railway is in many instances ten times as much as the valuation of the land through which it runs. For instance, there is the railway from Mallow to Killarney and on to Tralee, and the valuation of that line is more than ten times the valuation of the land through which it passes, and the country get back in the shape of the increased taxation a very large sum indeed—
  MR. M. HEALY: From themselves.
  MR. ATKINSON: Whether it pays working expenses or not. If, for instance, the land on which a railway is made only contributes £50 a year in county cess, and the railway is valued at ten times the valuation of that land, the railway pays back £500 a year in the shape of taxation. Now, as to this sixpenny rate, the only suggestion made is that it should not be a general relief, but that we should rather give relief where the burden exceeds the benefit. Honourable Members admit that there is a benefit; and this proposal would come to this: that we should enter into some abstruse calculation of some kind, and endeavour to discover when the benefit from the railway exceeds the burden of the rate, and when the burden of the rate exceeds the benefit of the railway, and then that we are to give relief only in the latter cases, and in no others. That would be an absolutely impossible task. The honourable Member for Waterford said that some of the people in the remoter baronies had never seen the railways, and are obliged to pay 6d. in the pound towards the guarantee, whilst others, taking full advantage out, only pay 6d, and he thinks we ought to adopt some system whereby the latter class should pay more and the former less. It would be quite, impossible to carry that into effect. The honourable Member for East Mayo said that the making of new lines was a benefit to the landlords; but the burdens must be taken into account to
  30
  decrease the rent, and the benefits must be taken into account to increase it, and, if the burden is greater than the benefit, the balance must go in reduction. The honourable Member for Cork complains at the form in which, the relief of these guarantees is given. What the Treasury has done is this: they say, we will come to the relief of the baronies, but, first of all there must be a deduction from the net earnings of the lines which must go in payment of the guarantee; then it is only the overplus that bears upon the ratepayers, and as regards that overplus we will contribute 2 per cent, towards it.
  MR. M. HEALY: The guarantee is a guarantee in default of the railway not paying expenses.
  MR. ATKINSON: Quite so; and it is because of that that the Treasury only contribute 2 per cent, of the amount that would fall upon the baronies in any particular year; but the honourable Member was in error in supposing that there was any objection whatever to the guarantee taking that form.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: We fought it then.
  MR. M. HEALY: Certainly, there was an objection.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I said so a dozen times myself.
  MR. ATKINSON: It is not worth going into an argument about. It is absolutely impossible to give relief in any other form, or to enter into' this abstruse calculation as to when there is a benefit and when there is a burden, and only give assistance if the burden exceeds the benefit. I think the honourable Member for Fermanagh entirely misunderstood the meaning and cause of the faint smile in which I was indulging. I am not sure myself whether he does not disagree altogether with the honourable Member for Cork City as to the nature and effect of the guarantee. Probably it may be that he has only intervened in the Debate in answer to the importunities of that widow.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: In discussing this matter the Government have not taken into account the history of this legislation. In 1880 Mr. Forster, when he brought in his original Relief of Distress Bill first, in that' Measure shadowed forth the terms of this new legislation. His proposition was that the baronies should have the power to make these tramways, and he provided that the rate should be divided between the owner and the occupier, but so strong was the resistance of the Irish Members to throwing any rate on the occupier that the scheme was refused by the Irish Party, and Mr. Forster had to drop it. What is the history of the Act of 1883? Remarkable to say, it was brought in upon the 7th August. Is not that a remarkable date in which to bring in a great public Bill just as Parliament was about to adjourn? On the 14th August the Second Reading was moved, and on the back of that remarkable Bill was the name of the right honourable Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Why was it passed? Because it was part of the Kilmainhaim Treaty. There were clauses in the Bill, not merely dealing with tramways, but excellent clauses by which power was taken for migration, by which public bodies could get certain moneys for migration, which was a very valuable provision, but which broke down in actual operation. For the sake of getting the migration clauses through, Mr. Parnell compelled us, in spite of the resistance of Mr. Biggar and myself, to withdraw opposition to the Bill, and let it go through in the form in which it was proposed by the Government. It is remarkable, when dealing with the question we are now, to hear the opinions of the right honourable Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies. We proposed Amendments again and again for the protection of the poorer baronies, and this was the kind of answer we got; and nothing but the strong personal influence of Mr. Pavnell would have induced Mr. Biggar or myself to give way in the foolish manner we did. When I moved that the guarantee should not at least exceed 4 per cent., I said the Treasury took very good care not to be liable for more than 2 per cent., and it was only reason-,
  32
  able that the barony should not be called upon to pay more than 2 per cent., and here is the reply of the Secretary of State for the Colonies to my Amendment on the 17th August, 1883—
  "Mr. Chamberlain said: 'In the richer baronies, where the credit was good, no doubt 4 per cent, would be a sufficient guarantee; but in the poorer baronies he very much doubted whether it would be sufficient. If the Amendment were adopted, he was very much afraid it would have the effect of throwing the whole expenditure upon the richer counties, and of excluding the poorer districts.'"
  So that there we find the present Secretary of State for the Colonies opposing the Irish Members, and trying to get this Bill through in the interests which then prevailed, not considering how it affected the unfortunate ratepayer or the cesspayer, but considerations of a wholly different character. That is one of the most instructive Debates connected with the Irish question. The Irish Members took every point, and pointed out every distress which would be likely to occur. That Bill was forced upon us in connection with some Imperial guarantee. The right honourable Gentleman the Attorney General has said that all these guarantees have been fairly considered by the Privy Council, and he said that he never knew a guarantee brought forward where it was not stated that it would do great good to the locality. Yes; I have been with the right honourable Gentleman in Council both for and against these schemes. When we were for them we said they would do a great deal of good, and if we were against them we took an exactly opposite line. But when the right honourable Gentleman said that these schemes were all passed with general approval I can only say that that is not my experience, and what I contend for in this Bill is this: you are limiting it to 6d. It is rather a shabby thing, considering you have forced us to give 5 per cent, guarantees, when everybody knows that if the Treasury had come down to a 2 per cent, guarantee, and offered that with 1 per cent, for the baronies, we should have been able to devise very good schemes. Now, the right honourable Gentleman says that that 6d. will be an absolute 6d. I do

  33
  not take that view at all. In order to get that 6d. for the baronies you may have to starve the asylums, and the result will be that if the expenditure goes on at the present rate there will be no 6d. at all for the baronies. The fact is the Government are, in defence, salting the ratepayers with this proposal for asylums, having regard to the suggested passage of this Bill, and I have not the slightest doubt now that the Government think to themselves that they can throw off the asylum expenditure on to the ratepayers. There will be demands from the Board of Control for excessive contributions towards these lunatics, and before ten years have gone nearly every penny of this 6d. guarantee in aid of the light railways will have gone in support of the lunatic asylums. Do not give us the 6d. out of the licences, but give us 6d. in addition to the agricultural grant, and then we shall be sure that we shall have this 6d. absolutely. The right honourable Gentleman has referred to the Bantry line. It is perfectly true that lines like that have done enormous good, and J am far from denying it. But why? Because they were well-considered schemes, brought in under Lord Redesdale's clause, and had to pass both Houses under Lord Redesdale's Standing Order, and they had to get the approval of the baronies; and the approval of the baronies was not forthcoming unless there was a graduated system of taxation, and that is why these railways have done good, and that is why the baronies have assented to them. But in the new system of relief that you propose there is no such gradual taxation. Take a barony like Carbery. That is only rated at 1d. or 2d., whereas other baronies are rated at 6d., 7d., or 8d. Your relief is not calculated on that system of a sliding scale which the circumstances demand. You are proceeding as if all these railways were constructed under guarantees under the Act of 1880, whereas the converse is the case. If anyone wants to know what British statesmen really are, let them read this Debate in 1883. Let them see the demands of the Irish Members on the one hand, and compare them with the refusals of the English states men on the other. Let them see how the legislation has turned out, and then
  34
  this old Debate will furnish them with a short but convincing history of British blunders in Irish legislation.
  Amendment negatived.
  MR. M. HEALY: We have permitted that Amendment to be negatived for the purpose, of taking a Division on Mr. Knox's Amendment lower down.
  MR. M. HEALYmoved to leave out the words—
  "The Tramways and Public Companies (Ireland) Act, 1883."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 87; Noes 176.—(Division List No. lO9.)
  On the return of the Chairman after the usual interval,
  Attention was called to the absence of a quorum, but when the Chairman counted 40 Members were found to be present.
  Amendment proposed—
  'Page 23, line 3, at end, add as a new sub-suction—
  "(4) The expenses incurred by a sanitary authority, whether before or after the passing of this Act, in the execution of the Labourers Acts, 1883 to 1896, shall not be special expenses, but shall be expenses incurred in relation to the business of the council of a rural district, and be levied as district charges accordingly."—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)
  MR. M. HEALY: I have put down as an Amendment to the right honourable Gentleman's proposed Amendment, to add at the end of line 5—
  "This provision shall apply notwithstanding that the expenses were, prior to the passing of this Act, charged on a contributory place or places, and, after the passing of this Act, no expenses to be incurred under the said Acts shall be charged otherwise than as district charges."
  I move that Amendment simply to show that the Government Amendment does not carry out what we understood was the intention of the Government. As I understand, Sir, as the Labourers Act stands at present, it is competent for the boards of guardians, who put, it in force, to make the expenses incurred under that Act a special expense, and, of course, if that were to be done in future, such expenses would be excluded from the

  35
  agricultural grant. Now, Sir, it has been shown that in a great number of cases, I do not say all, that boards of guardian have charged the expenses on the whole union, but it does not appear to me that even where they are charged on the whole union they would not be a special expense, having regard to the fact that the Labourers Act distinctly provides that they are to be special expenses However, that is not relevant to the present situation, because I apprehend that the Government Clause does make it clear that those charges, whether special or not, are not to be taken into consideration for the purpose of the agricultural grant. But what is not clear to me Mr. Lowther, is whether these expenses are made by the clause of the Government ordinary charges for the purpose of the grant; that is to say, whether the Government grant will cover any expenses under the Labourers Act, so that they do not remain for the purpose of being contributed by the district as a special expense. The right honourable Gentleman will see that the clause to which he has moved this Amendment is a clause simply providing for the method in which the Government grant is to be calculated. I think the right honourable Gentleman will admit, as a general proposition, that the purpose of this clause is not to provide primarily the means by which these expenses are to be dealt with by the guardians, but that it gives directions to the Local Government Board and the Treasury as to the principle on which they are to calculate the amount of the Agricultural grant And for that reason, Mr. Lowther, when I was going to deal with this matter before, I thought it would be more cognate to the subject if it had been dealt with under Section 30, which is conversant primarily, not with the amount of the grant, but with the manner in which the local authorities are to levy these charges. I still think that there should be in Section 30 an express enactment on that point, Section 30 being conversant with the method of the charge as distinct from the Government grant, while the section we are now on deals primarily with the question of the Government grant. However, Sir, that it only one reason which has induced me to put down my amendment. The
  36
  second reason for which I put it down is this: It is not clear to me that the Government Amendment will include expenses incurred in connection with the prior Act; and observe, Mr. Lowther, this is rather a serious matter. Here we have had in the past boards of guardians spending money under the Labourers Act in a particular area, and now we have the Government coming in to provide that in future the area of the charge shall be changed, and that in future they are to be union charges. I apprehend that if any court came to construe this proposition dealing with it, not in relation to the Government grant, but in relation simply to the question of chargeability, that they would contend that the Government meant to deal with the future and not with the past. They would construe this clause to mean that in future, where guardians are spending money on labourers' cottages, they should make the charge a union charge; whereas, as regards the past, where liabilities have been incurred, and the charge has been made upon particular districts, the Government do not intend to alter the area. I do not know whether the Government will accept my Amendment; if they do not it may be because they do not think it necessary, and no doubt the right honourable and learned Gentleman the Attorney General has carefully considered the matter. But I would ask the right honourable Gentleman, between this and the Report, to consider whether or not it would be necessary in addition to the sub-clause which the Government are moving to add to Section 30 a declaration that, both as regards past charges and as regards future charges, these Labourers Act expenses are to be charged on the whole union quite irrespective of the Government grant. That is the object of my Amendment, Mr. Lowther, and I will formally move it.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: As at present advised, the Government do not share the view of the honourable Gentleman; but, Sir, I know that he is familiar with these matters, and I will carefully look into the subject before the Report stage is reached.
  Mr. M. HEALYwithdrew his Amendment.
  Mr. GERALD BALFOUR'SAmendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 23, line 3, at end add—
  "And the provisions of this Act with reference to the deduction of any part of the poor rate from rent shall not apply in the case of any item of the poor rate raised for the purpose of defraying any charge under the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880, and the Acts amending the same."—(Mr. M. Healy.)
  MR. M. HEALY: I have put this Amendment on the Paper, Sir, in order to get an answer from the Government as regards the meaning of an earlier part of the clause. It may have been observed that I put an Amendment on the Paper to omit a sub-head of a previous clause, but that was before I had carefully studied the Act of 1880, and when I did not understand why the Chief Secretary should wish to exclude certain charges; but I have since found that the loans for those charges have been paid by instalments, and, as they had only 15 years to run from 1882, they will probably all be discharged, and expire, if not, in the present year, at any rate very soon, so that it would not be thought reasonable that, in regard to Government contributions to the rates, we should take into consideration such charges as those. I think there is a great deal to be said for that view of the Government, and, therefore, I did not move my Amendment. The reason why I want to ask a question now is, not to ascertain whether those charges should be included or excluded, but to make it clear that the Government do not alter the incidence of those charges as between landlord and tenant. I gather from the curious wording of sub-clause 4 that it was not in the clause as originally drafted, because, as it now stands, it is not grammatical, and is in effect nonsense. If the right honourable Gentleman will look at this clause, which provides that the commissioner of valuation shall exclude any railway or harbour charges, it would read: "any railway or harbour
  38
  charge—that is to say, any charge in connection with any charge in connection with," and so on. Well, it is not a mere verbal question that I am raising. I want to know what is the definition of the words "railway and harbour charges." I do not think any of those charges were I really made for those purposes, and most, or many, of them were for roads or purposes of that kind, and the bulk of them cannot be correctly described as railway charges, to say nothing about harbour charges. If the right honourable Gentleman will look at sub-section 8 of clause 74 he will see that it is only as regards "railway, harbour, navigation, or public health" charges that the existing method of distribution between landlord and tenant, is preserved. If it were not for that enactment the existing method would be put an end to by the provisions of the section we are now on, and what I want to have made quite clear is that these charges, which are really not railway or harbour charges, will, under the definition of railway and harbour charges, have the benefit of the contribution. That is what I want to have made clear, and I think there should be some enactment making it quite clear that those charges which are not really railway or harbour charges are covered by the words of sub-section 8 of clause 74, which preserve the existing method of division between landlord and tenant.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It seems to me that the honourable Member has indulged in a mere verbal criticism. I do not think there can be any doubt as to the definition of "railway and harbour charges," and the words "in connection with" were intended to apply to the subsequent sub-clauses. But, if there is found to be any doubt on further consideration, the matter shall be made clear on Report.
  MR. DILLON: The experience we have gained of the Acts passed in the last few years should put the right honourable Gentleman on his guard. What he has said may be his intention, but I venture to say that when this Act comes to be administered it will

  39
  be found that never in the legislation of this or any other House of Parliament has a Bill so complicated as regards its financial clause passed into law as this Bill will prove to be. I am perfectly convinced that many a crux will be raised as regards this particular clause. If it were attempted to get at the legal effect of the exemptions made under this clause, or other clauses, of the Bill taken together, I venture to say that there are not three Members of this House besides the honourable Member for Cork who could give any definite opinion as to what the whole effect would be. As a matter of fact, so enormous is the complexity introduced by this Act in regard to the arrangements which have been made, or are proposed to be made, with regard to the readjustment of rent between landlords and tenants, the fixing of fair rents in future tenancies, and the exemption of charges with reference to which special accounts will have to be opened, that really it will be necessary for the Treasury to send down a friendly expert to every county council in Ireland, and to instruct them in regard to the preparation of their accounts. I have followed very carefully the lucid explanation of the honourable Member for Cork, and I see that it will be necessary to make it perfectly clear what are the railway and harbour charges which will be covered so far as this clause is concerned.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I have already undertaken to consider the matter before the Report, and to make it clear, as the honourable Member for Cork desires, should it be necessary to do so.
  MR. H. HEALY: I agree that we have no difference with the Government on this point in substance, and I accept the right honourable Gentleman's promise to consider the matter. I hope that, if necessary, he will put an Amendment on the Paper to carry out his intention, if necessary, and will not suppose that I am raising a merely technical question as to the effect of this clause. I accept the explanation of the right honourable Gentleman, and I will ask leave to withdraw my Amendment, with this further observation: I wish to tell the right
  40
  honourable Gentleman this. It appears to me that this and clause 41 might well be made one clause on Report. They repeat the same matter, and one sub-clause is a repetition of another, word for word.
  Mr. M. HEALT'SAmendment was withdrawn.
  Question put—
  "That clause 41, as amended, be added to the Bill."
  MR. FLYNN: I have given notice of an Amendment to omit this clause, but after the discussion we have had I will not move it. But before it is finally passed. I would like to say, I find, as the result of communications with a great many parts of Ireland, that considerable dissatisfaction is felt with regard to the guarantees which will be still payable by a large number of cesspayers in connection with tramways and light railways.
  MR. DILLON: I will only say one word more with regard to this clause. One of the grounds on which I object to it so strongly is that it will add enormously to the complexity of the proceedings. I will venture to say, from having listened myself very carefully to what occurred in fixing fair rents by the Land Commission, that this Bill will make- confusion many times worse in the minds of the sub-commissioners. Under this Act all kinds of mistakes will be made. When another investigation is made—and the action of the Government of late appears to point to a re-investigation of the working of the Land Acts every two or four years—it will be proved beyond nil doubt that illegalities of all kinds have been perpetrated owing to the complexity, which has been made worse and worse by successive Acts passed in connection with this matter. If this clause had been left out, the additional burden thrown on the Exchequer, considering the elasticity of the directions that are to be given to the Local Government Board in making their certificates, will be increased, not by a very large sum, because it only affects localities; but I wish to avoid that. The

  41
  Government have introduced, not only into the administration of this Act, but the administration of the Land Act, a vast additional complexity in a system which, Heaven knows, is quite complicated enough already.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid he did Dot himself believe that the provision of the Bill would materially add to the complication of the considerations which the Land Commission had already taken into account.
  Clause 41, as amended, agreed to.

  CLAUSE 42.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 23, line 5, leave out sub-section (1)."—(Mr. M. Healy.)
  MR. M. HEALY: I wish to raise on the first sub-section of this clause the question of whether Ireland is fairly treated in the matter of these grants. The right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary told us, when this question was being discussed on the Resolution, that Ireland was not merely being treated fairly by the provisions of this clause, but that the Treasury were treating Ireland with generosity. Mr. Lowther, when the Treasury say they are treating Ireland fairly, I always regard the matter with some suspicion; but when they go further and allege, that they are treating Ireland generously, it is fair to assume that there is some swindle concealed in the transaction. I have subjected the provisions of this clause to such examination as I was able to give it; and I venture to say that I can demonstrate that, so far from Ireland being treated either with justice or generosity, Ireland is getting—having regard to the principle on which local grants have been given to the three countries for the past 10 years—the sum of about £40,000 less than she ought to get. I understand the argument of the right honourable Gentleman was this: England, he said, in 1888 got, in lieu of certain local taxation grants, her licences. By this Act we take away local grants of an analogous character, and we give to Ireland, in lieu of this grant, her licences. But, says he, the argument against that course of proceeding is this: in England the amount of the local
  42
  licences exceeded the amount of the local grants; in Ireland the amount of the licences is less than the amount of the local grants, and accordingly, he went on to say, we have taken that into consideration, and we have found that the amount by which the English licences exceeded the amount of the English grant was 14½ per cent.; accordingly, says he, we have calculated how much would be a fair allowance for Ireland, so as to give her in respect of this grant a similar excess, and we have calculated that amount to be £79,000. The amount of the licences would be about £200,000, and this £79,000 would not merely make up the deficiency as between the former sum and the amount of the local grants, but would give an excess of something like £35,000, or about 14½ per cent. The right honourable Gentleman claims that by this grant of £79,000 he will do for Ireland exactly what was done by giving England the licences. That, I understand, is his view of what is just. He goes on to say that we are not only just, but generous, because, when we were making this grant in England in 1888, we took into consideration that the making of that grant was doing Ireland some injustice. We then measured out the sum of £40,000—called since the Exchequer contribution. We gave that grant to Ireland ever since to compensate for the 14½ per cent; and we now give, her the 14½ per cent, excess, irrespective of that £40,000. That is his justification for the contention of the Treasury that it has not only been just, but generous. Well, I wish to observe that all that is founded on a complete fallacy. When we are dealing with the British Treasury we may always fairly rely that the figures they give us are tolerably accurate. What we always have to apprehend when we are dealing with the British Treasury is not falsification of figures, but juggling in the method of calculation. The Treasury is always trying to find out some method of calculation which will servo England and injure Ireland. I claim that in this alleged generous proposal involved in this grant they have followed this well-recognised principle, and that the generosity consists simply of their having

  43
  derived a method of calculation calculated to injure Ireland to the extent of £40,000 per annum. Our position is this: the principle on winch local grants ought to be made from the Imperial Exchequer was fixed in 1888. It was fixed, not haphazard, but as the result of an elaborate series of calculations, made not by us but by the then Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the principle on which the contribution was fixed was this that whenever the Imperial Parliament was from Imperial sources making a grant in aid of local rates, this grant should be given on the ratio that England should get 80 per cent, of the total grant, that Scotland should get 11 per cent., and that Ireland should get 9 per cent. Observe that that method of calculation takes no cognisance whatever of the sources from which local grants are derived. I remember a year ago, when I had less knowledge of this subject than I have now, I thought that on the question of the probate grant the Treasury was doing Ireland an injustice. I put a question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer directed to show that the 9 per cent, ratio did injustice to Ireland on the ground that Ireland's proportion of the duty was more than 9 per cent. The right honourable Gentleman said that was a complete mistake, for if Ireland's share of the local grants was to be measured from the amount contributed by her to the probate duty she would be getting, not 9 per cent., but a great deal less; because, he said, Ireland's contribution to the probate duty was far less than 9 per cent., and that Parliament in the year 1888 fixed the ratio of Ireland's share in the probate duty grant, not with reference to the amount of Ireland's contribution to the probate duty, but with reference to Ireland's contribution to the whole taxation of the country; and the point, of course, is an obvious one. Ireland is oppressed in the matter of taxation, not by her contributions to direct taxes, but by her contributions to indirect taxes. In England, as we know, during the last 50 years, the total proportion of indirect taxation compared with the direct taxation has been reduced, as I understand, from something like 50 per cent, to something like 20 per cent. I think I am right in saying that 50 years
  44
  ago the proportion of direct and indirect taxes in England was about half and half. Of course that was a most oppressive system for the poorest class. By a beneficial fiscal change since then England's burden of taxation has been entirely shifted, and now indirect taxes in England yield something less than 25 per cent., and the direct taxes something like 75 per cent. At the present moment Ireland's contribution in indirect taxes is something like 75 per cent. To estimate Ireland's share in any local grant, therefore, on the basis of the particular tax, out of which the local grant is given, would be most unjust and unfair, because the tax selected for the purpose of making a local grant is always one of the direct taxes. It is always either probate duty or something of that kind, which is a direct tax on wealth. If Ireland's share of local grants were estimated with reference to contributions to particular direct taxes, Ireland would be wronged on every occasion. Accordingly, in 1888, in estimating Ireland's share of the probate duty grant, her ratio was fixed at 9 per cent., because she contributed 9 per cent, of the total tax of the country. What I have to ask the Government is this: do they adhere to that principle of 9 per cent. or not? If they do, the grant made by the present clause to Ireland is £40,000 short of what it ought to be. I have gone into the figures very carefully, and I will state them to the House. The English licences are shown by the Report of the Commissioners of National Debt to have amounted last year to £3,288,000. The right honourable Gentleman has stated that that revenue is a growing revenue. I am entitled to assume that it is, and the licences in England this year will be something more than that—I think £5,000, or £6,000; but I am willing to take the figure of last year for the purpose of my calculation. The Scotch contribution was £347,000. That was the amount of the contribution made in lieu of Scotch local licences. The amount given to Ireland by this clause is £279,000, and in addition to that there is this amount of the Exchequer contribution of £40,000. All these four sums together give us a total of the local grant made by virtue of the English, Scotch, and Irish Local Government Bills of £3,954,000. The question is,

  45
  does Ireland get 9 per cent. of this grant? She does not, Mr. Lowther. Her share of this grant is £40,000 short of 9 per cent. Instead of getting £355,923, Ireland is getting £319,000; she is getting £200,000, £79,000, and £40,000, the amount of the Exchequer contribution. I am segregating the probate duty as being a distinct thing. We are getting out of the probate duty grant what we are entitled to get as fixed in 1888–9 per cent. Therefore, for the purpose of this calculation, I am leaving the probate duty grant entirely out. I am not now considering any question of probate duty grant; I am considering whether the grant made by this clause 42 is a fair grant, having regard to the similar grants made to England, and Scotland by the Local Government Acts. In Ireland, under the Act of 1888, the share which Ireland should get in any grant made by the Imperial Parliament for local purposes should be nine one-hundredths of the total grant. Ireland is not getting nine one-hundredths of the total grant; she is getting £40,000 less than that. Ireland is getting in respect of this grant three sums: £200,000, the amount of the licences, £79,000, the amount added to make up the deficiency, and £40,000 which she got in 1888, and which has since been called the Exchequer grant. These throe sums make up altogether £319,000; and Ireland, instead of getting nine one-hundredths in this particular form of local grant, is getting £36,933 short of that amount. In making that calculation I am taking into consideration the £40,000 which we were told the British Treasury was so generously making us a present of. I do not want generosity from the Treasury, I want justice; and I say, Sir, that so far from giving us justice, the right honourable Gentleman and the Government are, by this clause, departing from the principle solemnly established in 1888—a principle by which, when the Imperial Treasury made grants from Imperial sources for the purposes of aiding local rates, Ireland's share was fixed at nine one-hundredths. Now, I have one further comment to make on this. That is a strong case as I have put it, but the case is stronger when you consider
  46
  this clause as a whole. What is the principal grant which is being taken away from us under this clause? It is, of course, the grant of 4s. a bead for lunatics. That grant, as originally computed, was computed on principles unjust to Ireland. It was granted by Sir Stafford Northcote in the year 1894. What is the principle on which he granted it? The Conservative Government had come into office with a big surplus of £5,000,000 which the previous Liberal Government had left behind them an a legacy. Sir Stafford Northcote, in his Budget speech, proceeded to state what he should do with this£5,000,000, and he decided, in view of the agitation then being carried on in England by the Conservative Party, that some of the surplus should be allocated to the relief of local taxation; and when he proceeded to examine the principle on which he should allocate it, he said that one way in which this money must flow must be towards the aid of the charges in respect of lunatics. What is the principle on which he treated England? He said, in regard to a pauper lunatic, that in so far as he was a pauper the locality should maintain him, and that in so far as he was a lunatic quâ lunatic the Imperial Government should come to the aid of the locality. Accordingly he made a calculation that in England the average pauper cost 5s. per head per week to maintain; in England the average lunatic cost 9s. per head per week; and what he proposed to do was to leave to the locality the burden of maintaining the lunatic quâ pauper—that is 5s. per week, and the Imperial Government would come to the aid of the locality and pay the difference between what would be the cost of maintaining the lunatic quâ pauper and the amount it would cost to maintain him quâ lunatic, namely, 4s. Having laid down that principle, he proceeded to give 4s. per head for lunatics. Well, Mr. Lowther, in Ireland at that date, a pauper did not cost 5s. per week to maintain, he only cost 3s. a week. At the present day in Ireland a pauper costs not 5s. per week to maintain, but if you look at the Local Govern-

  47
  ment Board's returns, last year, you will find that he costs only 3s. 4d. per week to maintain. In Ireland in 1874 a lunatic did cost 9s. per week to maintain, and at present he costs 8s. 8s. per week. If Sir Stafford Northcote had treated Ireland as he treated England in 1874 he would have made a grant per head for lunatics not of 4s. per week, but of something like 6s. per week. Therefore this lunatic contribution made in 1874 was made on a principle that was unjust to Ireland. Of course, in 1874 this principle of nine one-hundredths had act been invented. But take it either way; take it on the principle which Sir Stafford Northcote adopted in 1874, or on the principle adopted by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer in the year 1888. On either footing Ireland did not get a proper share in the amount of the local grant. Now I ask the Committee why, in estimating the amount which Ireland should get as her share of this particular local grant, they have departed from the principle of nine one-hundredths which we accepted in 1888? That principle of nine one-hundredths has been a very convenient principle for the Government. It has since been adhered to in the case of every grant made in aid of local taxation. It was adopted when the grant was made for free education. If she had been treated as England was treated she would have got 10s. per head per scholar. But no; it was stated that Ireland was not entitled to 10s. per head per scholar—she was entitled to nine one-hundredths of any local grant made by the Imperial Exchequer out of the Imperial taxes for local purposes. This is a grant made by the Imperial Parliament from Imperial sources in aid of local taxation, and the source from which the money is to come is absolutely immaterial. The point is that until 1888 these licences went into the Imperial Revenue. They were surrendered by the Imperial Revenue in 1888 in aid of local taxes. They are being surrendered in Ireland in aid of local taxes. I need
  48
  hardly say there is no connection between licence duties and the support of lunatics. I ask again, is the Government going to depart from the principle of nine one-hundredths in the case of local taxation? If they are, I promise that, they are establishing a most dangerous precedent for themselves, and one which on some other occasion we will be able to use against them. If they are not, instead of doing us justice, much less treating us with generosity, they are depriving us by this clause of £40,000, which we would be entitled to get as our nine one-hundredths of the money which is being surrendered out of the Imperial resources in aid of local taxation.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH,): I am really beginning to think that had we doubled, or trebled, or quadrupled, or quintupled, the amount to be devoted to Irish purposes from the Imperial Revenue under this Bill, Members from Ireland would still have argued and asked for more. It is absolutely impossible to satisfy their demands. What is the point which the honourable Member has put forward with such ingenuity? He has claimed in the first place that the grant of 4s. per head for lunatics is an inadequate grant.
  MR. M. HEALY: It was originally.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Well, that was settled as long ago as 1874, and no complaint has been made for all these years. I believe it was fairly settled originally, when the question of maintaining lunatic paupers in Ireland was taken into consideration, and we are not going to depart from that basis now. The honourable Member goes on to say that we ought to make the grant proposed by this section on the basis on which the probate duty grant is made; but this section has nothing whatever to do with that basis. It never had anything to do with that basis in Eng-

  49
  land. What happened in 1888? There had been certain grants made in Enplane and in Scotland by the Exchequer for various local purposes—such as maintaining lunatics and other matters of that kind—to the local authorities. These grants were abolished by the Act of 1888 In place of them the proceeds of these licences were given to the local authorities; and, as the estimated proceeds of these licences considerably exceeded the annual grants, which had been previously made, the case of Ireland was taken into consideration at the same time, and another £40,000 a year was then devoted, and has ever since been devoted by the Imperial Exchequer to Irish purposes, because it was considered that the Act of 1888 placed Ireland at a disadvantage by giving England and Scotland larger sums than they had previously received for local purposes. Now, what do we do? That arrangement in regard to England and Scotland had no reference to any proportion of the kind the honourable Member mentions—no relation to the accepted proportion of 80, 11, 9. Absolutely none.
  MR. M. HEALY: Is not it a grant in aid of local taxation?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: No; it was not a grant in aid of local taxation. It was a, transfer of local licences to compensate for certain grants in aid of local taxation which had been previously given, and which were taken away; and, in order to make up for the extra amount thus given to England and Scotland, a sum was given to Ireland from the Imperial Exchequer. The proportion of 80, 11, 9 related to the probate duty and to the additional sums subsequently given from the beer and spirit duties: and in making that calculation, so far as not only the probate is concerned but also so far as regards all these taxes put together, Ireland was treated with singular liberality by the Imperial Government, because the yield of these taxes in England and Scot-
  50
  land, compared with their yield in Ireland, would give Ireland much less than the proportion actually assigned to her.
  MR. M. HEALY: I said that.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: At any rate, so far as regards these three taxes, Ireland benefited by the arrangement. I have already explained to the Committee the process adopted in 1888, with reference to these local licences. Now, we propose to deal with them exactly the same as we did in 1888. We propose to take away this annual grant, and we propose in lieu of that to give to Ireland the proceeds of these local licences, and in addition to give her a sum which, together with these proceeds, is proportionately as much in excess of the annual grant as the sum which was given in 1888 to Great Britain; so that Ireland will receive an increased grant in precisely the same proportion now as Great Britain received in 1888. But that is not all. As I have said, the claim of Ireland on this ground was satisfied in 1888 by a grant at that time, and yet we make this additional grant now; so that Ireland is on the whole £40,000 a year better off under our proposal than England and Scotland were in 1888. What are these local licences? They are licences for public-houses, and for the sale of intoxicating liquors off the premises, and so on. But the yield of these licences in Great Britain is much larger proportionately than the yield of the same licences in Ireland, because the taxation under that head is heavier in Great Britain, where it includes assessed taxes, than it is in Ireland, where assessed saxes do not exist; and, therefore, again there is a direct benefit to Ireland, because we transfer taxes from the Imperial revenue which, if they were levied on the same basis in Ireland as in England, would produce more than they do under the present system in Ireland, and therefore Ireland would receive a smaller grant in addition to them in order to

  51
  make up the amount she receives under this clause. Now, if ever there was a case where the needs of the present only should be looked to it is this. We can say nothing of the future. A point of that kind was raised by the honourable Member for East Mayo, when he spoke of the anticipated increase of lunacy in Ireland in years to come. We cannot deal with matters of that kind now. What we are dealing with, and what honourable Members must deal with, are the needs of the present. So far as the needs of the present are concerned, we have dealt in this matter most liberally and generously with Ireland, and we absolutely must decline to increase the grant.
  MR DILLON: When we were discussing this question on the financial resolution I complained—and I think with justice—that the Government were called upon to arrive at a final decision upon a very important financial matter which will affect Ireland for many years to come, without giving us the necessary figures, in order that we might understand exactly where we stood And here we are now debating a clause which will put that financial resolution into effect, as regards the substitution of the local licences without having those figures before us. If I am right, a great deal of the evil alluded to by the honourable Member for Cork arises from the fact that when in the Bill of 1883 the local licences were transferred to the English local authorities in place of certain grants in aid which were then withdrawn, instead of transferring a certain fixed sum, or a revenue bearing some proportion to the grants which were withdrawn, there were transferred all these kinds of revenue which at that date gave a considerable surplus, but which were a growing and increasing revenue. In that respect I contend that that has been at the root of a good deal of the injustice which has been done to Ireland. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has just stated that Ireland
  52
  has no cause of complaint, and one of the many grounds on which he based his contention was, that in this local taxation which was transferred to local bodies in Ireland in 1888 were included certain assessed taxes which were paid in England and not in Ireland. That contention is no ground whatever to stand upon, because in dealing with this question we have to consider Imperial taxation as a whole, and these taxes to which he alluded were part of the Imperial revenue of this country. We know from other sources that, allowing for these extra taxes, Ireland has had to pay a great deal more than her fair share of taxation. In 1888 a revenue was granted in place of certain grants in aid to the local bodies in England. That revenue has increased. I think it has increased very largely since 1888, but the Government have placed no figures before us. The most important element in coming to a decision upon this question as regards the treatment of Great Britain and Ireland is to know not only what that revenue for the present year is, but what its prospects are in the years to come. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that in 1888, it having been found that the local licences transferred to English bodies gave a considerable surplus over and above the rants which were withdrawn, a sum of £40,000, known since as the Exchequer contribution, was given to Ireland, to balance that surplus. He said that the calculation of that £10,000 had nothing to do with the principles of 9, 11, 80 whatever. I should like to know upon what principle he arrived at that sum of £40,000. He must have had some method, some principle by which the specific sum of £40,000 was selected.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The principle was this, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer calculated by how much the licences given to England and Scotland exceeded the grants in aid which were formerly given. He considered the grants in aid in

  53
  Ireland, and he took the same proportion in fixing that sum of £40,000 over and above the existing grants in aid for Ireland.
  MR. DILLON: That is what I want to know. In that case, in fixing the grants for Ireland, he made absolutely no allowance whatever for an increase in the English revenue, and if I be correct in saying—and I do think we have great reason to complain that the Government have given us no figures—that this revenue was a rapidly expanding revenue, then it is perfectly manifest that a great injustice was inflicted upon Ireland, because here was the principle upon which the Treasury acted, and which, taking them on their own principle, they must have considered just. They offered us £40,000 as an equivalent grant for a particular year in respect of the services of that year, but they made no provision for what I believe to be the rapidly increasing surplus of the local licences in Ireland.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: It is not possible to ascertain what the local expenditure is up to date, but of this I feel very sure, that although the receipts from the licences have undoubtedly increased in England and Scotland, the local expenditure has increased in a much greater proportion.
  MR. DILLON: It is rather hard to ask us to discuss this matter without any information at all. I put down a return some days ago, asking for these facts, which ought to have been obtained before the Government put this Irish local Budget before us. I am told that the figures can be now given up to a certain point, but the return is not ready yet, and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer gets up and says that he believes certain things, and the figures are not before us, I think that is not a very sound method of argument. I believe that in that one
  54
  subject alone an injustice has been done to Ireland. And now I come to another point: the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that a grant of £40,000 was particularly given to Ireland to make up for the surplus of these local licences with the grants. As well as I remember, speaking from recollection, that is not the case, because my recollection is that the Exchequer contribution was not given to Ireland till 1891, and it was then tied up, if my memory serves me rightly, by the Land Act of 1881, as a cash guarantee for some years, until a certain sum was realised for the advances made for the purchase of land in Ireland. So that, as regards that sum of £40,000, two or three years' arrears were due, which were never paid; and, as is always the case in those equivalent grants to Ireland, the Treasury managed, in process of making them, to filch away from Ireland a year or two of arrears. So much for the question of the Treasury grant. Now I come to the question of the proportion—a question which was dealt with by the honourable Member for Cork at the commencement of his speech. As to the proportion between the proposed grant in this clause and the present contribution of the local licences in Ireland, the honourable Member for Cork argued that the proposed grant is short of the proportion due to Ireland, under the system which has been long in force, of 9, 11, 80. The Government, Sir, have not answered that contention. They have practically admitted that it is so. But let us look at it for a moment in another light. It is short, and will be short when this Act is passed. But let us take the 10 years that have elapsed. During these years it was not only short by £40,000, but it was short by something nearer £80,000, because under this present Act it is proposed to give £35,000 in addition to the grants which are being withdrawn; so that for the last 10 years all that Ireland has obtained, as an offset to the local licences given to England, were the grants which are now being withdrawn, which amounted to £244,000

  55
  this year, and only amounted to £220,000 two years ago, and the Exchequer contribution; so that for a period of nearly 10 years it would appear, roughly speaking, so far as we have been able to ascertain, that the Irish were short of their proportion by something like £70,000 or £80,000. I have another illustration of the extreme inconvenience and difficulty under which we are called upon to debate this particular clause and the financial provisions which it embodies. When we were discussing this matter on the financial resolution I ventured to say that I doubted very much whether the local licences, now estimated to produce £220,000, were an expanding revenue; and I was met by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who said that they were rapidly expanding. He said that in 1888 they were £155,000 a year, whereas in the present year they were estimated to produce £200,000. Since then I have received a message from the right honourable Gentleman saying that he was mistaken. In 1888 they were £183,449, and last year they were £199,000; or, in other words, in the 10 years from 1888 to last year they only increased by £17,000 a year. Now, I should like very much to compare this with the English figures—this improvement of £17,000 a year, which is so small an increase that it can hardly be described as an expanding revenue at all; in view of the fact of the decrease in population, it is a revenue which may become at any moment stationary. I am waiting for the accurate figures, and when I get them I shall be surprised to find that the local licences form a rapidly expanding revenue or a buoyant revenue. Considering the position in which we are placed, we are asked to accept now what I must describe, in spite of the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as a sum far short, whatever the exact figures may be, of our fair grant, looking at the present year, in proportion to what has been given to English local bodies; and not only are we asked to accept, on the figures of the present year, a grant far
  56
  short of our fair proportion, but we are asked not to look forward to the future, and I notice that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said we must take care of the present. This is supposed to be a substitution for the land tax revenue, under which, automatically, we are to take the hard and fast revenue, which will depend upon the local licences, and we are asked to accept a sum, calculated on the present year; and, looking into the future, the annual licensing balance of revenue is a revenue at present very slightly increasing, and which may become stationary at any moment, whereas the revenue of England, which forms the whole basis of the English corresponding grant, is an elastic revenue, a rapidly increasing revenue, and a revenue which may be looked to to increase in the future. That is a very unjust and unfair condition of things, and I think we are entitled, before we pass from this part of the Bill, to hear from the Chancellor of the Exchequer some very different declaration from that which we have just listened to. We are entitled to hear that this arrangement shall not be made a hard and fast one What I would prefer to see would be that one of two things should happen; either that this part of the Bill should be postponed for future consideration until the figures have been fully looked into, or that we should be assured of an opportunity, within the next year or two, of a revision of the whole question, so that if it shall be proved that in this particular matter Ireland had been most unfairly treated, and that we were liable to suffer even greater injustice in the future, we might have an opportunity of coming before the House and obtaining, in this matter, better treatment when that treatment is compared with the treatment of England and Scotland.
  SIR T. ESMONDE: The honourable Member for East Mayo has justly complained of the lack of information which we have on this matter. I must also complain of the lack

  57
  of information given by the Government, and of data to guide the Committee in coming to a conclusion whether or not the proposals are fair. One very strong objection to the proposed arrangement is that whereas, under this clause, you propose to relieve England from liability in regard to certain increasing charges in Ireland, you have given us a revenue about which we are not at all certain that it is not going to be a diminishing revenue. My honourable Friend the Member for the Birr Division of King's County has drawn up the budget of the new Irish county councils. He shows that the Imperial Treasury contribute towards half the expenses of medical officers of workhouses, half the salaries of medical officers, half the salaries of schoolmasters and mistresses in workhouses, half the expenses of medicines and medical and surgical appliances, half the expenses of sanitary officers, and half the expenses of pauper lunatics, the total amount being £244,000. These contributions are now to cease. But we believe there is no doubt on the point that all these expenses will be increasing expenses. Certainly, the cost of administration of our workhouses will become more expensive, and the cost of administration in respect of lunatics in Ireland will also become more expensive. Then, on the other hand, we have a list of these grants which are supposed to be given to us in view of the contributions which are taken away. We have reason to fear that the revenue from these grants will prove a decreasing one. There is one point which I should like to say a word upon, and that is that I think it is rather an improper thing to base the revenue of the Irish county councils upon the consumption of drink in Ireland. I do not think it is a desirable thing that there should be an increase in the consumption of spirits in Ireland. But I am not at all sure that the revenue in connection with the spirit licences and the beer licences in Ireland is going to be increased. I do not myself see how the figures which are put down under this head are likely
  58
  to increase in the future. I think, on the other hand, they are very much more likely to decrease. Well, Sir, this question of the finance of Irish local government is, of course, the backbone of the Bill, and I think the suggestion thrown out by my honourable Friend the Member for East Mayo is a very proper suggestion—namely, that there should be some provision for the revision of these proposals. If the Government have it in their minds some years hence to make changes in lunacy administration of Ireland, of course that would affect our position in this matter; and if the Government propose to continue their inquiry into the general question of local taxation in Ireland, and as to the revenue under the various heads of finance, which are now going to be dealt with by the Irish county council, that, of course, will influence our position. But, Sir, in the absence of any hint or suggestion to that effect, I think that my honourable Friends are perfectly right in their opposition to these proposals of the Bill. Now, Mr. Lowther, the Chancellor of the Exchequer talked about assessed taxes, and this is a point which is constantly made against us in debate on the financial question in this House. I should like once and for all to explain to the House what is the situation with regard to assessed taxes. There are, practically, no assessed taxes in Ireland at the present moment, with the exception of the dog tax and some local taxes. But, Mr. Lowther, there were assessed taxes. There were for instance, on windows, and there were assessed taxes on servants, carriages, horses, dogs, and hounds. The aggregate payment of those taxes amounted to £300,000. These taxes were removed in Ireland in the period from 1819 to 1842; but the reason why those taxes were taken away from Ireland was not because the English Treasury were generous, or particularly anxious to alleviate the burden on Ireland, but because they were no longer producing a revenue; in short, they were not productive

  59
  taxes; and that is why this £300,000 was taken off Ireland, not because of the generosity of England, but because these taxes did not pay. And in the same period England removed taxes, and paying taxes, of her own to the amount of £5,000,000 a year. I have thought it only right, as the question of assessed taxes has been raised, and there has been a great deal of talk about Ireland's freedom from taxation under this head, to bring these details of the ease before the Committee.
  MR. M. HEALY: It would appear from the speech to which we have listened from the right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that Ireland has been a very ungrateful country, and that we ought to be engaged in perpetual thanksgiving for the manner in which we are being treated. The right honourable Gentleman has replied in common Treasury form by saying non possumus to the Irish demand. But I would call the attention of the Treasury to the fact that what the right honourable Gentleman is doing to-day as regards this particular grant, he did two years ago as regards the grant for free education. He and the Secretary of the Treasury came down night after night and endeavoured to brazen out the attempt of their Department to keep Ireland out, so to speak, of the education grant. But, Mr. Lowther, the continued discussion in this House drove the right honourable Gentleman and drove the British Treasury from the position which they originally adopted, and they had ultimately to concede to us the claim of the Irish teachers, which should have been recognised originally as a matter of justice. Now, Mr. Lowther, I take the liberty to say that what happened as regards the grant for education two years ago will ultimately happen as regards this matter which we are pressing upon the attention of the Treasury to-day, and that in two or three years' time the then Chancellor of the Exchequer will be obliged to come down
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  to this House and acknowledge, in the case of this particular grant, the injustice which he had two years ago to admit in the case of the teachers. Now, Mr. Lowther, I have no desire to continue the discussion on the point raised by the Amendment, but there are one or two points I wish to press upon the attention of the Committee. It is entirely in the discretion of the Chancellor what particular tax he will select for the purpose of providing these local grants. It happened in 1888 that he selected the probate tax for the purpose of making this grant. But supposing he had adopted the whisky tax? Do you suppose for a moment that he would in that case have admitted that, because Ireland contributed an abnormal amount in the direct taxation, therefore they should obtain in the case of the local grant an amount corresponding to that contribution? No. The fair and just principle is that you should not pay any regard to the tax from which you drew your contribution, but to the total contribution made by each part of the United Kingdom towards the total taxation of the kingdom. Otherwise, of course, when you are allocating your local grants, you will have to take into consideration all those questions of fairness or unfairness of indirect taxation which are avoided when you take as your basis of contribution the total revenue of the three kingdoms and the total contribution to the revenue that each of those three kingdoms contributes. The right honourable Gentleman says that there are in England assessed taxes that there are not in Ireland. What has that to do with the matter, Mr. Lowther? That would be a perfectly good argument if you adopted the principle that the amount of your grant must depend on the amount of the contribution to the tax supplying the grant. But that is not what Parliament did in 1888, and has never done since in the case of any local grant. Therefore it is immaterial to say that the fact that there are not the assessed taxes in Ireland that there are in Eng-

  61
  land should be considered in any way when you are dealing with this question. No, Mr. Lowther, the fair way of settling this matter is that which was adopted in the year 1888. If there were some necessary connection between these local licences and the particular purpose to which they were devoted when these grants came into the lands of the local bodies, then there, may be something to be said in favour of the argument of the right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The fact is this: these grants all came into the Imperial Exchequer in 1888. In 1888 Parliament decided that it would surrender these Grants for local purposes. The matter, therefore, Mr. Lowther, stands exactly in the case of these licences on the same footing that it stands in the case of any other local contribution, and we certainly will not be satisfied with the answer which has been given to us by the right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer today. "We adopted a method with regard to the allocation of these grants in 1874, and that method, just or unjust, we will not depart from," says the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That is an answer which we on these benches will never accept, and the Treasury may rely upon it that we shall keep dinning this question into their ears until complete justice has been done to Ireland.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: It would be hopeless to expect the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary to regard himself as an advocate for Ireland. We suffer from the fact that we have not a single friend in the Cabinet and not a single friend in the British Government. The right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary regards the Imperial system as one that ought to be preserved at all hazards, and, that being so, he takes everything from the Treasury officials as gospel, and accepts without question everything they have to say. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has
  62
  made a remarkable offer. He has offered us, forsooth, if we like to accept a further levy on assessed taxes in Ireland, the benefit to be derived from any further local taxation in years to come. Why does he not give us the benefit of the assessed taxation in existence? There are three important details which ought to have been included in the schedule, and which are not included in it. I take, in the first instance, the hackney car or carriage tax for Dublin. Why did he not give us that tax, which is levied alone in the city of Dublin, and is not levied in any other city in the three kingdoms? Then there is the charge for pawnbrokers' licences within the Dublin metropolitan area, which brings in a very large sum to the Imperial Exchequer. Will the right honourable Gentleman give us that? Then, again, there is the dog tax. In England you have the whole of the dog tax, but it is not even mentioned in our schedule. I would ask the right honourable Gentleman why he persists in keeping these three taxes in this extraordinary and unparalleled manner? We are suffering in this respect because the Irish account is kept by an alien country. I must say that the Government, in dealing with this matter, have had neither argument nor have they had justice. But we have laid the foundation for further Debates, and for a further claim, and I can assure the Government that though, for the sake of the Bill as a whole, we are overlooking a great many things with regard to the present Session, the matter in question is one which they will again and again hear of during this Parliament.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURsaid the honourable and learned Member had asked him why these licences were not included in the schedule of the Bill. The reason why these licences were not included in the schedule of the Bill was because they were already given exclusively to local taxation. He hardly liked to take up the time of the Committee with reference to matters which his right

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  honourable Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had already dealt with, but there was one point which he desired to draw attention to in the speech of the honourable Member for East Mayo—namely, that results showed that at the present time Ireland was being defrauded in respect of contributions to local taxation to the extent of £80,000. At any rate, the honourable Member must admit that that amount was now to be reduced by the £35,000 given under the Bill. The honourable Member's calculations, however, were based on premises which the Government could not admit. To this question of contribution in respect of local licences the proportions of 80, 11, and 9 for the three kingdoms did not apply. If those propositions were to be applied to every contribution from the Imperial Exchequer, it would be found that Ireland was receiving very much more than her fair share.
  Question put—
  "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 245; Noes 112.—(Division List No. 110.)
  Amendment moved—
  "Page 23, line 12, after 'and' insert 'all penalties and forfeitures recovered in respect of the same duties and.'"—(Mr. T. M. Healy.)
  This is in the English Act, and I do not know why it is not in the Irish Act. I suppose it is not inserted in the Irish Act for some curious reason I do not understand. It is unintelligible to me why the words are omitted, and I think the English words ought to be put in the Irish Bill.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The Amendment is already cohered. If the honourable Member will look at section 20 of the English Act he will see that it contains the words.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I saw that, but I mistrust everything that comes from the Treasury. We have been swindled too often, and we must deal with these gentlemen as what they are, who try to commit a fraud upon every possible
  64
  occasion. The words are in the English Bill, and if the Government mean honestly, they will take these words out of the English Bill and put them in the Irish Bill.
  MR. ATKINSON: Assuming that the gentlemen connected with the Treasury are actuated by the motives which the honourable Member imputes to them, this clause says, referring to the licences specified in the third schedule, "and such amount shall be ascertained in like manner as under section 20 of the Local Government Act, 1888," and if the honourable Member will turn to the Local Government Act of 1888 he will find that in sub-section 2 it provides the mode in which the amount of these licences is ascertained. The amount of these licences is to be ascertained in the same manner as in the Act of 1888, and it is impossible to escape from the meaning of the section to which. I allude.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: They will discover some little slip, and then you will find there will be an action in the county court, and the judge will say there is a slip somewhere, and we shall lose these amounts. Why not make the meaning1 plain? We have fair ground for our suspicion. If we got fair play and justice, things would be decided as the right honourable Gentleman says, but I have no confidence that we shall get that fair play or justice.
  The Amendment was, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 23, line 28, leave out 'said salary of one trained nurse,' and insert 'salary of the trained nurses.'"—(Sir T. Lea.)
  SIR T. LEA: Some two years ago there were a good many questions asked in this House on the subject of nursing in Irish workhouses, and a Special Commissioner from a medical journal was sent over to Ireland to

  65
  investigate matters. Since then the Local Government Board of England as well as of Ireland has taken note of the importance of the matter, and they have both issued orders forbidding the employment of pauper nurses. The right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary has taken notice of the subject, and in order to provide for efficient nursing has put in this provision, that there shall be one trained nurse in each workhouse. That is sufficient, no doubt, for a good many of the workhouses in Ireland, but in the large workhouses I fear more will be required, and I cannot see why the regulation which gives one nurse for a small workhouse should not give us two nurses for a large one. The honourable Member for Dublin has put down an Amendment making the law in Ireland equivalent to what it is in Scotland, which asks for rations as well as salary. I have taken the more moderate line, and asked that, wherever a second nurse is required, the Imperial Treasury shall grant half of the money required for the payment of that nurse. It will not take a very large sum of money to do this, because out of 159 workhouses in Ireland not more than half would ever require a second nurse; sometimes they may be required in exceptional cases of epidemics of fevers or special sickness; but, even in that case the amount of money to meet this state of things would be very small. I believe the payment to a trained nurse is not more than £24 or £25 a year, and, if the Imperial grant were responsible for half of that payment, it would simply take £12 or £13 a year for the payment of the second nurse. The payment will not be required for more than 70 or 80, or at the most 100 workhouses. It cannot be construed in an extravagant way, because the guardians will have to pay half the salary and all the rations as well. All that the Imperial Exchequer has to do will be to pay £12 or £13 a year whenever a
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  second nurse is required. The scandals which arose under the system of pauper nursing cannot arise again, because the Local Government Board Order which forbids it is now well carried into effect. But it will be impossible for one nurse to do all the work when there is a considerable amount of sickness about, and a second nurse will probably be found a very cheap investment. Under these circumstances, I think it is necessary for the efficient working of the institution that two nurses should be had occasionally for the smaller workhouses, and permanently in the larger workhouses, and thus the Government would assist that care of the sick poor in the way it ought to be encouraged.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I cannot recommend the adoption of this Amendment to the Committee; the result of it, if it were adopted, would be that we should be having two trained nurses in many workhouses where one would be quite sufficient. What I am very anxious to do, and what this Bill does, is to secure that in every union in Ireland there shall be one trained nurse, and if the large unions require more than one for any special emergency they can very easily arrange to do so. There are. other difficulties in the way of adopting this Amendment—difficulties which it would not be very easy to explain to the Committee; but I may say that if we were at the present moment to ask for all the trained nurses in Ireland—that is, trained nurses coming within the recognised definition of a "trained nurse," and as laid down in the regulations in Scotch workhouses—very serious difficulties would undoubtedly arise. Under these circumstances, I do not think that this is a question which it is desirable that we should raise here.
  MR. JORDAN: It is the same old story; the Chief Secretary has made up

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  his mind, and the Amendment, reasonable as it is, will not be adopted. I can adduce at least one reason why I think the Amendment of the honourable Baronet opposite is a reasonable one. To my certain knowledge I know that the Local Government Board in Dublin at present are insisting upon the guardians appointing additional trained nurses in workhouses. If the Local Government Board are insisting on that, they have a right to pay part of the salary. In the union I am connected with there are three trained nurses, and recently the Local Government Board insisted upon us appointing a trained night nurse. The tendency of the Local Government Board is to altogether supersede the system of pauper assistance by a system of trained nurses. They insist upon guardians appointing trained nurses, and if the guardians do not want them the Local Government Board ought to pay something towards the expense they are causing.
  MR. JOHNSTON: While I hardly think it is desirable to introduce these contentious things into the House, I would ask the Chief Secretary whether it would not be possible for him to give this matter some further consideration. I must myself confess that it seems to me that some further extension of the system of trained nurses is very desirable. I am sure we all admire the careful consideration which the Chief Secretary has given to the whole question, and I would earnestly ask him to consider whether some extension of the provisions of this clause could not be made. One trained nurse, I admit, is quite sufficient for some institutions, but it is not sufficient for all institutions. I would again ask the Chief Secretary if he cannot consider this Amendment favourably.
  MR. CAREW: After the speech of the Chief Secretary it will be taken as an authority by every
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  union in Ireland that no more than one trained nurse is necessary on any occasion. An infirmary requires separate nurses by day and separate nurses by night. Now that the guardians know that the cost will be cast upon them, they will be very much opposed to getting a proper nursing staff. I had an Amendment down extending the Amendment of the honourable Baronet, and following the Scotch precedent of the Treasury not only paying half the Salary, but also the rations, as well. I am sorry that the Chief Secretary has opposed this, and I hope that the honourable Baronet will go to a Division upon it.
  SIR T. LEAsaid that he did not think the right honourable Gentleman's arguments at all conclusive, and that he should not withdraw the Amendment.
  Question put—
  "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 199; Noes 150.—(Division List No. 111.)
  And it being Half-past Five of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow.
  House resumed.

  CANALS PROTECTION (LONDON) BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed for to-morrow.

  SOCIETIES' BORROWING POWERS BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed for to-morrow.
  House adjourned at 5.40.