Sitting of 28 June 1900

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  LONDON (CLERKENWELL AND HOLBORN) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL (BY ORDER).
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  MR. PICKERSGILLsaid this was a Bill confirming an improvement scheme under the Housing Act of 1890, to be carried out by the London County Council. The areas dealt with by the scheme were in the neighbourhood of Holborn, and the number of persons of the working classes who would be displaced by the scheme was about 1,400. The Bill provided that new dwellings for the accommodation of at least 1,400 persons should be erected on the area, but there was no stipulation that the new accommodation, or any quota of it, should be provided before the old dwellings were demolished. His object in moving in the matter was to repair that defect in the Bill, and should he be successful he proposed to take the same course with regard to three other precisely similar London Bills which were on the Paper that day. He would like to say at the outset how cordially he recognised the good work done by the London County Council with regard to the housing of the people, bearing in mind the limited powers which the Legislature had conferred upon that body. They were now in a position to review by the light of experience what had been accomplished, and he thought it could not be denied that in certain respects the results were disappointing. It was due to the London County Council to say that it had removed a certain number of plague spots; but, on the other hand, some of their beneficent schemes had been attended by the most deplorable incident that, in securing the removal of existing slums, they had assisted in the creation of new ones in the immediate neighbourhood. Existing buildings had been demolished before new accommoda-
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  tion had been supplied, and there had been a long period between the displacement of the old population and the provision of new buildings. Meanwhile great hardship had been inflicted upon the poor inhabitants, who had been compelled to seek shelter elsewhere, with the result that the terrible problem of overcrowding had been intensified in the district surrounding the improved area. An experience in his own constituency had made him painfully familiar with these results. It had been stated by the chief sanitary inspector for Bethnal Green that the result of the Boundary Street scheme was to turn 3,000 persons into other crowded parts of his district. [Mr. COLLINGS dissented.] Well, he would not bind himself to that exact figure, but that was substantially the number, and he was in a position personally to corroborate the statement. No doubt the fine buildings which were opened in Bethnal Green the other day by the Prince of Wales constituted a great achievement, but it was worthy of note that they were not occupied by the displaced inhabitants, and that to a very large extent they were not occupied by Bethnal Green people at all. They had been let to persons coming from all parts of London, and even from outside the metropolis. He was surprised to find, indeed, that persons who had previously removed their families some miles outside London had come back to Bethnal Green, because they preferred the substantially-built sanitary dwellings of the London County Council to the jerry-built structures of the speculating builder at Walthamstow or Leytonstone. Now, his object was to prevent the experience of his constituents in Bethnal Green being repeated in other parts of London. He understood it would be quite possible to acquire a site available for the erection of a considerable number of dwellings before demolishing any of those which now existed. They knew what had been the policy of the Local Government Board in these matters, and he desired to see that policy adopted by the Home Office, which was the confirming authority as regarded these schemes so far as London was concerned. The Local Government Board was the confirming authority for improvement schemes outside the metropolis, and he found that when such schemes were brought forward for provincial towns the

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  Local Government Board invariably introduced into the Order a clause similar to that which he desired to impose upon the London schemes. Perhaps the House would permit him for a moment to sketch out the general framework of what he might call the model clause approved by the Local Government Board. [The hon. Member read the model clause.] The House would see that, according to this model clause, provision was made that the demolition of the existing buildings should proceed pari passu with the provision of new dwellings for the accommodation of the persons displaced by the scheme. He wished to press this as strongly as he could upon the attention of the representative of the Home Office, and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley would consent to the postponement of the motion for the Third Reading of this Order, and put himself into communication with the London County Council, so that, by friendly concert between the two authorities some clause framed on the lines he had indicated might be introduced into this and the other Bills they had to consider that day. There could be no difficulty in carrying it out in the case of the Poplar scheme, because there the new dwellings were to be erected, not on the insanitary area itself, but on land in the neighbourhood. Perhaps the more convenient plan for him to adopt would be to move the adjournment of the debate, but he would not do so then, as the effect would only be to restrict the area of discussion. It might, however, be moved later on, and so for the present he would content himself with expressing a sincere hope that the right hon. Gentleman would give to the point he had raised the careful consideration he thought it deserved.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (MR. JESSE COLLINGS,)said he would like to point out to the hon. Member that the postponement of the Third Reading of this Order would delay the scheme for replacing insanitary dwellings by healthy ones, and he did not think the improvement should be put off longer than was absolutely necessary. As to the Home Office entering into communication with the London County Council on the question, he could assure the hon. Member that they were so acting at the present time. If the hon.
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  Member would only look at the Provisional Orders before the House he would find that they were so worded as to give the Secretary of State complete control over the demolition of houses and the building of other houses for the re-housing of the people. That provision was inserted with the express purpose of securing that, so far as was possible, the new accommodation should be provided before the demolition took place. And this was no perfunctory policy on the part of the Department; it was carried out in regard to almost every scheme, and the Home Office was in continual communication with the London County Council in order to secure that end. It was the case that the London County Council were quite willing to co-operate with the Home Office in doing all that was possible in that direction. But in some cases it was physically impossible to carry out such an arrangement; and if the hon. Member would only favour him by examining the details which he would be pleased to hand to him, he would be astonished at the steps the Home Office were taking, in co-operation with the London County Council, to progress in the direction which he desired. It was the case that in most of the schemes which came before the Local Government Board clauses were put in which were far more stringent than the model clause quoted by the hon. Member. But then the cases were entirely different. The provincial Orders dealt with the displacement of far smaller numbers of people than did the metropolitan schemes, and he ventured to assert that there was scarcely a case coming from a provincial town where accommodation could not at once be obtained by the persons displaced. The same could not be said of these great London schemes. With regard to the Poplar scheme 269 people were to be displaced. They were now resident in three small areas, and fortunately the London County Council possessed a vacant area in the neighbourhood upon which they were quite willing to erect houses before demolishing the other buildings. At St. Luke's about 1,000 people were to be displaced. There, however, there were four areas to be dealt with. In the case of one the houses would be destroyed, and fresh ones would be put up before the second area was touched. The same remark applied to Southwark. He thought the hon. Member was singularly unfortunate in selecting

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  the Boundary Street scheme as an instance of the necessity for carrying out his proposal, for he believed it was arranged to divide that scheme into five or six sections, and to complete one section before commencing on another.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: Yes; the original design was admirable, but it was not carried out; and, as a matter of fact, the whole of the area was cleared for a year before a single now building was erected.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid he did not think the hon. Gentleman was quite right in his statement of fact, although he was aware that the original design was modified. He could only repeat that if the hon. Member insisted upon the insertion in the London schemes of a clause of the nature he had indicated the result would probably be to indefinitely delay large metropolitan schemes for rehousing the people. He would point out, further, that the object aimed at was very largely secured under the agreement which had been come to in respect of these four particular schemes, and he hoped, therefore, that the opposition to the Third Reading of the Bill would not be pressed.
  MR. COHENsaid he only desired to affirm, as regarded the London County Council, what had been said by the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that there had been the most absolute cooperation between the Home Office and the London County Council. It was quite true that the London County Council was subject to the control of the Home Office, but it was equally the fact, and that had been acknowledged by his right hon. friend, that they had not sought in any way to obstruct the Home Office or to diminish the obligations incumbent upon them. No doubt, in some cases they had been obliged to demolish old houses before they could put up new ones; but then it was clear that where they only had the one site available it must be cleared before the new building could be erected. He fully sympathised with the object of the hon. Member for South-west Bethnal Green, but he ventured to suggest that if this opposition were persisted in it would retard, if not altogether frustrate, the object which they all had in view.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: For the present I will content myself with the assurances
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  I have received that the Home Office will carefully watch this matter, and secure, as far as possible, that no existing dwellings shall be demolished until new ones have been provided.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

  PRIVATE BILLS [Lords] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders, not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—
  Walsall Corporation Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

  BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION (STOCK) BILL [Lords].
  Read the third time, and passed, without amendment.
  SCOTTISH AMERICAN INVESTMENT COMPANY BILL [Lords]. (BY ORDER.)
  Read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
  SOUTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL, [Lords].
  As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 12) BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.
  LONDON (POPLAR) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL. (BY ORDER.)
  Read the third time, and passed.
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 10) BILL.
  As amended, considered; to be read the third time To-morrow.
LONDON (ST. LUKE) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL. (BY ORDER).
  LONDON (SOUTHWARK) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL. (BY ORDER).
  Read a second time, and committed.
  BARRY RAILWAY (STEAM VESSELS) BILL [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Minutes of Evidence and Proceedings given before the Committee on the Barry Railway (Steam Vessels) Bill, 1898, he referred to the Committee on the above-named Bill.—(Mr. Caldwell..)

  MUIRKIRK, MAUCHLINE. AND DALMELLINGTON RAILWAYS (ABANDONMENT) BILL [Lords].
  Report [26th June] from the Select Committee on Standing Orders read.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.—(Mr. Caldwell.)

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9) BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

  ELECTRIC POWER BILLS.
  Sir JAMES KITSON reported from the Select Committee on Electric Power Bills, That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Tuesday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

  DUBLIN CORPORATION BILL AND CLONTARF URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL (JOINT COMMITTEE.)
  Sir UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH reported from the Joint Committee on the Dublin Corporation Bill and the Clontarf Urban District Council Bill, That the parties opposing the Dublin Corporation Bill had stated that the evidence of George N. M'Murdo, chief clerk of the Irish Lights Commissioners, 94, Rathgar Road, Dublin, and James W. Drury, Local Government Board auditor, Albany Lodge, Monkstown, county Dublin, was essential to their case; and, it having been proved that their attendance could not be procured without the intervention
  1310
  of the House, he had been instructed to move that the said George N. M'Murdo and James W. Drury do attend the said Committee on Tuesday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock, and remain in attendance during the proceedings of the Committee.
  Ordered, That George N. M'Murdo and James W. Drury do attend the Joint Committee on the Dublin Corporation Bill and the Clontarf Urban District Council Bill on Tuesday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock, and remain in attendance during the proceedings of the Committee.

  PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP D).
  Mr. HARGREAVES BROWN Mr. HARGREAVES BROWN reported from the Committee on Group D of Private Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Tuesday next, at Twelve of the clock.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to — Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 1) Bill, Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill, Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill, without amendment.
  That they have passed a Bill intituled, "An Act to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade, under the Gas and Water Works Facilities Act, 1870, relating to East Surrey Water, Hayling Water, Maidenhead Water, Sevenoaks Water, South-West Suburban Water, and Tonbridge Water." Water Orders Confirmation Bill [Lords].
  And also a Bill intituled, "An Act to authorise the Corporation of Manchester to construct additional tramways in and near the city, and to confer further powers upon the Corporation and neighbouring authorities in respect of tramways within and beyond the city; and for other purposes." Manchester Corporation Tramways Bill [Lords].

  WATER ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL [Lords].
  Read the first time; referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 271.]
  MANCHESTER CORPORATION TRAMWAYS BILL [Lords].
  Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
PETITIONS.
  COLONIAL MARRIAGES (DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER) BILL.
  Petition of the Agents General for the Cape, Natal, New Zealand, Tasmania, and the Australian Colonies, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Dundee, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING (SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS).
  Petition from Milford Haven, for alteration of law; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petition from Margate, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL, AND SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS (IRELAND) BILL.
  Petition from Milford Haven, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (No. 2) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Hambleden; Fulham; Marylebone; Watford; Westminster; Shepherd's Bush; Grosvenor Square; Oxford Street (two); Bristol (three); Chelsea (two); Glyncorrwg; Ayr; Fowlmere; Stafford; Stoke-upon-Trent; Wakefield; Scramerston; Norham; Renishaw; Bunhill Fields; Coventry; Tweedmouth; Rugby; Llanarthney; South Bristol; Hull (three); Radcliffe (two); Wolverhampton; Wykefield; Mossley; West Cornforth; Kelloe; New Maiden; Dukinfield: Stalybridge (three); Sheffield; Hexham; and Wigan; to lie upon the Table.

  SUNDAY CLOSING (MONMOUTHSHIRE) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Watchfield; Harringay; Hinckley; New Whittington; Renishaw; Coventry; Llanarthney; Stalybridge (two); Corbridge; Rams-
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  gate; Margate; Dukinfield; Bassaleg; Mynyddislwyn; Newport (Mon.); West Cornforth; Kelloe; Weston-super-Mare; Bristol; Abbey Road; Redditch; Lancaster; Heath Town; and Wigan; to lie upon the Table.

  SUNDAY CLOSING (WALES) ACT (1881) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Petition from Llanarthney, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR (HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION).
  Copy presented, of Telegrams respecting Hospital Accommodation for the Troops in South Africa [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA (RAILWAYS).
  Copy presented, of Administration Report on the Railways in India in 1899–1900, by F. R. Upcott, esquire, C.S.I., Secretary to the Government of India, Public Works Department, Railways [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Copy presented, of Draft Order in Council constituting a Consultative Committee of the Board of Education [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  FISHERY BOARD (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of Eighteenth Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, being for the year 1899. Part III. [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LUNACY (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of General Rules for the government of the Asylum situated at Kirklands, in the county of Lanark [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 2463 to 2467 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (MISCELLANEOUS SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Miscellaneous Series, No. 530 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ARMY (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1900–1901).
  Copy presented, of Supplementary Estimate of the additional amount required in the year ending 31st March, 1901 for expenditure in respect of Army Medical Establishments [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 240.]
QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR — HOSPITAL ARRANGEMENTS AT THE FRONT— MR. BURDETT-COUTTS' CHARGES.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: I beg to give notice that on an early day I will call attention to the military hospital arrangements in South Africa and move a resolution. I also give notice that I will call attention on, I hope, an earlier day to the inconvenient operation of Standing Order 17, and move to add at the end of the clause—"No notice of motion or order of the day shall prevent any such motion from being proceeded with." I shall further ask the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Hawse whether, having regard to the fact—
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I must point out to the right hon. Gentleman that he has given notice of a motion which he is precluded from moving. He has already on the Notice Paper a motion which raises practically the same question as that raised by the second motion of which he has now given notice. Notice of a question must be given in the usual way.
  Mr. JAMES LOWTHER: I will do that, Sir.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the letter of the honourable Member for Westminster, from Cape Town, dated 29th May, on our wars and our wounded; whether the previous letters, written from Bloemfontein early in April, but not published, were communicated by the same hon. Member or any other person to the War Office on their receipt; and, if so, what steps were taken by the War Office to inquire into the condition of the hospitals and the
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  sick in Bloemfontein and other hospital centres; and whether the Government are now in a position to make any satisfactory statement as to the condition of the hospitals and the treatment of the sick in Bloemfontein in the months of April and May last, and generally in South Africa.
  The following questions on the same subject also appeared on the Paper—:
  MR. PAULTON: To ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the allegations concerning the hospital arrangements and equipment in South Africa; what steps are being or will be taken to inquire into and report upon the subject; and who is the official of the War Office directly responsible to the Secretary of State for the sufficiency and efficiency of the provision made for the treatment of sick and wounded on active service.
  COLONEL LOCKWOOD: To ask the Under Secretary of State for War if, in consequence of the public statement made by a Member of this House yesterday with regard to the treatment of the sick and wounded in South Africa, he will cause an immediate inquiry into the allegations made.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: To ask the Under Secretary for War whether, in view of the charges brought against the medical arrangements for the troops in South Africa, he is prepared to make any statement upon this matter.
  *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. WYNDHAM,): I have read the letter of the hon. Member for Westminster. No previous communication has, so far as I know, reached the War Office beyond the short telegram sent to the Commander-in-Chief from Cape Town on June 1st. There are six questions on the Paper arising out of the statements made by the hon. Member, and I understand that my right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury will be prepared to deal with them in reply to a question which stands last on the Paper in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
  MR. DILLON: Arising out of that answer, perhaps I may be permitted to ask the hon. Gentleman to reply to the

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  paragraph in my question which asks whether the letters of the hon. Member for Westminster previous to 29th May came to the knowledge of the War Office through any channel?
  *MR. WYNDHAM: I have answered that we had no previous communication from the hon. Member at the War Office beyond the telegram of 1st June.
  MR. DILLON: The reason that I ask the question is that the answer of the hon. Member to my question just now was not an answer. My question was perfectly distinct. It was whether the communication I have alluded to and what may be described as the suppressed letters of the hon. Member for Westminster—["No!"]—suppressed, I mean, by The Times newspaper, not by the Government—whether these letters did come to the knowledge of the War Office through any channel. The hon. Gentleman's answer was that he had had no communication from the hon. Member for Westminster.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: I know nothing of the letters which The Times newspaper declined to publish.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to a letter from Cape Town dated 29th May last, signed by the hon. Member for Westminster, in which grave defects are described as having existed in the treatment of the sick in South Africa; whether Her Majesty's Government are aware of the facts as described; who is responsible for the state of things alleged; and whether prompt steps have been taken to remedy it.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I think it is perhaps for the convenience of the House that I should endeavour to answer in one reply the numerous questions on what most naturally and properly is felt by the House to be a subject of national importance. I do not understand that anything has come to our notice which suggests that any sufferings of the sick and wounded in South Africa are due to an insufficient supply of medical appliances and comforts sent from this country. The question is rather one of organisation and distribu-
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  tion in South Africa. A certain amount of correspondence, which I hold in my hand, has passed between Lord Roberts and the Secretary of State on the subject, and I propose to lay this correspondence before the House. I hope it will be in the hands of Members in a very few hours—probably before dinner-time this evening. But as the House is feeling so keenly on the subject, perhaps hon. Members will like me to read some material extracts from this correspondence, even if those extracts somewhat exceed in length an ordinary answer to a question in this House. As my hon. friend the Under Secretary for War has stated, the first intimation reached us in a telegram to the Commander-in-Chief from the hon. Member for Westminster on the 4th of June. On the 5th of June the Secretary of State telegraphed to Lord Roberts, and on the 6th of June Lord Roberts sent the reply, which will soon be in the hands of Members, and from which the following extracts are taken—
  "The very existence of my force depended upon the supplies coming up by train along a line of railway nearly 900 miles long, every bridge of which for the last 128 miles had been destroyed by the enemy. Notwithstanding this, I ordered that the requirements of the sick were to be first taken in hand as soon as the rail had been repaired and a few trains of supplies had been got through. The principal medical officer proceeded with the first train to Kroonstad with surgeons and nurses. The field hospital could not be utilised, as we were about to move on again, but No. 3 general and. Scotch hospital had been held in readiness at Bloemfontein to be sent to Kroonstad directly the line was open; this was done, and the former received 180 patients within twenty-four hours of its arrival. I repeatedly visited the hospitals during the short time I was at Kroonstad, and I impressed upon the principal medical officer and Lord Methuen, who was on his way to Kroonstad, to do all that was possible to remedy matters. A few days after my departure I received a report from the principal medical officer that the medical arrangements there were in all respects in good order, while Lord Methuen has since informed me that everything is thoroughly satisfactory. I was deeply distressed at being unable to make suitable arrangements for the sick on our first arrival at Kroonstad; but it is obvious that a certain amount of suffering is inseparable from the rapid advance of a large army in the enemy's country, when railway communication has been destroyed; and such suffering would have been enormously increased had it not been for the prompt manner in which the medical authorities made the best of the very scanty accommodation available at a place little larger than an ordinary English village."

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  Subsequent to that reply of Lord Roberts a further communication was addressed on the same subject by the Secretary for War to the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa on 20th June. On 25th June a reply was sent by Lord Roberts, of which I propose to read this extract—
  "As regards hospitals at the base, before leaving Cape Town I personally assured myself that the arrangements were working satisfactorily, and I have not heard since any complaints about them. When we arrived at Bloemfontein we had an abnormal number of sick, due no doubt not only to the peculiarly exhausting nature of the march, but also to the terrible insanitary conditions of our camp at Paardeberg, where the only water available for drinking purposes Bowed down from the Boer camp a mile and a-half higher up the river, which was crowded with dead animals in a state of decomposition. We also had a considerable number of wounded after the tight on the 10th of March. To hastily improvise accommodation at Bloemfontein for such a large number, which gradually increased up to 2,000 before I left that town, was no easy task. Owing to the rapidity of our march from the Modder no tents could be carried with the force, and none were available until our railway communication with Cape Colony had been restored. As soon as I could arrange for such supplies being placed at Bloemfontein as were necessary for the very existence of the force, I ordered up tents and all necessary appliances for the sick, nurses, more doctors, and more hospitals. Bloemfontein is not a large town, but all suitable public buildings, schools, etc., were made into hospitals. I constantly visited these, and after a very short time they were, I considered, in good order and not overcrowded. … I can quite understand that people who have no practical experience in such matters are much concerned to hear the hardships which sick and wounded soldiers have to undergo in time of war, especially when they are not aware of the many difficulties that have to be contended with in order to alleviate suffering on active service. Such difficulties are sufficiently great in countries in which there are large towns and villages, and easy communication by road and rail from the base of operations, but they have been immeasurably increased in South Africa by the local conditions to which I have already referred. I have no wish to shirk responsibility in the matter or to screen any shortcomings which might be proved against the Royal Army Medical Corps. You state you have been told that the reports of MacCormac and Treves are optimistic, and the conditions have probably changed for the worse since their visit. It is true that neither of these gentlemen took part in any long or difficult march, but two consulting surgeons who are now en route to England—Mr. Watson Cheyne and Mr. Lenthal-Cheatle—have been with this force from the Modder River to Pretoria. I would ask that their opinions on the subject might be ascertained, and I would further suggest that a small committee, consisting of one or two medical men of recognised ability in whom the public have full confidence,
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  together with some men of sound common sense, should be deputed to proceed to South Africa in order to inquire into and furnish a full report on the working of the medical arrangements throughout the war. I will guarantee that they shall have the fullest assistance to enable them to make a searching inquiry into the matter. If their visit should result in ameliorating the conditions of our sick and wounded soldiers during time of war, no one would be more grateful and pleased than myself."
  The Government are of opinion that some such independent inquiry should, at Lord Roberta's request, be placed at his disposal. I think the House has as full information as can be given until hon. Members have the Papers in their hands. The subject, I am aware, is one on which a great deal of public feeling is properly excited, and, in my opinion, where such a state of public feeling exists, it is most desirable that this House should have an opportunity of discussing the question if it so desires. I do not think that a motion for the adjournment of the House would be a convenient method, because the Papers would not be in the hands of Members. In any case, my right hon. friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet has put down what is called a blocking notice, which would prevent the adjournment of the House from being moved [HON. MEMBERS: No, no!] I am so informed; but, however that may be, I think that a far more orderly procedure would be for the House to discuss this question on the Estimates. I propose tomorrow, therefore, that we should depart from the announced order of business, and place an Estimate first on the Paper before the Scotch Votes, to enable the question to be raised. I had originally intended to place on the Paper the Vote for the salary of the Secretary of State, but I have reason to believe that under our rules it would not be possible to discuss the Medical Department on that Vote, because there is a separate Vote for it. I propose, therefore, to place a purely nominal Supplementary Estimate of £5 for the Army Medical Department, to stand first on the Order Paper, in order to give the House the opportunity of discussing this question. I hope the House will feel that I have given all the information I can with a view to publicity.
  *MR. BURDETT-COUTTS: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a question arising out of his answer—whether in Lord Roberts's

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  statement there is any account of the field hospitals about Bloemfontein—any account other than that which he has read of the town hospitals within Bloemfontein, which contained 700 patients out of 2,200? I did not hear them referred to.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I venture to think that we had better not attempt to anticipate the debate of to-morrow by question and answer across the floor of the House. It is a legitimate question, but it can be dealt with adequately tomorrow.

  WAR FUNDS COMMITTEE'S RECOMMENDATIONS.
  MR. KEARLEY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he can state what steps the Government intend taking to give effect to the recommendations of the War Funds Committee presided over by Lord Justice Henn Collins; whether an independent actuarial valuation of the various funds administered by the Patriotic Commissioners is contemplated in order that the surpluses may be made available for the necessities of the present war; whether the minutes of evidence taken before the Committee will be presented to this House; and whether the Government will afford an opportunity for the discussion of the Report before the close of the session.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I believe that the main recommendation of the War Funds Committee, to which all the others are subsidiary, is the constitution of a central council, consisting of the representatives of the central and local relief Committees, who should organise a uniform system of administration to be carried out by local committees. The War Funds Committee consider that such a council would be best organised with the advice and assistance of the local committees, And the subject is now engaging attention. The Government will await the proposals which may be submitted before deciding on the course which they will take. I am not aware of any ground for questioning the accuracy of the periodical valuations of the funds administered by the Patriotic Commissioners. The minutes of evidence and the appendices to the Report of the Committee will be presented to the House. The last question of the hon. Member. I have already answered.

  NUMBER OF ARMED FORCES IN SOUTH AFRICA.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War what has been the total addition by the taking over of colonial Volunteers, enlistment in the country or in any other manner, to the armed forces landed in South Africa between 1st August, 1899, and 31st May, 1900; what number have been landed since 31st May; and what is the number on the sea but not yet landed.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: I am afraid that I do not understand the hon. Member's question. The armed forces landed include, of course, colonial contingents. If he wishes to have the number of colonial as distinguished from British forces, I can only refer him to my statement of 12th March, which placed them actually and prospectively at 21,240 South African, and 8,033 from other self-governing colonies, or 29,273 in all.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: Is that number in addition to the 204,000?
  *MR. WYNDHAM: No, that total included the 8,033 from other self-governing colonies.

  RELEASED BRITISH TROOPS.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War what course it is proposed to take with reference to the 3,500 British soldiers now liberated who have been captured by the Boers, having regard to the provisions in the Queen's Regulations enjoining the holding of a court of inquiry in connection with every case of surrender to discover the circumstances under which the capture was effected.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: Lord Roberts has reported that no blame attaches to the officers who have been released, and that they have been reinstated. No official information has reached the War Office in regard to the liberated non-commissioned officers and men.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, merely as a matter of information, has there been no regular inquiry, and have these prisoners been let loose without any investigation?
  *MR. WYNDHAM: I have given the hon. Member all the information I have. The Queen's Regulations lay down that there shall be an inquiry, and I have no reason to suppose that they have been infringed.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I will inquire myself.

  ROODEVAL ENGAGEMENT, 7TH JUNE.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the attention of the War Office authorities has been directed to the form of the cablegram from the General of Communications, Cape Town, dated 10th June, announcing the capture at Roodeval of the 4th Battalion of the Derbyshire Regiment on June 7th, in which a short list of casualties several days old forms the bulk of the telegram, while the capture by the Boers of a whole battalion is announced at the end of the message, which stated that Stoneham reported many severely wounded, and remaining 4th Derbyshire and details prisoners, except six rank and file in his camp; whether there is any, and, if so, what explanation of the fact that the casualties were made the main feature of the message, and the capture of a whole battalion a minor incident: and whether directions, as in the case of despatches, will be given to make telegraphic communications with reference to the operations of the troops intelligible.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: At the time of despatch of the telegram the General Officer commanding the line of communications was not in possession of any details of the disaster beyond the message from Major Stoneham, the medical officer of the captured hospital, which contained merely a list of casualties. The General Officer forwarded the only information then at his disposal.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the General Officer in future not to put the cart before the horse?

  INOCULATION OF TROOPS AGAINST FEVER.
  MR. J. A. PEASE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he can state how many of the troops inocu-
  1322
  lated with so-called anti-typhoid serum, have had enteric fever in South Africa, how many of those inoculated have since died of enteric fever, and whether any of those inoculated have been invalided home as a direct result of such inoculation; and whether he will state on whose scientific recommendation the Government have been induced to make this experiment on troops sent out to serve in, South Africa.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: In reply to the first paragraph of the question I must refer the hon. Member to the answer on this subject which I gave on Tuesday. The inoculation was entirely voluntary—there was no idea of making experiments, on the troops going out to South Africa. The credit of suggesting the inoculation belongs to the Professor of Pathology at Netley Hospital.

  BOER WAR OF 1881—MEDALS.
  GENERAL RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that medals have recently been issued to the survivors of those who took part in the Red River and other expeditions now of by no means recent date, the Government will also consider the claim of those who took part in the Boer-war of 1881, in connection with which no medal or decoration has as yet been issued, considering the arduous nature of, some of the operations, especially the defence of the garrisons.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: Medals are not granted for campaigns of which the general result was not successful, and the-Boer war of 1881 comes in this category.

  ORANGE FREE STATE-PROCLAMATION AS TO REBELS.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether a proclamation has been issued in South Africa to the effect that any of the inhabitants of the Orange Free State found in arms after a certain fixed date will be treated as rebels.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): Lord Roberts at the end of May consulted Sir A. Milner as to the issue of a proclamation warning the inhabitants that after being made aware

  1323
  of the annexation, they would be liable to be treated as rebels. I have no further information at present. I have telegraphed to inquire what action has been taken.
  MR. DILLON: Can the right hon. Gentleman state whether or not this action of Lord Roberts was taken with the approval of the home Government?
  MR. CHAMBERLAINdid not reply immediately.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Answer, answer!
  MR. DILLON: If the right hon. Gentleman cannot answer the question, I shall put it on the Paper.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Member need not be so hasty. I merely desired to understand what the question (which is put without notice) is about. I am not aware that any action has been taken, and under the circumstances I cannot say whether the action has received the approval of the Home Government or not.

  RESUMPTION OF INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS IN THE TRANSVAAL.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the telegram, dated 7th June, from Sir Alfred Milner, warning miners who had been employed in the Transvaal mines before the outbreak of hostilities, and who had returned to England in consequence of the war, and were then about to start for the Transvaal from Southampton, to postpone their return to South Africa, was published by the authority of Her Majesty's Government; by what authority, whether of the Imperial Government or of the Cape Government, was Sir Alfred Milner empowered to announce that such miners would be delayed at Cape ports, and would not be permitted for a couple of months to return to their work in the Transvaal mines, and by what means is it contemplated to enforce the prohibition of English miners returning to their work in the Transvaal; and, will the Government take any, and, if so, what steps to remove the impediments to the return of the Uitlanders who were before the war working operatives in mines to the Transvaal.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The reply to the first question is Yes. As to the second and third questions, hostilities are still proceeding in the Transvaal, and whatever measures are necessitated by the military situation will be taken and enforced by the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief in South Africa. The resumption of trade and industry will not be delayed a moment longer than the military exigencies require.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Am I not correct in saying that the order came from Sir A. Milner and not Lord Roberts? Was it on the authority of the Home Government or the Colonial Government that Sir A. Milner acted?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I answered the first question in the affirmative. It was on the authority of the Home Government.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the enforced absence of these English miners their places have been filled up by black labour?
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  ALDERSHOT MANŒUVRES—HEAT CASUALTIES.
  COLONEL DALBIAC: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he can state at what period of the day the majority of the men fell out during the field day at Aldershot on the 11th instant; and whether, as on former occasions, most of the mischief occurred during the march home along dusty roads in column of route during the hottest part of the day.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: It has been already stated that most of the men fell out on the return march; and the greater part of the march was through country where there are no made roads.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, having regard to the fact that in August, 1893, in consequence of the sufferings of the troops from the heat of the sun and from thirst and want of food on field days at Aldershot, Sir Evelyn Wood, who was then in command, made a report with strictures on the hardships to which the men had been subjected, and that a divisional order was issued, grounded

  1325
  on that report, which prescribed the giving out of a ration to troops taking part in field days, while commanding officers were made responsible for the examination of men's haversacks and water-bottles to see that the order was made effective; whether he will say if this order was in force at Aldershot on the field day on the 11th instant, and, if not in force, when was it cancelled, and what were the reasons for that course; and, if the order was in force, will he explain why it was not observed on the 11th instant, and state who is responsible for the disregard of its injunctions.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: While Sir Evelyn Wood was at Aldershot an extra Government ration was sanctioned for tactical operations at a distance from the camp, while for operations in the vicinity of Aldershot light refreshments were provided from canteen funds. No alteration has been made in this practice. The commanding officers were made responsible that the men's haversacks and water-bottles were examined before the troops marched off parade. The order has never been cancelled, and there is no ground for supposing that it was infringed on the 11th instant.

  RESERVE REGIMENT OF LANCERS AT BALLINCOLLIG.
  LORD WILLOUGHBY DE ERESBY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if his attention has been called to the fact that there are over 400 men in Her Majesty's Reserve Regiment of Lancers at Ballincollig who have no arms, and, though they have 300 horses, have no bridles or saddles; and that there are over 300 recruits in the regiment learning nothing owing to the want of equipment; and, whether, in view of these facts, he will immediately take stops to arm and equip the regiment or disband it.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: The regiment is completely equipped with saddles and bridles, and with all arms except lances, which are being supplied as fast as possible.

  AIDES-DE-CAMP AND REGIMENTAL DUTY.
  COLONEL WELBY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that officers of
  1326
  Regular regiments, who are employed as aides-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, are not made supernumerary in their regiments by seconding, and that they only do four months duty with their regiments in each year; and whether the experience of the war in South Africa has shown that this limited regimental training is sufficient; and, if not, whether he can see his way to these appointments being limited to officers of the Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers, whose training would not necessarily be curtailed by being thus employed.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: The facts stated in the first paragraph are accurate. There is, however, nothing to show that the officers of the Lord Lieutenant's staff who joined their regiments in South Africa were in any way deficient in regimental training, and it is not thought necessary to make any change in the regulation.
  COLONEL WELBY: Are we to understand that four months training in a year is sufficient for an officer?
  *MR. WYNDHAM: I would not have my hon. and gallant friend draw any such conclusion from the reply.

  VOLUNTEER OFFICERS' OUTFIT ALLOWANCES.
  COLONEL DALBIAC: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if his attention has been drawn to the fact that those Volunteer officers who have recently been gazetted to commissions in the Army have been called upon to refund the £20 outfit allowance drawn by them upon appointment to Volunteer regiments; and whether, having regard to the circumstances of the case, the repayment of this amount may be remitted, as these officers have now expenses for outfits, especially in the case of those appointed from Rifle regiments to ordinary Line regiments, and vice versa.
  COLONEL PEYCE-JONES: I beg at the same time to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the regulations have been brought to his notice under which a late officer of the Volunteers, who has received his £10 part uniform allowance, and after passing his school of instruction is entitled to the second instalment of £10, but who, when subsequently appointed to a lieutenancy in the Army, is

  1327
  obliged to refund this grant-in-aid and is not entitled to receive the second instalment; and will he undertake to reconsider cases of this kind with a view of changing the present conditions.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: In reply to these questions, the matter is receiving consideration, and it is hoped that a final decision will be arrived at within a few days.

  VOLUNTEER CAMPS—MEDICAL OFFICERS.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if, having regard to the fact that the medical experience of a surgeon in the Volunteer force cannot be increased by his watching men going through field training for fourteen days, the pay and allowances of one medical officer for the whole period of camp can be sanctioned, and its allotment be left to the commanding officer among such of the surgeons of a regiment whose practice enables them to be present on certain days.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: The suggestion will be considered.

  VOLUNTEER CAMPS—ALLOWANCES— COMPOSITE REGIMENTS.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if, having regard to the operation of the 50 per cent. rule to entitle a Volunteer battalion to pay and allowances for going into camp for fourteen days, and the number of Volunteers who will therefore be deprived of the training the Government now thinks essential, he will allow provisional or composite regiments to be formed on the same lines as in the past.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: One of the most important objects of the Volunteer camps is to enable the men belonging to battalions and brigades to train together. The object in view would not be attained by the formation of provisional or composite regiments as suggested. The Secretary of State for War does not therefore consider it expedient to permit the formation of such regiments.

  UNDER-AGE RECRUITS—CASE OF PETER WALSH.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State
  1328
  for War whether he is aware that on the 8th instant Peter Walsh, of Donaghmore, county Cork, was enlisted at the Cork barracks upon his own statement that he was over eighteen years of age, and that when Kate Walsh, mother of the lad, applied upon the following day for the discharge of her son, producing at the same time his birth certificate proving that his age was only seventeen, her request was refused, and she was not even permitted access to her son; and whether under these circumstances, and in view of the fact that Peter Walsh was removed to England on the 13th instant, steps will be taken to send him back to his parents.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: I explained on Monday, in answer to a similar question, that, under the regulations, if a recruit is over seventeen years of age his retention in the service rests entirely with the General Officer commanding the district, with whose discretion the Secretary of State does not interfere.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Is it intended to retain this boy in the service against the will of his parents?
  *MR. WYNDHAM: This question has been asked and answered over and over again. It is a matter of uniform practice, when the recruit has turned seventeen years of age, to retain him in the service until the General Officer commanding; decides otherwise.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Why was the mother of the lad refused permission to see him?
  [No reply was given.]
  MR. FLAVIN: Is there, no War Office rule by which a recruit is discharged when he is absolutely necessary for the support of his father and mother?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That does not arise out of the question.

  NAVY—WATER-TUBE BOILERS— H.M.S. "TERRIBLE."
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if H.M.S. "Terrible," fitted with water-tube boilers, sailed from Hong Kong on the 16th inst upon a service of most grave national emergency in the carrying of troops for the relief of

  1329
  British citizens in Peking, and arrived at Ta-ku on the 22nd inst., having accomplished the distance of 1,800 miles in five and a half days, or about 13½ miles per hour; whether, seeing that the vessel has formerly attained a trial speed of 22 miles per hour, any explanation of the falling-off in speed can be given; and whether the Admiralty will telegraph to the Admiral in command for an explanation.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (MR. GOSCHEN,): The hon. Member is wrong in his dates. He states that the "Terrible" arrived on the 22nd. As a matter of fact she landed her troops on the morning of the 21st, so she probably arrived the previous day. We have every reason to believe that the boilers and machinery of the ship are thoroughly efficient. There are no grounds for telegraphing to the Admiral in command on the matter, and I am sure at such a time of strain as this he ought to be troubled with as few demands for explanation as possible.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what speed, according to his own computation, the vessel did make on this voyage?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I am not in a position to make a computation. We do not know whether she accompanied a transport or whether she had to call at any places on the road. I have no doubt she went at the speed she was instructed to travel at.
  MR. ALLAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman inform the House why it was that the vessel did not attain her designed speed of twenty-two knots in the case of a grave national emergency?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I presume because she had no orders to do it.

  BELLEVILLE BOILERS.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the sums of money already spent, and of the still larger sums to be expended in the installation of Belleville boilers in Her Majesty's ships, he will now furnish a full account of the performance of all ships fitted with these boilers.
  MR. GOSCHEN: Many statements have been made to Parliament as to the performances of Her Majesty's ships fitted with Belleville boilers, and I desire to keep Parliament fully informed on the subject. Accordingly, I propose, when Vote 8 comes on, to make a very full statement, a course which I hope will be satisfactory to the hon. Gentleman. It is, however, quite impossible to furnish a full account of the performances of all ships fitted with these boilers, as the performance of the boilers only could not be separated in any Return from that of every detail of the machinery, and the preparation of such a Return would entail great labour upon a Department already overwhelmed with work, and also fail to present a true reflection of the situation, as, I presume, is desired by the hon. Gentleman.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Will the right hon. Gentleman also on that occasion furnish an account of the vessels fitted with water-tube boilers of types other than the Belleville type?
  MR. GOSCHEN: Certainly. I shall deal with the whole question of boilers and machinery.

  BREAKDOWN OF H.M.S. "HERMES."
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Admiralty have now received any explanation of the position and extent of the leakage which rendered Her Majesty's ship "Hermes" helpless in mid-ocean; whether this leakage was in the water-tube boilers; and if it is yet known how long the repairs will take.
  MR. GOSCHEN: The report of the court of inquiry on the breakdown of the "Hermes" has now been received. The chief cause of the breakdown was the inefficient state of the feed pumps, which had been allowed to become so defective that they were not capable of supplying the necessary feed water to the boilers. The court state there is no reason to suppose that the feed pumps were not efficient when the "Hermes" left England, but that the slight defects which arose in ordinary work were increased by injudicious treatment. The distilling apparatus was also working unsatisfactorily. The leakage appears to have taken place from various steam and drain pipe joints, and in some cases

  1331
  from split boiler tubes, and also water was being pumped into unused boilers and escaping through their safety valves. It would be improper to make any statement at present as to the responsibility for the treatment which the machinery received, as the report has not yet been fully considered, and the state of health of the staff engineer in charge did not admit of his exercising the necessary supervision. He has since been invalided. The boilers have been seriously damaged by being worked without sufficient water, and a large number of the tubes will require to be replaced. It is impossible to say at present how long the repairs will take.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Do I correctly understand that the leakage was in the boilers?
  MR. GOSCHEN: The hon. Gentleman had better read my answer. I will not venture to go into any further statement of detail.
  MR. ALLAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman received any report from the inspector of machinery who was sent out to see the vessel, in which it was stated that—
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Notice must be given of that.

  NAVY CHAPLAINS ON THE NORTH AMERICAN AND WEST INDIAN STATIONS.
  *MR.PEEL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether on the North America and West Indies station for eleven vessels of the Royal Navy, carrying an aggregate of over 2,600 men and boys, there is but one chaplain; and whether in the Newfoundland fishery squadron, which for nearly half the year forms an independent command, consisting of four sea-going vessels, carrying over 500 men and boys, there is no chaplain; and, if there is a deficiency of chaplains in Her Majesty's Fleet, will the Admiralty endeavour to supply such deficiency by inviting suitable clergymen to serve on Her Majesty's ships for short terms, such as a year, or during the period for which a ship is in commission.
  MR. GOSCHEN: There are three chaplains on the North America and West Indies station—namely, one at Bermuda, one at Jamaica, and one in the
  1332
  flagship. There is no chaplain borne in the commodore's ship, but at St. John's, the, headquarters of the fishery squadron, there are opportunities of attending divine worship. The majority of the ships on the station have no accommodation for chaplains, but in the case of two of them which have such accommodation a naval instructor has been appointed in lieu of a chaplain and naval instructor (combined), as none of the latter were available. It is hoped that this will be remedied later. There is a deficiency of chaplains capable of acting as instructors, which makes it difficult to supply medium-sized vessels with the number of chaplains desired, but it is not considered to be sufficient to justify the exceptional course suggested in the last part of the hon. Gentleman's question.
  MR. T. M. HEALYWhat is the religion of the chaplains in question?
  MR. GOSCHENwas understood to-reply, "Church of England."

  CHINA—ANTI-FOREIGN OUTBREAK—RECENT OPERATIONS — TIENTSIN AND PEKING.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether there is any news as to events in China.
  *THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. BRODRICK,): Yes, Sir, information received to-day leaves no doubt that Admiral Seymour has been extricated, and Tientsin relieved. We have a telegram dated Tientsin, 24th June, as follows:—
  "News of Commander-in-Chief arrived yesterday, and party leaves to-night to succour him. He had seized a small arsenal north of Tientsin called Wu-ku, and was being bombarded by large number of guns. He was in urgent need of relief, having had about forty-killed and seventy wounded. This news was-brought by a servant of one of the members of the Legation who is fully trustworthy. Foreign settlements were shelled from 18th June to 23rd June. Damage done comparatively alight except in French concession, which has suffered greatly. British Consulate a good deal knocked about. British casualties at Tientsin up to date of relief, four killed and fifty wounded, including in latter six officers."
  Sir Charles Scott telegraphed from St. Petersburg at noon to-day—
  "Further official telegram from Admiral Alexieff, Port Arthur, June 27th During

  1333
  night of 26th, column from Tientsin, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Shirinsky, and consisting of four Russian companies and similar number of foreigners, liberated Admiral Seymour's column, escorting it to Tientsin. 200 of Seymour's column wounded."
  I notice in private telegrams, which give the casualties in greater detail, that the number of wounded is placed much higher. We have no news of the Legations beyond that communicated to the press last night, namely, that Sir R. Hart stated they had orders to leave Peking on 20th June. The allied forces at Ta-ku and Tientsin have now been considerably augmented, but we are not aware what action the commanders propose to take.

  INDIAN TROOPS FOR CHINA SERVICE.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the cost of sending additional troops from India to China is to be borne by the Indian or the Imperial Exchequer.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It will fall on the Imperial Exchequer.

  INDIAN ADMINISTRATION—SEPARATION OF JUDICIAL AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS.
  MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether a memorial in favour of separating judicial from executive functions was forwarded to the Government of India in July, 1899, for consideration and report; and whether any, and, if so, what report on the subject has been received from the Government of India.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,): The memorial to which the hon. Member's question refers was forwarded to the Government of India in August, 1899. I have not yet received the Government of India's report upon it.
  MR. HERBERT LEWIS: When does the noble Lord expect to receive it?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: I cannot say. It is a very large question.

  JAMAICA FRUIT AND MAIL STEAMSHIP SERVICE.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of
  1334
  State for the Colonies whether an estimate for the fruit and mail direct steamship service to and from Jamaica, contracted for by the Crown Agents, will be presented while the contract is lying upon the Table.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The grants in aid for steamer subsidies in the West Indies, viz.: of —5,000 taken on a Supplementary Estimate in July 1898, and of £35,000 included in the original Estimates for 1899–1900, are available to meet, and will more than cover, all payments due in respect to this service.

  ASHANTI—INVESTMENT OF COOMASSIE.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKE: Is there any news from Coomassie?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: None beyond what has been already published.

  THE WAIMA INCIDENT.
  MR. BILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will, before the debate on the Foreign Office Vote is concluded, lay upon the Table of the House a copy of the despatch of the 29th March last, addressed to the French Government with reference to the Waima case; and whether he can now give the House any further information respecting the progress of the negotiations with France on this subject.
  MR. HEDDERWICK: I also wish to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state what stage has been reached in the negotiations with France for compensation to the surviving relatives of the British officers and men killed by French troops at Waima in 1893.
  *MR. BRODRICK: The Note to the French Ambassador respecting the Waima incident cannot be laid at present, as negotiations on the case are now proceeding. It is not possible to make a statement at this moment.

  NORTHERN MACEDONIA — BRITISH CONSULAR STAFF.
  MR. STEVENSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the disturbed condition of affairs in

  1335
  Northern Macedonia, steps have been taken or will be taken to strengthen the British Consular staff in that part of the Balkan peninsula.
  *MR. BRODRICK: Two years ago the British Vice-Consulate, which had hitherto been established at Monastir, was transferred to Uscub because it was considered that the latter place was better situated for the purpose of obtaining trustworthy reports on events in Northern Macedonia. Frequent reports are received from Her Majesty's Vice-Consul there, and Her Majesty's Government do not consider that any grounds exist for creating new consular posts in that part of the country.

  REMOVAL OF GRAVEL FROM GREYSTONES.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that gravel is being taken from the foreshore, below high-water mark, at Greystones, county Wicklow, and sold in Liverpool and elsewhere, and that the occupiers of houses situated near the foreshore have protested against the removal of the gravel; and whether he proposes to take any steps in the matter.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. RITCHIE,): I have received a complaint as to gravel having been taken from the shore at Greystones. I am informed, however, that the greater portion of the gravel so taken has been removed from the beach above high-water mark of ordinary tides, and not from the foreshore. At present I have not sufficient evidence of injury to the coast to justify the issue of a prohibitory Order.
  MR. FLAVIN: Has any member of the public a right to take gravel from above high-water mark, or is it the private property of the owner of the land?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS REGULATIONS.
  *MR.WARR: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether arrangements could be made whereby the Statutory Inspection Committee of Trustee Savings Banks should have an opportunity of considering regulations proposed with regard to Trustee
  1336
  Savings Banks before such regulations are laid before Parliament.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,: If the hon. Member is referring to the Trustee Savings Banks Regulations laid on the Table of the House on the 28th May last, I may explain that they were made by the Treasury under Section 2 of the Savings Bank Acts of 1887 (50 and 51 Vict., c. 40), which requires certain regulations for the Post Office Savings Banks to be extended to Trustee Savings Banks. No functions or duties of the Inspection Committee are affected by those alterations, and it did not appear necessary to consult that body formally in the matter.

  CROWN QUIT RENTS IN IRELAND.
  MR. O'KEEFFE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, seeing that the sum of —37,000 is annually received by the Crown out of the corporate towns in Ireland as quit rents, as is shown by the Returns lately laid upon the Table of the House, whether he can state if any of this impost is or could be applied in use of local taxation.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The annual sum referred to in the question represents quit, etc., rents for lands in all parts of Ireland, and is not received out of corporate towns except to a very small extent. It forms part of the land revenues of the Crown in Ireland, which revenue is by law payable into the Exchequer, and is carried to the Consolidated Fund, and could not be applied as the hon. Member suggests.

  PENNY-IN-THE-SLOT MACHINES.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that complaints have been made by the public owing to the way they are being defrauded out of their money by penny-in-the-slot machines, and that two such machines, numbered respectively 17 and 84, are at present placed within the Victoria Station on the South Eastern and Chatham Railway; and whether, owing to the fact that those two machines are receiving money and at the same time giving nothing in return to the people who contribute their pennies, some steps will be taken to prevent any further defrauding of the general public.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir M. WHITE RIDLEY,): I am not aware of any complaints, and I can only suggest that the hon. Member, or anyone else who has been defrauded in the way suggested should bring an action in the County Court to recover the pennies. I am not aware that there is any evidence of a criminal offence, or that any steps could be taken by the police.
  MR. FLAVIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether inquiry was made into the facts stated in the question, as to the public being actually defrauded?
  *SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: I made some inquiries, and elicited from the policeman who went to look at the machines that one was so much out of order that it returned his height at 5ft. 1in. instead of 5ft. l0in.

  SMALL TENEMENTS — SUMMARY POWERS OF EVICTION—COMMUNICATION TO LONDON MAGISTRATES.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has recently sent a communication to the London magistrates respecting the summary powers of landlords to evict their tenants, and upon the construction of the Small Tenements Recovery Act, 1838; and, if so, will he state why this communication was sent, and will he lay a copy of the circular upon the Table of the House.
  *SIR M. WHITE RIDLEY: The question presumably refers to a letter which was written to the late Sir John Bridge on the 25th of January, 1899, with regard to the construction of the first section of the Act. Different views are taken on the question whether the warrant referred to in the concluding words of the section is valid for execution forthwith or not till twenty-one days after its issue. It appeared that at some of the metropolitan police courts the former view was taken, and at others the latter. Sir John Bridge took the view that the warrant is valid forthwith, though the court may allow its operation to be suspended. This interpretation is supported by the opinion of Sir John Jervis and Sir John Romilly when Law Officers of the Crown, and the Lord Chancellor agrees with it. The letter I have men-
  1338
  tioned requested Sir John Bridge to bring the Lord Chancellor's opinion to the notice of his colleagues, in order, if possible, to obtain their concurrence in the adoption of a uniform principle in the administration of the Act at all the police courts.

  STANDARDS FOR MILK, CREAM, BUTTER, AND CHEESE.
  MR. HEDDERWICK: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether the Departmental Committee, presided over by Lord Wenlock, and appointed to consider whether any regulations as to presumptive standards of quality under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, can be made with advantage in respect of milk and cream, have held any meetings and have arrived at any conclusions; and whether any steps have been taken by the Agricultural Board, in exercise of the powers conferred by the Act, to arrive at presumptive standards of quality in respect of butter and cheese.
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. LONG,): The Committee to which the hon. Member refers have held several meetings, but they have not as yet presented their Report. I have not taken any steps with respect to the setting up of presumptive standards for butter and cheese, because I think it best to wait and see if any action can, in the first place, be taken in the case of milk and cream.

  ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS — EXAMINATIONS IN SHORTHAND.
  MR. YOXALL: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, if it is the intention of the Board to restore in the requirements in shorthand the former rate of forty words per minute.
  THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir J. GORST,): I am not aware that the requirement of the Education Department in shorthand has ever been changed.

  EXPENDITURE ON THE SOUTHALL SCHOOLS.
  MR. SPICER: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he can say whether

  1339
  the expenditure of —12,000 by the Marylebone Guardians on the Southall Schools has provided for an increased number of children, and to what extent this expenditure will increase the cost per head per child.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. CHAPLIN,): Of the —12,000, —3,650 is for the provision of receiving homes, which do not form part of the school at all, although they are built on a site adjoining that of the school. These homes will provide accommodation for thirty-six boys and girls, with overflow dormitories for infants. The remaining expenditure (namely, —8,350) is for the erection of a new infirmary at the school, find the conversion of the old infirmary into class-rooms. This will not provide for an increased number of children. I am not able to give a precise answer to the last part of the question of the hon. Member. But the charge for interest and repayment of principal on a loan of —8,350 is about —438 per annum, and as the number of children in the school is 390 this amount is equal to a little over 5d. per head per week.

  ST. PANCRAS PAUPER LUNATICS— IRREGULARITIES OF RELIEVING OFFICERS.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether he has considered the advisability of holding a Local Government Board inquiry into the irregularities committed by the relieving officers of St. Pancras in the matter of the transfer and custody of pauper lunatics from that union.
  MR. CHAPLIN: I am much obliged to my hon. friend for the opportunity of stating what action the Local Government Board have taken and are taking in this matter. There can be no doubt that the irregularities referred to, unless they are promptly and effectually stopped, would inevitably lead to scandals of the gravest kind, and I have directed an immediate investigation by the Local Government Board into this matter. Apart from the cases referred to there is reason to believe that the system is more or less widely practised elsewhere in the Metropolis. Pending the inquiry therefore, I have directed a communication to
  1340
  be made to the Metropolitan Boards of Guardians to the effect that in the opinion of the Board the practice is altogether indefensible, and that any officer offending in this respect in the future should be dismissed. As to the past, when I have the results of the inquiry before me I shall be better able to judge if any further action on the part of the Board is required.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD—ASSISTANT LABORATORY CLERK.
  MR. YOXALL: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether a clerical assistant with about two years service has been appointed, without examination, assistant laboratory clerk at the Local Government Board at a salary of £120 per annum, rising by annual increments of £5 to £200 per annum; and whether, seeing that there are serving in the Local Government Board twenty-one senior assistant clerks with a service of from fifteen to twenty-seven years, who are only receiving an increment of £2 10s., rising only to a maximum of £150 per annum, and that the appointment referred to does not entail the possession of special technical qualifications, it could have been offered, as some encouragement, to one of the deserving senior assistant clerks in that Department.
  MR. CHAPLIN: As regards the first paragraph the answer is in the negative. In reply to the second paragraph—the appointment, no doubt, could have been offered to any one I selected, but the clerk in question was chosen because he had been employed in the laboratory for some time past, and strong representations were made as to his special fitness for the post by those who were best acquainted with his work and capabilities.

  LIVERPOOL P.O.—TEMPORARY AND PERMANENT STAFF.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the number of the temporary staff employed at the Liverpool Post Office in the sorting and telegraph branches can be stated; whether the learners are regarded as temporary clerks; and, if so, whether their service is to count for pension purposes; and whether, in view of the increase of work,

  1341
  the Postmaster General will consider the advisability of increasing the permanent staff.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HANBURY,): The temporary staff of these branches at Liverpool comprises thirty-one males and three females. Learners are not regarded as temporary clerks. Their service, being part time only, does not count for pension. A revision of the Liverpool staff is under consideration in connection with the removal to the new post office, and an increase in number will be provided for.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I have been unable to hear a word of the right hon. Gentleman's reply. Will be supply me with a copy of the answer?
  MR. HANBURY: Certainly.

  LIVERPOOL P.O.—APPOINTMENTS TO INSPECTORSHIPS OF MESSENGERS.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether in the Liverpool office inspectors of messengers have been appointed to perform work previously allotted to telegraphists; whether such duties involve a monetary responsibility; and whether, in view of the decision of the Postmaster General upon this subject in 1896, instructions will be given that telegraphists are to perform these duties as heretofore.
  MR. HANBURY: It is in contemplation to create six appointments to the class of inspector of telegraph messengers at Liverpool. The duties attaching to these places have hitherto been performed by sorting clerks and telegraphists, but they more properly belong to the class of inspectors. Beyond the payment of the weekly wages of messengers, the only monetary responsibility involved is the custody of a small sum used for paying out locomotion charges on the delivery of telegrams, etc. The hon. Member's reference to a decision of the Postmaster General in 1896 is not understood.

  BRIGHTON P.O.—EFFICIENCY BARRIER —CASE OF SIMMONS.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General,
  1342
  whether his attention has been called to the case of a telegraphist named Simmons, of the Brighton office, who has been stopped at the efficiency barrier for incompetence; whether, since the notification Simmons has been at times in charge of the instrument gallery, relieving an assistant superintendent; and whether, in view of the fact that Simmons has been denied access to a class of operators on the ground of alleged inefficiency, the Postmaster General will re-consider his decision in view of the fact that Simmons' superiors consider him able to supervise the work of other telegraphists.
  MR. HANBURY: I replied to the questions on this case put by the hon. Member on the 17th and 24th of last month.* The duties on which Mr. Simmons has been employed since that date are those of the rank and file, except that on Saturday the 16th instant he was, as the senior sorting clerk and telegraphist present, in charge of the instrument room during the absence of the assistant superintendent from 10.10 p.m. to midnight, a time when the work is very small. Mr. Simmons is afforded every facility for improving himself in the knowledge of those duties in which he is deficient, and it was owing to this arrangement that he was the senior sorting clerk and telegraphist on duty on the night of the 16th inst. The Postmaster General regrets that the circumstances are not such as to justify an alteration of the decision already given.

  PROMOTED ABSTRACTORS—RETENTION OF ALLOWANCES.
  MR. STEADMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether, in view of the fact that the Treasury, has agreed that in the Customs an abstractor holding a personal allowance of £30 shall be permitted to count it as salary upon promotion to the second division, there is any reason why an abstractor holding a personal allowance in the Board of Trade is not permitted to count his allowance as salary upon promotion to the second division.
  MR. HANBURY: If the hon. Member will kindly furnish me with the
  * See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxiii., pages 416 and 1113.

  1343
  particulars of the cases to which he refers, I will cause inquiry to be made.

  GREENOCK SCHOOL BOARD— CHILDREN'S PRIZES.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that it is customary for the School Board of Greenock to provide children's prizes from the public rate; and whether such a practice is in conformity with the Education Act, which provides that such rate is only to be used for purely educational purposes.
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): I am aware that the School Board of Greenock, like many school boards in Scotland, provide prizes out of the school fund. The Department is advised that the Education Acts do not make it illegal to provide book or other similar prizes at the cost of the school fund, if the school board is satisfied that the efficiency of the school is thereby promoted.

  IRELAND—TENANT PURCHASER, D. ALLEN.
  MR. MURNAGHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a caution against the registration of a deed to John Woods, of the farm of David Allen, Cabragh, Irvinestown, sold in March for non-payment of one half-year's annuity (afterwards paid to the Land Commission and receipted for by receivable order), was, without evidence, ruled out by the registering authority simply on a letter from the Land Commission; is he aware that in ordinary cases the registering authority is particularly strict as regards evidence; can he state why there was an exception in Allen's case; and if he can hold forth a hope that the case of this man will be reconsidered.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. G. W. BALFOUR,): The holding referred to was sold by the Land Commission under their statutory powers, and the registering authority was so informed. The purchaser has been put into possession, and the sale to him is now complete.

  ULSTER RATE COLLECTIONS.
  MR. ARCHDALE: On behalf of the hon. Member for Mid
  1344
  Armagh, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is he aware that in several towns in Ulster the collectors of the county council refuse to receive from ratepayers the sum separately mentioned in the poor rate receipts as due in respect of union charges without payment at the same time of the sums due on foot of county at large charges; and whether the action of the collector in this respect is in accordance with the regulations of the Irish Local Government Board.
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The action of a poor rate collector in refusing to accept a part payment of the poor rate is correct. The rate due is one entire sum, although made up of various items of expense, and the collector can only issue one legal receipt for the full amount. He is expressly forbidden by Article 13, Subsection 3 of the County (Poor Rate Collectors) Order, 1899, to give any other receipt whatever.

  LICENCE TRANSFERS AT ROCKCORRY PETTY SESSIONS.
  MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the agent for Lord Dartrey's estate, county Monaghan, applied for and was granted a transfer of a spirit licence at the Rockcorry Petty Sessions on Thursday last, although the agent is a magistrate for the district in which he obtained the transfer in his own name; and can he state what are the circumstances which led to this application for the licence, and who were the magistrates who granted the licence, and whether he proposes to take any steps in the matter.
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: Mr. Leslie, a justice of the peace for the district of Rockcorry and agent of Lord Dartrey, obtained the transfer, until the next quarter sessions, of licensed premises which he had purchased from the executors of a deceased publican, a tenant on the estate mentioned. The justices who granted the transfer were Messrs. Henry and McCabe, and there seems to be nothing in the matter calling for any intervention on the part of the Government.
  MR. MACALEESE: Was Mr. Leslie an acting justice of the peace at the time he held the licence?
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: I must ask for notice.

  R. I. C. JUBILEE FUND.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with reference to the Jubilee Fund of the Royal Irish Constabulary, whether inquiry will be made with a view to ascertain how far the force, who own the fund, have any voice in its management; and whether steps will be taken to have it placed entirely under the control of the subscribers.
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: As I have already stated this fund is not one over which the Government exercise any control, and any suggestions as to changes in its management should be made to the Committee of Management or to the Inspector General.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Will steps be taken to ascertain the views of the subscribers?
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: I have nothing whatever to do with the matter.

  LORD LANSDOWNE AND HIS TENANTS.
  MR. T. J. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the number of ejectment decrees granted at the last Caherciveen Quarter Sesssions at the suit of Lord Lansdowne against his tenants.
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The number of such decrees granted was four.
  MR. FLAVIN: How many people has the noble Lord turned off his estate?
  [No answer was given.]

  IRISH RATE BOOKS.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that it is now impossible, owing to the form of the new rate books, for clerks of unions to supply the Income Tax Commissioners with copies of the rate books showing particularly the names of the immediate landlords of every holding, and for the poor rate collectors who are
  1346
  requested, when furnishing their lists of tenements requiring revision, to insert the names of the immediate lessors; and, whether, seeing that the omission will lead to complications where the same tenant holds from two different landlords on the same townland, and that the form now issued is a departure from the form prescribed in the order of the Local Government Board, dated 19th April, 1899, he will advise the Local Government Board to order the names of immediate lessors to be inserted in the rate books.
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The County Councils Order of the 18th April, 1899, prescribes a form of rate book which contains a column for names of immediate lessors liable to be rated. The Local Government Board have never prescribed any other form, but, to meet as far as possible the wishes of certain county councils to have the number of columns in the rate book reduced, the Board prepared an alternative form of rate book, in which a column is given for "the name of person rated" only. The notes on the form show that where the immediate lessor is rated the name should be underlined. In this way the immediate lessors can be at once identified. I am not aware what particulars are required by the Income Tax Commissioners, but the form of collectors' book prescribed by the County (Poor Rate Collectors) Order of 17th April, 1899 (which has not been altered), contains a column in which the collector is to insert all information which may be necessary for the purposes of the Valuation, Registration, and Jurors Acts.

  TARBERT AND KILRUSH STEAMERS.
  MR. O'KEEFFE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, as President of the Board of Works in Ireland, if he will direct that the steamer at present running under Government subsidy from Tarbert to Kilrush should commence plying in future from Foynes, midway on the River Shannon, and thereby give additional facilities for tourists to visit Kilkee and the coasts of county Clare.
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The Member is under a misapprehension in describing the Chief Secretary as President of the Board of Works in Ireland. I have no power to give the direction

  1347
  suggested in the question, but the Board of Works are in hopes of carrying out such an extension of the existing service between Tarbert and Kilrush as will enable the steamer to call at Foynes.

  ARREARS OF TITHE RENT—PROCEEDINGS FOR RECOVERY.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland in how many cases during the last two years have proceedings been taken on the equity side of the county courts for recovery of arrears of tithe rent.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): During the period mentioned in the question, proceedings of the nature referred to were taken in three cases.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether the Land Commission can state approximately what amount of costs of proceedings, receiver's fees, receiver's solicitors' fees, passing accounts and discharging receivers have been paid by the owners of tithe rent during the last two years for which accounts are complete.
  MR. ATKINSON: It is presumed that the hon. Member refers to tithe rent-charge payers, not "owners." The Land Commission have no information on that part of the question which relates to receiver's fees, or receiver's solicitors' costs, either for passing accounts or for discharging receivers. The approximate amount paid to the Land Commission for costs incurred by them in appointment of receivers during the two years ending 30th June, 1900, is £240.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether complaints have reached him that receivers are appointed for the recovery of arrears of tithe rent-charge in many cases in which the costs of proceedings, receiver's fees, receiver's solicitors' fees, passing accounts and costs of discharging receivers far exceed the amounts originally due; and whether he can say in how many cases during the last three years receivers have been appointed in respect of sums (a) under £10, (b) under £20, and (c) under £50.
  MR. ATKINSON: The first part of this question docs not appear to refer ex-
  1348
  clusively to the Land Commission, as lay impropriators have similar powers of procedure, but in most of the cases in which the Land Commission receive tithe rent-charge from receivers appointed by the Court of Chancery the receivers have been appointed at the suit of parties other than the Land Commission. During the period mentioned in the second paragraph, receivers were appointed in two cases in respect of sums under £10; in four cases under £20; and in six cases under £50. In four of these twelve cases the costs of the Land Commission exceeded the actual debt due to the Commission, but no other proceedings would have enabled the Commission to realise their debt.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland if he will state who appoints the receivers in cases for recovery of arrears of tithe- rent; how and on what principle they are selected; and why the solicitor to the Land Commission does not act as receiver.
  MR. ATKINSON: The receivers in such cases are in variably appointed by the Land Judge, who usually appoints the district receiver nearest to the lands as the person who can most conveniently and advantageously collect the rents. It is not the practice to appoint the solicitor for parties to proceedings as receiver under the Court.

  CELTIC GOLD ORNAMENTS AND THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
  LORD BALCARRES: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General if a coroner's inquisition, as recommended by the Irish Crown Solicitor, was held upon the gold ornaments found at Limavady, which were recently placed in the British Museum, and are alleged to be treasure trove, and if any evidence on oath has been taken in relation to the discovery of these objects; whether it has been proved that no express grant of the franchise of treasure trove has been established in the district in question; whether the Irish Crown Solicitor stated that the information upon which he held the ornaments to be treasure trove was obviously unsatisfactory; and whether he can state the decisions given in cases where articles of silver and gold have been discovered in the earth without there being any presumptive evidence of their having been of ancient time hidden.
  MR. ATKINSON: My right hon. friend has asked me to reply to this question. The reply to each of the three questions contained in the first and second paragraphs is in the negative. The Irish Crown Solicitor made the statement mentioned in a certain communication made by him to the Treasury, but a reference to the context will show that by the word "unsatisfactory" he intended to convey that the evidence then forthcoming was not as full and detailed as was desirable. I cannot possibly answer the last question in the form in which it is put, but I will be happy to furnish my noble friend with the authorised reports of two of the most recent cases on treasure trove, where he will find the principle of law applicable to the subject discussed and determined.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Will the opinions of the Law Officers referred to be communicated to the House?
  MR. ATKINSON: That has already been done.

  REDEMPTION OF TITHE RENT-CHARGE.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General if he will state what is the procedure usually taken by the Land Commission, and what are the costs and expenses usually and necessarily incurred before redemption of tithe rent, and whether any effort is made to settle or compromise with the owners.
  MR. ATKINSON: No charge of any kind is made by the Land Commission either by way of costs or expenses, in connection with the redemption of tithe rent-charges. As the redemption price in cases of voluntary redemption is fixed by Statute (35 and 36 Vict. c. 90, s. 7), no question as to compromise can arise. In cases under the Purchase Acts the redemptions come under Section 37 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1896, and the Land Commission are empowered to order the redemption at a price of not less than twenty times the net amount of the charge after allowing for poor rates.

  WEST COAST OF IRELAND FISHERIES.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture for Ireland whether he is aware that
  1350
  loss and injury has from time to time been inflicted on the owners and fishermen engaged in mackerel fishing off the west coast of Kerry, especially in the Cahirciveen and the Shannon mouth districts, by the illegal interference of trawlers; and whether there is any bye-law in existence in those districts for the better protection of the fishing boats engaged in the fishing industry; and, if not, will instructions be given to the Fishery Board to hold such inquiry as may be deemed advisable, with the object of making such necessary bye-laws.
  THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR IRELAND (Mr. PLUNKETT,): There is no bye-law in force prohibiting trawling in the mouth of the Shannon, and no application for a bye-law has ever been received. If, however, an application be made to the Department by persons interested and who are in a position to give evidence on the subject, an inquiry will be hold as soon as practicable. With regard to trawling in the other waters referred to in the question, namely, between Dunmore Head and Scariff Island, I have nothing to add to my reply to the hon. Member's previous question of Monday last on the same subject.
  MR. FLAVIN: Is it not the fact that complaints were made to the captain of the gunboat "Argus," and that he was asked to prevent this illegal trawling, but he found he could not interfere because there was no bye-law in existence? Were not the inspectors then set on to make inquiry?
  MR. PLUNKETT: I believe the Fishery Inspectors are making further inquiry.

  IRISH SCIENCE TEACHERS' FEES.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture and Industries of Ireland whether the science teachers in England are admitted free to the summer course and their fares paid from distant parts and an allowance given for their sustenance while in London, while the Irish teachers have to pay a fee of —2 and have no allowance whatever for expenses of railway fare or sustenance; whether he is aware that about eighty Irish teachers attended the

  1351
  summer course last year under these circumstances, and that 158 attended in London with much greater advantages; and whether steps will be taken immediately to equalise the financial terms of Irish and English teachers attending the summer science classes.
  MR. PLUNKETT: Summer courses for teachers in Ireland at the Royal College of Science, Dublin, were sanctioned experimentally in 1899. The courses were intended for the intermediate school teachers for whom there were previously no such facilities. The charge of £2 is made only to teachers belonging to institutions not connected with the Science and Art Department or the National Board of Education, but of the eighty-one teachers who availed themselves of the courses in 1899, only three paid this fee. Exactly the same facilities are offered to all trained teachers, qualified under the rules of the Board of Education, South Kensington, to teach science classes, in Ireland as in England. They receive railway fare, and, when coming from Ireland, first - class steamboat fare, and an allowance not exceeding £3 towards their expenses. Out of 185 teachers who attended at South Kensington last year, fourteen came from Ireland. The science teachers of England and Ireland referred to in the question are in fact on a different status. Those who come to London are trained and recognised teachers, whether English or Irish. The Irish course is, however, intended to train hitherto untrained teachers.

  BRITISH MUSEUM BILL.
  MR. BIRRELL: I beg to ask the right hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs what course he proposes to take with respect to the British Museum Bill standing on the Orders for Second Reading this day.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I need not recall to the House the fact that was stated the other day from the Government bench—that this Bill was framed and introduced at the request of the Treasury, and that its introduction was made a condition precedent to their taking into consideration certain proposals made by the trustees for the extension of their buildings. The First Lord of the Treasury told the House—and he has
  1352
  since communicated the view to the Trustees—that this Bill is a Government measure, and that the Government are responsible for it. At the same time he says very fairly that he is unable to take any steps for pressing the Bill forward, or for helping me to do so, unless it be clear that the Bill is unopposed or non-contentious. I am afraid, from all the signs that one may read in the Parliamentary sky that it is by no means likely to be an unopposed measure, but that, on the contrary, it will give rise to a great deal of contention.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Hear, hear!
  MR. J. MORLEY: My right hon. friend cheers that prophecy. I can only say that the evil to be remedied by this Bill is a very real one. We have found that the museum is obliged by law to receive, lodge, sort, and catalogue great quantities of printed matter which, in my opinion, no rational man would desire to preserve; and whatever course be taken by the Government in respect of this Bill the evil will one day or another have to be remedied, as the newspapers are increasing at a most formidable rate. But, seeing that the undertaking of the right hon. Gentleman is so qualified, I think I shall best do what I desire to do—that is, consult the convenience of the House—by not asking him to take up the time of the House in reading a second time a Bill with which there is practically no intention of proceeding. Therefore, I would propose to withdraw the Bill, in the expectation that Her Majesty's Government will, during the recess, consider the expediency of asking the House for a vote of £100,000, which, in addition to the £50,000 of bequest now in our hands, will enable us to provide storage for the newspapers and other matter for a period of thirty years. I repeat that the evil remains to be dealt with, and if any Member of the House is able to propose a method of dealing with the problem in a manner more satisfactory than that of the present Bill, the trustees, at all events, will offer no opposition.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Could not the trustees find a little more storage room by giving us back our gold ornaments?

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he can state

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  when it is proposed to take the Local Government Board Vote.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I can give no information at the present moment.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Having regard to the important announcement made by the First Lord of the Admiralty, can the Leader of the House say when the Shipbuilding Vote will be taken?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think it is convenient to arrange for taking Votes a long while beforehand. If my hon. friend will put a question on Monday I will then say if we can take the Vote next Friday.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: In what order will the Scotch Estimates be taken to-morrow?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I imagine in the order they appear on the Paper.

STANDING COMMITTEES (CHAIRMEN'S PANEL).
Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR reported from the Chairmen's Panel, That they had appointed Mr. Arthur O'Connor to act as Chairman of the Standing Committee for the consideration of Bills relating to Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, in respect of the Companies Bill; and Mr. Laurence Hardy to act as Chairman of the Standing Committee for the consideration of Bills relating to Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, in respect of the Money-lending Bill [Lords].
Report to lie upon the Table.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to the County Surveyors (Ireland) Bill and the Naval Reserve (Mobilisation) Bill.
That they have passed a Bill intituled, "An Act to amend the Reserve Forces Act, 1882." Reserve Forces Bill [Lords].
Also a Bill intituled, "An Act to amend the Military Manœuvres Act, 1879, and to give further facilities for Rifle and Artillery Practice." Military Manœuvres Bill [Lords].

HOSPITALS (EXEMPTION FROM RATES).
That they give leave to the Marquess of Bristol to attend in order to his being examined as a Witness before the Select Committee appointed by this House on Hospitals (Exemption from Rates), his Lordship, in his place, consenting.

TITHE RENT-CHARGE (IRELAND) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order for Second Reading read.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. G. W. BALFOUR,): This subject has already been brought before the House twice—once last year by myself upon the introduction of a substantially identical measure, and again in the early part of this session by my right hon. friend the Attorney General for Ireland. The changes which this Bill, if placed upon the statute-book, will make in the existing law fall into two classes—first, changes relating to the machinery for varying tithe rent-charge in Ireland; and, secondly, provisions which are designed to relieve the payers of ecclesiastical tithe rent-charge from certain grievances under which they suffer arising out of the Church Acts of 1869 and 1872. In dealing with the provisions relating to machinery for varying the tithes, we propose to alter both the standard of variation and also the procedure by which that variation is carried out. In order to make known to the House our reason for making these changes it will be necessary for me to very briefly describe the system hitherfore existing in Ireland. Prior to the Act of 1823 all Irish tithes were paid in kind by the occupier. After 1823 money compositions were substituted for payment in kind; and the amount of such compositions was arrived at by agreement between tithe-owner and tithe-payer, or was assessed by special Commissioners. Of course while tithes were in kind, the value of the tithe varied with the value and amount of the product. This character of variability was retained in the money compositions, the standard of variation being the septennial average prices of wheat or oats as the case might be, and the average prices were to be taken from the Dublin

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Gazette. Whether wheat or oats was used as the measure depended upon the particular corn mentioned in the certificate of composition for each parish. The Act of 1838 converted tithe into tithe rent-charge, and transferred the liability for its payment from the occupier to the landlord. It became, in fact, what its name implies—a charge upon rent; but this charge was fixed at 25 per cent. less than the previous money composition. The new tithe rent-charges, however, remained variable with the price of either wheat or oats, as ascertained from the Dublin Gazette, just as the old compositions had been variable, and the procedure by which the variation was to be carried out deserves special attention in connection with the proposals we make in this Bill. The first point that strikes one is that the Legislature took better care of both tithe-owners and tithe-payers in England than it did in Ireland. In England machinery was provided by means of which the rent-charge was varied automatically every year, according to the septennial average prices of wheat, barley, and oats for the preceding seven years. This is carried out without expense or trouble to either tithe-owner or tithe-payer. In Ireland no such machinery was provided. It was left to the tithe-owner, or to at least three tithe-payers (each liable to pay £3 yearly for tithe rent-charge) to move in the matter at his or their expense. Assuming that three rent-charge payers could be found in a parish willing to move in the matter, they were restricted in taking action to a particular year, once in every seven years, and to a particular time in that year—namely, between 1st May and 1st October. The particular year in which action could be taken depended upon the date of the certificate of composition, and this was an uncertain date, varying in every parish, as the compositions were established at dates ranging over the years 1823 to 1838. But assuming that these facts were not lost sight of by the rent-charge payers or the tithe-owner, no variation could be made unless the particular kind of corn to be followed as the standard of variation was greater or less by one-tenth than the price mentioned in the certificate of composition of that kind of corn. Assuming, further, that the parties moving in the matter were satisfied that they had a good primâ facie case, they still had before them the
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technical procedure of notices to be served and proofs to be given, and if in these their case broke down they had to wait another seven years. It cannot, therefore, be surprising to find, as the result of such legislation, that out of 2,450 parishes it appears, after careful inquiry, that only sixty passed through the formidable ordeal of variation between 1838 and 1872. There may be a few more than this number, but something very trifling. There are entire counties, and nearly entire provinces, in which the rent-charge remains to this day the same in amount as when it was established. Subsequent to 1872 the fall of prices has naturally stimulated payers of tithe rent-charge to make applications for the variation of the charge. But within the last two or three years, over and above the difficulties of procedure which I have described, a further and final obstacle has absolutely barred the way to the success of any such application. This obstacle has arisen out of a decision of the Appeal Court, the effect of which is that owing to irregularities in the publication of corn averages in the Dublin Gazette the payer of tithe is practically deprived of his right to have the charge varied, and variations actually carried out in the tithe rent-charge on the basis of those averages have been declared invalid. This is a manifest injustice. Finding ourselves under the absolute necessity of providing a remedy, and being further pledged to redress certain other grievances affecting the payer of ecclesiastical tithe rent-charge, we judged it best to deal with the whole question of tithe rent-charge in a comprehensive spirit, and attempt a general reform of the system, which has always been exceedingly cumbersome, and which, in consequence of the change which has taken place in Irish agricultural prices, is now antiquated as well. The changes we propose are twofold. We propose to make the procedure automatic; and we propose to establish a new standard of variation. With respect to the first of these changes, I hardly anticipate that any serious objection will be offered to the principle. The complicated technicalities and innumerable legal pitfalls which the existing system presents make it really indefensible; and in face of the fact that in England an automatic system is in use, it will hardly be contended that this part of

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our reform, in principle at least, is not legitimate and desirable. As regards the new basis of variation, there may perhaps be more difference of opinion. It may be asked, "Why not be content to correct and make good the irregularities which have occurred in connection with the publication of corn averages in the Dublin Gazette, and go on as before." One answer to this is that if variation is to be made automatic, it is desirable to have some simpler measure of variation than average prices —in some parishes of wheat, in others of oats—as compared with the average prices of these cereals at dates differing with the date of the certificate of composition in each parish. But a still more important consideration is this, that in consequence of the changes which have come over Irish agriculture, and the wide discrepancy in the variations in the price of wheat as compared with that of oats, the old basis of variation of tithe rent-charge has become capricious to the point of absurdity. No sane man would dream of adopting it to-day, if a system of variation had to be established for the first time; and if we are to touch this question at all with a view to greater simplicity of procedure, the problem of reform in the standard of variation is almost forced upon us. It is to be remembered in connection with this matter that the original composition or money payments fixed for tithes in any parish were not fixed or agreed to by reference to the one cereal standard mentioned in the tithe certificate for subsequent variation. The compositions were for the value of ail tithes in kind in the parish. The ancient law was "of common right tithes are to be paid of such things only as do yield a yearly increase by the act of God," and not only included cereals but clovers, beans, peas, flax, turnips, potatoes, calves, colts, lambs, wool, etc. The cereal mentioned in the certificate was for variation only. At the time of the Tithes Acts in Ireland (1823 to 1838), before the days of importation, wheat and oats were widely grown and their prices were relative to other agricultural products and to each other. It was a comparatively reasonable standard at that time, but now the absurdity, I may say the irrelevancy, of the old standards of variation at the present day may be judged by the following figures relating to the provinces of Leinster and Munster. In Leinster, wheat is the standard in 60
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per cent. of the parishes, oats in the remaining 40 per cent. In Munster, wheat is the standard in 55 per cent., and oats in 45 per cent. But to day wheat has almost ceased to be grown in either of these provinces. The average annual acreage under wheat fifty years ago was, in Leinster, 195,000, in Munster, 160,000 (in round figures). The average annual acreage in the septennial period from 1892 to 1899 was, in Leinster, 14,748, and in Munster, 17,245—a fall in Leinster from 195,000 to 14,000, in Munster from 160,000 to 17,000! From these figures it appears that though wheat has practically disappeared as a test of agricultural products or their values in Leinster and Munster, nevertheless, if the old system for tithe variation was maintained, in more than half the parishes in those provinces the variation would be calculated on the standard of wheat, the price of which is now, owing to importation, American gambling, and other reasons, 60 per cent. to 50 per cent. lower than it was in 1821 or 1872. Oats, on the other hand, which rather more than held its price per barrel up to 1872, although it has fallen in price since then, has not fallen by much more than 20 per cent. The maintenance of the whole system would, therefore, in adjoining parishes in these provinces produce the most uneven, arbitrary, and capricious differences, which could not be justified by any present difference in agricultural prosperity between them, or in the power to pay the charge as tested by the alteration in rents under the Land Acts. In Ulster and Connaught the general result is the same, though the case is not quite so strong. These arbitrary discrepancies, resting on the mere accident whether wheat or oats was the cereal mentioned in the tithe certificate, might be tolerated under a system in which legal difficulties made the variations few and far between, but I venture to say they would no longer be thought tolerable under an automatic system, in which they would become patent and glaring. In these circumstances some change in the basis of variation appears to me to be imperatively called for. Other standards might possibly be suggested. But, having regard to the nature of tithe rent-charge, which in name and essence is a charge upon rent, I think I am justified in contending that our proposal to vary the charge in proportion to the average variations in

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judicial rents, is at once the simplest, the most equitable, and the most appropriate. I pass now from the question of procedure to the ecclesiastical tithe rent-charge, as distinguished from the lay tithe rent-charge, and I am quite conscious I am treading on more controversial ground, or at any rate on ground which hon. Gentlemen opposite choose to regard as controversial. I presume it is to this part of the Bill that the hon. Member for East Mayo more especially objects.
MR. DILLON: Hear, hear.!
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: Our proposals in this direction have been described as proposals for grabbing the Church Fund, and the hon. Member for East Mayo has described them as indecent and outrageous. During five years experience as Chief Secretary for Ireland I have frequently listened to similar descriptions of measures emanating from the Government, but I find some difficulty in taking the hon. Member seriously on this occasion. If, however, I could induce him to be impartial, I should not altogether despair of convincing even him that the provisions of the Acts of 1869 and 1872 imposed grievances on the payers of ecclesiastical tithe rent-charge which claim the consideration of Parliament, and that our proposals are really moderate and reasonable. The proposals in this Bill which will affect the resources of the Church Fund are four in number. First, to reduce the period of currency for the redemption of tithe rent-charge annuities from fifty-two to forty-five years; secondly, in the case of unredeemed ecclesiastical tithe rent-charge, to restore with modifications its original character of variability; thirdly, to withdraw the right of redeeming such tithe rent-charge for the future except in the case of transactions under the Land Purchase Acts; fourthly, to make new provision with respect to the deduction of poor rate from tithe rent-charge. Which of these proposals excites the indignation of the hon. Member for East Mayo? It cannot be the third or fourth, because they will increase and not diminish the resources of the Church Fund; and it can hardly be the first, because every fair-minded man must regard that as unanswerable and irresistible. The annuities run at present for fifty-two years at £4 9s. per cent. on twenty-two and a
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half years purchase of the net tithe rent-charge purchased. Mr. Gladstone distinctly stated, when introducing the Church Bill in 1869, that the rate of interest to be charged on the instalment was to be 3½ per cent. But, as a matter of fact, a fifty-two years term involves a rate of interest not of £3 10s., but of £3 16s. 4d. per cent.; and conversely, if the interest is taken at £3 10s. per cent., the period for which the annuity is to run should be forty-five, not fifty-two, years. Objection to this provision of the Bill must therefore be made on either of two grounds: First, that a 3 ½ per cent. rate of interest is too low—which would be a bold assertion in the face of Mr. Gladstone's own statement, and of the fact that the rates of interest formerly paid by tenant purchasers of Church lands have all been reduced from 3½ per cent. to 3⅛ per cent. Or, secondly, that it is just that a terminable annuity for the redemption of a capital sum should continue to be paid for seven years after such capital sum can be shown by the rules of arithmetic: to have been repaid. In leaving the hon. Member for East Mayo the choice between these alternatives, I am forced to conclude that it is against the second of these proposals I have enumerated that he means to concentrate attack—namely, the proposal to restore the variability taken away by the Act of 1872.
MR. DILLON: It must not be understood that I have abandoned my first proposal.
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: I will deal with it later on.
MR. MAURICE HEALY: How much money is involved in the matter?
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: I will deal with that point before I sit down. Before the Irish Church Acts, ecclesiastical and lay tithe rent-charge were on the same footing. The Act of 1872, taken together with the Act of 1869, while fixing the amount of the ecclesiastical tithe rent-charge, at the same time gave a right to the tithe-payer to redeem the charge. These two provisions are closely connected together, for it was apparently with a view to redemption, and in the belief that all tithe rent-charge payers would promptly redeem, that the variability of

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the charge was taken away. But as a matter of fact it has not so turned out, for although many tithe-payers have redeemed either by payment of a sum down or by means of terminable annuities, the Church Fund still derives an annual income from unredeemed tithe rent-charge of over £160,000. Since 1872 the price of wheat has fallen about 50 per cent., and the price of oats more than 20 per cent. Had it not been for the Act of 1872 the payers of unredeemed tithe rent-charge would have been entitled to go into court and get the charge correspondingly reduced. It is safe to say that this heavy fall in prices that occurred after 1872 was not foreseen by anybody in 1872, and that had it been foreseen the Act of 1872 would never have been passed. The arrangement has turned out greatly to the disadvantage of the tithe-payers, and in a way which it is certain neither they nor Mr. Gladstone ever anticipated. And, as if to give point to the hardship, while the charge has been compulsorily fixed, the rent out of which the charge is paid has been in almost every case compulsorily reduced. Is not this a legitimate grievance? Is it not a grievance which Parliament may fairly and properly be asked to redress? Why, if the grievance had been one that affected not landlords but tenants in Ireland, we should have had one hon. Member after another rising from the benches opposite, declaiming, denouncing, and clamouring for a remedy. But because it is the landlord class which suffers, and not the tenant farmers, we are told our proposals are infamous and outrageous. And, after all, what are these proposals? Do we propose to reopen contracts, to lower the rate of interest of annuities now current, or otherwise to facilitate the terms of payment? No; we simply propose to replace the payers of ecclesiastical tithe rent-charge in the position in which they stood before the Church Acts were passed, in the position in which the lay tithe-payer stands to-day. We propose to relieve them of a disability which those Acts imposed upon them, but at the same time to withdraw from them a privilege which those Acts conferred. Consider the case of the Church glebe tenants. By Section 23 (1) of the Purchase of Land Act of 1885 the rates of interest on the mortgages of the tenants
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who had purchased glebe lands were all reduced from 3½ to 3⅛ per cent. By Sections 25 and 26 of the Land Law Act of 1896, by the application of the decade system, the annuities of the Church glebe tenants were reduced by very nearly one half. No one suggested that the making of these concessions to the Church tenants by reduction of interest or by extending the mortgage terms was "grabbing" the Church surplus or "plundering" the fund. On the contrary, the principle was recognised that the burden of those whose payments constitute the Church Fund should not be unduly heavy, in order to maintain that fund at a higher level than broad considerations of equity would justify. If we had preserved intact the provisions of the Act of 1872, and made the same concessions to tithe-payers as have been made to the glebe tenants, the loss to the Church Fund would have been considerably greater than it is likely to be under this Bill. In this circumstance I am curious to hear by what arguments the opposition to these proposals will be supported. So far I have heard but one argument used against them worthy of the name. It is alleged that the stereotyping of the Church tithe rent-charges was the result of an arrangement with the then Government at the instance of the tithe rent-charge payers, principally Irish landlords, which they considered advantageous to themselves, as they were apprehensive that a variation of the tithe rent-charge on the prices prevailing immediately prior to 1872 would have increased their liability, and further because they expected that prices would continue to rise. The transaction is represented as a kind of bargain freely entered into by the landlords, from the effects of which they ought not to be relieved simply because events have turned out contrary to their expectations. I believe that for this allegation there exists no ground whatever in fact. There is certainly no evidence of it in Hansard. The Bill was brought forward in the House of Lords, and passed through both Houses practitically without debate or discussion. I have made inquiries of persons who would have been in a position to know if any such bargain or understanding had taken place, and they have no recollection of anything of the kind. Moreover, as a matter of fact, it is not true that if all tithe rent-charges had been varied in or

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about the year 1872, the result would have been unfavourable to the tithe payer. I have had the figures carefully investigated, and the examination shows that the contrary is really the case. There are 2,450 parishes in Ireland. In 682 parishes the tithes would have been reduced 19 per cent. In 504 they would have been increased 15 per cent. In 1264 no change would have resulted. On the whole, therefore, it appears that if all tithe in Ireland had been revised in 1872 the result would have been to reduce the total amount payable, not to increase it. Looking to all the circumstances of the case, there remains no doubt in my own mind that Mr. Gladstone's idea in stereotyping the tithe rent-charge at that time was to make more simple and definitive the calculations for the redemption of the charge, and that he expected all the payers of ecclesiastical tithe rent-charge to take speedy advantage of the facilities for redemption offered to them. On the other hand, the tithe-payers made no protest against the fixing of the charge, because they did not foresee its possible importance in the future. How should they, seeing the charge had remained unaltered ever since 1838, save in sixty parishes out of 2,450? I submit that it is not reasonable to hold the tithe-payer any longer in bondage to provisions which have ceased to be effective for their original purpose, and which have led to a situation that neither party could have been expected to anticipate. Now, I have nearly completed what I hare to say in justification of the principles of the Bill; but before I sit down I will make some reference to the effect these proposals will have upon the Church Fund in the way of impairing its sufficiency to meet the charges laid upon it. This is a practical consideration which we cannot ignore.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Were these calculations made by the Treasury or the Land Commission?
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: Some of the figures were taken from the Reports of the Land Commission, and some of the calculations I made myself from statistics placed at my disposal by the Land Commission. I may say, generally, that the result of the calculations has been most carefully verified both by the Treasury and by the Land Commission; and I
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think we may take it that, as far as possible, accuracy has been obtained. At least it is not for want of trouble taken by one side or the other. Now, the reduction of the period of the currency of the terminable annuities will have the effect of reducing the Church Fund by a capital sum of £1,140,000; but this loss will not begin until the year 1917, when the earliest terminable annuities run out. What effect are the proposals of the Bill likely to have on the resources of the Church Fund? By the first proposal, that fund will ultimately lose a capital sum of about £1,140,000, but this loss will not begin until the year 1917. The second proposal of the Bill will result in the immediate loss of an annual sum of about £33,000. This loss will continue for the first fifteen years and may increase in subsequent periods of fifteen years with any additional average reduction of judicial rents. The abolition of the right to redeem the tithe rent-charge will result in a gain to the Church Fund of a capital sum, the exact amount of which it is impossible to state, but which may conceivably be £3,500,000. This gain, however, will not begin to accrue for forty-five years from the present time.
MR. DILLON: Is that based on the supposition that no sales take place?
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: Yes, that is so. By the fourth proposal of the Bill there will be a gain to the Church Fund of an annual sum of £6,000. Thus it will be seen that the total effect of the alterations proposed by the Bill will be to inflict a substantial loss on the Church Fund, though the exact amount of that loss it is almost impossible to calculate. It is almost impossible to calculate chiefly because, in the first place, we do not know what the average reduction of judicial rents may be in the future; and, secondly, because we cannot say for certain in how many cases tithe rent-charge may be redeemed under the Land Acts. A memorandum I have had prepared shows that up to the year 1947 the Church Fund will not only be able to meet all the liabilities imposed upon it before last year, but will also be able to contribute to the new Department of Agriculture a sum of £70,000. And now I think I am entitled to take up the interruption of the hon. Gentleman, and say that I do not think we need feel

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very much alarm at an event which is not likely to occur for a generation, and when it does, will not involve a deficiency greater than would be covered by an annual Vote of £20,000 or £30,000. In any case the prospect of such an event is hardly valid ground for opposition to this Bill, which I now ask the House to read a second time.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. G. W. Balfour.)
MR. DILLON: This Bill is alleged to be introduced to remedy a grievance. The Chief Secretary, in introducing a similar measure on the 12th May, 1899,* described it as—
"A Bill to provide remedies for certain grievances under which the payers of tithe rent-charge at present suffer, and which can only be dealt with by legislation."
This Bill was introduced last year, and again this year, under the ten-minute rule, and no attempt was made by the introducers on cither occasion to establish by argument the proposition on which the Bill must be founded that a grievance exists. The only thing approaching to an argument in support of the existence of a grievance is contained in the speech of the Chief Secretary on the 19th June, 1899, when, speaking of the ecclesiastical tithe rent-charge, he said—
"It must be remembered that the charge is a charge upon rents, and, while rents have been greatly reduced under the supervision of a State tribunal, the rent-charge can no longer be revised."
A most amazing statement, and directly at variance with the facts of the case. Tithe rent-charge in Ireland is not a charge upon rents; it is a charge upon the land having priority over all other charges, except Crown and quit rents. It would be just as correct to describe quit rent, Crown rent, or a head rent under which a large middle interest existed as a charge upon rents, and to argue from that form of expression that there existed an equitable right to demand revision of such quit or head rents, because the rent of the actual occupier was revised in accordance with the fluctuations in the profits of agriculture. I desire to emphasise this point, because there is involved in this
* See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxi., p. 493.
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argument of the Chief Secretary a most far-reaching principle, and a principle which I hardly think the House will be prepared to accept, namely, that all charges on land are to be treated as charges on rent without regard to priority, and that there exists an equitable claim whenever the rent of the actual occupier is varied to look for a variation of all the charges on the land without regard to priority or the nature of these charges. I do not propose to work out in all its possible developments this principle; but I maintain that if any force be allowed to this argument of the Chief Secretary the consequences I have indicated would flow from it irresistibly. The first ground, then, on which I oppose the Second Reading of this Bill is that, so far as the ecclesiastical tithe-payers are concerned, I deny the existence of a grievance. There is no grievance, and, as no grievance exists, there is no need for a Bill to remove it. And here I must protest in the strongest possible manner against the plan adopted in this Bill of tying up together in one Bill two utterly different and incongruous subjects. The case of the lay tithe-payers is a somewhat complicated one, but they have undoubtedly a plausible case of grievance. All that they ask for is a remedy for a disability under which they labour in consequence of a blunder by the Irish Executive, and for some slight simplification in the law by which they may be able more cheaply to assert their admitted legal rights. What, in the name of common sense, has such a demand as that to do with the demand of the ecclesiastical tithe-payers, which amounts to an outrageous proposal to plunder in the interests of a small class of landowners the last remnant of a public fund set apart by the pious care of our ancestors to provide for the support of the religion of the people, and for the support of the poor; and which, after it had been in course of time diverted from these uses, was solemnly devoted by Act of Parliament to purposes of general public utility? I would beg hon. Members, then, in considering this Bill, always to keep in mind that it deals with two utterly distinct and different subjects — the one the case of the lay tithe - payers, where there is some grievance, and which could be dealt with in a short, simple, and not very contentious Bill; the other, the case of the

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ecclesiastical tithe-payers—in proposing to deal with which great principles are assailed, propositions of the most contentious character are put forward, and in connection with which I maintain no grievance whatever exists on the part of the tithe-payers beyond that grievance common to a large body of the public, and even to some Members of this House—the failure of one's income to prove equal to one's desire to spend. My second objection to the Bill is that it assails and, so far as it goes, tramples upon a principle which appears to me to be one of the most vital importance in social economy—that a first charge on the land of a country constituting a fund devoted to public objects ought not to be reduced or encroached upon in the interest of individuals or a small class of the population. This is a principle which in theory would, I should think, meet almost universal acceptance in this country, and in practice it ought to guide the proceedings of the Legislature. Yet in this Bill we are asked to violate that principle in a most glaring fashion, without a shred of reason offered us for so doing; and, as I shall presently show, we are asked to violate it under circumstances which would make the violation exceptionally outrageous and indefensible. My third ground of objection is that this is a further step in a long process extending over 170 years—from the day, in 1735, when illegally and by intimidation they did away with the tithe of agistment, down to the introduction of this Bill, by which the Irish landlords have assailed and plundered this public fund, and have, on one plea or another, diverted these charges on the land of Ireland, set aside by immemorial usage for the service of the public, into their own pockets. Fourthly, I object to this Bill because the finance of it is obscure, and if there is one principle more than another which ought, I think, to govern the proceedings of the House of Commons in dealing with measures proposing to tamper with public funds in the interest of individuals, it is that a clear and definite statement of the financial effects of the measure should, on its introduction, be submitted to the House. In the case of this Bill no such statement has been submitted up to this moment, and we are still left in a state of doubt as to the financial effects of the proposals contained in it. Last year, when the Bill was introduced by the
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Chief Secretary, I asked whether he could give any estimate of the capital loss to the Church Fund which would be caused by the provisions of the Bill. To this question the Chief Secretary replied—
"It is very difficult to give a precise estimate, because it would depend upon a great many circumstances which cannot be foreseen. But, before the Bill becomes law, I will endeavour to lay before the House such an estimate as it is possible to make."
Since then, on the 24th July, 1899, a Treasury Memorandum was issued in which no attempt is made to give any answer to the question, what will be the loss caused to the fund by the provisions of the present Bill? When the Tithes Bill was again introduced by the Attorney General this year, observing that he carefully avoided the subject of the financial effect of the Bill, I asked him again, by way of interruption—the only method by which it is possible to ask for information under the ten minutes system—what would be the loss to the Church Fund if the Bill were to pass in its present form. He replied, "About £50,000 a year." Here, then, we are called on to pass a Bill affecting a great public fund in the interests of individuals. The Chief Secretary finds it very difficult to give a precise estimate of the extent to which the fund would be affected by it. The Treasury refuses to try to make an estimate, and the Attorney General thinks the fund would lose about £50,000 a year. consider it nothing short of a public scandal and a total departure from all previous practice that we should be asked to-day to come to the consideration of the Second Reading of the Bill without, I may say, any information whatever on which proper criticism of the financial effects of the Bill can be based. It may be answered to me, "The Bill is in print, and you see its provisions, and you can make your own calculations." I contend that such a challenge would be entirely opposed to the practice of this House, and I maintain that when the Government introduce a Bill of this character we are entitled to have before us, first their estimate of the financial effects of the proposals in the Bill, and, secondly, such Papers and Returns as may be necessary to enable us to criticise that estimate. I have now specified the four grounds on which I oppose the Second Reading of this Bill, and I turn now to the question of grievance. I have

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searched all the literature connected with this subject and searched in vain for any rational ground on which the allegation of grievance is based. This charge of tithe is a very ancient charge. It is a charge on the land, and always has been a charge having priority over all liens and charges on the land except quit and Crown rent; from time immemorial all estates in the land have been held and sold subject to that first charge. To establish a grievance in connection with such a charge it is necessary to point to some period when the burden of that charge was unjustly increased, unless, indeed, we are to accept the definition of the landlords' grievance given by the Dublin Daily Express in May, 1899, when it said:
"The landlords suffer an injustice in being required to pay ecclesiastical tithes at all after the Church has been disendowed."
What is that period in the present case? I assert that every change in the system of levying tithes, every new settlement, has been in favour of the land-owning class. How could it have been otherwise, seeing that for the last two centuries, and until after the settlement of 1872, the landowners controlled both Houses of the Legislature? What then, again, I ask, was the period at which this alleged grievance arose? Was it in 1735 when, by the infamous vote of agistment, the Irish House of Commons of that day, in defiance of the law, declared free of tithe the demesnes of the landlords and the pasture lands in the hands of rich Protestant graziers; and, in the words of Grattan, "sent the parson from the demesne of the gentleman to the garden of the cottager"; was it on the 21st March, 1800, when the gentlemen of Ireland, then cheerfully engaged in the work of destroying the liberties of their country for cash and honours, were horrified by Sir John Macartney, who reminded them that the exemption of pasture land in Ireland from tithe was not legal, and rested only on a resolution of the House of Commons and on intimidation; and that if the Union Act were passed, the clergy might sue for their tithe of agistment, and—horror of horrors!—the Protestant gentry and Protestant graziers might be compelled to contribute to the support of their own church. But this reminder proved more potent with these worthies than all the eloquence of Grattan, and
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Lord Cornwallis was obliged to report to the English Cabinet that the country gentry who were supporting the Union had warned him that they would no longer be able to support it unless an act were passed deing away with the tithe of agistment, and accordingly one of the last Acts of the Irish Parliament was a Tithe Act, setting free gentlemen's demesnes and pasture land from a tithe valued by Sir John Macartney at one million sterling per annum. The next great settlement was that of 1838, the one on which the whole modern system of tithe rent-charge in Ireland rests. Up to that settlement tithe had been levied in the most wasteful and harrowing manner that it is possible, and, as is always the case with such methods of levying an impost, the amount actually received bore a small proportion to the loss inflicted on the payers of tithe. After seventy years of smouldering civil war under the settlement of 1838, the tithe was made payable by the landlord to be levied by him from the occupying tenant as part of his rent. But the amount of the tithe-was reduced by 25 per cent. and, taking into account the saving to the occupying tenant of the enormous waste and ruin which resulted from the old methods of levying the tithe, I am convinced that the land-owners of Ireland in the long run benefited under the Settlement of 1838 to the extent of close upon 50 per cent in respect of this charge upon their lands. In support of that view I shall quote two brief extracts from the proceedings of the Commons Committee of 1831–32 on the question of tithe. Sir William Cox was examined before that Committee, and, in reply to question 4962, he stated—
"He had taken a lease of his tithes being impropriate lay tithes, and put the amount proportionately on his tenants in rent. The tenants most readily agreed and have paid more cheerfully since than they did before, so that they pay the rent and tithe together more readily than they paid the rent alone before."
"Question 4967: Then, if any deduction had been made to you you would have been a gainer by the transaction?"—"Certainly."
And this is a short extract from the Report of the Committee—
"Your Committee do not doubt that a fair and liberal deduction from the gross amount of composition would be acquiesced in by the Church in return for the increased security and diminished expenses. It may not be easy to say what precisely the deduction ought to be, but it would perhaps be not unreasonable, looking to the very peculiar circumstances of

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Ireland, to assume that it may amount to 15 per cent."
We know that it actually did amount to 25 per cent., and there was no material change in the position of tithe-payers till the Disestablishment of the Church in 1869, and it is in connection with the settlement made on that occasion by the Acts of 1869 and 1872 that the only real attempt has been made on behalf of the Irish landlords to construct a grievance. The settlement of 1869 and 1872 must be taken as a whole, and the question we have to consider is whether, in connection with that settlement, any injustice was inflicted on the landowners of Ireland. If it can be shown that the landowners were treated fairly and even generously in the settlement of 1869–72, and that they accepted that settlement as a generous one, then I say that no subsequent reduction of the rents of the occupiers has any bearing on the question, nor can be alleged with any greater force as a reason for upsetting that settlement than such reductions could be alleged as a reason for the reduction of quit rents or head rents or mortgage interest. Now, what was the settlement of 1869–72? It is contained in Clause 32 of the Church Act of 1869 and in Section 7 of the amending Act of 1872, and briefly stated, it is as follows—
"All the ecclesiastical tithe-payers were offered the opportunity of purchasing this first charge upon their land at twenty-two and a-half years purchase, and they were allowed, if they so desired, to borrow money from the Government at such a rate as would enable them to pay this purchase money in fifty-two annual instalments of the same amount as the tithe, which they were then actually paying. This arrangement was confirmed in the Act of 1872, and the tithe in the case of those who did not choose to redeem was made invariable."
Now I shall deal first with the terms contained in Clause 32 of the Church Act of 1869. That proposal was universally treated in the House of Commons at the time as a bribe to the landlords to buy off their opposition to the Church Act. It was treated as such by their own leaders and by the spokesmen of their own party, and to show that I do not exaggerate in this description I shall quote from speeches delivered by some of the leaders of the Tory party who were then opposing the Church Act.* In a
* For Second Reading Debates on the Irish Church Bill (1869) see The Parliamentary Debates [Third Series], Vol. cxciv. For Debate on Clause 32, see Vol. cxcvi.
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speech on the Second Reading, Mr. Disraeli used the following language—
"What do I see in this Bill? Why, that the whole property of the Church of Ireland, generally speaking, will go to the landlords. Well, the landlords have had a slice of that property before; for thirty years they have had £100,000 a year; they have probably had three millions of that property, and what good has it done them? Is the state of Ireland more tranquil or serene, or have they better preserved the institutions to which they were devoted because they for a moment accepted any share of that plunder. And what is it that is now proposed? Why, a scheme which, when we come to investigate it clearly, shows that the whole of the tithe rent-charge is to be absorbed in the land."
In the debate on Clause 32 the Attorney General for Ireland, Mr. Sullivan, afterwards Lord Chancellor, said—
"The quit rent was redeemed in Ireland at twenty-five years purchase; why, then, should the tithe rent - charge not be redeemed at twenty - two and a half years purchase?"
In the same debate on Clause 32 the present Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Michael Hicks Beach) said—
"In his opinion the proposal of the Government combined sacrilege with bribery. These were strong words, but nothing less strong would express his feelings. He believed it was sacrilege because it was taking away from the Church property to which the State had no right, and devoting it to secular purposes and bribery; also because it was admitted to secure the consent of the landlords by handing over to them the property upon terms making the transfer a gift and not a sale."
Sir Frederick Hey gate said—
"This discussion was a most humiliating squabble for Irish landlords to he engaged in. He quite agreed with his hon. friend Sir Michael Hicks Beach that the clause was nothing less than bribery and sacrilege. The Irish landlords were, in fact, asked to take a bribe and assist the Government to pass the Bill."
Mr. Fawcett protested against the clause, and said—
"If this clause were passed, at the end of fifty-two years Parliament proposed to make a present to the landlords of Ireland of £8,500,000, provided they would commute the tithe rent-charge. He had consulted distinguished members of the House about it, and they said: 'We know it is making an enormous present to Irish landlords, but we must do something to grease the wheels, to conciliate hostility and buy off opposition.'"
Sir Frederick Heygate said what the Irish landlords were asked to do was to take a bribe and assist the Government to

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pass the Bill. Whatever may be said as to their assistance to the Government to pass the Bill, they had no hesitation about the bribe, for when it come to Clause 32 the Irish landlords were found solid for the clause, and the division is so interesting I must read out some of the names. For the clause there voted Bagwell, Ball, Viscount Burke, Lord Castlerosse, the Hon. Mr. Dawson, De la Poer, Lord Otho Fitz-Gerald, Colonel French, Lord Galway, Captain Greville, Colonel Greville Nugent, Arthur McMurrough Kavanagh, Pollard - Urquhart, Lord St. Lawrence, Rt. Hon. S. Sullivan, Colonel Vandeleur; while with Mr. Fawcett against the clause there voted, to their honour be it said, Sir Michael Hicks Beach and William Johnston. By the Act of 1872, as I have already said, tithes were made invariable in the case of those who declined to redeem under Clause 32. This change was made without one word of protest on the part of the Irish landlords, who, at that time, controlled the majority of the Irish representation in this House; and it is very easy to understand why it was so readily accepted. The right of varying tithe had never, I believe, been very extensively used in Ireland. In most cases the tithe had not been varied for a considerable time. Prices and rents had been, and were, rising, and the landlords very probably felt that a variation of the tithes would lead to considerable increases. But there was another reason for the acceptance of this settlement with-out protest. The settlement of the Act of 1872 must be considered together with that contained in Clause 32 of the Act of 1869 as one settlement; and part of that settlement was the right to redeem on such terms that without any increase of annual payment the tithe would cease altogether and become absorbed in the land after fifty-two years. This was the settlement which had been described by Mr. Disraeli as one under which "virtually the whole property of the Church will go to the landlords." Is it not, then, an almost inconceivable instance of audacity to set up a claim of grievance in connection with a settlement giving such advantages as were given to the Irish landlords under the Acts of 1869 and 1872? Yet it is solely on the provisions of this settlement that the attempt is made to establish a case of grievance and to justify the introduction
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of the present Bill. I have stated, as a second ground for opposing this Bill, that in it great principles are violated, and in support of that statement I refer to the Treasury Memorandum first published in June, 1895, and re-issued after the change of Government in August, 1895, and signed by the present Secretary to the Treasury. In July, 1894, Lord Belmore moved in the House of Lords for a Return giving answers to five questions, of which the fifth question reads as follows—
"On what grounds have the Treasury declined to act upon the recommendation of the Irish Land Commissioners that tithe rent-charge vested in the Irish Land Commission should in future be made redeemable at twenty instead of twenty-two and a half years purchase under the provisions of Section 15 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887?"
It was explained to Lord Belmore that the information could not be given in the form in which he asked for it; but that an endeavour would be made to supply such information as the Treasury possessed in some other form. Owing to a misunderstanding between Lord Belmore and the representatives of the Government, no further action was taken in the session of 1894, but the question was revived in March, 1895, and an undertaking was given on behalf of the Government that an explanatory memorandum on the subject should be prepared for presentation to Parliament. On the 27th June, 1895, this memorandum was circulated, and here is the reply of the Treasury to the fifth question of Lord Belmore—
"The Land Commissioners have recommended that in such cases the terms of redemption of the perpetual tithe should he reduced from twenty-two-and-a-half years purchase, the rate prescribed by the Acts of 1869 and 1872, to twenty years purchase, but the Treasury have not felt justified in concurring in this proposal. The primary reason which led this Board and their predecessors"—
I would ask the House to note that, as it is an all-important point—
"to that conclusion was the very serious loss which this proposal, and the consequences which might be apprehended from it, would inflict on the Church fund. The possible amount of that loss was estimated by the Land Commission in 1888 at £845,000, supposing the concession limited to the tithe only, without application to other portions of the Church property; and it may be taken as certain that no such amount could now be surrendered without serious risk to the solvency of the Church fund. Other considera-

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tions, however, affecting the proposal on its merits cannot be overlooked, two of which the First Lord may place on record:—
"(1) It is in effect a compulsory reduction of the (statutory) value of one particular charge on the land—namely, that held in trust for Irish public purposes, unaccompanied by any suggestion of reduction in other and less will-secured charges such as mortgages. Measuring the security of a charge by the rate of interest which it carries this proposal would treat the tithe as a 5 per cent. charge, and, therefore, as being no better secured than mortgages carrying 5 per cent interest, and worse secured than those carrying 4½ per cent. As all such mortgages are posterior to tithe the First Lord thinks that the statutory price of twenty-two-and-a-half years purchase, implying interest at 4½ per cent., is not illiberal to the tithe-payer in view of the ordinary rates of interest on mortgages on Irish land.
"(2) This proposal to treat the tithe as no better secured than a 5 per cent. charge is in striking contrast to the suggestion that loans from the Church Fund on precisely the same security should be made at a rate not exceeding 3½ or even 3 per per cent., which rates involve a high estimate of the security. It would be extremely illogical, apart from other objections, to apply simultaneously both these methods of relieving the tithe-payer at the cost of the Church Fund.
"In conclusion, the First Lord desires to remark that he has endeavoured in this memorandum to distinguish between the matters for which the Board is, and those for which it is not, responsible. In the case of the former, it is their Lordships' duty to defend their own decisions; but as to the latter, it is only necessary to state facts and figures for the consideration of the Legislature."
From this memorandum it is clear that the Treasury, constituted as it was in June, 1895, and carrying out the policy of its predecessors in the previous Government, had refused to make this concession, and refused it on the double ground of public policy and economic principle; because, in the first instance, the loss to the Church Fund would be too heavy, and because, in the second place, the principle of reducing a first charge on the land while inferior liens were left untouched, was a principle vicious in itself. I know that I shall be told that this policy was reversed, and that within six months the Treasury did exercise its right to make the concession asked for in case of estates that were sold to the tenants by the Land Commission; and, furthermore, that this alteration of policy was confirmed by Clause 37 of the Bill of 1896. But in reply I point out that no justification for
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this sudden and extraordinary change of policy on the part of the Treasury was ever laid before the House, and when, in the spring of 1896, I asked the Secretary of the Treasury on what grounds he could explain this change in policy, he replied that the only ground was a change in the personnel of the Treasury, a reply which appeared to me at the time, and appears to me still, as most degrading to a great Department of the State, for it will be evident that the memorandum from which I have just quoted must have been prepared and issued with the full approval of the permanent heads of the Treasury; and yet, within six months, without any fresh statement of grounds for a change of policy, the action which is declared by this reasoned memorandum to be against public policy and principle, was sanctioned by the Treasury. Before I pass from the Treasury memorandum of 1895, I wish to draw attention to one statement made by Lord Belmore, and admitted in the memorandum, and that is that the recommendation to reduce the redemption price of tithe rent-charge was made by the Land Commission. Now this is not a fact. I find that in a judgment delivered by Mr. Commissioner O'Brien on the 10th June, 1896, the following statement occurs—
"But now by letter dated 5th May last, the Treasury has authorised the Land Commission to reduce the rate of redemption for tithe rent charge to twenty years purchase, and for tithe annuities to the basis of a forty-five instead of fifty-two years annuity. The Treasury letter is in answer to one from the secretary of the Land Commission asking for permission to make this reduction. That letter, however, was misleading. It purports to have been written by the direction of the Commissioners, whereas it was written by the direction of but one Commissioner. It naturally conveyed to the Treasury that this matter had again been considered by the whole Commission, and that the proposed change in the rate of redemption was approved by all or the majority of the Land Commissioners. On this, as on other occasions, a communication was made in the name of the Land Commissioners without my authority, assent, or knowledge, relating to an important matter which, in my opinion, should have been brought before the full Board."
That is a monstrous thing. Here we have an important letter sent to the Treasury, without the knowledge or assent of the Commissioners, by one of the most important members of that Commission. But all the concessions made by the Treasury letter of 1896 and Clause 37 of the Land Act of 1896—

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enormous as they are in amount—apply only to the case of estates sold to the tenants under the Land Purchase Act. And I can conceive it being argued that, where so great a public object is arrived at as the transfer of the land in Ireland to the occupiers, it is permissible to hand over this large slice of a public fund to the landlords, by way of greasing the wheels, although I confess that the amount of grease required to keep the Irish landlords moving is positively alarming. But, whatever force there may be in that argument, it has no weight in support of this Bill, which proposes to extend similar concessions and advantages to those landlords who decline to sell as have already been given to landlords, by way of an inducement or a bribe, to sell their estates, and by doing so co-operate in carrying out what is now recognised by every one to be a great object of public policy in Ireland. The landlords are not to be asked for any concession or quid pro quo for the enormous sum of money which it is proposed to hand over to them. With my third ground of objection I have already dealt, and I now desire to say a few words more as to the financial effect of the Bill. I have already shown that we have got little or no light from the Government on this part of the subject. On the 12th May last year, in his speech introducing this Bill, the Chief Secretary said—
"Any attempt to strike the balance of gain and loss must be to some extent speculative, but on the supposition that if this Bill did not pass, full and immediate advantage were to be taken of the present right to redeem by all ecclesiastical tithe rent-charge payers, the Church Fund would probably be worse off than if our proposals were adopted."
Commenting upon this, the Daily Express most truly says—
"As the tithes are paid to the Church Fund, it is absolutely impossible by any manipulation of finance to give relief to landlords without diminishing the fund."
There could not be a better illustration of the obscurity in which this important question has been left. Now what is the exact nature of the demands made on behalf of the ecclesiastical tithe-payers, and to what extent are these demands met by the provisions of this Bill? As a statement of the claims of the tithe-payer, I shall read an extract from a
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pamphlet published on their behalf last year. It says—
"The injustice of the case, as affecting the tithe-payers in Ireland, who practically may be identified with the landlords, is beyond dispute. The tithe-payers demand that they should be treated fairly, and that the exceptional law passed in 1872 should be repealed, and that the tithes should be varied annually, and in the simple and inexpensive way that tithes are varied in England; and that credit should be given for those over-payments which have been made.
"Also, they demand that the artificial value of twenty-two and a half years purchase, established by the Church Amendment Act of 1872, should be reduced, and that tithes should be redeemable, when varied, at twenty years purchase.
"As to the tithes which have been converted into annuities, the annuitants complain that the bargain has been broken, and that in their case alone (as affecting land legislation) a contract, made when prices were high, has been considered sacred. Their rents, their rights, and their position have been altered by legislation, while they themselves have had to pay to the very last shilling the amount fixed in 1872. Added to this, the orignal bargain was unjust; where tenants who have purchased their holdings under similar conditions have to pay only forty-nine instalments, the tithe annuitants under the Church Act have to pay fifty-two."
It will be observed that this claim is of a twofold character. First, there is the claim of those tithe-payers who have not redeemed to have their rent-charges made variable, and when varied redeemable at twenty years purchase of the reduced charge, instead of, as at present, at twenty-two and a half years purchase of the unreduced charge. This claim is partially met by the Bill, which proposes to vary the tithe rent-charge every fifteen years in proportion to the variation of the rent of the occupier, and to make that variable tithe irredeemable. But I do not understand from Clause 4 that it is proposed to take away from the Irish Land Commission the right which they exercise under Section 15 of the Land Act of 1887 to order the redemption of any tithe rent-charges. And one point on which I should like to have information is whether it is contemplated that, after the tithe rent has been varied, the redemption price in the case of sales in the Land Commission Court is to be twenty years of the reduced tithe rent-charge. The second demand is of an even more outrageous character. It is the demand of those tithe payers who purchased their tithes

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under the terms offered in Clause 32 of the Church Act, and have voluntarily changed the tithe rent-charge into a fixed and terminable annuity in terms denounced by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer as constituting a monstrous bribe to the landlords of Ireland. And this demand it is proposed in the Bill to meet by remitting seven annual instalments. There is not much obscurity about this proposal. In its audacity it stands naked and apparently unashamed. A feeble attempt has been made to make out that there was some miscalculation or misunderstanding by those in charge of the financial proposals of the Church Bill. There is not a shadow of justification for this statement. It has been completely disposed of by the Treasury Memorandum of 1895. The simple fact is that, having digested the sacrilegious bribe of 1869, these gentlemen are now hungry for another meal. In the Report on the Church Temporalities for the year ending 30th March, 1899, the revenue from fixed annual instalments on redeemed tithes is £163,688, so that under this provision alone it is proposed ultimately to present the landlords with over a million of money For a number of years the policy of British Ministers in Ireland has been to govern that country by a mixture of bribery and coercion, a policy which has naturally earned for them the contempt of all Irishmen. This Bill is simply a proposal to give another bribe to the so-called Loyalists of Ireland. If it is passed, the Government will receive neither respect nor gratitude for their gift. No Chief Secretary has ever obtained more money for the Irish landlords than the present holder of that office, yet we have all read in a recent copy of Lord Ardilaun's newspaper—the Dublin Daily Express—a communication in which an indignant Irish loyalist declares that—
"Never since James the Second sent over Dick Talbot to disarm the Protestant gentry of Ireland and leave them at the mercy of their enemies has there come from England so mischievous an administrator as Mr. Gerald Balfour."
I would, then, advise the Government to abandon the futile effort to satisfy the ravening maw of Irish landlordism, to withdraw this Bill, and to prepare some scheme under the provisions of which what remains of the Irish Church Fund may be devoted to purposes of general
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public utility, such as reinstating the evicted tenants, endowing a university for the people of Ireland, and other public objects for which money is urgently needed in so poor a country as Ireland. I beg to move "that this Bill be read a second time this day six months."
MR. T. M. HEALY: After listening to the admirable speech of my hon. friend, I have great pleasure in seconding this motion. I do so substantially upon grounds similar to those put forward by the hon. Member for East Mayo, although my arguments will be somewhat different. I quite agree with my hon. friend when he declares that the Government have not really considered, in principle, the far-reaching character of their proposal. I assert that a greater blow to the principle of property or to the principle of the stability of financial institutions has never been struck than by the introduction of this Bill, which is as revolutionary as if it had issued from a backwoods Parliament, or from one of the newly erected institutions in Bloemfontein or Pretoria. The hon. Member for East Mayo has already shown by his historical retrospect that the Irish landlords have no grievance, but I will found my argument upon the assumption that they have a grievance, and that having that grievance this is the worst of all possible means by which it could be redressed. Let me first consider this point from the tenants' side of the question. The amount of reduction is to be based on the judicial rents, but what does that mean for the tenant? In future the Irish Land Commission, which is the guardian of the Irish Church surplus — and which is at the same time the axe of execution to the landlords—will have to consider in any reduction they make of the rents that the basis upon which they are fixing them will involve the destruction of the fund of which they have been constituted the legal guardians. Therefore, when Mr. Justice Madden was declaring that someone should have a reduction of 30 per cent., he must have been conscious that at the same time in giving that reduction he was | striking a blow at his own trusteeship. That is an immoral position in which to put a Judge of the Irish Land Commission. If you constitute a man the trustee of a given fund, and then make him the destroyer of that fund, you place

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him in a position which is absolutely irreconcilable if you make him guilty of a breach of trust. When you do that with a Judge in a judicial position, he is put in a situation in which no Judge in the land ought to be placed. In the county of Monaghan, which county I represented at one time in this House, and with whose daily life I was to some extent familiar, oats had not fallen in value to the same extent as wheat and other produce. What is the position of the recipient of the charge? He will find that whereas the rents in County Monaghan have been reduced 30 per cent., and oats have fallen only 15 per cent. in consequence of judicial rents, the result is that the landlords have been made a present of 15 per cent. more than they were otherwise fairly entitled to. What is the great basis of rent reduction in Ireland? We have never gone so much upon the question of price at all. We have stood upon this impregnable ground—which is admitted by every English statesman who has considered it—that the tenant of Ireland is the person who should benefit by improvements in the soil, and that the kernel of the land Act is that no rent shall be payable on any improvements effected by the tenants. The tenant himself puts up all the farm buildings, fences and gates, and makes all the reforms, and does everything that is necessary to make the farm profitable, and now, because his rent has been reduced, the landlord's tithe is to be reduced accordingly, although they have done nothing to warrant them getting this reduction, which is made upon the basis of the tenant's improvements. Therefore the landlord is allowed to walk off with half the swag because the tenant has made the improvements in the soil. Was there ever heard of in connection with a Bill of this kind so false and fatal a principle? How are we going to deal with the middleman? I should like to know where the middlemen are going to be left in this question. It is admitted that, if a man has a head rent of £50 a year and it is swept away, he has a grievance, but is he to remain under that grievance, whereas the payer of tithe—the spoiled child of both the Irish and English Parliaments—is to got a further reduction on the ground that his rents have been reduced? He may not be the head renter at all, and he may not be a person on whose estates fair
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rents have been fixed. Is this Bill to make no distinction in such cases? Supposing I, as a landlord, have been successful on various grounds in preventing my tenants from going into the Land Courts, is this Bill to make no distinction in such a case; and is its hyssop to fall both on the just and the unjust? I should like further to ask this question. Supposing a person has become a landlord since 1881, as is constantly occurring through the Landed Estates Court, where Irish and English insurance companies are foreclosing their mortgages, is no distinction to be made? Only the other day the Hand - in - Hand Insurance Company grabbed an entire estate out of the hands of the landord. Some of the mortgagees were the tenants themselves. One produced a note showing that he had lent £2,000 to the landlord, but he could not recover a single penny. Are the Hand-in-Hand Insurance Company to get the benefit of this Bill, and to draw money from this impoverished Irish Fund, although they have only become Irish landlords in the course of the last few months? I do not think the Government have considered the very beginning of this question. I say it is a monstrous thing that an insurance company which becomes the landlord of an estate, against the wishes of the tenants, should have relief under this Bill. Now I come to another point. We had here two years ago a question in which the right hon. Gentleman the Solicitor General for England was deeply interested—and I am most happy to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon his elevation to his present position. We had the question of the Irish National teachers and the deficit which it was said had arisen in the Teachers' Pension Fund on account of a Treasury error. It was admitted that the British Government had held out to these teachers that if they paid sums out of their little salaries varying from £2 to £3 per annum they would be entitled at the end of long and laborious service to pensions according to their class, of £40, £50, £60, or £70 a year, to be charged upon this very Irish Church Fund. How did the Government deal with the National teachers, and by what methods were their grievances redressed? The Government fed the dog with a bit of its own tail. Why do they not give the Irish landlords a similar diet I Remember, the National teachers are men

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of whom it cannot be said that "they toil not, neither do they spin." They were told, "Oh, the Treasury have made a mistake." The Act was passed by the present Chancellor of. the Exchequer when he was Irish Secretary, I think in 1875, and he then said that the Treasury were so accurate that there was no possibility of a mistake. Yes, the Treasury is always accurate to-day—it is only yesterday it makes mistakes. At any rate, the Treasury made a mistake of a paltry million, and these poor teachers, who had been swindled for twenty years, were told that they could not have the pensions which had been guaranteed to them by statute. John Bull went back on his word, although we are told that British credit is secure all over the world, and the teachers were compelled to provide out of their own pockets for a mistake of the Treasury. And what was the comfort you gave them? They were told, "You will be allowed at your own expense to commence an action in the High Courts against Her Majesty, and we will defend it with all the resources at our command." The unworthy task was put upon the Attorney General for Ireland of having to defend the misconduct of the Treasury, with the result that the Courts in Ireland gave judgment in favour of the Crown, and the Irish teachers who were promised these pensions are now living witnesses to the fraud and bad faith of the British Government. They are working in Ireland to bring up the Irish children, and to teach them sometimes to sing "God save the Queen," and their reward is to be told by the Treasury, "You can borrow money from a bank, but we are no longer responsible." They were your faithful servants in Ireland, they were part of your machinery of progress and civilisation, and this is how they were treated. What, on the other hand, do you owe to the Irish landlords? Yet you rob the national teachers, and now propose to give a million and a half to the Irish landlords, to whom you owe nothing, and who turned Ireland at one time into a bloody puddle, and still keep it in a welter of confusion. We know, according to the landlords of Ireland, that the British Government is—not only in regard to themselves, but in regard to their Church—a government of spoliation, and they now want a little of the funds of the Church in order to make up for the robbery of themselves. Will
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they use this money for buying stained glass windows for Protestant churches? Will they put up spires on these somewhat dilapidated cathedrals in which they worship? Nothing of the kind; they will spend the money in horse-racing in England, or at Monte Carlo. That is where the sacrilegious plunder of the Irish Church is to go, and the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is responsible for this Bill, was the very Minister who declared that the conduct of the landlords in swallowing the Church Act of 1869 was a disgrace to their class. Now I come to consider what the grievances of the landlords are. Apparently they have one sole grievance, and I will make them a present of it. That is in reference to lay tithe. The Irish Courts have decided that because the Dublin Gazette did not continue to print columns of corn statistics, there were no means of revising the tithe. I have always sympathised with the editor of the Dublin Gazette; he is the one journalist who is always entitled to my sympathy, and I suppose he was so busy printing coercion proclamations that, in the language of Fleet Street, his columns were "crowded out," and he had no room for printing the corn returns. I admit the landlords have a grievance, but if there had been fewer proclamations there would have been more corn returns. We were deprived of the right of habeas corpus in Ireland by these proclamations, and the landlords were deprived of the revision of tithe. I think we were the worse off, but I think also that if these corn returns in the Dublin Gazette, and even if the Gazette itself disappeared, Ireland as a whole would not be sorry. I should have thought that if there were this intense grievance the Irish landlords would not have been content merely with the decision of the Irish Courts, and that they would have taken to the House of Lords—a somewhat sympathetic tribunal—the question as to whether this decision with reference to the Dublin Gazette was technically correct or not. But this grievance did not weigh upon noble Lords and others to such an extent as to induce them to find a couple of hundred pounds to lodge an appeal in the House of Lords, in order to test this question, and accordingly the landlords were deprived of the right of having this lay tithe revised. Again and again questions upon that subject were put in this

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House, not from the landlord benches, but from these benches; again and again we asked the Government to repair this error of the editor of; the Dublin Gazette, but the Government always refused. What do the Government do now? They harness to that undoubted, or at all events arguable, grievance this car of spoliation, and make what is merely the correction of a slight error in procedure the vehicle by which we are to be robbed of nearly two millions sterling. Do they suppose that a proceeding of that kind is likely to commend this Bill or their conduct to the general body of Irish tenants? How often have we pressed for corrected procedure with regard to the Land Acts, but that had to be wrung from the Government by bloodshed. I acknowledge that the present Government for the first time passed in 1896 a Bill without an appeal to disorder. But I am speaking of British government as a whole, and I say that never have the Irish tenants succeeded in winning any correction of any error of procedure through which they have been damnified except through the avenue of turmoil, agitation, and disorder. The Irish landlords now put up their claims, and not only say that this error must be corrected, but that they are to get a bonus of one and a half millions of sacrilegious plunder in addition. I maintain that if the landlords have a grievance in this matter, that grievance should be rectified out of the general Treasury Fund. Who will be paying by and by for the losses in Natal and the loss of the missionaries in China? We were told to-day that Indian troops had been sent to China at the Imperial expense. I want to know—when the general Treasury Fund is to be saddled with those charges—why the Irish Fund is to be saddled with charges which, from your point of view, are really part of your Imperial policy? It was your Imperial policy that abolished the Brehon laws, and that gave us as our masters the territorial aristocracy. Why, then, if they exist as the garrison in Ireland, should they not draw Imperial wages, and not seek compensation out of this Irish Fund? I have never forgotten the speech made by the present President of the Local Government Board on the Irish Land Bill of 1881. He said that the Government wore engaged in reversing an Imperial policy; he asked what had made Irish land worthless; and he
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added that it was the selfish policy of English manufacturers in Ireland, who destroyed Irish industries and left nothing for the people but the land, and now, he continued, the Government were making the Imperial garrison bear the expense which should fall on the Imperial taxpayer. I believe there is a great deal to be said for the Irish landlords from that point of view. Why do they not come down to this House in khaki? That is the position they ought to take up. Let them appear as members of the Imperial garrison in Ireland, and say, "Ever since the days of Elizabeth and Cromwell we have acted as your garrison in Ireland; now pay us our wages." That would be a fair and reasonable position. What was the initiation of this Bill? You abolished the Brehon laws in the days of Elizabeth—and to us the days of Elizabeth are as close as the days of Victoria. There is no yesterday in Ireland; and those times and consequences are as much alive in that country to-day, and as much a living reality, as what is passing in this country before your own eyes. You grabbed our churches and put them into the hands of Protestants, and you were not content with robbing our churches but you also slaughtered and banished our priests, and put upon us a ministry many of whom were perverts of the vilest type. When you had done all that, you declared that the Irish landlords in future should be made to pay these tithes, and that they should no longer fall on the Catholic tenants. What did you do then? In a series of statutes you took away from the tenants the nominal burden of the tithe, but you increased the landlord's power of eviction, and from that time onward the position of the occupier of the soil became more defenceless, because every effort that human ingenuity could devise was, as O'Connell showed in one of his famous speeches, put forward to deprive these tenants of any protection, and at last the landlord succeeded in adding the tithe to the rent. We have given you your religion free for three hundred years, and also your churches, almost every one of which was erected by Catholic hands and as the result of Catholic piety. I have no doubt that in Belfast and some other places in the north there may be Protestant churches, but for the most part the churches were grabbed from the Catholics. In several places the

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churches were burned, and, of course, if you burn a church you cannot have it, and if you did not burn the church you have got it. What was the final stage in this dismal history, this squalid mixture of religion and lucre? The final stage was the Act of 1869. The Poor Law Act was put into operation in the thirties, and an enormous burden was placed upon the occupier. Then followed the famine, when millions of our people were driven out. You provided as a boon to the tenants that half the rates should be paid by the landlord. The occupier was defenceless; he was a man without a lease and without tenure, and the half poor rate was added to his rent just as the tithe was added. Two years ago we relieved the landlords from the poor rates, and we relieved them from the county cess in cases of tenancies created since the Act of 1870. I myself have never regretted that, because it was part of a great system of domestic reform. The landlords have now escaped from all the burdens which accompany the territorial position in other countries, and how are you going to open this blessed new century? Having freed the landlords from every burden which accompanies territorial rights, you give them, as a final boon, 25 per cent. reduction in tithe rent-charge, amounting to one and a half millions. You do that at the very time when you are setting up an Agricultural Department in Ireland, the chief use of which, as far as I can understand, is to make rents in Ireland better payable than in the past, and to make the Irish tenant a surer mark for your demands. Oh, that is denied; and it is said that you are going to create new industries in Ireland, where you will not even buy the uniforms of your policemen or soldiers, or boots and shoes for a single one of the instruments of your own despotism. You admit that wheat has decreased, and with the absence of wheat milling has disappeared, with a number of other industries. Having abolished every industry by which the people of the unhappy country lived you have set up a new Department to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before, and to make every cow give three times as much milk as she ever gave before. What is the security for this new Agricultural Department? It is this very Irish Church Fund which is being robbed in advance in the interests of the landlord. These are the prudent administrators—the vigilant watch dogs
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of the Treasury! These are the financial gods whom the Irish must bow down to and worship! We have no Parliament in Ireland; but we come over here to learn the trade; and what an example! We find that the British Treasury, which should, above all things, be governed by fixed and rigid principles, is not only attacking the principle of property and the principle of finance, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had declared that any attempt to deal with this fund in the way proposed was sacrilegious plundering, and who put his name to a statement on one day that the British Treasury would find it incompatible with their financial principles to sanction anything of the kind, now as a mere sop to the indignation of the landlords has flung all these financial principles to the winds. It is said that there is a continuity in the. government of Ireland. That is true in one respect—there is a continuity of fraud. With regard to every other form of fraud that has been perpetrated there has been some attempt at justification, but here we are asked to swallow the nauseating dose wholesale, without even the usual spoonful of jam. I can well understand the Irish landlords and the Irish Government saying, "Look here, you naked Irish, there is a fund of two or three millions out of which the British Treasury is making some £50,000 or £60,000 a year. Here it is in our Imperial power, and we are going to grab it." I do not know what this Irish Church Fund is. I have never seen it. We would never know it if we saw it, especially after this Bill. I suppose it is, a legend, and that the Treasury has some enormous book, with an enormous clerk, drawing an enormous salary for entering enormous figures in that enormous book. That is the Irish Church Fund! I do not suppose it is anything else than carrying figures from one account in this ledger to another, and bringing in a debit to Ireland of £50,000 a year—the British Government being able to make a large profit out of the transaction. I can understand the landlords saying to the tenants, "Look you, we have been robbing you for a long time, and we have been robbed by the Treasury. We have a grievance. The Chief Secretary is not popular. We even gather that from the Daily Express; so he is called Dick Talbot the second. We have lost a great deal by these Land Acts, and you have not gained

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as much as you think. There has been a long eviction campaign. We have had a squabble with you over that. But let us both join and rob the Saxon Treasury. You give us half a million, and we shall give you another half." I understand that is the deal; but that is not the basis; on which it is put at all If the Government came and said, "Can you, out of consideration for Lord Ardilaun, and all those other interesting 'porter peers' whom we have got on our hands, see your way to agree to give them a share of the Irish Church Surplus Fund, and we will agree to give you some of the balance?" that is a reasonable proposal. But that the Irish people should be asked to give the Irish landlords, at the moment you are establishing a fund for agricultural purposes, a sum of £1,500,000 is, I think, the most audacious and impudent proposal that I have ever heard of emanating from a British Government. I therefore venture to suggest to hon. Gentlemen opposite to make a fair transaction in this matter. There are in Ireland—nobody denies it—a number of cases of unjust eviction, and of deplorable hardship. I go this length, that if you allocate, say, one half of this fund, and appoint a tribunal of, say, the hon. Member for Ennis and the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh, I would be willing to leave the administration of the money in their hands, so that it went to these poor people. That is not the offer that is made to us. But here is a Government which has given us an Agricultural Grant—which went to England temporarily to one class, but half of it is going in Ireland for ever to the relief of one class—which is going to turn round and give that class an additional bribe in order that they may obtain their support. I say that a policy of that kind is not founded on reason. It is a policy which will re-act upon the Administration itself, and I certainly say that it should have come from a Government enjoying the unparalleled popularity which we are told is the result of their South African policy—an unparalleled popularity proved by the fact that it commands a majority of 150 in this House—shows that the British Constitution has been put up to a kind of Dutch auction. In former times you went to the polls, and you declared yourselves on certain great principles, like the ballot, or workmen's compensation; on questions
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which stirred mankind like the education or the religious question; but nowadays the policy of the Government is a policy of "shin-plasters." You find out a particular class which is aching to receive public money, and instantly you proceed to shovel out the public money to that class. Where is the demand for this Bill? From what avenue or canal has it proceeded? Who has asked for it? You have refused it again and again in the House of Lords, when it was pressed for by Lord Belmore, and others. I have never heard it urged for by hon. Gentlemen opposite, who ably represent their class. It is usually the case in this House not to put a question into Bill shape until it has been hammered on the anvil of resolutions and debate. This Bill appears to have sprung out of a headache in the Irish Office. Has the right hon. Gentleman got tired of being called names? He does not like being called Dick Talbot the Second. He wants the reputation of a judicious banker of the necessities of the Irish people. I can only say that a Bill which in reality attacks the finance and the principles of the Treasury, as laid down by successive Administrations for over forty years, is a very bad one with which to face a General Election.
Amendment proposed —
"To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day three months.'"—(Mr. Dillon.)
Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I certainly should have thought, after the two speeches which we have just heard from the hon. Member for East Mayo and the hon. Member who has just sat down, that the Government would have attempted at least some reply. I can see no answer, I confess, to those speeches. We have had in this country, certainly upon these benches, complaints of a policy of doles, but this is carrying the policy of doles to an extent almost of madness. I have never heard of a Bill which has filled me with more astonishment and, from a financial point of view, with more indignation, than the Bill now Tinder the consideration of the House. What is the meaning of this Bill? We have not

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had from the Chief Secretary for Ireland any statement of what he expects the landlords of Ireland are to receive out of this Bill; but it is quite plain that when that sum is ascertained, the amount which will be lost to the Irish Church Fund will be lost to the British Exchequer, which is ultimately responsible for the solvency of the Church Fund. The views of the English Treasury on this subject have been read out by the hon. Member for East Mayo in the minute for which I accept my share of responsibility. It is there pointed out that the proposal at that time might lead, and probably would lead, to the insolvency of the Irish Church Fund. But these proposals are not identical with that made at that time, although the principles involved are exactly the same. How can the Chief Secretary for Ireland undertake to say that this proposal may not or will not involve danger to the solvency of the Irish Church Fund? That is the point of view which at least the English Treasury and the English taxpayer care for. The Irish Church Fund is a national fund applicable to national purposes; and the Irish people have a right to look at all public funds from that point of view; and you have no right to appropriate such a fund to the purposes of one particular class. I do not care what particular form this question assumes; it is dealing with a public fund for the sole and exclusive purposes of one particular class. This first clause, which reduces the annuity from fifty-two to forty-five years, involves a certain sum of money, which I do not know to be accurately stated by the Chief Secretary for Ireland; but before this Fund is dealt with we ought to have in pounds, shillings, and pence exactly what the Fund is. That has never yet been stated, and the notion of seizing a public fund—which is a fund for the benefit, in the first instance, of the people of Ireland, and for which ultimately the English Treasury and the Consolidated Fund is responsible—without stating how far the solvency of that Fund is affected—
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but the statement was given in the memorandum of the Treasury which was laid on the Table of the House last year.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Is that the figure at which the Fund now stands?
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Is that the amount from which it is now proposed to make the grant to the Irish landlords?
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The memorandum shows the condition in which the Fund will be left if these proposals are carried out.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: But what we want to know is the actuarial value of the gift you make to the Irish landlords, and then we can judge of the amount of the dole, and what is the justification for that dole. In the early part of this debate I observed the Chancellor of the Exchequer was present, when the hon. Member for East Mayo quoted some very strong expressions the right hon. Gentleman had made use of in regard to the proposals in this Bill; but he is no longer here. I should like to know what are his views in regard to this Bill, and how he distinguishes it from those proposals which he formerly denounced so justly. It seems to me an extraordinary thing. We have heard of a policy of continuity, but anything more absolutely reversing the financial policy of the English Treasury it is impossible to conceive. The principles laid down in the memorandum of 1895 are, as the hon. Member for East Mayo and the hon. and learned Gentleman who succeeded him said, absolutely inconsistent with this Bill. It is quite unnecessary for me to repeat the arguments which have been so well put forward by the hon. Gentlemen who have spoken from below the gangway. I enter my protest against the Bill as utterly unsound financially, and as being a gross injustice to the Irish people, who have a right to the integrity of the Irish Church Fund, as far as it will go, for national purposes. That fund is not to be frittered away for the benefit of a particular class in Ireland, any more than the public funds of this country can be disposed of for the benefit of a particular class. I do not desire at this hour unnecessarily to delay the House, but I express the hope that this Bill will be fully debated before it is allowed to pass into law, so that its real bearing and character may be thoroughly understood. A more serious attack on the financial principles on which public funds ought to be dealt with has never, in my opinion, been made in this House. I regret very much the absence of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, as we should

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know what are his sentiments on such a departure from sound financial principles. There is another point of which I will briefly take notice, and that is the Bill as it affects property. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for East Mayo in what he said as to its effects on the security of all property. It is alleged that the Irish landlords have suffered from a reduction of their rents, and what is the remedy? To attack the first rent-charge on the property, to impoverish the fund belonging to the Irish people, and to impair the security of the British Treasury. I observe that there are other charges on the land that the Bill does not affect, and those are the second charges. We ought to know to what extent you are damaging the first rent-charge on this property in order to indemnify people simply because their rents have fallen. That is a most extraordinary, I might almost call it a communistic proceeding. I entirely fail to understand what is the justification for the whole of these proceedings. The Government have not been very fortunate in their dealings with the question of tithe. Seven years ago we fought them, and in two successive years they were obliged to drop the Tithes Bills which they had brought in. But we never before dreamt in this country of subverting the whole principle on which the tithe is paid. No doubt we made the landlord responsible, but we did not alter the quality of the tithe or the method by which it was valued, as was so humorously stated by my hon. friend behind me. This Bill rests upon the fact that the Government Gazette has not published the materials for estimating the tithe. Certainly, a more extravagant basis on which to rest a Bill I never heard. All I can say is that, for my part, I shall oppose this Bill in all its stages, because I believe it to be thoroughly unsound financially, and from the point of view of policy to be a very dangerous precedent. I cannot conceive why, at this moment, you should think it necessary, after all the grants you have made to the Irish landlords on one pretence or another, and simply on account of a defect in the publication in the Dublin Gazette, to bring forward a proposal which affects more than a million of money of a public fund which you have no right to deal with in the manner it is dealt with in this Bill.
MR. ARCHDALE: I do not understand the attitude of the
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right hon. Gentleman and the other Members opposite who oppose this Bill, which is intended to remove an injustice from which many men in Ireland have suffered. I myself and others will not benefit from it by a single penny, but I know that others suffer from a monstrous injustice. My complaint, and that of many from my part of the country, is that the Bill does not go far enough.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Why do you not take the whole Church Fund?
MR. ARCHDALE: The Church has been robbed, but I am glad to say that we are supporting it well. As regards this Tithe Bill, it does not, in my opinion, go half far enough; and I only wish that those who oppose it had to pay tithe when they have not money to pay it with. I understand that members of the Church are being served with writs to pay the tithe by the 1st of May, although they do not get the rents with which to pay it until November. It is said that this Bill uses public money for the benefit of one class; but I do not know how hon. Members can employ that contention when they must know that up to the year 1824 tithe was payable entirely on produce; but in the year 1838, owing to the number of outrages committed during the collection of the tithe, the occupier was entirely relieved from the burden, and the owner was made liable, and the tithe was Collected in the shape of rent. In the year 1881, when the Land Act was passed, owing to the fall in prices, and foreign competition, the ownership of the land was taken from the landlords. In 1872, when the Irish Church was plundered, the ecclesiastical tithe was fixed by Act of Parliament to make the security for the nine millions coming out of the British Treasury. The value of the ecclesiastical tithe was fixed at 22½ years purchase, although at the same time the lay tithe was valued at eighteen years purchase. By that means the British Parliament plundered a million from the payers of lay tithe in Ireland. I think there could not be a more honest or just measure than this Bill, and I cannot understand how Members from Ireland, when they know that the Land Commission has reduced rents all over the country, when they know that the tenants do not pay tithe, which is a charge on land—the ownership having boon taken from the landlord and given to the tenant—should

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refuse to see that the tithe charge should not be reduced in proportion to the reduction of rent. I was pleased to hear some hon. Members say that a great relief was given to the tenants by the Act of 1898, but I was sorry to hear the hon. Member for North Louth sneering at the new Agricultural Department, and alleging that it was established to make rents more payable in Ireland. I was also sorry to hear what he said about the churches. In my own neighbourhood three or four churches have been built by members of my own family, and I do not think we are taking them from anyone. When the hon. Member for East Mayo was talking of the landlord class robbing Ireland at the time of the Union, I know perfectly well that my great grandfather was one of the strongest opponents of the Union—he was just as strong against it as I am for it at the present time. I am sorry that family history does not turn out more Members of my opinion. If hon. Members would only look at things in an honest light, and recollect that these tithes have been fixed at a higher value than was right, they would not oppose the Bill. The hon. Member talks about the grease given to the Irish landlords. I do not know many landlords who have got much grease, but I do know that out of the money given to the Church Fund by members of my faith, more than £7,000,000 has been given to Ireland. The hon. Members opposite say the landlords have taken all the grease, but the grease, so far as I know, has gone the other way. The grease that came our way had no substance. When it had any substance it went the other way.
MR. DALY: I am sorry that the hon. Member for North Fermanagh is not in his place. The story he told to the House is the one that every landlord preaches when a Bill is brought forward for the purpose of giving something to the landlords. It does not go far enough—that was what was preached by the hon. Member, and I am sure he is little more than the spokesman of his class in this House. If the whole of the Church Fund were given to Irish landlords it would not satisfy them. The Irish landlords are constantly preaching their poverty, and asking doles and bribes from this House. I hope the House will reject the proposal brought
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forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. I think his argument this evening is not consistent with the speech he made at Leeds a short time ago, wherein he stated that the salvation of the tenant farmers of Ireland was the land purchase scheme. It does not seem to me that the right hon. Gentleman was sincere in his remarks, because it docs not look as if he was anxious to get rid of the landlords when he brings in a Bill to give them a part of the Irish Church Fund. The hon. Member for North Fermanagh mentioned that a million of money was given from the Church Fund to intermediate education, but he forgot to state that the children of his coreligionists received their share from this. A sum of £1,300,000 also goes to the school teachers of Ireland, and it must be remembered that the Protestant children in the National schools are educated with a portion of that money. Surely the hon. Member for North Fermanagh would not for a moment say that the landlord class should gobble the whole of this sum. If he does, I am sure the Members of this House would certainly not submit to any such proposal. That is the proposal the hon. Member brought forward here. I am opposed to the Second Heading of the Bill, when I consider the largo claims that are already made on the Church Fund for the purposes of education—£1,000,000 for intermediate education, £1,300,000 for National school purposes, and other portions for the Presbyterian Church, May-nooth College, and the Congested Districts Board. In view of those claims at the present time, it would be a very dangerous thing to make any further inroads on the Church Fund. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary stated that in the case of this Church Fund running out there would be nothing easier than to approach the Treasury and get a grant of £30,000. My experience is that the Treasury is a very doubtful source for the Irish people to rely upon for anything they want. The Irish Members have been asking some trifling grants to help the distressed people in the West of Ireland and I know the cold ear given to them by the Government when the proposal was made.
Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present (Mr. FLAVIN, Kerry, N.). House counted, and forty Members being found present,
MR. DALY,continuing, said: The hon. Member for North Fermanagh spoke about the Church Fund being plundered. I think it is only a matter of justice that the hon. Member should support his own clergy. It is the greatest shame that in a country where the Catholic population is in the proportion of five to one Protestant, the Catholics have to support the Protestant Church and also their own clergy. I should also remark that in this so-called plunder of the Church Fund several millions were given to the church to which the hon. Member belongs. The landlords pay the tithes, but they raised rents enormously. I know one estate where 20 per cent. was put on the rents. Taking all these rises of rents into consideration, the Government come to this House proposing to give a dole of several thousand pounds to the landlords. The right hon. Gentleman stated that he had spoken to several people—I suppose they may have been Members of the House of Lords—in regard to the Bill which was passed fixing the tithe as a permanent charge, and they had informed him that it was not considered at all. I must differ from the right hon. Gentleman. I find that the price of oats in 1871 was 25s. 2d. per quarter, in 1873 it was 25s. 3d., and in 1874, 28s. 10d. The price was steadily rising, and to my mind the reason why the Bill was allowed to pass so quietly through the House of Lords was that the Lords thought the price would continue to rise. They took that for granted, and they thought they were making a real good bargain at the time. The moment they find that the bargain has not turned out as expected they come whining to this House to get a dole from the Church Fund. I agree with the hon. Member for East Mayo that the best thing the right hon. Gentleman could do would be to withdraw the Bill altogether. It is really a shame that the landlords should come to this House asking doles. When the poor people of the West of Ireland required relief there was no Bill brought in on their behalf. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way not to persist in going on with this Bill, which is not agreeable to the vast majority of the poor people of Ireland. My constituents are very anxious that this Bill should not become law, and so far as I am concerned I will vote against the Second Reading.
MR. HERBERT LEWIS: This is a Bill that deeply affects the Irish Members and the people whom they represent, but it also concerns Members representing constituencies in other parts of Great Britain as well, and on that ground I venture to address a very few observations to the House upon the measure. In the first place I am surprised, after the very pointed appeal that was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Mon-mouth, who spoke on this matter with peculiar authority as an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not present. I hope that we shall see him in his place at all events at a later stage in the debate, in order that we may hear from his own lips the defence he has to offer for this extraordinary Bill, which, I venture to say, violates some of the most elementary canons of financial justice. The right hon. Gentleman, I am afraid, has been the unwilling victim during the present Parliament of more than one raid upon the Treasury, which he by himself has been powerless to resist. I was under the impression that we had got to the very end of these doles to favoured classes which have signalised this Parliament above perhaps any other Parliament that has existed during the present century. We are, perhaps, in our unctuous-rectitude, rather fond of pointing to the horrible misdeeds of Tammany Hall in America, and to the frightful corruption that existed in the Transvaal, but I venture to say that if Bills of this kind; were passed by Tammany Hall, and by the Transvaal Government, we should be the first to denounce them for political corruption. The landlords of Ireland are having this dole given to them to the large amount of a million and a half sterling, if we capitalise the annual grant. Any landlord may at once sell his property if he chooses, and obtain practically the whole of the capital value. It is practically a gift of a lump sum of a million and a half to the landlords, who are to benefit under these provisions. The hon. Member for North Fermanagh complained of the treatment the landlords of Ireland had received at the hands of Parliament. Why, take a single case. Under the Bill relating to the rating of agricultural land in Ireland, one nobleman received an amount by that so-called Local Government Bill equivalent in cash to £60,000 or £70,000. There was

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an hon. Gentleman—I see he is not in his place now—sitting opposite me when that Bill was passed, who went into the Lobby and voted for £500 or £600, indeed I think it was £700 a year, to be put into his own pocket. He had a perfect right to do that, but as a matter of fact if the Chancellor of the Exchequer, from his place in Parliament, had stepped below the gangway and handed that hon. Gentleman £15,000 or £20,000, or whatever the capital value was, he could not have made a more direct gift from the Treasury than was made to that particular Irish landlord. That is the kind of legislation which from time to time we have seen in the course of this present Parliament. I thought for very shame we had seen the last of it, but here we have presented to us a Bill which proposes to take from the national funds a considerable sum of money and hand it over to a particular class—a class perhaps which is not as wealthy as it used to be in the past, but which at the same time is not a particularly poor, nor, I would add, a particularly deserving class. We were under the impression a short time ago that something was to be done for Ireland by the present Government. We wore told that the golden moment had arrived in the sad and unhappy history that has for so long existed between that island and this country when we might expect something in the nature of a great measure of conciliation, and that expectation was given voice to not merely by those in Ireland who must have desired something of the kind, but by those who support the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the bill in this country. That expectation has been disappointed. Nothing of the kind has been done, but the very least I should have thought that Ireland could have expected from this Ministry at the present time would have been abstention from forcing through Parliament a Bill of this kind, the effect of which has been so well described by hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House. It has been felt that the empire owes a debt of gratitude to Ireland, but Ireland apparently is not only expected to shed her blood, but to shed her money. I hope that this is the last of these measures. I hope that the common sense of this country will prevail over the system of giving doles and sops and bribes to wealthy and privileged classes. I hope that they will cease. We have had enough
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of it during this Parliament to make any sober-minded man feel that our finance is in dangerous hands indeed. We are piling our debt up by tens of millions, and out of our national funds we have made these grants time and again. We are allowing our own industries in our own country to languish—industries that might be profitably developed—like, for instance, the afforesting of the country. All these things are neglected for political support, and political support only is thought of. I trust that before long we shall have a Ministry in power which will have the honesty to deal with questions of this kind, not from the point of view of what political support it can gain from certain classes of the community, but looking at the interest of the community as a whole, and, particularly in the case of a poor community like Ireland, remembering to act in the interest of the masses, and not of the classes, who benefit by such legislation as this.
MR. WILLIAM MOORE: It is hardly to be expected that a member from the Principality should know very much about the Irish question or the peculiar law in Ireland relating to tithes, or the peculiar claims in Ireland upon the particular fund out of which it is proposed to remedy this grievance, and therefore I was not at all surprised at the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. But I regret that the red herring of landlordism, which has been skilfully drawn across the trail, should have been introduced into this debate. If I thought for a moment that the passing of this Bill would take a single penny out of the pockets of the tenants of Ireland I should not be at liberty to follow the course I now take in supporting the measure. It shows the ignorance of the hon. Gentleman opposite that he should suppose that the Government would gain anything by administering a dole, as he calls it, to the landlords of Ireland in return for their political influence. Any hon. Member who knows anything about Ireland knows that in every constituency in the North of Ireland, the landlords, be it for good or be it for evil, have lost all political influence, and therefore, to put it on the lowest basis, it would not be worth the while of the Government to try to conciliate by a dole landlords who cannot, unaided by the democracy, return a single Member to this House. I have been re-

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turned as a neutral on these very acute questions between landlord and tenant, and I do not think any hon. Member can accuse me of having broken my election pledges in those matters. I have always declined to take any course in this House which could be described as anything hut neutral in regard to these acute questions, and if any hon. Member will convince me that in supporting this Bill I should be taking one penny out of the pockets of the tenants I will at once walk out of the House.
MR. HERBERT LEWIS: Are you putting anything into the landlords' pockets by it?
MR. WILLIAM MOORE: That is another matter. Wherever there is an Irish grievance, no matter which class may be suffering from it, I would like to see it remedied out of funds in the possession of the English Treasury. But the fact that the sufferers happen to be landlords, or Unionists, or Protestants is no reason why that grievance should not be redressed if we have an opportunity of doing it. What happens here? We all know the origin of tithes. The amount of the tithe was originally payable in kind, and nothing could more plainly show how dependent it was upon the value of the commodity. The tenant has had his rent reduced according to the price of the commodities, and if these people, who are called landlords—and if "landlord" means anyone whose great grandfather may have been a landlord, perhaps it is a good definition—are now paying an annual sum to a Government body, which exacts it to the day without mercy or scruple, which is in excess of the real value of the commodity on which it was originally based, it is the duty of honest men in this House to support this Bill if it will give those people relief. How has this matter arisen? If matters had gone on as the framers of these Acts at the beginning of Her Majesty's reign had intended, there would have been a variation, and that variation would have depended directly upon the price of the produce. The intention of the Legislature was that every seven years, according as prices went up or down, the tithe should be varied. How is it that that variation has not taken place? Simply because the proprietor or editor of the Dublin Gazette omitted to publish the
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statutory details which were required before a variation could take place.
SERJEANT HEMPHILL: That applies only to lay tithes.
MR. WILLIAM MOORE: It would have been only right and fair that every injustice occasioned by the suppression of those facts from the Dublin Gazette should have been included in this remedial measure before us. The hon. Member for East Mayo read from a memorandum that perpetual rents should be varied also, but they could only be varied by an award based on these returns which should have appeared in the Dublin Gazette. Therefore while this Bill, being a Tithes Bill, provides only for enabling the tithe payer on a new basis to vary his tithe, there is no provision whatever for these perpetual rent payers who pay to the same body, and whose rents should also vary with the price of corn, to have their rents revised. I say that if you are going to remedy this grievance of the tithe payers you ought also to remedy the grievance with regard to the rent, and confer upon the perpetual rent payers similar benefits to those contained in this Bill, but that is no reason why the grievance which is dealt with should not be redressed. It is proved that money was lent on certain terms at 4 per cent., and it is also proved that the instalments will repay capital and interest in forty-five years. If that is so, why should you spread the repayment over fifty-two years when the whole sum will have been paid in forty-five? That is not a matter of politics; it is a matter of common honesty. It is no argument against that that the people happen to be landlords. If I can find any Bill which will provide that where the Government, no matter how long ago, entered into a contract of this sort by which money was to be repaid, capital and interest, by instalments payable for a certain period, the Government will be prepared now, owing to the reduced price of money, to vary that contract, I shall be exceedingly glad. We ought really to welcome the principle of this Bill, instead of abusing it as being absolutely in opposition to all sound rules of finance. I think, on the whole, if this matter is considered impartially, it will be seen where the justice lies, and hon. Members will then be bound to support the Bill.
Mr. MURNAGHANconsidered that the Bill was one which, if the Irish Members allowed it to pass without the strongest protest, would mark a sad step in the decay of the members of the Irish party. The measure should be divided against, and every form of the House used to prevent the success of this attack upon the only fund which the Irish nation now had in reserve. If the right hon. Gentleman desired to do his friends a favour, why did he not go to that inflated fund known as the Local Taxation Account? According to the experts of their own Government, the British nation owed Ireland millions of pounds, and if the Chief Secretary desired to bolster up a class he should go to a fund of his own country, and then the Irish would say nothing about it. To come at this time of day, and ask the Irish Members to vote without protest another burden upon the people of Ire-land, was an outrage and a scandal. It seemed to be a favourite pastime to get the Irish people to fight one another, and when that could not be done to get them to rob one another, and now the landlords were to be allowed to rob the Irish Church Fund. This matter concerned the Irish people very seriously, and such a fraud would not be allowed to be perpetrated without decent publicity and protest. The Chief Secretary claimed that it was only an extension of a system already existing with regard to Irish tenants, but that statement was very wide of the mark. How were the Irish tenants treated by the landlords in days gone by? Was not every possible penny extorted from them? Were they not like drowning men who would clutch at any straw to save themselves from ruin? To place such men on a level with landlords with regard to tithe-rent charge was really asking the House to swallow a very large dose. The landlords had no claim on the people, and why should the tenants of Ireland be asked to contribute a grant of something like £1,500,000? The right hon. Gentleman had said there would be a loss to the Irish people with regard to one clause of £33,000 a year, and that that would go on increasing. That was a very serious matter, and the people did not intend to allow that money to be taken without receiving some corresponding benefit. The hon. Member was proceeding to argue that since the passing of the Local Government Act rates had
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been increased all over the country through the action of the Local Government Board, when—
*MR. SPEAKERreminded the hon. Gentleman that the action of the Local Government Board was not under discussion.
MR. MURNAGHANsaid he was trying to point out that recent legislation had resulted in a very heavy charge on the ratepayers, and as the present Bill dealt financially with the country he thought it might have some bearing on that point. He would not, however, labour the point. The whole history of landlordism was one of the darkest pages in the history of Ireland. Thousands of people had been driven from her shores, and now the Chief Secretary wished to rehabilitate himself with this class at the expense of the Irish nation; but as long as they possibly could the Nationalist representatives would prevent him doing so. They admitted the lay impropriator had a grievance which ought to be remedied, but on to the real grievance were hitched provisions which would benefit a class that had no grievance whatever. He therefore strongly protested against this Bill, and hoped it would be rejected.
COLONEL SAUNDERSON: We have had two speeches to-night, that of the hon. Member for East Mayo and that of the hon. Member for North Louth, in which apparently a common assault was made upon this Bill and the principle upon which it is founded. Both of those hon. Members agreed that ever since legislation had been passed in regard to tithe rent in Ireland unnumbered benefits and a vast amount of gold had been showered on the Irish landlords. But neither of those gentlemen attempted to prove their statements. I venture to make the assertion—and I should like any hon. Gentleman opposite who follows me to deal with it—that from the year 1823 down to the year 1872 the Irish landlords reaped no benefit whatever from legislation in regard to this matter. My assertion is based simply on the way in which I read the statutes and the effect they have had on the class to which I have the fortune or the misfortune to belong. The Bill of 1823 made the composition of tithe rent optional. Apparently that was not found to act well in

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Ireland, and so we had the Bill of 1832, which made it obligatory that the composition should be paid, and that the landlord should recover the tithe from the tenant, the landlord thereby undertaking what might be looked upon as a difficult operation. Hon. Members opposite are probably aware that in recent times the Land Commission has issued monthly Returns in regard to the rents in Ireland, and it has been shown by that body—who are not supposed to be extremely favourable to Irish landlords—["Oh, oh!"]—of course, that is a matter of opinion—it has been shown that in the majority of cases of Irish rents the rent has not been raised within living memory, and that no difference has been made owing to the fact that the tithe rent-charge had to be levied on the tenant. The Irish landlord in recent times has had quite enough difficulty to get his ordinary rent paid, and it would not be wise for him to alter his rental for the very small sums which these tithes usually represent. In the majority of cases, sooner than do that the landlord has paid the charge himself. Under the Bill of 1873 demesne lands were included in the payment for tithe, and it could hardly be said that that was a gain to the landlords. But the Bill of 1838 has been taken as a Bill under which great gain accrued to the landlords, 25 per cent. being taken off the composition. But the hon. Member for East Mayo forgot that the difference of 25 per cent. did not go to the landlord, because the Act only enabled him to add the rent charge, and not the composition, to the tenant's rent.
MR. DILLON: Mr. Disraeli said that £100,000 went to the Irish landlords.
COLONEL SAUNDERSON: Mr. Disraeli was not the only Minister who knew nothing about Ireland. At any rate the hon. Member for East Mayo cannot deny that this 25 per cent. reduction absolutely did not go into the pockets of the landlords at all. The hon. Member for North Louth drew a picture of the Irish landlord which I only wish was true. According to him we are so full of money that if this Bill were passed we could go, of all places in the world, to Monte Carlo. I can only say that I do not think the difference it would cause to my income would enable me to go even to Dublin and back. It appears to me that these gentlemen
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have made one mistake. They attack this Bill mainly because it proposes to reduce the period of redemptions from fifty-two to forty-five years. That, to the right hon. Gentleman for West Monmouth, is a monstrous thing. What would be said if this House, supposing it had the power, proposed to make any subject of the Queen paya debt he did not owe? I can conjure up in my own mind the sort of speeches we should have in this House from the hon. Member for East Mayo, and the hon. and learned Member for North Louth, if it was proposed that an Irish tenant, after he had paid the instalments for his farm, was asked to go on paying those instalments for seven years more when he had already paid the debt. That is just what this Bill proposes to prevent. It proposes that the Irish land lords should not be asked to pay a debt which after forty-five years they do not owe at all. Is that a monstrous gift to the Irish landlords? The Chief Secretary for Ireland stated the case very plainly on the 13th April, 1896,* when he said—
"There is no doubt whatever that the landlords have been very harshly dealt with in this matter. When the landlords redeem the tithe rent-charge, what is supposed to be redeemed is the net tithe rent-charge, exclusive of the poor rate. As a matter of fact, the annuity which they now have to pay—namely, £4 9s. for fifty-two years—would, on the supposition that the interest is calculated at the rate of £3 10s. per cent., pay off not the net but the gross tithe rent-charge."
This Bill simply does what any honest man and honourable House of Commons would do—that is, it provides that the Irish landlords should not be asked to pay a debt they have already settled. It is absurd to say that that is a gift of seven years instalments to the landlords; it is simply an act of common honesty on the part of the House of Commons. I do not look upon it as a favour or a dole, but as something which the landlords have a right to demand. I do not know whether any hon. Members opposite will deal with this point, but I do not see how they can prove that even the landlords, whom they detest so much, and whom they would like to expatriate and grind under foot should be the only men in the world to be asked to pay a debt which they do not owe. Then comes the question of the system upon which you are
* See The parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. xxxix., p. 814.

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to estimate the tithe rent-charge. As to the system on which tithe rent-charge was estimated, it is well known that before 1872 it was estimated on the price of wheat and oats. The Bill of 1872 swept that revision away. Undoubtedly that was an act of great injustice, for it took away from the landowning class that revision which all the tenants of Ireland possess. The revision on the price of wheat and oats had been swept away, but the Government have substituted for that revision the revision which takes place in rent, and the hon. and learned Member for North Louth calls that a monstrosity. The hon. Member stands up for high political principles, and he views with great suspicion anything that will throw the slightest shade or shadow of doubt upon those principles of statesmanship which have guided the country to which he does not wish to belong. You have now swept away those two articles wheat and oats, which I believe are used in this country; you have swept them away as a method of revision, and you have substituted by this Act an easy and a fair method of revising the tithe rent-charge. I would remind the House that the Irish landlords, whatever their faults may be—and I hope they are not guilty of all the things ascribed to them by hon. Gentlemen opposite—have been treated by this country in a way in which no other landlords in the world have been treated by a legislature. [Cries of "No, no."] I defy any hon. Member to point to any civilised country in the world where, by the arbitrary act of the legislature, a quarter of the landlords' income has been swept away. This House of Commons having decided that it was necessary for State purposes that the Irish landlords should be thus treated, I say that we have a right to ask in this House that they shall be treated fairly even in this small question of the tithe rent-charge. It is only a very small question, although hon. Gentlemen opposite appear very timid as to the effect this legislation will have upon the Church Fund. Surely anybody who reads the figures will see that there is no danger in the direction indicated. That fund amounts to £597,000, which will be diminished in the year 1901 to £250,000, so that there is no real ground for the fear entertained. I look upon this Bill as one which will give a
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certain amount of fair play to the Irish landlords, who have been treated by you as no other class in any other country has ever been treated. The landlords of Ireland have been dealt with as a sort of political commodity, and they have been badgered about to suit the political exigencies of the moment. By a sweeping Act of Parliament they have been deprived of a quarter of their income. This has been done by the State for State reasons, but I do not desire to go back on that legislation. That fact stands staring us in the face, and the Irish land-lord has never received a shilling for undergoing this painful operation. This Bill is intended to a very microscopic extent to extend a certain measure of justice to Irish landlords, and I hope the House of Commons will not be led astray by the interesting and amusing speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite, or by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth. This Bill aims at doing justice to the land lords, and it is founded upon justice and fair play. I hope, therefore, that it will be read a second time by the British House of Commons.
MR. MAURICE HEALY: The hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down has described this Bill as an act of common honesty. My comment upon that is that it is very easy to be honest at the expense of other people. We have not observed that fine sense of honesty which the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite congratulates the Government, upon in their dealings with the much more ample resources at the disposal of the British Treasury. The hon. Member for North Antrim alluded to the loans issued in Ireland, and I think when the Chief Secretary heard him make that allusion he must have thought it singularly unfortunate. What are the facts about these loan borrowers? A year ago deputations from all parts of Ireland representing the clergy of all denominations, including Catholic priests, Presbyterians, and members of the Church in Ireland, brought before the Chief Secretary the case of the tithe-owners, so far as it relates to the revenues and the charges with which the Chief Secretary was then dealing, not in connection with an Irish Parliament, but with the British Treasury; but on that occasion the right hon. Gentleman found himself unable to administer that honesty

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upon which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has congratulated him to-night. That is exactly a parallel case. It is said in the case of these tithe rents that they were originally calculated on a basis which was unjust to the Irish tithe-payer. All I know is that the Act of Parliament prescribed the terms on which these tithe payers could redeem those tithes if they liked, and it was not compulsory upon them to come in and redeem. No tithe-payer in Ireland has taken advantage of the supposed benefits which the Church Act conferred upon them. It was a purely voluntary process created, as it was supposed, specially for the benefit of the Irish tithe-owner. They came in not upon any declaration made in the House of Commons with regard to the rate of interest, but to redeem their tithes on a basis fixed by Act of Parliament, which it was open to them either to accept or reject. It is under these circumstances that we are told to-night that because those terms were unfair and dishonest to the Irish landlords Parliament is now bound to perform an act of restitution. The loan borrowers made out an exactly similar case, and they pointed out that the rate of interest was unfair; but the interest was not reduced, although the rate which was fixed enabled the Treasury to make a large profit. The reply of the Treasury was that Parliament had fixed the rate of interest for the loans, and they would have to pay every penny. It is notorious that a very large number of local bodies who have borrowed money from the Treasury at the fixed rate of interest have applied to pay off the principal and interest of the loan because the interest was too high, and because they could borrow money much more cheaply. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer replies, "No, you contracted to pay this loan off in a particular manner, you contracted to pay it off by instalments payable over a certain number of years, and we should make a loss if we allowed you to redeem the loan at par." And consequently the Chancellor of the Exchequer bound these Irish local bodies strictly to the terms upon which they have borrowed. Where is the distinction between these borrowers and the case of the Irish landlords? The Irish local bodies have not a penny interest in the transaction, for they are simply public representatives defending public interests, such as boards of guardians and town commissioners.
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This is the measure of justice which is, meted out to this class of borrowers, while special terms are made for the Irish landlords. What is the distinction between the two cases? There is only one distinction—in the case of the Irish landlords you are dealing with an Irish fund, but in the case of the borrowers you are dealing with the funds of the British Treasury, and therefore they will exact the last farthing. I want to ask the Chief Secretary a question about another case which has arisen. He has told us that these tithe annuities will not expire till 1917. I draw his attention to the fact that some expire five years hence, and my knowledge of the fact is derived from the circumstance that I had some professional concern with a case which is at present before the Irish Courts, in which a gentleman who had sold his land was ordered by Judge Ross to pay. The position of that case is that if the proceedings had commenced two months ago or lasted a couple of months longer that gentleman would have been, forgiven every penny of this loan. Will the right hon. Gentleman make restitution in that case? Will he hand it back?
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: Was that under the Land Acts?
MR. MAURICE HEALY: Yes.
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: That makes all the difference.
MR. MAURICE HEALY: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon, I misunderstood his question. It was in the Landed Estates Court—but it was a case of ordinary land sale, and the gentleman has been ordered to redeem the land-charge. He has been ordered to pay this live years rent-charge, which it is simply extortion to take. The right hon. Gentleman is involving himself in no little difficulty by this piece of legislation. The Bill deals with two different subjects—it deals, with the lay tithe and the Ecclesiastical tithe, and as regards both its parts the Bill works the gravest injustice, in the one case to the tithe-owner and in the other to the tithe-payer. It does not go far enough in the case of the lay tithe and it goes too far in the case of the Ecclesiastical tithe. The right hon. Gentleman does not see the extraordinary consequences to which it leads. What are the facts as to the lay tithe? Hitherto it has been adjustable every five or ten

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years on the basis of the price, in some cases of wheat and in the other of oats which are grown in the district. It has happened in the case of wheat that wheat growing has largely disappeared in Ireland, and the right hon. Gentleman thinks that that is a sufficient justification for abolishing the price of wheat as a basis in all transactions. But what is his justification for a tithe fixed upon a basis of the price of oats? Does he know what the facts are in the county of Monaghan, where oats as a crop are largely grown? In that county, as in every other part of Ireland where oats are grown, the tithe-owners find themselves in this position, that if the right hon. Gentleman had left the law as it was, they would not have found their tithes reduced more than 15 per cent.; under this Bill they are reduced 20, 30, or 35 per cent. How can the right hon. Gentleman defend that? I am amazed that hon. Gentlemen opposite who represent Irish constituencies should listen to a proposition of that kind in this House. I am an owner of tithes of twenty generations; I hold them with a right to have them adjusted upon a certain basis; that basis will reduce my tithe 15 per cent., and the right hon. Gentleman brings in a Bill by which my property will suddenly be reduced, not by 15 per cent., but by a percentage varying from 20 to 35 per cent. How can hon. Gentlemen having an interest in property in Ireland, either land or tithes, defend such a proposition? Because the result upon the whole will be to give them a certain amount of money out of the public purse. That is why they come and justify this proposal. If that had not been the result they would have been the first to denounce it as spoliation and confiscation. There has been a wrong and an injustice done as regards both the tithe owners and the tithe payers. The fault has been committed by a public official. We do not know whose the fault was. Reference has been made to the editor of the Dublin Gazette, but I have been told that it was the fault of the Irish Land Commission.
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: It was not the fault of the Irish Land Commission.
MR. MAURICE HEALY: But whose-ever it was, owing to the blunder of some official, a wrong has been done to the owners of the lay tithe. Why not redress
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that wrong in a plain and obvious way by remedying the blunder? But no, the right hon. Gentleman, instead of remedying the blunder, makes an assault in the one case on the tithe-owners and in the other case upon the tithe-payer. I have shown that in the case of oats it is an assault on the tithe-owner, and in the case of wheat it is an assault upon the tithe-payer. I ask again what is the right hon. Gentleman's justification for making the landlord, who happens to be the tithe-payer, pay tithes at the rate of 15 per cent., when, if he had the law, his tithes would be reduced 50 per cent? Erskine once said that he had held many briefs, and though he sometimes had won cases which he ought to have lost, and sometimes lost cases which he ought to have won, on the average justice was done. That is the practice of the right hon. Gentleman in this case; so far as the lay tithe-payer is concerned this Bill is indefensible and un- just. What should have been done should have been to remedy the wrong which has been committed, and if the right hon. Gentleman was desirous of changing his procedure and wished to do that, we should be glad to assist him, even if his proposals went to the extent of entire revision; but to wholly revolutionise the procedure and the law, utterly disregarding the appeals of all parties in this manner, appears to me to be wholly undesirable. Another question is, what is the right hon. Gentleman going to do with the tithes lessees? In many cases these tithes are lot out, and the man who collects the tithes is a lessee paying a rent. The right hon. Gentleman proposes that the tithes of these gentlemen shall be cut down, sometimes more and sometimes less, but he proposes to make no alteration which they have to pay. But why, if the amount of the tithe for which he pays varies, should not the amount which he pays for the tithe vary also? That is another difference which the right hon. Gentleman has got himself into by this revolutionary procedure. Let me point out the last result of the extra-ordinary method adopted by the right hon. Gentleman. Take the case of the middleman, who pays a rent, and whose interest will cease in fifty or sixty years. His rents are cut down and he pays no tithes, his landlord pays the tithes and his rents are not cut down, and the right hon. Gentleman proposes that the landlord whose rents are

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not affected must have his tithes reduced because another man's rent has been cut down. The right hon. Gentleman cannot have considered the full scope of this Bill, and I think he will find when it emerges from the Committee stage he has involved himself in most extraordinary difficulties. I compliment him on the way in which he has mastered this subject, and the admirably clear and lucid statement in which he dealt with it, but I am sorry that the great intellect which he brought to bear upon the subject has not been more profitably engaged. Coming to the case of the ecclesiastical tithes, I ask what is the justification for the variation of ecclesiastical tithes. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Armagh said that when the Bill of 1872 was passed nobody knew what had been done, and the suggestion was made that the tithe owners of Ireland were so negligent of their interests and so careless of their rights that they did not know what Mr. Gladstone was doing when he introduced that Act; but those gentlemen assented to that legislation because they thought that they were making a good bargain for themselves. 1872 was the prosperous year for Irish landlords; prices were rising, and rose to 1876, and the general idea at that time was that we should never see the end of Irish prosperity. The tithe-payers considered that under those circumstances, with increasing prices there would be an increase in the tithes. This right of adjustment was not an unused right, and accordingly there was a bargain by which each party thought he had got his way. Mr. Gladstone made his tithes proposal because large sums were being borrowed from the fund, and he wanted to make it secure. The classes which paid the tithes were all represented in this House at the time, and we on these benches cannot conceive that they would have let this Bill pass through this House almost sub silentio unless they thought they had a good bargain for themselves. From the time the Tithes Adjustment Act was passed right down to 1870 there were only sixty cases of adjustment all through Ireland, and when that right of adjustment was proposed to be taken away the Irish landlord thought it would not be used, and had not been used in the past, and that if it were used it would be used to his detriment, and he gave it up. It has turned out to be a bad bargain, but I have yet to learn that when a
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man has made a bad bargain he has a right to come to this House and ask it to get him out of it. I have witnessed in this House several English Tithes Bills passed. I understand in some towns in England this tithe tax is a most pressing burden, but my recollection of all those Bills passed for England is that they were Bills not to cut down the tithes and give the tithe-payer an easier term, but to facilitate the collection of tithes; but in Ireland, forsooth, when the tithe-owner raises a cry you immediately come to his rescue, and we hear again from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Armagh the old story of reduction and relief. Does anybody believe that these reductions are due to the Irish Land Courts? Were there no reductions of rent in England? I have always understood that the reduction of rents in England, where there are no Land Courts, was quite as great, if not greater, than was the case in Ireland. The landlords of Ireland only did under compulsion of the law what the English landowners did of their own free will. No doubt the Land Courts brought it about earlier than would have been the case. The Irish tenant would have had to wait and agitate for what the English landowner did on his own initiative as a measure of justice; but the rents would have fallen anyhow, and it is false to say that the Land Courts reduced them, and that therefore the State should now step in to lower the tithes by similar means. The burden of tithes is an obstacle in the process of land purchase, and I believe if in this Bill the right hon. Gentleman had made the purchase of land more easy he would have met with very little opposition. Instead of giving the Irish landlord who sells his property upon equitable terms a sort of bonus by dealing equitably with the question of tithes, and saying we are willing to part with this fund to ease the wheels of land purchase, he has brought in this Bill and sacrificed the whole of the fund to the Irish landlord. He says it will not make the fund insolvent, and that he has not taken a penny too much of it. His case now is that the fund is just sufficient for the purposes of this Bill, but that means that there is a substantial sum in hand for the Irish people, and that money the right hon. Gentleman is throwing away for no useful purpose. I regret that the right hon. Gentleman has not used his great ability to put progress into this Bill, and that he has not

1415
dealt with this question of tithes in a statesmanlike manner. I protest against this measure.
*MR. LECKYconfessed that he was rather inclined to agree with his right hon. and gallant friend the Member for North Armagh that this measure was not a very big one. Before 1838 tithes were paid by the occupier, and if the tithe rent-charge had continued to be paid by the occupier to the present day there would have been a very different disposition on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite. However, Irish landlords at that time consented to take over the tithe for a great public purpose, for the support of their Church, and for the pacification of the country, and it was universally said at that time that this was a mere transfer of collection, and that they would be able to recoup themselves out of the rent. I do not believe they generally did so. Many believed it was equitable that the Protestant landlord should pay for his own Church. In many cases the readjustment of innumerable small rents would have been very difficult. Sub-letting after 1838 was very common, which proved that competitive rents were not exacted by the owners of the soil, and it appeared in evidence before the Land Commission that, in hundreds or thousands of cases, Irish rents had been entirely unchanged since the period of the Tithe Commutation in 1838. What had happened since then? The Church was disestablished and disendowed, but the tithe was still to be revalued every seven years, according to the Tithe Commutation Act. That right of varying according to the price of corn, which was recognised by the Act of 1869, was taken away in 1872, principally, I believe, in order to give greater security to a loan of nine millions made by the Treasury on the security of the Church estates. At the time the change was made the price of wheat was about 45 per cent. and oats 22 per cent. higher than it was now, yet the Irish tithe rent-charger has still to pay according to the old price. The value of land was also then much higher than now. Then came the land legislation, which took away all power over his rental from the landlord. The hon. Member opposite said that there would have been a fall in rents if the agitation had never taken place. He admitted that the fall was partly due to economic considera-
1416
tions, but it was also due to political agitation. How far it was from corresponding with the market price of land was shown by the fact that in proportion as rent had fallen, tenant right had risen. All contracts were broken; the landlord, had no longer any power over the rental of his estate, and the leases which would have enabled him, when they fell in after a certain time, to make new arrangements were mere waste paper. If anyone were to take the trouble to read the Report and the evidences of the Fry Commission he would see how arbitrary and how capricious in a large number of cases this land legislation had proved. At any rate the landlord could not make his own arrangement about rent, although the tithe was essentially a charge on rent. Then there was the fall in prices of agricultural produce. Let the House bear in mind that the Irish landlord was the only tithe-payer who paid invariable tithes, as he was the only landlord who had no control over his rental. The tithe payers in England had their tithes-varied according to the corn measure, and accordingly they paid between 30 and 40 per cent. less than they did in 1872. Again, the redemption of the tithes was fixed by the Act of 1869 at 22½ years purchase, while the market value was little, if at all, above 17 years purchase. The object of the Bill was simply to rectify all this and to make the tithe rent-charge variable, not, indeed, according to the corn estimates, but according to the average of the judicial rents in the county. There was another class of ecclesiastical tithe-owners in Ireland—those who had commuted their tithes for a fixed payment extending over fifty-two years. This period was reduced from fifty-two to forty-five years. This, as the Chief Secretary had shown, was a mere rectification of "a manifest injustice," and in the case of land purchased under the Land Act of 1896, it had already been carried into effect. The fifty-two period bought not the net but the gross tithe rent-charge, and it was a mere matter of arithmetic that payments extending over forty-five years fully paid the landlord's debt. This portion of the Bill was a boon, but it gave no present relief to the commuted tithe rent-charger. It would have been much more popular if the Government had kept up the longer period of payment and reduced the amount of instalment. It

1417
would also have been fair if it had been arranged that all tithes must be redeemed at twenty years purchase, and that the Government might lend money to the landlords to redeem the tithes at the same rate as they had to tenants to purchase their holdings. Such a measure would have been a real boon to the greatly injured class. It would probably have tended to accelerate the sale of land to tenants, which was a great object of policy, and he did not think that any human being would have been one penny the worse. The lay tithes were never turned into invariable tithes, but continued, like the Ecclesiastical tithes before the Act of 1872, to vary even seven years according to the price of corn. The lay tithe-payers had a statutory right to this variation, and considering the great fall in the value of corn it was a very valuable right. By a pure blunder, due entirely to the Government and in no degree the fault of the tithe-payer, that right had been taken away. The variation was based on the price of corn given in the Dublin Gazette. Since 1879, Parliament had repealed a number of Acts which it was believed were quite obsolete, and among others, one obliging the Dublin Gazette to publish averages. Since 1887 the Dublin Gazette had published none, and the Courts had decided that no reduction could be given to lay tithe-owners, as, although they had a clear statutory right to it, the machinery for such reduction had been taken away; and they were therefore held responsible for the old rate of tithe. Many were paying 60 per cent. more than the Act of 1838 intended they should pay. He could not understand why the Government had not brought into the Bill the Church Perpetuity Rents. These wore based upon fee farm grants made by the Government to Church tenants in 1872. To get these grants the tenants had to pay heavy fines and submit to an increase of rent. The covenants of their leases reserved a certain rent to the Government based on the price of corn, and with a right to revision every seven years according to the price. By the same blunder that deprived the lay tithe rent-chargers of the right of revision, that of the perpetual rent payers had been taken away. He accepted the Bill with gratitude as an act of justice and a fulfilment of an old pledge. No loss than twelve years ago, when the present Lord Lieutenant was in another office, he acknow-
1418
ledged the reality of the grievance. The subject had been brought forward again and again in the Queen's Speech, and he thought it was quite time that the grievance should be redressed.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): This Bill has been attributed by hon. Members opposite to various causes, among them being the abuse which has been so freely poured upon my right hon. friend the Chief Secretary—[Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL: By the Daily Express.] Yes, the abuse of that peculiarly envenomed organ, and of others. It has also been suggested that the Bill was brought in to conciliate the political sup port of the Irish landlords, but I can assure the House that no such motive has at all actuated my right hon. friend. This Bill, which is merely a repetition of the Bill introduced last year, is a kind of accompaniment to the Agricultural Bill, and was introduced because it was conceived to be a just one. It is a part of the policy of my right hon. friend to do justice to all creeds and classes and parties in Ireland; although experience has proved that such a policy is no more likely to escape abuse from those whom it is designed to serve than to excite the gratitude of those whom it does serve. The hon. Member for East Mayo said that he objects to the Bill for four reasons. He said it was a dole to the Irish landlords. Further, he was almost painfully sensitive of any attack upon property. He next referred to the agrarian legislation of the Grattan Parliament; and finally he objected to the Bill on account of its financial results.
MR. DILLON: My objection is that we cannot ascertain from the Government what the financial results will be.
MR. ATKINSON: Well, the uncertainty of the financial results. The Government differ from each and every one of these contentions; and I propose to deal with them in their order. The hon. Member said that the Bill is a dole and a bribe to the Irish landlords, who had no grievance at all. We submit that they have a grievance, and, unlike hon. Members opposite, we think that that grievance should be redressed, although they are landlords. I am quite aware that some of our Irish friends are accustomed to speak on this matter as if the idea of doing justice to

1419
a landlord is as absurd as doing justice to Beelzebub. We think that the landlords have a grievance, and that it ought to be redressed; and we will not be deterred from that by the parrot-like repetition of the phrase "doles to the Irish landlords." They have a grievance, first as regards the composition that they pay for tithes. If anyone had come into the House when hon. Gentlemen opposite were speaking who was unacquainted with the question of tithes, he might have supposed that there was some inherent difference between ecclesiastical and lay tithes, and that whereas lay tithes were always subject to revision, ecclesiastical tithes never were, indeed, the hon. Member for Cork was eloquent on the iniquity of taking away from the tithe-owner the sacred rights of revision conceded by the Act of 1838. What does the hon. Member say to the Act of 1872, which took away all the rights of revision? And in order to justify that iniquity he invents a bargain. There was no bargain, not a trace of it, in Mr. Gladstone's Bill. Now, what was the position of the landlords after the Church Act was passed? I do not go back on the composition of the tithe rent-charge at 75 per cent. of the rent. I do not know whether that was a benefit or not. The witnesses on that point before the Devon Commission were almost equally divided. The Church Act of 1869 and the Act of 1872, making tithes, for the first time in the history of the world, not subject to revision, had nothing to say to each other. After the Church Act of 1869 was passed the person who paid tithe and he to whom it was paid were entitled to have the tithe rent-charge revised at a stated period on the basis laid down in the Act of 1838; but it was obviously Mr. Gladstone's desire that the tithe rent-charge should be redeemed, and he offered certain terms on which to redeem them. Here are his words—
"If there be here any hon. Gentleman possessed of land in Ireland—and there are many—they will not be very grateful to me for what I am going to state. It is that, we shall give to them unconditionally the tithe rent-charge at twenty-two and a half years purchase. That is, of course, twenty-two and a half years purchase, not of the old gross £100, but of the £75 a year. We make that otter because we think there may be landlords in Ireland who will be disposed at once to wind up the arrangement with us. But if gentlemen will listen to me they will see that we have another alternative for those who may not be disposed
1420
to purchase the tithe rent-charge out-and out in money down at twenty-two and a half years purchase. It is this: We make to them. a compulsory sale. I have not the least idea that anyone will object to that. We convey the-tithe rent-charge to them under the following, conditions:—We charge them in our books with £2,250 for every net £100 a year of tithe rent-charge. That is to say, we sell them a tithe rent-charge at a rate to yield them 4½ per cent. We then credit them on the other side with a loan of equal amount. We provide that we should pay off that loan by an annual instalment, with interest. 15ut the rate of interest to be charged on the instalment is 35 per cent. The consequence of that is that a fund of 1 per cent. will remain as a sinking fund to absorb the principal. The purchaser of the tithe rent-charge in that form—except that he will get rid of the fluctuation, for we must give him a fixed amount—will not be called upon to make any addition whatever to his annual payment. He will be liable to that annual payment for a term of forty-live years, and at the close of that term he will, under this arrangement, have the rent-charge, whatever it may be, for the residue of the time for nothing. That will be the financial effect of the arrangement, which I think will not be bad for the Irish landlord. I perceive by the buzz around me that this portion of the subject, at any rate, is not without some interest to a great many hon. Members."
And Mr. Gladstone went on to say that—
"While in this manner we shall give twenty-two and a half years purchase and the tithe rent-charge of Ireland, the average rate at which that charge sells in the market is very little, if at all, more than sixteen or seventeen years purchase. On the other hand, it is not a bad arrangement for the public, because it may be safely taken as a general rule that the public, in arrangements reaching over a long period of time, are perfectly safe in undertaking to lend at 3½ per cent.*
Now, on turning to the clause in the Bill as introduced, I find that it provides for the payment of £4 10s. per cent. for only forty five years—carrying out to the letter Mr. Gladstone's undertaking. But by some extraordinary change the clause in the Act leads, not forty-five years, but fifty-two years, the £4 10s. being reduced by a shilling only. It is arithmetically clear that at £3 10s. and £1 to the sinking fund the whole would be wiped off in forty-five years; but upon what principle was the landlord to be obliged to pay for every £100 he borrowed £4 9s. for seven years more than that For every £100 he was obliged to pay £30 more than he had borrowed or bargained for. Is not that a grievance? Is it not just and right and equitable to
* See The Parliamentary Debates [Third Series], Vol. cxciv., p. 45.

1421
relieve him from that payment? We ask these figures to be tested, and let the speech of Mr. Gladstone be compared with the Act, and the mistake will be seen. I do not believe that it was done intentionally. It was evidently a mistake.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Did any Irish landlord ever complain of this mistake?
MR. ATKINSON: The truth of the matter is that the Irish landlords have many good qualities, and a good many vices; but I cannot believe that they desire to pay an annuity for seven years more than they need. It is impossible that the landlords should ever have assented to that. It is impossible that, having the matter put to them, they would have agreed to pay during the extra term for the debt which would be extinguished in forty-five years. On this point I submit that the landlords have a grievance which it is only just and right should be redressed. We are not going at all to disturb the terms, but we are anxious to correct a mistake which was a mutual mistake, and which would be almost redressed in a court of equity.
MR. T. M. HEALY: What about the Statute of Limitations?
MR. ATKINSON: There can be no justification, because of an obvious miscalculation, in requiring the landlords to pay more than they are entitled to pay. What is the next grievance? The hon. Member for East Mayo dwelt upon the great boon confered on the landlords by allowing them to redeem at twenty-two and a half years purchase. That is a matter on which I know difference of opinion exists, and I will not attempt to decide which view is right, but I will quote an authority which I know the hon. Member will respect, who has laid it down that the landlords were considerably mulcted by the operation of that provision. Mr. Murrough O'Brien, in his evidence before the Financial Relations Commission, said:
"Before the Church Act the tithe rent-charge was not saleable in the market for more then seventeen years purchase. Since the time of the Church Act very few have been sold in the market, and the price fixed by the Church Act was twenty-two and a half
1422
years on the rent-charge, and twenty-five years on the perpetuity rents."
Then he was asked, "What, in your opinion, was the excess value adopted?" and he answered that the excess value was about two and three-quarters or three millions. If Mr. Murrough O'Brien is an authority when he lays down anything against the landlords, I presume he is an equal authority when he lays down anything in their favour; and unless the selling of this rent-charge at three millions too much can be considered an advantage, the landlords did not get any advantage under that scheme. What is the next point? We say the landlords have a grievance, because the right of revision, which the hon. Member for Cork, regards as a sacred and valuable right, was taken away from them. It is said that that was done because prices were going up so fast. The hon. Member for East Donegal dissents.
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I wish to repudiate all connection with the matter.
MR. ATKINSON: Oh, I meant the hon. Member for South Donegal. In 1867 wheat was £1 15s. 8d. per twenty stone, and oats was 16s. 3d. per barrel. In 1869 wheat had fallen 6s. and oats Is.'3d., and from 1869 to 1872 there was a rise of 2s. 3d. on wheat and 2d. on oats. This is supposed to be the inducement which made the landlords not oppose the Bill of 1872.
MR. DILLON: Why did they not oppose it?
MR. ATKINSON: I do not know. It is not for me to say why they did not oppose it, but rather for the hon. Member to prove that there was a bargain between the Government and the landlords.
MR. DILLON: My proof consists in this, that when a large body of landlords in this House and in the House of Lords accepted the Bill without one word of objection, I take it that there must have been a bargain.
MR. ATKINSON: That would not have occurred to me. There is no foundation for saying that there was any rise in prices. Since 1867 there had been a

1423
steady fall, and between 1860 and 1872, when the Act was passed, prices were practically stationary, so that the landlord got no advantage. On the contrary, he lost this valuable right of revision. We therefore propose to restore that right. It is said by hon. Gentlemen opposite that we propose to restore it because rents have gone down. We have restored it for no such reason. We have restored it because the right of revision is inherent in the character and quality of tithe.
MR. DILLON: The reason why we stated that the tithe was to be lowered because the rent had been lowered was because the Chief Secretary gave that as a reason when he introduced the Bill.
MR. ATKINSON: The right hon. Gentleman gave this reason, in selecting the variation of rent as the basis of the new system of revision he stated that as tithe was paid with rent, therefore, when rent was reduced tithe ought to be reduced also. We submit it is just and fair that the right of revision should be restored to the landlords. What system shall be given? Shall we restore the old system or establish a new system? What was the old system? It was the most costly, cumbersome, expensive, illogical and ridiculous system that could be invented, because tithes are payable not from, wheat and oats alone, but from all agricultural products generally. The selection of wheat and oats as the basis of the tithe rent was merely an accident, and the accident was that there was no record of prices for any other species of agricultural produce. Under Acts passed in the reign of George III. there was an elaborate system of ascertaining the price of wheat and oats in Dublin and the country, and that system being in existence was borrowed as a basis for tithe rent, but it really had no inherent relation to the capacity or productiveness of the soil. With regard to nine-tenths of Ireland it would be just as reasonable to revise tithes on the price of diamonds as on the price of wheat.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Thanks to England.
MR. ATKINSON: Therefore, when we had to revise tithe we said it was more rational and more reasonable to adopt a new system. The hon. Member for East
1424
Mayo said that it is not only fallacious, but almost wicked to say that tithes are charged on the rent. Tithes are not charged on the rent, but they are paid out of the rent, and are a charge on the products of the land. The best proof of that is that an owner of tithes can get a receiver appointed who will take the rent until the tithes are satisfied. The hon. Member for East Mayo said that he was opposed to us taking a public fund and applying it for the benefit of a particular class, but in that argument he spoke as if this were not a charge variable by its very nature. I pass now to the financial result. My right hon. friend has explained that first of all this fund is solvent and that it can meet all the charges upon it, including the £70,000 a year secured to the Agricultural Department under the Act of 1899, and that in 1917 there will be a loss on one side and a gain on the other. The loss will be this: the annuities at present amount to £160,000 a year, and they will be cut short by seven years. That will amount to over a million. On the other side of the account there may be a possibility in 1945 of three millions, because we prohibit the landlords from further redeeming. Beyond that it is impossible to go. There are so many problematical matters to be dealt with that it is impossible to arrive at definite figures, but as far as calculation and examination can go that will be the financial result. In addition to that there will be an immediate gain of £6,000 a year paid on the poor rate. Setting off these charges one against the other, as far as can be ascertained there will be no danger of this fund not being able to moot all the charges upon it, including the charge of £70,000 to the Agricultural Department, until 1945. It may be said that that is an uncertain calculation. I admit to a certain extent it is, but is the probability so strong as would prevent you doing an act of justice for the next forty-five years, and postponing redress because probably at the end of that period there may be a deficit? There will be no deficit as far as can be ascertained, and there is no reason whatever in withholding from these tithe-owners the redress to which they are entitled. Reference has been made to middlemen, and it is said that the landlords will get the tithes reduced and the middlemen will not. But the real object of this Bill is to give a system

1425
of revision, of which the tithe-owners were unjustly deprived in 1872. Everyone knows that the old system was cumbersome, expensive, uncertain in its results, and very often unsuccessful, because unless the applicant proved that the tithe rent-charge ought to be varied by 10 per cent. he got no redress, and was cast in costs. The automatic system we now propose is much fairer to the whole body of tithe-payers, and much more satisfactory generally.
MR. THOMAS SHAW: The House has just listened to a most ingenious defence of a Bill the main principle of which I submit is essentially unsound. The right hon. Gentleman has manifestly been rather hard hit by the suggestion that has been made not once but very frequently in the course of this debate, that this is another instance of the legislation with which we are familiar as proceeding from a Unionist Government, under which moneys belong sing to the public and dedicated to public uses have been transferred from the public and from public uses to the benefit of a private class of individuals. The right hon. Gentleman denied that this was a dole, and he argued that it was a grievance that had failed to be redressed in consequence of a miscalculation which occurred in 1869. But the Bill of 1869 as originally framed was a Bill which provided for the redemption of tithe rent in a period of forty-five years, whereas as it ultimately became an Act of Parliament that period was extended to fifty-two years. Does the right hon. Gentleman really suggest that the Parliament of this country has been under a mistake of seven years in an Act of Parliament—that seven years having grown from forty-five to fifty-two, owing to something in the nature of a clerical error? Does he suggest for one moment that this Parliament in a large financial transaction of this kind, and receiving assistance from the highest actuary in the State, would have acquiesced in a blunder of that kind? For years the landlords of Ireland have been bringing forward this very suggestion of a miscalculation. In the Treasury Minute issued in 1895 it is stated that Lord Belmore asked in the House of Lords in June, 1894, whether the alteration made while the Irish Church Act of 1899 was in Committee was a result of a miscalculation, and he was
1426
informed, in reply, that there was no miscalculation. It was no miscalculation but deliberate action, and it is out of the question that the House should now be asked to revise a Parliamentary transaction which in the full knowledge of the Treasury at the time proceeded upon a correct calculation of the actuarial value of the transaction. I would ask, further, whether it is conceivable that a Unionist Government, which has been eleven years in office during the last fourteen years, should have allowed to continue a state of affairs in which injustice so gross was being perpetrated on any class of ratepayers, much less tithe rent-payers?
MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The injustice practically does not come into active operation until these annuities mature; but in the Land Act of 1896 it was provided that where annuities were redeemed they should be redeemed on the supposition that the charge must be paid off in forty-five years, not in fifty-two years.
MR. THOMAS SHAW: I entirely assent to that remark, but I observe with regard to it that it is no explanation at all. We have it on the authority of the Chief Secretary that he looks forward to 1917 as the year when these annuities will fall in. Again there was a statutory bargain in 1809, which was repeated in 1872. Was the miscalculation also made in the latter year? I wish to emphasise the point I make that Parliament proceeded with its eyes open in 1869 and in l872. The third point was that this is not a compulsory scheme of redemption. No landlord has been compelled to redeem under these terms, but the landlords accepted these conditions and declared that it was a bargain. I am not misusing the word "bargain." In the face of the terms I say it was a bargain. It was a bargain not only for the landlord and tithe rent owner, but a bargain in another interest altogether, and that is the Irish people, for whom the Land Commissioners, as the administrators of the Irish Church Fund, are trustees. That fund is now to be depleted by this rearrangement. I am not misrepresenting the position in the slightest degree. If I have shown that there was no grievance because there was no miscalculation, it follows necessarily that the

1427
attempt to create a grievance is a circuitous way of proceeding to justify the proposal now before the House. The next point stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland was that there was nothing bad in the introduction of the new principle of variability in reference to rent charges, because he says there is no principle in this at all. In one sense I agree with him, but I think you must have something to go upon if you are to introduce the precedent of variability. The principle of variability prior to the legislation of 1869 and 1872 was that there might be a reference back to the price of commodities by the consent of all parties, but that principle was found to be so circuitous in its operation, or difficult to appeal to, that in only a small percentage of cases—I think only one case per annum—during the whole period of this invariability was it ever appealed to at all. It is said that the principle is not bad, because something has to be restored. I have already dealt with that. I think nothing has to be restored, but if something has to be restored it should be in proportion to the reduction of the rent. In Ireland the tithe rent-charge is practically a fixed rent-charge. The rent-charge is now to be varied. I venture to say the principle now introduced is one of the most dangerous principles applicable to the charges and mortgages resting upon the real estate of this country that can possibly be conceived. The fallacy rests upon this. The Attorney General for Ireland states that tithe rent is a charge upon rent. That statement is an entire delusion in the sense in which it is used. When the rent on any property is reduced, the mortgagor on that property may look out for what was hitherto supposed to be an unimpeachable security, because his interest will be proportionally treated. I say this is a most dangerous attack upon the principles of sound finance applicable to real estate in this country. Another
portion of the argument just delivered was to the effect that it could not be understood that this legislation was for the benefit of a class. Well, it is difficult indeed to answer a suggestion of that kind. For whose benefit is it? That is what I want to know. "Whose pockets is it to go into?" said one hon. Member, and there was no answer given. It necessarily goes into the pockets of the landlord interest. It is to benefit a class out of public money which ought to be devoted to public interests, and to public interests alone. It has been the habit of this House in dealing with large financial transactions of this kind that we should have the most accurate and detailed information as to the financial results of the operation upon which we are being asked to embark. What is the situation as actually described in the speech to which we have just listened? In a sense, my right hon. friend says, we are in the region of conjecture. We are now, in 1900, to be asked to legislate in the region of financial conjecture, one of the data of the problem being the year 1945, with a possible gain, forty-five years after the Act of Parliament, of three millions of money. That is not sound and proper treatment of the House of Commons when dealing with the finance of the matter. The legal quality of this impost called tithe rent-charge remains what it did under the Act of 1838. Upon what ground is it proposed to alter a state of things which has long remained undisturbed? The ground was an alleged miscalculation. Parliament dealt with this open-eyed, and with the fullest information at command. It is altogether a mistake to say that there was a miscalculation in the matter. It was a bargain voluntarily made by those who cannot break their bargain without Parliamentary sanction.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 175; Noes, 92. (Division List No. 165.)

AYES.

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F

Balcarres, Lord

Blundell, Colonel Henry

Allsopp, Hon. George

Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J.(Manch'r)

Bond, Edward

Archdale, Edward Mervyn

Balfour, Rt. Hon. G. W. (Leeds)

Brassey, Albert

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Banbury, Frederick George

Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

Arrol, Sir William

Barry, Rt. Hn. A. H. S- (Hunts)

Bullard, Sir Harry

Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol)

Butcher, John George

Bailey, James (Walworth)

Bemrose, Sir Henry Howe

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

Baillie, James E. B.(Inverness)

Bethell, Commander

Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)

Baird, John George Alexander

Blakiston-Houston, John

Cavendish, V. C. W (Derbyshire)

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Hermon-Hodge, Robt, Trotter

Pilkington, R. (Lancs, Newton)

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.)

Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich)

Platt-Higgins, Frederick

Chamberlain, J. Austen, Worc'r

Hutchinson, Capt. G. W. Grice-

Plunkett, Rt. Hon. H. Curzon

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Jackson, Rt. Hn. W. Lawies

Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

Charrington, Spencer

Jebb, Richard Claverhouse

Purvis, Robert

Chelsea, Viscount

Johnston, William (Belfast)

Rankin, Sir James

Clare, Octavius Leigh

Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

Remnant, James Farquharson

Coghill, Douglas Harry

Kenyon, James

Renshaw, Charles Bine

Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. William

Rentoul, James Alexander

Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

Keswick, William

Richards, Henry Charles

Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

King, Sir Henry Seymour

Richardson, Sir Thos (Hartlep'l)

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

Lafone, Alfred

Kidley, Rt. Hn. Sir Matthew W.

Cornwallis, Fiennes S. W.

Lawrence, Sir E. Durning-(Corn

Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

Lawson, John Grant (Yorks.)

Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

Curzon, Viscount

Lecky, Rt. Hon. Wm. Edw. H.

Round, James

Dalkeith, Earl of

Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)

Denny, Colonel

Llewelyn, Sir Dillwyn- (Swnsea)

Rutherford, John

Dickinson, Robert Edmond

Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

Santon, Viscount

Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. E. J.

Dorington, Sir John Edward

Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Liverpool

Seely, Charles Hilton

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Lopes, Henry Yarde Buller

Seton-Karr, Henry

Douglas-Pennant, Hon. E. S.

Lowe, Francis William

Sharpe, William Edward T.

Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William H.

Lowles, John

Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew)

Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

Loyd, Archie Kirkman

Sidebotham, J. W. (Cheshire)

Faber, George Denison

Macartney, W. G. Ellison

Sidebottom, T. H. (Stalybr.)

Fardell, Sir T. George

Macdona, John Cumming

Skewes-Cox, Thomas

Fellowes, Hn. Ailwyn Edward

MacIver, David (Liverpool)

Smith, James Parker (Lanarks)

Field, Admiral (Eastbourne)

Maclure, Sir John William

Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

Finch, George H.

M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

Stanley, Edward J. (Somerset

Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

M'Iver, Sir L. (Edinburgh, W.)

Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

Fisher, William Hayes

Malcolm, Ian

Stock, James Henry

Flower, Ernest

Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

Forster, Henry William

Melville, Beresford Valentine

Tomlinson, Wm. E. Murray

Foster, Colonel (Lancaster)

Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

Tuke, Sir John Batty

Galloway, William Johnson

Milner, Sir Frederick George

Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

Garfit, William

Milward, Colonel Victor

Warde, Lt.-Col. C. E. (Kent)

Gedge, Sydney

Monckton, Edward Philip

Whiteley, H. (Ashton-under-L.

Gibbons, J. Lloyd

Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

Williams, J. Powell- (Birm.)

Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

More, R. Jasper (Shropshire)

Wilson, John (Falkirk)

Goldsworthy, Major-General

Morgan, Hn. Fred (Monm'thsh.

Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R.(Bath)

Gordon, Hon. John Edward

Morrell, George Herbert

Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

Morrison, Walter

Wylie, Alexander

Goschen, George J. (Sussex)

Morton, Arthur H. A (Deptford)

Wyndham, George

Green. W. D. (Wednesbury)

Mow bray, Sir Robert Gray C.

Wyvill, Marmaduke D'Arcy

Greene, Henry D.(Shrewsbury)

Murray, Rt. Hn. A. G. (Bute)

Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

Gretton, John

Newdigate, Francis Alexand'r

Young, Commander (Berks, E.)

Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Lord George

O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

Hamond, Sir Chas.(Newcastle)

Pease, Herbt. Pike (Darlingt'n)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert W'm.

Penn, John

Sir William Walrond and

Hanson, Sir Reginald

Phillpotts, Captain Arthur

Mr. Anstruther.

Hardy, Laurence

Pierpoint, Robert

NOES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)

Dillon, John

Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.)

Allan, William (Gateshead)

Doogan, P. C.

Kearley, Hudson E.

Allison, Robert Andrew

Douglas, Chas. M. (Lanark)

Lawson, Sir W. (Cumberland)

Ambrose, Robert

Duckworth, James

Lough, Thomas

Asher, Alexander

Fenwick, Charles

Macaleese, Daniel

Austin, M. (Limerick, W.)

Ffrench, Peter

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

M'Arthur, William (Cornwall

Beaumont, Wentworth C.B.

Gibney, James

M'Crae, George

Billson, Alfred

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herb. John

M'Ghee, Richard

Blake, Edward

Goddard, Daniel Ford

M'Hugh, Patrick A. (Leitrim)

Bolton, Thomas Dolling

Griffith, Ellis, J.

Maddison, Fred.

Brigg, John

Hammond, John (Carlow)

Molloy, Bernard Charles

Caldwell, James

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm.

Morgan, J. Lloyd(Carmarthen

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

Hayne, Rt. Hon. C. Seale-

Morris, Samuel

Carvill, P. Geo. Hamilton

Healy, Maurice (Cork)

Moss, Samuel

Causton, Richard Knight

Healy, Thomas J. (Wexford)

Murnanagh, George

Cawley, Frederick

Healy, Timothy M. (N. Louth)

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Channing, Francis Allston

Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)

Colville, John

Hogan, James Francis

O' Connor, James(Wicklow, W.

Daly, James

Horniman, Frederick John

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Dewar, Arthur

Jameson, Major J. Eustace

O'Dowd, John

1430

1431

O'Keeffe, Francis Arthur

Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

O'Kelly, James

Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

O'Malley, William

Runciman, Walter

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

Paulton, James Mellor

Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

Pease, Joseph A. (Northumb.)

Scott, Chas. Prestwich(Leigh)

Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk)

Price, Robert John

Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

Wilson, J (Durham, Mid)

Provand, Andrew Dryburgh

Sinclair, Capt. John (Forfarsh'e)

Woodhouse, Sir J. T (Hud'rsf'ld)

Reckitt, Harold James

Steadman, William Charles

Redmond, John E.(Waterford)

Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Redmond, William (Clare)

Sullivan, T. D. (Donegal, W.)

Captain Donelan and

Rickett, J. Compton

Thomas, Alt. (Glamorgan, E.)

Mr. Patrick O'Brien.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Tuesday next.

CHARITABLE LOANS (IRELAND) BILL.
As amended, further considered.
An Amendment made.
Another Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 29, at the end, to add the words 'and no higher interest than three per centum per annum shall be charged on any such note.'"—(Mr. Murnaghan.)
Question, "That those words be there added," put, and negatived.
Other Amendments made.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.

COUNTY COURTS (INVESTMENT OF DEPOSITS) BILL [LORDS].
Considered in Committee; Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.
CUSTOMS DUTIES (ISLE OF MAN) BILL.
Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time upon Monday next.
TOWN COUNCILS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
As amended (by the Standing Committee), considered; an Amendment made; Bill read the third time, and passed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
On Motion for Adjournment—
MR. J. A. PEASEsaid he understood that the Housing of the Working Classes Bill would be the first Order on Monday. What would be the second Order?
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I cannot at present answer the question of the hon. Member as to what will be the second Order on Monday, but I hope to be able to answer to-morrow. The first Order will be the Housing of the Working Classes Bill, which I apprehend will take some portion of the evening.

SOUTH AFRICAN WAR — HOSPITAL ARRANGEMENTS AT THE FRONT— MR. BURDETT-COUTTS'S CHARGES.
MR. J. A. PEASEasked when Members might expect the Papers promised that afternoon with respect to the medical service in South Africa and the treatment of soldiers wounded or suffering from disease.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am sorry the House has bean disappointed in not having the Papers I promised them in the course of the evening. I have spent much time in endeavouring to find an explanation why we have not got the Papers. They were certainly in type yesterday, and I am wholly unable to explain or excuse the delay. I have made arrangements that those documents shall all be circulated to Members with their ordinary Parliamentary Papers in the morning, and I hope that that will give hon. Members sufficient time to study them before they come down to the debate.
Adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve of the clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  HALIFAX CORPORATION BILL.
    WEST BROMWICH CORPORATION HILL.
    Reports of Her Majesty's Attorney General received, and ordered to lie on the Table.
BUENOS AYRES AND ROSARIO RAILWAY HILL [H.L.]
  COSTA RICA RAILWAY COMPANY, LIMITED, BILL [H.L.]
BLACKPOOL, ST. ANNE'S, AND LYTHAM TRAMWAYS BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 5) BILL.
  Committed. The Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
BEXHILL AND KOTHEKFIELD RAILWAY BILL [H.L.]
Reported with Amendments.
BEDFORD GAS BILL.
Reported without amendment.
TRAMWAYS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No.2) BILL [H.L.]
Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill, no parties having appeared in opposition thereto; read, and ordered to lie on the Table. The Orders made on 18th Juno and Friday last discharged, and Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House on Monday next.
MOUNTAIN ASH WATER BILL [H.L.]
Commons Amendments considered and agreed to, with Amendments; and Bill returned to the Commons.
MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD BILL [H.L.]
  PAIGNTON URBAN DISTRICT WATER BILL [H.L.]
  Commons Amendments considered, and agreed to.
ROE'S PATENT BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a.
MANCHESTER CORPORATION TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
HAMILTON BURGH BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
NEWRY, KEADY, AND TYNAN LIGHT RAILWAY BILL.
Standing Order No. 93 considered, (according to Order), and dispensed with, with respect to a Petition of the Promoters of the Kingscourt, Keady, and Armagh Railway Company Bill. Leave given to present the said Petition.
OLDHAM CORPORATION BILL.
  WEST HAM CORPORATION BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a and referred to the Examiners.
BREWERY AND COMMERCIAL INVESTMENT TRUST, LIMITED, BILL [H.L.]
  BRISTOL WATER BILL [H.L.]

    COMMERCIAL UNION ASSURANCE COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
    MILFORD DOCKS BILL [H.L.]
    Returned from the Commons agreed to.

GAS AND WATER ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to, with an Amendment.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
  Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments; and passed, and returned to the Commons.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (GAS) BILL.
  House in Committee (according to Order). Bill reported without amendment. Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.

  EDUCATION HOARD PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LONDON) BILL [H.L.]
  Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (HOUSING OF WORKING CLASSES) BILL. (No. 140.)
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (HOUSING OF WORKING CLASSES) BILL. (No. 141.)
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 11) HILL. (No. 142.)
  PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BELL. (No. 143.)
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners.

  RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
    Telegrams respecting hospital accommodation for the troops in South Africa.
    Draft Order in Council constituting a Consultative Committee of the Board of Education.
    Twenty-fourth Annual Report of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Explosives.

    TRADE REPORTS.
    I. Annual Series:
    No. 2463. Honduras;
    No. 2464. Mexico (the State of Sonora);
    No. 2465. United States (Porto Rico);
    No. 2466. Venezuela (Caracas and District):
    No. 2467. China (Samshui).
    II. Miscellaneous Series:
    No. 530. Brazil (Report on the State of Amazonas).

    INDIA (RAILWAYS).
    Administration Report on the railways in India for 1899–1900.
    Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

    LUNACY (SCOTLAND).
    General rules for the government of the asylum situated at Kirklands, in the county of Lanark.

    SAVINGS BANKS AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES (POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS FUND) (SAVINGS BANKS FUND) (FRIENDLY SOCIETIES FUND).
    Accounts for the year ended 31st December, 1899.
    Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

    PETITIONS.
      COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION BILL.
      Petitions for amendment of; of Bank of New South Wales; Commercial Banking Company of Sydney; City Bank of Sydney; and Trustees of Savings Bank of New South Wales; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
    QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY BOARD.
    Message from the Commons that they have appointed a Committee, to consist of five Members, to join with a Committee of the Lords to consider the constitution of Queen Anne's Bounty Board, and to report whether economy and efficiency of administration would be promoted by any change in its constitution or by its amalgamation with any other body, and to request that their Lordships will be pleased to appoint an equal number of Lords to be joined with the Members of that House.
    SECRETARIES TO IRISH COUNTY COUNCILS.
    THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, in view of the unsatisfactory answer which I received on Tuesday* from my noble friend the Earl of Denbigh, to the question I then put to him, I beg to give notice that I shall at an early date again call attention to the matter.

    CHINA—ANTI-FOREIGN OUTBREAK— RECENT NEWS.
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: Seeing the noble Marquess the Prime Minister in his place, I wish to ask whether he can communicate to the House any information with regard to the state of affairs in China.
    * See page 1067 of this volume.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY):

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    I very much wish I could give the House some information which I could confidently claim to be of an authoritative character. So far as we know, the Admiral has been relieved and is safe; but I think, if I mistake not, that that comes from information other than an official source, and beyond that we know nothing of the position of Sir Claude MacDonald and the members of the other Legations. I think there is every ground for hoping that no violence has as yet been done to them, but even that can only be stated in a hypothetical form. With respect to the future, the noble Earl knows as much as I do From all quarters such troops as can be obtained are being hurried forward, but they must take some time before they can arrive.

    LAND REGISTRY (NEW BUILDINGS) BILL.
    Read 2a (according to Order), and committed.

    BURIAL AUTHORITIES (CREMATION) BILL.
    Order for the House to go into Committee read.
    THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY; May I ask the noble Lord in charge of the Bill to modify a little its title? The "Burial Authorities (Cremation) Bill" has a most gruesome sound.
    LORD MONKSWELL: I understand that the noble Lord representing the Home Office has a suggestion to make for altering the title.
    House in Committee (according to Older).
    Clause 1:—
    LORD BELPER: The Amendment standing in my name to this clause is the first of a series which I have to move on behalf of the Home Office. The effect of the first Amendment is to alter the title of the Bill, and to make Clause 1 read:—
    "That this Act may be cited as the Cremation Act, 1900."
    That Amendment not only answers the objection taken by the Prime Minister to the wording of the title, but also has the object of widening the scope of the Bill.
    1270
    Under the present law the only people who are dealt with under regulations, if they have crematoria, are certain local authorities, and the Bill as drawn only applies to burial authorities. The Home Office think it right that private crematoria, although they have been already established, should be subject to regulations which may be drawn up by the Home Office. The Amendments standing in my name to Clauses 5 and 6 will carry that out more fully.
    Amendment moved—
    "In Clause 1, page 1, line 5, to leave out 'Burial Authorities (Cremation),' and to insert 'Cremation.'"
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I observe that the noble Lord has introduced a new word into the English language—"crematorium." Is that desirable?
    LORD BELPER: I understand that it has been used in other cases, and that it may safely be accepted as expressing what is intended.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 2:—
    LORD BELPER: My first Amendment is simply for the purpose of making the definition of "burial authority" conform to the definition in the Burial Acts. The second Amendment defines the expression "crematorium" to moan any building fitted with appliances for the burning of human remains.
    Amendments moved—
    "In Clause 2, page 1, line 7, to leave out after 'burial authority' to end of clause and to insert 'shall mean any burial board, any council committee or other local authority having the powers and duties of a burial board, and any local authority maintaining a cemetery under the public Health (Interments) Act, 1879, or under any local Act'; and in page 1, after line 9, to insert 'The expression "crematorium" shall mean any building fitted with appliances for the burning of human remains.'"—(Lord Belper.)
    Amendments agreed to.
    Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 3 amended, and agreed to.
    Clause 4:—
    LORD BELPER: Clause 4 will not be necessary with the Amendments which it

    1271
    is proposed to make to Clause 5. Under those Amendments the regulations that are made by the Secretary of State will refer to private crematoria as well as to those under public authority.
    Moved, "That Clause 4 be omitted."— (Lord Belper.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause 5 amended, and agreed to.
    Clause 6:—
    Amendment moved—
    "In Clause 6, line 6, to leave out 'in such place.'"—(Lord Belper.)
    LORD MONKSWELLsaid it had been suggested to him, but he did not think it could be the case, that by leaving out these words an important alteration might be effected in the law. At present there was a legal decision that the burning of human remains was not an offence unless committed so as to cause a public nuisance on to prevent a coroner's inquest. If these words were omitted from the clause it would be supposed that the law was intended to be altered so as to make illegal what was now legal.
    LORD BELPER: I can assure the noble Lord that, so far as I know, there is no such intention in the Amendment. Clause 6 as it stands refers to crematoria under public authority, and the object of the Amendment is to make it apply generally and give power to deal with any crematorium in any place. But I will inquire into the point the noble Lord has raised.
    LORD MONKSWELLsaid he called attention to the matter because he did not think it would be desirable to make such an important change in the law on a Bill of this kind.
    LORD BELPER: I will inquire.
    Amendment agreed to.
    LORD BELPER: The next Amendment standing in my name deals with the penalties in the Bill. The penalty in the case where anyone makes a fake certificate or a false declaration is quite inadequate. The object is to guard as far as possible against burning being
    1272
    made use of in order to conceal a crime, and in such a case it is very desirable that the penalty should be much larger than, that proposed in the Bill—namely, a fine of £50. I propose to omit the words "liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £50," and to insert "liable to imprisonment with or without hard labour not exceeding two years."
    Amendment moved—
    "In Clause 6, page 2, to eave out 'liable' to 'pounds' in line 15, and to insert 'to imprisonment with or without hard labour not exceeding two years.'"—(Lord Belper.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
    Clauses 7 and 8 amended, and agreed to.
    LORD BELPER: I now have to move a new clause, the object of which is to bring all crematoria that have been, established under private Acts under this general Act, which is to deal with them all. I believe the model clauses that have been agreed, to in most of these cases, will be very similiar to those which the Secretary of State will make under this Bill, but it is desirable that they should, be brought under one general Act.
    Amendment moved—
    "To insert as a new clause:—'On the commencement of this Act any provision of any local and personal Act for a like purpose as this Act and any bye-laws or regulations made thereunder shall, so far as-they relate to that purpose, cease to be in. operation.'"—(Lord Belper.)
    LORD MONKSWELLsaid the House was rather in the dark at to the particular provisions which might be contained in the private Acts. He thought that some injustice might therefore be done by the insertion of the new clause.
    LORD BELPER: I will postpone the clause till the Standing Committee if the noble Lord wishes. But this is an Amendment which the Government will feel bound to insist upon. When there is a general Act it is very undesirable that there should be exceptions.
    LORD MONKSWELLsaid he would accept the new clause now, but if he found that any local authorities con-

    1273
    sidered they would be badly used by its passing, he would submit an Amendment in Standing Committee.
    New clause agreed to.
    Other Amendments agreed to; Bill recommitted to the Standing Committee; and to be printed as amended. (No. 137.)

    PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION BILL [H.L.]
    House in Committee (according to Order).
    *LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN: My Lords, there is only one observation I desire to make at this stage of the Bill. The Bill was referred to a Select Committee and certain amendments made, only one of which I think it is necessary for mo to mention. I refer to the omission of the clause inserted at the instance of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, requiring the leave of a Judge or other judicial person before any proceedings could be commenced under the Bill if it became law. The Committee were unanimously of opinion that that clause would impede the working of the Act, and that it was not necessary, but I wish to say that if my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack insists upon its insertion I shall not feel able to oppose him. At the same time my noble and learned friend will probably not think it right to discuss the matter at this stage, as he will have another opportunity of doing so should be adhere to his view.
    Amendments proposed by the Select Committee, agreed to.
    Moved, "That the Standing Committee be negatived."—(Lord Russell of Killowen.)
    THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): Of course, the noble Lord has a perfect right to move that the Standing Committee be negatived, but I think it is rather contrary to our rule in a Bill of this sort.
    *LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN: I am informed that when a Bill has been before a Select Committee, on which there were several legal persons, it is usual to negative the Standing Committee,
    1274
    but if I am wrong in that I will not press the motion.
    On Question, agreed to; the Report of Amendments to be received To-morrow.

    RAILWAYS (PREVENTION OF ACCIDENTS) BILL.
    Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
    *LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: My Lords, I trust that the Bill which is now submitted to your Lordships for Second Reading will meet, not only with your formal assent, but also with your full approbation. Your Lordships will remember that for some time past attention has been called to the very large number of accidents which occur to railway servants. In consequence of that state of things, the President of the Board of Trade, at the commencement of last session, introduced a Bill into the other House of Parliament to deal with the subject. A great deal of criticism was applied to that Bill, and the view was expressed that, as it imposed very serious obligations on the railway companies and the means for carrying them out were uncertain, it was advisable that the matter should be deferred until after an inquiry had taken place. My right hon. friend Mr. Ritchie yielded to that view, and a Royal Commission was appointed. That Commission has now reported, and this Bill is almost an echo of that Report. I will place before your Lordships the main facts upon which the Bill is founded. In the year 1898—I take the figures of 1898, as they were the figures before the Commission—there were 534,141 railway servants employed in the United Kingdom, and of those persons 542 were killed and 13,000 were injured. The relative proportion may be thought not very excessive, but these figures have to be first analysed and then considered. It must be remembered that of these 534,141 men many run no risk at all. For instance, there are 53,800 clerks employed in offices who can incur no greater danger in their service than any one of your Lordships sitting in his library, and 77,000 mechanics who work in factories under the supervision of the Home Office, and in respect of whom no return of accidents has been made. Without making these deductions the figures I have quoted show that 1·24 of every 1,000 servants employed are killed

    1275
    in the year and thirty-one in every 1,000 injured. But, as I have said, those figures do not represent the real facts upon which this Bill is founded. There are different degrees of danger. The clerks, as I have said, run no danger at all, while of 25,543 signalmen only nine are killed and 175 injured. We found that we could localise the dangerous portions of the operations, and we were able to demonstrate that a certain portion of the work of railway operatives represents the most dangerous trade that is carried on in this kingdom. The danger mostly comes in dealing with the wagons engaged in the goods and mineral trade when they are in motion, and the persons who are principally employed in what are called the shunting operations, and who are, therefore, exposed to the greatest danger, are the goods guards and the shunters who have charge of the making up of the trains, and the marshalling of the carriages which form the trains. There is also another particularly dangerous trade—that carried on by the platelayers. Of the 14,720 goods guards employed, forty-three were killed and 902 injured; of the 63,360 platelayers employed 122 were killed and 1,020 injured; and of the small number of shunters employed—9,244—forty-seven were killed and 793 injured. Therefore, of the goods guards, about 3·92, or, substantially, four men in every 1,000, were killed and sixty-one injured; of the platelayers, l·9 per 1,000 were killed and sixteen injured, and of the shunters, 5·08 per 1,000 were killed and seventy-eight in every 1,000 injured. May I ask the House for one moment to consider what these figures mean. If any one of your Lordships found that out of 1,000 men he employed five were killed and seventy-eight injured per year he would feel that a duty was cast upon him as the employer to see that some steps were taken to remedy that state of things. Whilst accidents to railway servants generally have decreased during the past thirty years—every credit is due to the railway companies for what they have done in that direction—accidents to shunters have, unfortunately, increased. The number of shunters killed in 1872 was twenty-five, but in 1898 it was forty-seven. The trade in this country which is generally supposed to be the most dangerous is that of the mercantile marine, but, while in 1898 there were 5·2 deaths per
    1276
    1,000 in the mercantile marine, the number of accidents which are not fatal is exceedingly small. Therefore the figures in the trade which is supposed to be the most dangerous do not come up to those which T have just quoted in respect of goods guards, shunters, and platelayers. In regard to other trades which have been treated by the Legislature as dangerous. I find that in coal mines 1·28 per 1,000 are killed, as against 5·08 per 1,000 of shunters; in metalliferous mines, 0·96 per 1,000 are killed; in factories in the non-textile trades, 0·2 per 1,000 are killed; in factories in the textile trades, 0·l per 1,000 are killed; and in the shipbuilding trade the number of fatal accidents is only 0·5 per 1,000. Therefore it is established that the work in which a certain portion of the railway servants are engaged is by far the most dangerous trade in the country. So far as I know, it is the only dangerous trade now uncontrolled by the protection of the State; and we have to consider whether there is any reason why railway companies should cease to be excepted from the general rules of legislation. Railway servants who work in factories are already under the control of the Home Office. Is there any reason why railway servants who work under a roof and run very little risk of accident should be protected while those who work in the open air and run great risks should not be protected? That is the question your Lordships have to consider. It may assist your Lordships in coming to a conclusion as to whether we should proceed by some sort of legislation or not if you take into consideration the finding of the Commission. The Commission was composed of men the great majority of whom had had large experience of railway operations. The managers of railway companies, the directors of railway companies, and the operatives employed were represented, and they came to this unanimous conclusion—that the deaths occurring and the injuries sustained amongst railway servants are unnecessarily great in number, and can, by means of authoritative action, be diminished. Well, my Lords, that necessarily imposes the duty on someone to see that the authoritative action takes place. As far as I know there can be only two ways of dealing with a subject like this. One is by imposing certain statutory obligations upon railway companies and those who have the charge and the direction of these

    1277
    workmen. That is clearly a very un-elastic method. What is required for one set of things would not be required for another, and a general enactment imposing obligations of a fixed character which could not be altered to suit circumstances may produce great hardships and be perfectly insufficient to effect the object desired. Therefore, the Commission reported that it would be well to follow the precedent afforded by legislative action in similar matters, and to impose upon the Board of Trade the duty of regulating the matters dealt with in the Bill in the same way as the duty of making regulations for the carrying on of other trades is now imposed on the Home Office To what Department of the State ought the duty of regulation to be entrusted? There are at least thirteen or fourteen different powers now exercised by the Board of Trade in respect of railways, and it would be un-businesslike not to give that Board the power of regulating these dangerous trades. The Commission thought, however, that it would be very desirable that the great power, as it will be, which the Bill will confer should be exercised with great care and moderation. It is difficult to compare loss of human life and great injury with any other considerations. The railway companies do not ask that any consideration should be given to them on the score of expense. In their evidence they state—
    "Do not let financial considerations interfere with the action of the Commission or the Legislature in dealing with this matter."
    In fact, I found nothing but a genuine desire on the part of the representatives of the railway companies to assist in carrying out legislation which will protect the men working on the railways from accidents. They are as anxious as anyone to see a remedy found for the dangerous condition of the trade. But there are some considerations that must be taken into account. It must be remembered that the railway companies represent the whole of the trade of the country, and therefore anything that throws such a burden upon them as will prevent them from carrying on their work ought not to be enacted. Therefore, throughout the Bill, every care has been taken to secure that the duty imposed on the Board of Trade shall be exercised after due consideration for the interests of the railway companies, so that they shall not be called
    1278
    upon to bear unnecessary burdens, but should at the same time be required to carry out such operations as will prevent accidents. Clause 4 provides that—
    "The Board of Trade, in considering any objection to a draft rule, and the Commissioners in considering any objection referred to them, shall, amongst other matters, have regard to the question whether the requirements of the rule would materially interfere with the trade of the country, or with the necessary operations of any railway company."
    Power is given to the Board of Trade to draw up rules affecting the carrying on of operations in shunting yards, and in order to give the railway companies all reasonable protection power of appeal from the Board of Trade to the Railway Commission is given. Of course, the great question affecting the public interest in this matter is what is called the automatic coupling. It was the basis of the Bill of last year, and in that Bill the obligation was imposed on railway companies within a period of five years to attach an automatic coupling to every carriage used. A great deal is to be said on that subject. As far as the investigation of the Commission went, we were unable to say that a satisfactory automatic coupling had been found which would meet the requirements of our system in England, though we had 187 patents before us. The Commissioners were powerless to deal with the subject, but what is enacted in this Bill is that the railway companies shall co-operate with the Board of Trade in any experiment they undertake, which will make it practically certain that automatic couplings will come into operation when it has been established to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade, by practical testing, that any particular form is a success. The object of automatic couplings, of course, is to prevent men from passing between the wagons, but as there is no automatic uncoupler the men always have to go between the wagons for the purpose of uncoupling or to employ that very unsatisfactory appliance, the pole, for that purpose. It is possible that, by the co-operation of the Board of Trade with the railway companies, a lever coupling may be discovered which will perform both operations and remove the great risks which at present exist. I have stated in the main all the provisions of the Bill, and have given the House a general outline of them. I am aware

    1279
    that the Bill does not represent any heroic legislation, and that it has no political significance of any character. It may therefore attract but little attention, and excite no enthusiasm, but, at the same time, I do hope that your Lordships will be of opinion that a very fair attempt has been made to deal with the subject involved, and if the Bill becomes law I am certain that it will be no discredit to the Legislature that it gave a little of its time to passing a Bill essentially to benefit a portion of the community who are not undeserving of our attention.
    Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Monday next.

    COLONIAL SOLICITORS RILL.
    [SECOND READING.]
    Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
    THE EARL OF HALSBURYexplained that this was a Bill to provide for the admission of solicitors of Courts of British Possessions to the Supreme Courts in the United Kingdom. That was the sole object of the Bill, and be hoped their Lordships would give it a Second Reading.
    Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House To-morrow.

    LUNACY REGULATION (IRELAND) BILL.
    Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.

    VOLUNTEERS BILL [H.L.]
    House in Committee (on re-commitment)(according to Order).
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 2:—
    LORD MONKSWELLsaid that after the debate which took place on the Second Reading of the Bill* it would only be necessary for him to summarise in a very few words the objections that were then taken to the proposal of the noble Marquess that Volunteers should subject
    * For Debate on Second Heading, see The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxiii., page 1419. For proceedings in Committee, see page 577 of the present volume.
    1280
    themselves beforehand to the liability of foreign service whenever the Secretary of State thought fit to ask for their services. It was pointed out on that occasion by the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition that in point of fact what the noble Marquess proposed to do by this clause was to turn a certain number of Volunteers into Army Reservists. In saying that, the noble Earl rather understated his case, because in the case of the Army Reservist certain circumstances had to occur before he could be called upon to rejoin the ranks, but according to this Bill the Volunteer was under the obligation to join the ranks and go to the front whenever the Secretary of State thought fit. The Volunteer, therefore, was in a worse position as regarded liability for foreign service than the ordinary Army Reservist. One objection which had been taken to the Bill was that it divided Volunteers into two perfectly distinct classes—namely, combatants and non-combatants He did not know whether he need labour the point as to the disadvantage of persons serving side by side as Volunteers in two different categories. The noble Marquess himself struck out the proviso that the Bill should only apply to Volunteers who entered after it had passed, on the ground that it was extremely undesirable that there should be two classes of Volunteers serving side by side. Another noble Lord (the Earl of Derby) mentioned the analogy of the Militia Reserve, and said that in his experience no friction whatever had arisen from Militia and Militia Reserve serving together. His information was entirely contrary. He was told that, in some battalions at all events, the Militia Reserve gave themselves perfectly intolerable airs of superiority, and that the esprit de corps to a certain extent suffered. One objection which he would urge had reference to recruits. It might very possibly be that public opinion would be in such a state that no young man would be able to join the Volunteers as a non-combatant, and therefore a number would probably refrain from joining at all. If the provisions of the Bill were carried into effect, the noble Marquess would not add one single willing recruit to the Army. Under present conditions a Volunteer who wanted to go to the front found it possible to do so. The noble Marquess

    1281
    said he wanted to know beforehand on how many men he could rely. But we did not generally send out Volunteers at the beginning of a campaign, and he should have thought that the noble Marquess would have had plenty of time to find out, when occasion arose, how many Volunteers he was likely to have at his disposal. It was impossible that the noble Marquess should know for certain on how many Volunteers he could rely, because a Volunteer could always get rid of his obligations at fourteen days notice. It had been said that a great many commanding officers of Volunteers had been consulted, and that they were mostly in favour of the change. There was, however, undoubtedly a great difference among commanding officers on this subject. He thought that in choosing a moment of popular excitement the Government had chosen a very unfortunate time for making a change in the constitution of the Volunteer forces.
    Amendment moved—
    "In Clause 2, page 1, lines 10 and 11, to leave out 'to one or both of the following liabilities.' "—(Lord Monkswell.)
    *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): I understood that the noble Lord was prevented by accident from moving his Amendment when this Bill was passing through the Committee stage, and I therefore very readily recommitted it in order to give him an opportunity of raising the point in which he is interested. But I am bound to say that his Amendment does seem to me to be one which is directed at the principle of the Bill. I do not mean to say that there is nothing in the Bill but this clause. But this is by far the most important provision of the Bill, and those of your Lordships who did me the honour of listening to my statement when I introduced the measure can scarcely have failed to see that it was to this provision of the Bill above all the rest that I attached importance. We think it most necessary that Volunteers should have the power of entering beforehand into an agreement to serve on occasion beyond the limits of the United Kingdom. I am almost ashamed to repeat the argument which I have used before in this House, but I must again remind the House of the inconvenience to which the War Office was put, and to which the
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    Volunteers themselves were put upon a recent occasion when, at the last moment, a considerable number of members of the force signified their desire to accept service in South Africa. We know that some, at all events, of the Volunteers are anxious and ready to accept this liability; we know that in a great number of cases the commanding officers of Volunteer corps do not object to the men under their command accepting the liability, and we know that the arrangement is one which will relieve the War Office of pressure at a moment when pressure is already heavy. With regard to the attitude of commanding officers of Volunteer corps I have only to say that when this Bill was first under consideration we took steps to consult a considerable number of Volunteer colonels in different parts of the kingdom, and we gathered from them that they are not opposed to the principle of the clause which the noble Earl wishes to omit. I have within the last few days again consulted a number of Volunteer officers connected with that well-known institution, the Institute of Commanding Officers of Volunteers, and from them also I gather that they are in favour of this provision, provided always that care is taken not to organise this class of Volunteers into separate companies within their corps, or to give them any outward mark by which they would be distinguished from their comrades in arms. I cannot help thinking that the apprehension expressed by the noble Lord opposite is somewhat exaggerated. We are told that if there are two classes of Volunteers there will be jealousy, and that those who do not accept the wider liability will be looked askance upon by their comrades. During the last few months we have seen the Yeomanry provide a certain number of men for service in South Africa, but is it the case that the other Yeomen who did not offer themselves as volunteers but remained at home have been looked askance upon by their comrades? I have heard nothing of the sort, and I do not believe it. It seems to me the most natural tiring in the world that in a Volunteer corps there should be young men, unmarried and with, perhaps, no particular business occupation, who would be ready and glad to assume this liability, while their older comrades, perhaps married and settled down in life, with business ties, would not. I cannot conceive any practical inconvenience in estab-

    1283
    lishing a distinction of that kind, and I sincerely trust that your Lordships, who I certainly understood accepted this provision when the Bill was read a second time, will not strike it out of the measure now.
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I think I made it very plain indeed that I objected, and I confess I am not in the least convinced by the arguments used by the noble Marquess. My objection is not based by any means principally upon the jealousy which may exist, or upon any feeling which may be created in the corps, but is a much broader one. I object to turning the Volunteer force into what in point of fact will be a part of the Regular military forces of this country. It was always the intention that the Volunteers should be used for the defence of the country, and that their first duty was, when in an emergency the larger part of the effective Regular military forces had to be sent out of the country, to supply their place. I also feel that sufficient attention has not been drawn to another change in the Bill, to which I do not object, but which, taken in conjunction with this particular sub-section, seems to me to be likely to have a very undesirable effect. The Bill alters the conditions upon which we may call out the Volunteers. Formerly it was in the case of actual or apprehended invasion. For reasons which I think are good ones, the Government have determined to alter these words and substitute for them "of imminent national danger or of great emergency." I think the reason given was a sound one—that in a case of serious national emergency it might not be desirable to make a solemn statement to the whole world that we were of opinion that we were in imminent danger of invasion. It is better that the Government should be entrusted with the power of calling out Volunteers when in their opinion a serious emergency arises. The Government of the day will be the judge of what is a great emergency. I cannot help thinking that, if we have this second body of Volunteers always liable to be called on for foreign service, great emergencies will arise very frequently, owing to the Government not having foreseen those emergencies, and provided a proper military force for dealing with them, and they would then fall back on the Volunteer force at a time when it
    1284
    was impossible for anybody to object to it. As regards the by no means weighty argument upon which the Government chiefly rely for this change—namely, the advantage of knowing how many Volunteers are likely to be available, it seems to me that it cannot be put in the balance against the many disadvantages there are in the clause. It is not, I suppose, the intention of the Government to rely in ordinary cases upon the Volunteer force. What I imagine is intended is this: that when an emergency has arisen, and the force required, as was the case in South Africa, is found to be far larger than the Government had calculated upon, the Government will avail themselves of the service of the Volunteers. But there ought not to be any immediate and pressing emergency so great that there is not time to find out whether the Volunteers will come forward or not. I have no doubt that at a time of real national emergency Volunteers will be willing to come forward, and that we shall get them just as well as by means of this Bill Indeed, I think the Bill would limit the number of men who would engage, because the men who had not engaged themselves to go abroad would feel somewhat relieved from the obligation to lend their aid. I see no possible advantage in the clause, but I see very serious disadvantages in it, and I object to it mainly on the ground that it is an attempt permanently to supply the deficiencies of our military system by enrolling a number of Volunteers for foreign service.
    LORD HENEAGEasked whether the Volunteers who were to be liable to be called out would still remain a part of the regiment to which they were attached, or would be supernumerary. If they were to remain on the strength of the regiment, the Volunteers, when these men were called out, would be in the same position as the Militia had been during the past six months—they would be deprived of a large portion of their very best men at a time when they were most wanted.
    *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I do not think it would be possible to decide beforehand that these men should be supernumerary to the establishment. That would mean that the moment, let us say, fifty men in a corps accepted liability,

    1285
    the corps would have to raise another fifty men to take their place. I am under the belief, from what I have heard, that it would be distasteful to the Volunteer corps themselves that these men should be created into a sort of caste outside the organisation of the corps.
    Bill reported without further amendment. The Report of Amendments made in Committee of the whole House and in the Standing Committee to be received To-morrow.

    MILITARY LANDS BILL [H.L.]
    Amendments reported (according to Order).
    LORD HENEAGE LORD HENEAGE moved to omit from Clause 1, the words "or the council of any county or borough," his object being to make the cost of sites for Volunteer rifle ranges a charge upon the State, and not upon the rates. Those of their Lordships who were present on the occasion of
    On Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause,"
    Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 67; Not-Contents, 27.

    CONTENTS.

    Halsbury, E. (L. Chancellor.)

    Romney, E.

    Colville of Culross, L.

    Devonshire, D. (L. President.)

    Rosse, E.

    Crofton, L.

    Cross. V. (L. Privy Seal.)

    Temple, E.

    De Mauley, L.

    Waldegrave, E. [Teller]

    Fairlie, L. (E. Glasgow.)

    Argyll, D.

    Glenesk. L.

    Clancarty, V.(E. Clancarty.)

    Harris L.

    Ailesbury, M.

    Hardinge, V.

    Hood of Avalon, L.

    Lansdowne, M.

    Llandaff, V.

    James, L.

    Winchester, M.

    Sidmouth, V.

    Lawrence, L.

    Frankfort de Montmorency, V.

    Lindley, L.

    Carlisle, E.

    Ludlow, L.

    Cawdor, E.

    Gloucester, L. Bp.

    Monckton, L. (V. Galway.)

    Coventry, E.

    Mostyn, L.

    Dartmouth, E.

    Alverstone, L.

    Napier, L.

    Dartrey, E.

    Avebury, L.

    Norton, L.

    de Montalt, E.

    Bagot, L.

    Penrhyn, L.

    Denbigh, E.

    Belper, L.

    Robertson, L.

    Egerton, E.

    Blythswood, L.

    Sherborne, L.

    Haddington, E.

    Brampton, L.

    Sinclair L.

    Harewood, E.

    Calthorpe, L.

    Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

    Lichfield, E.

    Chaworth L. (E. Meath.)

    Lindsey, E.

    Churchill, L. [Teller]

    Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

    Mar, E.

    Clifford of Chudleigh. L.

    Suffield, L.

    Mayo, E.

    Clonbrock, L.

    Wimborne, L.

    Onslow, E.

    Colchester, L.

    NOT-CONTENTS.

    Grafton, D,

    Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

    Monkswell, L. [Teller]

    Sutherland, D.

    Ribblesdale, L. [Teller.]

    Burghclere, L.

    Sandhurst, L.

    Ripon, M.

    Davey, L.

    Saye and Sele, L.

    Hawkesbury, L.

    Thring, L.

    Buckinghamshire, E.

    Heneage, L.

    Tweedmouth, L.

    Camperdown, E.

    Herries, L.

    Wandsworth, L.

    Carrington, E.

    Kinnaird, L.

    Wemyss, L. (E. Wemyss.)

    Kimberley, E.

    Leigh, L.

    Wolverton, L.

    Morley, E.

    Manners of Haddon, L. (M. Granby.)

    Spencer, E.

    the Second Reading* would recollect that the Earl of Northbrook adverted to this question and quoted the opinion of the County Councils Association. The noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War intervened, and stated that he was going to make a statement with regard to it at a further stage, upon which Lord Northbrook said he would reserve what he had to say until he had heard that statement. Unfortunately, Lord Northbrook was unable to be present when the Bill passed through Committee, and no statement was made. Consequently he (Lord Heneage) now brought the question forward. A
    * See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxiii., page 1433.

    1287
    resolution was passed unanimously by the County Councils Association to the effect that no charge for providing or equipping rifle ranges should fall upon the rates, but that it should be paid out of the general revenues of the country. The association were quite willing, however, that county councils should bear the cost of the necessary inquiries and preliminary negotiations; but they felt that this was a national matter, and that any cost incurred in purchasing and equipping ranges should be a national charge. He might be met by the argument that this was, after all, only a permissive Bill. In his opinion, this very considerably strengthened his position. As there was no actual obligation on county councils to provide the cost, if they declined, a rifle corps might be left without the range, and the Government had no responsibility in the matter, though it was an Imperial, not a local question.
    Amendment moved—
    "In Clause 1, page 1, line 5, to leave out 'or the council of any county or borough.'"—(Lord Heneage.)
    *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords: I must express my regret that I disappointed my noble friend of an explanation which he evidently expected. On the occasion to which he refers I think he and I must have been in the position of Lord Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan—each was waiting on the other, and the result was nothing was said. There are, of course, two classes of ranges which we have to consider. There are the great central ranges created mainly in the interest of the regular forces, but to which we have contemplated that Volunteers should have facilities of access when necessary. Volunteers require such access for the purpose of practising at the longer distances, and also for collective firing, which they are very often unable to practise owing to the insufficient width of their own corps ranges. But Volunteers can earn the Capitation Grant without firing at any distance greater than 600 yards. Therefore, they are to a great extent sufficiently provided for by ranges of a less length than that which we provide at Salisbury Plain and other places. Upon these great central ranges we have lately spent £320,000, in addition to a large sum included in the purchase money of land
    1288
    on Salisbury Plain, where we are laying out a number of these ranges; and when the work is finished I am in hopes that every Volunteer corps will have a central range within reasonable distance. I do not mean to suggest that they will not have to travel by rail to any of them, but their travelling expenses will be paid. Then I pass to the other class of ranges—the local or corps ranges. There is no doubt that the original intention was that those ranges should be provided by the Volunteers themselves, assistance being given by the Government in the form of a capitation grant; but I readily admit that things have altered a great deal since that arrangement was first made—rifles carry further, the difficulty of obtaining sites is greater, and I have no doubt that inspection has become more strict. Therefore, it seems to us reasonable that we should at all events assist Volunteers in providing local corps ranges. We took last year in our Military Works Loans Act the sum of £40,000 to be spent for the purpose of assisting Volunteers in this way, and nearly the whole of that sum has been allocated. We have, generally speaking, given to corps a third or nearly a half of the sum of which they stood in need. But besides this £40,000, I have lately obtained from Her Majesty's Government consent to spend a further sum of £100,000 on local ranges, and we are now engaged in considering how that sum should be distributed. A Committee known as the Ranges Committee has been sitting for some time, and is in constant communication with the General Officers in command of districts. I am able to tell your Lordships that when this expenditure is completed, we shall have travelled a considerable distance towards supplying the Volunteer corps throughout the United Kingdom with range accommodation within easy reach of their own headquarters. If I may be permitted, I will read a paragraph from a recent Report of the Committee, which will explain the matter very clearly. The Committee say—
    "Apart from the London corps, the expenditure now proposed. … will complete the process of providing the Volunteer force with suitable range accommodation, in the past two or three years the Volunteers have spent large sums on ranges, and the fact that last year not a single Volunteer was excused firing his class for want of accommodation, is evidence that the difficulties experienced on the introduction of the new rifle have been

    1289
    met to a considerable extent. It has, however, been necessary for the men in many corps to travel long distances and incur some expense, but with the provision of the ranges now in question this will be reduced to a minimum, and there should in future be no corps without suitable ranges within easy reach, not only of their headquarters, but even of detached companies."
    I ought not to omit to explain that in the distribution of funds now going on we propose to include subventions to some corps who have already provided ranges at their own expense, but who have done so under circumstances which seem to us to justify us in to some extent recouping them for the sacrifices they have made. I now come to the question which the noble Lord desires to raise by his Amendment—the question of assistance from the rates. Your Lordships will have observed, from what I have already said, that we admit that the central ranges concern us wholly, and local or corps ranges only partially. If, in regard to the local ranges, we are to adopt this principle of co-operation, the question arises, by whom is the remainder of the money, of which the Government finds a part, to be provided? There are throe sources from which, conceivably, it might be found. There are the funds of the corps, there are private benefactions and subscriptions, and, lastly, there are the rates. I frankly confess to your Lordships that our Bill is drawn in such a manner as not to preclude the possibility of assistance from the rates. That, I gather, is the point of difference between my noble friend and myself. I am not quite sure whether his Amendment effects his purpose, but he evidently desires to put it out of the power of local authorities to make any contribution from the pockets of the ratepayers for these military purposes. I should be very sorry to see the Amendment adopted. The matter, of course, does not rest with us; it rests entirely with these local bodies, and if under certain circumstances they should think proper to give some assistance from the rates towards these objects, I do not see why we should, by Act of Parliament, prevent them from doing so. It is already the case that some of these local authorities are, of their own free will, finding money for the purpose of providing rifle ranges. I am aware that the local authority of Nottingham has provided a rifle range, for which, I believe, some rent is paid by the corps which have the
    1290
    use of it. Norwich and Warwick are desirous of giving assistance, and Yarmouth has done so, and, I believe, is in hopes of attracting large numbers of Volunteers into camp in the vicinity of the town, no doubt with the thought, of the advantage which may possibly thereby accrue to the neighbourhood. My noble friend referred to Lord Northbrook's action in this matter, and I may perhaps be allowed to say one word as to the circumstances under which this clause found its way into the Bill. Early in the spring Lord Northbrook was good enough to communicate with me on the subject, and. he sent me a memorandum in which it was set out that the County Councils Association had been acting in concert with a body which, I believe, is known as the County Volunteers Development Association. A Committee had been appointed, and Lord Northbrook sent me a copy of the Report of the Committee, to which his signature was attached, and of which he expressed himself, I understood, entirely in favour. The sixth paragraph of that Report runs thus—
    "The Committee suggest that power should be given to local authorities to spend money upon the erection of buildings upon lands held for military purposes, and to borrow money for that purpose. They believe that local authorities may be willing, in some cases, to charge this expenditure upon the rates."
    It was upon the strength of that that we drafted our Bill, and we certainly thought we were on very firm ground. It is perfectly true that at a later stage we became aware of the resolution passed by the County Councils Association. It stated that—
    "The Association is of opinion that the expense of the provision and equipment of ranges for Volunteers should be provided by Parliament and not by the rates."
    But the Committee expressed itself entirely favourable to the provisions of the Bill as drafted, and I certainly took the resolution of the association as merely indicating their decided opinion that this was a matter in which the Government was very distinctly concerned, and that they did not want to have the whole of the financial burden thrown upon the shoulders of the ratepayers. That was my interpretation of the resolution, and I cannot help thinking it was not an, unreasonable one. The Amendment of my noble friend does

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    not entirely effect his purpose because he leaves in the Bill the second clause, under which urban councils will have the power of borrowing money for the purchase of land for military purposes, and county councils already have, and have had for some time, this power. The main question is whether your Lordships should leave the Bill as it stands, or put into it words which would absolutely preclude these local bodies, some of whom, we believe, for excellent reasons, desire to assist rifle ranges out of the rates, from doing so. I would ask your Lordships to adhere to the Bill in its present form.
    THE EARL OF DARTMOUTHagreed in the view that, this being a national and not a local question, funds for the provision of rifle ranges should be provided by the nation, and not by the localities. On behalf of the private donor, he hoped no more would be left to his patriotism, because he was almost squeezed dry. Perhaps the Secretary for War would lay down the conditions under which the grant of £100,000 would be allocated.
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: So far as I have been able to ascertain, there is a very important consideration which militates against my noble friend's Amendment; it is that this power is now possessed and has been exercised by certain county councils. If that be so, of course the principle has been admitted. I dare say the noble Marquess, who is no doubt perfectly acquainted with the matter, will be kind enough to tell us what is the extent of the power of local authorities to contribute towards the provision of rifle ranges. My objection was merely a general one. My feeling was that it was highly undesirable to put any new charges on the rates. That is a very old question, and I am certainly not going to enter into a full discussion on so knotty a point. We have been promised a reform of local taxation, not only by this Government, but by many Governments, but the promise has never been fulfilled. What I am afraid of is that in the meantime charges on local rates will be heaped up more and more. This is not equitable to the payer of rates. The wealth of the country does not now consist, as it largely did formerly, of real property. The value of real property has fallen very much, whereas the wealth of the country has
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    increased enormously, and everyone must see that those who are not liable to pay rates on real property have as much interest in the defence of the country as those who are liable. I deprecate altogether the laying of one burden after another, not only for this purpose but for other national purposes, on local rates, when those burdens should be borne by the imperial Exchequer.
    LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid the question of providing rifle ranges for London Volunteers in the neighbourhood of London was most important and pressing on account of the density of the population, the immense number of Volunteers in London, and the condition of many London Volunteer corps, which were not drawn from one part of London only, but scattered over the whole of London, and therefore found difficulty in getting to their ranges. The question of providing them with ranges near London was under the consideration of a committee of the London County Council. He hoped the Secretary for War would assure the House that the matter was seriously under the consideration of the War Office, and would give some idea what steps the Government intended to take.
    THE EARL OF WEMYSSsaid that as chairman of the county council of his county in Scotland he heard with pleasure the observations that fell from the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition. He agreed that the provision of rifle ranges should not be thrown on the rates. The British ratepayer was a long-suffering, asinine person, and often submitted to burdens "when he might kick up his heels and stop the whole thing."
    *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I will first answer the question of my noble friend Lord Dartmouth, who asked whether I was in a position to toll him anything with regard to the conditions upon which this further grant is likely to be distributed. One of the conditions is that we must be satisfied as to the title, and I think it possible we may also stipulate in some cases that corps of Yeomanry, if within easy reach, might be allowed facilities for using the range. But I am afraid it is impossible to state in detail the conditions insisted upon in each case, because our instructions to the Ranges Committee are

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    to deal with each case on its merits. The noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition asked whether I could enlighten him as to the powers already possessed by local authorities to acquire or hire lands for military purposes. I do not know whether I can give him an exhaustive statement on the matter, but I am able to tell him this much, that county councils have power to purchase land for military purposes under Clause 69 of the Local Government Act. Borough councils were given similar powers under the Military Lands Act of 1892, and the object of Clause 2 of this Bill is to extend the powers now exercisable by a borough council to the council of an urban district. With regard to the powers dealt with by Clause 1 the case is as follows. Although county and borough councils have the power to acquire land, they have no power to adapt it to military purposes, and in order to give them that power Clause 1 has been introduced into the Bill. Lord Tweedmouth may be assured that the case of the metropolitan Volunteers is not being lost sight of. We attach the greatest importance to providing them with suitable range accommodation. Although I would rather not, for reasons which he can easily imagine, enter into details, I am able to say that the matter is receiving attention at this moment, and we earnestly hope and believe that a well-conceived project will be devised, under which the metropolitan Volunteers will have facilities for rifle practice within reasonable distance of their headquarters. Great difficulties have to be encountered not only in the case of London, but also in the case of all largo towns in Great Britain, but I trust we may be able gradually to surmount them.
    Amendment, by leave of the House, withdrawn.
    *THE EARL OF MEATHasked permission to move an Amendment which provided that, subject to the control of the Secretary of State for War, the members of cadet corps should be permitted to use, free of charge, lands provided out of the public purse for military purposes. He said this Amendment was a very humble one, and would not add to the expense of either the ratepayers or taxpayers. It was because he did not wish to see militarism introduced into this country that he
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    desired to see the free citizens of England capable of bearing arms trained to arms in their youth. An evidence of the necessity of imparting military instruction to the youth of this country was given in a lecture the previous evening by Dr. Warre, whose whole life had been spent in the education of the young, and whose reputation as an educationist was of the highest. Dr. Warre said—
    "I can honestly say that I have never seen any of those effects produced which the bogey of militarism would fain have us think to be the natural results of such training. I have never seen any even of the keenest Volunteers made worse scholars, or worse boys, by submitting to the instruction and the discipline of the corps. I believe, on the contrary, that all boys who go through that discipline and instruction are the better for it, gaining by it an increase in the power of self-control, and still further, in the power of being useful to their country in their afterlife. On the other hand. I believe that the salvation of the country as regards national defence depends upon the right and timely training of its youth with reference to this special national need."
    He hoped the noble Marquess would not lose the present opportunity, but would introduce a Bill before the end of the session dealing with the subject. It had been said that the training of our lads would not add one effective soldier to the battalions. That was quite true in one sense, but we had to look to the future, when these lads might prove of great service.
    *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I will not say a word that could be interpreted as denoting any want of sympathy with the noble Earl's desire that the youth of this country should receive a reasonable amount of military education. I am well aware how great an interest he has taken in the question of cadet corps, and I wish him all possible success in the excellent work in which he interests himself. But I am afraid that it is quite impossible for me to accept this Amendment, a copy of which he handed to me just before the House met. I cannot help thinking that he has drawn his Amendment under a misconception of the scope and objects of the Bill. This is a Bill the object of which is to facilitate the acquisition of land for military purposes by certain local authorities, while the object of the Amendment is to secure that cadet corps shall have the free use of ranges acquired under the Military Lands Act

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    of 1892 or under this Bill. That is really a question which does not arise at all on this occasion. This Bill does not raise the question of the conditions under which the different corps are to have the use of ranges, and I must say that I should hesitate, even if the clause really were germane to the Bill, to accept a proposal that these particular corps should be given a preferential use of ranges free of charge.
    *THE EARL OF MEATH: Not a preferential use.
    *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Preferential in the sense that they would use the ranges free of charge.
    THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY): This Amendment is not on the Paper, and as your Lordships have not had an opportunity of reading and considering it, I do not think it should be put.
    LORD TWEEDMOUTHpointed out that a Cadet corps would be able to obtain all the advantages desired by becoming attached to a Volunteer corps.
    *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Unless I am very much mistaken, cadet corps are affiliated and attached to Volunteer corps.
    LORD THRING: I understood the noble Marquess to undertake, in the Grand Committee, that if I would draw up a schedule setting out the procedure of the Bill, he would accept it. I spent the whole of yesterday afternoon drawing up a schedule, which is admitted by the War Office to be correct. I wish to know whether the noble Marquess will not bring it forward himself and allow it to pass.
    *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Considerable trouble has been taken in order to meet, if possible, the wishes which have been expressed by the noble Lord who has just spoken and the noble Lord who sits behind him for some clear statement of the procedure which will be followed under this Bill in cases of the compulsory acquisition of land. The noble and learned Lord has been good enough to draft a schedule, which I have considered, and I must put it to the
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    House whether it really will be for the public convenience that we should incorporate that schedule in the Bill. Several courses have been suggested to us with the object of explaining to the public what this procedure is to be. It was suggested, I think at first by Lord Monkswell, that we might print in the schedule of the Bill the different clauses to which reference is made in the Bill itself. It was found that that was virtually impossible owing to the number and length of the clauses. I am afraid, therefore, that that alternative has to be dismissed. Then we come to the noble and learned Lord's proposal that the schedule which he has been good enough to send to me should be printed as part of the Bill. It gives a full description of the procedure to be adapted under the Lands Clauses Acts, under the Allotments Act of 1887, and under the Local Government Act of 1894. It is a somewhat lengthy paper, and there is this to be remembered, that if we were to insert it in the Bill it would not be a full and complete account of the new procedure, because there would still be in the background the adaptation which the Local Government Board is empowered to make in applying the clauses under which allotments may be purchased to the purchase of land for rifle ranges. Moreover, I doubt whether it is convenient to insert a statement which professes to be a complete account of other statutes, but which is worded in terms different from those used in the statutes. I think such a procedure is open to grave objection. I would venture to suggest to the noble and learned Lord and to your Lordships that we may fairly meet the objections that have been raised by the procedure contemplated by the Bill—namely, that the Local Government Board should, in the usual way, make the Adapting Order under this Bill, which Adapting Order will be published. I am told that in this case the Adapting Order will be published during the coming autumn. If this is not considered sufficient I should be willing to have a concise statement of the procedure printed and published, but I prefer not to have it in the Bill. I trust the alternative I have proposed will be acceptable to the noble and learned Lord and to the House.
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: The noble Marquess has, I think, endeavoured to meet the noble and learned Lord to a

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    certain extent, but I confess that the more I hear of it the more unsatisfactory the arrangement seems to be. In point of fact the matter appears to be so complicated that it is impossible to draw up any statement sufficiently clear to be put into the Bill. If that is so, is it not rather hard that people whose property is to be taken against their will should not know the procedure under which that is to be done? Although I think it is quite right that there should be power to take land compulsorily under this Bill, that power ought only to be exercised under plain, distinct, and statutory regulations. There is a very elastic power lodged in the Local Government Board, and I must say that I am jealous of the Executive having any power to deal peremptorily with the property of other people. The power should be fenced round and distinctly set out, so that no one can feel that he has any ground for complaint as to the manner in which it has been exercised.
    LORD MONKSWELLsaid that his noble and learned friend Lord Thring was very much exercised in his mind as to the word "adaptation," which he considered very vague and not at all desirable.
    THE EARL OF MORLEYsaid that in his opinion the wording of Section 2 of Clause 3 was anything but satisfactory. The section stated that the provisions of Sections 9 and 10 of the Local Government Act, 1894, and of the enactments thereby incorporated, should, as far as they were applicable, and subject to such adaptations as the Local Government Board might by order prescribe, apply in the case of hiring land compulsorily for military purposes as they applied in the case of hiring land compulsorily for allotments. He suggested that the noble Marquess should state definitely in the Bill how many of the provisions of Sections 9 and 10 of the Local Government Act, 1894, were applicable, and that the "adaptations" of the Local Government Board should be abolished.
    Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.

    ANCIENT MONUMENTS PROTECTION BILL.
    Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.
    RESERVE FORCES BILL [H.L.]
      MILITARY MANŒUVRES BILL [H.L.]
      Read 3a (according to Order); Amendments made; Bills passed, and sent to the Commons.

    POOR REMOVAL BILL.
    House in Committee (according to Order).
    Clause 1:—
    *LORD AVEBURYsaid he had been requested by the Association of Poor Law Unions of England and Wales to move what seemed a very reasonable Amendment to this clause. The clause provided that—
    "A person who has resided continuously for five years in England shall not thereafter be removed to Ireland under the Acts relating to the relief of the poor."
    He proposed to insert after the word "England" the words "of which five years not less than one year shall have been continuously in the parish or union in which he applies for relief." He believed he was correct in saying that the restriction as he proposed to amend it was the law in regard to Scottish removals. The object of the Amendment was also to secure that there should be some evidence that the person in question had been for five years in England.
    Amendment moved—
    "In Clause 1, line 2, after ('England') to insert ('of which five years not less than one year shall have been continuously in the parish or union in which he applies for relief.'")—(Lord Avebury.)
    *LORD HARRIS: My instructions from the Local Government Board are to ask your Lordships not to accept this Amendment. The object of the Bill is to redress what is regarded as a grievance in Ireland. At present there is no law of settlement in Ireland, and a person who has been born in England but who obtains relief from the rates in Ireland is not removable to England, whereas the Irish born person if he comes upon the rates in England can, except under two circumstances, be removed back to Ireland. It has long been felt in Ireland that this is a serious grievance. The two circumstances under which an Irish born person living in England becomes what is called irremovable are where he has, in the first

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    case, lived for three years continuously in a parish, in which case he obtains a settlement in that parish; and, secondly, where he has lived continuously for a year in the union in which he applies for relief, and that year has to be immediately antecedent to the date on which he applies for relief. In either of these cases he becomes irremovable, but unless he has resided three years continuously in a parish, or if he applies for relief outside the union in which he has lived continuously for a year, he is still removable back to Ireland, whereas under no circumstances is an English born person obtaining relief from the rates in Ireland removable back to England. The effect of the noble Lord's Amendment would, in the opinion of the Local Government Board, really be to stultify the Bill. If a person can be shown to have lived for five years in England, he then obtains a settlement in England, and cannot be removed back to Ireland; but the noble Lord proposes to cut down that advantage, as it is regarded in Ireland, by making it compulsory upon the person to have lived for a year in the parish or union in which he applies for relief. This Amendment would prevent the advantage being conferred which we have endeavoured to give to Ireland, by increasing the possibility of removability. That is the reason why I ask your Lordships to reject the Amendment.
    LORD CLONBROCKsaid that as an old Irish Poor Law Guardian he could testify to the fact that the grievance which this Bill proposed to remove had been actually felt for many years in Ireland. Any person who became destitute in Ireland had to be relieved, utterly irrespective of whether he was born in Ireland or had lived there any number of years. It might happen that a person who had only been in Ireland one day applied for relief, in which case the union would have to maintain him if necessary for the whole course of his life. On the other hand he had known cases of Irishmen being sent back from England after an absence from their own country of twenty years.
    EARL SPENCER: I sincerely trust that the Bill will be carried in its present form. I have every reason to recollect, during the considerable number of years I was in Ireland, that continual cases of this kind were cropping up. It is a very
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    great and serious complaint, and, as I understand it, the Bill as it is framed is a Bill of reciprocity. It puts Englishmen in Ireland on exactly the same footing as Irishmen in England with regard to removability under the poor law.
    *LORD AVEBURYsaid he did not oppose the Bill. The object of his Amendment simply was to secure that a person should have been living for a reasonable time in a union before he became chargeable to the union. To omit this was practically to abolish the law of settlement.
    Amendment, by leave of the House, withdrawn.
    *LORD AVEBURYthen moved the insertion of a new clause, the object of which was to secure that proper evidence should be obtained in corroboration of the statement of the pauper. This provision was required as between one union in England and another union in England, and the safeguards which were considered necessary in England should be applicable in this case. Unless some such words were inserted there would be nothing on which the magistrates could act except the mere statement of the pauper himself. Surely it was reasonable that some evidence in corroboration of that statement should be allowed to be insisted upon.
    Amendment moved—
    "After Clause 1 to insert as a new clause: 'Upon an application for removal of a pauper to Ireland, the justices or magistrates hearing such application shall, if the pauper shall assert that he has resided continuously in England for five years without relief require such evidence in corroboration of such assertion to be furnished as they or he may deem sufficient, and in the event of no satisfactory evidence in corroboration being furnished, or on being satisfied that the board of guardians applying for the order of removal has made proper enquiries but has failed to obtain such corroborative evidence as aforesaid, such justices or magistrates shall make such order as they or he would have made had this Act not been passed."—(Lord Avebury.)
    *LORD HARRIS: I fear that I appear in a very unsympathetic attitude towards the noble Lord, but I am instructed to oppose the insertion of this new clause. The object of the noble Lord's Amendment is to throw the onus of proof upon the pauper. We will take

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    the case of an Irish pauper whom the guardians wish to remove, and who objects to being removed. The noble Lord wished to throw upon the pauper the onus of proving that he has been resident in England for five years. Apart from the question whether the pauper is in a very good position to produce corroborative evidence before the justices, the guardians are not, as a matter of fact, by this Bill put in a different position from what they are under the present Act. Under the Act at present the onus of proof is thrown upon the guardians who wish to remove a pauper, and I think one is justified in assuming that, whoever has to produce the evidence, the justices will require sufficient proof before they consent to an order for removal. Of course it is obvious that the obtaining of evidence sufficient to satisfy the justices will be a matter of labour and of some expense. It is quite likely, if the noble Lord's Amendment was adopted, that the guardians would still be put to labour and expense, because they would have to satisfy themselves that the pauper's statement and such corroborative evidence as he managed to adduce, which might or might not be very credible, were in fact true. The Bill does not throw upon the guardians an onus which docs not rest upon them now. The Local Government Board, having given careful and sympathetic attention to the representations of the very important body the noble Lord represents, are of opinion that the Bill as it was introduced by your Lordships is, upon the whole, in the best form.
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYdid not see that there could be any hardship under the Bill as it stood.
    LORD CLONBROCKventured to think that it would be impossible for a pauper to prove that he had resided continuously in England for five years without receiving relief, unless he subpœnaed all the relieving officers in the country.
    *LORD AVEBURYsaid he had been informed that all that the Amendment asked was that the same precautions should be taken in the case of the removal of Irish paupers as were taken when English paupers were removed from one parish to another After what had been
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    said, however, he could not press his Amendment, but he hoped Her Majesty's Government would look into the point raised.
    Amendment, by leave of the House, withdrawn.
    Bill reported, without amendment; and recommitted to the Standing Committee.

    UNION OF BENEFICES ACT, 1860, AMENDMENT BILL [H.L.]
    House in Committee (according to Order). Bill reported without Amendment; and recommitted to the Standing Committee.
  MERCHANT SHIPPING (LIABILITY OF SHIPOWNERS AND OTHERS) BILL [NO. 138].
    WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT (1897) EXTENSION BILL [No. 139].
    Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.

  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR — BOER PRISONERS AT ST. HELENA.
  THE EARL OF MAYO: I beg to ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is a fact that the Boer prisoners at St. Helena are being fed with fresh, while our soldiers guarding them only get tinned, meat; and whether the cleaning out of the tents occupied by the Boer prisoners is done by our fatigue parties.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I am glad to be able to reassure my noble friend. I have to-day received from the officer commanding troops at St. Helena the following telegram—
  "It is not true that prisoners of war at St. Helena are being fed with fresh, while our soldiers guarding them only get tinned, meat. Meat ration same in each case. Prisoners of war clean out their own tents and ground occupied by them. Prisoners of war clean also remainder."
  I do not know what "remainder" is.
  "No fatigue parties of our soldiers are used for these purposes."
  House adjourned at half past Seven of the clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten of the clock.