Sitting of 22 February 1901

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILL PETITIONS (STANDING ORDERS NOT COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petitions for the following Bills, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, viz.:—

  Cambrian Railway Bill.

  Scarborough Electric Tramways Bill.

  South Yorkshire Electric, Power Bill.

  Ordered, That the Reports be referred

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  to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

  PRIVATE BILLS [Lords].
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in respect of the Bills comprised in the List reported by the Chairman of Ways and Means as intended to originate in the House of Lords, they have certified that the Standing Orders have been complied with in the following cases, viz.:—

  Aire and Oalder Navigation.

  Albion Steam Coal Company.

  Alfreton Gas.

  Arlesey Gas.

  Aspatria, Silloth, and District Water.

  Barrow-in-Furness Corporation.

  Bath Gas Light and Coke.

  Belfast Harbour.

  Bethlem Hospital.

  Bideford and Clovelly Railway (Abandonment).

  Bideford and Clovelly Railway (Extension of Time, etc.).

  Bolton Corporation.

  Bournemouth Corporation.

  Bridewell Hospital.

  Bristol, Clifton, and West of England Zoological Society.

  Bristol Corporation Cemetery.

  Bristol Corporation (Docks and Railways, etc.).

  Broadstairs and St. Peter's Water and Improvement.

  Cardiff Railway.

  Central London Railway.

  Charing Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway (No. 1).

  Charing Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway (No. 2).

  Charing Cross, Hammersmith, and District Electric Railway.

  Chesterfield Improvement.

  Chester Gas.

  Christ's Hospital (London).

  City and Brixton Railway.

  City and North East Suburban Electric Railway.

  City and South London Railway.

  Cork, Blackrock, and Passage Railway.

  Doncaster Tithe Trust.

  Dover Corporation.

  Dover Gas.

  Dover Harbour.

  Easton and Church Hope Railway.

  Elland Gas.

  Faversham Water.

  Folkestone Corporation.

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  Freshwater, Yarmouth, and Newport Railway.

  Great Southern and Western Railway.

  Handsworth Urban District Council.

  Harpendeu District Gas.

  Harrogate Water.

  Henry Diaper and Company (Delivery Warrants).

  Hey wood and Middleton Water Board.

  Islington and Euston Railway

  King's Norton and Northfield Urban District Tramways.

  King's Road Railway.

  Leeds Churches.

  Leeds Corporation (General Powers).

  Leeds Corporation Water.

  Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway.

  Llanelly Harbour.

  London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway.

  London (City) School for Orphans of Freemen.

  Lowestoft Corporation.

  Lynton and Barnstaple Railway.

  Manchester and Liverpool Electric Express Railway.

  Manchester Corporation.

  Manchester (Market Street Area) Improvements.

  Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.

  Milford Docks.

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Gateshead Gas.

  Newport (Isle of Wight) Gas.

  New Swindon Gas.

  Nitrate Railways Company.

  North East London Railway. Nottingham Corporation.

  Oakham Water.

  Omagh Gas.

  Otley Gas.

  Piccadilly and City Railway.

  Portmadoc, Beddgelert, and South Snowdon Railway.

  Poulton-le-Fylde Gas.

  Prostaytn Water.

  Rhymney and Aber Valleys Gas and Water.

  Ripon Corporation.

  Royal Exchange Assurance.

  Rugby Water and Improvement.

  St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

  Salford Corporation.

  Sheffield Corporation.

  Sheffield District Railway.

  Shields Bridge.

  Shrewsbury Gas.

  Smethwick Corporation.

  South Eastern and London, Chatham, and Dover Railways.

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  South Essex Water.

  Southport Water (Transfer).

  South Western and Isle of Wight Junction Railway.

  Stockport Corporation Water.

  Stratton and Bude Gas.

  Stratton and Bude Improvement.

  Warkworth Harbour.

  Weston-super-Mare Gas.

  Wisbech Water.

  And that they have certified that the Standing Orders have not been complied with in the following cases, viz.:—

  Birmingham (City) Tramways.

  Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway.

  Cowes Ferry.

  Harrogate Corporation.

  Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (Canada Dock Works, etc.).

  Sutton-in-Ashfield Urban District (Water).

  Tyneside Tramways and Tramroads.

  West and South London Junction Railway.

  PRIVATE BILL PETITIONS [Lords] (STANDING ORDERS NOT COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petitions for the following Bills, originating in the Lords, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, viz.:—

  Birmingham (City) Tramways Bill [Lords].

  Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway Bill [Lords].

  Cowes Ferry Bill [Lords].

  Harrogate Corporation Bill [Lords].

  Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (Canada Dock Works, etc.) Bill [Lords]

  Sutton-in-Ashfield Urban District (Water) Bill [Lords].

  Tyneside Tramways and Tramroads Bill [Lords].

  West and South London Junction Railway Bill [Lords].

  Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

  ALDEBURGH CORPORATION (WATER).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Pretyman and Mr. Stevenson.
  ALDERSHOT GAS AND WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bramston Beach and Mr. Jeffreys.
  ALEXANDRA (NEWPORT AND SOUTH WALES) DOCKS AND RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. M'Kenna and Mr. Alfred Thomas.
  BINGLEY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Duncan and Mr. Alfred Hutton.
  BLACKBURN CORPORATION.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir William Hornby and Sir William Coddington.
  BLACKPOOL IMPROVEMENT.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Taylor and Mr. Helme.
  BRADFORD CORPORATION.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Captain Greville, Mr. Wanklyn, and Mr. Flower.
  BRIGHTON CORPORATION.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Loder, Mr. Wentworth, and Sir Henry Fletcher.
  BRITISH GAS LIGHT COMPANY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir James Joicey and Mr. Skewes Cox.
  BRITISH WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. W. F. D. Smith and Mr. Carvill.
  BURGESS HILL WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Henry Fletcher and Mr. Goschen.
  BURTON-UPON-TRENT CORPORATION.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gretton and Mr. Radcliffe.
  BURY CORPORATION.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. James Kenyon, Mr. Mather, and Mr. Cawley.
  BURY CORPORATION TRAMWAYS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. James Kenyon, Mr. Mather, and Mr. Cawley.
  CALEDONIAN ELECTRIC POWER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Herbert Maxwell, Mr. Renshaw, Mr. Baird, Sir William Arrol, and Mr. Colville.
  CALEDONIAN RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Renshaw and Mr. Hozier.
  CARDIFF CORPORATION.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Edward Reed and Mr. Alfred Thomas.
  CITY OF LONDON (SPITALFIELDS MARKET).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Alban Gibbs, Sir Horatio Davies, and Sir Joseph Dimsdale.
  CLEVELAND AND DURHAM COUNTY ELECTRIC POWER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Pike Pease, Sir Christopher Furness, Mr. John Wilson (Durham), and Mr. Lambton.
  CLYDE VALLEY ELECTRICAL POWER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir John Stirling-Maxwell, Mr. Colville, Mr. John Baird, and Mr. Shaw-Stewart.
  COLWYN BAY AND COLWYN URBAN DISTRICT CAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. George Kenyon and Mr. Herbert Roberts.
  CRAWLEY CAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Hoywood Johnstone, Sir John Brunner, and Mr. HumphreysOwen.
  CROMER WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir William Gurdon and Mr. Price.
  DERBY CORPORATION.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Thomas Roe, Mr. Boll, Mr. Victor Cavendish, Mr. Thomas Bayley, Mr. Jacoby, and Mr. T. D. Bolton.
  DERBYSHIRE AND NOTTINGHAMSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER,
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir John Rolleston and Mr. T. D. Bolton.
  DERWENT VALLEY WATER BOARD.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Thomas Roe, Mr. Broadhurst, Lord Henry Bentinck, and Mr. Stuart-Wortley.
  DEVONPORT CORPORATION (GAS).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Kearley and Mr. E. J. C. Morton.
  DEVONPORT GAS AND COKE.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. E. J. C. Morton and Mr. Fletcher Moulton.
  DISTRICT MESSENGER AND THEATRE TICKET COMPANY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. W. E. U. Smith, Colonel Lock-wood, Mr. Boulnois, Mr. Channing, Mr. Frederick Wilson, and Sir Thomas Esmonde.
  DORKING GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Skewes-Cox and Mr. Leigh-Bennett.
  DUBLIN CORPORATION (MARKETS,&c.)
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Clancy, Mr. M'Cann, and Mr. Nannetti.
  DUBLIN (EQUALISATION OF RATES).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Clancy, Mr. Field, Mr. M'Cann, Mr. Mooney, and Mr. Nannetti.
  DUBLIN ST. JAMES' GATE BREWERY TRAMWAYS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Harrington, Mr. Nannetti, and Mr. M'Cann.
  ECCLES CORPORATION.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Clare and Mr. Knowles.
  FAIRFORD AND CIRENCESTER RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice and Sir John Aird.
  GAS LIGHT AND COKE COMPANY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir John Aird and Mr. Boulnois.
  GATESHEAD AND DISTRICT TEAMWAYS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Atherley-Jones, and Mr. Lyttleton.
  GLASGOW AND RENFREW DISTRICT RAILWAY TRANSFER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Renshaw and Mr. Parker Smith.
  GLASGOW AND SOUTH WESTERN RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Herbert Maxwell, Mr. Baird, and Sir William Arrol.
  GOLBOENE GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Lord Balcarres and Mr. Tomlinson.
  GRAVESEND GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Alexander Brown and Captain Howard.
  GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Henderson and Mr. Chapman.
  GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Colonel Lockwood and Mr. Perm.
  GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Jackson and Mr. Fison.
  GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought by Mr. David M'Iver and Mr. Brassey.
  HARTLEPOOLS GAS AND WATER TRANSFER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Christopher Furness and Mr. Lambton.
  HECKMONDWIKE GAS (TRANSFER).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Whittaker and Mr. Oldroyd.
  HONLEY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (GAS).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir James Kitson and Sir James Woodhouse.
  HORLEY DISTRICT GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Alban Gibbs and Sir Joseph Dimsdale.
  HULL, BARNSLEY, AND WEST RIDING JUNCTION RAILWAY AND DOCK.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Seymour King, Mr. Firbank, Mr. Charles Wilson, and Sir James Woodhouse.
  HUMBER COMMERCIAL RAILWAY AND DOCK.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Lord Willoughby de Eresby and Mr. Doughty.
  ILKESTON AND HEANOR WATER BOARD.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Walter Foster and Mr. Victor Cavendish.
  IRISH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir James Haslett, Mr. Wolff, and Mr. John Gordon.
  KETTERING URBAN DISTRICT WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Colonel Sackville and Mr. Channing.
  KINGSCOURT, KEADY, AND ARMAGH RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir James Haslett and Mr. John Gordon.
  KINGSTON-UPON-HULL CORPORATION.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Firbank, Sir Henry Seymour King, Mr. Charles Wilson, and Sir James Woodhouse.
  LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY (DEARNE VALLEY JUNCTION RAILWAYS).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir William Hornby and Mr. Fielden.
  LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY (VARIOUS POWERS).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir William Hornby and Mr. Fielden.
  LEATHERHEAD GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. St. John Brodrick, Mr. Keswick, and Mr. Skewes-Cox.
  LLANDRINDOD WELLS URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Edwards, Lieutenant Colonel Pryce-Jones, and Mr. Charles Morley.
  LLANDRINDOD WELLS WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bull and Sir Mancherjee Bhownaggree.
  LONDON AND INDIA DOCKS (NEW WORKS).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Joseph Dimsdale and Mr. Keswick.
  LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir William Houldsworth, Colonel Lockwood, and Mr. Macartney.
  LONDON BRIDGE WIDENING.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Alban Gibbs, Sir Horatio Davies, and Sir Joseph Dimsdale.
  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bond, Mr. Bull, and Colonel Legge.
  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (SPITAL-FIELDS MARKET).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Lough and Mr. John Burns.
  LONDON RIVERSIDE FISH MARKET
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Alban Gibbs, Sir Horatio Davies, and Sir Joseph Dimsdale.
  LONDON, TILBURY, AND SOUTHEND RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Round and Mr. Courtenay Warner.
  LONDON WATER (PURCHASE).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Lough and Mr. John Burns.
  LONG EATON GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bond and Mr. Gretton.
  MANSFIELD CORPORATION.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Markham, Lord Henry Bentinck, Sir Frederick Milner, and Mr. Thomas Bayley.
  METROPOLITAN DISTRICT RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir John Aird and Sir Charles Dalrymple.
  METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC SUPPLY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Frederick Harris and Sir Fortescue Flannery.
  METROPOLITAN RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Nussey and Mr. M'Laren.
  METROPOLITAN WATER COMPANIES (AMENDMENT OF ACTS).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Lough and Mr. John Burns.
  MIDLAND RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Frederick Mappin and Sir William Coddington.
  MOND GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Robinson, Mr. Walford Green, and Colonel Webb.
  NEATH HARBOUR.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Brynmor Jones and Mr. Samuel Evans.
  NEWRY PORT AND HARBOUR TRUST.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Colonel Saunderson, Mr. Macartney, Mr. Archdale, Mr. M'Cann, and Mr. Carvill.
  NORTH BRITISH RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by the Earl of Dalkeith and Mr. Anstruther.
  NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Joseph Pease, Sir James Kitson, and Mr. Wharton.
  NOTTING HILL ELECTRIC LIGHTING.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Stuart Samuel and Mr. Sinclair.
  PAISLEY POLICE AND PUBLIC HEALTH.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir William Dunn, Sir William Arrol, Mr. James M'Killop, and Mr. Wallace.
  PEMBROKE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (COUNTY OF DUBLIN).
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Gordon and Mr. M'Cann.
  PETERSFIELD AND SELSEY GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Joseph Leese and Mr. Goulding.
  RHYL BRIDGE.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bull, Mr. Rutherford, and Mr. Skewes-Cox.
  RHYL IMPROVEMENT.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Samuel Smith and Mr. Herbert Lewis.
  RICHMOND GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Barrington Simeon and Mr. Thornton.
  RICKMANSWORTH AND UXBRIDGE VALLEY WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir John Aird and Mr. Alban Gibbs.
  SHANNON WATER AND ELECTRIC POWER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Harrington, Mr. T. M. Healy, Mr. William Johnston, and Mr. John Gordon.
  SHIPLEY IMPROYEMENT.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Forteseue Flannery and Mr. Duncan.
  SHIREOAKS, LAUGHTON, AND MALTBY RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Holland and Mr. Langley.
  SOUTHAMPTON AND WINCHESTER GREAT WESTERN JUNCTION RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mount and Mr. Arthur Morton.
  SOUTH METROPOLITAN GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Banbury and Mr. Kimber.
  STALYBRIDGE, HYDE, MOSSLEY, AND DUKINFIELD TRAMWAYS AND ELECTRICITY BOARD.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. White Ridley, Mr. Cawley, Sir James Kitson, and Platt-Higgins.
  STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, TOWCESTER, AND MIDLAND JUNCTION, EAST AND WEST JUNCTION, AND EVESHAM, REDDITCH, AND STRATFORD-UPON AVON JUNCTION RAILWAY COMPANIES.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Joseph Dimsdale and Colonel Milward.
  STROUD GAS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir John Dorington and Mr. Agg-Gardner.
  SWANAGE GAS AND WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Sturt and Mr. James Bailey.
  SWANSEA HARBOUR.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir George Newnes, Mr. Brynmor Jones, and Mr. Aeron Thomas.
  TAFF VALE RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Edward Reed and Mr. D. A. Thomas.
  TEES VALLEY WATER BOARD.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Colonel Sadler and Colonel Ropner.
  TENDRING HUNDRKD WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Round and Mr. Alexander Brown.
  THAMES DEEP WATER DOCK.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Louis Sinclair and Mr. Fletcher Moulton.
  THAMES LIGHTERMEN.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Alban Gibbs and Mr. Charles Wilson.
  THAMES PIERS AND RIVER SERVICE.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Burns, Mr. Lough, and Mr. Whitmore.
  TORRINGTON AND OKEHAMPTON RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Lambert and Mr. Soares.
  TOTTENHAM AND HAMPSTEAD JUNCTION RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Frederick Mappin and Mr. Penn.
  WALLASEY IMPROVEMENT.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Hoult and Mr. Charles M'Arthur.
  WELLS CORPORATION WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Henry Hobhouse and Mr. Dickinson.
  WELLS WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Alexander Acland-IIood, Mr. Dickinson, and Mr. Henry Hobhouse.
  WEST CUMBERLAND ELECTRIC TRAMWAYS.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Helder, Colonel Bain, and Mr. Handles.
  WEST SURREY WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Seale-Hayne and Mr. Brassey.
  WOLVERHAMPTON AND CANNOCK CHASE RAILWAY.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Charles Shaw and Mr. Walford Green.
  WOLVERHAMPTON CORPORATION WATER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Henry Fowler, Sir Alfred Hickman, and Mr. Norman.
  YORKSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER.
  Petition, and Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Fison, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Beckett.
  CAMBRIAN RAILWAYS.
  Petition for Bill; referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
  SCARBOROUGH ELECTRIC TRAMWAYS.
  Petition for Bill; referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
  SOUTH YORKSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER
  Petition for Bill; referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
  STANDING ORDERS.
  Ordered, That the Select Committee on Standing Orders do consist of thirteen Members:—Sir John Brunner, Sir William Coddington, Mr. John Edward Ellis, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Dr. Farquharson, Mr. Halsey, Mr. Humphreys-Owen, Mr. James Lowther, Sir James Rankin, Mr. William Redmond, Sir Mark M'Taggart Stewart, Mr. Whitmore, and Mr. Wodehouse were accordingly nominated Members of the Committee.—(Mr. Halsey.)
PETITIONS.
  BEER BILL.
  Petition from York, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (HIGHER GRADE AND EVENING CONTINUATION SCHOOLS).
  Petitions for alteration of Law, from Weston-super-Mare; Goole; Merthyr Tydfil; Folkestone; and Long Eaton; to ie upon the Table.
  POOR LAW OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1896.
  Petitions for alteration of Law, from Salford; and Folkestone; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petition from Camden Town, in favour; to lie upon the Table.

  JOHN ARMSTRONG AND OTHERS V. JOHN SCURRAH RANOLES.
  A Petition of Thomas Wootton, Solicitor, for leave to the proper Officer of the House to attend a trial and produce documents and give evidence in the High Court of Justice.
  Leave to the proper officer to attend accordingly.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  CONTROVERTED ELECTIONS.
  Return ordered, "of the Shorthand Writers' Notes of the Evidence which has been or may be taken at the trial of Election Petitions under the Acts relating thereto since the last General Election and during the present Session of Parliament; together with a Copy of the Shorthand Writers' Notes of the Judgments delivered by the Judges selected for the trial of Election Petitions, in pursuance of the said Acts; and Copies of Special Cases Reserved and of all Election Petitions."—(Mr. Attorney General.)
  ARMY (MILITARY FORCES IN SOUTH AFRICA).
  Copy presented, of Return of Military Forces in South Africa [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ARMY (SOUTH AFRICA) (CORRESPONDENCE.)
  Copy presented, of Correspondence between Field Marshal Lord Roberts, Commanding-in-Chief South African Field Force, and Acting-Commandant-General Botha, dated 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th June, 1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ROYAL NIGER COMPANY.
  Account presented, of the Money expended and borrowed and the Securities created under the Royal Niger Company Act, 1899, during the year ended 31st March, 1900, with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon' [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 39.]

  PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
  Copy presented, of Report by the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons
  838
  under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  PAPER LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK ASSISTANT.
  Controverted Elections.—Return relative thereto [ordered 22nd February; Mr. Attorney General.]
QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—RECRUITING IN AUSTRALIA FOR SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE FORCES.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has any information to the effect that Mr. Houlder, Premier of South Australia, objects to agents recruiting police for General Baden-Powell's Constabulary, and that he also stated that the other Governments are also unfavourable to agents recruiting for the South African Police Force.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): I have no information as to Mr. Houlder raising objection. So far my information is that on 26th December he telegraphed to the Agent General in London inquiring whether men desiring to join could do so at Adelaide. I received a telegram from Sir A. Milner last night stating that he had inquired by telegraph whether an officer might be sent to recruit in Australia and New Zealand. Queensland and Tasmania agreed to recruiting, but New South Wales objected to men being permanently withdrawn from that colony, and New Zealand did not consider recruiting for the Constabulary desirable, as the colony is at present despatching a further contingent of troops to South Africa. I was asked, in reference to that, on a previous occasion whether Sir Alfred Milner's proceedings had my approval. I wish to say that Sir Alfred Milner's proceedings seem to have been confined to sending a confidential inquiry to the Governor of the Commonwealth, and that I entirely approve of that.
  AN HON. MEMBER: You always do.

  CIVIL APPOINTMENTS AT THE CAPE.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask the Secretary of

  839
  State for the Colonies whether any communication has been made to Sir Alfred Milner in respect of the appointments mentioned by the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division on 13th December, 1900,* as having been made to certain civil posts in the Transvaal; and whether the persons whose names were then given have discharged any of the duties of their positions or still retain them.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: In reply to the first question, I have to say that no communication was made to Sir A. Milner in consequence of the speech referred to, as he was not responsible for the appointments which had been made by Lord Roberts as a temporary measure, and which I knew that Sir A. Milner intended to consider afresh when he became responsible. As to the second question, I have not the information necessary to enable me to answer the second part of the question, but doubtless Sir A. Milner will report fully upon the question of permanent appointments as soon as circumstances admit of his entering upon his duties as Administrator.

  BOER MURDER OF ESAU AT CALVINIA.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can communicate to the House any official information as to the treatment of Esau by the Boers at Calvinia.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): Yes, Sir. I have had a telegram from Sir Alfred Milner in confirmation of reports from various quarters which had previously reached me. The High Commissioner states that the name of the district surgeon who reported the maltreatment of the coloured man Esau is Smuts. He has been in the service ten years. Sir A. Milner adds, "There is absolutely no doubt about the murder of Esau."
  MR. DILLON: Will the right hon. Gentleman lay Sir Alfred Milner's telegram on the Table?
  MR. BRODRICK: I have read it verbatim. I trust that that is sufficient.
  MR. DILLON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has any
  *See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxviii., page 735.
  840
  objection to that? The reason I ask that is because it makes no reference to the lashing of the man and the protruding of the bowels.
  MR. BRODRICK: I have read it out word for word.
  MR. DILLON: Why not lay it on the Table, then?
  MR. BRODRICK: I will lay it on the Table.

  GENERAL COLVILE'S RECALL.
  MR. MANSFIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether General Colvile was tried twice for the same offence; whether he was exonerated on the first occasion and reinstated in his command at Gibraltar; whether afterwards fresh evidence was adduced; and whether General Colvile was again tried in his absence and without an opportunity being given him of rebutting such new evidence.
  MR. BRODRICK: The statements in the question do not accurately represent the facts. General Colvile was sent home from South Africa by Lord Roberts for inefficiency in the field. He was never tried, and, although his case was considered on his return, and he was allowed to resume his command at Gibraltar, he was not exonerated from blame. His case was brought to my notice in December last by the Acting Commander-in-Chief, Sir Evelyn Wood, on receipt of the finding of the Court of Inquiry into the Lindley disaster. I thought it right to consult Lord Roberts, who was cognisant of all the circumstances connected with General Colvilo's failure in South Africa, and was in possession of his explanation, as to whether he could properly retain his command at Gibraltar. Lord Roberts advised that he should not retain his command, and, as the Acting Commander-in-Chief concurred in this view, I directed that action should be taken accordingly. I should add that, as I have received notice from two Members of their intention to bring General Colvile's case before the House on the earliest opportunity, I propose to defer making a full statement till that occasion, as the case is not one which can be conveniently discussed by question and answer across the floor of the House.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Arising out of the answer, may I inquire

  841
  if it is not a fact that Lord Roberts specially commended the conduct of General Colvile, who in consequence is about to receive a special pension?
  MR. BRODRICK: It is perfectly true that Lord Roberts specially commended General Colvile, but subsequent events occurred which made it necessary to remove him.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Is he to receive a special pension?
  [No answer was given.]
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: Will similar treatment be meted out to more highly placed generals who have made greater blunders?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That does not arise out of the question on the Notice Paper.

  PROHIBITION OF ENGLISH PAPERS IN CAPE COLONY.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Sir Alfred Milner has prohibited the circulation in Cape Colony of the following publications: Truth, Reynolds's Newspaper, the Review of Reviews, and Lloyd's.
  MR. DILLON: I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Sir Alfred Milner has prohibited the circulation of the Dublin Weekly Freeman in Cape Colony; and, if so, on what ground that action has been taken; whether Sir Alfred Milner claims the right to forbid the circulation of any newspapers or periodicals in South Africa; and whether he claims a similar right as to sale or circulation of books or pamphlets; and, if so, on what law such claim is based.
  MR. BRODRICK: The questions, as they refer to the action of the military authorities, should be addressed to me. I have nothing to add to what I said in answer to a question put yesterday by the hon. Member for Northampton. The Government will support Lord Kitchener in prohibiting the circulation of any newspapers in Cape Colony at the present moment which Lord Kitchener considers likely to have a bad effect, and to prejudice the early conclusion of the war.
  MR. DILLON: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question
  842
  whether Lord Kitchener or Sir A. Milner —Lord Kitchener, I presume—claims the right to prohibit the circulation of pamphlets and the sale of books. Further, I desire to ask, for the convenience of newspaper proprietors and booksellers in this country, whether the right hon. Gentleman will undertake to publish from week to week a list of publications prohibited from circulation in South Africa—an Index expurgatorius, in fact, so that newspaper proprietors and booksellers may be saved the useless expenditure of sending out such publications.
  MR. BRODRICK: What I said in regard to newspapers certainly applies to books and pamphlets; and, as to an Index expurgatorius, if any communication is made to me by Lord Kitchener with regard to any publication I have no objection to having that communication made known in this country; but I will not trouble Lord Kitchener, occupied as he is, with a variety of questions upon such restrictions as he may think it right to place on the circulation of literature.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Will an Act of Indemnity to provide for this have to be passed by the Imperial or the Colonial Legislature?
  MR. FLAVIN: Is this done in order to secure "equal rights" for all in South Africa?
  [No answer was returned.]

  PAY OF SOLDIERS AT THE FRONT.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether the War Office has considered the desirability of conceding the same terms as to pay and allowance to the regular soldiers who have served in South Africa for more than a year as are now offered to Imperial Yeomanry and Colonial Volunteers.
  MR. BRODRICK: There is no intention of conceding to the Regular troops the rates of pay offered to the Imperial Yeomanry and Colonial Volunteers, the conditions being different and the engagement of the latter only temporary.
  MR. DILLON: Then are we to understand that the Dublin Fusiliers, who made such a gallant charge at—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  FARM BURNING.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can give any information as to the number of farms of loyalists burned by the Boer forces since they entered Cape Colony two months ago. I wish also to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the policy of farm burning was carried out by the troops under the command of Sir Redvers Buller.
  MR. BRODRICK: I am not in a position to give any information about the burning of farms until I receive the information from Lord Kitchener which is now on its way home.
  MR. DILLON: My question has reference to the burning of farms in Cape Colony by the Boer forces. Have the Government any reason to believe that the Boers have burnt any number of farms anywhere?
  MR. BRODRICK: I have no information on the subject at present, but I have said I will put a further question to Lord Kitchener on the subject.

  HOSPITAL COMMISSION—CASE OF CAPTAIN SHIPWITH, R.A.
  MAJOR RASCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Captain Shipwith, R.A., has been accused of giving evidence not in accordance with fact before the Hospital Commission; whether this and other charges had been made by the officer responsible for the condition of the camp against which Captain Shipwith gave evidence; whether the evidence given by him was absolutely true; and, if not, has objection been taken to any particular statement; whether he has been ordered to resign his commission on 23rd February; and whether the Secretary of State for War would consider the possibility of suspending the order pending further investigation.
  MR. BRODRICK: This officer was requested to resign his commission purely on grounds of discipline, his case having been most carefully considered by the Commander-in-Chief. I thought it my duty to satisfy myself that whatever evidence he gave before the Hospital Commission had nothing to do with the representations made against him; and I can assure the hon. Member that any
  844
  case in which a witness before the Hospital Commission may be proved to have been in any way prejudiced will be dealt with in an exemplary manner.
  MR. BURDETT-COUTTS: I had wished before the right hon. Gentleman answered the question on the Paper to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he would not consider the advisability of postponing this case for a few days, in order that certain facts which have been brought to my notice may be brought before the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. BRODRICK: I am afraid it is too late to postpone the case. The case was most carefully considered by the Commander-in-Chief, and the noble Lord's recommendations were made to me about a fortnight ago.

  STRENGTH OF THE BOER FORCES— NUMBER OF PRISONERS.
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state what are the approximate or estimated number of Boers and colonials and foreigners cooperating with them now bearing arms against His Majesty's forces in South Africa, and what is the total number of Boers, colonials, and foreigners now prisoners of war.
  MR. BRODRICK: The number of Boors and others in the field against His Majesty's forces in South Africa cannot be stated with any degree of accuracy. A? recent estimate placed the figure at nineteen or twenty thousand. The prisoners amounted to over 16,000 in the middle of January, and this number has been recently increased.

  COST OF THE WAR.
  MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can say what is the total estimated cost up to the present date of the military operations in South Africa, and what is now the estimated average weekly cost of the war.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): It is impossible to give the cost until the accounts are finally made up; but the amount issued up to date to meet the expenditure for the war is about 81½ millions. The current weekly

  845
  issues may be taken at from one to one and a quarter millions.

  ARBITRATION—ALLEGED OFFER OF MEDIATION FROM THE GERMAN EMPEROR.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the German Emperor has offered his services to His Majesty's Government to arbitrate on the question of terminating the South African War.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Viscount CRANBORNE,): No, Sir.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask, arising out of that answer, whether His Majesty's Government will seriously consider the advisability of asking the German Emperor to mediate?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Considering that he sent a telegram encouraging the Boers, and wrote to Mr. Kruger, backing him up—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  PURCHASES OF HORSES.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can give the total number of horses despatched for military purposes to South Africa and purchased there since 1st October, 1899, including the horses of cavalry regiments and mounted infantry that went out with these regiments; whether he can also state how many of the horses came from each of the following countries, namely, Great Britain and Ireland, separately, if possible; Australia; Austria-Hungary; North America, distinguishing between the United States and Canada; the Argentine; other countries; and the number of horses acquired for military purposes in South Africa, including Cape Colony, Natal, and the Transvaal, and Orange River Colony; and whether he has any information to show the com parative cost and usefulness of the horses from the various countries mentioned, and the comparative wastage among these categories of horses.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO HE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY,): The follow-
  846
  ing is the information so far as I am able to give it. The total number of horses despatched to South Africa since the 31st October, 1899, is 145,671. The country of origin of horses which accompanied units to South Africa cannot be stated. Of the remainder about 24,400 came from Great Britain; about 7,200 from Ireland; 7,901 came from Australia; 7,999 from Hungary; 26,310 from the United States of America; 3,738 from Canada; 25,872 from Argentina. A report as to the number obtained in South Africa has been called for, but has not yet been received As I stated in answer to a question on the 18th of this month, the English and Irish horses were considered best, the American and Canadian next best. It is not advisable to state prices, and the comparative wastage is not known. I may add that the Commander-in-Chief informed me to-day that it is not possible to get all the horses required from these sources, and that the intention is, as far as possible, to get horses from Great Britain, Ireland, and our colonies, and, at the same time, he has given instructions for more purchasers to be sent out into the country, so as to give private persons the same chance of selling as dealers.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN): May I ask why the War Office declined to appoint agents to purchase horses in the south of Ireland?
  LORD STANLEY: I did not know that was the case, but I think the last part of my question will give effect to the hon. Member's wishes.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: May I inquire if it costs 5s. a day more to feed Australian than Irish horses, in the same way that Australian soldiers cost more than Irish ones?
  [No answer was given.]
  COLONEL SANDYS: While this question is under consideration will the authorities consider whether for this purpose an officer might be sent to the north-west province of Canada, where there is a good breed of horses not yet wholly exhausted?
  MR. PHILIPPS: Will the War Office take means to make it publicly known when buyers are going down into the country, so that farmers may have an opportunity of selling?
  LORD STANLEY: I have not the slightest doubt that the military authorities will consider that question, as well as that of my hon. and gallant friend the Member for Bootle.
  MR. PHILIPPS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the fact that about 250 horses were collected last week at Aldridge's Repository, many of them coming from a distance, to be inspected by the Government buyers; that the buyers looked at about 150 and bought fourteen; and that the buyers then left after less than four hours work, leaving about 100 horses not looked at; and whether steps can be taken to avoid such inconvenience in future.
  LORD STANLEY: The facts are as follows:—Messrs. Aldridge requested the purchasing officers to give them a day to show some horses. As the usual number shown is less than fifty the officers made an appointment with another dealer to see his horses at 3 p.m. of that day. They began work at 10 a.m. The numbers of horses produced were unprecedentedly great and unusually bad. The officers accordingly requested that only those likely to pass should be brought out. They actually saw 163 and purchased fifteen, one of which was afterwards rejected. They continued work to 3.30 p.m., and only reached the other dealer after 4 p.m. It is obvious that examinations for purchase must be thorough to be of any value. It would appear probable that the horses which were not shown were not likely to have passed.

  PAGET'S HORSE—ARRANGEMENTS FOR RECRUITS AT ALDERSHOT.
  MR. BARTLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that men who had just joined Paget's Horse, on being ordered to Aldershot found on arriving there that no arrangements had been made for them, and after vainly seeking directions and quarters had to take lodgings for themselves in the town; whether anyone is responsible for this; and whether he will take steps to prevent it in future.
  LORD STANLEY: The matter is being thoroughly inquired into. I hope my hon. friend will therefore postpone the question.

  GERMAN GUNS FOR THE ARMY.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state how many guns were recently imported from Germany, their calibre, and cost, in what manufactory they were made, and why they could not have been made at home.
  LORD STANLEY: I have nothing to add to a statement made on this subject in reply to a question put on the 14th December last by my hon. and gallant friend the Member for the Central Division of Sheffield.†

  GERMAN SADDLES FOR THE ARMY.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether His Majesty's Government have ordered or given a contract for 30,000 saddles, or any other number of saddles, for use in South Africa, to a German manufacturing company, or to any other foreign contractor: and, if so, will he state what were the conditions to be complied with, and whether home firms were asked to supply the saddles required.
  LORD STANLEY: All supplies of saddles which can be obtained in this country have been ordered, where it is impossible to obtain necessary supplies within a given period from home makers, orders have been given elsewhere. I cannot give any details, but all saddles are carefully inspected, and no orders to the extent suggested by the hon. Member have been given.
  MR. FLAVIN: How many more hundreds of thousands of saddles will be ordered before the war is over?
  [No answer was given.]

  BARRACK FURNITURE.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what steps have been taken to give effect to the undertaking of his predecessor to examine the question of the furnishing of the quarters in barracks of officers and married non-commissioned officers and privates, with a view to reducing the expenditure of those ranks, as also that of transport to the public, and further of increasing the mobility of regiments.
  † See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxvxvii., page 826.
  MR. BRODRICK: The question of furnishing the quarters in barracks of officers is one of many which is under consideration. In regard to the quarters of married non-commissioned officers and privates, these are furnished to a considerable extent, and I cannot find there was any undertaking to consider the question, as the existing furniture was held to be sufficient.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that when the Transport Vote was under consideration last session† the present Chief Secretary for Ireland gave the undertaking referred to.
  MR. BRODRICK: I will refer to my right hon. friend's speech.

  COMMITTEE ON YEOMANRY CAVALRY.
  MR. W. F. D. SMITH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is intended to lay upon the Table of the House the Report of the Committee recently appointed to inquire into the constitution and training of the Yeomanry Cavalry.
  MR. BRODRICK: There is no objection to laying the Report on the Table of the House.

  THE WAR OFFICE AND INVENTIONS.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can inform the House what is the method pursued in the War Office as regards new inventions in war material, guns, and all matters relating to the saving of life, the economising of the work of the soldier or his horse, and the destruction of the enemy and his material of war; and if inventors of small means and little influence have every opportunity of having their inventions patiently and impartially examined.
  LORD STANLEY: The method pursued is laid down in a memorandum which is forwarded to inventors for their guidance, and of which I shall be happy to supply a copy to my hon. and gallant friend. Inventors of small means and little influence have every opportunity of having their inventions patiently and impartially examined.
  † See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxiv., page 449.

  VOLUNTEER OFFICERS—SCHOOLS OF INSTRUCTION.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if schools of instruction have been or will be formed in the principal garrison towns and camps for officers of Volunteer corps, so as to make admission to the Metropolitan schools more easy to the officers of London regiments, who under present arrangements have to wait many months for a vacancy.
  LORD STANLEY: The question of the instruction of officers of the Volunteers as well as of other officers is under consideration. I am not yet ready to make a statement.

  MILITARY CONSTRUCTION—COMPARATIVE COST OF CIVIL AND MILITARY WORK.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he will consider the advisability of comparing the cost of the erection and maintenance of barracks and fortifications by the Royal Engineers with the prices which would be charged by civil engineers and builders if those works were performed by them instead of by the Inspector General and his staff.
  LORD STANLEY: This question, among many others, has not been lost sight of, nor will it be; but I am not in a position to make any statement.

  MILITARY BEER CONTRACTS IN DUBLIN.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can inform the House whether the military contracts for porter and ale in Dublin have been given to the Burton Brewery Company, and whether this company sent 1,000 barrels of ale gratis to South Africa for the use of the troops.
  LORD STANLEY: Nothing is known of the matter to which the hon. Member alludes.

  ARMY VEGETABLE CONTRACTS.
  MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can inform the House if the Government have given an order, by contract or otherwise, to Seidel and Co., at MÜnsterberg, Silesia, for 20,000 tins of dried vegetables containing 20,000 lb., or for any other quantity; and, if so, whether this order

  851
  was given by contract or otherwise, and what are the terms of the order; and were any home firms asked to tender for or supply the whole or part of the order.
  LORD STANLEY: The reply to both questions is in the affirmative.
  MR. FLAVIN: Did any advertisements appear in the public press of Great Britain and Ireland, so as to give home manufacturers a chance of tendering?
  LORD STANLEY: I understand so.
  MR. FLAVIN: Will the noble Lord say in what papers it appeared?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  WATER-TUBE BOILERS—OCEAN TRIALS.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY (Shipley): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if it is the intention of the Admiralty to request the Water-tube Boiler Committee to test the endurance of one of His Majesty's ships fitted with water-tube boilers by driving her at full speed for an ocean passage—say, from England to America or from England to the Suez Canal; and whether any such test has ever been made.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER, Belfast, W.): It is not the intention of the Admiralty to request the Water-tube Boiler Committee to carry out a trial such as that referred to in the question, as they prefer to leave to the Committee the initiative in asking for such trials as it considers will afford the information which it requires. I have, however, reason to believe that the Water-tube Boiler Committee does propose to institute an ocean trial, provided that such a trial be found necessary, in order to enable it to come to a final decision upon the points referred to. In answer to the last paragraph of the question I have to say that an account of the special trials made by ships fitted with water-tube boilers is to be found in the Memorandum on boilers presented to the House.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: The hon. Gentleman has not answered the last part of the question—whether any such test has been made, for no such information is given in the Paper referred to.
  MR ARNOLD-FORSTER: No test involving a passage to America or the Suez Canal has been made. All the trials that have been made are reported upon in the Reports and Memorandum referred to.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Has the endurance of the water-tube boilers been tested in an ocean passage?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Many tests are adopted in the trials of ships, but no experimental trials other than those mentioned in the Memorandum which has been presented to the House has been made.
  SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Has any trial been made except for a few hours?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  SIR JAMES JOICEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state how many boilers of the Belleville type have been supplied to the Navy, how many are on order to be supplied, where they have been constructed, the total cost of them to 31st December, 1900, and the amount still to be spent to complete the orders; and what amount has been given as royalties.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The number of Belleville boilers supplied to the Royal Navy is 584. The number on order to be supplied is 1,005. The boilers have been made, or are being made, by a variety of firms, fourteen in number, and in the Royal dockyards at Chatham and Devonport. I shall be happy to give the hon. Member the particulars of the firms in detail if he desires it. It is not possible to give the exact total cost of the boilers, as they are in all cases ordered with the machinery, and the price is not separately stated. It will, however, be possible to give an approximate estimate of the cost of the boilers as apart from the engines, and such a statement is being prepared. The amount of royalties paid in respect of the Belleville boilers up to the present date is £141,470.
  MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: May I ask why it is that two years ago, when I put this question as to the amount of royalties paid, the figure was then given as £146,000? Now it is only £141,000.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The figure given on the occasion referred to by the hon. Member had reference to the amounts paid and the liabilities for the future. The figure I have now given is in reply to a question as to the amounts paid. Both are correct. If the hon. Member desires to know the outstanding liabilities I will undertake to get the information.
  MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: Then have you not yet paid the royalties due to Belleville?
  SIR JAMES JOICEY: Will the hon. Member supply me with the amount of royalties that will be paid on the 1,005 boilers?
  MR. ARNOLD-FOESTER: Yes. I will supply that.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: How many water-tube boilers have been obtained from other sources than Belleville?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I will ascertain that.

  NAVAL ROMAN CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any steps have been taken to carry out the undertaking given last year to the deputation which waited upon the First Lord in reference to the Roman Catholic chaplains for the Navy.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The Admiralty, in consultation with his Eminence Cardinal Vaughan, arranged last autumn for a priest to be sent to the China Station to minister to the Roman Catholics of the Fleet. This is in addition to the ministrations of local priests. The Admiralty will bear in mind the question of embarking a priest in any hospital ships employed in connection with naval operations, but no opportunity has yet occurred of taking action. An adequate supply of Roman Catholic prayer books has been arranged for. The various matters referred to by the deputation will continue to receive due consideration, and the Admiralty is in direct communication with Cardinal Vaughan, or his representative, in respect to matters concerning the Roman Catholics of the Fleet.
  MR. DILLON: Have the Admiralty carried out their promise to place Roman
  854
  Catholic chaplains in the Navy on the same footing as Protestant chaplains—as they are in the Army?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: If the hon. Member will give me notice I will inquire.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Has any decision yet been come to in regard to increasing the salary of the Roman Catholic chaplain at Queenstown?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I cannot answer that without notice.

  WAGES IN GOVERNMENT DOCKYARDS.
  MR. KEARLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Admiralty have come to any decision with regard to the petitions from the various trades employed in His Majesty's dockyards asking that their wages may be revised on a scale more in accordance with the rates prevailing in similar trades in outside employment; and whether it is the intention of the Admiralty to increase the pay of labourers from the present rate of 19s. per week.
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Captain PRETYMAN,): The petitions from all classes of workmen in the dockyards, including labourers, are now receiving consideration, and a decision will be communicated shortly.

  NEW ADMIRALTY BUILDING.
  MR. WHITMORE: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works if he can state what has caused the delay in the erection of the colonnade designed for the southern side of the new Admiralty, and when it is proposed to proceed with its erection.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS,): It was never proposed to erect the colonnade until the building was finished. It is not now intended to proceed with it, for, owing to the increase of Naval work and of the Admiralty staff, it has become necessary to supplement the new building by an additional wing, which will be constructed facing the Horse Guards Parade. The design for this wing, in combination with the rest of the Admiralty buildings, has been for some time in the Tea Room, where hon. Members have had the opportunity of inspecting it.

  THE WAIMA INCIDENT—APPOINTMENT OF ARBITRATOR,
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state what progress is being made with the Waima Arbitration.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: An agreement on the subject has been concluded with the French Government. Baron Lambermont, Minister of State, and Secretary General of the Belgian Foreign Office, who undertook the Lamu Arbitration in 1889, has, with the approval of the Belgian Government, consented to act as arbitrator; and the cases of both Governments are in course of preparation and will shortly be submitted to him.

  NORTH SEA FISHERIES—INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLIT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state what, if any, progress has been made in negotiating Conventions with foreign maritime States for the better protection of the North Sea Fisheries against the destruction of immature fish.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: A Provisional Committee consisting of experts was to have met in October last at Christiania to consider the question of organising the Central Bureau which was the outcome of the Stockholm International Conference. The meeting was, however, postponed at the request of the German Government. His Majesty's Government are awaiting a reply to an inquiry which was recently made of the Minister for Foreign Affairs at Stockholm as to when the Committee was likely to meet.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: What had the Central Bureau to do with the negotiations with Stockholm?
  [No answer was given.]

  VALUE OF PUBLICANS' LICENCES.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consent to the Return of the valuations of publicans' licences, for the purposes of the death duties, which appears on the Paper to-day.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I am afraid the Return cannot be given, because, in
  856
  the first place, no separate record is kept in the Estate Duty Office of the values placed upon the estates of persons occupying licensed houses; and, even if the cases were extracted from the records at the expense of much cost and trouble, little or no light would be thrown on the particular point to which, I gather, the hon. Member's question is directed, inasmuch as in valuing the estates of publicans the value of the possession of the licence is not so specifically separated in the records from the rest of the estate as to be capable of accurate statement in a Return.

  CRUELTY IN CAPTURING SONG BIRDS.
  MR. ALEXANDER CROSS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to the practice of capturing song birds in some parts of England by fishing hooks; and, if so, whether he can do anything to prevent it.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. RITCHIE,): I have not had my attention specially called to this matter. I shall be glad, however, to consider any facts which the hon. Member may be able to bring before me, though I doubt whether I have any powers which would enable me to prevent the alleged practice. Until I am in possession of the facts it is not possible for me to say whether the offence would come within the provisions of the Wild Animals in Captivity Protection Act of 1900, which was passed for the purpose of preventing cruelty such as would seem to be involved in the practice referred to.

  MILITARY AID TO THE CIVIL POWER —LOCAL LIABILITY.
  MR. D. A. THOMAS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the cost of catering troops when sent to maintain the peace in disaffected districts where riot has occurred or is apprehended is an Imperial or local charge; and if, in view of the losses sustained by Aberdare tradesmen in catering for troops in 1898 on terms arranged with the late stipendiary magistrate for the district, he will take steps to notify to tradesmen in other districts that neither the Home nor any other Department of the Government can be liable for agreements made for catering by local justices, and that the

  857
  courts of law have decided that county councils are not responsible; and whether, as a consequence of the decision of the Court of Appeal last year, any legislation is contemplated.
  MR. RITCHIE: With reference to the decision in the case referred to it has always been considered that where the assistance of the military is requisitioned by the police authority the burden of their maintenance is a local charge, and this question was not decided in the case referred to. I cannot give any such notice as is suggested. I am in communication with my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War on the subject.
  MR. D. A. THOMAS: But was not the decision that county councils were not liable?
  MR. RITCHIE: It was held that where the justices called in the military authorities the county councils were not liable.

  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT—CASE OF ROSE SUMNER.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he proposes to allow the death penalty to be inflicted in the case of Rose Sumner, aged 20, who was sentenced to death at Lewes on Wednesday last by Mr. Justice Channell for the murder of her illegitimate child.
  MR. RITCHIE: I must decline to answer any question with regard to the advice which it may be my duty to give His Majesty in capital cases.

  BURIAL LAWS CONSOLIDATION.
  MR. GODDARD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is the intention of the Government to bring in, during the present session, a Bill for giving effect to the recommendation of the Select Committee on Burial Grounds, that the existing laws relating to burial be consolidated and simplified.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GRANT LAWSON,): The Government do not propose to bring in a Bill on the subject referred to during the present session. A considerable transfer of jurisdiction under the Burial Acts
  858
  from the Home Office to the Local Government Board took place on 1st January last, and it is desirable that some experience should be obtained before futher legislation is proposed.

  ROYAL PARKS—COST OF MAINTENANCE.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will consent to a Return showing the acreage of the Royal parks in Great Britain and Ireland, and their annual cost for the last ten years, with details of expenditure showing the weekly wages of workmen engaged respectively on roads, on paths, in gardening, the road and path mileage and cost per yard, the cost of gravel, sand, and stone, the number of lamps per mile and cost, the salaries of park-keepers, gatemen, rangers, and officials in each grade, and any other heads of expenditure.
  I beg also to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will give a Return showing for Kew Gardens, London, and Botanic Gardens, Dublin, the respective acreage; the area under glass; the annual cost for ten years of trees, shrubs, flowers, and seeds; the number of workmen and their wages; the number of scientific men employed and their salaries and emoluments; the date of the respective foundations; and the total cost of both to the State.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): I am making inquiries as to the possibility of giving the desired information, and I will communicate the result to the hon. Member as soon as possible.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I may mention that I have been making inquiries on this subject for the last twenty years.

  ASSISTANTS OF EXCISE—AGE LIMIT.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Civil Service Commissioners, have given notice that on and after July next condidates for assistants of excise who are already in the service will not be allowed to add more than one year to the ordinary age limit, and that candidates for assistants of customs will only be allowed to add two years; whether he is aware that hitherto civil servants who have served for two years in continuous

  859
  service have been allowed to add those two years, or any time up to five years they may have served, to the outside of age limit; and that numbers of young men have entered lower departments in order to come under this extension; and whether, seeing that by this sudden change they will be left in a lower position than their knowledge and acquirements entitle them to, he will arrange that those who entered the service under the old regulations should be allowed to compete under them.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The facts are correctly stated in the first paragraph. More than a year's notice of the proposed change was given, so that anyone interested had ample time to make his arrangements. No vested interest in the old regulations can be recognised.

  MAIDSTONE ELECTION PETITION.
  MR.DISRAELI: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General whether his attention has been drawn to the result of the inquiry at Maidstone under the Corrupt Practices Act, and to the fact that three individuals, Levi Barker, Alfred Russell, and Henry Ward, were refused certificates of indemnity, and what steps he proposes to take; and whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the official evidence of the inquiry for the perusal of Members before a new writ is issued for that borough.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,): My attention has been called to the result of the petition at Maidstone and to the refusal of certificates of indemnity in certain cases. The question of prosecution is under consideration. It has not been the practice of the House to delay the issue of a new writ till the evidence has been laid before the House, but to act upon the report of the election judges. I believe the proceedings were laid on the Table of the House this afternoon.

  LIMERICK LUNATIC ASYLUM—RATE IN AID FOR PAUPER INMATES.
  MR. LUNDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the authorities having charge of His Majesty's Treasury have as yet paid over to the authorities who control the
  860
  Limerick Lunatic Asylum the sum of £1,596 6s. 7d., the same being residue of rate in-aid for maintenance of patients in said lunatic asylum from the 1st January, 1899 to 31st March, 1899; and whether he will make inquiry as to the nature of the communication of the medical superintendent of the Limerick Lunatic Asylum of the 1st instant; and whether the answer on the 6th instant of the Lords Justices in connection with the payment of the above-mentioned sum was such as to give satisfaction to the committee of management of the Limerick Lunatic Asylum.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): An application on behalf of the committee of management of the Limerick Asylum was recently received from the resident medical superintendent on the subject of the grant in aid of the maintenance of pauper lunatics. To that communication a reply was sent by the Irish Government on the 6th instant, to which reply I have nothing to add. The committee of management at their meeting on the 13th instant passed a resolution expressing dissatisfaction with the reply of the Irish Government.
  MR. LUNDON: Are not similar sums being paid in other places for these lunatics?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am not aware of that. I will investigate any cases the hon. Member may lay before me.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Has the money due to the Clare Asylum been paid?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I must ask for notice of that.

  INNISHOWEN DISTRICT COUNCIL— GRANT FOR LABOURERS' COTTAGES.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state how much of the £40,000 voted by Parliament in 1890 stands at the present time to the credit of the Innishowen District Council in aid of liabilities incurred under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts, and if any other sum or sums stand to the credit or are payable to said district council under any other

  861
  grants in connection with the Labourers Acts.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The amount to the credit of the Innishowen Rural District out of the grant referred to is £183 1s. 7d. In addition to this, a sum of about £1,380 annually accrues to county Donegal, in which the rural district is situate, out of the Exchequer contribution provided by Section 5 of the Land Purchase Act of 1891. A sum of £865 has been lying to the credit of the county since the last distribution took place in March, 1900.
  MR. ODOHERTY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how the sum of £1,380 allocated to the county annually is distributed among the district councils?
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is distributed in proportion to the efforts made by the various councils for providing cottages, and the reason for the non-payment of the sum is that the expenditure of the rural districts in which the cottages are being erected does not entitle them to the whole amount.

  PORTNALING (CO. DONEGAL) FISHING INDUSTRY.
  MR. ODOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether representations have been made to the Irish Government by the Congested Districts Board suggesting the construction of a pier and harbour at Portnaling, county Donegal; and whether the Irish Government intend carrying out the construction, or giving a grant towards the construction, of said pier and harbour.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Representations have been made to the Irish Government by fishermen and others in favour of the project mentioned. These representations have been brought to the notice of the Congested Districts Board, who are at present considering the matter.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Congested Districts Board have informed me that they cannot approve this project, but that they propose to recommend the Irish Government to do something towards the erection of a pier at this point?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am not aware of that. The question of aiding the fishing industry is a very large one, which I cannot discuss by way of question and answer.

  ROMAN CATHOLIC MAGISTRATES.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, seeing that names of suitable Roman Catholic gentlemen have been recommended to the Lord Lieutenant of the county for the Commission of the Peace, and that he has refused to appoint them, the Irish Government will take steps to remedy this inequality, and have the vacancies recently caused by the death of three Roman Catholic magistrates in that district at least filled by the appointment of three more.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The Lord Chancellor has no information as to the names of Roman Catholic gentlemen submitted to the Lieutenant of the county for appointment to the Commission of the Peace in the Moville district, to which the question refers. As I have already stated, it is discretionary with the Lieutenant to make recommendations for such appointments to the Lord Chancellor, and it is not within the province of the Executive to intervene in the matter, as suggested.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: Will the Lord Lieutenant recommend these gentlemen for appointment?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  IRISH NATIONAL EDUCATION— TEACHERS'SALARIES AND RESIDUAL GRANT.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state on what grounds have the Commissioners of National Education paid Mr. William O'Callaghan, of Churchtown National School, Buttevant, on the scale of £64 per annum, while his predecessor's salary was £ 12 7 per annum; and whether if this provisional salary is increased at the final fixing of teachers' salaries, the difference will be refunded this teacher.
  I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the money known as the Balance of

  863
  Residual Grant, which teachers in Irish national schools get before the 1st April each year, is meant for the financial year ended 31st March, or for the year ended 31st December.
  MR. WYNDHAM: These matters will come before the Commissioners of National Education at their meeting next Tuesday, and I shall therefore not be in a position to answer these questions until after that.

  JUDICIAL RENTS ON COUNTY MONAGHAN ESTATES.
  MR. DALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that applications to have judicial rents fixed on the Shirley, Tennison, and Browlow estates in the county Monaghan are pending for the last two years, and if he can state the date when the Sub-Commissioners will sit at Carrickmacross to dispose of the cases referred to.
  MR. WYNDHAM: There are only fifteen cases on the estates named that have not as yet been listed for hearing. None of these cases are pending for two years. In five of them the applications were only lodged a few days ago, while the earliest application was received on the 18th October, 1899. The hearing of the list of cases from Carrickmacross recently issued will be commenced on the 28th instant.

  DISTRIBUTION OF SEEDS TO IRISH FARMERS.
  MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state what steps have been taken under the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899, to improve the various agricultural seeds, and what arrangements have been made to distribute these improved strains of seeds amongst the Irish farmers.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The Department of Agriculture have issued a scheme for a series of agricultural experiments during the present year in order to afford reliable information to farmers on the influence of manures, and varieties and mixture of seeds, and on the suitability for Ireland of new varieties of crops which may be placed on the markets. The Depart-
  864
  ment are also promoting schemes with a view to testing certain varieties of seed potatoes, and to conducting experiments with oats and flax. The conditions under which these schemes are being promoted are fully detailed in leaflets issued by the Department and largely circulated amongst county councils, agricultural societies, farmers, and the press. I have forwarded copies of these leaflets to the hon. Member for his information.

  NEWBRIDGE PORT, CO. DONEGAL.
  MR. ODOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether representations have been received by the Congested Districts Board pointing out the immediate necessity for the construction of a boatslip and breakwater at Newbridge Port, county Donegal; if a report on the desirability and necessity for this work was made to the Board some years ago by their engineer and fishery expert; if the Rev. Mr. Green, one of the members of the Board lately inspected the site of the proposed works; whether he is aware that two fishermen from this port were recently drowned close by; and that the evidence at the inquest held on these men, and the rider added by the jury to their verdict, proved that if a boatslip and breakwater had been in existence these fishermen might not have been drowned; and whether immediate steps will be taken to have this work carried out.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Applications have been made to the Congested Districts Board for the construction of a breakwater at Newbridge, in Lough Swilly. A report in reference to the matter was made to the Board by their engineer, and the place was also recently inspected by Mr. Green. I understand the facts are as stated in the fourth paragraph. The question of the construction of a breakwater is at present under the consideration of the Board.

  INNISHOWEN COUNCIL AND COMPULSORY LAND PURCHASE.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a meeting of the Innishowen District Council, at which a resolution, proposed by a tenant and seconded by a landlord, was unanimously

  865
  passed calling upon the Government to pass a measure of compulsory purchase of the landlords in Ireland; and will the Government introduce, in the present Session, a compulsory and not a voluntary Land Purchase Bill.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The policy of the Government in this matter has already been announced. Even the resolution of the Innishowen Council has not so far modified the opinions of the Government.

  LABOURERS ACTS—DELAYS IN COMPLETING SCHEMES.
  MR. CULLINAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state how long it takes the Local Government Board to complete schemes under the Labourers Acts; and whether he will see that steps be taken to expedite such urgent matters henceforward.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No fixed period can be assigned for the completion of the steps necessary to the confirmation of an improvement scheme under the Labourers Acts. The time taken depends to a great extent on the dimensions and nature of the scheme. In many instances schemes are submitted by the local authorities in an incomplete or imperfect manner, necessitating lengthy correspondence with the promoters before the holding of a local inquiry. In other cases, as the result of the inquiry, it is found requisite to alter sites for cottages, and to arrange as to water supply, etc. There has been, I believe, no undue delay in confirming schemes in the past, and the Local Government Board will continue to expedite them in the future by every means in their power.
  MR. CULLINAN: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware—of his own experience—of the necessity for expediting the erection of these cottages, and can he say why it takes the Local Government Board four, and even five years, after full information has been supplied, to carry out their part of the work.
  MR. WYNDHAM: My information leads me to believe and hope that the hon. Member is overstating the case. At any rate, I hope such delay will not occur again.
  MR. CULLINAN: I may mention a case in the Tipperary Union.

  LOANS TO IRISH FISHERMEN.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the practice of requiring fishermen in Ireland, who apply for loans for the purpose of purchasing gear and repairing boats, to supply sureties for advances; and whether, in view of the fact that such fishermen, on procuring sureties, could at any time obtain loans from banks or other sources, and that the boats and gear would of themselves be sufficient security, the practice or regulation referred to will be relaxed in cases in which the applicants cannot procure sureties but are of good character.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is the practice, in accordance with existing rules, to require applicants for loans for fishery purposes to furnish personal security. It is very doubtful if loans could be obtained from banks on such favourable terms as from the Fishery Fund. The repayment of advances from the latter is spread over a number of years, and the rate of interest charged is 2½ per cent. per annum. With regard to the suggestion that loans should be advanced on the security of the boats or gear purchased, it is to be borne in mind that a boat must be registered under the Merchant Shipping Act before a mortgage can be taken on it, and that the expense to be thereby incurred by the applicant would not be warranted unless in the case of a first-class vessel. The question, however, of the desirability of altering the existing rules so as to extend the advantages of the Fishery Fund to a larger number of fishermen is occupying the attention of the Department of Agriculture.

  DAVID FINLAY'S ESTATE, CO. CAVAN.
  MR. M'GOVERN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how long the estate of David Finlay and others, situate in the barony of Tullyhan, county of Cavan, has been in the Landed Estates Court in the hands of a receiver; has a request under the 40th section of the Land Act been issued,

  867
  and on what date; and can he explain the cause of the delay in completing the transfer of this estate to the tenants.
  MR. WYNDHAM: An order for the sale of this estate was made in January, 1890, but the sale is not taking place under the 40th section of the Act of 1896. The solicitors having carriage of the proceedings state that the delay in the completion of the sale has been caused by the arrangements for the distribution of turbary on the estate. It was also found necessary to obtain an order from the Land Judge overruling the claims for turbary made by some of the tenants.

  PROCLAIMED LEAGUE MEETING AT FOXFORD.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on what grounds the meeting announced to be held at Foxford on the 1st January was proclaimed; who swore the information on which the proclamation was issued; and on what principle is it proposed to charge on the locality £5 for expenses of extra police used for suppressing the meeting.
  MR. WYNDHAM: This meeting was called under the auspices of the local United Irish League. In July, 1899, as a result of a meeting of the same kind at the same place, the grazing of two farms in the locality was boycotted, and a resolution was also adopted on that occasion directed against men in the employment of a grazier, who is a shopkeeper in Foxford. The grazing of other meadows near Foxford was also boycotted in 1899, and again last year. The police were of opinion that the meeting convened for the 1st instant would lead to a renewal of boycotting, and the District Inspector made an information on oath, setting forth the facts and stating that he believed the object of the meeting was boycotting and intimidation, and that, if held, it would be an unlawful assembly. The Government thereupon directed the proposed meeting to be proclaimed. In answer to the third paragraph, the charge to local rates in this instance represents a moiety of the expenses of the force brought into Foxford from other counties, and is leviable under the authority of Section 6 of the
  868
  11 and 12 Vict. cap. 72, as amended by Section 13 of the 37 and 38 Vict. cap. 80.The expenses of the men assembled from within the county are defrayed from the Constabulary Vote.
  MR. FLYNN: Are we to understand that the right of public-meeting at Foxford and elsewhere depends on the caprice of the District Inspector?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  FAIR RENT APPLICATIONS—DELAYS.
  MR. CULLINAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the delay in the hearing by the Land Commission of fair rent applications in cases where negotiations are pending; and whether he can press on the Commission the desirability of shortening these delays, with the view of lessening the inconvenience to the tenants concerned.
  MR. WYNDHAM: There is, no doubt, some delay in the disposal of fair-rent applications, but delay is unavoidable, and the Commissioners are fully alive to the importance of dealing with all such applications as rapidly as the circumstances will admit.
  MR. CULLINAN: The right hon. Gentleman has answered exactly opposite of what I wished, owing to the alteration made by the clerk. Shall I put a supplementary question now?
  MR. WYNDHAM: Perhaps the hon. Member had better put his question on the Paper.
  MR. CLANCY: Are all cases in which negotiations for sale are pending to be indefinitely postponed?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I have no reason to believe that that is so. I. understand the hon. Member wants to give them priority.
  MR. CLANCY: Yes, he wants to know whether as a matter of fact the Land Commissioners have arrived at the determination to postpone the hearing of all applications in cases where negotiations for sale are pending? Is such a decision, if made, legal or not?
  MR. WYNDHAM: The difficulty is that none of us are clear as to the exact meaning of the question. The hon. Member had better put it in the form in which he wishes it.
  MR. CULLINAN: I will, and I hope the clerk will not alter it.

  TOBACCO CULTIVATION IN IRELAND.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the acreage under cultivation of tobacco in the various counties of Ireland last year, the average yield per acre, the cost of cultivation, the price obtained, and the net profit per acre.
  MR. WYNDHAM: There has not been sufficient time to obtain a report on this question, which only appeared on the Paper this morning for the first time Perhaps the hon. Member will repeat it.

  GRANARD POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that all letters arriving from England or Dublin or Granard by midday train from Aghnacliffe and Lisryan are detained in Granard from 12 noon to 6 a.m. next morning, and that, as replies can only be posted that night in Aghnacliffe, several days elapse before any business communication can be completed; and that, although four rural messengers run from Aghnacliffe office, no wall boxes having been provided, their services are practically useless to many people; and whether, in place of a midday messenger now sent by the Department six miles from Edge-worthstown to Ballinalee and back to catch up the limited mail trains, he would arrange to send a car to Streete Crossing and have mails for Ballinalee, Aghnacliffe, and Lisryan there thrown out, so that a car could serve all this district and take the return letters from Aghnacliffe, Ballinalee, and Lisryan back to catch the up mail to Dublin each evening, thus saving correspondents at least two days; and whether he will cause wall boxes to be set at Smear Barracks, Molly Cross, Rathmore Cross, and Clonback Schoolhouse.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: No complaint appears to have been received respecting the postal arrangements in the neighbourhood of Granard, Aghnacliffe, and Lisryan; but the Postmaster General will have inquiry made with the view of ascertaining whether it is practicable to provide the increased facilities asked for by the hon. Member, and the result shall be communicated to him.

  NORTH TYRONE POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS.
  MR. HEMPHILL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether his attention has been called to the inconvenience caused to the inhabitants of the district by the want of a post office at Curragh, in North Tyrone; and, if not, will he cause inquiry to be made into the matter.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The question of establishing a post office at Curragh, in North Tyrone, has recently been inquired into, and the Postmaster General finds that the amount of correspondence for the locality is not nearly sufficient to justify the provision of a post office.
  MR. HEMPHILL: It is occasioning very great inconvenience indeed in this very remote locality.

  FISH CULTURE—EXPERIMENTAL ESTABLISHMENT.
  MR. NORMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether a proposition was made by the Board of Trade to the Treasury to expend a small sum upon and experimental establishment for fish culture, and whether the proposition was accepted or declined.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The proposals of the Board of Trade are engaging the attention of His Majesty's Government, as part of the general question of the measures calculated to cultivate and develop the fishing grounds from which the markets of this country are supplied.

  ARDAGH NATIONAL SCHOOL—BUILDING ESTIMATES.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the-Secretary to the Treasury whether any

  871
  claim recently came before the Board of Works for a sum of £68 15s., balance of a sum of £103. 2s. 8d., the cost to the managers of building a national school at Ardagh, county Longford, over and above the estimate made in accordance with the plan of the Board of Works; whether he is aware that this plan was first devised and approved many years ago by the Board, and that, in consequence of the increase in price of labour and materials, the Board's estimate, which under this plan in 1887 was only £474, was in 1890 raised to £674, an increase in three years of nearly 50 per cent.; and whether, seeing that the Education Department passed all the managers' accounts, and that of the £103 2s. 8d. excess claimed, recommended an increase from £82 12s. to £110 2s. in respect of one item, and in view of the fact that these schools have been admitted by the Board's inspector to be admirably constructed, and that since 1890, when the last increase in estimates for work under the Board's plan was sanctioned, materials and labour have advanced at least 30 per cent., especially in remote districts in Ireland, and as the local contribution was fully and freely paid for these schools, the Board of Works will now give their assent to the further payment of a supplemental grant of £68 15s. being two-thirds of the sum in excess of the original estimate which the buildings cost.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Grants under the regulations of the National Education Commissioners are limited to two-thirds of the estimated cost of the work except in the case of school enclosures, and the managers of the schools in question have received the highest grant to which under these circumstances they are entitled. I ought to add that the original estimate for the school at Ardagh was £530, not £474, as stated in the question. It is possible that the scale of estimated cost embodied in the regulations above referred to may require to be revised in view of the rise of prices since it was originally fixed. This matter is now being investigated, but I do not think it would, in any case, be possible to make the alteration retrospective.

  SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in deference to the wish of a large minority of the House of Commons, he will consent to withdraw the direction that the Under Secretary of State for-Foreign Affairs shall decline to reply to any supplementary questions.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I see no reason to change the practice, which has been found during the last two years very much in the public interest. Of course this practice does not exclude, and never has excluded, the possibility of asking for, and receiving, a small verbal explanation.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Will the right hon. Gentleman request the Under Secretary to give the small verbal explanation I asked for just now?

  THE ROYAL DECLARATION AGAINST ROMAN CATHOLICISM.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if it was upon the advice of His Majesty's Privy Council that His Majesty made and subscribed the Declaration affecting the Roman Catholic religion mentioned in the Bill of Rights as to be taken upon His Majesty's first coming into Parliament whether his attention has been called to the fact that the said Declaration is stated in the Bill of Rights to be the Declaration mentioned in the Statute of 30 Charles 2, intituled, "An Act for disabling Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament," and that so much of that Act as remained in force was wholly repealed by the Parliamentary Oaths Amendment Act, 1866; did His Majesty's Ministers tender any advice to His Majesty as to the effect of the Act of 1866 on the Declaration prescribed by the Bill of Rights; and will the Government include in the next Statute Law Revision Bill as spent or obsolete-that portion of the Bill of Rights relating to the repealed Declaration.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am advised that the Act of 1866 referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman has no-effect upon the Declaration made by His Majesty. The Bill of Rights requires that Declaration to be made. This

  873
  enactment is still in force and cannot possibly be repealed, or rendered obsolete, by the Statute Law Revision Act. The obligation does not depend on the repeal of the Statute 30 Charles 2, Section 2, but on the Bill of Rights, which incorporates, by reference, the Declaration which is in that statute. The subsequent repeal is, I understand, quite immaterial.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: As this is a matter of considerable gravity and doubt, will the right hon. Gentleman consent to refer the matter to a small Committee, as has been done in some other cases of doubt, and receive a Report as to whether it is not a fit matter to be dealt with by the Statute Law?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am informed by my hon. and learned friend the Attorney General that there really can de no doubt of the legal validity of the action taken.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman appoint a small Committee to consider that question? I waive the legal question as to whether this is not a fit matter to refer to the Statute Law Revision Committee.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have before said that I am no admirer of the terms of the Declaration, which is the point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman, who has made a suggestion the basis of which surely must be that there is some doubt as to the legal validity of the action taken. If there is no doubt, then there is surely no need for a Committee.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Then I beg to give notice that I shall oppose the passing of any further Statute Law Revision Bill until this matter has been dealt with.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: In view of the very strong feeling that exists, will the Government consider the advisability of introducing a short Act, which no doubt will unanimously pass, altering the Declaration?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think I dealt with that question on a previous day.*
  *See page 320.

  PENSIONS FOR THE AGED AND DESERVING POOR.
  MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Government intend to take any, and if so what action during the present session of Parliament with a view to ameliorating the condition of the aged and deserving poor.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have no further statement to make as to the legislative projects of the Government during the present session.

  COST OF THE CORONATION.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he can state what was the cost of the Coronation of His Majesty King William IV. and of Her Majesty Queen Victoria; if the cost of the coming Coronation is likely to exceed either of them; whether any portion of the expenses will have to be defrayed by Ireland; and whether any of the money is likely to be spent there.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I believe that in 1831 theCoronationcost£42,298 3s. 9d., and in 1838 £69,421 1s. 10d.
  MR. J. CAMPBELL: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the concluding paragraph of my question.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think I am bound to answer a question as to where the money is likely to be spent. I am no more gifted with the power of prophecy than the hon. Gentleman himself.
  MR. FLAVIN: Will the Catholics of the United Kingdom be compelled to contribute to the price of the Coronation?
  [No answer was given.]

NEW WRIT FOR THE BOROUGH OF MAIDSTONE.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do issue his warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the Borough of Maidstone, in the room of John Barker, esquire, whose election has been declared to be void."—(Mr. Herbert Gladstone.)
MR. CAINE: I understand from the statement of the Attorney General that this evidence has been laid upon the Table of the House in manuscript, but this is not convenient for the general perusal of the Members of this House. Only a few minutes will be required to enable me to state the reason why I move this Amendment admit that it is quite within precedent that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Leeds should move this writ, but there are many reasons why it should not be issued, at present, at any rate. On many occasions the House has suspended writs for short periods for the printing of the evidence—for instance, there are the cases of Nottingham, in 1843, Harwich, in 1848, Clitheroe, in 1853; but the best precedent is that of Norwich, in 1875. The case of Nottingham was on all fours with this. The judges reported that Mr. John Walter was, through his agents, guilty of bribery without his knowledge and consent, and that is precisely what has been reported of Mr. Barker at Maidstone. I want to show the House how similar this Nottingham case is to Maidstone. In the Nottingham case, in which the Earl of Lincoln gave notice of motion in precisely the same terms as mine, twenty-six persons were scheduled as guilty of bribery, and twenty-five persons were scheduled in Maidstone. In the case of Maidstone it is the third offence, for this is the third time that a Member for Maidstone has been unseated. In this case it is a member of the party to which I belong who has been unseated, but in the two previous cases it was a member belonging to the opposite party. In the Nottingham case, upon a division the writ was suspended for a week, and at the end of that time it was moved "that the writ do now issue"; and after an exhaustive debate on the printed report, in which sixteen Members took part, the writ was issued. In the case of Harwich, which was another first offence, the writ was moved, and a long debate resulted, and it was subsequently ordered that a copy of the evidence be laid on the Table of the House.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,): What date was that?
MR. CAINE: In the year 1848. In the case of the Norwich Election Report there they unseated the Members for bribery and corruption. In this case a Royal Commission was instituted, and the writ was suspended for five years—until the following General Election—when it was issued along with the others. That, I think, was a very wholesome punishment, and it had a very whole-some effect upon subsequent elections. I believe that if some such course were taken in the case now under consideration, it would have a similar result, and would purify the constituency considerably. I do not want to go into any details, but I hold that this writ ought not to be issued at all. This borough is notoriously and incorrigibly corrupt. In the present case the bribery has been shameless and extensive, and this is the; third time that the election has been declared void upon petition. Twenty-five persons are scheduled as bribed and eleven persons as guilty of bribery, and among these eleven three have been refused certificates of indemnity, and one of these is Mr. Levi Barker, the brother of the unseated Member. I hear that the unseated Member is also engaged canvassing in the constituency, although the evidence went to show that he had practically been guilty of bribery by giving large orders for goods to tradesmen in his constituency. One of the judges censured him severely, and told him that he had gone very near the mark indeed in the matter. Everyone admits that the bribery was widespread and general on both sides, for, although the unseated candidate only had a majority of thirty-eight, the seat was not claimed by his opponent. I have had a great number of letters from Maidstone itself imploring me not to go on with this motion, including one from one of the most influential leaders of the Liberal party there. He states that if I there was any delay in the issuing of the writ it would give the Conservatives time to organise bribery in all the low public-houses. I therefore appeal to the House to delay the issuing of the writ until the House has time to examine the evidence, which I think will result in the appointment of a Commission. I beg to propose the Amendment standing in my name.
MR. HENRY HOBHOUSE: I am very glad to have the opportunity of seconding this Amendment, because I think the House should recognise that this is no party issue. There are Members on this side of the House who are quite as anxious for the purity of election as Members on the opposite side. I hope the House will regard this question upon somewhat broader grounds than those which have been advanced by the Attorney General in his answer to a question to-day. It is quite true that we have the Report of the election here, but it is a very short document, in which the judges answer certain questions put to them; and it does not give us any further information except the most important fact that has already been mentioned by my hon. friend, that as far as their inquiries have gone they have discovered twenty-five persons who have been bribed, and eleven persons who have acted as bribers. My hon. and learned friend the Attorney General said there was no precedent for the House interfering with the issue of the writ. I am told that in 1881 there was an instance (Gloucester) in which only three cases of bribery were actually proved, but the writ was suspended and an inquiry held. That is what we really ought to do here, because we already have from the newspapers the knowledge of the average man on this subject. I do not believe, whatever may be thought in this House, that outside they will think we have acted with due regard to our professions in our own constituencies of desiring purity of elections if we proceed with this somewhat indecent haste to issue a writ for this borough at the very earliest moment that it is possible to do so. We do not know whether what was stated in the press was true or not until these Papers have been printed and circulated. In order to give proper grounds to this motion, and to call the attention of the House to what was reported in the papers to have been said by the judges in the case, I will read some very strong expressions which Mr. Justice Kennedy is reported to have used. He said—
"As to corrupt practices, it would seem from the evidence that there existed among
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the voters in the borough a number of the lower class who always expected to receive some payment or reward for their votes…There seemed to be a more or less systematic provision made by some person for the satisfaction of the corrupt wants of those voters to whom he had referred. The proved cases of bribery extended through all the wards, and the uniformity of the payments pointed to a certain pre-arrangement on the part of some persons, the existence of something like a plan, something more than the casual and unpremeditated expenditure of some unscrupulous partisan."
I venture to think that those are very strong words, especially when coupled with the fact that no less than eleven persons are reported to have been guilty of bribery, and I think the inference might fairly be drawn that there were considerably more than twenty-five persons who might have been proved to have been bribed if further inquiry was made. I do not intend to find fault with our judges, but I do find some fault with another official, whose statutory duty has been made clear by the Corrupt Practices Act. By that Act it is clearly laid down that the representative of the director of public prosecutions should be present at the trial, and, with or without directions, if it appeared to him that any person was able to give material evidence on the subject of the trial, he should call and examine such person as a witness. I am surprised that that course was not taken in this case, remembering what discussions ensued and the manner in which the case was presented. The petitioner stopped his evidence as soon as he had unseated the sitting member. The efforts of the defendant's counsel were entirely directed to show that he (Mr. Barker) had not been guilty of corrupt practices. And having done that, neither party had any interest in prolonging the inquiry. I may go further and say, both had considerable interest in stopping the inquiry. The state of the facts is clearly brought out by a curious remark of the judge. I do not know whether it is accurately reported, because we have not had the advantage of looking at the official record of the proceedings. Mr. Justice Channell said this: "Well, if no one will ask the question I must ask it." That remark proves pretty clearly that the inquiry in this case was not pursued in a thorough and proper manner, as it should have been, and we, therefore, have a right to have

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further evidence, and I think the House would be extremely unwise in not taking this opportunity of enforcing it. It is very well known, unhappily for the candidates, that there is a considerable amount of corruption in not a few constituencies, but it is very rarely that any of these cases come before the Courts because of the question of cost and the unpopularity involved, both candidates probably being equally guilty—all those things conduce to make an inquiry before the Election Courts very rare indeed. Therefore, having regard to the importance of the question, we ought to see that this writ should not be issued until further inquiry has been made, and the matter has received our careful consideration. If this House rejects this Amendment and the very reasonable request that is contained in it, it will make the cause of electoral purity still more hopeless than it is at present, and will give encouragement to practices which we all deplore and condemn.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out, all the words from the word 'That,' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words no new writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the Borough of Maidstone ought to be issued until the House is in possession of the printed evidence and judgment taken by the deputies of the shorthand writer of the House of Commons."—(Mr. Caine.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
SIR F. DIXON-HARTLAND: The last motion of this kind made in this House was made in respect of my own constituency in 1880. A petition was presented, and the same motion to delay the issue of the writ until the judges' notes were placed on the Table was made and agreed to. Eventually the writ was re-issued. What was the result? The result was that a new election was held, and another petition presented with regard to that election, but it was of a somewhat different character to this. In that case I claimed the seat, and after a trial extending over seventeen days the judges found forty-eight cases of corruption on the same side where it existed before. It does seem important to me that in the case of a borough with the character which
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Maidstone possesses, the House ought to have an opportunity of seeing the notes upon the Table before they consent to issue a new writ.
MR. T. M. HEALY: However corrupt Maidstone may be, there is a law to deal with it, and I think the attitude of the House upon this matter is opposed to the Constitution. This House surrendered its rights to deal with election matters in 1868, and relegated these questions to the judges. Subsequently, in 1883. it made further provisions. Now Maidstone is entitled by statute to a representative in this House, and the Act of 1883 put upon the judges the duty of stating whether corrupt practices prevail or not. I think this House made a most profound mistake in relegating this matter to the judges, and I think it is to be deplored that we parted for a moment with the power to investigate these cases; but are we now, after the judges have heard the witnesses and pronounced judgment, to take up the evidence and sit as a court of appeal, and find that the judges have failed in their duty, and the Public Prosecutor in his? Look at the case from an Irish point of view. Take the case of intimidation. Bribery is unknown in Ireland, but over and over again elections have been upset through intimidation. Take the case of the two Divisions of Meath, where intimidation was so rife seven or eight years ago. Is the House to punish a whole constituency because on one occasion intimidation upset the election? Either let us repeal all the provisions which remit these matters to the judges, or else leave them as they are, and not attempt to set ourselves up as an independent and irregular tribunal. If the tribunal as constituted is not satisfactory, and we are to go back to the system of other days, we must repeal the Acts of 1868 and 1883, a proceeding in which I shall be happy to assist.
SIR ROBERT FINLAYsaid he thought everyone would sympathise with the motives of the proposer and the seconder of the Amendment. They desired to do everything they could to promote the greater purity of elections, and he was sure that everyone in the House would gladly co-operate with them

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in carrying that idea into practice. But the House should be extremely careful that it did not run into a great evil—an evil for which there was no compensation. They had constituted a Court for the trial of election petitions, and the reports of the judges were sent to the House. Was it proposed that this House should have the evidence before it, should sit as a court of appeal from the decision of the judges, that every Member should read the evidence, and that they should debate upon the question of how far the House agreed or did not agree with the findings of the judges upon any election petition? He submitted that anything of the kind would be most mischievous. If they were dissatisfied with the trial of election petitions by judges, let them provide some tribunal which might be considered more appropriate. But he doubted whether there was any desire to return to the old system of Committees. On the whole, the present system of trial had given much more satisfaction than existed under the old system. The hon. Member who proposed the Amendment had alluded to a great many cases, but no useful purpose was served in quoting cases previous to the Act of 1868. In the present case, as the judges had not reported extensive corruption, what possibility was there of the House overruling their finding without having had the opportunity which the judges had of seeing the witnesses and hearing the evidence? It was impossible to do so, and hon. Members would be rash in pronouncing an opinion whether the judges were right or wrong under such circumstances. The question was by no means a new one. A similar Amendment arose in the case of Rochester in 1893. In that case a new writ was moved for on 3rd February, 1893, and the Amendment was moved by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool. The Amendment was debated at considerable length, and the late Lord Russell of Killowen, the present Lord Chief Justice, and Lord James of Hereford, all of whom were then Members of the House, expressed their views very strongly against any attempt to interfere with the present system. He submitted that the only proper and dignified course for the House to take was that recommended by the hon. and
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learned Gentleman opposite. So long as there was this mode of trial the House should accept the judges' report, and act upon it.
MR. CAINE: What was the decision of the House with regard to the case referred to by the Attorney General?
SIR ROBERT FINLAY: The Amendment was withdrawn.
MR. ASQUITH: I venture to say that we are at one in the opinion on both sides of the House that we should do everything in our power to promote purity of election. I am not quite agreed with the proposition, at any rate in the absolute terms in which it was expressed and put forward by my hon. and learned friend, that this House in delegating certain power to the judges has absolutely surrendered its own power. I do not think that is the case. What has happened? We have the report of the judges. They had the advantage of seeing the witnesses, watching their demeanour, living for some time in the atmosphere of this incriminated place. We have the report of the judges who enjoyed all these advantages, and although it was proved that corrupt practices were committed, it was not proved, nor have we reason to believe, that corrupt or illegal practices extensively prevailed. When the power to hear election petitions was delegated to the judges, of course it was supposed that by their trained faculties and their judicial experience they would be more competent to sit in a matter of this kind than a Committee selected from the various parties of this House. What are we asked to place against that but the suspicion—for it is nothing but a suspicion, or, to put the matter accurately, the possibility—that from the evidence, when it is printed and circulated, perhaps a majority of the Members of this House might arrive at a different conclusion, and might come to the belief, contrary to that which the judges expressed, that corrupt practices extensively prevailed? It has never been the practice of this House to refuse the issue of a writ unless there is ground to believe in the existence of extensive corruption. I venture to say that never since this jurisdiction was delegated to the judges—a period of thirty years—has

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the House acted in a matter of this kind in violation of the express and definite opinion given by the judges. I think the House would take a serious responsibility if it were to go back on that established practice. I hope the House will agree to the motion of my right hon. friend.
MAJOR RASCH: I hope the House will refuse the application made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Leeds, because I think if it does otherwise it will stultify itself, and the public will not unnaturally say, What was the use of spending all this time over the Corrupt Practices Act some time ago if a glaring case of this kind is to be condoned? There is a county of the name of Essex, which is known for the correctness and the purity of its elections, but we have boroughs which are rather flagrant examples the very opposite way, and yet I know that the Essex boroughs would stand aghast if they had the example of Maidstone before them. We know the case on the evidence given during the inquiry at Maidstone, but there was evidence which might have been produced and which was not given. There was any amount of evidence which would have been revealed if the case had not been withdrawn, and probably it would have sent some people to Maidstone Gaol if it had come to the surface. I think it is high time that the House put its foot down on this sort of proceeding. Bribery has increased, and is increasing, and should be abated in many constituencies. We all know what happens. It does not matter what colour a man wears before an election. A man goes down—God knows where he comes from—and sows the country with sovereigns and papers the place with £5 notes, and when the election is over everybody knows perfectly that the amount stated in the official return only represents one-half of what the candidate has spent. I think some attempt ought to be made to bell the cat. The House ought to put its foot down and make an example of this place.
MR. JOHN ELLIS: I am very gladthatthis motion has been brought forward. This is not a matter in which the House can delegate to the judges of the realm its responsibility. I have discussed this matter out-
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side the House with some of those who were concerned in the passing of the Corrupt Practices Act of 1868, and very grave doubt exists in certain quarters as to whether the House did a wise thing in delegating certain of its powers to the judges. I venture to say the Attorney General has given a most substantial illustration why this motion should be carried. It must be within the knowledge of everybody who has taken an interest in politics during the last fifteen or twenty years that the Corrupt Practices Act has very largely failed in many respects in producing the effects which its promoters expected. As I understand, all that the mover and seconder of the motion have asked is, that every Member of the House of Commons should, if he desires, be in possession of the evidence on which the decision of the judges was founded.
MR. STUART WORTLEY: I am quite aware that this is a matter in which the House should proceed with great care, lest it should lay itself open to the charge of deviating from the usual form. This is one of the cases where the House has clearly, on the face of the Statute-book, reserved to itself full discretion. It was reserved to the House to say whether a constituency should be temporarily or permanently disfranchised. This is not a case in which the judges have in unqualified terms said that they did not consider that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed. On the contrary, they have shown considerable doubt and hesitation, and this case, moreover, is distinguished from other cases of the same kind. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife says the judges had the opportunity of hearing and seeing the witnesses. What we say is that there were probably other witnesses, in addition to those who tendered evidence, who might have been forthcoming had the trial proceeded, and whom the judges would have seen, but under the circumstances did not see. I suggest that there is another way out of the difficulty, and that is that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Leeds should not have chosen this particular day on which to move for the issue of the writ. I would ask him to deliver the House from its difficulty by

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withdrawing the motion, thus leaving further time to elapse, and enabling the House to show, in a case like this, that kind of hesitation which His Majesty's judges have themselves shown.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The House has had the advantage of having the law laid very clearly before it by gentlemen learned in the law, speaking with high authority on both sides, and I think it is quite clear that the precedents are in favour of the House proceeding with the issue of a new writ, unless there is a direct report from the judges which would induce the House to take a different course. The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down says that we should be guided, as I understand him, not by the evidence that was given, but by the evidence that might have been given before the judges. I think that is rather a curious position to take up; but the answer to it in this instance, I imagine, is that if the judges entertained any sort of suspicion that the further prosecution of the case would have disclosed a much more extensive and serious chain of bribery than had already been unfolded they would have insisted on the matter being proceeded with. If I remember rightly, at the time the announcement was made that the case was no longer to be defended, the judges took time to consider whether they should not go on listening to evidence notwithstanding the decision to which the defendant in the matter had come.
SIR ROBERT FINLAY: That was so, and further evidence was given.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Therefore, it is quite clear that the judges whose duty it was to fully enlighten Parliament on the subject must have concluded that nothing more was to be gained, and no further knowledge to be obtained, by seeking further evidence. I am bound to say that when my hon. and gallant friend the Member for Chelmsford talks in the strongest terms of a town like Maidstone being practically corrupt, I think he says what he is hardly entitled to say, and for my part I must confess that when he talks about the corruption, degradation, and vitiation of elections, I am not so sure, after all, that the process he described—apparently with so intimate a knowledge—of the man who goes down
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with a large sum of money and then disappears when he has accomplished the purpose for which he has come—I am not so sure that that is so bad as another system which prevails much more extensively, and which is degrading a much larger mass of the people of this country, namely, the nursing and practically bribing and obtaining the favour of constituencies by the squandering of money in the more open ways of charity, and the subvention of local beneficent objects. To come back to the point with which the House is dealing. Whatever our views may be on this particular case, as presented to us by the Report of the judges so far as we have received it, we all have at all events a great desire to prevent these nefarious proceedings when they are detected; and, above all, we wish to proceed warily in the matter, and not to allow a state of things to continue which any action of ours could do something to prevent. Therefore, although I agree that the precedents in such a case as that in which we find ourselves are in favour of the issue of the writ, I still say that it might be advisable to postpone the issue for a few days until the fuller Report of the judges, which has been laid upon the Table only this afternoon, and from which the hon. and learned Gentleman read, is in the hands of Members, so that the House may be able to judge for themselves more fully than they can at present what the real attitude of the judges in their judgment was.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition with feelings of considerable surprise and some dismay. I am perfectly aware, I am a sufficiently old Parliamentary hand to know, that the general feeling of the House I am now addressing is distinctly in favour of the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman opposite, and I presume it is the knowledge of that feeling which induced the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down to throw over his colleague on the left, and initiate a new practice, which I fear may have very serious consequences. I shall content myself with saying that I

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think the course which the right hon. Gentleman now suggests to the House is the wrong one. I am perfectly aware that I am not uttering a popular sentiment in saying that, but if the House will give me one moment I will explain to them why I hold that view. We are judging a general practice upon a particular instance, without in the least considering what effect upon the general practice our decision may have. That is a most dangerous practice for this House to indulge in. The Leader of the Opposition appears to think that he has saved his consistency by suggesting that the House should wait two or three days until it has in its hands the transcript of the evidence taken at Maidstone. The suggestion is, and indeed the only rational support for such a course must be, that when the evidence is in the hands of hon. Members they will read it, and in the light of that reading either endorse or reverse in their minds the decision of the judges, that they will come to the conclusion that the judges are right or that the judges are wrong, and that having come in foro conscientice to that private judicial opinion they will then proceed to act upon it in the House. Now observe what that means. One of two things: either that this House in its collective capacity, and not through the organ of a Committee of the House, is going to constitute itself a tribunal to revise judicial decisions and to re-try a case—
SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Not a decision, a Report to this House.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: A Report to this House made by a judicial body. Does anybody in this House think that the House in its collective capacity—the 670 Gentlemen who compose the House—can transform themselves into a judge and jury at once to try questions of fact? I am certain that no man who hears me thinks that we are fitted for such duties, or that we ought to impose such duties upon ourselves. What is the alternative? The alternative is that if we think the evidence does not bear out the decision of the judges, or the report of the judges, we should constitute a Committee of this House to re-examine the whole case. That is a return to the old system. To con-
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stitute a Committee of this House to re-try or to look into the case at Maidstone is to go back to the old system. It is to go back to the old, and I thought universally discredited system which this House voluntarily abandoned more than thirty years ago. ["No."] It has abandoned that practice for more than thirty years, and no responsible statesman on either side of the House, I do not care who he may be, has ever, so far as I know, suggested that this House should do, what, of course, it could do if it wished—namely, go back to the old method of having a Committee drawn up on party lines by the party managers to discuss the party questions which must inevitably come up before such a Committee. And observe: you cannot run these two systems of dealing with contested elections side by side. You cannot leave the judges to act in five cases out of six, and take away from the judges the sixth case. It would be an insult to the judiciary of the country. ["No."] Yes, it would be an insult to the judiciary of the country, and would make the whole of the system absolutely impossible. How can you go to the judges and say: "We put upon you these very difficult and delicate duties, duties somewhat apart from your ordinary judicial practice, which throw upon you very great responsibility, and which bring you almost into the vortex of political controversy; but if you do not happen to please us every time you give a decision we will revise what you do first in the whole House, and then in a Committee of the House; and if our Committee happens to disagree with you we shall publish the fact that the judges with evidence before them came to one decision, but the Committee of the House, reviewing the same evidence without seeing the witnesses, came to another decision." Is it possible? It may be true, as has been stated, that as men of the world, as men with some general knowledge of election matters, our view of what has taken place at Maidstone leads us to the suspicion that corrupt practices are more prevalent than the judges supposed. That may be our view, but is that a reason for upsetting in consequence of one instance this long-tried practice which, whatever may be its faults, certainly has saved this House

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from many a well deserved rebuke, from many a humiliating discussion, and from bringing itself into conflict with the best elements of public opinion? I am sure I am echoing the opinions of every man who has had to consider this question for more than a generation when I say that it would be most unwise to do that, even at the prompting of a generous and disinterested feeling— and I admit that all on either side are disinterested and generous, and that no element of party feeling has come into the discussion either on the part of the Gentlemen opposite or of any other Gentlemen. I am perfectly sure that at this moment the House is not a party machine, that it is animated solely in the action it is about to take by its desire for the purity of our elections. But, Sir, let us be careful not to upset a good general practice because we think that in one particular case it has not worked well. This is a subject upon which the Government are not the movers. The motion comes from the Front Bench opposite, and it is for them to carry their motion to a division and to appoint tellers. If they go to a division, as I hope they will, I shall vote with them, and I earnestly hope that, putting aside all private interests and party affections, every Gentleman who can turn his mind from the particulars of this isolated case to the broad general principles which ought to guide our policy will also support the motion.
MR. JAMES LOWTHER: I fully share the view of the Leader of the House that no greater mistake could be made by the House than in any way to endeavour to set up the old system which prevailed up to 1863. If the suggestion before us was that this House should constitute itself a body to overhaul the judgment of the judges at Maidstone I should certainly support my right hon. friend. But, with the right hon. Gentleman's permission, while I quite share his view that it would be mischievous of this House to set itself up as a court of appeal upon issues tried by judges, I would venture to draw his attention to a precedent already touched upon, though not fully developed, which I think has a direct bearing on the case be-fore us. I refer to the Evesham case.
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The writ was moved in this House on the 17th June, 1880,* and an Amendment was moved that the issue of the writ be suspended until the shorthand writers' notes were printed and in the hands of Members. The then Attorney General (Sir Henry James) said—
"The judges, instead of reporting that there was no reason to believe that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed, said that, from the evidence before them, and to which they had confined themselves, they had no reason to believe that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed."
He ends by saying that—
"in the particular circumstances the Government would offer no objection to delay in the issue of the writ, but it must be understood that when the shorthand writers' notes of the evidence had been produced the motion for the issue of the writ would be almost immediately renewed."
And Mr. Gladstone at the conclusion said that—
"perhaps it would be better to withdraw the motion, if the hon. Gentleman would withdraw the Amendment, on the understanding that it would not be renewed until after the evidence and the report of the judges had been received."
All I want the House to understand is that what is now proposed, similarly to what was proposed in 1880, is not the overhauling of a case before the judges, not the reopening of the question, but simply to consider whether the House should direct a further inquiry to be made into a matter in regard to which obviously the judges had not pronounced in the statutory form "that the evidence before them did not justify such a conclusion." The case seems to me to be almost identical, and I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife was hardly justified in saying that there was no precedent.
MR. ASQTJITH: What was the judges' report?
MR. JAMES LOWTHER: The judges reported that, although they had no reason to believe that corrupt practices extensively prevailed, they went by the evidence before them, and did not go outside it. Having taken some part in the discussion of the Corrupt Practices Act in 1868, and devoted some attention to the subject, I entirely concur with
*See The Parliamentary Debates [Third Series], Vol. ccliii., page 203.

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my right hon. friend that it would be a most dangerous thing for this House to set itself up in any way as a court of appeal to decide issues which have been remitted under statute to a duly constituted tribunal. But I do not understand that we are asked to do that. I should certainly vote against any idea of doing anything of the kind. I understand, however, that a wholly different proposal is made, and one which in the Evesham case was decided in the sense of adjourning the issue of the writ until the House had seen the evidence. Mr. Gladstone, as the Attorney General will see, said that it was not usual to print the evidence in each instance unless asked for. As it is, I beg to advise the House to adjourn the discussion.
SIR ROBERT FINLAY: I should like, with the leave of the House, to say one word. I desire to point out to the House that the Evesham ease is different from the present one, because in the Maidstone case we have a finding of the judges in the form contemplated. There is a perfectly definite finding that the judges had no reason to believe that corrupt or illegal practices extensively prevailed. My right hon. friend read the paragraph, and by permission I will just read it again, and the House will at once see the difference between this finding and the finding in the Evesham case. I will read from what was said by the Attorney General, Sir Henry James—
"Primâ facie, there ought to be no unnecessary delay in the issuing of a writ. A constituency was entitled to representation, and it was not desirable to prolong the electioneering contest. Unless there was some special circumstance upon which objection could be founded, there ought not to be undue delay. If the judges reported to the House that there was reason to believe that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed, there was no discretion left, and a Commission must be appointed. Let him remind the House of the position it was placed in. By the Act of 1808 the House of Commons had delegated all authority for the trial of election petitions to a tribunal; but what could the House do in this case if it came to the conclusion that corrupt practices had prevailed? No provision was made for further inquiry."
Now comes the passage to which I call the attention of the House—
"In this case, however, the report of the judges was somewhat peculiar. Instead of reporting that there was no reason to believe that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed, they said that, from the evidence
892
before them, and to which they had confined themselves, they had no reason to believe that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed."
And then the Attorney General goes on to say—
"The House could not properly act upon the suggestion made that there had been an arrangement by which persons had been kept out of the witness box, nor could it be influenced by the general description of a place as corrupt. The House must apply a general rule, apart from any particular character which hon. Members might choose to give to a place, and it must be careful not to suspend a writ without a good reason for doing so. If, however, an attempt were made in this case to prevent the reading of the evidence before the issue of the writ, it would be thought there was some reason in the background why the issue of the writ was forced on. In the particular circumstances the Government would offer no objection to delay the issue of the writ; but it must be understood that when the shorthand writers' notes of the evidence had been produced, the motion for the issue of the writ would be almost immediately renewed."
Mr. Gladstone said at the close of the debate—
"There was already a rule that the short" hand writers notes in cases of this description should be laid on the Table; but it was not usual to print them, unless they were asked for on some special ground. This case appeared to be of a special character, and, as his hon. and learned friend had explained, the Government were willing to postpone the issue of the writ. Perhaps it would be better to withdraw the motion, if the hon. Gentleman would withdraw the Amendment, on the understanding that it would not be renewed until after the evidence and the report of the judges had been received."
Now I hope the. House will see clearly that that was an absolutely different case from the present. It proceeded entirely on the fact that the finding of the judges was a peculiar and of a special kind. If a man says. "From the evidence before me, to which I am confined, I have no reason to believe that corrupt practices extensively prevailed," most men of the world would come to the conclusion that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed. But in the present case the finding is not in that form at all. It is a perfectly, absolutely clear finding that the judges had no reason to believe that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed. I therefore submit that the Evesham ease has no bearing on the case now before the House.
MR. BLAKE: I do not suppose that any hon. Member condemns

893
the present system of trial of election petitions as inferior to a trial by a House Committee; nor do I suppose that there has been any such dissatisfaction with the judgment of the Court in any particular ease as would induce the House to unseat a man who had been seated, or to seat a man who had been unseated by the Court. That would be absurd. I acknowledge that the House has considerable inherent powers notwithstanding the statute. But the House will act wisely in the spirit of accepting the decisions to which the judicial tribunal comes, so long as the tribunal keeps within the statute. The trouble in this case is not because the judges' finding is special, nor because it embraces very much of the so-called specialty referred to in the Evesham case; as to which I would like to know what it is to which you would desire to call the judges' attention. You do not expect that judges should decide on anything but the evidence before them; and therefore I attach no importance to the supererogatory words used in the finding of the judges in that case. That is not the real trouble. The fact is, the system under the present law is defective with reference to the question of the extensive prevalence of political corruption in a constituency. Apart from the evidence actually submitted, there is no proper provision for inquiry where the evidence is incomplete owing to the action of either of the parties to the petition. Twenty-five years ago, in another Parliament, I met that difficulty by inserting a provision for a special report by the judges, in which they should state whether the inquiry had been rendered incomplete by the action of either of the parties to the petition. That is what was wanted here. We all know it. We all know that at a very early period of the prosecution the respondent admitted that he could not resist the fact that there had been bribery; thereon there was nothing more for the petitioner to do to win the battle, and no more witnesses were required to come forward for that purpose. But the petitioner did not venture to claim the seat after all. We know what that implies. Having regard to the jealousy which the country
894
naturally feels in these matters, it is probably as well that the papers should come down before the writ is ordered. But after all it is inevitable that the judges' finding on the case before them should be accepted, no matter what our view of it may be, and that this constituency should not in the present state of the law be penalised by a refusal to issue the writ on what you will find in the papers. But what you ought to do is to alter the law in the direction I have indicated, and so provide for the future.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: The House is in a very strange situation. A right hon. Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench has made a motion to which an hon. Member, also on that side of the House, has moved an Amendment which was seconded on this side of the House. The Leader of the Opposition is in favour of the Amendment, and says he thinks; it advisable that the delay asked for by the Amendment ought to be given. The Leader of the House is against the Amendment, seconded from his own side, and in favour of the motion moved by the hon. Gentleman opposite. Which way am I to vote? The First Lord of the Treasury has made a speech with the infallible brilliancy and poetic fervour which characterises him, and has raised some spectres, although he has failed to destroy them. They are, however, only spectres. It is not a question of our abandoning any practice now in vogue, or of reinstating any former practice. The question is whether, here and now, we are going to issue a writ. We cannot escape from that. We have got to vote whether there is to be a writ on a report, signed by one of His Majesty's judges, which we have not yet seen, and on evidence we have not yet perused. What was the purpose of the rule that a judge should make such a report? The object was that this House should decide whether the Report gives ground for the issue of the writ.
MR. T. M. HEALY: The Report was read by Mr. Speaker.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I am coming to that point. I should like to have the evidence before us. The Attorney

895
General has quoted the Evesham case, and has descanted on the differences between that and the present case. But he has omitted the most important. The Evesham case was fought out and this was not. We all know that when any two parties take part in a litigious battle, and both find it inconvenient to go on in a court of law, they make an arrangement by which the case is settled out of court. There is a vehement suspicion that that is the case here, and it behoves this House to pause before it proceeds to the extreme step of whitewashing the constituency of Maidstone and providing it with a new Member. I know not who the candidates are, but I will not be a party, without waiting to hear the evidence and without giving the House an opportunity of deciding whether there is a ground for issuing the writ, to sanctioning the motion that it should be issued? know there are Members who believe that this House has surrendered all its powers to Ministers and all its honour to judges. The House has not surrendered all its powers in regard to elections, and this very motion has necessarily been made in the belief that the House has so retained its powers in order to have the opportunity of acting or withholding action in cases such as this. It is true that we have given over to His Majesty's judges a delegated power of deciding as to the validity of elections—and properly so given over. I believe it has been attended with the most excellent results, but whether you pause, or postpone the issue of the writ, that does not affect the delegation of your powers to the judges. The House must decide for itself whether it will issue or withhold the writ. It may withhold it, as in the case of Evesham; but if there is no ground for withholding it, we would not wish to deprive the constituency of the services of its representative for any longer or shorter period. I cannot regard this as a mere matter of form, or that we ought to be asked to issue this writ as a matter of course, after what has occurred.
MR. WALLACE: I will not detain the House for more than a minute. I want to understand why the House is asked to postpone the issue of this writ
896
for a week. It is suggested that the object is that the evidence taken at the trial of the election petition may be in the hands of hon. Members first. The hon. Member says he has already read or heard read the report of the judges on the case, but that he wants to read for himself the evidence on which that report is based. What is the object of the hon. Member in reading the evidence? To ascertain the effect of it upon his own mind. And certainly if the hon. Member, after reading the evidence, comes to a different conclusion from that formed by the judges, he is going next week to come before the House as a court of appeal to alter the decision of the judges. I venture to say that there is only one safe course for this. House to adopt; and that is, to stand by the practice which it has followed for many years; and that is, that if His Majesty's judges have reported that corrupt practices have extensively prevailed, to withhold the writ and issue a commission of inquiry. Hitherto, if the report of the judges was to the contrary, the writ was issued as a matter of course. That prevented all political feeling, all discussion, all difference of opinion existing here as between the House and the judges. I trust that my hon. friend who moved the issue of the writ will persevere with his motion, and I, for one, will vote for it.
MR. BARTLEY: It seems to me that we have discussed this matter too much from the legal point of view. I think there is-an aspect of it which ought to be considered—I mean, what the man in the street will think of it. The question is whether the issue of the writ means that there has been prevalent bribery in the constituency of Maidstone or not. It seems to be admitted that there has been a considerable amount of bribery in this borough. It has been convicted of bribery on three occasions in modern times, and the man in the street will be likely to say, unless we take some action, that the House is not very particular as to corruption, seeing that it issued a new writ after the recent disclosures. The effect will be disastrous. It seems to me that we ought to strengthen the hands of those who wish to make elections purer, and I think that to issue the writ so hurriedly is to weaken that position. All

897
our legislation is very drastic in regard to bribery, but when we come to deal with it, and apply it in the way suggested by the present case, it would appear that we are apt to shrink from it. I think much more harm will be done by issuing the writ in haste than by postponing it for a few days until we have seen the evidence taken in the case before the judges. Altogether, I am convinced that a great deal of good will be done to the constituency if the issue of the writ is postponed for a few days.
SIR J. FERGHSSON: From the course which the discussion has taken, I believe that the House is liable to drop into one or two pitfalls. My hon. friend who has just spoken tells us what the man in the street will say. That is a curious sort of doctrine to use in this House in regard to the case in hand. We are here to judge for ourselves; and we know a great deal better than the man in the street whether the light course is to act according to rule or precedent; and we need not consider what the man in the street will say after he reads his paper in the morning. That argument is singularly weak, and altogether unworthy of my hon. friend. The danger will be in following his example, which would constitute every man his own leader. My hon. friend the Member for King's Lynn says that he wants, in the plenitude of his industry, to study and review the finding of the judges; but what we have got to do is to carry out the finding of the judges, otherwise, what is the use of sending these judges down to investigate the facts? The judges have reported in explicit terms that in their opinion there is no evidence of extensive corruption in this constituency, and there the matter ought to end.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: I quite recognise the great importance to the House and the country of this motion; but I cannot help regretting that it has come on this afternoon, and has cut so very materially into the very short time at the disposal of the Irish Members for the consideration of Irish questions. I will not be guilty of speaking, under these circumstances, more than one sentence. I intend to vote in favour of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Camborne, and I do so for this reason: I do not believe that the House of Commons has parted, or ever intended to part, with its power over election petition cases in the complete sense that some hon. Members suppose. And if, in consequence of the rinding of the election judges, this House is to be deprived of the power of suspending, even for one hour, or a day, or a week, the issue of a writ, then the power of the House of Commons to issue a writ should be taken away altogether. This is a very bad case. It is a case where, by his own action, the petitioner is afraid to claim the seat, and where the respondent by throwing up the sponge leads one to think that extensive bribery had prevailed. If the Member for Chelmsford is right in saying that this bribery is extensive, notwithstanding the Corrupt Practices Act, throughout Great Britain, then I say, in the interests of the people, and more especially in the interests of poor candidates, that a stand ought to be taken in this House in cases of this kind. And without any desire to penalise a constituency or permanently deprive it of its Member, I shall vote in favour of the temporary postponement of the issue of the writ.
Question put.
The House divided.—Ayes, 224; Noes, 157. (Division List No. 7.)

AYES.

Acland-Hood,Capt.SirAlex.F.

Bailey, James (Walworth)

Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

Bain, Col. James Robert

Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

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

Bullard, Sir Harry

Aird, Sir John

Balfour, Rt.Hn.Gerald W.(Leeds

Buxton, Sydney Charles

Allhusen, Aug. Henry Eden

Banbury, Frederick George

Caldwell, James

Allsopp, Hon. George

Barlow, John Emmott

Cameron, Robert

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Beach,Rt.Hn.SirM.H.(Bristol

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

Anstruther, H. T.

Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

Carlile, William Walter

Archdale, Edward Mervyn

Bignold, A.

Causton, Richard Knight

Arkwright John Stanhope

Bill, Charles

Cautley, Henry Strother

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Blundell, Colonel Henry

Cavendish, V. C.W.(Derbysh)

Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis

Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. Henry

Boulnois, Edmund

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

Bowles,Capt. H. E. (Middlesex)

Chamberlain, Rt.Hn.J.(Birm.

Austin, Sir John

Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

Chamberlain,J. Austen(Worc'r

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Joicey, Sir James

Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

Chapman, Edward

Kearley, Hudson E.

Ropner, Colonel Robert

Charrington, Spencer

Kenyon,Hn. Geo.S. (Denbigh)

Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

Clancy, John Joseph

Kenyon-Slaney,Col. W. (Salop)

Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse

Coddington, Sir William

Knowles, Lees

Seton-Karr, Henry

Compton, Lord Alwyne

Lambert, George

Sharpe, William Edward T.

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

Law, Andrew Bonar

Shaw-Stewart,M.H. (Renfrew)

Cranborne, Viscount

Lawson, John Grant

Shipman, Dr. John

Crombie, John William

Lee, Capt. A. H. (Hants, Fareh'm

Simeon, Sir Barrington

Cubitt, Hon. Henry

Leigh, Sir Joseph (Stockport)

Sinclair, Capt. Jn. (Forfarshire)

Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.)

Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

Smith,H.C.(North'mbTyneside

Dewar,T.R(T'rH'mlets,S.Geo.

Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

Smith, James Parker(Lanarks.

Dickinson, Robert Edmond

Long, Col. C. W. (Evesham)

Smith, Samuel (Flint.)

Dixon-Hartland,Sir F.Dixon

Long Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol,S

Spear, John Ward

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Spencer, Rt.Hn.C. R. (Northants

Dunn, Sir William

Loyd, Archie Kirkman

Spencer, Ernest(W.Bromwich)

Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

Lucas, Col. Francis(Lowestoft)

Stanley,Hn. Arthur(Ormskirk

Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

Lucas,Reginald J. (Portsmouth)

Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset

Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Elibank, Master of

Macdona, John Cumming

Stevenson, Francis S.

Evans, Samuel T.

Maconochie, A. W.

Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

Faber, George Denison

M'Calmont,Col.J. (Antrim,E.)

Stone, Sir Benjamin

Farquharson, Dr. Robert

M'Iver,SirLewis(Edinburgh W.

Stroyan, John

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw.

M'Kenna, Reginald

Sturt, Hon. Humphry N.

Ferguson, R. C. Munro(Leith)

M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Fergusson,Rt. Hn.Sir J.(Manc'r

Majendie, James A. H.

Talbot,Rt.Hn. J.G.(Oxf'dUniv.)

Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

Manners, Lord Cecil

Tennant, Harold John

Fisher, William Hayes

Markham, Arthur Basil

Thomas, A. (Glamorgan, E.)

FitzGerald, Sir R. Penrose

Max well, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.

Thomas,F. Freeman-(Hastings

Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

Mellor, Rt. Hon. John William

Thomas, J. A. (Glam., Gower)

Fitzroy, Hon. E. Algernon

Milner,Rt. Hon. Sir Fredk, G.

Thorburn, Sir Walter

Flannery, Sir Fortescue

Milward, Colonel Victor

Thornton, Percy M.

Fletcher, Sir Henry

Molesworth, Sir Lewis

Tufnell, Colonel Edward

Flower, Ernest

Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

Valentia, Viscount

Forster, Henry William

Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

Foster, Sir M. (London Univ.)

More, R. Jasper (Shropshire)

Walker, Col William Hall

Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.

Morrell, George Herbert

Wallace, Robert

Furness, Sir Christopher

Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F.

Walrond, Rt. Hon. Sir W. H.

Goddard, Daniel Ford

Morton,ArthurH. A.(Deptford

Walton, John L. (Leeds, S.)

Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

Mount, William Arthur

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Gordon, Maj. Evans (T'rH'mlts

Murray,Rt.Hn.A Graham(Bute

Wason, E. (Clackmannan)

Grenfell, William Henry

Nolan,Col. John P. (Galway,N.

Wason, John C. (Orkney)

Grey, Sir Edward (Berwick)

Norman, Henry

Webb, Col. William George

Guthrie, Walter Murray

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

Welby,Lt.-Col. A.C.E (Tauntn

Hamilton,Marq of (L'nd'nd'rry

Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

Wharton, Rt. Hn. John Lloyd

Harmsworth, R. Leicester

Parkes, Ebenezer

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Harris,F.Leverton(Tynem'th)

Paulton, James Mellor

Whiteley,George(York,W. R.)

Haslett, Sir James Horner

Peel, Hn.Wm.Robt.Wellesley

Whitley, J. II. (Halifax)

Hayne, Rt.Hon.Charles Seale-

Percy, Earl

Willox, Sir John Archibald

Hayter Rt. Hon.Sir Arthur D.

Plummer, Walter R.

Wilson, A.Stanley(York,E.R.)

Healy, Timothy Michael

Pretyman, Ernest George

Wilson,Fred. W. (Norfolk,Mid)

Helder, Augustus

Purvis, Robert

Wilson, John (Falkirk)

Henderson, Alexander

Pym, C. Guy

Wilson, John (Glasgow)

Hope,J.F.(Sheff'ld,Brightside

Rea, Russell

Wodehouse, Hon. A. (Essex)

Howard, Capt. J. (Faversham)

Remnant, James Farquharson

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

Howard, J. (Midd.,Tottenham

Rentoul, James Alexander

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Hozier, Hon. James H. Cecil

Rickett, J. Compton

Hudson, George Bickersteth

Ridley,Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas, T.

Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. M'Arthur.

Johnston, William (Belfast)

Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

NOES.

Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N.E.)

Bowles, T. G. (King's Lynn)

Colville, John

Allan, William (Gateshead)

Boyle, James

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Allen, Chas. P. (Glouc.,Stroud

Brookfield, Colonel Montagu

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow

Ambrose, Robert

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Crean, Eugene

Atherley-Jones, L.

Burke, E. Haviland-

Cremer, William Randal

Baird, John George Alexander

Burns, John

Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Burt, Thomas

Cullinan, J.

Bartley, George C. T.

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Cust, Henry John C.

Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

Carvill, Patrick Geo. H.

Dalkeith, Earl of

Bell, Richard

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Dalrymple, Sir Charles

Blake, Edward

Cogan, Denis J.

Daly, James

Boland, John

Colomb, Sir John Charles R.

Delany, William

900

901

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Lambton, Hon.FrederickWm.

O'Malley, William

Dillon, John

Laurie, Lieut. General

O'Mara, James

Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

Lawrence, William F.

O'Shaughnessy, P. J

Donelan, Captain A.

Layland-Barratt, Francis

O'Shee, James John

Doogan, P. C.

Leamy, Edmund

Palmer, George W. (Reading)

Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

Lecky,Rt. Hn. William Edw. H.

Pease, Herbert P.(Darlington)

Doxford, Sir William Theodore

Leighton, Stanley

Pemberton, John S. G.

Duffy, William J.

Lewis, John Herbert

Philipps, John Wynford

Ellis, John Edward

Lloyd-George, David

Power, Patrick Joseph

Emmott, Alfred

Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

Rasch, Major Frederic C.

Farrell, James Patrick

Lowther, Rt.HonJames(Kent)

Redmond, JohnE.(Waterford)

Fenwick, Charles

London, W.

Redmond, William (Clare)

Ffrench, Peter

MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

Reid, James (Greenock)

Field, William

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Richards, Henry Charles

Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

Roche, John

Flavin, Michael Joseph

M'Cann, James

Russell, T. W.

F'lynn, James Christopher

M'Fadden, Edward

Sandys, Lieut.-Col. T. Myles

Garfit, William

M'Govern, T.

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

Gilhooly, James

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Soares, Ernest J.

Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin&Nairn

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Strachey, Edward

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Melville, Beresford Valentine

Sullivan, Donal

Grant, Corrie

Minch, Matthew

Thompson, E.C.(Monaghan,N.

Greene,HenryD. (Shrewsbury)

Mooney, John J.

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Gurdon, SirWilliamBrampton

Morgan,J.Lloyd (Carmarthen)

Tully, Jasper

Hain, Edward

Murnaghan, George

Vincent,Col.SirC.E.H(Sheffld)

Halsey, Thomas Frederick

Murphy, J.

Wanklyn, James Leslie

Hammond, John

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Welby,SirCharlesG.E. (Notts.

Hardy, L. (Kent, Ashford)

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

White, Patrick(Meath,North)

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Whitmore, Charles Algernon

Hayden, John Patrick

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

Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

Heath, James(Staffords,N.W.)

O'Brien, It. (Tipperary, Mid)

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Hemphill, Rt. Hon.Charles H.

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Wilson, Henry J.(York, W.R.)

Hope, John Deans (Fife,West)

O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.)

Jacoby, James Alfred

O'Brien, William (Cork)

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

Jameson, Major J. Eustace

O'Connor, J. (Wicklow, W.)

Young, Commander(Berks,E.)

Jones, David B. (Swansea)

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

Jordan, Jeremiah

O'Doherty, William

Yoxall, James Henry

Joyce, Michael

O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

Kennedy, Patrick James

O'Donnell,T. (Kerry,W.)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Kimber, Henry

O'Dowd, John

Mr. Caine and Mr. Henry Hobhouse.

Kinloch, Sir J. George Smyth

O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

Labouchere, Henry

O'Kelly, J. (Roscommon, N.)

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Ordered, That Mr. Speaker do issue his warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the Borough of Maidstone, in the room of John Barker, esquire, whose election has been declared to be void.

NEW BILLS.
  OLD AGE PENSIONS (No. 4).
  Bill to confer Pensions upon aged persons, ordered to be brought in by Sir Fortescue Flannery, Sir James Rankin, Sir Albert Rollit, Mr. Flower, Mr. Bousfield, Colonel Denny, Mr. Carlile, Mr. Rothschild, Mr. Sinclair, and Sir Howard Vincent.

  OLD AGE PENSIONS (No. 4) BILL.
  "To confer Pensions upon aged persons," presented, and read the first time;
  902
  to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 57.]

  MERCHANDISE MARKS ACT (1887) AMENDMENT.
  Bill to amend the Merchandise Marks Act, 1887, ordered to be brought in by Sir Howard Vincent, Major Rasch, Colonel Brookfield, Mr. Field, and Mr. Seton-Karr.
  MERCHANDISE MARKS ACT (1887) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend the Merchandise Marks Acts, 1887," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 7th March, and to be printed. [Bill 58.]
  CONVEYANCE OF CYCLES.
  Bill to provide greater facilities for the Conveyance of Cycles by Railway in the United Kingdom, ordered to be brought in by Sir Howard Vincent, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, Sir Albert Rollit, and Major Evans-Gordon.
  CONVEYANCE OF CYCLES BILL.
  "To provide greater facilities for the Conveyance of Cycles by Railway in the United Kingdom," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 7th March, and to be printed. [Bill 59.]
  PUBLIC TRUSTEE AND EXECUTOR,
  Bill for the prevention of fraud upon widows and orphans by the appointment of a Public Trustee and Executor, and the amendment of the Judicial Trustees Act, 1896, ordered to be brought in by Sir Howard Vincent, Mr. Henry David Greene, Mr. Howard, and Colonel Tufnell.
  PUBLIC TRUSTEE AND EXECUTOR BILL.
  "For the prevention of fraud upon widows and orphans by the appointment of a Public Trustee and Executor and the amendment of the Judicial Trustees Act, 1896," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 7th March, and to be printed. [Bill 60.]
  TEACHERS OF MUSIC (REGISTRATION).
  Bill for the registration of Teachers of Music, ordered to be brought in by Colonel Brookfield, Mr. Agg-Gardner, Sir William Houldsworth, Mr. Alban Gibbs, Sir John Brunner, and Sir Thomas Roe.
  TEACHERS OF MUSIC (REGISTRATION) BILL.
  "For the registration of Teachers of Music," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 6th March, and to be printed. [Bill 61.]
  BENEFICES.
  Bill to amend the law relating to Ecclesiastical Benefices, ordered to be brought in by Major Rasch, Mr. Vicary Gibbs, Colonel Tufnell, and Mr. Banbury.
  BENEFICES BILL.
  "To amend the law relating to Ecclesiastical Benefices," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 27th March, and to be printed. [Bill 62.]
  MEDICAL ACT (1858) EXTENSION.
  Bill to extend the provisions of the Medical Act, 1858, ordered to be brought in by General Laurie, Mr. Rothschild, Sir Mancherjee Bhownaggree, Colonel Wynd-ham Murray, Sir James Fergusson, and Mr. Middlemore.
  MEDICAL ACT (1858) EXTENSION BILL.
  "To extend the provisions of the Medical Act, 1858," presented, and read the first time; to be read the second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 63.]
  COLONIAL MARRIAGES
  Bill to legalise certain Colonial Marriages, ordered to be brought in by General Laurie, Sir William Dunn, Mr. Lyttelton, Sir Barrington Simeon, Mr. Paulton, Mr. Rothschild, and Captain Jessel.
  COLONIAL MARRIAGES BILL.
  "To legalise certain Colonial Marriages," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 64.]
  WORKMEN'S HOUSES TENURE.
  Bill to make provision with respect to the tenure of the Houses of Workmen in certain employments, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Colville, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Caldwell, and Mr. Bell.
  WORKMEN'S HOUSES TENURE BILL.
  "To make provision with respect to the Tenure of the Houses of Workmen in certain employments," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 65.]
  CHURCH DISCIPLINE.
  Bill to amend the Church Discipline Act, 1840, and the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Charles M'Arthur, Mr. David MacIver, Mr. Mellor, Mr. Seton-Karr, Mr. Brand, and Sir John Willox.
  CHURCH DISCIPLINE BILL.
  "To amend the Church Discipline Act, 1840, and the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 5th June, and to be printed. [Bill 66.]

  ADDRESS IN ANSWER TO HIS MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
  [SEVENTH DAY'S DEBATE.]
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Main Question [14th Feb-

  905
  ruary], "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—
  "Most Gracious Sovereign,
  "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—(Mr. Forster.)
  Question again proposed.

  IRISH GRIEVANCES.
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: I now wish to move the Amendment which stands in my name. What we charge by this Amendment is that there being no real crime in the country you are making crimes of things which are perfectly legitimate. You set off by thanking your stars that the people of Ireland have found a means of carrying into effect popular movements without any of those scenes of bloodshed of which we in this House have often heard, but instead of encouraging the people in exercising their rights by an open and bloodless combination, you are making more plain the principles by which you used to persecute the trade unions of England thirty or forty years ago, before they extorted from this House the recognition that their right of combination was a legitimate right in the eye of the law, and by trumping up charges of conspiracy and of Whiteboyism, you are goading the people into violence. I am quite aware that even in England the right of working men to combine against the selfishness of men of their own class is not yet altogether very secure, but the fact stands that so far as the right of English tradesmen, or even of Irish tradesmen, within the towns to organise a strike, to picket blacklegs, and stand together against them, to expostulate with them and bring their selfishness before their eyes, is now an indisputable right, and this House would no more think of taking anything from this right or of constituting it a crime than they would think of passing an Act against the organisation of working men. But what are you doing, Sir, in Ireland at the present moment—or rather not you, Sir, because you never do know what is
  906
  going on in Ireland, unless murder is going on—but what is the Executive doing in Ireland?
  I do not think it will be contended that the land-grabber in Ireland, who is what the blackleg is in this country, has suffered in life or in limb; or has suffered any greater pain of mind from public opinion than any non-unionist workman in England has to make up his mind to if he has determined to exercise his own selfish right unfairly. Although, instead of shooting landlords and land-grabbers, the farmers of Ireland, the most numerous body of workers in that kingdom, are now adopting a course which the law expressly sanctions in the case of the trade unions of England, that is being treated as a crime. You have meetings dispersed and Members of Parliament assaulted by the police for attempting to address their own constituents; you have enormous fines levied on a perfectly peaceful population by way of extra police charges; and you have these charges of Whiteboyism and conspiracy trumped up against men who are acting in lawful combination in the open light of day, and in order to obtain convictions you have the shameless and unnatural system of "jury packing," and you have men struck at and attempted to be struck down because they have had the courage to raise a public protest against this state of things. That fact, I venture to say, is now admitted, and I do not think that, broadly, the Chief Secretary will attempt to dispute it. If he does, I need not go further to answer him than to quote the charge delivered by his own Lord Chief Justice at the winter assizes for the province of Munster, in which he confesses that there is nothing illegal or criminal in the proceedings of the League which would justify the clamour of the landlords and The Times newspaper for its suppression. Members who sat in former Parliaments will not need to be told who the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland is. I can frankly say that Lord Peter O'Brien has earned a title that will be more enduring than his peerage by his ruthless conduct. Here is the Lord Chief Justice's deliberate verdict on this organisation—
  "It has been said to me, 'Chief Justice, why is not the United Irish League proclaimed as an unlawful organisation.'"

  907
  Fancy the Lord Chief Justice of England being approached by colliery owners or railway directors and pressed to exercise his influence with the Government for the suppression of trade unionism! Lord O'Brien went on to say—
  "Whatever the future may do"—
  and I emphasise that expression—
  "I do not in the slightest degree hesitate in expressing my opinion that there has been no cause for the suppression of the United Irish League as an unlawful organisation."
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: May I ask the date of that?
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: The 6th of last December. Now here is an organisation that has been already in existence for a longer period than the Land League, so that it has been tested by time. It has branches in considerably more than 1,000 of the parishes of the country, in a state of constant activity on the land question, of all others; it has proved its power, I may be allowed to say without offence, at the General Election with a completeness which has never been paralleled. It has succeeded in rousing Ireland on this question and as regards the province of Ulster. I most gladly acknowledge that this has been done mainly by the powerful advocacy of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. It has started and carried on a formidable and irresistible agitation for the abolition of landlordism, and I may say that it has elicited in the first King's Speech a promise, such as it is, of another Land Bill, although two years ago this House was assured that there was no longer an Irish land question, and that an Irish Land Bill would never trouble you more. Such is the magnitude of this organisation and its success; and yet the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, looking back over the past three years with no very friendly eye, with all the confidential information of Dublin Castle at his command, is forced to confess that he can discover no stain of bloodshed, or even of very much minor illegalities, to justify even the most ironclad official in suppressing the tenants' trade union at the demands of the landlords. I could go on to quote charge after charge —Judge Andrew, Judge Johnstone, Judge Murphy, Lord Justice Walker, and several others at assizes after assizes in the county Mayo, which was and is
  908
  the hotbed of the agitation—and all of them testify to the peace of the country and to the disappearance of murder and outrage. The judges would certainly not be the least zealous to avail themselves of any materials for starting one of those great crusades against public liberty of which you have set art example. No amount of testimony could add very much to the weight of the testimony of the Lord Chief Justice. His testimony is, I think unanswerable. We are ready also to prove that at the beginning of this movement a diabolical attempt was made by certain subordinate officials of Dublin Castle—I will put it no higher than that—to seduce members of the League into proceedings of a criminal and murderous kind, and every attempt to bring those miscreants to justice has been to a great extent baffled by Dublin Castle. Notwithstanding the verdict of eleven out of twelve special jurors of Dublin, these miscreants are still in the public service and the public pay. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has any doubts as to the true story of the Mulranny forgery, the crime in the West-port telegraph office, of the incendiarism at Murrisk, of the alleged shooting of Mr. Vesey Stoney, and other transactions of that kind, there is an easy way of testing it. Let him close with the demand for the full and searching investigation which the county councils and the district councils are making in every shape and form. Let him choose his own tribunal. Let him have a Select Committee of this House if he pleases, and let them probe and search into every circumstance connected with the origin and the conduct of this movement, the conduct of the people, the landlords, the land-grabbers, and the police officials.
  Let us set at rest once for all on which side lies the criminality. The House will remember that a similar inquiry as to the Land League was thrust down our throats in this House at the time of the Parnell Commission, with results that perhaps were not calculated to encourage similar adventures on the part of the Government. We did not ask for the Parnell Commission. It was forced upon us by brute force. You thought your opportunity had come for dealing a deadly-blow at the Irish party. We demand an inquiry now. All the representative

  909
  bodies in Ireland have been demanding it for the last eighteen months. I presume that the right hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh will make himself heard presently. i should like to hear from him why his friends the landlords and The Times newspaper, who are crying out for the suppression of the League, will not submit their charges and allegations to such a test, and see whether they are going to fare better with the Mulranny forgery than with the Pigott forgery. We are eager for inquiry, and anxious that the tribunal should be as sweeping as possible. It is not granted, because both we and our opponents know perfectly well that the result would be such a flood of light on the necessity for the movement, upon its lawfulness, and upon the foulness of the weapons employed against it, that it would be impossible for landlordism or the police establishment of Ireland to survive the investigation. If the Chief Secretary shirks such an investigation as was forced upon us at the time of the 'Parnell Commission, I think everybody will know the reason for it. Apart altogether from the certificate passed by the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, I think we will be entitled to take it for granted that the opponents of the League have thrown up the sponge, and that there is no longer any possibility of imputing to the League anything illegal in its procedure. We hear charges of conspiracy, Whiteboyism, and intimidation. "Intimidation" is one of those meaningless, intangible terms that can never be denied because it can never be defined; and you have come to this pass in Ireland—that the ridiculous term "intimidation" now represents practically the only form of agrarian crime. The Chief Justice, in the speech in which he holds the legality of the League methods, told us there were 651 evicted farms in Minister, of which more than 150 were altogether derelict; that is, as he explained, abandoned by both landlord and tenant; the landlord is not able to stock them, apparently, and no person can be got to take them. The Lord Chief Justice shook his head, as if that was a very grave state of things. So it is for the rack-renting, evicting landlords, but so long as there is no crime, what business is it of the judge if evicting landlords cannot find
  910
  men to take their farms? Can you imagine a case of an English judge—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I must remind the hon. Member that by the rules of this House disrespectful criticism of judges is not allowed.
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: I am quite willing to respect your ruling, Sir, though my respect does not extend in other directions. I am trying to speak, not of the conduct of the judges, but of the extra-judicial conduct of persons who happen to be judges. Beyond a doubt, there is an extensive and great combination in Ireland at present against the taking of evicted farms and the monopoly of grazing ranches. We do not in the least desire to shirk the fact; we glory in it. I ask you, if the League appeals, as I am glad to say it does appeal, and successfully, to the agricultural classes in Ireland for their own protection from extermination to combine against, and by every honest weapon to discountenance the taking of farms from which their poor comrades have been evicted in consequence of inability to pay acknowledged unjust and excessive rents—in God's name, where is the crime? What form of trade unionism can be more legitimate, or what right have Crown officials in Dublin Castle to espouse the cause of one particular side in any dispute? It is the old incorrigible idea that is rooted in the mind of every Dublin Castle official, and which is at the root of all your misgovernment in Ireland—the idea that they are there not to preserve life or limb or to see fair play for the people, but to collect the landlords' rents for them, and to fight tooth and nail to encourage grabbers to take these evicted farms, and then to make heroes and gods of them. I think you will find that so powerful is that feeling among your officials that they actually believe that the situation is always far more difficult to deal with when there is no crime going on in Ireland; and they are puzzled and embarrassed and have a grievance when they find a great and powerful combination going on against land-grabbing just as bloodlessly and peacefully as any strike ever went on in England. For want of real crime they are trying to manufacture bogus crimes, and hence these charges. But if these prosecutions be got up for that purpose, and succeed in intimidating

  911
  the people from holding their open meetings, passing their resolutions, and expressing public opinion honestly and manfully, before six months are over we shall be driven back to the days of old.
  Let me give one or two instances of these artificially Castle - manufactured crimes in Ireland. The editor and proprietor of the Kilkenny People were prosecuted at the last assizes for Whiteboyism, and most desperate attempts I were made to pack the jury. I do not know whether Gentlemen listening to me are aware that these Whiteboy Acts wore passed to deal with a state of things generations ago when vast bodies of armed men clad in white shirts and with their faces blackened used to roam through the country at night, shooting, burning, cutting off men's ears, burying them alive up to their chins, and so on. One would have thought these two journalists had been caught red-handed in some desperate midnight fray, or at all events that there was a charge of physical violence; but their only crime was that in the ordinary way of business they published in their newspaper without a word of comment a resolution of the local branch of the League condemning a man who had taken an evicted farm, and appealing to his neighbours to give him no countenance in business as long as he retained that farm. It was not contended for one instant that the resolution had been the means of causing any violence or danger of violence, or that it caused even any greater pain of mind than, say, for instance, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham feels, or ought to feel, every morning when he opens any organ of public opinion from any part of the civilised world outside England. These two I respectable journalists, who confined themselves to publishing a bona fide report of an important public body, whose legality the Government has never dared to question, would at the present moment have been undergoing the fate of Whiteboy marauders but for the fact that luckily the job was too much for even a selected jury. I venture to ask any Englishman in this House if there is a shadow of reality in the cry of equal rights between the two peoples? Can you imagine such a thing happening to an English newspaper? I venture to say that this was a case, not of journal-
  912
  istic Whiteboyism but of Dublin Castle blackguardism. Another case of these bogus crimes was in county Kerry, where nine respectable farmers were tried at the last assizes for conspiracy and for writing-threatening letters, and were actually convicted by a packed jury and sentenced to two months imprisonment with hard labour. In the agrarian history of Kerry, what is always meant by a threatening letter was some dastardly communication ornamented with a coffin and a death's-head and crossbones, and threatening the man to whom it was sent with some cruel form of assassination. What are the facts on which these farmers are charged with that abominable crime? The learned judge who tried them complimented them in the dock as highly respectable farmers, and not of the class of moonlighters or murderers. During the years of disorganisation before the League was started a poor creature named Kangley had been evicted from a wretched tract of bog, and a neighbour named Seanlan had taken it. When the League was started, this poor man's case and the amount of parish disturbance it caused became a subject of discussion by the branch, and the poor man appealed to the branch of the League and stated his own side of the case; and the League in order to be perfectly fair and impartial, wrote a letter to the grabber acquainting him with the fact that they had been appealed to for an expression of opinion, and stating that they were quite ready to hear his side of the case before coming to any decision. Now listen to this terrible document—
  "DEAR; SIR,—I have to inform you that a complaint has been lodged before the Lixnaw branch of the United Irish League in reference to some land which it is alleged you have taken, and I am directed by the members to request your attendance at a meeting to be held next Sunday so that inquiries may be made into the matter.—Yours truly, J. J. JOYCE, Hon. Secretary."
  It was that civil and friendly letter—[Ministerial laughter and Irish cheers.] Would not the hon. and gallant Member have supposed that that was really a mild kind of letter ten years ago? It was a perfectly civil letter. It was sent through the open post, signed by the officer of the branch, and that was the threatening letter for which these respectable farmers in Kerry were dragged before a packed jury. Remember this,

  913
  Mr. Speaker; it was proved at the trial that Scanlan had himself invoked the arbitration of the United Irish League. In his own evidence at the trial he stated that he would allow his case to come before the League, and have it settled there if it could be done. He did not suggest there was any threat used against him. His wife was a servant in the police barracks. That was the secret of the whole conspiracy. "Witness would never have rendered up the letter, but the sergeant came for it." In response to that letter, as a matter of fact, Scanlan turned up before the League. The whole thing was discussed. He made a certain offer, which was discussed, but the evicted tenant did not consider it sufficient, and there the matter ended. Scanlan did not become popular with his neighbours. I should like to know why he should? It is the insane greed of men like him that is the cause of all the follies of the landlords as well as all the miseries of the tenants. But it was not contended for a moment that the slightest violence was offered to him, or even that he fell out with the League because they failed to patch up this business. On the contrary, the very counsel for the Crown who opened the case actually warned the jury not to believe the sworn testimony of the grabber. He said Scanlan would now probably appear before them and rejoice in the League, and lick the hands that were lifted against him. That is the statement of the Crown, whose particular witness this man is. Now, I again ask Englishmen, if this letter had been written by some secretary of a trade union in England, inviting a brother workman to discuss terms of settlement with his society, would it be tolerated for the officer of such a society to be called up and tried before a packed jury on this base and dishonourable charge of threatening-letter writing, for which charge there was infinitely less foundation than, if I am in order in saying it, Mr. Speaker, if the majority of this House at the present moment were indicted for wilful murder and highway robbery in South Africa. Well, notwithstanding that these nine men were complimented by the very judge who sentenced them, they are brought away from their own county to Cork, and in Cork, where there is a population of 396,000 Catholics to 35,000
  914
  Protestants, an exclusively Protestant and Unionist jury was empanelled to try them. Pray listen to the string of true blue Anglo-Saxon names that by some extraordinary necromancy got into the box in Catholic and Nationalist Cork—Thomas Upward, Francis Duke, Francis William De Vere, Robert Parkhill, Alfred C. Murphy, Hasker Moonhead. Now listen to the unfortunate Gaelie Nationalists in that city, where there are 396,000 Catholics to 35,000 Protestants. Listen to what happened, and hear the names of the Catholic Gaels who were ordered by the Crown to stand by as men unfit for credence—O'Shee, Morissey—[Ministerial laughter.] Yes, I hear a laugh from the other side. Does the hon. Member object to people with these strong names? It is easy to order Catholic Nationalists to stand by in the Cork jury box. You do not ask their Gaelic comrades to stand by in South Africa, where, unfortunately, they saved you from being driven into the sea. Let me go on and offend hon. Gentlemen still further for a moment, if they will permit me, with a few more of these offensive Gaelic names—Morissey, Callory, Mori-arty, Murphy, Mahony, Hogan, ONeil, etc. I do not wish to detain the House. Forty-three of these Gaelic Nationalists were ordered to stand aside. In a community in which the Catholics are 396,000 to 35,000 Protestants, a jury as exclusively Protestant and Unionist as if selected by the local branch of the Landlords' Union was empanelled. The result of these men's honest attempt to patch up this dangerous parish dispute was that they were sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour as threatening letter-writers. They attempted arbitration. You have as strong an objection to arbitration in Kerry as you have in South Africa. God forbid that the results should be equally bloody, but I tell you that if you had not the organisation and the power of the League to restrain the people, the result of such a lesson as that would be to teach hot-headed men that it is a safer and more effective course to address a volley of slugs to the land grabber than a simple letter. If that turned out to be the case I have no hesitation in saying it is the Government and Gentlemen on the other side who support it who would be the greater criminals of the two.

  915
  Now I mention the subject of jury packing in Cork and Kerry, and you would suppose that if ever there was a subject on which public opinion was entitled to make itself heard in Ireland it was this miserable juggling with the sacred right of trial. Under this system it is really no exaggeration to say that the Crown official can get his twelve "reliables" to do his work with as absolute power as a military officer can pick out a firing party to carry out a military sentence. Unfortunately the Gaelic Catholic has no more chance against such a system than the Christians had against Nero's tigers in the Roman amphitheatre. I ask Englishmen again what would be their feelings—I ask the hon. Member for South Belfast what would be his feeling if the seven bishops were to be tried in London to-morrow morning by a jury composed exclusively of Irish Catholics, and if The Times newspaper was to be suppressed the following morning for daring to make a comment upon it.
  Now do you think that we have no feelings? I tell you that parallel things are going on in Ireland at the present moment, and they are apt to make Irishmen's blood boil with shame. You are not content with stripping our poor people of arms, but we are to be disarmed even of the right of making a protest in the public press against the infamy of the present course of action of the Government. Let me give the latest case. It occurred in the county of Sligo, where there is a population of 90,000 Catholics and only 10,000 Protestants. A jury, as usual exclusively composed of Unionists and Protestants, was empannelled and sent two Catholic Nationalists to gaol for six months with hard labour for making speeches at a public meeting. My hon. friend the Member for North Leitrim, and who is also mayor for Sligo, is the proprietor of the principal newspaper in the district. He felt it his duty in common decency and in common manhood to write an article in his newspaper protesting against the foul methods by which his brother Catholics were excluded from juries—in strong terms, no doubt, but in scarcely more passionate terms than were employed by the Catholic bishop of the district, the Bishop of Elphin, who wrote in denunciation of
  916
  this intolerable insult to every man who has a drop of Catholic blood in his veins. My friend was instantly prosecuted. As usual, he was not tried at home, but was dragged away to Dublin, and by a grim stroke of Castle irony this gentleman, whose crime was that he had simply suggested the existence of jury-packing, was himself, in his own case, treated to a most striking exemplification of the reality and iniquity of that practice. Out of a couple of dozen jurors who were available, thirteen Catholics were, even in Dublin, ordered to stand by by the Crown. I am glad to say that the enlightened Protestants of Dublin are beginning to revolt against this outrageous insult of constituting them the executioners-in-ordinary of their own fellow-countrymen. It is too much for them, and but for their disagreement my friend would be now suffering imprisonment for suggesting that these was such a thing as jury-packing. The scandal did not stop there, though nobody ever dreamed that it would lead to a second trial. It was contrary to all precedent in cases of the kind. When the Land League leaders were tried under the same system in 1881 the jury disagreed, but nothing more was said about it. I was prosecuted myself in the Campaign time for conspiracy, and the jury disagreed, and of course the case was never heard of again. When the Freeman's Journal, the principal Nationalist paper in the country, published an article on the Sligo case protesting that jury-packing had been exemplified in that case, instantly the Crown turned their attention to that journal, and to another great metropolitan newspaper, the Dublin Evening Telegraph. This time, however, they did not resort to trial by even a packed jury—they are beginning to be afraid of and distrust packed juries even in Dublin—but they resorted to that miserable, dishonest pretext, contempt of court, on the ground that comment had been made upon a case which was still sub judice. These two newspapers were attached by the Court, and Heaven only knows what penalties will follow. I ask you to remember for a moment the different links in this chain that is being coiled round public opinion in Ireland. First, the poor local men sent to gaol for six

  917
  months; second, my hon. friend tried by a packed jury for stating that there was such a thing as a packed jury; and finally the two metropolitan journals committed under the arbitrary power of contempt of court because they had attempted to raise a public protest against the way in which their comrades of the provincial press were being persecuted and strangled in the performance of a public duty.
  I have sometimes heard people talk of Irishmen being too passionate and violent. I think if there is any great fault—personally I admit that it is possible we have our faults—but if there is any striking fault in our national character, I am afraid it is that we bear too much, and bear it too tamely, and only that you have taken care to disarm us, as if we were a tribe of Hottentots, we would sometimes be inclined—I certainly would—to follow the example of those two little Republics in South Africa who have resisted and chastised your insolence and tyranny. It is of vital importance to remember that this kind of thing has been going on for years and years in Ireland, and it is necessary to bring a knowledge of the facts to the attention of this House. Then there was a case where the principal inhabitants of a peaceful little village were indicted for conspiracy because the local branch of the United Irish League took cognisance of a case of land grabbing. Why in Heaven's name not take cognisance of it, if Irish public opinion is to be allowed expression at all? Is there any pretence of crime here? There has not been a crime committed in the district for the last three years. Indeed, it will have to be admitted that in all these cases crime neither follows nor accompanies the proceedings of the League, with one or two exceptions, for which the League is not in the smallest degree responsible. Now, the grabber himself in his evidence said he came to Tallow as a poor friendless boy, and that he had made his wealth out of the small farmers, and also by gambling on the Stock Exchange. In all these grabbing cases, or almost all of them, the grabbers are either small shopkeepers who have made their money out of the peasants, or pensioners of the police who use the public money to plunder their neighbours. These are the men whose names it is deliberately held to be a crime even to whisper in
  918
  public. Well, a respectable Protestant family on the estate of the Duke of Devonshire was evicted and the holding grabbed, and the local branch of the League very properly took up the case and attempted to bring public opinion to bear upon it.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): The hon. Gentleman must be aware that the case he is now commenting upon is sub judice, and that the men will be tried. It is unusual to comment on such cases in this House.
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: I will at once bow to your decision, Mr. Speaker, if you first hear me as to the point whether these men are really returned for trial at all; for I hold that they are not.
  MR. SPEAKER: If it is correct, as the Attorney General says, that this matter is still sub judice, that is to say that legal proceedings upon it are pending, it is not desirable to comment upon it.
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: What I want to point out is, that there were four magistrates on the bench, two paid and two unpaid; and that there was an even division as soon as the evidence was-completed. According to all precedents-the prosecution ought to have failed, and therefore there would be no case of sub judice. These paid magistrates deliberately overrode the verdict of the two unpaid magistrates, and committed the men for trial.
  MR. SPEAKER: The fact is that these men are now awaiting trial, and the hon. Member must not comment upon the case.
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: I have nowhere else to speak; but I pass on to another phase of my argument. Why should not Irish peasants have the same right of combination that English and even Irish tradesmen have? I want to know, in the next place, what are these guilty practices that are carried on by these branches of the United Irish League which are not carried on under another name by trade unions all over the country? You may call it black-balling or picketing here in England, that which you are pleased to call boycotting in Ireland, but it is precisely the same thing. It is sheer cant and dishonesty. None of us like it, but every one of us practises-

  919
  it—every trade union, profession, and club. It is human nature and will last as long as human nature. Members of the League in Ireland have suffered more than the Afrikanders' peace delegates, having been obliged to fly for their lives, and having been hunted from post to pillar, and even denied the shelter of their homes. The House will remember that the only observation that the First Lord of the Treasury' had to offer by way of comfort was that there really was a limit to human patience, but that is a remark which is equally applicable to Ireland; and I venture to say that the man who in the most sordid selfishness stands between a whole people and their country is the greatest tax on human patience that ever existed. We came here to serve you but we will yet be your destruction. I remember a few weeks ago the Chief Secretary, in response to a courteous invitation to speak at the trade union office, took a most sympathetic line as to their claim for the right of combination. Yet at the same moment, or very soon afterwards, his police in Ireland were guilty of making armed raids on the organised union of the country, and having men tried by packed juries because they exercised temperance in their language, and because they combine, as they have a right to do, and as they will do whether you like it or not, to obtain their lands on such conditions as will give them a living wage.
  The Irish trade unions do not represent more than 20,000 men. This League represents 500,000 farmers and labourers, who, with their families, represent three-fourths of the population. And the objects which it seeks to obtain are strictly fair and just. As to one of those objects, the abolition of landlordism in Ireland, you had last night a demonstration that that object is supported by nine-tenths of the representatives of Ireland in this House; even hon. M embers sitting on the Government side. I venture to say that it is of greater consequence to the people than any reform ever submitted to this House. Again, as to the second object of the League—to which the Chief Secretary last night made an allusion, in regard to which I hope I make no mistake in believing it to be a friendly one—the object to parcel out the vast grazing lands among the people. Plenty of those
  920
  lands are lying derelict, whilst the poor starved cottagers huddle together on their confines hungering for them. This object is so great, so inevitable, that there is a department of the Government at the present moment engaged in carrying out the programme of the League, although at so miserable a snail's pace that it will take centuries to make any impression upon the mass of misery that has to be dealt with.
  I think the Chief Secretary will admit that up to the present, for reasons which he will understand, he has met with more sympathetic consideration in Ireland than perhaps any Chief Secretary who has gone before him, with the exception of the right hon. Member for Montrose. But the time has come when he will have to make up his mind for good or ill what he is going to do. It will not do to tell us that Ireland is being governed under the ordinary laws—that is a sophistry and a fraud on England and Ireland alike. As evil and as arbitrary things as ever turned the constitution of England against its own Government are going on now in Ireland. You have not done anything yet except under compulsion, but you will hear of these things every week of your lives so long as the power of free speech is left to us. If the Chief Secretary has made up his mind to lapse into the old condition of things, of having concessions sandwiched with coercion, and allowing his adherents in Ireland to indulge in the noble pastime of harrying the people, what will be our procedure in this session and the sessions to come? It will be obstructive. If the right hon. Gentleman intends to go in for coercion, it will be manly for him to bring along his Coercion Act in all its atrocity, and then we can have the issue fairly and squarely discussed. If the Government persist in their present policy of suppression and attempting to drive discontent beneath the surface, there will be two courses open to the Irish Members. From the selfish point of view, the easiest course for all of us will he to abandon the field to the secret societies, and let the landlords and the land-grabbers take the consequences; that will probably be the easiest, and I am sorry to be obliged to say it would perhaps be the more effective course to arouse England to a knowledge of the desperate condition of the

  921
  people; but I for one will not give up without a fight the position we have won for our people of doing everything which Englishmen have a right to do. The Chief Secretary can still give effect if he chooses to allowing the overpowering view of the people being known without bloodshed, without secrecy, or without anything else which would make honest men hang their heads with shame. And if open agitation in Ireland is to be preserved, it will have to be preserved not by putting our necks under the yoke of the men who are doing these things that are going on in Ireland, but by resisting them and putting them down at no matter what cost of trouble or of liberty. We will not allow simple village people to be strangled and garrotted silently. We will hold no truce with these land-grabbers. We will not bend the knee to his Worship the Mayor—a new stage religion—to creatures whose trade no doubt is quite as strictly legal as that of the hangman, and which is equally repulsive. You will not succeed in muzzling the press in Ireland or in silencing the outcry against you, or if you have to do it, it will have to be pronounced by your judges. You will have to go very much further than suppressing an occasional meeting or making a dead set on some obscure village hamlet in some remote part. The right hon. Gentleman will have to bring his Coercion Act along if he means to persist in suppressing our national aspirations. It is the magistrates and the county councillors of Ireland that it would be wise for you to conciliate.
  I do not know whether it will be made a new case of conspiracy and intimidation against us if we tell the right hon. Gentleman this plainly now. He is young and ardent, and, judging from his onslaught on the hon. Members for Waterford and South Tyrone last night, he rejoices at the scent of battle, and is ready to act the part of the strong man. He must take his own course, and we shall take ours. The Irish Members are fighting for the only remedy that can be suggested for the unnatural and accursed system by which the people of Ireland are being killed off, and we have only to look back on the history of any coercion struggle in Ireland to feel fairly confident that this House will yet acknowledge that we were right all
  922
  along, and will proceed to apply the remedy, as usual, too late. I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
  MR. BURKE: As an entirely new Member of this House, I should have preferred, under ordinary circumstances, to have found another time for speaking upon this subject, but I realise that we are not assembled here under ordinary circumstances. The Amendment proposed by my hon. friend the Member for Cork raises definitely this issue, that while you have already spent £100,000,000 on the South African War, and are continuing to spend at the rate of £1,500,000 per week—the war having arisen out of the questions of the franchise and local government—here, over the Channel, within a few hours journey of London, you have a part of His Majesty's Empire commonly called Ireland, where the most ordinary rights and liberties with which the people of England have been familiar for generations are practically at the mercy of the local resident magistrate or policeman who takes upon himself to deal with them.
  I feel all the more bound to associate myself with the protest raised by the hon, Member for Cork in view of the fact that I have had the honour of taking some active share in promoting the organisation for whose rights and liberties he has so eloquently pleaded to-night. I am in a position to speak with knowledge as to the progress and growth of the United Irish League movement. I have been north, east, south, and west, I saw the birth of the movement, I saw its rapid growth, and I saw its final triumph. I saw also some of the scenes of intolerable petty despotism and tyranny and bloodshed on the part of the police by which the progress of the movement was constantly marked. I would respectfully point out to hon. Members opposite that there is one right which the English people are famous for being extremely jealous of— the right of public meeting. It is not many years ago that a London mob tore down the railings of the park that was closed against a reform meeting. Still fewer years ago is it that the career of the Commissioner of Police for London was virtually terminated by his interference with the right of meeting in Trafalgar

  923
  Square. In that case the Commissioner was acting strictly within his technical rights. He was acting strictly within an Act of Parliament, and he was admittedly acting under considerable provocation, for after a previous meeting in Trafalgar Square a band of ruffians went looting shops right, left, and centre; but in spite of that the people of London did not recognise the proclamation of that meeting in Trafalgar Square, and you had a desperate riot for hours. You had the Riot Act read, and you had Sir Charles Warren's popularity in London gone for ever. He was hooted when he endeavoured to address a public meeting, he was lampooned on every music-hall stage in the metropolis, and he was forced to resign the high post which he held. But our case in the matter of the police is this. You have first of all the vice-regal proclamation of a public meeting, and then you have the proclamation signed by the resident magistrate. I think Ireland is the only part of the three kingdoms where the police barracks keep a stock of forms of proclamation with blank spaces left to fill in the dates and the names of the places. But, worse than that, there has been another development of this interference with public meeting, and there are hon. Members among my colleagues who have bad personal experience of it. It is the case where a head constable, without even a proclamation or a warrant of any sort whatever, either from the Lord Lieutenant or the resident magistrate, takes on himself to draw a cordon of police across the highway, and to order men like the hon. Member for South Mayo off the streets like dogs, telling them that they have not got the right of public meeting oven in their own constituencies.
  If I am not wearying the House. I should like to give a couple of cases in my own personal experience. I was announced to address a meeting at a place called Kerrygale, half an hour's drive outside Dunmore, Donegal. I was informed the night before by District Inspector Moore that the meeting was proclaimed. I need hardly say I did not pay the least attention to that. In fact I have reason to know that I narrowly escaped prosecution for my lack of respect for the law on that occasion. We were treated to every insolence and
  924
  violence on that occasion. We were blocked right, left, and centre, wild hands were laid upon us by District Inspector Moore, and efforts were made to drag us from the car in which we were driving to address the meeting; but in the end we did address not one meeting but two or three into the bargain. This petty tyranny is not even consistent in its operation, because while it was proposed to prevent us addressing a meeting at Kerrygale, where there was an agrarian dispute, we were not allowed to address a meeting in the chapel yard at Dunmore, and yet, when I went down on another occasion, although the agitation was still going ahead, not the slightest interference was offered to our proceedings. I wish to say a few words from the trade union point of view. We contend that it is as lawful and as moral for an Irish Member, or any Irish leader of opinion, whether newspaper editor or speaker from a public platform, to counsel the boycott of a farm from which a man has been evicted as it is for an English labour leader to advocate the boycotting of a job from which trade unionists have been expelled, and indeed, if we enter into comparisons at all, the comparison is in favour of what is called the "blackleg" or the "scab," as against what we call the "landgrabber." In England the "blackleg" or the "scab" may at least plead that he has a wife and children who are in want, and that to obtain food he is only taking up the job another man has deliberately laid down; whereas in Ireland, as has been property pointed out in the course of the debate, the landgrabber is a man who in 99 cases out of 100 has no plea of want or necessity, but who, on the contrary, is a well-to-do man with money at the bank. He comes there for a money-making purpose, and enters himself as a thorn in the side of a peaceful community. But we shall hear no doubt in the course of this debate the stock argument used in Ireland when these meetings are proclaimed, that, in the words of the proclamation generally issued against them, they "will or may cause boycotting and intimidation." I respectfully submit that in the course of your cab strike in London you had more intimidation and violence—more brutal violence, too—than you have had in the whole of the years of the United

  925
  Irish League. I would like to know, if in the heat of the bitterest fight in England, any responsible labour leader were to go to address a meeting a of strikers, even although the meeting were to be held at the gates of the, dock or the factory where the strike was going on, public opinion in this country would tolerate armed interference with him—with, say the hon. Member for Battersea—on the plea that the meeting he was announced to address might or would lead to boycotting?
  I think what has occurred is a striking illustration of the effectiveness with which the United Irish League is helping on the system of land purchase, even of voluntary land purchase, which is so highly commended as against compulsory land purchase by hon. Members on the other side of the I louse. For many months there raged a fierce agrarian dispute in the Abbeyfield district of county Limerick, but the United Irish League fought for the tenants' right to purchase their farms on equitable terms, and, as usual, the League won in the end. When the purchase was completed, a meeting was addressed by the parish priest: and what was the statement he made? He said that out of the 23,000 acres of land in the parish more than 16,000 had now been purchased, a distinction of which few parishes in Ireland could boast, and it came of the vigorous movement of the United Irish League in the district.
  I do not propose. Sir, to abuse at any great length the indulgence extended to me as a new Member of this House. I wish to associate myself emphatically with the protest against what is called the system of jury-packing in Ireland. If the English people saw in assize after assize, and in case after case, every Wesleyan or every Baptist ordered to stand by, I think they would conclude that something like a very insidious insulting, and deadly religious, as well as political, persecution was being carried on. I speak myself as a Protestant: I was born one, and in all human probability I shall die one: but I hope I shall die as I shall live, without labouring under the impression or pretending to believe that my Catholic neighbour is a born liar who is not fit to be trusted on his oath. This is no sentimental grievance. The facts brought before the House by
  926
  the hon. Member for Cork conclusively prove that there is a steadfast assumption by the Crown, whenever its law officers can make that assumption felt, that every Roman Catholic is ipso facto a man not to be trusted on his oath, who cannot be trusted to do justice between man and man, but who may fairly be subjected to the inconvenience of being compelled to attend on summons, under penalty of heavy fine, and to the ignominy of being told to stand by for the benefit of an exclusively Protestant and Unionist jury.
  In conclusion, I would earnestly plead that it is, to say the least, an anachronism that when we see South Africa drenched in blood and tears, and laid waste with fire and sword, for a complaint about the alleged over taxation and under representation of a gold mining community—that while this is done under the plea of equal rights for all men and liberty for all subjects of the King, within a day's journey of this capital you have a part of His Majesty's dominions labouring under a tyranny and injustice that would make Radical to the backbone the most true-blue Tory county in England if it was practised on that county. I would further plead that Irishmen are not to be told that they are treacherous or unpatriotic because they cannot rejoice in the victories or mourn over the defeats of a Government which imposes upon them a code of law alien to the best traditions of the law that the English people enjoy, and which deprives them of those rights of combination, free speech, and public meeting by which alone the liberties of England itself have been secured and improved for generations. I beg to second the Amendment.
  Amendment proposed—
  "At the end of the question to add the words. 'Humbly to represent to Your Majesty that this House has observed that a combination of the agricultural classes in Ireland has been formed, under the name of the United Irish League, with the object of accomplishing reforms which alone, in the opinion of nine-tenths of the constitutional representatives of Ireland, can arrest the continued depopulation of that country and the decay of its only great national industry. These reforms being, first, the creation of an occupying proprietary in substitution for the present unsettled and vexatious system of dual ownership of land; and, secondly, the utilisation of extensive tracts, at present lying practically waste in the congested districts, for the purpose of supplying holdings of sufficient extent to a

  927
  hard working and deserving population, who for want of land are compelled to live in a condition of chronic privation and even famine on the borders of those fertile depopulated areas; that the movement which has been carried on for the past three years for the promotion of these objects has been marked by the disappearance of those crimes of violence and secret conspiracies which were used to the discredit of all former agrarian combinations in Ireland, and the League, basing itself on the principle that its struggle is in the nature of a great economic industrial dispute between the tillers of the soil on the one side and the rent-owners supported by a vast capital and territorial influence on the other, has relied for success upon those combinations for mutual protection and appeals to public opinion which the trades union laws have expressly authorised in the case of disputes between capital and labour of a non-agricultural character; that, nevertheless, this House has observed that the forces of the frown have been unconstitutionally employed, and public justice has been polluted in the interest of one of the parties to the dispute; that the right of public meeting has been capriciously suppressed; that prosecutions for conspiracy and Whiteboyism have been instituted in reference to open and advised appeals to public opinion and measures of mutual protection, which are indisputably within the right of trades unions in ordinary industrial struggles; that the power of contempt of court has been unconstitutionally and oppressively abused for the purpose of inflicting prolonged sentences of imprisonment without trial; that the right of trial by jury has been outraged by the systematic exclusion from the jury box of all jurors sharing the politics or creed of the accused, and the empannelling of juries composed exclusively of sympathisers with the territorial class; that the liberty of the press in Ireland has been assailed, and influential organs of opinion prosecuted in the endeavour to silence public comment on this iniquitous system; that grievous and vindictive tines have been exacted from districts obnoxious to the landlord interest by means of charges for extra police quartered upon peaceful populations, and that the people of Ireland have been subjected to divers others the like cruel oppressions and provocations. And humbly to represent to Your Majesty that it being of the highest constitutional import to encourage the Irish people to seek the redress of their grievances by the fullest freedom of speech and of combination which is warranted by the example of the trades unions of Great Britain, this House is of opinion that the attacks at present directed by the Executive against the rights of free speech and of combination in Ireland should cease, and that the legislation protecting the trades unions in the exercise of their rights of combination against capital and non-union labour should be extended to all agricultural combinations of a similar character in that country."—(Mr. William O'Brien.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  MR. O'DOHERTY: After the two very able and eloquent
  928
  speeches delivered from these benches in support of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork, I feel as if it would be beating the air for me to reiterate any of the arguments used by either of the hon. Gentlemen. Both of these Gentlemen spoke of their experience in jury-packing as practised in the provinces of Minister, Leinster, and Connaught. I intend to speak of jury-packing in the province with which the right hon. the Attorney-General for Ireland and myself are more intimately acquainted than we are with any of these other provinces. As one residing all my lifetime in or about the city of Londonderry, and having had a large and rather varied experience of the criminal courts in Ulster as at present constituted, I feel it my duty to give to this House, and especially hon. Members from England and Scotland, some of my experiences in jury-packing as it is practised in Ulster.
  Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present (Mr. JOHN CAMPBELL). House counted, and, forty Members being found present—
  MR. O'DOHERTY(continuing): I was referring to the fact that my experience of the maladministration of the law was confined practically to Ulster. Now, I do not intend to detain the House with statistics or with reports, true though they may be, which I have read in the columns of the daily press in Ireland with reference to the provinces other than Ulster. I will try to confine myself to my own experience on these two counts of jury-packing and maladministration of the law. The hon. Member for Cork referred to the fact that not a single Catholic was allowed to sit upon any jury in trials lately held in Connaught, Minister, or Leinster. That may be made an argument by the Treasury Bench that no Catholic sitting on a jury in these provinces would commit an Irishman charged with an offence which they believed did not lie under English laws, and an offence for which no man could be convicted in this country; but if this is the law in Minister, Leinster, and Connaught, why is it not the law in Ulster? In the case of a man tried there for an offence, do the Crown call upon any Orangemen to stand aside?

  929
  No; with the result that at a trial held some time ago in Londonderry, where one or two men were put into the dock, and where the charge was conclusively brought home, the Orangeman was acquitted by his brother Orangemen in the jury box. So glaring was the injustice that the worthy judge who presided at that trial said, "That may be your verdict, but you will not get twelve men in the whole of the United Kingdom to agree with you." After that instance of maladministration that goes on in Londonderry, in after years did the Crown, when Orangemen were being tried for party offences, order the Orangemen whose names appeared in the jury panel to stand aside? Certainly not Why? Because these Orange gentlemen are the leaders of Unionist public opinion in that constituency which is represented by the hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, and if the law was administered in Ulster as in the other provinces—the law for which he is responsible—this House would lose a brilliant ornament. Mere papists in Munster, Leinster, Connaught, and Ulster can never do any good at Parliamentary elections, and their feelings are accordingly never respected. Take the constituency which I have the honour to represent. North Donegal forms a portion of a county which was admitted, in answer to a question put by me a few nights ago to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, to be the most crimeless county in the three kingdoms. Yet the greater portion of the county is proclaimed under the Peace Preservation Act; but the remarkable fact is that that portion of the county which is not proclaimed is situated in East Donegal, a division in which the Unionists have the only chance whatever of capturing the seat, and the reason for it, to me, is as plain as a pikestaff. It is because there are a large number of Unionists inhabiting that district. Yet that portion which is not proclaimed has been proved to have far more crime in proportion to its population than the other seven-eighths of the county. The only conclusion we can form, therefore, is that the Government has not proclaimed this district in order to pander to the wishes of the Orange leaders. Going further towards the
  930
  south, some months ago in the town of Portadown, in the constituency of North Armagh, a defenceless body of Catholic youths, lead by their pastor, went to Bundoran on an excursion. After a short service in the church they started on their way to the railway station, and on their way they were set upon by the Orange roughs of the district, and some of them were butchered even nearly to death. Was a single man brought to justice for that outrage? Not one. No doubt a few were asked to appear before the magistrate sitting in petty sessions in that town, and show cause why they should not be bound over to keep the peace; but what was the result? They proved an alibi, although the most conclusive evidence was produced that they were guilty, and in that case not a single man was convicted beyond a few monetary fines. These facts were reported to Dublin Castle, and a demand was made by the Catholic people of that district that a Royal Commission should be appointed to inquire into the maladministration of justice in that town, with the result that the gentlemen who animate Dublin Castle did not deign to send a reply to the people and the Catholic pastor of that town.
  With reference to the United Irish League, the hon. Member for North Derry is probably aware of the fact that it has spread in his own constituency, as in every other, and I have no doubt whatever, after what has occurred this evening, and on other occasions, the League is bound to gain ground in Ulster, where Protestant and Orange farmers will join it, with the result that hon. Members opposite, who have always to do so, will have to obey the behest of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, and vote for the Government against the wishes of their constituents. The First Lord of the Treasury might adopt with success the practice adopted in China, and send a silken rope to each of these gentlemen, with the request that they would commit political suicide. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, who is responsible for the government of that country to this House, boasted some weeks ago that he was half an Irishman. I would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to remember that his ancestors have sympathised with the

  931
  people, helped them in their troubles, and sympathised with their grievances, and I would appeal to him to embrace the opportunity now offered from these benches, in the present state of affairs in Ireland, to reform the maladministration of Dublin Castle of which we go much complain. By granting the claims of Ireland, he will put an end for ever to the interminable conflict that has gone on for the last century, and by administering the laws in Ireland in the way in which they are administered in England would do much to remove the complaints that arise from these benches. Hon. Members on these benches do not complain of the laws, but of the maladministration of the laws.
  MR. J, P. FARRELL: I agree with everything said by the hon. Member for Cork in his vigorous and pointed denunciation of the system of persecution which the Irish Nationalists who have identified themselves with the United Irish League are being subjected to. I desire particularly to associate myself with him because of the way we have been treated in the county Longford, one of the divisions of which I have the honour to represent in this House. It has been made the theatre of this persecuting system, Probably in the whole of the province of Leinster there is not a county which has had so fair a record for perfect and absolute freedom from crime as Longford. The hon. Member for Cork has in his speech referred to the fact that, as regards the province of Munster, judge after judge at the assizes had congratulated its grand juries on the crimelessness and peacefulness of that province. I say that if the charges of the assize judges who have visited Longford from time to time are looked up by the representatives of the Government it will be found that for at least the past three years—I might say for the past ten years—absolutely no crime of any serious kind has prevailed in the county of Longford. So late as the March assizes of 1900 Mr. Justice Kenny, whose partiality to the League I think is not particularly admitted on these benches, a former Solicitor General in this House, congratulated the grand jury of the county of Longford on the peacefulness of the county. When
  932
  the United Irish League was established in the county a few busybodies in the police force of that county took it into their heads to persecute the people because of the fact that they had once more joined themselves with their brother Nationalists in their fight for the redemption of their native land. An attempt was made first of all to intimidate the Nationalists from taking part in public meetings. Because the hon. Gentleman who so worthily represents South Mayo came into the district and organised the League, the police, who knew perfectly well that he was doing good work among the people, made a dead set on the hon. Gentleman without any cause whatever except a few references which he made in a speech. He was hauled before a bench of magistrates, and a prosecution was instituted by the Government, who sought to convict him and send him to gaol under the ancient statute of Edward III. He was represented as a person of ill fame whose committal to gaol was requisite in the interest of peace and good order in the community. I do not know whether it was with the cognisance of the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General, but as elaborate arrangements were made as if it was for a great State trial. A particularly offensive gentleman—I use the words advisedly in presence of the right hon. Gentleman —a particularly offensive Crown prosecutor was sent down to Longford to conduct the State trial. Mr. Morphy was despatched with an immense number of law books and a great deal of impudence and cheek to instruct the magistrates of county Longford in their duty. I wish to point out that not content with relying upon the ordinary administrators of the law and your own removable Tory magistrates, you imported a second resident magistrate, Mr. Jones, of Boyle, to assist in the conviction of my hon. friend, and by that means you were able to secure the sending of the hon. Gentleman for two months to Sligo gaol. Well, I do not think the Crown were well advised in the course they took, because, instead of allaying the process of insubordination to the law, you simply threw oil upon the fire, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that from that time forward, if there had been

  933
  any hesitancy whatever in pushing forward the work of the League, it advanced by leaps and bounds in county Longford. That was only, as it were, the first step in the proceedings. The next were of a very much graver nature. My hon. friend the Member for Cork read a letter which was addressed by the secretary of a branch of the League in Kerry to a land-grabber to attend a meeting of the League for the purpose of having his case investigated. That letter was in my opinion a perfectly civil invitation. [Laughter.] Gentlemen, of course, laugh at the statement that it was a civil invitation. Well, in the county Longford there was even less offence in a letter addressed to a grazier in the district asking him whether he intended to continue holding a grazing farm which he had been holding for some years past. That was seized upon by the Crown as another case under the Whiteboy Acts, and Mr. James Killean was hauled up and arraigned before a tribunal for writing a threatening letter. It seems to me that the Crown have very little regard for the taxpayers of these kingdoms. They made most elaborate preparations to convict Mr. Killean. It did not satisfy them to deal with him at petty sessions. They sent him for trial at the assizes. When all the elaborate preparations for the trial were complete, a frivolous excuse—I describe it as nothing else—was seized upon by the Crown for the purpose of postponing the trial and having him sent to where a packed jury could be found to convict him at the winter assizes. The pretence was that in a Catholic and Nationalist county like Longford a fair trial could not be had. This attempt to shift the case to the winter assizes was met by the counsel for the traverser, who said to the Crown—
  "We will not challenge one single Protestant juror. We will leave you to empannel a whole jury of Protestants, and we will take them in order to show that we are not afraid to submit the justice of this case to a jury of our county-men."
  But the Crown solicitor had his instructions, and he, in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General, moved for the place of trial being changed. They brought the traverser to Wicklow in December last,
  934
  and there exercised their right of challenge to the fullest extent. They tried him before Mr. Justice Burton and a jury mainly of Protestants of the county Wicklow. In the course of the trial Mr. Justice Burton, who was a member of the Government, acted—I am bound to give him credit and I feel pleasure in doing so—as a just and impartial judge between the traverser and the Crown, and the case for the Crown was absolutely scouted out of court. They arraigned Mr. Killean on sixteen counts, but the Wicklow jury had common sense, and flung fifteen of these counts bodily out of court. I believe that when you come forward with the last leg on which you have to stand, the result will be the same.
  Well, Sir, that did not finish these cases. Another case precisely similar occurred in the same county. One Sunday morning an innocent, harmless, and well-conducted young man, the secretary of the Dromard branch of the League, was found in broad daylight putting up a notice at the chapel gate. The notice stated that it was against the rules of the League to occupy land on the eleven months system. The young man when committing this act implicitly believed that the law allowed him to do so, but the county police inspector, bearing an honoured name, which he has dishonoured, in my opinion, started a persecution, and again you had the whole paraphernalia of a great state trial initiated at Ballinamuck. Sir, such conduct, as events proved, is absurd and ridiculous. What about the expense of all this? Of course, you do not care; you are quite satisfied, and would be if the expense was ten times as much. I implicitly and honestly believe that the Crown officials are delighted to have these prosecutions, because of the big fees they are able to draw from them. This man was brought up at Ballinamuck, and from there you sent him to Wicklow, although his counsel offered to take a Protestant jury in county Longford, and not to challenge a single man. There you empannelled a jury, and endeavoured, as far as possible, to prejudice them by representing county Longford to be in a disturbed condition. They have a district inspector in Granard, an English importation named Rodwell, and this

  935
  gentleman was informed—he never saw them himself—that in certain places around the town of Granard iron spikes had been found in a meadow some time in July, and because iron spikes were found in a meadow at Granard after the posting of these notices the charges to your grand juries melted into thin air, and the whole county of Longford was in a state of revolution. What view did your Unionist jury of Wicklow take of that evidence and of the case as presented by a very eminent counsel at the Irish Bar? They simply kicked it out of court. They returned a verdict of not guilty, and Mr. Murtagh went home feeling greatly aggrieved that he had been troubled by the Crown exercising its big prerogative of indicting anybody it likes or anything it likes. What had occurred in the court of first instance in these cases? In the case of Murtagh, the magistrates, by three to two, discharged the prisoner. But they reckoned without the Attorney General. He was still in the background. I suppose Mr. Fleming, the Crown Prosecutor—I have a great respect for him, he once got me two months in jail for a speech—was of opinion that it was a slight upon his professional ability, and therefore he appealed to his friend the Attorney General, who, in the exercise of the powers vested in him, sent up a Bill before the grand jury of county Longford, some of whom were the very men who owned these farms. Talk about rigging a Bench! One of these grand jurors of county Longford actually told the judge from the jury-box that he was a witness for the Crown! Well, Mr. Speakrer, at Wicklow the Crown were disappointed and Murtagh is at large to-day, and, if it is any consolation to the right hon. Gentleman to know it, he is just as little converted to the ways of landlords and Unionists as ever. We have the advantage in this House of being able to address questions direct to the Chief Secretary and the Attorney General on matters connected with this organisation, but I doubt whether it would have been possible to extract from them many of the facts which I have laid before the House. I think the Attorney General will not deny that I have substantially and correctly stated the two cases to which I have referred, but in spite of the breakdown at
  936
  the winter assizes we are now told that one of these young men (Mr. J. J. Killean) is to be still further persecuted by another arraignment at the coming March assizes.
  Some people are so stupid that they never learn anything, and I suppose the Crown have learnt nothing by their experience of the two trials. Let them by all means pull ahead. They will find it utterly impossible before any rationally constitutioned tribunal in the land to convince any jury that the charges of the judges whom you send on circuit to Longford are untrue, and that county Longford is in a disturbed condition. We are organised from end to end, and, please God, we will keep organised. I believe that the Chief Secretary, so far as his entourage will allow him is desirous of doing fairly what he can for the social good of the country. But such antics as these are merely bringing your Government in to deeper contempt in the minds of the people of Ireland. In the United Irish League there has not been for a moment a suggestion of crime or outrage. To my own knowledge, within the last few weeks, when statements were made which in the opinion of the executive of the organisation should not have been made regarding particular cases is county Longford the executive of the League did more by condemning such conduct to preserve peace and good order in the county than all the police you could import Sir it is time that this farce should cease. It is time that we should be be allowed to go to our public meetings as free citizens in a free land. What occurs at present? A train cannot go to any humble village in Ireland at which there is not a policeman on the platform with his notebook in his pouch, prepared to take down the names of any hon. Member of this House or anybody else whom he suspects of not being a true-blue loyalist or Unionist. At our public meetings—and on this point I desire to appeal specially to the Chief Secretary—you have established a system of spying which, I believe is absolutely repugnant to the feelings of the police themselves. What was the evidence in one of these cases? In the case against the hon. Member for South Mayo four different policemen were called to give evidence. They went in couples to the meeting,

  937
  and neither was told that the other was to take notes so that each would be a spy on the other. How did they take notes? One said he took notes with his notebook on his hand under his cape, and when he came to read his notes in court he could not decipher a single word. What happened then? The Crown Prosecutor said, "Give us your recollection of what was said." I am not surprised that the magistrates could not stand this humbug. Even the resident magistrate of Longford was compelled to call upon the Crown Prosecutor to cease from putting in such evidence. If you want to take notes of our meetings send properly qualified men. None of us are ashamed of what we say, or afraid of it being taken down, or, if you like, recorded by a phonograph and repeated for the delectation of the gentlemen at Dublin Castle; but for goodness sake do not take these poor policemen from their barracks and give them instructions to take mental notes. Just imagine an Irish policeman taking a mental note of the proceedings, and confounding and confusing even the magistrate himself when he comes to narrate what went on.
  I feel bound to say, however, that is one reason why I do not very much wish this system of spying put down. In my opinion there is nothing that has so helped the United Irish League, or so convinced the people that it has the true ring about it, as the presence of your helmeted spies at our meetings. Keep sending them if you like, but for decency's sake, and for the sake of accuracy—upon which, I suppose, the right hon. Gentleman is very strong—let us not be subjected to this process of evidence from mental notes. We are a peaceful people, and the most bigoted and rabid administrator in this country cannot find a single act of the United Irish League which could in the slightest degree be interpreted as an act of Whiteboyism. We protest in the strongest manner against the insult conveyed in these prosecutions towards our organisation and our people, and if the right hon. Gentleman is properly advised he will drop the process of instituting contempt of court motions and Whiteboy prosecutions on the mental notes of Irish policemen. I beg to support the
  938
  Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork City.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Before the right hon. Gentleman replies, I would ask him to allow me one or two brief minutes, because I desire to address one or two questions to him upon a particular case which has not been mentioned, and which I desire he should address his attention to in reply. It is not my intention to take part in the debate generally at this stage, and I would much prefer that some of my hon. friends and colleagues who have been actively engaged in the proceedings; before the House should speak on this occasion.
  The case to which I wish to draw attention is one of very great importance, because it concerns the freedom of the press in Ireland, and it is one in which I am personally interested in a particular way, because it concerns my own constituency. Amongst the cases mentioned by my hon. friend who introduced this motion was a prosecution in the county of Waterford, and it was pointed out that as the case may be considered still sub judice, he could not discuss the case. I have no intention of discussing the case, but I desire to call the attention of the Attorney General and the House to one particular incident that arose in the hearing before the magistrates which is now at an end. It is a case of conspiracy, and amongst other means taken to secure a conviction the Government subpoenaed the editor of the leading paper in the city of Waterford, and they asked him to give evidence of this character. It was not alleged that he had published anything in his paper which was in the least degree illegal, or no doubt he would have been prosecuted, as the proprietors of the Kilkenny papers were. There was no allegation that Mr. Redmond, the editor of this paper, had published anything illegal, but the Crown found themselves in a difficulty to prove conspiracy, and they subpoenaed Mr. Redmond to come forward to give evidence as to the handwriting of reports which had been supplied to him in his professional capacity as editor of the paper. I ask the Attorney General whether that is not a somewhat cruel position to place the editor of a newspaper in? Suppose he was mean enough to give evidence, it would mean

  939
  his ruin; and if he does not give his evidence he is committed for contempt of court. There were four magistrates on the bench, but the editor of this paper refused to give evidence. He said that apart from politics, or what his own opinion might be, he considered that, as a journalist, he would be guilty of dishonourable conduct if he betrayed the confidence of his correspondents. It may be in the recollection of the Attorney General that a case of this kind was tried in the county of Limerick against a journalist who happened to be a Unionist. But he stood by his guns, and as a Unionist he said that he could not honourably give evidence, and I believe that he was committed for contempt of court. The Government, however, found the position so untenable that he was released in a very few days. Mr. Morphy, who represents the Crown, threatened the editor of this paper with a committal for contempt of court, but he was unable to carry out this threat because the opinion of the Bench was divided. What I desire to call the Attorney General's attention to is that the Crown Prosecutor stated openly in court with reference to this editor, that he would summon him as a witness to the assizes before the judge, and he further added: "Then this gentleman will get short shrift." That phrase was reported in all the papers in Dublin and in the provinces. I have not risen to take part in the general debate, but I do press upon the Attorney General and the Government that this is a most contemptible way of attempting to get evidence of conspiracy. They have nothing against this editor, and they cannot put their finger upon a single sentence of an illegal character in his paper. They ask him to come forward and be guilty of a breach of his honourable confidence as a journalist, in order to secure the conviction of prisoners in a conspiracy prosecution. Possibly the Attorney General has never heard of this case of Mr. Redmond. I would ask him to have inquiries made, and to defend at the Table if he can this process. There was recently a meeting held in Dublin of the Irish Journalists Association, which is very largely made up of Unionists, and is not by any means a Nationalist organisation, and this association unanimously passed a resolution approving of the action of Mr. Redmond, and calling upon him for the
  940
  honour of the journalistic profession to stand by his guns. I ask, is this gentleman going to be sent to prison for refusing to give evidence? I ask the Attorney General to give this his attention, and to give us some justification of the action which the Government have taken in the matter.
  MR. ATKINSON(who was imperfectly heard) said that, in reply to the hon. and learned Member, he might state that he was not acquainted with the facts of the case which he bad just mentioned, but he would have inquiries made, and, if it should be found possible, the evidence of the editor alluded to should be dispensed with. He quite appreciated the position. He did not, however, intend to follow the hon. Member for Cork through his discursive, vehement, and he might almost say venomous speech, or through all the different questions which the hon. Member had touched upon in his Amendment.
  This Amendment was, he understood, unique in the history of the Parliamentary proceedings in this House. It was unique in its length and unique in the variety of subjects with which it dealt. There was room enough under Mr. Gladstone's umbrella for all the different sections of the Liberal party, and certainly there would be room enough under this Amendment for all the different sections of the Nationalist party which the hon. Member for Cork had succeeded in welding together. It was impossible for him to follow the hon. Member at such length, and he would only now deal with questions of a legal character, for which he was more especially responsible, and he would leave his right hon. friend the Chief Secretary to deal with the general questions of policy.
  The hon. Member had said that the Lord Chief Justice at Cork said that as yet no facts had been disclosed to justify the Government in proclaiming the League as an illegal association. The League had not been proclaimed as an illegal association because there was no evidence forthcoming that it was an association for the purpose of promoting an illegal object. But that was far from saying that there had not been illegal methods resorted to by members of the League and advocated by the League. He had by him there, and, if necessary, he could quote them, dozens of speeches

  941
  delivered by different members of the Irish party, from the hon. Member for Cork downwards, in which, publicly, upon every platform, again and again boycotting was advocated. [Nationalist cheers.] He was glad that the hon. Member had the courage of his opinions, and did not shrink from the statements he had made. He had told men again and again that, because a man took land from which another man had been evicted, or because he took land which the League said he ought not to take, nobody was to speak to him, nobody was to buy from him, nobody was to sell to him, and that he should be treated as a pariah and incur a fate almost worse than death, and be subjected to social ostracism and financial ruin. [Nationalist cheers and cries of "Hear, hear."] He was glad that he did not misrepresent hon. Members. By this means intimidation and tyranny were to be executed on this man. That was a crime. [An HON. MEMBER: What is?] Intimidation was a crime by English law, although it was not a crime according to the law of the League. The Government were bound to administer English law. [An IRISH MEMBER: What is intimidation?] The hon. Member wished to administer the law of the League and degrade juries into instruments for administering the law of the League, and that was the cause of the outcry against what had been called "jury packing." [Hear, hear.] He was glad that there was no concealment by the hon. Member opposite, but it was a crime according to the law of the land to intimidate a man in such a way as to prevent him exercising his right to do what seemed to him the best thing if he kept within his legal rights.
  The hon. Member had been vehement in his denunciation of grabbers. What was a grabber? [Several HON. MEMBERS: Robbers.] A "grabber" was a man who had a perfect right to the protection of the law of this country, and the Government were bound to administer the law in such a case. If this so-called grabber took a farm, the law of the League, which was based on mean and cowardly tyranny, at once declared that the man had committed a sin. The Administration was bound, as long as the law prevailed, to protect that grabber from intimidation.
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: But not to force the public into a shop.
  MR. ATKINSONsaid he would deal with that presently. In the meantime he wished to call attention to another well-known judgment by the late Lord Bramwell, who said that "liberty of thought and mind is the privilege of every Englishman, but still if any two or more men agree among themselves to coerce that liberty of thought and mind by constraint, they would be guilty of an offence." [An HON. MEMBER on the Irish benches: What about the pro-Boers?] The hon. Member had asked why should we force the public into a shop. He was perfectly correct in saying that any man in the community had an absolute right to go into another man's shop or to stay out of it, but no man had a right to counsel and procure a number of men to league themselves together for the purposes of ruining a particular tradesman by abstaining from entering his shop. That was a distinction which had been laid down again and again by judge after judge, but it was a distinction which hon. Members from Ireland opposite ignored, because they knew that if they observed it, it would paralyse their combination. [An HON. MEMBER from the Irish benches: You do it on the other side.] He would show that that was an ignorant and absurd contention. Take the well-known historic case. Every person that went to a theatre could applaud whom he pleased when he was pleased. and he could hiss when displeased; but the Duke of Brunswick many years ago had a verdict returned against him because he banded together a number of persons to go to a theatre for the purpose of injuring a particular actor by hissing him off the stage. [An HON. MEMBER on the Irish benches: What about the Great Mogul case?]
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I must appeal to hon. Members to extend more courtesy to the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. ATKINSONsaid he was quite familiar with the Great Mogul case against Macgregor, in which it was rightly held that traders in pursuit of their own interests might combine to promote that interest, although incidentally in the promotion of it they injured

  943
  the interests of other people. That was quite true, but it was equally true that the Great Mogul case laid it down that when people combined together, not for the purpose of promoting their own trading interests, but for the purpose of injuring the property of some individual who was obnoxious to them, that was a crime. It was an idle pretence to take shelter behind such a contention, and he was astonished that hon. Gentlemen, who claimed for themselves such outspoken courage, were not ashamed in that House to do so, for they were not traders. The course they had pursued was that they had told the people of Ireland that the man who took an evicted farm was their enemy, that he deserved no quarter, no justice, no fair play—[Cries from the Irish benches of "Oh, oh!" and "No !"]—that nobody was to speak to him, that nobody was to work for him, that nobody was to buy his beasts at a fair, and that they were to inflict upon him social ostracism and financial ruin. That was not fair. It was punishing a man because he did not agree with their views, because he would not forward their organisation, and because he would not obey their law, which was not the law of the country in which he lived. It had been said again and again that the League was like a trade union; but there was a wide difference. Trade unions were formerly illegal, that is, it was illegal for workmen to combine together, because it was said they formed a conspiracy in restraint of trade. The old law was abolished, and trade unions could now refuse to work for any man, they could combine not to work for anyone, they could support each other in this refusal to work, but they could not intimidate. [An IRISH MEMBER: Picketing!] This very question of picketing came up in the case of Lyons v. Wilkins. The union had picketed the hands in a particular employment, not for the bona fide purpose of obtaining information, but for the purpose of inducing them to leave their employment. Here was what Lord Justice Lindley said—
  "Strikes and trade unions, which were formerly considered illegal, have now been legalised—at all events, so far as the doctrines as to restraint of trade are concerned—and a strike can be conducted up to a certain point with perfect legality. That is to say, persons can not only decline individually to work for
  944
  a master except upon terms which the workmen desire, but they can combine to do that. They can combine to leave him; they can strike unless he will raise the wages up to what they desire, and trade unions, which assist them in withdrawing their own labour and declining to work, and which assist them in supporning themselves during the strike, can legally do so….Now, Parliament has not yet conferred upon trade unions the power to coerce people, and to prevent them from working for whomsoever they like, upon any terms they like; and yet in the absence of such a power it is obvious a strike may not be effective and may not answer the purpose. Some strikes are perfectly effective by virtue of the strike, and other strikes are not effective unless the next step can be taken, and unless other people can be prevented from taking the place of the strikers. That is the pinch of the case in trade disputes; and until Parliament confers on trade unions the power of saying to other people, 'You shall not work for those who are desirous of employing you upon such terms as you may mutually agree upon,' trade unions exceed their power when they try to compel people not to work except on the terms fixed by the unions. I need hardly say that up to the present moment no such power as that exists. By the law of this country no one has ever,and no set of people have ever had that right or that power… Trade unions have now been recognised, up to a certain point, as organs for good. They are the only means by which workmen can protect themselves from tyranny on the part of those who employ them; but the moment that trade unions become tyrants, in their turn they are engines for evil; they have no right to prevent any man from working on such terms as he chooses…. One cannot say, as an abstract proposition, that all picketing is unlawful, because if all that is done is attending at or near a house in order merely to obtain or communicate information, that is lawful. But it is easy to see how, under colour of so attending, a great deal may be done which is absolutely illegal. It would be wrong to post people about a place of business or a house under; pretence of merely obtaining or communicating information, if the object and effect were to compel the person so picketed not to do that which he has a perfect right to do; and it is because this proviso is often abused and used for an illegal purpose that such disputes as these very often arise."
  What became of the pretence that, when a wretched man came before the Land League and knew that unless he obeyed the behests of the League he would be boycotted, that was not worse than picketing? There was no analogy, as the hon. Member for Cork suggests, between trade unions and the League which he has inaugurated and promoted. And for this simple reason, that the League acts by intimidation, and the trade unions cannot act by intimidation. The exhortation had been delivered many times by the League over the

  945
  country that if turbulence was maintained the Government must yield. Happily the advice had not been generally taken, although there had been some slight increase of crime since the League was inaugurated.
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: Where?
  MR. ATKINSON: All over Ireland. He had not time to give the particulars, but it was crime almost entirely consisting of sending threatening letters, of boycotting, and intimidation. When the hon. Gentleman said that the League was crimeless he stated what was inaccurate. The hon. Member for Cork had drawn a picture of Ireland which, if true, would indicate that Ireland was in a parlous case; because, according to him, the forces of the Crown were unconstitutionally employed, justice was perverted, prosecutions were instituted without justification, and the most grinding and cruel tyranny which existed anywhere prevailed in Ireland. And the hon. Member said that, notwithstanding all that, Ireland was in a state of peace, although he wondered it was so. There was no restraint of free speech for hon. Members in that House, and they said the same things in Ireland, so that it was preposterous to talk of their being muzzled. He defied any hon. Member to point to any prosecutions for sedition except one, or to any prosecutions for anything but conspiracy to tyrannise and intimidate. He did not understand what right the hon. Gentleman had to arrogate to himself the right, because some individual made himself objectionable to him, to make a public speech and to instigate the persons to whom he spoke to inflict upon that man temporal loss and perhaps temporal ruin. He had no right to do so. It was an arrogant assumption on his part, and if he resorted to it he off ended the law and must be brought to book by the law. He defied the hon. Gentleman to point to a single case during the time he had had the honour to hold a law office under the Crown in Ireland where a man had been prosecuted except for intimidating or boycotting. Men from time to time had, of course, been prosecuted, but only for those offences; but it was impossible for him at the present time to go into details. The hon. Member complained
  946
  that there was no right of free speech in Ireland, but he thought if Members could make the same speeches in Ireland which they made in that House it was absurd to make such an allegation. We were also told there was no right of public meeting in Ireland. Out of 600 meetings only twenty-three had been interfered with.
  Before passing away from the cases which the hon. Gentleman dealt with— he could not deal with them all and therefore he would refer to one. The hon. Member for Cork referred to the case of Sullivan. He was tried and acquitted. That case was made the subject of a debate in the previous year, and he really did not see why reference had been made again to the subject. He was tried and acquitted.
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIENsaid he was acquitted by a packed jury and was really convicted by eleven out of twelve, if the jury had been a free jury.
  MR. ATKINSONsaid that was not true. He could not say how his friend professed to know the decision at which the jury arrived, he himself did not know it, and the hon. Gentleman, at all events, ought not to know it. However, Sullivan was tried and acquitted. He would have a word to say with regard to the jury a little later on. The hon. Member for Cork had referred to Lord O'Brien, but Lord O'Brien's charge; ought to be taken in its entirety, and if one half of his charge was quoted as being favourable to the League, he would be quite justified in referring to the other half. What was the charge? A wretched creature took a rood of land and held it for two years; the former tenant of the land thought he would like to get it back, and this wretched creature refused. He was summoned before the Lixnaw branch of the United Irish League, to which the complaint had been made that he refused to give up the land. Who made the complaint? [An IRISH MEMBER: The man who had been evicted.] He refused to give up this wretched rood of ground, but he offered £2 to the other man; that was not satisfactory, and a proclamation was issued. He spoke from memory, and he believed the name of the man was Scanlan. A resolution was passed that, as John Scanlan

  947
  persisted in holding the plot of land in defiance of the wishes of the League, they called upon the people to mark their disapprobation in every constitutional way, and, if his memory did not deceive him, Scanlan was shortly afterwards found murdered on the high road. Lord O'Brien had said that the men in that ease were perfectly rightly convicted.
  The only other case he would refer to was the case of the hon. Member for North Leitrim. That was also a pending case, and he had the greatest reluctance to indulge in any discussion at all upon the merits. He would just state what the crime was. A certain case was tried at Sligo and two men were convicted. A number of the jurors were set aside by the Crown when the jury was being sworn. Twenty-two men were set aside, and it subsequently turned out that seventeen out of the twenty-two were members of the League, and the two men who were tried were also members of the League, and objection had been made by the gentlemen representing the Crown, when the jury were being sworn, that it was undesirable that members of the League should serve upon the jury.
  Now, the hon. Member for North Leitrim, according to the hon. Member for Cork, was charged with seditious libel merely for denouncing what he called the system of jury packing. [The right hon. Gentleman then read from the indictment in the case passages of the article charged as a seditious libel. The right hon. Gentleman said he would make no comment upon that further than that it was what the hon. Member for Cork described as a moderate and temperate attack.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTSasked whether there was anything in the article which would be called a crime in England.
  MR. ATKINSONreplied that he had already stated that he did not propose to discuss the case, but he would be surprised if an article of that kind on the administration of justice were not treated as a crime in England. He did not know whether hon. Members suggested that there should be no such thing on behalf of the Crown as conditional jurymen, that the Crown should not have power to set aside men. That was a
  948
  practice which had existed in both England and Ireland for 500 years. [Cries of "No" and "It has never been exercised."] It had been exercised.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Where and when? MR. JOHN REDMOND: How long is it since the practice was exercised in this country?
  MR. ATKINSON: The last case I am able to find is nine years ago. In 1876 in an Irish Act of Parliament this special right was preserved. I understand nobody has ever contended that this right could be dispensed with. It is the duty of the Crown solicitor to set aside a man when he has reason to believe that that man will not act fairly. This is a charge which has been made against every Government. I remember how the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Montrose Burghs was placarded through the streets of Dublin as the murderer of a man named Twist because under his rule twenty men were set aside at the trial of an almost professional assassin.
  MR. FLAVIN: The man was innocent of the crime.
  MR. ATKINSON: We are acting under a circular put out by the right: hon. Gentleman.
  MR. HEMPHILL: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman read that circular?
  MR. ATKINSON(after looking through his despatch-box): The circular expressly directs that no one is to be set aside—[Loud cries of "Read the circular."]—on account of his politics or religion; and no man has been set aside.
  AN HON. MEMBER: It is a damned lie.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! If I knew who the Member was who used that expression I should take very severe measures towards him.
  MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON: It was Mr. Bryn Roberts. [Interruption.]
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: Will you please name the ruffian who said that? [Loud Nationalist cheers.]
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Both hon. Members are to blame—the hon. Member for South Belfast, who, under a mistake, imputed offensive words to an hon. Gentleman who did not use them,

  949
  and the hon. Member for the Eifion Division, who, instead of appealing to me to call upon that hon. Member to withdraw, took upon himself to use a violent expression. Both hon. Gentlemen are to blame, and I hope the incident is now at an end.
  MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON: I beg to apologise for having mentioned the name of Mr. Bryn Roberts.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTS: I beg to withdraw the expression I used.
  MR. ATKINSONsaid that no man had been set aside from acting on a jury on account of his religion. The hon. Member for North Cork, speaking with reference to the Cadogan case, asserted that the jurymen were set aside because they were Roman Catholics. That was a slander repeated day by day against the Crown. The officers of the Crown made no inquiry as to the religion of the men who served on juries; but, seeing the allegations, he caused inquiry to be made in Cadogan's case, with the result that he found that six of the men on the jury were Roman Catholics and six Protestants. The prisoner, moreover, challenged five Roman Catholic gentlemen of Cork as unfit to serve on the jury.
  A NATIONALIST MEMBER: At the first trial, at which Justice Kennedy presided, there was not a single Catholic on the jury, and every man who was challenged was a Catholic.
  MR. ATKINSONsaid he had not time to deal with the other matters which had been referred to; he would simply conclude by repeating that no man was set aside because of his religious or political faith, but in some cases where such issues were involved men who were strong partisans on either side were excluded from the jury.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORcongratulated the Attorney General on having given precisely the same answer as on previous occasions, and therefore his reply also would be practically the same. What were the admitted facts? In county Sligo there were 90,000 Catholics and 7,000 Protestants, and the right hon. Gentleman had the Parliamentary courage to declare that when a case came to be tried dealing with the great and permanent struggle between two classes
  950
  in Ireland, to a certain extent between two races, and to a smaller extent between two creeds, having no regard whatever for religion or politics, it yet had come about that every one of the twelve men in the jury box was taken from the 7,000 men of one creed, class, and political party. In county Cork the disparity between the two creeds-was not quite so great, the figures being 390,000 Catholics and 35,000 Protestants, and here the right hon. Gentleman was able to give a case in which the jury consisted of six of one religion and six of the other, but he was not able to answer the statement or deny the fact that sixty-three men were ordered to stand by, every one of whom was a member of the Catholic majority. The right hon. Gentleman had apparently devised a system which infallibly, in a population in which the proportions of the two creeds were 90,000 against 7,000, brought out, purely by accident or coincidence, without any regard to religious or political convictions, twelve men of the faith and party represented by the minority of the population. If he could only devise a system which would have similar results in bringing out the winning numbers at Monte Carlo, there was not a newspaper in the country that would not give him the largest existing salary as the most successful tipster in the world. But was it not arguing a deeper depth of ignorance than even he (the speaker) could honestly attribute to the House of Commons that the right hon. Gentleman had the courage to say that a jury of such a character was not deliberately constituted with a view to packing the jury box with members of one religious creed and class and political party, so that the dice might be loaded and a verdict favourable to the Crown secured?
  Since the opening of Parliament attention had been called to the Declaration which the Sovereign had to take. He was rather surprised that His Majesty's advisers had not felt it within their competence and power to advise the King not to repeat a form of Declaration which probably had gone out of use by mere lapse of time, and the words of which were offensive to millions of the subjects over whom he was called to reign. But if the Attorney General was justified in these proceedings in

  951
  Ireland, it was just the kind of Declaration the Sovereign of these realms ought to make. If it was true that a Catholic could not be trusted on his oath to give a true verdict in the jury-box, it was right that the Sovereign in the most solemn manner and at the first opportunity should denounce the religion which brought up its devotees to disregard the most solemn of oaths and the most sacred of duties. If the Government, however, wished to use the methods of autocracy in Ireland, let them do so openly, and not, under constitutional forms, endeavour by despotic methods to turn trial by jury into a farce and a falsehood.
  He was glad the Attorney General had recognised the issue at stake. That issue was the United Irish League, and its methods and forms of combination. It was necessary for him to defend the aims and objects of that organisation, especially after the remarkable speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland on the previous evening, which, in his opinion, was a very long step towards a system of compulsory purchase, and, coming from the Treasury Bench, would mark an epoch in the Irish land struggle. In a most striking passage in that speech the Chief Secretary objected to compulsory purchase because it would "freeze" Ireland, and gave a description of the 123,000 peasants with holdings of under £4 valuation and £3 average rental, or, as the right hon. Gentleman graphically put it, 14d. a week, 2d. a day. "This," said the Chief Secretary, "is a part of the question which must not be lost sight of." Had the right hon. Gentleman been asleep during the last few months? That was exactly the part of the question that the United Irish League had not lost sight of. It was that very fact and factor of the land question that gave birth to the League. That organisation sprang to life in county Mayo, one of the counties in which this horrible system of miserable wretched patches of land obtained. It was the fact of these squalid patches of holdings existing side by side with splendid fertile lands, which for miles were unbroken by a single human face or habitation—it was the co-existence and juxtaposition of these two things that gave birth to the United Irish League, and the very
  952
  first plank in its platform was to bring about a state of feeling in Ireland and the House of Commons which would remedy that admitted evil by enlarging the small holdings and giving back to tillage and to man the land now given to sheep and oxen. He therefore claimed the Chief Secretary for Ireland, not as the first, but as one of the many illustrious converts which the United Irish League had already made. He claimed as another convert the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor in office, the present President of the Board of Trade, one of whose acts in office was the purchase of the Dillon Estate. That was an admirable act, and would be remembered to the honour of the right hon. Gentleman when other portions of his tenure of office were covered with blessed and kindly oblivion. What was the object of that purchase? It was to do exactly that which the present Chief Secretary rightly said was one of the necessities of the land question, namely, to enlarge the small and squalid holdings which existed in that part of the country. The Dillon Estate was purchased for the purpose of enlarging the small and squalid holdings in that part of the country, and that was one of the very first fruits reaped by the people of Mayo from the agitation of his hon. friend. No doubt this point would receive the usual official answer, and the right hon. Gentleman would no doubt try to prove by some method of arithmetic that there was no connection whatever between the purchase of the Dillon Estate and the existence of the United Irish League. The right hon. Gentleman might be able to convince this House, but all the arguments and official facts which he could bring forward would not convince the people of Mayo, who believed that the purchase of the Dillon Estate was the result of the action of the United Irish League. He therefore claimed the present Chief Secretary for Ireland and the late Chief Secretary as devotees and worshippers of the United Irish League. He might very appropriately quote the famous gibe of Mr. Disraeli to Mr. Peel when he adopted Free Trade, that while his friends were out bathing they had stolen their clothes. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had found the members of the United Irish League

  953
  bathing, and he had stolen their clothes. He did not need to defend the legality of the United Irish League. The right hon. Gentleman's action had placed him in an extraordinary position. He got up prepared to defend the ethics, the legality, and the beneficence of the United Irish League against the attacks of the Government, who described the members of the League as marauders and robbers, and in the midst of his observations the Chief Secretary declared that the only fault he had to find was that the League had stolen his thunder and that they were actually more loyal than the King.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): I would remind the hon. Member that although our objects may be identical, yet the methods employed for achieving them may be diametrically opposite.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid he might be allowed to say that the right hon. Gentleman's interruption did not strike him as being altogether relevant to the point, because the point he was making was the ends and not the means. [Ministerial laughter.] He intended to deal with the means presently. He did not mean to shirk anything. He accepted to the full the challenge of the Attorney General, and he would defend both the methods and the means. It was not necessary for him to defend the legality of the League, because the Attorney General had admitted its legality. If the methods adopted by the League were illegal, why was it not proclaimed? If they were not legal, why was the League not prosecuted? The fact was that its legality was admitted. With regard to the means, he asked the attention of hon. Gentlemen opposite while he explained to them the historical and economic conditions which had produced such a form of combination in Ireland as the United Irish League. There was not anything in the combination of the League in Ireland which had not been gone through in England as well in the shape of combination. He challenged the right hon. and learned Gentleman's history with regard to trade unionism in England. Lord Justice Lindley said that trade unionists were not empowered by Parliament to use force for the purpose of getting others to work or to dissuade them from
  954
  working. Parliament would never confer that power upon trade unionism, and no trade unionists would ask for that power. What they did claim as trade unionists, and what the League claimed in Ireland, was to use every method of argument, of persuasion, of approval, and of disapproval, to induce men either to work or not to work, on the ground that their action was not for the common good of the whole people. The right hon. and learned Gentleman did not seem to be aware even of the events of his own days. Some years ago the dockers struck for an increase of wages, and they got much sympathy, not only from Members sitting on the Opposition side of the House, but also from many of the hon. Gentlemen opposite. What did the hon. Member for Battersea do? He not only asked the dockers of London to abstain from work, but he went down to the docks whenever he heard that "blacklegs" were coming from Hull, Liverpool, or Glasgow, and he begged, persuaded, and appealed to them not, for their own petty interests, to break down the great struggle for the right of the men to receive better wages, and to maintain a better standard of living. Was he prosecuted? Did the Attorney General come down and declare that he was guilty of intimidation, violence, and coercion? Was the hon. Member for Battersea tried at the Old Bailey by a jury of shipowners? Was he tried by a jury of dock shareholders? No, he was allowed to go down there, his liberty was not assailed, and to-day he was one of the most honoured, and justly honoured, Members of that assembly, and the part he played in the strike was one of the best things he ever did in his career. At the beginning of this century, four or five compositors were sent to gaol because they formed a union to increase wages. In the year 1834 seven agricultural labourers were sent beyond the seas because they wished to form an agricultural union in every county in England. To-day, in Ireland, they were fighting against prosecutions with packed juries and magistrates dependent upon the Executive for their appointment, their promotion, their pensions, and even for the food they ate, and all this which they were now passing through in Ireland was passed through in England half a century ago.

  955
  In Ireland they were now fighting for the rights which Englishmen gained half a century ago. The United Irish League said that a "grabber" was an enemy of the tenantry of Ireland, and of the people of Ireland; and they put a "grabber" in Ireland in exactly the same category as the trade unionists of England put the "nobstick" or the "blackleg." One of the real secrets of the virulence of the land question, of the famine, and of many of the evils in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century, was the insane and mad competition between tenant and tenant for the possession of land. He could not blame the tenant. In Ireland they had not the same industries as they had in England or Scotland. With the exception of a portion of the north of Ireland they had practically only one industry and one kind of employment for the people. All around them was uncertainty and shifting sand. The land was the one solid and substantial thing in Ireland to which everybody clung, and for which everybody longed. It was exactly as if they had a shipwrecked vessel with four hundred or five hundred passengers all swimming about in mid ocean, with only some thirty or forty small logs of wood to cling to. They stood between destruction and death. In the first half of the last century life in Ireland was poisoned by the frenzied desire of the people to get the land at any price. Mr. Mill in his book gave an instance in which the competition for a farm worth £50 a year rose to such an extent that a bidder was declared the tenant at £450 a year; that was to say at £400 a year more than the land could possibly bear. Under these circumstances the industry of the tenant could benefit no one but the landlord. Now, the landgrabber was the shopkeeper and the gombeen man. They heard a great deal about intimidation. If the Attorney General could prove that the United Irish League had led to crime he would have nothing further to say. But he held that the League had been proved to be a crimeless organisation, and that the only intimidation which it employed was the rule of every trade union. He was surprised at the right hon. Gentleman's vehemence against trade unions, for of all the trade unions in the country there was not one that had a severer code of professional etiquette than that to which
  956
  the right hon. Gentleman, as a member of the Bar, himself belonged. The right hon. Gentleman had no fear of the legal landgrabber, because he knew perfectly well that the professional body of which he was a member would soon deal with that individual, and see that the right hon. Gentleman got the number of guineas on his brief which the league of the lawyers imposed. Then there was the medical profession. What trade unions had severer codes than the legal and medical professions? The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury the previous evening was courageous enough to speak of Ireland as being in a prosperous condition, and one of the reasons he gave was that the country had the same population now as at the beginning of the century. The contention of the Irish representatives was that there was scarcely a field in Ireland that did not contain a living tomb in the shape of an evicted household, that did not speak of a sad and hideous domestic crisis; and they believed that in the United Irish League they had found a means, not only of saving the individual farmer, but of saving the nation from the ruin with which it was threatened.
  He had one word to say in conclusion to the Chief Secretary. He had never said, and never should say, one word against him personally; he hoped to fight him politically, and politically only. He thought the position of the Chief Secretary was difficult, almost pathetic. He had in his veins the blood of one of the martyrs for Irish liberty, and he could not imagine for him a more glorious destiny than that he should complete the work which his ancestor began, to make Ireland free. But whatever his future might be, the United Irish League was too powerful now to be destroyed. Every blow he delivered at it would not weaken it, but strengthen it. Already it had won victories which entitled it to the gratitude of Irishmen. Those benches were proof of the fact that the Irish party were united, for the first time in ten years, in the bonds of discipline and loyalty one to the other. What brought them together? The United Irish League.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Mr. Speaker, I feel bound to rise at this period of the debate and after the speech to which the House

  957
  has just listened. But I must not be carried away by the rhetorical appeal which the hon. Member made. He gave a reason, with which everybody must be familiar by now, for expecting that I should at any rate do my best for Ireland while I occupy the position of Chief Secretary. But in my opinion the best thing that any Chief Secretary can do for Ireland is to keep a cool head and look at the problems which are presented to him with as much calm attention as he can command. What we are asked to look at tonight is mainly the United Irish League, its nature, its objects, and the methods it adopts to achieve those objects. I hope I shall be able to distinguish between the value of some of the objects which the League pursues and some of the methods which, in my opinion, should be reprehended and contemned by this House, and, when they are illegal, prosecuted by the law officers of the Crown.
  We are debating to-night an Amendment to the Address in the body of which there are many stings, but the point of which is in the last paragraph —whereas the United Irish League desires to effect certain objects, and, whereas the nefarious proceedings of the Government interfere with the means adopted by the League to achieve these objects, therefore—and here we come to the point—we ask His Majesty's Government to extend the legislative protection of the Trade Union Act to all agricultural combinations in Ireland. That really is the Amendment before the House. The proposition that we should extend the Trade Union Act to agricultural combinations in Ireland would not alarm me if it were practicable to regard the small farmers as in any sense either workmen or masters. But I very much doubt whether hon. Members if they had read the Trade Union Act would have moved this Amendment at all. There are two Acts—the Act of 1871 and the Act of 1875, which is described as the charter of the British artisan's liberty. What do they provide? In the first place, that any combination of seven persons who agree together to become a trade union are to be registered, to keep accounts, to furnish those accounts to a public office, and to be responsible for certain acts. For that guarantee certain liberties are conceded —namely, that they can combine for
  958
  action in restraint of trade, which otherwise under ancient law would have been held to be a criminal conspiracy. But that liberty does not go as far as hon. ! Members opposite seem to imagine. It is hedged in and safeguarded at every point. In this Act of 1875 I would ask I hon. Members to consider Section 7. By that section every person who endeavours by certain means to compel any other person to abstain from doing or to do any act which he has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, is liable under this Act, which hon. Members ask us to apply to agricultural combinations in Ireland, either to pay a penalty not exceeding £20 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, with or without hard labour. If the Government frankly adopted the Amendment of the hon. Member—supposing the practical difficulty as to the definition of what workman and master mean could be easily overcome—we should be denounced for having introduced a Coercion Act of a much more subtle and far-reaching character than any that has yet been passed by this House. The practical objection to accepting this Amendment is that the demand made upon Parliamentary time in order to overcome the opposition of every single Irish Nationalist Member to such a proceeding would be too great in a session when the programme is already very much in arrear. That is not an exaggerated statement of these Acts.
  Now I come to what I called the sting in the body of the Amendment —the charges that are made against the Government. The hon. Member for the City of Cork has asked me a very frank question. I hope I shall be equally frank in my reply. I identify myself wholly with the policy pursued by the present Viceroy, Lord Cadogan. I can- not make it too clear that it has been, and it is, the policy of the Irish Government to give protection to every man who is entitled to protection from the law. And what are some of these charges against us? They are that meetings have been capriciously suppressed. Some of the meetings which have been referred to took place before I was Chief Secretary, but I hold that every one of them was properly suppressed. Hon. Members are not to suppose that the Government is interfering capriciously

  959
  with meetings here, there, and everywhere. The figures given by the Attorney General were below the mark. Since the United Irish League was started there have been 879 meetings, and twenty-eight have been prevented. Since I became Chief Secretary there have been ninety-nine meetings, and five have been prevented. I defend every one of those actions. The meeting at Armagh was proclaimed by the local magistrates because they knew it would result in a collision between Catholics and Orangemen at the place fixed for it. And they were perfectly right. It would bare resulted in a collision; and they behaved precisely as any magistrate would have behaved in this country, or in France, or in any other country in Europe. They said the meeting was not to be held where it would excite a riot; but of course they allowed persons to gather together beyond the limits where such a regrettable result was to be anticipated. That is the whole story. I assure hon. Members who are not familiar with this topic, once so well known in this House, that that is what has always been done. The comment invariably is that the Government has been outwitted and that a triumphant meeting has been held. It is not the object of the Government to prevent meetings and free speech in Ireland. It is the object of the Government to prevent unlawful assemblies from taking place. Hon. Members will remember when another Government had to stop a meeting of trade unionists, and, an inquiry being held, it was found that the Government were right in stopping the meeting, that the soldiers were right also in firing on the mob, and that the Government, the magistrates, the officers the soldiers, and the police had only done their duty. I will not elaborate that point now, but I will on another occasion—and I am sure hon. Members from Ireland will give me many occasions—defend, if need be, every single action of the Executive in respect to these points. Let me tell the House that in respect of one of these meetings —the meeting at Achonry—the comment of authorities whom hon. Members opposite would respect has been entirely upon the side of the Government. That was a meeting which we prevented—we did not proclaim it. There was a farm
  960
  there which had been boycotted, and the tenant had been intimidated. He was injured and was entitled to protection. When a large crowd, with a band and banners, marched in a threatening manner towards this man's farm, the police interposed and stopped them. The Bishop of Achonry, speaking on the subject within a few days, stated that the people had acted in a very foolish and wrong manner, and gave a "wigging" to those who had instigated them. So that the action of the Government is, at any rate, not universally condemned in Ireland.
  I think the Attorney General has dealt, and dealt well with all the legal points which have been advanced as to jury-packing. If we are to be accused, we stand where Lord Spencer and Mr. Morley stood. Their words are known, and must be known, to the world and to any persons who administer the law of Ireland. It is necessary for those whose duty it is to see that justice is-done to see that justice is not perverted. Let me come to the United Irish League and its objects, because I am afraid I must correct a part of the speech of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool. The first object stated here is the establishment of a peasant proprietary in Ireland. There is no mention of compulsion in this Amendment, so mild and reasonable are the objects of the League. So far I agree with the hon. Member, that the objects of the Government and of the League, as stated in this Amendment, are identical. We hope to have peasant ownership in Ireland, and the Government have put into the King's Speech an announcement to that effect. It is urged that the pace is too slow and the course is too heavy. The policy of the Government is to accelerate the one and to lighten the other. If we are to indulge in charges of plagiarism, I say in this case it is the League which has plagiarised the policy of the Government. After all, the League can claim to be only three years old, whereas the Conservative party has advocated this policy in effect for fifty years, and practically for twenty-one years. The next object of the-League, as stated in this Amendment, is that extensive tracts in the West of Ireland should be used in order to relieve congestion. Let us examine that. My-

  961
  right hon. friend the Leader of the House nine years ago passed an Act which contained a provision that the Congested Districts Board was to purchase property in the congested districts in order that there should be migration. So again the League is plagiarising the policy of their Tory tyrants.
  MR. DILLON: You had better join the League.
  MR. WYNDHAM: My suggestion is that the League should join the Government, and I will state why. If we are both to hoe the same patch we had better take the drills in the same direction and not at right angles. The hon. Gentleman has stated that the action of the League instigated the Congested Districts Board to buy the Dillon estate. I say it is not so. I say to the House and the country that the action of the League has retarded and is retarding the action of the Congested Districts Board.
  MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: Would the right hon. Gentleman allow me to say that the first estate that was purchased in the west of Ireland by the Congested Districts Board was the Clare Island estate. Is it not a fact that that estate was purchased at my request and on the joint guarantee of the Archbishop of Tuam and myself for the rent for seven years?
  MR. WYNDHAM: The hon. Member deserves credit if he had any part in the purchase of Clare Island, but that estate was purchased three years before the United Irish League was started. If we were all agreed to pursue these objects by the same methods it would be a consummation most devoutly to be desired, but the Congested Districts Board never did, and never will as long as I am president of it, buy one acre or rood of land off which any man has been driven by illegality or even by illegitimate pressure.
  This problem is not insoluble. Problems as difficult are solved every day by the simple process of paying a proper price for the thing desired, and if we devote our attention to what we consider beneficent public objects in Ireland the bone of contention between hon. Members on this side and the other will be removed. Does this Amendment mean that the Irish Nationalist party
  962
  have made up their minds to pursue a constitutional policy in this House, and to abandon altogether some of the courses they have pursued in Ireland? [An HON. MEMBER: No, certainly not.] May I not, then, submit to hon. Members from Ireland that they must not denounce Unionist Members—above all, Irish Unionist Members—if they look somewhat askance at such a proposal as that which stands first in this Amendment, especially when the hon. Member for Cork makes speeches such as his speech this evening, and speeches he made in Ireland, stating that land reform is to be but a stalking-horse for Home Rule. That may be a political programme, but is it one likely to commend itself to this House? Is it fair or reasonable for hon. Members to invite the attention of this House to what seem reasonable proposals of reform, and condemn this House as bigoted, narrow, and non-Irish because it does not accept them, and at the same time to declare that these reforms are merely stalking-horses for achieving a great political project?
  I hope it may some day be possible that those who will fight for the Union, as we shall, to the end of time, and those who will fight on in the belief that a separate Parliament will bring great blessings to Ireland, may agree—perhaps I am too sanguine, but I think it possible —to contend in this House constitutionally, and that we may in almost friendly rivalry strive to increase the material prosperity of Ireland. That is a better plan than the plan of coming to; this House with proposals which would be entertained if coming from any other quarter of the House, and given that consideration which Parliament would give—
  MR. DILLON: But not from Irish Members!
  MR. WYNDHAM: And why not from Irish Members? Because you put the jury against you. Because you say that when you wish to improve the land system in Ireland your land policy is only a stalking-horse for Home Rule. There have been other methods, which I do not attribute wholesale to the United Irish League. The League is Protean in its transformations. In tropical countries hon. Members who have been abroad may have observed small wind eddies

  963
  that pick up everything in their path and again deposit these collections; and so it has been with the expansion and movement of the League during the past nine months. Coming to a place where what are called advanced men are found, the chairman, secretary, and treasurer are advanced men; but when the League comes to some quiet Arcadia where a priest exercises a benevolent despotism, then he is made chairman and summons a meeting, a shilling is collected all round, and the branch is adjourned sine die. That is why, though I understand some of the attacks levelled at the League as an organisation, I do not think it would be just to declare the League a criminal conspiracy. Its transformations are too rapid for that. It began, as this Amendment begins, with the object of acquiring grass lands in Mayo, but since then much else has been collected and distributed. It picks up a number of delegates and lands them in a convention in Dublin; it picks up a number of members and lands them here as once more a united, organised Irish party.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: We have as good a right to be here as you have.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The hon. Member has anticipated me. I am very glad that the Irish boycott of the House is over. I think by meeting here and discussing together political projects as they are discussed by English and Scotch Members we may do something, or at least we shall have a chance of doing something, greater than if we each stay in our own' island snarling and gibing at each other in newspapers read on one side of the Channel and not on the other. Let us meet here and have it out. Surely there are many questions in which Englishmen and Irishmen are equally interested, many questions besides the land question. There is the question of education in Ireland, the position of Youthful offenders in Ireland, the industries of Ireland, the question of industrial schools. These and many other matters we surelymaydiscuss together as English, Scotch, and Welsh Members discuss, without making them stalking-horses for Home Rule.
  MR. DILLON: What has Home Rule to do with it?
  MR. WYNDHAM: The League has forged this united Irish party, and its members may command the attention of Parliament as Irishmen, by their ability and eloquence, have always commanded the attention of Parliament. Let us take' the proposal in the Amendment as a legitimate object, put forward constitutionally in this House—let us contend in such an arena, with Home Rule barred until it is practical—barred, I mean practically, for it is impossible to proceed with it now or for some years to come. If we do that, each confident that his cause must win—we confident that the Union will never be even imperilled hon. Members opposite holding another view—one must win, the other must lose—and if we contend within such an arena as I have described, then both the winner and the vanquished may gain greater prizes than the stake they played for.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The right hon. Gentleman stated that the United Irish League has deposited a united Irish party in this House. As a matter of fact it has deposited two parties, of which I am one. If the House will allow me, in the few minutes that remain, I should like to give my reasons for voting for the Amendment. My first reason is that I have not read it; my second reason is that, after listening to the speech of the mover, I agree with almost every word of what he said. I will put it to the House, to men who think that after the course of years you are gradually-acquiring some little hold on the minds and intellect of Ireland, what prospect have you for your Imperialism or of creating any permanent cohesion between, the two islands?
  The right hon. Gentleman has made-several appeals to us—some reasonable, some unreasonable. I have sometimes ventured to make appeals to that Bench in various times, but they have never prevailed. Why? Because while we address the Treasury Bench openly from these benches—and our speeches have to be made openly—vindicating the Irish position in Ireland, well we know that Ireland is not governed by reference to those speeches, but by reference to the back-door intrigues and the intrigues of landlords in Dublin Castle. One word behind your chair, Sir, from an

  965
  Orange Member is more potent with the Government than the united voice of the; eighty Members on this side; and the very reason for the Amendment has been the cause of the irregularity and illegality into which you have been stupidly and foolishly driven in Ireland by your bad advisers. Why is the Member for Dover Chief Secretary to-day? Why is not the President of the Board of Trade Chief Secretary? He was driven out of Ireland by landlord intrigue, because he passed the Land Act of '96 and the Local Government Act of 1898. Although he was a relative and all of the most powerful statesman of the Empire, he was thrown as a peace-offering to my Lord Ardilaun. What are we representatives of the peasants of the country to think, who know how potent are these forces which command the entire legislature across the hall, when we see a statesman who has devoted himself to the interest of our country in a small degree sacrificed with as little care for public opinion in Ireland as you would show to a dismissed policeman. The Government ask us to believe them. They talk about law and order—they say it is their business to maintain law and order. I say it is their business in Ireland to leave the people alone: that is what we want from you. You compare yourselves sometimes to the Romans of the great Roman Empire. You extract 9¼ millions out of our wretched people every year. That ought to be enough for you. You get regiment after regiment out of the country who show the utmost devotion in the field, while at the same time you evict their fathers and keep their children in the poorhouses. The Romans were satisfied with taxation and legionaries: but what must you do? You take the most miserable and shameful class—the land-grabbers—and devote the whole forces of the British Empire to buttressing them up. Every land-grabber in the country can get ten, twelve, or twenty policemen, costing £2,000 or £3,000, to protect him, out of a country in which there are, as the right hon. Gentleman admitted, 150,000 people living on 2d. a day, all because these unfortunate people try to cling to their country. Oh, but the British Govern-
  966
  ment must uphold law and order What is law and order I want to know? That is to say, it is law. A man who professes the Catholic faith is constantly brought long distances to the assizes, leaving his home and industry. If he does not attend on his summons he is fined £20; while if he attends, some wretched caitiff—a member of a Freemason lodge or an Orange lodge—the moment his name is mentioned, says, "You are unworthy of belief: out you go again; we do not want you." Day after day he is brought in and has the ignominy of being cast aside, why not pass an Act excluding all Catholics from the jury box? I remember the Attorney General's great essay to convict myself. I have often twitted him about it. He prosecuted me as a Whiteboy, or a highwayman—I forget exactly which. He advised me that my trial was fixed for eleven o'clock; but instead of taking it at that hour they first put on a horse-thief before me, and they put twelve of the strongest Catholic Nationalists on the jury and of course denuded my panel of jurors to that extent. That was twenty years ago; but what went on in 1880, and 1890, is going on in 1900, and I. suppose will go on as long as the Union lasts. You prize the valour of your Catholic soldiers; you let them wear the shamrock on St. Patrick's day: you do everything so long as they are acting in the English service; but as soon as it is a question of affecting Ireland, they are absolutely boycotted. You are the boy-cotters. They are absolutely proscribed, as much proscribed as if the penal laws had never been repealed. The right hon. Gentleman has, of course, with his usual ability, attacked this motion on the ground that this is only a stalking-horse, as he says, for Home Rule. Well, that is a very easy thing to say. We might as well say of some of his actions that they are intended as stalking-horses for the Union. I say, take them at large, and the mass of Irishmen would rather remain in their rags than forfeit their hopes for the liberties of the country. For myself, having worn the stones of Westminster Hall for many a year—of course I am told from time to time that our cause is failing, and that our hopes are flagging—I do not believe at the present moment that in these twenty years—except some man

  967
  who draws a salary—the English Government has made a single friend in Ireland outside of Dublin Castle. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary meets any man outside Dublin Castle who is not a Home Ruler, who is not at all events anti-British and anti-English. As the days go on, outside of a very small section of the community there is not a single man in Ireland of any class or creed who has any faith in the
  British Government. That is what has brought about Amendments such as that which has been moved to-night; and if I vote for it I vote for it on the principle that it is against the English Government, and whatever is against the English Government I am in favour of.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 109;'Noes, 203. (Division List, No. 8.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N.E.)

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.

  O'Brien, William (Cork)

  Allen, Chas. P. (Glouc.,Stroud

  Gilhooly, James

  O'Connor, James(Wicklow,W.

  Ambrose, Robert

  Hammond, John

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Hardie,J. Keir(MerthyrTydvil

  O'Doherty, William

  Harry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  Blake, Edward

  Hayne, Rt. Hon.CharlesSeale-

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Boland, John

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  O'Dowd, John

  Boyle, James

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon.Charles H.

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Brown, Geo. M. (Edinburgh)

  Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

  O'Kelly, J. (Roscommon, N.)

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  O'Malley, William

  Burt, Thomas

  Jones, William(Carnarvonsh.)

  O'Mara, James

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Jordan, Jeremiah

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Caldwell, James

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Shee, James John

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Kennedy, Patrick James

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Carvill,Patrick Geo. Hamilton

  Kinloch, Sir J. George Smyth

  Rea, Russell

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Labouchere, Henry

  Reddy, M.

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Leaney, Edmund

  Redmond, John E.(Waterford)

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Leigh, Sir Joseph (Stockport)

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Lloyd-George, David

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Crean, Eugene

  Lundon, W.

  Roche, John

  Cremer, William Randal

  MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Cullinan, J.

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Shipman, Dr. John

  Daly, James

  M'Cann, James

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  M'Dermott, Patrick

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Delany, William

  M'Fadden, Edward

  Sullivan, Donal

  Dewar,Jn. A.(Inverness-shire)

  M'Govern, T.

  Thomas, Alfred(Glamorgan,E.

  Dillon, John

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Thompson, E.C.(Monaghan,N.

  Doogan, P. C.

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, N.)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Duffy, William J.

  Minch, Matthew

  Tully, Jasper

  Dunn, Sir William

  Mooney, John J.

  Wason,Eugene(Clackmannan

  Elibank, Master of

  Murnaghan, George

  White, Patrick (Meath,North)

  Emmott, Alfred

  Murphy, J.

  Wilson, Fred W. (Norfolk,Mid)

  Evans, Samuel T.

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N.

  Ffrench, Peter

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Field, William

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

  Captain Donelan and Mr. Patrick O'Brien,

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid)

  Flynn, James Christopher

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood,Capt Sir Alex, F.

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Chapman, Edward

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Bigwood, James

  Charrington, Spencer

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Bill, Charles

  Colomb,Sir John Charles Ready

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry E.

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Corbett,A. Cameron(Glasgow)

  Archdale, Edward Mervyn

  Brodrick, Rt Hon. St. John

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Brookfield, Colonel Montagu

  Cox, Irwin Edw. Bainbridge

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Brown,AlexanderH. (Shropsh.

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis

  Bull, William James

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Butcher, John George

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Carlile, William Walter

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Dewar,T. R(T'rH' mlets,S. Geo.

  Balfour,Rt.Hon.A.J.(Manch'r

  Cavendish, V.C. W. (Derbysh.

  Dickinson, Robert Edmond

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

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Doxford, Sir Wm. Theodore

  Bartley, George C. T.

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm.

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

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

  Chamberlain, J Austen(Worc'r

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Knowles, Lees

  Purvis, Robert

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Radcliffe, R. F.

  Faber, George Denison

  Lawson, John Grant

  Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

  Fardell, Sir T. George

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

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw.

  Lee,CaptA. H. (Hants,Fareh'm

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Fergusson,Rt. Hn. Sir J(Manc'r

  Leigh Bennett, Henry Currie

  Rentoul, James Alexander

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Leveson-Gower,FrederickN.S.

  Richards, Henry Charles

  Finch, George H.

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Long,Col.Chas. W. (Evesham)

  Ritchie,Rt. Hn. Chas.Thomson

  Firbank, Joseph Thomas

  Long,Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol,S

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  FitzGerald,SirRobertPenrose-

  Lowe, Francis William

  Russell, T. W.

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edw. Algernon

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Lucas, Col. Francis(Lowestoft

  Saunderson,Rt. Hn. Col.Edw. J

  Flower, Ernest

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

  Seton-Karr, Henry

  Forster, Henry William

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin&Nairn

  Macartney,Rt. HnW.G. Ellison

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Gordon,MajEvans-(T'rH'ml'ts

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Gore, Hon. F. S. Ormsby-

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Smith,H.C. (Nrthmb, Tyneside

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John E.

  M'Calmont,Col.J.(Antrim,E.)

  Smith, James Parker(Lanarks.

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Spear, John Ward

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Manners, Lord Cecil

  Stanley,Hn. Arthur(Ormskirk

  Green, W. D. (Wednesbury)

  Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Guthrie, Walter Murray

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Stroyan, John

  Hall, Edward Marshall

  Milner,Rt.Hon.Sir Frederick G.

  Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

  Hamilton,RtHn.LordG(M'd'x

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Hamilton,Marq of (L'nd'nd'rry

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Talbot,Rt.Hn.J.G.(Oxfd Uni.

  Hardy, L. (Kent, Ashford)

  Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  More,Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

  Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

  Haslett, Sir James Horner

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Tufnell, Col. Edward

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F.

  Valentia, Viscount

  Heath, Jas. (Staffords., N.W.

  Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford)

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Helder, Augustus

  Mount, William Arthur

  Wanklyn, James Leslie

  Henderson, Alexander

  Murray,Rt.Hn.A.Graham (Bute

  Wason,JohnCathcart(Orkney

  Hermon-Hodge, Robert T.

  Murray,Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich)

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Welby,Lt-Col A. C. E. (Tauntn)

  Hobhouse, H. (Somerset, E.)

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Hope, J. F.(Shef'ld,Brightside

  Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Howard, Capt J.(Kent,Faversh.

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Hozier,Hon. James Henry Cecil

  Pease, Herbert P.(Darlington)

  Wilson, A.Stanley(York,E.R.

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Peel,Hn. Wm. Robt. Wellesley

  Wilson, J. W.(Worcestersh,N.

  Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

  Pemberton, John S. G.

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

  Jessel,Captain Herbert Merton

  Penn, John

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Percy, Earl

  Young, Commander(Berks,E.

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W.(Salop)

  Plummer, Walter R.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Keswick, William

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Motion made, and Question, "That this House do now adjourn till Monday next,"—(Sir William Walrond)—put, and agreed to.

  Main Question again proposed
  Debate arising; and it being after midnight, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

  WIDOWS AND ORPHANS OF SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.
  Resolved, That it is expedient that a Select Committee of Five Members of this House be appointed to join with a Committee of the Lords to consider the various charitable agencies now in operation, and the funds available, or which can properly be made available, for relieving Widows and Orphans of Soldiers and Sailors, with
  970
  a view to ensuring that the funds subscribed by local and private benevolence are applied to the best advantage in supplementing a scheme of Government pensions for Widows and Orphans of Soldiers and Sailors who have lost their lives in war.
  Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.—(Sir William Walrond.)

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve of the o'clock till Monday next.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:—

Aire and Calder Navigation.

Albion Steam Coal Company.

Aldeburgh Corporation (Water).

Aldershot Gas and Water.

Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railways.

Alfreton Gas.

Arlesey Gas.

Aspatria, Silloth, and District Water.

Barrow-in-Furness Corporation.

Bath Gas Light and Coke.

Belfast Harbour.

Bethlem Hospital.

Bideford and Clovelly Railway (Abandonment).

Bideford and Clovelly Railway (Extension of Time), etc.

Bingley Urban District Council.

Blackburn Corporation.

Blackpool Improvement.

Bolton Corporation.

Bournemouth Corporation.

Bradford Corporation.

Bridewell Hospital.

Brighton Corporation.

Bristol, Clifton, and West of England Zoological Society.

Bristol Corporation Cemetery.

Bristol Corporation (Docks and Railways, etc.)

British Gas Light Company (Hull Station).

British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company.

Broadstairs and St. Peter's Water and Improvement.

Burgess Hill Water.

Burton-upon-Trent Corporation.

Bury Corporation.

Bury Corporation Tramways.

Cardiff Corporation.

Cardiff Railway.

Central London Railway.

Charing Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway (No. 1).

Charing Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway (No. 2).

812

Charing Cross, Hammersmith, and District Electric Railway.

Chester Gas.

Chesterfield Improvement.

Christ's Hospital (London).

City and Brixton Railway.

City and North-East Suburban Electric Railway.

City and South London Railway.

City of London (Spitalfields Market).

Cleveland and Durham County Electric Power.

Colwyn Bay and Colwyn Urban District Gas.

Cork, Blackrock, and Passage Railway.

Crawley Gas.

Cromer Water.

Derby Corporation.

Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Electric Power.

Derwent Valley Water Board.

Devonport Corporation (Gas).

Devonport Gas and Coke.

District Messenger and Theatre Ticket Company.

Doncaster Tithe Trust.

Dorking Gas.

Dover Corporation.

Dover Gas.

Dover Harbour.

Dublin Corporation (Markets, etc.).

Dublin (Equalisation of Rates).

Dublin Port and Docks Board.

Dublin St. James' Gate Brewery Tramways.

East Middlesex Electricity (District Councils).

Easton and Church Hope Railway.

Eccles Corporation.

Elland Gas.

Fairford and Cirencester Railway.

Faversham Water.

Folkestone Corporation.

Freshwater, Yarmouth, and Newport Railway.

Gas Light and Coke Company.

Gateshead and District Tramways.

Golborne Gas.

Gravesend Gas.

Great Central Railway.

Great Eastern Railway.

Great Northern Railway.

Great Southern and Western Railway.

Great Western Railway.

Handsworth Urban District Council.

Harpenden District Gas.

Harrogate Water.

Hartlepools Gas and Water (Transfer).

Heckmond wike Gas (Transfer).

813

Henry Diaper and Company (Delivery I Warrants).

Heywood and Middleton Water Board.

Honley Urban District Council (Gas).

Horley District Gas.

Hull, Barnsley, and West Riding Junction Railway and Dock.

Humber Commercial Railway and Dock.

Ilkeston and Heanor Water Board.

Irish Presbyterian Church.

Islington and Euston Railway.

Kettering Urban District Water.

Kingscourt, Keady, and Armagh Railway.

King's Norton and Northfield Urban District Tramways.

King's Road Railway.

Kingston-upon-Hull Corporation.

Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (Dearne Valley Junction Railways).

Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (Various Powers).

Leatherhead Gas.

Leeds Churches.

Leeds Corporation (General Powers).

Leeds Corporation Water.

Llandrindod Wells Urban District Council Water.

Llandrindod Wells Water.

Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway.

Llanelly Harbour.

London and India Docks (Lighterage Rates, etc.).

London and India Docks (New Works, etc.).

London and North-Western Railway.

London Bridge Widening. London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway.

London (City) School for Orphans of Freemen.

London County Council (General Powers).

London County Council (Spitalfields Market).

London Riverside Fish Market.

London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway.

London Water (Purchase of Companies).

Long Eaton Gas.

Lowestoft Corporation.

Lynton and Barnstaple Railway.

Manchester and Liverpool Electric Express Railway.

Manchester Corporation.

Manchester (Market Street Area) Improvements.

Mansfield Corporation.

Margate Corporation.

814

Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.

Metropolitan District Railway.

Metropolitan Electric Supply.

Metropolitan Railway.

Metropolitan Water Companies (Amendment of Acts).

Midland Railway.

Milford Docks.

Mond Gas.

Neath Harbour.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Gateshead' Gas.

Newport (Isle of Wight) Gas.

Newry Port and Harbour Trust.

New Swindon Gas.

Nitrate Railways Company.

North-East London Railway.

North-Eastern Railway.

Nottingham Corporation.

Notting Hill Electric Lighting.

Oakham Water.

Omagh Gas.

Otley Gas.

Pembroke Urban District Council (County of Dublin).

Potersfield and Selsey Gas.

Piccadilly and City Railway.

Portmadoc, Beddgelert, and South Snowdon Railway.

Poulton-le-Fylde Gas.

Prestatyn Water.

Rhyl Bridge.

Rhyl Improvement.

Rhymney and Aber Valleys Gas and Water.

Richmond Gas.

Rickmansworth and Uxbridge Valley Water.

Ripon Corporation.

Royal Exchange Assurance.

Rugby Water and Improvement.

St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

Salford Corporation.

Shannon Water and Electric Power.

Sheffield Corporation.

Sheffield District Railway.

Shields Bridge.

Shipley Improvement.

Shireoaks, Laughton, and Maltby Railway.

Shrewsbury Gas.

Smothwick Corporation.

Southampton and Winchester Great Western Junction Railway.

South Eastern and London, Chatham, and Dover Railways.

South Essex Water.

South Metropolitan Gas.

Southport Water (Transfer).

815

South-Western and Isle of Wight Junction Railway.

Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley, and Dukinfield Tramways and Electricity Board.

Stockport Corporation Water.

Stratford-upon-Avon, Towcester, and Midland Junction, East and West Junction and Evesham, Redditch and Stratford-upon-Avon Junction Railway Companies.

Stratton and Bade Gas.

Stratton and Bude Improvement.

Stroud Gas.

Swanage Gas and Water.

Swansea Harbour.

Taff Vale Railway.

Tees Valley Water Board.

Tendring Hundred Water.

Thames Deep Water Dock.

Thames Lightermen.

Thames Piers and River Service.

Torrington and Okehampton Railway.

Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway.

Wallasey Improvement.

Warkworth Harbour.

Wells Corporation Water.

Wells Water.

West Cumberland Electric Tramways.

West Surrey Water.

Weston-super-Mare Gas.

Wisbech Water.

Wolverhampton and Cannock Chase Railway.

Wolverhampton Corporation Water.

Yorkshire Electric Power.

And the Certificate that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have not been complied with:—

Birmingham City Tramways.

Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway.

Cambrian Railways.

Cowes Ferry.

Harrogate Corporation.

Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (Canada Dock Works, etc.).

Scarborough Electric Tramways.

South Yorkshire Electric Power.

Sutton-in-Ashficld Urban District (Water).

Tyneside Tramways and Tramroads.

West and South London Junction Railway.

The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

ROLL OF THE LORDS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had prepared and laid it on the Table. The same was ordered to be printed. (No. 12.)
POST OFFICE (TELEGRAPHS).
Accounts showing the gross amount received and expended on account of the Telegraph Service during the year ended 31st March, 1900. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

THE ROYAL DECLARATION AGAINST ROMAN CATHOLICISM.
LORD BRAYE,who had the following question on the Paper—
"To ask the Prime Minister whether he can hold out hope that the Government will speedily introduce into Parliament a measure to wholly abolish the Oath imposed as obligatory on the Sovereign of this country by Statute which was solemnly taken by His Majesty the present King in this Parliament; that is to say, the Oath in which Almighty God is invoked to bear witness that doctrines held by the Catholic Church not only as awful, sacred, and stupendous, but also as vital and fundamental, are false"
said: My Lords, with the leave of the noble Marquess, I wish to postpone this question until such time as the Government have had further opportunity for taking the matter to which it refers into consideration. The matter is no doubt under consideration, owing to a memorial or protest signed by a number of Roman Catholic Peers against the Oath which has been taken in this House by the Sovereign, and I therefore ask leave to postpone the question until the matter has received further consideration by the Government.
THE PRIME MINISTER AND LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of SALISBURY): My Lords, I do not know whether there is any object to be gained in delaying the question which the noble Lord wished to ask, excepting bringing him down again unnecessarily. Though I am very anxious to give an answer which would be satisfactory to the noble Lord and his co-religionists, I do not wish

817
to leave on his mind an impression that there are any doubts in the matter. We all of us deplore the language in which that Declaration is couched, and very much wish it could be otherwise expressed; but when it comes to altering an enactment which has now lasted, as far as I know, without serious question, 200 years, i and which was originally included in the Bill of Rights, it is a matter which cannot be done without very considerable thought. We must remember that an enactment of that kind represents the passions, feelings, and sensibilities of the people by whom it was originally caused; and that these have not died out. They are not strong within these walls; but there are undoubtedly parts of the country where the controversies which the Declaration represents still flourish, and where the emotions which it indicates have not died out. Before an; enactment is proposed, with all the discussion which must precede such an enactment, we shall have to consider how far it is desirable to light again passions which sleep at this moment, for an occasion which is not now urgent, and which we all earnestly hope may not be urgent in our lives. I do not wish to debar the noble Lord from any action which he may think it right to take; but I wish to point out to him the extreme difficulties and anxieties which would accompany any such attempt. With respect to the actual question of legislation, I need hardly observe that it is rather a question for the House of Commons than for us, because here I do not imagine there would be any doubt whatever about the result of such attempted legislation. But I could not be certain that a very strong feeling might not be excited elsewhere; and I notice that, possibly with a view to that consideration, the Leader of the other House, in answer to a question, said that, at all events for the present year, he did not see the possibility of having the requisite opportunity of bringing the question before the House.* I am afraid, therefore, however deeply I sympathise with the feelings of the noble Lord and wish there had been no cause for their being appealed to, that my answer would have to be of a discouraging character.
EARL SPEXCER: My Lords, I certainly should have preferred that the
*See page 320.
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noble Marquess had acceded to the request of my noble friend who had this question on the Paper, and allowed it to be adjourned. The noble Marquess has said certain things with which no doubt I should heartily agree. At the same time I do feel that it is important that, if possible, the words of this Oath should be modified, so as not to give offence, which it does give, and rightly gives, to the consciences of many of our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. The noble Marquess said, and I most heartily agree with him, that he trusts we shall not have the necessity of hearing the Oath taken again in Parliament for a very long time. But if there is anything in the contention of those who say that it is desirable that the form of the Oath should be altered, then I hold it is not right to defer its alteration by statute much beyond the present time. The noble Marquess said it is difficult to alter it on account of its great age, and the great length of time the Oath has been on the Statute-book. But a great many things have to be altered, owing to change of circumstances and change of opinion, without having regard to their origin. I for one do not at all agree with what I understand from the question of my noble friend is his contention—namely, that the Oath should be altogether dispensed with. I think it is essential, considering the very strong feeling on the subject in the country, that there should be some oath or some declaration which would prevent the Throne from being occupied by one of the Roman Catholic faith. While I feel that, I also most strongly feel that the Oath in its present form is unnecessarily offensive to Roman Catholics; and although I am a strong Protestant myself, I do not at all believe in the necessity of the continuation of the offensive words in the Oath. I venture to press upon the noble Marquess the urgent necessity that within a reasonable time the Government, with their large majority and all their power, should look into the matter and endeavour to alter the form of the Oath. It is hardly necessary for me to point to the great change which has taken place within the last century on matters of conscience. I would only refer to one matter. A much greater step than the alteration of the words of this Oath was the passing of an Act in 1867 or 1868 which enabled a Roman Catholic to be Lord Chancellor of

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Ireland. I was the first and I believe the only Lord Lieutenant of Ireland who had as a colleague a Roman Catholic Lord Chancellor.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND (Lord ASHBOURNE): There has been one since.
EARL SPENCER: The noble and learned Lord is quite right. I very well recollect the feelings that were excited, and I myself was the object of attack on that account. But I venture to say there was not a single act of the Irish Government, of which I was at that time the head, and of which the noble Duke sitting by the side of the Prime Minister was a distinguished Member, which affected injuriously the interests of the country on account of a Roman Catholic being Lord Chancellor of Ireland. That was a greater change than any mere modification of the King's Oath; and while, as I have said, I consider that some form of oath must exist, I hope the Government will refer the question to a Committee, or, as I should prefer, will take action themselves to make the Oath less offensive to Roman Catholics.
LORD HERRIES: My Lords, I am quite sure the Roman Catholics in England will be most grateful to the noble Earl for the manner in which he has spoken to-night. I did not come down to this House prepared to speak, but I had already made up my mind to move, in the course of this Session, that a Committee be appointed consisting, I hope, of Members of both parties, including, perhaps, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to consider what modification it might be possible to introduce into the Declaration which would make it more agreeable to a large portion of His Majesty's subjects. I do not think myself that there can be any objection to that course. I wish your Lordships to remember that the Declaration which was taken by His Majesty at the opening of Parliament is offensive not only to the feelings of His Majesty's own subjects, but also to the feelings of many of his nearest relations. Thus, for example, the Russian Imperial family may equally consider themselves branded as idolatrous and superstitious persons. Indeed, most of the Royal families in Europe are by it branded as idolatrous and superstitious persons. The extraordinary thing is that
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if any of these Royal personages were to die, and there was a Requiem Mass said in this country, the King would be expected to send his own representative to attend what he has branded as an idolatrous and superstitious ceremony. Surely there is something anomalous in that; and surely it is possible for the British Legislature in this century to make some alteration in the Declaration. We do not ask you to do away with the Declaration altogether. What we ask is that such modification should be introduced into the Oath as to leave out these offensive words. Such an alteration would not in the least endanger the religion of the majority in this country. It must astonish a large number of Colonists and also a great number of people throughout Europe that such a Declaration should exist at this time of day in this home of religious toleration. I have only to add that before the end of the session I shall bring this matter forward unless I can get some other Peer who is likely to have more influence than I have to do so; and I hope the Government, who now know that they will also have the support of the Opposition, will be prepared to assist in the formation of a Committee which will receive the general approval of all classes, and which will, I have no doubt, devise some modification of the Oath which will be satisfactory to the feelings of the Roman Catholics of this country.
LORD BRAYE: My Lords, as the noble Marquess the Prime Minister has thought fit —wisely, perhaps—not to allow me to postpone my question, and as a brief discussion has been initiated, I may, perhaps, venture to ask what is now called, I believe, a supplementary question, of which we have heard so much lately in another place. Why should not this Oath be converted into a Declaration? The noble Earl who spoke after the noble Marquess rather took exception to my wish, as stated in the question, that the Oath should be wholly abolished. I do not suggest the possibility or the likelihood of the Declaration being abolished. What I take exception to is the Oath being imposed by statute. An oath is a very different thing indeed from a Declaration. A Declaration is a thing within the province of politics, whereas an Oath essentially comes within the sphere of religion.

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This Oath, imposed by a statute of William and Mary, compels the Sovereign to call God to witness that the worship and belief and creed of an immense majority of Christians are idolatrous, including, as the noble Lord who has just spoken pointed out, the whole Russian Empire. A Declaration would not give offence in the same way as an Oath. It is ridiculous to exact from the Sovereign a specific oath against two of the most precious practices and doctrines of the whole Catholic religion. The Oath was made compulsory to exclude by specific words the descendants of Charles I. from claiming the Throne of England. Does any person out of a lunatic asylum suppose that any descendants of Charles I. have any idea at this time of day of claiming the throne of this kingdom? We know that the descendants of Charles I. were totally excluded, and that our present Sovereign, who is a descendant of James I., required no oath of this kind to establish his right to this kingdom. Therefore I venture to hope that the Oath, which has given so much offence to the feelings of His Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, will be wholly abolished.

MANNING OF MERCHANT VESSELS— THE LOSS OF THE "PRIMROSE HILL."
LORD MUSKERRY: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government whether the Board of Trade inquiry, as ordered, into the loss in December last of the ship "Primrose Hill," of Liverpool, has been deferred owing to pending libel actions between private individuals; whether in view of this vessel sailing without a certificated second officer, and certain other allegations as to her manning, it is the intention of the Board of Trade to proceed with this inquiry; and also whether, as these inquiries are held in the public interest, the Board of Trade will consider the advisability of discontinuing their practice of their being subordinated to cases of purely private concern. For the information of your Lordships, I may say that this ship was over 2,300 tons register, and that she carried a crew of thirty-five. Amongst that crew I am told there were thirteen apprentices, six of whom had never been to sea before. Your Lordships will remember that in December last the ship was lost, and that, with the exception of one man, all hands were drowned.
THE SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (the EARL of DUDLEY): My Lords, it is quite true that the inquiry into the loss of the "Primrose Hill" was, according to the usual custom, deferred while the libel action between the owners of the vessel and the proprietors of the Liverpool Courier newspaper awaited hearing. That action, however, has now been disposed of, and has resulted in a verdict for the owners with £100 damages. The Board of Trade inquiry will now take place in the usual way. To that inquiry will naturally be referred questions of manning such as those to which my noble friend has called attention, and it is, therefore, perhaps unnecessary for me to refer to them at this time. As regards the last past of the question, I regret that I cannot make any promise that the Board of Trade will depart from the course that it has hitherto followed in cases of this kind. The custom of deferring the inquiry into the circumstances of any particular casualty while a civil action in connection with it is pending either in the High Court or the Admiralty Court seems to me to be based on sound and equitable principles. To act otherwise might have the effect of seriously prejudicing the position of the various litigants, and I do not think therefore that under these circumstances my noble friend will wish to press his suggestion.
House adjourned at five minutes before Five of the clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven of the clock.