Sitting of 7 May 1903

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.
NEW WRIT.
New Writ for Preston Borough, in the room of the right hon. Robert William Hanbury, deceased.—(Sir Alexander Acland-Hood.)

UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Great Central Railway Bill. Read the third time, and passed. [New Title.]
London County Council (General Powers) Bill. Read the third time, and passed. [New Title.]
Queensland Investment and Land Mortgage Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 7). Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Cambridge and District, Isle of Sheppey and District, Sandwich, Deal, Walmer and District, Sittingbourne and Milton, Stroud and Dartford (Rural Districts), Tadcaster and District (Extension), Uxbridge and District (Extension), and Wimbledon (Extension). Ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bonar Law and Mr. Gerald Balfour.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 7) Bill. "To confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Cambridge
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and District, Isle of Sheppey and District, Sandwich, Deal, Walmer and District, Sittingbourne and Milton, Stroud and Dartford (Rural Districts), Tadcaster and District (Extension), Uxbridge and District (Extension), and Wimbledon (Extension)." Presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. (Bill 185.)
Land Drainage Provisional Order Bill. Reported, without Amendment (Provisional Order confirmed); Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill. Reported, without Amendment (Provisional Orders confirmed); Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill. Reported, without Amendment (Provisional Orders confirmed); Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
Electric Lighting Provisional Order (No. 1) Bill [Lords]. Reported, without Amendment (Provisional Order confirmed); Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill. Reported, with Amendments (Provisional Orders confirmed); Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill. Reported, with Amendments (Provisional Orders confirmed); Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
Hampton Court Gas Bill; Cheshire Lines Committee Bill; Ebbw Vale Water and Improvement Bill. Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have passed a Bill, intitutled, "An Act to authorise the transfer of the Knaresborough Waterworks to the Corporation of Harrogate, and to enable them to supply water in Knaresborough and adjoining places." (Harrogate Water Bill [Lords].)
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to revive and extend the powers for the purchase of land and the time limited for the completion of the railway authorised by The Wirral Railway Act, 1898; to extend the time for disposing of and otherwise dealing with certain surplus lands of the Wirral Railway Company; to increase the capital of that company; and for other purposes." (Wirral Railway Bill [Lords].)
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to effect a combination of the undertakings of the Pelican Life Insurance Company and the British Empire Mutual Life Assurance Company; and for other purposes." (Pelican and British Empire Life Office Bill [Lords].)
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the Harrow and Stanmore Gas Company to acquire lands, to construct gasworks, to raise additional capital; and for other purposes. (Harrow and Stanmore Gas Bill [Lords].)
Harrogate Water Bill [Lords]; Wirral Railway Bill [Lords]; Pelican and British Empire Life Office Bill [Lords]; Harrow and Stanmore Gas Bill [Lords.]
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITIONS.
  COAL MINES REGULATION BILL.
  Petitions in favour: from Pendleton; Silverdale; No. 17 Pit, Silverdale; High Carr; Woodfield, Watermills; Tibshelf (No. 2); Leacroft; Five Ways; Kingswinford; Piatt Bridge; Chesterton; Nos. 14 and 15 Pits, Silverdale; Pencoed; Mwrwg Vale; Eddlewood; and Newmains Collieries; to lie upon the Table.
  COUNTY COURTS JURISDICTION EXTENSION BILL.
  Petitions in favour: from Stockport; Great Torrington; Aberystwyth; Banbury; and Heywood; to lie upon the Table.
  DETENTION OF POOR PERSONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour: from Urquhart; and Logiewester; and Glassford; to lie upon the Table.
  HALL-MARKING OF FOREIGN PLATE (No. 2) BILL.
  Petition from Birmingham, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING LAW (COMPENSATION FOR NON-RENEWAL) BILL.
  Petition from Loughborough, against; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING (SCOTLAND) ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  Petitions for alteration: from Kiltearn; Stenton; Burghead; Monimail and Selkirk; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING (SCOTLAND) ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  Petitions in favour: from Auchterarder; and Perth; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT FRANCHISE AND REPRESENTATION (EXTENSION TO COMPANIES) BILL.
  Petition from Birmingham, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL.
  Petition from Parkstone, against; to lie upon the Table.
  PHARMACY BILL.
  Petition from Nottingham, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION BILL.
  Petitions in favour: from Alva; Burnley; Rawdon; Congleton; St. Rollox; Gainsborough; Seghill; Amble; Tadcaster; Ashington; Egremont; Haslingden; and Sunderland; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC HOUSES (HOURS OF CLOSING) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Glasgow, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC LIBRARIES.
  Petition from Aberystwyth, for alteration of law; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADES DISPUTES BILL.
  Petition from Birmingham, against; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADES DISPUTES BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Pendleton: Silverdale; No. 17 Pit, Silverdale; High Carr; Woodfield; Watermills; Tibshelf (No. 2); Leacroft; Five Ways; Kingswinford; Piatt Bridge; Chesterton; Tunstall (No. 2); Kents Lane Pits, Silverdale; Knutton; No. 1, East Cannock; Pencoed; Eddlewood; Newmains; Mwrwg Vale; and Rutherglen Collieries; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE UNIONS AND TRADE DISPUTES BILL.
  Petition from Birmingham, against; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) (CONTINUATION) CLASSES.
  Copy presented, of Code of Regulations for Continuation Classes, providing further instruction for those who have left school, 1903 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  MERCANTILE MARINE (SIGHT TESTS).
  Copy presented, of Report on the sight tests used in the Mercantile Marine for the year ended 31st December, 1902 (in continuation of [C. 1140]); [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
  Return presented, relative thereto (ordered 6th May—Mr. Bonar Law); to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. (No. 146.)
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 5) BILL.
  Return presented, relative thereto (ordered 6th May—Mr. Bonar Law); to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. (No. 147.)

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 6) BILL.
  Return presented, relative thereto (ordered 6th May—Mr. Bonar Law); to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. (No. 148.)
  Paper laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House.

  TEMPORARY LAWS.
  Register of Temporary Laws for the Fourth Session, Twenty-seventh Parliament, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, pursuant to Report of the Select Committee on Expiring Laws in Session 1866; to be printed. (No. 149.)
  PARLIAMENTARY BOROUGHS, ETC. (DIAGRAMS).
  Address for "Return of Diagrams showing the Parliamentary and Municipal Boroughs and the Parliamentary County Divisions of the United Kingdom, with the respective electorates and populations."—(Mr. Kimber.)
  CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.
  Address for "Return of all sentences of Corporal Punishment inflicted under 26 and 27 Vic, c. 44, upon persons convicted of offences against Section 43 of the Larceny Act, 1861, and Section 41 of the Offences against the Person Act, 1861, in England and Wales, from the 31st day of December, 1900, to the 31st day of December, 1902 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper No. 204, of Session 1901).—(Mr. Lloyd Morgan.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Claims of Sirdar Balvant Ramchandra.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether the claims made by Sirdar Balvant Ramchandra, native of Poona, which are set forth in a letter dated 25th

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  August, 1901, addressed to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, have yet received the consideration promised; and if so, will he state the nature of the decision arrived at.
  (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) As far as I am aware, the Sirdar has not definitely renounced his intention of having recourse to legal proceedings. The situation, therefore, remains as it was when I answered the Question addressed to me by the hon. Member on the 22nd October last.†

  Conversion of the Khairpur Currency.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary of State for India if he will ascertain whether a scheme for the conversion of the Khairpur currency has yet been arranged; and, if so, on what conditions the Native State rupee is now accepted by the Khairpur State Treasury.
  (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) Yes. In January last the Mir of Khairpur issued a notification substituting British Indian silver coinage for Chalan coinage in those parts of his territory in which the latter coinage was current. Every person presenting genuine Chalan rupees for conversion will receive in exchange British rupees at the rate of 100 British rupees for every 140 Chalan rupees.

  Glasgow Assistant Postmen.
  SIR J. STIRLING-MAXWELL: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the number of assistant postmen employed at Glasgow and the delay in their obtaining an established appointment, steps will be taken to have the matter adjusted as recommended on page 24 of the Tweedmouth Committee's Report, which has never been carried out in Glasgow.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain) A revision of the outdoor force at Glasgow is now under consideration, and a sufficient number of new appointments will probably be found justified to admit of several senior assistant postmen being nominated to established places.
  †See (4) Debates, cxiii., 462.

  Revision of Bristol Postal Staff.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether a revision of the Bristol post office staff was due in 1901; and whether, in view of the number of men affected, he will state when the scheme will be brought into effect.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) Revisions of the postal force at any office do not become due at any particular period, but are carried out as circumstances require. It is not clear whether the Question refers to the outdoor or the in-door force. A revision of the outdoor force was authorised in 1901, except as regards the superior appointments, proposals as to which are now approaching settlement. A revision of the indoor force is in hand, and will be brought into operation as soon as practicable.

  Improved Postal Facilities in the Gweedore and Bunbeg District, County Donegal.
  MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the opening for traffic of the Burtonport Extension Railway, he can now arrange a better postal service in the districts of Gweedore and Bunbeg, County Donegal.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) Arrangements are being made for using the Burtonport Extension Railway for the day mail service in the district served by it, and the company have been asked on what terms they would provide trains at suitable hours for the night mail service. The correspondence for the district is, however, small, and no considerable payment for such trains would be justified.

  Monopoly for the Sale of Currants in Greece.
  MR. CHARLES M'ARTHUR: To ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether a scheme for the grant by the Greek Government to a Greek and British syndicate of a monopoly for the sale of all currants grown in Greece has been brought under the notice of the British Minister at Athens; and, if so, will he state whether he has taken any, and if so, what action in the matter.

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  (Answered by Lord Cranborne.) The answer to the first Question is in the affirmative. On the 3rd ultimo His Majesty's Minister at Athens was instructed by telegraph to ask the Hellenic Government for information as to the exact nature of the proposals, as a monopoly would seem to be contrary to the spirit of the commercial agreement between the two countries of 28th March, 1890. No scheme has yet been approved by the Greek Government, and Sir E. Egerton has recently reported that so far the proposals are neither definite nor complete.

  Undue Preference in Consular Reports.
  MR. D. A. THOMAS: To ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been called to the reference on page 10, in Mr. Consul Neville Rolfe's Report on the Trade of South Italy for 1901, to the position of a foreign firm in the coal trade; and, if so, will he say whether the instructions given to our Consuls abroad prohibit the use of Consular reports as a medium of advertisement for particular firms; and, if not, will he consider the propriety of issuing some such instruction for their future guidance.
  (Answered by Lord Cranborne.) The answer to the first Question is in the affirmative. The rule is that no particular mercantile house or firm should be mentioned in such a manner as to lay a Consular officer open to the charge of favouritism. The publication of the passage, which does not in the opinion of the Secretary of State constitute an infringement of the rule, was approved by him.

  Physical Training in Scotland.
  MR. SHAW-STEWART: To ask the Lord Advocate what steps are being taken to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scotland) regarding the appointment of a skilled Committee to prepare a model course containing exercises adapted to the requirements of the differently situated schools, and the different ages, sexes, and conditions of health of the children in Scotland.
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  (Answered by Mr. A. Graham Murray.) The special recommendation of the Royal Commission to which the hon. Member refers has received the attention of the Scottish Education Department, and steps are now being taken, along with the Board of Education, to nominate a Joint Committee for the purpose indicated. It is hoped that the Committee will begin work shortly.
  MR. SHAW-STEWART: To ask the Lord Advocate whether he can state what steps are being taken to obtain the assistance of medical officers to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scotland) for establishing a system of medical inspection of the children in all schools; and whether, in aid of the remuneration of their services, provision will be made out of the Parliamentary Vote; also, if any arrangements are being made for the appointment, to serve under the Education Department, of sub-inspectors, male and female, for the purpose of assisting in sanitary matters the existing staffs of schools.
  (Answered by Mr. A. Graham Murray.) The Scotch Education Department is now in communication with representatives of those interested, in order to obtain their views as to the recommendation referred to and the means by which it can be carried out. When their Lordships are in possession of these views they will consider what, if any, proposals may be submitted to the Treasury as to the financial arrangements.

  Patents Act, 1902—Date of coming into Operation.
  SIR ALFRED HICKMANN: To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he proposes to put in force the provisions of the Patents Act of last Session.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The part of the Act amending the Law as to the grant of compulsory licences came into force on the 18th December, 1902. As at present advised, Section 1, which deals with the examination of previous specifications in the United Kingdom, will come into operation early in 1905. During the interval a great deal of preliminary work has to be done

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  in connection with the completion of the illustrated abridgments, the arrangement of the material of search, and the increase and re-organisation of the staff of the Patent Office. This work is now proceeding.

  Reduction of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
  SIR JOHN COLOMB: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he can state by what method the reduction of the Royal Irish Constabulary is to be carried out, whether in anticipation of the Land Purchase (Ireland) Bill becoming law, or after it has received the Royal Assent; and if the latter course is to be pursued, whether the reduction will be effected in globo and immediately on the passing of the Bill, or by a gradual process; and if by degrees, whether the reductions will be regulated by reference to, and pari passu with, the extent of transactions of land purchase.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Reduction in the strength of the force will be effected mainly by the cessation of recruiting. The reduction now being carried out arises from the improvement which has manifested itself in the condition of the country, and which is largely due, no doubt, to the introduction of the Land Bill. It will continue to be effected by gradual process extending over a period of years. Broadly speaking the reductions will proceed pari passu with the development of land purchase, but they will not necessarily be regulated by the latter consideration.

  Ireland—Refusal to Grant Gun Licence.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will explain why Mr. P. Cournane, of Castlemaine, county Kerry, has been refused a gun licence to use for the protection of his crops.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The holding of the applicant extends to seven acres, of which two acres only are under tillage. The licensing officer, in whom is vested by law the discretion of granting or withholding a licence to keep arms, does not consider that the applicant in the present case requires a gun for the protection of his crops.

  South African War Medals for 78th Imperial Yeomanry.
  SIR J. STIRLING-MAXWELL: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state when medals for the South African War will be issued to the men of the 78th Company Imperial Yeomanry.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The medal roll of this company was sent in without the regimental numbers, and will have to be completed in the War Office. The roll will be dealt with in due course in its proper turn.

  Repairs of Roads in the Naas District.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been directed to a representation from the Naas (No. 2) Rural District Council to the effect that they had received from the acting county surveyor of Wicklow an application for the maintenance of 296 perches of road between the three roads at Ballyfolan and the roads at Shankill at 6s. per perch per annum, being an increase of 5s. 6d. per perch per annum as compared with the amount paid prior to the establishment of the military camp at Shankill; and to an application from the Naas Rural Council for the sum of £81 a year towards defraying the cost of maintaining the road to the camp, in addition to the sum of £46 7s. 4d. already paid by the council in excess of the usual amount, the increased expenditure having been occasioned by the traffic to the camp; and whether he will see that the Naas Council is recouped for its outlay in this case.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The increase in the wear and tear of the roads mentioned is met by the increased contributions in lieu of rates due to the increase in the value of the War Department property, in respect of which the contributions are made.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Attack on Mr. Stanford at Cape Town.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Colonel

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    H. Cooper, C.M.G., who held the position of Boer commandant at Cape Town from 1st April, 1900, was present at the dance given at Mount Nelson Hotel on Christmas Eve, 1901, and was at that time resident in the hotel; and that he did not stop the attack made upon Mr. Stanford in the grounds at the back of the hotel; can he state whether Colonel Cooper took any, and if so what, steps to investigate the matter; did he make any, and if so what, report to Lord Kitchener; why was the report of the legal proceedings, in which a sum of £1,500 damages and £2,000 costs were recovered by Mr. Stanford against ten officers in the High Court of Cape Colony, excluded from the Cape papers by the action of the Military Press Censor; why were not the apologies offered by the ten officers involved allowed to appear in the Cape Press owing to the action of the Press Censor; and can he now give any explanation of this occurrence, and of the fact that in August last he had no information whatever about it, and of the steps he intends to take in the matter.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): The Commander-in-Chief has ordered a Court-martial to assemble to try the officers concerned in this case. Very serious charges have been made by Mr. Stanford, and it is desirable that the officers concerned should have the opportunity of clearing their characters. Colonel Cooper was not involved in the assault, nor did he hear anything of it till later—but in view of the proceedings about to be taken, I must ask to be absolved from making any statement at present.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I will only ask a friendly supplementary. Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of the Question?
    MR. BRODRICK: That is covered by my reply.

    Army Returns.
    MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state when the promised Command Paper giving the strength of the various units of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Army Corps will be laid upon the Table.
    MR. BRODRICK: The return is being prepared with all possible despatch, but I cannot fix an exact date for its publication.
    MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: The right hon. Gentleman is aware, I suppose that this return was promised by the 1st of the month.
    MR. BRODRICK: No, Sir; I promised to give returns as to the strength on the 1st of the month. It must take some days.
    MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: That was not at all the intention of the right hon. Gentleman.

    Dorchester Barracks.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been directed to the condition of the artillery barracks at Dorchester, and to the fact that the men are quartered over stables, and to the effect of this fact on the health of the Imperial Yeomanry who were quartered there before being sent out to South Africa; and, if so, will steps be taken to put the barracks in repair and in a sanitary condition
    MR. BRODRICK: There is nothing to show that the health of the men has in any way suffered from their being quartered over stables. The barracks are old, but are not insanitary. No complaints have been forwarded on the subject. It is not intended to retain these barracks permanently for mounted troops as others become available.

    Private Fox, 1st Battalion 15th Foot.
    MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether his attention has been directed to the case of No. 661, Private W. Fox, 1st Battalion 15th Regiment of Foot, who served about eleven years, was discharged from the Army owing to heart disease contracted through rheumatic fever while serving in the Army; and whether, in view of his character in the Army and of the fact that he was discharged without remuneration or pension, and that he had active and Foreign service in Bermuda,

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    St. John's, and New Brunswick, he can, in view of this man's age and present condition, grant him a small pension.
    MR. BRODRICK: The case cannot at present be traced from the information supplied in the Question. Will the hon. Member kindly forward the man's discharge certificate or the date of his discharge to enable further search to be made?
    MR. FLAVIN: I will forward the documents asked for.

    British Trade in the Congo Free State.
    MR. BAYLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any petitions from Chambers of Commerce in this country, or complaints from merchants in the Congo Free State, setting forth the fact that British traders are not allowed to trade in certain parts of the Congo Free State, as they are entitled to do under Article 5 of the Berlin General Act; and, if so, will he state what action, if any, the Government have taken on this question with the Congo Free State Government; and, whether he will lay Papers dealing with the matter upon the Table of the House.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord CRANBORNE,): The attention of His Majesty's Government has been called by Chambers of Commerce to the limitations on the freedom of British Trade alleged to be due to improper action on the part of the Authorities of the Congo Free State. The questions raised by these allegations were already receiving the careful consideration of the Government, but there are at present no Papers which can usefully be laid before the House, and no decision has yet been come to.

    Distillation of Spirit in England.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he would state the total quantity of spirit distilled in England during the year 1902, and how much was used for methylation, rectifying, and compounding purposes; whether any
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    English spirit is used as whisky in Excise or Customs warehouses in Leith; and, if so, what is the total quantity despatched thereto from distilleries in England; what are the materials from which English spirit is usually distilled; and, if any beet molasses from abroad is used in its manufacture.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. RITCHIE,): The total quantity of spirits distilled in England during the year ended March 31st, 1903, was 11,295,563 proof gallons. The quantity of home-made spirits used for methylation, for the same period, was 3,574,733 proof gallons. I have no means of knowing the quantities used for rectifying and compounding. English spirit is used in the warehouses at Leith, but I have no means of knowing the quantities. The materials from which the English spirit is usually distilled are malt, un-malted grain, molasses, sugar, glucose, and rice. No doubt beet molasses is used to some extent, but I have no means of knowing the quantities.
    MR. T. M. HEALYasked what became of the 8,000,000 gallons of English spirit that was not sold as such.
    MR. RITCHIE: I cannot say.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire whether it is not sold as Scotch or Irish?
    No reply was given.

    Alleged Frauds in the Whisky Trade.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any official information has reached him that, in preparing whisky for the market, frauds are practised in bond by the users of patent still spirit under the supervision of the Government officials; whether he will consider the advisability of bringing the sale of spirituous liquors under the supervision of the Food and Drugs Acts in the same manner as milk, butter, and other articles of consumption; and whether, in the interests of the public health, the Government will inquire whether chemical analysis by modern methods is now able to practically determine the composition of alcoholic liquors.
    MR. RITCHIE: In reply to the first clause of the Question, I have no official information on the subject. In reply to the second clause, I do not think this matter falls within the province of the Treasury. In reply to the third clause, if the intention be to ascertain whether chemical analysis is able to determine the relative proportion of raw grain or patent-still spirit and malt or pot-still whisky in a mixture of the two, the answer is that as both these spirits vary considerably in their chemical char acteristics only an approximate estimation, at best, could be made in the case of a blend of which the origin and constituent ingredients were unknown.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Has the right hon. Gentleman not seen the contrary stated in that highly scientific paper, the Lancet.
    MR. RITCHIE: No, Sir, I have not.

    Coal Exports.
    MR. D. A. THOMAS: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can say to what extent the quantity of coal declared for export as of a value of 5s. and not exceeding 6s. per ton fell short of the quantities from 4s. to 5s., and from 6s. to 7s. during the financial year ending 31st March last; and if he has any official information explaining the cause of the smaller quantity shipped at the first-named price.
    MR. RITCHIE: The quantity of coal exported during the year ending March 31st last at a declared value not exceeding 5s. the ton, was 737,812 tons; exceeding 5s. but not exceeding 6s. the ton, 3,004,573 tons; and exceeding 6s. but not exceeding 7s. the ton, 883,665 tons. The quantity shipped at values between 4s. and 5s. the ton comprises nearly all that stated above to be not exceeding 5s., but the exact figures are not readily available. It will be seen that the tendency of the figures is in the direction opposite to that suggested by the hon. Member.

    Millers' Bonding Stores in Ireland.
    MR. SULLIVAN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has
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    been called to the fact that a licence for a bonding store has been granted to a miller in Dublin and refused to one in the country; and if so, will he take steps to grant the same facilities to millers in country places as in Dublin.
    MR. RITCHIE: It is probable that this Question refers to a verbal application made to the collector of Customs at Dublin for bonding privileges for a millers' store situated in the country at a considerable distance from that port. As it would be impossible for Customs Officers to supervise the premises in question the matter has been referred to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, who have officers stationed in the neighbourhood, and who will be prepared to consider a specific application for bonding privileges. The same course will be pursued with regard to inland bonding in general.

    United Kingdom Millers' Bonding Arrangements.
    MR. SULLIVAN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider the advisability of altering the proposed bonding arrangements so that the millers of the United Kingdom may not be placed in a worse position than the importers of Foreign manufactured flour, who, under the suggested arrangement, will have their Hour in bond up to 1st of July and can then immediately deliver to their customers, whereas the miller will have to sell flour manufactured from taxed wheat against foreign manufactured flour duty free taken out of bond.
    MR. RITCHIE: I am giving the matter close consideration and hope to make a statement very shortly.

    Londonderry Customs—Cigar Smuggling.
    MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he is aware that the collector of Customs at Londonderry, in the month of July, 1902, fined a passenger by the ss. "Columbia" from New York for alleged smuggling of cigars; and that, the passenger having brought the facts before Sir George Ryder, the latter ordered a refund of the fine; and, if so, will he state what steps will be taken to prevent a recurrence of such conduct to tourists arriving at Londonderry.
    MR. RITCHIE: I am informed that the passenger referred to, having been found in possession of cigars which he had not declared to the Customs officers, elected to deposit the regulated fine to avoid the institution of summary proceedings against him before the Magistrates. Upon the matter being reported to the Board of Customs in the usual way they directed the fine to be brought to account and the cigars to be retained by the Department as a seizure. Subsequently, on an appeal by the passenger, the Board, as an act of grace, and whilst entirely approving of the action of the collector, allowed a portion of the fine to be returned to the passenger. The remainder of the deposit and the cigars seized were, however, retained by the Customs to mark the breach of the law which had been committed. I do not consider any steps are called for, as passengers can always escape trouble of the kind by candidly answering the questions put to them by officers of Customs as to dutiable articles brought by them from abroad.

    Executions at Holloway.
    MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is now prepared to announce his decision in connection with the representations made to him with regard to discontinuing executions at the Holloway Prison.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS,): The matter is one of considerable difficulty, and must be taken in connection with that of executions at Pentonville Prison. I can say at once that I do not see my way to discontinue the latter; but I have still under consideration the question of Holloway. I may perhaps point out that Holloway is exclusively a prison for females; and we may hope that it will be long before another sentence of death upon a woman has to be carried out.

    Women Telegraphists—Promotion Grievance.
    MR. NANNETTI: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to the fact that two women telegraphists were selected to perform technical
    28
    duties in reference to the intercommunication switch in London, who were junior in service and possessed of less technical qualifications than other women telegraphists who were passed over; and whether, seeing that, although official information was given that such selection was not a question of promotion and no special rank or pay would result, one of the two officers concerned has been appointed to a superior grade on account of her experience gained by being selected for these duties, he will explain why the more senior and experienced women were passed over in the first place.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member on this subject on the 23rd March, † beyond stating that the officer to whom he is supposed to refer has not been appointed to any superior grade. She has merely been lent temporarily to assist at the Central Telephone Exchange in work for which she has special qualifications.

    Liverpool Registry of Smallpox Patients.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that when application is made to the clerk to the sanitary authority of Liverpool for permission to search the list of smallpox patients, which he is required to keep under the Vaccination Act, 1898, the applicants are sent to the various smallpox hospitals for the purpose of inspecting the registers there; and will he say whether arrangements can be made for the register to be kept in the clerk's office.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GRANT LAWSON,): I understand that the Hospitals Committee of the Town Council have imposed the obligation of making the entries in the smallpox register on the physician of the hospital, and that the register is available at the office of the hospital for any person who desires to inspect it. I am informed by the Town Clerk that arrangements could be made for having it at some other office, but that if this was done it would not be possible to keep the register so well up-to-date or so accurately as at present.
    † See (4) Debates, cxix., 1464.

    Liverpool Smallpox Epidemic.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the present epidemic of smallpox in Liverpool has already lasted for a period of six months, during which time there have been about 1,400 cases and ninety deaths; and whether, seeing that the epidemic is spreading, will he consider the desirability of deputing one of the Board's medical inspectors to inquire and report in regard to the measures which are being adopted by the Liverpool health authorities to cope with the disease.
    MR. GRANT LAWSON: I am aware of the smallpox epidemic at Liverpool. At the early part of the outbreak one of the medical inspectors of the Local Government Board was directed to visit the district and confer with the local authorities as to the measures to be taken, and I have no reason to suppose that they are not doing their utmost in this matter. I may mention that the latest returns do not show that the epidemic is increasing.

    Vaccination—Humanised Lymph.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he will state when public vaccinators discontinued the use of human lymph; and for what reason its use was abandoned.
    MR. GRANT LAWSON: The use of humanised lymph by public vaccinators was discontinued at the beginning of 1899, when the Vaccination Act, 1898, came into operation. The change was made in view of the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Vaccination.

    Newport (Mon.) County Council Education Scheme.
    MR. D. A. THOMAS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education if he can say what is the position of the scheme adopted by the Newport County Council on 14th April last.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON,): The Board of Education have received three schemes from the Newport County Council, on 13th February, on 13th March, and on 17th April. These
    30
    schemes differ widely in character, and indicate the existence in the borough of two bodies of opinion, somewhat evenly balanced, and very difficult to reconcile. The Board think that the circumstances of the case may make it desirable to hold a public inquiry under Section 23 (10) of the Education Act.

    Irish School Teachers and Politics.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will consider the advisability of repealing the regulations debarring Irish national school teachers from taking part in political meetings or joining political associations.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): I see no reason for repealing the Rule in question, which was framed in the interests of the teachers and of the schools.

    Assistant School Teachers in Ireland.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will direct the Commissioners of National Education to continue the payment of one assistant in all schools where such a teacher is at present employed until the average falls below fifty.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I must refer my hon. friend to my reply to a similar Question on the 5th March.†

    Londonderry Land Appeal Court
    MR. WOOD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state when the Court of the Land Commission last sat to hear appeals for the county of Londonderry, and when the next sitting for the hearing of such appeals will be held.
    MR. WYNDHAM: February of last year. The next Sittings will commence at Londonderry on 2nd June, proximo.

    County Down Magistracy.
    MR. WOOD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many
    †See (4) Debates, cxviii., 1548.

    31
    appointments have been made to the magistracy for the county of Down and the county of the city of Belfast, respectively, since the appointment of the Lord Lieutenant of that county; and can he state how many are Roman Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, respectively.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Twelve for the county Down, of whom six are Episcopalians, four Presbyterians, and two Roman Catholics. Appointments to the Commission of the Peace in the Borough of Belfast are made by the Lord Lieutenant.

    Royal Irish Constabulary at Ballypooreen.
    MR. CULLINAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what were the numbers of officers and men of the Royal Irish Constabulary assembled in Ballypooreen, county Tipperary, on Sunday, 26th April; what was the reason for their attendance; and what source will their expenses come from.
    MR. WYNDHAM: One officer and seventy men. The force was assembled in anticipation of an unlawful assembly. The expenses of the concentration will be defrayed from the Constabulary Vote.
    MR. CULLINAN: May I ask whether the concentration of this enormous force had to do with a dispute as to a small plot of ground, less than half an acre in extent, which has been used as a public playground for over a quarter of a century, and the value of which is not one-tenth the amount spent on this occasion?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

    Irish Technical Instruction Grant.
    CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the grant of £7,000, promised to Ireland last December in lieu of the equivalent grant for technical instruction, is now available, and, therefore, to be paid as it may be earned at the end of the present school year.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I hope to supplement out of the funds provided in the Development Grant Bill the moneys now at the disposal of the new Department of Technical Instruction.
    CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the grant in lieu of the equivalent grant for technical education will be made for instruction in the subjects of technical education generally, as understood by the Agricultural and Technical Department (Ireland), or only for special subjects, and if the latter, on what subjects; and, in view of the fact that it is no longer an equivalent grant, will he state on what principle will it be paid to the different parts of the country; and whether it will be distributed on the same conditions as to amount over localities which, in the academic year 1900–1901, availed themselves of the provisions of the Technical Instruction Acts of 1889 and 1891, and over localities which have taxed themselves for technical instruction for the first time since 1901.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Until additional funds have been placed at the disposal of the Department for the purposes of technical instruction, it cannot be stated how these funds will be administered.

    Granard Union Inquiry.
    MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Local Government Board can state the decision arrived at as the result of the sworn inquiry in Granard Union into the action of the medical officer and his management of the Union Hospital.
    MR. WYNDHAM: A decision has not yet been come to. It will be communicated, in the ordinary course, to the Guardians.

    Roscommon Extra Police Tax.
    MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the total amount levied as an extra police tax off the De Freyne and Murphy estates, when was it collected, and what is the present liability of the Roscommon County Council in respect to it.
    MR. WYNDHAM: A claim for £206 has been sent to the County Council, and a further claim for £620 is about to be sent. The area of charge extends beyond the limits of the two estates mentioned. The first mentioned claim has not yet been satisfied.

    Strokestown Union Inquiry.
    MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Local Government Board can state on what grounds they ordered a sworn inquiry in Strokestown Union as to the nursing arrangements in the rural districts of the union, and what has been the result; and why the Local Government Board propose to hold a similar inquiry in Boyle Union.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The inquiry at Strokestown was necessitated by the reports of the Board's medical inspector. The result of the inquiry established the recommendations of the inspector. The inquiry at Boyle is proposed for similar reasons.

    Altmore (Tyrone) Tenants and the Land Bill.
    MR. DOOGAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that tenants on the lands of Altmore, County Tyrone, are excluded from the benefits of the Land Acts by reason of the existence of a reversionary lease of their holdings which was made at a higher price prior to the Act of 1881; that the lessee soon after died in New Zealand, leaving no representative to claim possession, when the farms fell into reversion; and whether he will make provision in the coming Land Act to enable these tenants to purchase their farms.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am not aware of the circumstances of the particular estate mentioned, but if the hon. Member will furnish me with a full and precise statement, I will have inquiries made into the facts, with a view to seeing whether any Amendment of the Bill is necessary or desirable.

    Irish Police and the Evicted Tenants.
    MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state what
    34
    directions, if any, have been given to the Royal Irish Constabulary in connection with inquiries that are being made about evicted tenants in Ireland in connection with the Irish Land Bill; and whether the police inquire or ask for information in the first instance from the evicted tenant where it is possible.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The only directions issued were contained in two circular letters calling for information to enable the Return moved for by the hon. Member for South Tipperary to be prepared. Where the official records were insufficient to supply this information, the police obtained it from the best source available, including in many cases, the evicted tenants. But no special instructions were given on this point.

    Listowel Urban Council Audit.
    MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that the books and papers of the Listowel Urban Council were removed from the urban council office, where the public audit was advertised to be held, to a licensed house in the town, where the audit was held; and if so, will he state by whose directions were the books so removed, who was the auditor who audited the accounts in the public house, and what action, if any, has the Local Government Board taken in the matter.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The matter is engaging the consideration of the Local Government Board.
    MR. FLAVIN: Will the audit be suspended until the report has been received?
    MR. WYNDHAM: I am fully considering the matter, but I am not prepared to make any statement on the subject at present.
    MR. FLAVINrose to put a further question.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The question has been fully answered.

    Listowel Mail Delays.
    MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he can state the number of times, owing to

    35
    the failure of the trains connecting at Limerick Junction, that the mails have arrived late at Listowel since the amalgamation of the Waterford and Limerick Railway Company with the Great Southern and Western Railway Company, and the number of times the mails were late in arrival at Listowel during a similar period of time before the amalgamation of these railways.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Inquiry shall be made as to the irregularity in the arrival of the mails at Listowel, and an answer shall be sent to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

    Gun Licences in Ireland—Castleblaney Complaint.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that John Adair of Castleblaney paid 10s. to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue last October for a licence to carry and use a gun; and whether, in view of such licence being refused, he will order a refund of the money paid.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. ELLIOT,): The excise licence duty of 10s. will, in the circumstances, be refunded by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.

    The King's Tour.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury has any authentic record been kept of what passed at the recent private and other interviews between the Sovereign of these Realms and their Majesties the Kings of Portugal and Italy, His Holiness the Pope of Rome, and the President of the French Republic, as well as at the interviews with the Foreign Ministers of those States; if so, by whom and in what form was that record kept, has it been transmitted to His Majesty's Government, and will it be so preserved as to be accessible to future administrations.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (MR. A. J. BALFOUR,): I would venture to remind my hon. friend that
    36
    friendly conversations cease to be private if records are kept for official use.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Am I to conclude that affairs of State were not dealt with at those interviews?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

    Housing of the Working Classes Bill.
    DR. MACNAMARA: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can now fix the date for the introduction of the Bill to deal with certain matters affecting the Housing of the Working Classes.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not able to fix the actual date, but my right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board hopes to introduce the Bill very shortly.

    Private Bill Procedure.
    MR. HENRY HOBHOUSE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if his attention has been drawn to the recommendations, Nos. 23, 25, and 33, of the Report of the Select Committee on Private Business which sat last session; and if he will propose or consent to the appointment of a Joint Committee of the two Houses to consider the revision of House fees and other matters mentioned in the recommendations.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have been making inquiries into the subject matter of this Question. On the whole I am inclined to think that it would be advisable to appoint a conference between the Chairmen of Committees of the two Houses, together with the officials who are concerned in the conduct of private business. Whatever may be the ultimate decision of the Government, I think the course I have proposed would prove useful.

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
    MR. LOUGHasked if the right hon. Gentleman intended to take the division on the Irish Land Bill before the dinner interval, in view of the fact that a large number of Members desired to speak.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: And may I also remind the right hon. Gentleman that there are also a great number of Members on this side of the House, representing English constituencies, who likewise desire to speak.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course if there are any large number of Members desirous of speaking the debate can be continued at the evening sitting, but I thought it would be more convenient to hon. Members if the division could be taken at the end of the afternoon sitting. I did not suggest it with any desire of pressing on other Government business.
    MR. LOUGH: What Budget Resolution will be taken next Tuesday?
    MR. RITCHIE: I propose to take the Resolution first on tobacco and spirits—the Customs and Excise—then the Income Tax, and then the Sinking Fund.
    MR. T. HARRINGTON: Will the Public Officers (Dublin) Bill be taken on Monday, and will an opportunity be afforded for discussing it?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, the Bill will not be taken on Monday as that day is allotted to Supply.

    EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN BILL.
    Reported, with Amendments, from the Standing Committee on Trade, etc.
    Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. (No 150.)
    Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. (No. 150.)
    Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed (Bill 186.)

    SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
    Mr. HALSEY reported from the Committee; That they had added to the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure, the following Fifteen Members in respect of the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill:—Mr. Griffith Boscawen, Mr. Churchill, Mr. John Dewar, Sir
    38
    Charles Dalrymple, Sir Henry Fowler, Sir Brampton Gurdon, Sir John Kennaway, Mr. Walter Long, Mr. Mellor, Sir Gilbert Parker, Mr. John Rutherford, Sir Barrington Simeon, Mr. Talbot, Lord Edmund Talbot, and Mr. Tomkinson.
    Report to lie upon the Table.

  NEW BILLS.
    SALMON AND FRESHWATER FISHERIES BILL.
    "To amend the Law relating to Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries," presented by Mr. Richard Cavendish; supported by Mr. Helme, Sir Herbert Maxwell, Sir Henry Seton-Karr, and Mr. Osmond Williams; to be read a second time upon Thursday next, and to be printed (Bill 187.)
    WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT (1897) AMENDMENT (SEAMEN) BILL.
    "To amend The Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897," presented by Mr. Robson; supported by Lord Hugh Cecil, Mr. Runciman, Sir Francis Evans, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, Mr. Buxton, Sir Fortescue Flannery, and Mr. Harris; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. (Bill 188.)
    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY).
    Ordered, That the proceedings on the Second Reading of the Irish Land Bill and the Committee of Ways and Means have precedence this day of the Business of Supply.—(Mr. Balfour.)

  IRISH LAND BILL.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [4th May], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Which Amendment was—
  "To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.'"—(Mr. Coghill.)
  Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  Debated resumed.
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONES: I am aware that not a small

  39
  number of my hon. friends on this side of the House feel very great repugnance to the financial provisions of this Bill, and I believe that with some of them that repugnance is so strong that they intend either to vote against the Bill or to abstain from going into the Division Lobby. I am bound to say that my repugnance to the financial proposals of the measure is quite as strong, perhaps, as that of my hon. friends, and I was at first disposed to take the course which they, supported by many weighty reasons, have decided to adopt. But I could not help reflecting that the finances of this Bill are in the main almost entirely to be found by the Irish people, and consequently I recognise what the hon. Member for Waterford, and the other able leaders of the Irish Party, who have been associated with the cause of Irish land reform for twenty years or more, have unhesitatingly affirmed, viz., that in their judgment the Second Reading of this Bill should pass. They have declared their belief that if it be passed into law, with certain reasonable Amendments, it will give an assurance of a happier era of peace and prosperity for the people of Ireland; I hope therefore my hon. friends on this side of the House will not think me presumptuous if I say that they will take a very grave responsibility upon themselves should they oppose the Second Reading because they distrust the financial proposals so far as Ireland's responsibility is concerned, and because they regard with distaste the proposed bonus, representing a capital sum of £12,000,000, together with the annual payment amounting to somewhere about £300,000. I recognise that the financial proposals of this Bill are unsatisfactory, but I try to put myself in the position of the Irish people, and this is the conclusion I have come to. By this Bill we are purchasing—it is true for a considerable sum of money—from the Irish landlord the economic emancipation of the Irish peasantry, and if the Irish landlord has the hereditary itching palm, We may well be content to pay him this money rather than that the Bill should be lost. In other words we may say to him "you may keep the change." That is the position which I take up with regard to this measure, and I propose to give it my support, subject to certain Amendments which I believe the Chief
  40
  Secretary for Ireland will be willing favourably to consider. I will go even farther and say that if anyone contemplates our agrarian policy in Ireland, and if anyone will take the trouble to look at the present congested condition of Connaught, he will come to the conclusion that it would not be too much if we were to make a free gift of £100,000,000 sterling to the Irish people, instead of advancing it by way of loan. I must say, under these circumstances, that I think the attitude of some of my hon. friends upon this question is incomprehensible. I do not regard the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent as incomprehensible; it would be difficult to do that at any time. He told us, in the able speech which he made, that he objected to the Bill because he thought it would facilitate Home Rule. I believe that the Government have, by their Local Government Bill, and by this Bill, laid the foundations of the structure of self-government which they or we shall finish. I hold that the Bill removes one of the main objections to Home Rule which was urged by the Unionist Party in 1886, viz., the danger of the landlords being oppressed by the grant of local government and by its employment by the Irish people. In the removal of that objection I think we have one of the strongest assurances for the future prosperity of Ireland.
  I wish to draw the attention of the Chief Secretary to what will happen regarding his preposterous financial proposals. I do not vouch for the accuracy of my figures, but I have worked out the problem as best I could, as to what will be the effect of the Bill on first-term tenancies of £100 per annum. I find that for such a holding the tenant now gives twenty years purchase, and the landlord gets £2,000. He invests this £2,000 cash at 3¼ per cent., and receives £65 per annum. But under this Bill, in order to sell a similar holding, it has to be reduced by 20 per cent.; that brings it down to £80; that you capitalise at 3¼ per cent., and you arrive at £2,461. To that you add the bonus of 15 per cent., and the landlord gets £2,830 which, if invested at 3¼ per cent., brings in £92 per year. Thus the landlord gets £830 more for the holding under this Bill than he does under existing Acts, and I want to know on what principle of sound finance such an arrangement can be

  41
  justified. It may be said by the Chief Secretary—indeed, I think he has said it—that we have now reached the end of the willingness of the landlord to sell; that the list of all, or nearly all, of those who are willing to get rid of their estates has been exhausted, and that consequently it is necessary either to have compulsion or to give the landlords something to induce them to sell. But I should like to draw the attention of the Chief Secretary to the figures of the last Return issued by him under the Acts of 1891 and 1896. These Returns show that down to the end of December, 1902, there were 41,133 applications for loans to purchase, or an average of 3,738 per annum. But in the month of January last there were 416 applications, which works out at an average of 4,992 per annum—in other words, at the rate of an increase of 1,000 applications over the average of the preceding eleven years since the Land Act came into operation. These figures may be capable of explanation, but unless there are some exceptional circumstances which explain them, I ask what becomes of the right hon. Gentleman's statement that there has ceased to be manifested by the landlords a desire to sell? If my statement be only partially true, or even if it be only inaccurate, surely there can be no justification for the proposed thirty years maximum. The Attorney-General told us that this maximum reduction was retained because there would be pressure brought to bear on the landlord by the tenants, which would interfere with the rapid and facile transaction of purchases. The right hon. Gentleman, at the same time, gave expression to his confidence in the restraining influences exercised by the leaders of the Irish Party on this side of the House, and in the honesty of the Irish peasantry. An eloquent tribute has also been paid to them by Mr. Bailey in his most interesting report, and surely the right hon. Gentleman might trust the tenant to the advice and guidance of those who have conducted this Irish land war for so many years with such startling success, and leave it to them to see that there is no improper pressure brought to bear on the landlords to sell. I find that in this Bill there is no single reference, beyond two or three ridiculous clauses, to any
  42
  provision being made for the labourers of Ireland. We have passed Acts of Parliament in the interests of the labourers, but those Acts are almost a dead letter in Ireland.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: No, no.
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONES: Well, I have gone most carefully through the figures, and I find that down to the end of 1902 there was not a single instance, in the county of Down, where the Labourers Acts were enforced. They are under the Act to get a beggarly statute acre, but they can only get it at the whim and pleasure of the local authorities. I would like to know how many farm labourers in Ireland have obtained plots.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Thousands.
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONES: The Returns presented to us do not appear to show that. Still, I will not labour the point.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: May I point out that the state of things in the north of Ireland is very different from that prevailing in other parts of the country.
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONES: I would like to ask why the labourers are not included in this Bill? The Prime Minister, in the course of the debate on the King's speech in 1901, said—
  "The labourers will lose heavily by the expropriation of the landlords."
  At this point someone dissented, and the right hon. Gentleman continued—
  "Well, in my opinion they will lose heavily and they will come to us and say—'Does British credit exist only for the Irish tenant? Are we to have nothing out of it?' My hon. friend the Member for South Tyrone, when that day comes, may stump Ulster from one end to the other, and he may use his great gifts to agitate the passions of another class."
  I hope many Irish Members will be found ready to agitate in the same way, and that they will be prepared to stump the country in vindication of the just rights of the 300,000 farm labourers in Ireland in order to secure for them some small share or part in this measure. I trust too, that the right hon. Gentleman

  43
  the Chief Secretary, when he comes to reply on this debate, will make some reference to legislation which may be intended to meet the requirements of this class. As far as I can see, the farm labourers of Ireland are to remain helots. There is no facility afforded, as is afforded in other countries, enabling them to become the peasant proprietors of holdings which might be made available for them by judicious legislation. There is a couleur de rose about Mr. Bailey's report, but if one reads it carefully one sees there is a sinister danger that the emancipated tenants of Ireland will get over-loaded with debt. If I read one paragraph of the report I think it will enable hon. Members to appreciate the gravity of this question. Mr. Bailey, speaking of the local Joint Stock Banks in Ireland says—
  "These banks of late years seem to have ousted the gombeen man, whose rates of interest they, however, often adopt. The obtaining of a loan from a bank is no light matter for a struggling farmer. The interest charged for a small sum often amounts to ten per cent."
  Again he says—
  "If the system of purchase by State aid is to be a success in Ireland some method should be devised for supplying the small purchasers with capital on easy terms. There is undoubtedly a danger that unless an easy and satisfactory method he adopted of supplying capital, a system of borrowing and mortgaging will spring up that will entail all the disadvantages that frequently attach themselves to a peasant proprietary system. As the purchasers acquire larger interests in their holdings; as unrest, agitation, and the accompanying difficulty of recovering debts secured on land die out, it is almost certain that the moneylender, in one form or another, will again appear and gradually spread over the country."
  The tenants will raise future loans at higher rates, and in the end will be but in name the owners of the holdings they were enabled to purchase on such favourable terms by the aid of State credit. Let me refer to a German prototype. I have read the declaration made at the time that that edict establishing the Stein Hardenberg system was established, and the one thing that was then regarded as essential was to prevent, by some method or other, peasant proprietors from becoming sunk in debt under a landlordism worse than Irish landlordism. The first thing they did was to establish land banks to advance money to purchasers, properly secured, of course, to
  44
  enable tenants without capital to carry on their farming operations in a fairly successful way. The defect in this Bill is that it creates a peasant proprietary without taking any steps to preserve that peasant proprietary. I think I will have the good will of my hon. friends from Ireland behind me when I say that we ought to establish some system whereby the purchasing tenant should be prevented from falling into the hands of the gombeen man, or into the bankruptcy courts.
  I cannot help thinking that the period of sixty-eight and a half years is too long. I know that the right hon. Gentleman will say that that period was selected in order that the pressure on the tenants might not be too great. But this is the first time in the history of land purchase that a period of sixty-eight and a half years has been selected by any Government to enable tenants to purchase their farms. In Germany the period was fifty-six years; but then there was a provision that if a tenant chose to pay a higher rate of interest the period should be reduced from fifty-six to forty-five years. Why could not the right hon. Gentleman adopt that? I merely throw it out as a suggestion. Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman provide that where a tenant is disposed to pay a somewhat larger sum the period should be reduced in order that he might sooner have the sentiment and feeling of a peasant proprietor. I have come to the conclusion that it is right to support this Bill; and I am not at all shaken in my conviction by what was said by my hon. friend the Member for the Launceston Division. My hon. friend disparaged peasant proprietary. My hon. friend, when he rumbled the dry bones of musty political economy must have forgotten that peasant proprietary is established in almost every country, in Europe. In the last century we asked our Consuls to make reports as to peasant proprietary in European countries; and these reports established beyond doubt that peasant proprietary, properly fostered by the Government, and not throwing a lot of impoverished tenants on their holdings without capital, was the best system of land tenure. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will secure that the system of land purchase shall be effective in its inception and in its operation, so that it may be of lasting and vital benefit to

  45
  Ireland. Let me say in conclusion that whatever may be the attitude assumed by a few of my hon. friends, I am persuaded that the people of England will be touched by the magnanimity displayed by the people of Ireland towards the Irish landlords. They have been taught, and justly taught, to regard the Irish landlords as the agents and ministers of the present Government, and in numerous cases they have suffered from landlord extortion. Yet, notwithstanding that, they are not letting the landlords go out naked. They are going to give them not only a just but a generous compensation. And more than that, in a spirit which I am afraid my own countrymen would scarcely equal, they desire that these landlords should continue to abide among them in order to work out the great problem of self-government for their country.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSON: I am sure we were all pleased to hear the hon. and learned Gentleman express approval of the general principle of this Bill, absolutely and unconditionally. With his last observations, however, about Irish landlords, I cannot in the least agree; and as regards Home Rule, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, I have not a single word to say on this occasion. The hon. and learned Gentleman has voiced the view expressed by a few hon. Members representing English constituencies; namely, that under this Bill the landlords will get too much. He says that twenty years purchase of £100 of rent would only mean £2,000, but that under the Bill the landlord will get £2,800. That is to ignore the whole position of Irish affairs. Why does the hon. and learned Gentleman assume twenty years purchase to be the saleable value. I presume it is because Lord Dunraven estimated that that was the average number of years purchase the landlords had received. But Lord Dunraven qualified that estimate by the fact that the sales which had recently taken place were almost the last sales that could take place. Anyone who knows anything directly about Ireland knows that sales of land have practically ceased. Who will dispute the fact, in these circumstances, that as regards land purchase you cannot get on unless you give the landlords more favourable terms?
  46
  I would beg the hon. Member to remember that this is not a mere question of passing this Bill. What is wanted is a Bill that will satisfy the reasonable demands of the Irish landlords. No one wants to give them too much; what is wanted is to give them fair and reasonable compensation. I would beg the hon. and learned Gentleman to put the idea of twenty years purchase out of his mind as being absolutely fallacious. The hon. and learned Gentleman also referred to the labourers. I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman's knowledge of the labourers question is quite up-to-date; and if he happens to be in Ireland and honours me by calling on me, I will show him labourers' cottages in all directions. In a great many parts of Ireland very considerable provision has been made for the labourers: and if I am told that this Bill does not do enough for the labourers my answer is that it is not a Bill to settle the labourers' question, but to settle the landlord and tenant dispute. He has also said the tenants will mortgage and lose their holdings, but putting aside the part of the Bill which prevents that, I point out that he himself approved of peasant proprietorship. If you approve of a peasant proprietorship, how can you say these people will mortgage their holdings and disappear?
  MR. ATHERLEY JONES: No, I said these unfortunate tenants, starting without capital, would have to borrow money, and in default of other resources they would go to the gombeen man.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSON: But you do not start them. From the remark of the hon. Member one would suppose that we took a certain number of persons and planted them down in a particular district without anything to commence with. That is not the position at all. We are starting persons who are actual farmers, and they have their stock. The position is this. I take the hon. Gentleman's reduction of 20 per cent. A man who is paying £100 now will have to pay £80, but he will have the same amount of stock as he had before. What necessity is there for him to go to the gombeen man? There may be people who know as much and more of Ireland than I do, who think there is some possibility of that occurring, but my own

  47
  view is that it will not take place to any great extent. Everybody knows that what an Irishman wants to do is to avoid losing his holding by any possibility. He will do anything rather than lose his holding, and I do not for a moment believe there is any danger of their going to the gombeen man and mortgaging and losing their property. Of course a certain number of people will do so; Ireland would be Paradise if they did not. With regard to the bonus. The reason the bonus is given to the landlords has been put most strongly by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Berwick, and I cannot pass by his speech without thanking him on behalf of every Member for Ireland for the sympathetic tone he adopted and the knowledge he displayed. It has been said this is a bonus, dole, or gift to the landlords. I absolutely dispute that. The right hon. Baronet puts the matter in this way. If a man wants to buy a horse and has not enough money, and you lend him four-fifths of the money, that is a gift to the man who buys the horse and not to the man who sells it. But supposing that to be the wrong way to put it, I will put it in another way. The Imperial taxpayer says for this purpose he desires that the landlord shall sell to the tenant, he has a direct interest in that transaction being brought about. The tenant says, "I can only give £100 for this," and the landlord says, "I cannot sell for less than £110." That leaves £10 to be found, and if the Imperial taxpayer says, "I will make good that £10," that is not a gift either to the landlord or the tenant. It is given for carrying out a transaction which the Imperial taxpayer has, or thinks he has, an interest in seeing carried out. Now it is asked, why should demesne lands be bought from the landlord and sold back to him? The answer is simple. You must bear in mind that all Irish estates, and English estates too, I believe, for the matter of that, have charges and mortgages on them, and one thing and another. These charges and mortgages are on the demesne land as well as on the other land, and you must free the entire estate; and the Imperial taxpayer says, "In order to clear the whole estate we will buy up the whole, including the demesne lands, and as we do not want the demesne
  48
  lands we will sell them back." The landlord does not get much out of it, all he does is to get clear of the whole.
  Now, many English Members are much afraid that if this Bill is passed the land lords of Ireland will leave the country entirely. We must acknowledge with gratitude the change of expression from hon. Gentlemen opposite with regard to the retention of landlords in Ireland. They used to speak of the landlords being driven out of Ireland altogether, but probably that was only a figure of speech, and all the time they wanted to retain the landlords. But they have now expressed the view, and have stated that it is for the benefit of Ireland as a whole that the landlords should remain there. But the question which my English friends have asked me is this: "Will not the effect of this Bill be to force the landlords to leave the country?" My answer is "No." Of course it will not bring back the absentee landlords, but in Ireland we have very large houses, we have important and agreeable demesnes attached to the houses, and the mere fact that you have sold all your land does not prevent the necessity of your doing something with the demesne lands. We are not going to leave them deserted, that is certain, and it will be extremely difficult to let them. If they can be let it does not much matter, except from a sentimental point of view, whether the old landlord goes and a new tenant, who is probably richer, comes in his place. Of course it will be a great blow to the sentiment of Ireland, because the people, there is no doubt, do like the quality who have been living among them. We shall have to live there whether we like it or not. I know of no country, if you hold no land, more pleasant to live in than Ireland. I honestly admit I should not like to own much land there, and it is a satisfaction to me not to have too large an estate at rental in the country. I have lived in Ireland with great enjoyment, and I believe that is the experience of most of us. Another point is whether the trees will be destroyed. As a matter of fact the plantations will not pass under this Bill at all. The plantations will either be kept or sold separately and will not be sold to those who will cut them all down. I myself do not believe

  49
  that Irishmen have such a hatred of trees as people imagine; they may not like trees spreading their roots into their fields. One of the peculiarities of Irish scenery is that when one looks over a large stretch of country it seems to be uninhabited, but those who know the country well, know that wherever there is a clump of trees there is a house. The Irishman has no dislike to trees, and there is no fear of his cutting them down when he gets possession of his holding.
  Now there are a few other points in the Bill that I should like to refer to. To make this Bill work easily it is necessary that the landlord should know what he can sell, and in the first clause of the Bill there is considerable doubt as to what that is. The first clause refers to the sale of an estate, and an estate, as defined by the Act of 1885, is "Whatever the Commissioners decide to be an estate." That is not what the landlords want to know. They want, if they agree with a tenant of a holding, or a tenant of ten holdings, to sell those holdings, that to be considered "an estate." We want some certainty. You will never get a landlord to take any trouble in the matter unless he knows the transaction will be carried out. Then there is the £3,000 and £5,000 limit. That means that if the value of a holding exceeds £3,000 the holding cannot be purchased except under certain special circumstances when it is raised to the value of £5,000.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,: That is the limit of the advance.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSON: If the value of a holding is £6,000, the old principle is to be continued that £3,000 is to be advanced. We think that that clause ought to be struck out. Our idea is that the landlord should be able to free himself from the position of a landlord, to cease to be a collector of rents at all, and to do away with his agent, and that will be impossible unless he is able to sell his large holdings, as well as the small ones, and also be able to get the entire money. The next point is
  50
  the perpetual rent charge. That may be said to interest the tenant far more than the landlord. But the landlords have an interest in making the Bill work, and they desire to get it framed in accordance with the sentiments of the tenants, so far as those sentiments agree with those of the landlords. The tenants have shown a marked desire not to have that one-eighth left as a perpetual rent-charge, and, after consideration, I cannot see any benefit to the Government in retaining it. It has been suggested that it will give the State some right of preventing sub-letting, mortgaging, and so forth. But to do that it is not in the least necessary to have even one penny reservation. There are any number of estates round London absolutely bound by certain covenants without any rent-charge whatever upon them. I hope, therefore, in view of the wishes of the tenants, the Government will be able to alter that clause of the Bill.
  Then with regard to the 30 per cent. maximum reduction. It may be defended on two grounds—first, that it is a protection to the landlord from pressure to increase that maximum, and, secondly, that it would not be a good thing for Ireland as a whole to have any excessive reduction in any particular part. The latter may be described as the De Freyne estate argument. As to the former, I think I am justified in saying that the landlords most strongly urge the Government to retain the maximum reduction. I agree there may be cases in which it would be desirable to go below the maximum, but, on the other hand, to induce tenants to hold out for ever to get the largest sum they could by way of reduction would be an incalculable evil, and might destroy the whole benefit of the Bill. In the interests both of quick sale and of the landlords, it is desirable that the maximum reduction should be retained. As to the De Freyne argument, we have all felt the difficulty of a sudden enormous reduction in any particular district, and none of us want a repetition of the scenes on the De Freyne and the Dillon Estates. There must be a certain amount of danger if a landlord of a large estate chooses to sell below the maximum. The 30 per cent. reduction is practically one third of the rent; and I think that is sufficient to induce the

  51
  tenants to come in, and they are more likely to come in if they know what the maximum reduction is.
  Another matter is the decadal reductions. The Chief Secretary has some objection, but personally, I think the decadal reduction might be, and it is very desirable that it should be, introduced. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford mentioned a proposition of Lord Dunraven's that there should be a further subvention calculated in proportion to the saving to the Irish Exchequer as the result of this Bill, which subvention should be used for the purpose of facilitating decadal redactions. There would be no objection to that on the part of the landlords. The decadal reduction has had an important influence for good in Ireland, and I hope the Chief Secretary will be able to re-introduce it.
  Some little care will be required to retain to the landlords their fishery rights. That is of the utmost importance if it is desired to retain the landlords in Ireland, because you cannot retain them unless these rights are preserved. They are of enormous value, not only to the owner, but to the district in which they are situated. They would, however, be valueless if cut up amongst a number of small holders, and I am sure hon. Members opposite do not desire to see a property destroyed by sub-division.
  I understand the first schedule is to be materially modified; therefore, I need not refer to that now. I desire to say a word as to landlords' costs. The landlords will incur a certain amount of costs, and I would suggest—I believe the solicitors in Ireland have expressed their willingness to concur in such an arrangement—that a scale should be agreed upon of the costs which the landlords would pay to their own solicitors. They would then know what they were about, whereas, under present circumstances, they would be afraid of entering on the matter for fear of the costs.
  Another question is—who is to get the bonus? According to the Bill it is to be paid to the vendor. If the Bill were worked out according to the legal principle, the vendor, being only tenant for life, would be a trustee for himself and the remainder man. I feel most strongly that this money should be paid to the persons who are the actual owners of the estates. That is to say, if it is
  52
  settled, to the tenant for his life and held in trust for his remainder man. That seems to me only fair and equitable. If that is not done, I do not see how you are to adjust, as between the two sets of purchase money, what is to fall upon each. I must express my thanks to the Chief Secretary for having conceived and brought in this Bill. As one who knows Ireland from both the English and the Irish point of view, I am confident that this Bill, if made such a measure as induces the landlords to sell their property, will confer upon Ireland an in estimable benefit, for which that country will always be grateful.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I cannot help acknowledging the remarkable and disinterested testimony which the landlords are giving to Ireland as a happy place to live in. We are now told by the hon. and learned Member for Hackney that Ireland is a most delightful country to live in, and therefore the landlords must be preserved in their demesnes. I gather from that that the hon. and learned Member is not a victim of Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill. At any rate, I think it is greatly to be regretted that he was not at that time in the country instead of now. The tone and temper of the landlords of that day, and their descriptions of the horrible country they had to live in—how they could not stir out of doors without being shot at—were really one of the great assets of the time. Even the illustrious Empress of Austria, who used to go to Ireland to hunt, was stopped by the direct intervention of the Government of the day, only twenty years ago, on the ground that the country was absolutely unsafe. Moreover, an Indian nurse, an ayah, made a bargain with her European mistress, when leaving India, that she was willing go to any country in Europe except Ireland. I must say, having listened to all the speeches, that, with a couple of exceptions, I do not think any Irish Member has any reason to complain. I do not complain of the speech made by the hon. Member for Stoke or by the hon. Member who seconded his Motion. Certainly it is remarkable that the only two absolutely ignorant speeches delivered on the Bill came from hon. and learned Members above the Gangway on

  53
  the Opposition Benches. The speech of the hon. Member for Launceston could not be answered, because nobody could understand it. The hon. and learned Member for South Shields made a very able speech, but it largely took the shape of prophecy. He said the most marvellous things and made the most marvellous prophecies. Having deluged the Chief Secretary with a cold douche of predictions, he denounced this Bill first and foremost on the ground that it would practically ruin Ireland and end eventually in Home Rule. I have looked about for a prophet with which to compare the hon. and learned Gentleman. I will not compare him with Jeremiah or any of the better-known ones. I remember what the cynical Frenchman has said about the prophet Habakkuk—viz., that he was capable de tout, and certainly after the remarkable speech of the hon. and learned Member for South Shields I should think he was capable of anything in the direction of prophecy. The hon. and learned Gentleman first compared the agricultural grant in England with the agricultural grant in Ireland. One, he said, was £700,000 and the other £1,500,000, and I suppose the proportions were those of seventy-five to nine. I certainly could discover no relation in those proportions. What are the facts? Is the agricultural land of England to be compared with the agricultural land of Ireland? If you take the valuation of the two things the strict proportion is absolutely maintained. The hon. Member has said that there would be no security unless you have a local authority, and that string has been harped upon by many hon. Members. In the first place £100,000,000 means practically only £3,000,000 a year. Can the House realise that for that £100,000,000 in the sixty-eight and a half years the Irish people will have to pay something like £200,000,000? Since 1886 the taxes of Ireland have gone up by £3,000,000. Had you any scruple or shrinkage in assessing them? If you are able to enforce taxes why should you not be able to enforce your rent? Those £3,000,000 were put upon us after your own Royal Commission, presided over by Mr. Childers, a Liberal Member, had reported that our taxation was
  54
  £3,000,000 too high. Is it not absurd for Liberal Members—whatever may be said of Tory Members who are anxious to give Ireland some amount of relief when they know that every shilling of this money will come back from Irish sources—is it not absurd for them to make mis-statements for the sole purpose of prejudicing Conservative Members? When somebody on the opposite side of the House makes us these unexpected proposals is it right that the obstruction should come from the Liberal side? I submit that it is not right.
  I may say that personally I much prefer the Bill of last year to this Bill. It was a much cheaper Bill for the Irish people, although this gives us five shillings lower interest. Yet at the same time I venture to say that England nowhere has better security for her money than she will have under this measure. Go and agitate in any district where the tenants have already bought their land. Let these tenants once make a bargain, and you will find that wild horses will not drag them out of it. I do not say myself whether I think this Bill makes for Home Rule or against it. If I were to offer an opinion of my own I might also be indulging in the region of prophecy. One may fairly say "yes" or "no," or take the opinion expressed by the hon. Member for Stoke, or the opinion of Ulster Members, but is it not a remarkable thing that those who have hitherto expressed in the past the greatest objection to Home Rule—namely, the Orange Party and the Ulster Members, are every one of them in favour of this Bill. Ought they not to know the effect of this measure rather better than amateur politicians, however respectable they may be? Reference has been made to Mr. Gladstone's Act of 1881, and a very proper vindication of that Act has come from some of my colleagues above the Gangway. When the Irish landlords are complaining of the administration of that Act, and are complaining of its introduction, I would like this House of Commons to put itself in the position of that House of Commons. What was the state of things then? You had a House of Commons with a high franchise, and almost every Liberal Member was a landlord. Almost every Conservative Member was a landlord as

  55
  well. Take Ireland itself. There were only twenty Irish representatives with Mr. Parnell. Take the County of Leitrim, now represented by two men who have been oftenest in His Majesty's gaol. Irishmen were represented by two colonels, one of whom was Colonel Tottenham, who laid down the doctrine before the Richmond Commission that the best manure you ever put upon land was that it should be well salted with rent. There was no Closure in the House then, or naming by Mr. Speaker. There were no new rules, and you could talk as long as you liked, and the landlords did talk fairly long. I think the wildest night I ever saw in this House of Commons was when the landlords were resisting a proposal that the tenant, the man who was living in huts, should be allowed to build a new house upon the land. This was only carried by great grace and favour, and I was allowed to move an Amendment—"Except in substitution of the old one." Considering the extraordinary difficulties of that time in proposing legislation the wonder is not that the Act of 1881 was passed, but that any Act at all was carried. We advised Mr. Gladstone then, as we advised every Government from that time to the present, that the true remedy was peasant proprietors. If anybody had proposed at that time the methods that we then advocated, which are now recognised by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, the landlords in a body would have taken off Mr. Gladstone to a lunatic asylum—and it is only by the long results of time and patience that the House of Commons has been educated under a different franchise. I have always said that this Conservative House of Commons is far more liberal, far kinder in its temper and spirit, than the Liberal House of Commons of that day. Therefore, it is absurd to throw any reproach upon the great name of Gladstone, whose memory for ever will live in fragrance in Ireland.
  But we are dealing with a Bill of a very different character. For my part my acknowledgments go out fully and heartily to the Chief Secretary for Ireland. I do not wish to mince words, and I say that in my opinion the right hon. Gentleman is deserving of public thanks and of Irish thanks. Those of my hon. friends who took part in the
  56
  Land Conference had a very difficult task indeed. I did not quarrel with them, but they made this acknowledgment—that the purchase price should be based upon income, and that for the purpose of obtaining such a result an equitable price should be paid to the owners. They were acting as counsel for the tenants and trying to make a good bargain. It would appear to me that the hon. Member for South Tyrone has taken a harsher line against the terms of the Chief Secretary's Bill than the Member for Cork or the Member for Waterford, so that, instead of having gone his way and boasted, now he is sorrowing. But, at all events, look at the situation they created for the Irish Government. Look at the situation they created for this House. Immemorial enemies in Ireland have for the first time for centuries of disagreement put their hands to a treaty which they call upon the British Government to ratify, and if they do not ratify it the Chief Secretary has not only to face a revolt of the tenants but a revolt of the landlords. I should like to have seen that revolt in other times, I should have liked to have seen the landlord party especially in the House of Lords—a very interesting lot of insurgents they would be—attacking His Majesty's Government and saying, as they very well might say—Lord Barrymore, Lord Clanricarde, and Lord Ardilaun—that "You, an English Minister, are less generous to us than O'Brien and Russell and the rest." I should like to see how long a Conservative Government would last if such a state of things was proposed. I should like to see a Liberal Government coming in to legislate upon that situation. They certainly would get great assistance from the House of Lords. Now what is it that the right hon. Gentleman had to do? I have stated that in my judgment—I am not at all complaining of others—the cheaper course—I do not say that it would be the more magnanimous course, or even the best course patriotically — but the cheaper course for the tenant would have been to have allowed last year's Bill to pass, and as years went on—because you cannot sell Ireland in a day, or a year, or five years, or ten years—the cheaper course would have been to have taken that Bill and then to have added to it and patched it as estates came into the market. But I must acknowledge that the remarkable course which

  57
  has been taken has very many advantages for Ireland. In the first place it was desirable to strike the national imagination. In the next place it was necessary and desirable and wholesome to show the landlord party that the tenant party were not their deadly enemies, and that they were prepared to give them just and equitable terms. And I believe, even if the tenants have to pay a little more under this Bill, the price is worth it in the better spirit which has been generated by means of this Land Conference. I do not grudge the landlord the terms he has got, nor shall I incite any tenant not to give them. On the contrary, as I say, I think the bargain was well worth striking.
  Now, the question for the House of Commons, therefore, is purely, or almost purely, one of finance. Every shilling under this Bill, in my opinion, is absolutely safe. It would be absolutely impossible, in my judgment, to suggest any doctrine of repudiation. In the first place I am quite satisfied, though of course we shall object to the sixty-eight and a half years, that a solemn treaty will have been made with the British Government—a solemn treaty ratified unanimously by the Irish representatives, and if any repudiator came along to fight with the British Government he would not have leave to open his mouth for twenty-four hours. I would give him a taste of Brian Boru. Therefore hon. Members forget the very drastic means that exist in Ireland for dealing with inconvenient persons. I have not experienced it myself, but others have, and I hope they liked it. But Ireland is absolutely in the hollow of England's hand. Your system is such that if you want to know in Dublin Castle any morning what every man had for breakfast from one end of Ireland to the other you could know it. There is a police force, there are magistrates, and then, sir, such is the state of the law, that if I wanted, Mr. Speaker, to convict you of the Moat murder, which we are hearing about, with that machinery in my hands I would have no difficulty whatever in bringing you in guilty. Therefore, in a state of things like that—in a country so departmentalised, the notion that anybody
  58
  could start a campaign of repudiation, even if the people would listen to it, is the wildest notion. But the people would not listen to it. Why should they listen to it? Why should a man give up his house and his holding, after he has made it comfortable, when good honest money had passed on the head of it, and he had signed the bargain, and it had been ratified in this House with the complete assent of every Irish Member, when every public man in the country would be against it, and when, above all, every clergyman, Protestant, and Catholic, from one end of the country to the other, would preach against it as an abomination? Therefore, so far as this doctrine of repudiation goes, I say it is idle. But let me at the same time make this acknowledgment, for I think one should be perfectly frank, I do think there should be some provision in regard to men under £10, when a bad season, or a sudden shortage, might make the annual instalment difficult of collection, and it is well worth consideration—because we have known terrible visitations of Providence in former times—it is well worth the consideration of he Government whether they should not put in some little rainy day clause, so that, in the case of these small men—now I am speaking purely on behalf of the small men—whether some sort of savings-bank deposit could not be carved out, say a shilling or two more a year, or added on to the rent, so that if a season of dearth and distress came, the Government could at least afford to wait six, eight, or twelve months. It is fair to say that a great many small mountainous estates have been bought up. It is pretended by some that the best estates are coming into the market. That is utterly unfounded. I should rather think that it is the other way about, with the exception of the Egham estate. With that exception, the people who have bought are small humble people, and there has been nothing like loss to the Treasury. But it is fair to acknowledge that there have occasionally been processes issued on account of delay, but the moment the processes are issued, by hook or by crook the man gets the money, and he pays the Government. However, for my part, I should

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  see no reason whatever to complain if English Members, in view of the possibilities of bad seasons, though I might not think it a necessity, insisted upon a clause of that kind.
  Then there is the question of decadal reduction. You have no room to give it at present. We should all like to have it. It was a remarkable invention of the right hon. Gentleman, the present President of the Board of Trade, whom we have to thank for many things in Ireland. I am very sorry indeed that now the tenuity of the position is such that there is no room to make that reduction, but, if it should be given, it can only be given by doubling the sinking fund. I would be quite satisfied if the sinking fund were increased 5s., but that is a Treasury and a Government matter. The tenant would not be hurt by it and perhaps it would be quite as well at the beginning of this business that the sinking fund might be a little higher. I am quite sure that the Government know a great deal more about this fiscal question than I do, and if the right hon. Gentleman states that, having gone into the whole actuarial position he is unable to do so, I shall for my part rest perfectly satisfied. There is another question, namely, that of the one-eighth, and I think that the reasons which have been given for retaining it are not strong and are not logical. You can prevent, as you do now, mortgaging and sub-letting without the one-eighth at all. But it is a question which may deserve consideration in the future whether something should not be done with the one-eighth, and whether a little bit of sinking fund could be put on in the way of letting the amount go to the local authority. If there is to be anything like that I would support it, but if there is not to be anything like that, I should oppose it.
  The case of the labourers has been, I think, rather unfairly dealt with. One way that occurs to me of benefiting them would be to go back to the position before the Local Government Act, and relieve the labourers and the small men under £4 valuation of all their rates. I do not say that that is an ideal suggestion; and more than that, as the franchise hangs upon it, it is not very easy to handle. See what has happened under the Local Government Act. Before it came into operation Sir Roger Palmer
  60
  used to give one cheque in respect of £500 valuations on his estate. The rate collector to-day has twice a year to make a pilgrimage over the estate and call on these 500 men with holdings under £4 valuation. The same occurs on many other estates, so that it is evident that an enormous burden is cast on the local authorities in the shape of increased expenditure on matters like that. If the eighth is not to go for any Irish purpose that I can see, I recognise that it can only be abolished by adding it to the sinking fund, and if so, I should cheerfully accept that position. The hon. Member for Tyrone contends that this Bill does not deal hardly with the labourers. How did the Conference Report deal with the labourers? I would remind the hon. Member for Tyrone of what the Conference Report says. It says that—
  "The failure to enforce the Labourers Acts in certain portions of the country constitutes a serious grievance, and, in the opinion of the Conference, in certain districts of the country sufficient accommodation for the labourers has not been given by the local authorities. Power should be given to the local authorities to acquire sites for labourers' cottages."
  But that is the law already. Mr. Ellison Macartney, the present Master of the Mint, ran a Bill through the House some time ago enabling the Local Government Board, where a labourer complained that his case had not been attended to by the local guardians, to send down an inspector, and, if necessary, to erect a house over the Guardians' heads. I have another suggestion as to what should be done to improve the condition of the labourers in addition to relief from rates. It is this: that any man who takes benefit under the Purchase Act should be debarred from contesting a decision of the Local Board entitling a labourer to a cottage on his land. I do not think that is unreasonable. If the farmers of Ireland get a large easement in the shape of this Government money from the general body of the taxpayers, it is only right that they should concede to the labourers some such measure of accommodation as I have suggested. The hon. Member for Durham says that the labourers of Ireland have been unfairly dealt with by the farmers. That is not so, except in the province of Ulster, where there are no labourers' cottages.

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  In the three southern provinces the farmers have, in my judgment, behaved us generously and as fairly to the labourers as anyone could expect, and in my opinion they are quite willing to continue to do so, although, of course, there may be an odd exception to that fair and generous treatment here and there. The labourers have a special protection; they have now under the Local Government Act the precious weapon of the franchise, by which they can return such guardians, and elect such district and county councillors as they choose. Let anyone remember the state of things before the Local Government Act was passed. It was decided by the Irish Courts that one landlord—Lord Fitzwilliam—could cast thirty-two votes for the Board of Guardians. But to-day every man, woman, and labourer in these unions has a vote, and can return the guardians of their choice. Therefore, so far as the labourers themselves are concerned, there is a complete—not a perfect, but a very valuable code by which the labourers can obtain large benefits.
  Complaint has been made that the right hon. Gentleman has under-estimated the rent, and a statement has been made that, to some extent, he has misled the House. I do not think so. I think we have rather reason to complain of the narrow way in which the Bill has been drawn in this respect. All the old Ashbourne Acts admitted tenants of every kind and sort, and the Bill of last year said that no estate should be purchased which was not in the main agricultural or pastoral, or partly agricultural and partly pastoral. That is not the case in this Bill. As I understand it, this Bill only applies to tenants who have obtained the benefit of the Land Courts. Certainly the first Clause is to that effect. And if that be so then you are really importing all these minute decisions from the Land Act of 1881 into this present Act—a thing that has never been done in any previous Purchase Act. Therefore I think the right hon. Gentleman's estimate of £4,000,000 is very moderate. I do not think, however, that £4,000,000 of rental can be dealt with under this Bill if these restrictions are retained, and I believe it would be most desirable indeed to get rid of them. I shall reserve to the
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  Committee stage further criticism on this first Clause of the Bill. I think the hon. Member for Waterford was well advised when he said that the Government were in a difficult position and had various interests to consider, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to accede to the view expressed by my hon. friend the Member for Waterford. There is another matter to which attention must be called; it is the question of title. At the present moment, as I understand the position, something like 300 titles roll into the Lands Commission Office every year, and it is about six months before the Lands Commission officials can untie the red tape or string of these titles. If you suddenly increase that 300 to 3,000, what an extraordinary congestion you will have in the Land Estates Office. These titles at present go in to the Lands Office with every point cleared by the landlord's solicitor, and with all blots removed so far as the solicitors are concerned. But under this Bill you propose that these undigested titles shall be shovelled into the hands of clerks, who will necessarily be laymen and without any legal assistance of any kind or description. Bills which were said to be not lawyers' Bills have generally proved to be bad. There was the Workmen's Compensation Bill, which was a Bill with which no lawyer was to have anything to do. Well, that Bill, after becoming an Act, has given rise to more litigation than almost any other Act, and the decisions of the Court of Appeal have been invariably reversed by the House of Lords. No Bill will benefit lawyers so much as the Bill to do away with lawyers; and in my judgment the solicitors of Ireland, who are now crying out against these clauses, if well advised would let it alone, because in about six months there will be such a condition of things in the Lands Commission Office, or in the new Estates Office as will require a perfect Hercules to clear up. The tenants will be waiting for their titles, and the landlords will not be getting their money; nothing will be done, and you will have the tenants all over the country cursing the new Department and wondering what good they are going to get out of the Land Purchase Act. My advice to the solicitors is "Leave this Bill alone," and the whole of the landlords will take their titles to their

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  family solicitors to prepare them. That may cause a six months delay, but the solicitors will send the titles made clear, in to the new staff that must be created under this Bill. The lawyer, after all, is not an enemy of the human race. He is only a tradesman who knows a little more about certain subjects than other people; and, as George III said, if he does not know the law he knows where to find it. All those solicitors who deal with these titles are landlords' solicitors, and it is absurd to suggest that these men, with their acquaintance with old family deeds and roots of titles, will not deal as expeditiously in clearing the titles as a number of new clerks who will have to be appointed in the Land Estates Office.
  There is another blot on the Bill on which I wish to offer a remark. The right hon. Gentleman excludes what he calls holdings within the limits of a town. That may seem to Englishmen quite natural; but does he forget the great liberties of Dublin, Waterford, Galway, Limerick, and other places which extend for three or four miles out of the city. Above all, does he forget the case of Dublin, the boundaries of which were extended by a Bill two years ago so as to include a large breadth of agricultural land, on which fair-rents had been fixed, and in respect of which there is an express provision, that the extension of the city boundaries shall not affect the operation of the Land Acts. I respectfully urge the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider that clause of the Bill. Then there is the question of the £3,000 limit. If you exclude the larger tenants from the benefits of this Act you exclude the men who hire and pay for labour. The small tenants do the labour on their farms themselves. Above all, this £3,000 limit will become an extremely difficult limit, because of the fact that a tenant has to give so much more money for his land than formerly. When he gave only from fifteen to sixteen years purchase for the holding, the limit might have been fair, but now that he has to give twenty-five years purchase in some cases, is it fair that the original limit of £3,000 should be adhered to? I respectfully submit that it should not.
  The only other point is the composition of the tribunal, which, in this case, has given very general satisfaction. I, for my part, have expressed my opinion already, and I do not intend to say
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  anything more upon the subject. There is this difficulty which the hon. Member for Waterford partly touched upon, and it is very important; the new Commissioners are to hold their office during pleasure. Now, "during pleasure," with the possibility of a debate on their salaries in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons, is a very different thing from "good behaviour." It is perfectly right that we should have the right in this House, and that the landlords should have the same right in the other House, to debate the action of this Land Commission; but is it right when, for the first time, you will have constituted a Land Commission which meets with general approbation from the people of the country, that you should make the tenure of these men so uncertain that, as a result of a debate—perhaps, a well-informed debate—a debate of the landlords in the House of Lords, or of the tenants in the House of Commons, a Minister may become panic-stricken, and use some language in the heat of debate that would drive one of the Gentlemen out of office. Give us power to debate their conduct, and give the landlords power to debate their conduct, but give them the ordinary tenure of County Court Judges. If these men are to have dependence in their offices, I think it is vital that some greater measure of independence should be given to them, and I very strongly object to the phrase "during pleasure." I believe that it will really mean that a Minister of the day—and certainly the Lord Lieutenant—could tell a Commissioner to leave his office. At any rate, the words "during good behaviour" have the sanction of English Revolution, and of two or three centuries of well-considered precedent, and, in my judgment, they are far larger and more beneficial words to use in dealing with a Commission appointed to carry out this beneficent law. With regard to the way in which Murrough O'Brien has been treated, I do not believe the right hon. Gentleman knows one bit about it. It will take considerable diving into Acts of Parliament to have it found out, but it shows what miserable advisers he has in the Land Commission. I know as well as if I saw him here who it was drafted that clause to prejudice Mr. O'Brien. Mr. O'Brien is a Protestant gentleman; he has been thirty years in

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  office, in fact, ever since the Church Act was passed, and simply because he stated he always regretted having to make Church tenants pay thirty years purchase for their property, and that it was too high, he has been hounded down ever since, and every opportunity has been taken to depress and degrade him. And in the Act which was passed some four or five years ago—the Act which gave additional salaries to these two Commissioners of £500 a year—as soon as the right hon. Gentleman's Ministers appointed Mr. Murrough O'Brien, they would not give him the new salary created under the Act, and they docked him of £500 a year under the pretence that the Act did not apply to him. If they did that when under a Home Rule Government, what would they do with a Tory Government in power? We then had the advantage of Lord Rosebery in office, and I do protest that these little niggling and vindictive discriminations should not be allowed to create in our minds a reservoir of distrust. You see the one man who has played up to the British Government, you see him honoured, salaried, and pensioned. Take the case of Mr. Fitzgerald. Under the Bill the First Lord says that the salary of these two Gentlemen was made £3,000 a year, but if they took a pension it would only be £2,500 a year. Mr. Lynch, a wise man, took the £2,500 and his pension, Mr. Fitzgerald, with a full belief in the bounty of the British Government and Mr. Wrench, took £3000 a year and no pension, and now this Bill is to give them a pension. Who could lose faith in a British Government like that? But poor Mr. Murrough O'Brien, a man of birth and education, a descendant of ancient kings and a close relative of Lord Inchiquin, simply because he had endeavoured to do justice to the people, has, so far as this Bill is concerned, to turn out of doors without a copper. I am satisfied that the right hon. Gentleman knew absolutely nothing of his case. These were Land Commission clauses shovelled in upon his head—a sort of baptism of fire that he had to stand. This is the price for getting reasonable information and assistance from these men. If he had not taken their advice on these subjects they would have denied him the information he required. They would have boycotted him. He would not have been able to
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  run sweet with them, or to frame proper drafting clauses. That is the price which every Irish administration has to pay for the abominable system which they maintain.
  I take my leave of this Bill. I wish it a prosperous future, I have given it my humble support as I did the right hon. Gentleman's last year's Bill. I shall hope to do the same with this measure. It is a far-reaching measure in its importance. It has been introduced under the most favourable auspices. I have never known a moment when the auspices seemed more favourable, and I can only hope that these favourable auspices will continue, and that a measure like this, presented as it is, a great measure of peace, will bring, as I hope it may, a new spirit, not merely into the heart of Ireland but into the heart of England. I believe there is at this moment an attitude between the two countries favourable to peace, favourable to a general understanding, and favourable to considerations which deeply affect the people. You cannot deal with this question merely as decimals or percentages, or as £ s. d. It strikes hard a chord in the Irish character other than the sordid note of finance, it marks a reversal of a long period of dismal oppression and awful sorrow—of a breach of treaty faith committed, it is true, two centuries ago, but having to this day left a living effect. This Bill will change more than Ireland, it will change England too, and with that change I hope to see a brighter light in the eyes of dark Rosaleen.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I desire to take a view of this measure as it appears to English eyes—not to mine alone but to many others who take an interest in it. When the hon. Member for Waterford told the hon. Member for South Molton that this business was none of his, I am sure he did not intend to refuse the right of criticism on the part of English Members. I should not rise at this moment if I did not feel that some of the considerations that have occurred to me during the criticism of this Bill deserve to be put before this House and the country. I think I am qualified in every way to be one of the greatest friends of this Bill. To see Ireland prosperous and contented is one of the dearest wishes of

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  my heart. I would rather have a contented Ireland than an expanded Empire, and I always have had great sympathy, not only with the Irish people, but with the Irish Members of Parliament. I have recognised in them useful and in some respects pattern Members of this House. They always do all they can to further the interests of their constituents; they do not neglect their work and they display great courage and acumen. When they are called rebels, as they sometimes are, I wish there were more rebels of the kind in this House. There would then be less of decadence of this House, and of tyranny of Ministers. It has been said or will be said that every vote given to this Bill is a vote for Home Rule. But that does not frighten me. When we have a score of Parliaments in this Empire I am not to be frightened at the prospect of having another added. I do not minimise the difficulties of such a system of Home Rule as would secure—and that is what I am principally concerned about—the strategic and military safety of this Island. Can that be secured? I do not know, but I believe it is not at all impossible that such a measure of Home Rule might be devised as would secure that and yet satisfy the Irish people. I have another qualification for approval of this Bill, and that is my admiration for and sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman is in many respects the most remarkable figure—in some respects he is the only remarkable figure on the Treasury Bench. I cannot but admire the manner in which he has tackled a problem which has baffled generations of statesmen. Whether he will succeed or not is a question, but I have said enough to show that if I think, as I do, the Bill is a measure of very doubtful benefit for both countries it is not because I am deficient in sympathy with its objects, with the people it is intended to benefit, or with the right hon. Gentleman who introduced it. Undoubtedly, Ireland is a saddening spectacle. That beautiful island that ought to be the fairest gem in the English Crown has always been our difficulty and our reproach; and it is hard to know why. I often think of a story told to me by a Spanish priest. St. Iago, the patron saint of Spain, begged
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  from Heaven successive blessings for his country, which were all granted. Spain was granted a most splendid climate, the most beautiful fruits, the finest rivers, the women fair and virtuous, the men courageous, able and imaginative. The last blessing he asked for Spain was good government, but the reply was that this blessing could not be added to the others, because, if it were, the blessed angels themselves would abandon Heaven to live in Spain. That is the case with Ireland. If it is sad for Ireland, it is still more sad for us; and it seems to me a strange thing indeed that we should have had statesman after statesman of the highest eminence, who could manage English affairs, and even withstand the hostile nations of Europe, and who could succeed everywhere except in Ireland. Many honest attempts have been made, one after another, but they have all failed; and at last Ireland has become the grief of the patriot, the amazement of the economist, and the despair of the statesman. Now, another attempt is being made to settle the question. The right hon. Gentleman appears like a beneficent fairy literally waving a golden wand, and we are asked to believe that what has so often been attempted without success is at last to be accomplished, that the patriot is to be consoled, the economist satisfied, and the statesman relieved, that there is to be unanimity once more between the two islands, and that the angel of peace is to spread her wings over both.
  It seems ungracious, and yet when I come to look at this measure I have doubts, most serious doubts. The right hon. Gentleman is making a bold attempt, but when I come to look at the measure the prospects of its success seem small to me. The right hon. Gentleman's scheme is, in many respects, ingenious. There is, in some respects, a want of simplicity about it which gives rise to some misapprehension as to many parts of it. These ingenious complications, perhaps not wholly unintentional, are unfortunate. In its essentials, however, it is simple enough. The essential part of the scheme is that there should be an unlimited loan given to Ireland. I think I am right in saying that there is absolutely no limit to the advances under the Bill. An estimate has been made, that it may be

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  £100,000,000 or it may be £150,000,000; but there is no limit. To enable the Irish tenants to buy the land cheap and the landlords to sell it dear, this unlimited loan is to be made, and then an out and out gift of £12,000,000 is to be added, in order to procure the acceptance of the loan. That represents the English view of the transaction. The reception given to the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman has been strange indeed. No sooner was the gift horse led out than all parties began to look it in the mouth, none more so than hon. Gentlemen from Ireland. The hon. Member for Waterford found alarming defects in the Bill and the hon. Member for South Tyrone condemned it root and branch. The Solicitor-General for England has announced that he will give it a minimum of support because he is in office; and the Colonial Secretary has not yet declared himself. Unless he is false to all the traditions of his political history, he will give it not a minimum of support but a maximum of opposition. The First Lord of the Treasury made a speech on the Bill which dealt, not with the Bill, but with his own consistency. I think it can be shown that throughout his whole political life, the right hon. Gentleman has been consistent and faithful to one guiding principle. What that principle is I will not now say. But it is the hon. Members for Stoke and North Islington, to my mind, represent the stupid and amazed British taxpayer with regard to this measure. They were, as it were, out in the fields when they heard the rejoicings over the Bill. They heard the music and the dancing and they same and asked what it was for. They were told that the Irish prodigal son had returned, and that the fatted calf was being killed for him, and they said, "Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment, and yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends." That is the view of the British taxpayer. It certainly is the view of the British farmer, and I shall listen with great interest to the speech of my right hon. friend the Member for the Sleaford Division when, as I expect him to do, he puts in his claim, not for a kid,
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  but for the calf itself. As to the Irish Members, their attitude is quite intelligible. They represent, and have represented ably and nobly, in my opinion, a suffering people, a people who in times gone by have been oppressed in the most shameful manner by this country. I recognise all that. Representing as they do, a poor and suffering people, they cannot but receive with pleasure the prospect which the right hon. Gentleman puts before them; and when he dangles the golden apple, although some of them think, and some of them say, it is but a Dead Sea fruit, yet it is only natural that they should grasp at it. So far then as they are concerned, whatever changes may be made in the Bill, still if the unlimited loan and the gift of £12,000,000 remain, hon. Gentlemen from Ireland will accept it. I do not intend to enter now into the question of the finance of the Bill. All I will say is that the method of finance adopted absolutely amazes me. It has been said that no Patagonian can count up to twenty-one; and if I were to describe the finance of this Bill I should call it Patagonian finance. It is not only novel; it is grotesque. I am stating my own opinions, and I hope some of them may prove to be wrong. But if I am right, this is a very serious measure indeed, particularly at a time when we have just concluded the imposition of a debt burden of £220,000,000—the cost of the war and of what follows.
  As to the gift of £12,000,000, I will now say nothing. But as to the unlimited loan, it is, as I have said, to be £100,000,000 or £150,000,000, or; £300,000,000, or £400,000,000 as the case may demand. There is no limit. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken said it was safe. I am perfectly sure that it is safe so far as the intention of the hon. and learned Gentleman and of his fellow Members, and the intentions of the tenants and landlords of Ireland are concerned, but that does not absolutely satisfy me. I have a financial mind, and when I hear a thing is safe I look to the security. There are said to be three securities for this loan. There is the land, there is the moral security of the character of the Irish people, and of public opinion in Ireland, and there is

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  what the Irish Secretary calls the ample absolute cent. per cent. security. Is the land of Ireland security for these stupendous sums? That can scarcely be contended, because if it were the money could be borrowed without the intervention of the State, and this Bill would not be necessary which is to make England the national gombeen man of Ireland. I think the security of the land may be certainly dismissed as inadequate. Now I come to the moral security, and to that I attach more importance than perhaps a financier ought. I attach importance to it because I believe the Irish people desire and intend to pay their debts; but it is impossible to blink the fact that circumstances may arise to make it impossible for the tenants to continue paying the instalments under this scheme. There may be another Irish famine, or successive years of bad harvests, which, entirely independent of the will or intention of those concerned, may make it impossible for them to meet their payments. That is a very serious matter, which vastly impairs the value of the moral security. Then I come to what the right hon. Gentleman called the cent. per cent. security. That is really the most amazing of all. The right hon. Gentleman estimated the payments made to Ireland at £2,548,460 annually. He asks me to lend him £152,000,000. I say I am well disposed to do so, but what "is your security?" He says, "My security is the £2,500,000 that you annually pay me." I say, "But is that a security?" and he says, "Yes, because if you multiply that £2,500,000 by sixty your product is £152,000,000, which is what I ask you to lend." That is what he calls a cent. per cent. security. I venture to think it is nothing of the sort. But supposing it were you can never realise the security supposed to be represented by this, your own payment to Ireland; you can never withhold it. Why are these payments made to Ireland? They are made for different purposes—for the Agricultural Department, for keeping up education, and for local purposes, such as the making of roads and so forth. If I can claim my security, it must be something that I may take. How can I take this? [A VOICE: You can stop the payment of it.] If I stop my payments, the result is either that education is stopped, prisons and lunatic
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  asylums closed, and roads left unrepaired, or else that Ireland is immediately crushed by extra rates. No, I say, as regards that portion of the security, it is no security at all. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury sees indeed no difficulty in this; he says that the English Government would immediately stop the whole of the fund. I see very great difficulty indeed in it. Then the right hon. Gentleman says, "But I have a fourth or supplementary security; I am going to make economies in the administration." I fail to see where the economies are to come in. What I see is that the immediate and direct result of the passing of this Bill will be an enormous increase of expenditure. You have a Land Commission at present. Can you stop that, and are you going to stop it immediately? On the contrary, it must go on and you are to add a new Land Commission to it. It seems to me that for the new Land Commission you will want an enormous staff. The hon. Member has referred, to the clerks who will be required to look into titles. I foresee that it will need an enormous staff for that purpose. Until all the land of Ireland is bought and sold, instead of fewer men you certainly will require more, which must lead to a very large increase of expenditure and no economy at all.
  But this is not all. When you have made this unlimited loan and contributed this £12,000,000 of money, and when you have sold all this land and got it bought by your peasants, that is not the end of all the expenditure as I will show. You will have to provide capital to work this land in many cases if not in all, and you will have to do other things. I say at once I do not care how many millions I might contribute if I saw a real, complete, and final settlement of this Irish question, but is this to be a real, complete, and final settlement? I fear it is not. We have been especially told that one of the most important parts of the question—the political part—will not be settled at all. We are told that when we have settled the agrarian question, the political question will remain; and that the agitation for Home Rule will not end, but will continue with an increased chance for its success. But will this Bill even settle the Land Question? I have very serious doubts about that. I have here the most interesting report of Mr. Bailey on Irish land

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  purchase, and while I am struck with the testimony it offers to the honesty of the Irish peasants who have bought, and to the success in a large measure of the land purchases which have taken place under the Ashbourne Acts, I am also struck with the fact that when he comes to look at the vast experiment and project embodied in this Bill he foresees dangers and difficulties which will be most serious when this scheme is carried out. He says—
  "Dealing with purchasers who bought with insufficient capital
  —and there must be many such in the past and more such in the future—
  "we find that their subsequent history is unsatisfactory as a general rule. They struggle along, often with persistency, and working hard, but seldom with much success. Their land, owing to inadequate treatment, diminishes in value, and they finally lose heart and hope."
  Then he goes on to say this—he treats of what he calls the uneconomic holdings purchased by tenants, and these apparently drive him to despair—
  "Where the entire estate consists of uneconomic holdings the case is still worse. There is no purchaser who can help his submerged neighbour. All are in the same position. All are equally impoverished. They lose hope and self-respect, become sunk in squalor and idleness, and are worse off than their neighbours under the non-purchase system."
  Let me not be thought to be exaggerating the matter, but that is a future possibility, and indeed a probability, under the too common circumstances shown by Mr. Bailey. Therefore it seems to me that his testimony goes to show that this cannot be a final settlement of the Land Question. But he goes farther and says—
  "If the system of purchase by State aid is to be a success in Ireland, some method should be devised for supplying the small purchasers with capital on easy terms."
  So that when you have carried out your scheme you have still to supply further capital on easy terms, and therefore this Bill and this vast contribution cannot finally end the matter. I will not allude further to the town holdings, which are not included in this Bill, and which have been described by the hon. Member opposite, nor to the labourers, who have all been left outside this Bill. But you will have those grievances, as well as those of the congested distrcts and the evicted tenants to adjust, so that while this Bill will admittedly not settle the
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  political question, and as I may conclude from Mr. Bailey's report that it will not settle the agrarian question, the position of England will be this. We shall, if my anticipations are correct, find ourselves in a position of not having a settled Ireland, but an unsettled Ireland, with many of its most serious and portentous problems still remaining open. We shall be in the position of an absentee landlord unable to collect our rents in times of dearth and stress, and unable to give those reductions which a personal landlord is able to do. I hold, therefore, that this Bill offers no settlement, political or agrarian; that it will saddle us, not with £100,000,000 plus the £12,000,000 which the right hon. Gentleman suggests, not even with the £152,000,000 plus the £12,000,000, but with many other millions with, in all probability, not less than £200,000,000—the ransom paid by France to Germany after Germany had conquered her. If that is true this Bill will bring, not peace, but a sword of our own forging, and that being so, Home Rule, even of Mr. Gladstone's pattern, would be better than this. I do not know by what means the Cabinet have arrived, by what process they have been brought to arrive, at the scheme embodied in this Bill. To me it scorns a crazy scheme founded on crazed finance. I hope on further examination in Committee I shall be shown to be wrong, but if I am right, and if the scheme has the defects that I believe I see in it, then, instead of diminishing the evils and the estrangement between England and Ireland, it will only provoke greater evils and graver differences than those that have hitherto separated the two islands.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I have had the pleasure of hearing the speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, and what has struck me most in the course of this debate is the strength of the defence of the Bill, and the weakness of the attack. We have had many remarkable speeches on the Bill, and I note the fact that all the speeches of Irish Members, without exception, both from these benches and from those, have been unanimous not merely in praise of the Bill, but also in urging the same Amendments to the Bill in order to make it more complete. I

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  note the fact that the measure was supported by a most able and eloquent speech by the Leader of the Liberal Party, and I note above all the speech of the Prime Minister What I put to both sides of the House is this, that nobody can doubt but that the speech of the Prime Minister marked an epoch in Irish history. He pronounces the condemnation of the present system and that condemnation cannot now possibly survive. The speech was the epitaph of the present land system in Ireland. The old system is dead, and you must put something in its place. The alternatives are a great measure of land purchase, or chaos and anarchy. Therefore, when hon. Members criticise the details of the Bill—and there are many details open to criticism—we have a right to ask that they should supplement destructive criticism by an alternative policy. I have never known a Bill to be introduced into this House which could not be torn to pieces. There are some questions which cannot be settled except by something of the national sentiment between all parties, which brings into prominence the voice of statesmanship and drowns the voice of faction. In spite of all that has occurred in Ireland, the unanimity of Irish Members has come, in some respects, as a surprise. There are various sections of Unionist Irish opinion. There are the sections represented by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Armagh and the hon. Member for South Tyrone respectively. There is also a Member who almost represents a political group by himself. The hon. Member for South Antrim was returned, one might say, as a landlords' man, against his opponent who came forward as a tenants' man. Yet we have the remarkable fact that the speech of the "landlords' man" was exactly the same as that of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. Therefore I say that in regard to this Bill we have unanimity not merely as to principles but as to details; not merely as to the measure as it stands, but as to the Amendments that are desired. It is not for me to defend either the consistency of the Tory Party on the question of land purchase or the landlords, but I will say a word on both. If I remember rightly, the very first Amendment moved to the Bill of 1881 was proposed by the right hon.
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  Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division, and its object was to take the second part of the Bill first. The second part dealt with land purchase, and the first with rent, so that the meaning of the Amendment was, that land purchase rather than rent-fixing was the proper settlement of the question. In the Lobby on the Amendment, the right hon. Gentleman was supported by every Member of the Conservative Party and also by every Member who then followed the lead of the late Mr. Parnell.
  Much has been said against the Irish landlords. They have a great measure of responsibility for the present state of affairs in Ireland, but the responsibility is not unshared by this House and this country. The landlords have been the enemies of Ireland for a century, but they were not always the enemies of the rights of Ireland. We have a Saunderson here to-day who has opposed every demand for Irish reform, but in the 18th century there was a Saunderson who voted against the Union and defended the principles of Irish nationalism. Therefore I do not find fault with any portion of the Bill that recognises the right of the British or Irish taxpayer to come to the relief of the Irish landlord for the purpose of effecting a great national settlement and ending a great national conflict. I was rather surprised at some of the comments of the hon. Member for King's Lynn. If ever a transaction has been conclusively proved to be beneficent and safe it is land purchase. The Attorney-General told us the other night that £25,000,000 were already invested in Irish land purchase, that £830,000 were being paid by the Irish farmers to the State on account of those transactions, that the arrears amounted to only £3,000, the whole of which was not to be assumed to be lost When hon. Members talk of the terrible loss the State may sustain, and the great loss that may be inflicted on the Irish ratepayers by the equivalent grants being called upon, they ought to speak with due regard to that fact. It would be a terrible loss if the whole £830,000 were in arrear, but if the amount is £3,000, £6,000 or even £10,000, it is not so gigantic a burden to place upon the people for so beneficent an operation.

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  The hon. Member for King's Lynn quoted Mr. Bailey's report; I should like to make a few other quotations. It is well that the House should realise what a peasant proprietary means. Hon. Gentlemen have spoken as if this Bill was to introduce some new and untried experiment into Irish life, that it was a vast leap in the dark, a strange innovation, the result of which nobody could foretell. Peasant proprietary has been tried in Ireland with extraordinary success. Never in the whole course of political experiments has there been so triumphant or so prompt a vindication as that which has attended the experiment of land purchase. Take the question of thrift. The Irish have always been called a thriftless people—usually by those who know nothing about them. As a matter of fact, with the exception of the French, they are the thriftiest people in the world. The whole moral of Mr. Bailey's report is that land purchase has created the best method of thrift, viz., a horror of borrowing.
  "If I borrow, the land would not produce enough to pay the instalments, and I would be swamped."
  On an estate in Kilkenny—
  "Purchasers are averse to borrowing money for any purpose."
  In West Meath—
  "They seem to have an abhorrence of borrowing at all, even from the Board of Works."
  On an estate in Mayo—
  "It was quite like old times. The people do not ask for or want credit now; they pay in cash."
  All over Ireland, wherever there is land purchase, we find thrift symbolised in a horror of borrowing. Take the question of better industry. The inspector speaks of seeing the migratory labourer working upon his farm in the middle of winter. Take the question of food. Indian porridge and oatmeal porridge, which in the days of some of us were the universal diet of a portion of the tenantry, have disappeared, and English or Irish bacon has taken their place. Take the question of content. A most important outcome of land purchase is the feeling of contentment it has given to the people. Take the relations of landlord and tenant. In the county of Mayo, says this report, the best possible relations exist between the
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  purchaser and the landlord. I find in the same report an account of an estate where the inspector of police says that, before the holdings were purchased by the tenants, the police almost slept on the property, but at the present time he did not think a more honest, sober, or self-respecting body of men existed in Ireland. In a parish in Fermanagh the priest said the tenants were more industrious, and the consumption of whiskey had decreased by one-third. With regard to courtesy, Mr. Bailey in his report calls attention to the courtesy shown by the tenant purchasers. This is a rapid and hurried sketch of land purchase in Ireland, although I think it was hardly necessary to remind the House of what land purchase has done. I put it to hon. Members above the Gangway, and to the hon. Member for King's Lynn, that it is better for them to facilitate and accelerate this work of reconciliation in Ireland than to indulge in bursts of brilliant oratory.
  I have spoken of the unanimity on this Bill amongst the Irish Members. I may say, however, that we are all agreed as to the insufficiency of the Bill in regard to the labourers; and I think the Chief Secretary for Ireland ought to be encouraged to amend the Bill in this respect by the fact that instead of finding any opposition he will find not only support but enthusiastic support in all parts of the House, and more especially amongst those representing Ireland. There is a far more contentious part of this Bill, upon which, much to my relief, I find the same unanimity. I allude to the question of the evicted tenants. We have yet to hear a single voice raised from Ireland against that great amnesty without which there can be no peace. With regard to the question of the congested districts, that has been entirely removed out of the sphere of party politics. I do not know any hon. Member in this House who does not agree that the state of the congested districts in Ireland is intolerable and should no longer be allowed. If there is one man who feels more strongly than another upon this point I think it is the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. I think, however, that the provisions of this Bill with regard to the congested districts are regarded by everybody who has studied the question

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  with dissatisfaction, and I might almost say with dismay. This is a problem which is even more urgent than the land problem, and in saying this I believe I am speaking the feelings of Leinster and Munster. I believe that I speak the spirit even of Ulster and of all Ireland when I say it would be better that the prosperity of Ireland should wait than that this urgent and terrible problem should not be dealt with now. It is easy to settle this problem because its features are broad and plain and visible to every eye. On the one side you have congestion and on the other the desolate ranch. There will be scarcely any population at all on the fertile soil until the right hon. Gentleman takes power to divide the untenanted land amongst the people of the congested districts, if necessary by compulsion; and until he asks for such funds as are necessary to deal with this problem everything else he may do for Ireland will be blackened and overshadowed by the misery in the western portion of the country.
  There is another point upon which we are all agreed, and that is in regard to the non-judicial rents. I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman does not take a sound view of that question, for I gather from his speeches that he thinks that the existence of a non-judicial rent is a proof of the goodness of the landlord and of the prosperity of the tenant. I lay down almost the opposite proposition. I think the absence of a judicial rent is in the majority of cases the most convincing proof of the poverty and weakness of the tenants. Proof upon proof will be heaped upon the head of the right hon. Gentleman in this respect to show hardship, arrears, intimidation, want of spirit and want of knowledge, and it will be shown that all these things have kept a large number of tenants out of the Land Courts; and instead of being better rented they are more heavily rented than almost any section of tenants. I believe there are about 50,000 caretakers in Ireland. There are estates all over Ireland where the tenants are in arrears, which arrears the landlords in those particular districts take very good care to maintain. An hon.
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  friend of mine has shown me an extraordinary receipt which reads as follows:
  "Received the 29th day of August, 1902, from Mr. Hurley, the sum Of £2. 3s., half-year's rent due the year ending the first day of November, 1897."
  This is a receipt given this year for arrears in 1897, leaving the tenant with five years arrears of rent. I think I have now said enough to show that this is a portion of the Bill which requires, at our hands, the most careful scrutiny, and if we are able to prove to the satisfaction of the right hon. Gentleman that he is doing an injustice to a large body of tenants in Ireland, I think he will be willing to meet our views and amend his Bill in that direction.
  Now, I come to another portion of the Bill upon which every Irish Member has expressed an equally unanimous opinion, and that is the question of the reduction of the minimum rental. It has been urged that we are not entitled to ask for an Amendment of the Bill in this respect. I take my stand upon the views expressed by the three hon. Members who represented me on the Land Conference. Roughly, it is what may be called the Ashbourne principle as to the number of years paid by the tenants plus the bonus that the State might wish to give. As to this bonus I must make this observation—that I am absolutely unable to understand how any English Member who has read the Bill and the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and the figures of the whole transaction, can say that, as it stands, the British taxpayer is more likely to lose than to gain. This £390,000 is the largest sum per year that the British taxpayer can pay, and he will only have to pay that when practically land purchase in Ireland is complete, which is fifteen years hence. I shall be able to point out how the right hon. Gentleman can considerably curtail that period, but, according to his proposal, it will take fifteen years before the British taxpayer has to pay £390,000. Within a period of five years it is estimated that the British taxpayer will obtain a permanent revenue against this payment of £250,000. That is a permanent reduction. You will have to pay £390,000 a year maximum for something under seventy years, and you have your saving of £250,000 a year, in Government charges, for all time. But long before the seventy

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  years are over there will be a change in the relations between England and Ireland which will entirely change the position. I speak of the £250,000 as a minimum saving. Is there any man in his senses who would say that the Chief Secretary has gone beyond the lines of the most scrupulous caution in putting down that as the amount of the saving. There may be more people required in the shape of clerks in connection with this transaction, but there will be large savings on the cost of the police, which now amounts to £1,500,000, and law charges and prosecutions which amount to £250,000. Everybody who knows Ireland is aware—and the Chief Secretary was frank enough to state it—that these law costs and police costs are the children of the land war in Ireland. I have not the smallest doubt that before five years have passed away—especially if this Bill leaves the House in such a form that every man in Ireland will be able to advise every tenant in the country to make use of it—the right hon. Gentleman or his successor will be able to show a reduction of considerably more than £250,000 on the present law charges. If the rest of Ireland be transformed after the manner of the holdings which I have described in the words of the official report, if estates where the police almost slept have become the most orderly and law-abiding in the country, I think we can easily see what a saving in the administrative expenditure of Ireland this Bill is likely to secure.
  I want the duration of the work of the Bill to be curtailed. I would like the Bill to be in such a form that every leader in Ireland, of whatever Party he may be, would be able to exercise his influence with the people in the way of advising them to take advantage of it. I would like every bishop and every priest to be able to advise the people to take advantage of the Bill. I lay stress on that, for I know that many of the best settlements have been made by the intervention of the Bishops and the priests. How is the right hon. Gentleman going to enlist on his side all that moral police which will be a great deal better than the police on which he has hitherto relied? By removing from the Bill the great blot of fixing the maximum reduction, and the minimum price on the purchase transactions. What is the
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  attitude of the tenants on this question? They are quite willing that out of their taxes—for this bonus is Irish money—the landlord should get a bonus which probably would not be given to any other class of the community. I think the tenant is entitled to take up the position that if the landlord receives this bonus he has done enough, and that the tenantry should not be further fined. That position, to me, is so much like an axiom in euclid that I am unable to understand that there should be any argument on the other side, though I will keep my mind open on the question. I find that since 1886 the average purchase price has been as low as sixteen years. I will read the figures—Taken in counties the averages during the years ranged in 1886, from 23·6 to 13· 8; in 1887, from 20·6 to 11·5; in 1888, from 19·7 to 12·4 in 1889, from 19·7 to 13·2; in 1890, from 19·8 to 13·2; in 1891, from 19·9 to 13·7: during the period from 22nd August, 1891, to 31st March, 1893, from 20·1 to 10·7; during the years ended 31st March, 1894, from 25·1 to 12·5 31st March, 1895, from 21·2 to 6·6 31st March, 1896, from 20·5 to 11·3; 31st March, 1897, from 21·2 to 12·4 31st March, 1898, from 20·3 to 11·6 31st March, 1899, from 19·8 to 15·1; 31st March, 1900, from 20·5 to 15·7; 31st March, 1901, from 20·5 to 15·1; 31st March, 1902, from 20·7 to 15·3 and during the nine months ended 31st December, 1902, from 22·1 to 16·1. In view of these figures, I ask the House whether it is rational to try to crush into uniformity such vastly divergent transactions? That is the first objection. My second objection is that eighteen years purchase would not meet the circumstances of the case. That does not tell the whole tale. I would point out that it is eighteen years of depreciated land stock, and am I not right in saying that it is eighteen years purchase with all the law charges that fall on the landlord? Is it tolerable that the Irish tenants should be able to come to their representatives and say that, in addition to helping the landlords to get a bonus out of their money, they are also to be called upon to give them a further bonus in five or six years purchase? I take another report. Here is a letter from the Bishop of Ross, in which he tells

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  what purchases he was instrumental in carrying out. He says—
  "There were second-term tenants among the purchasers who had got sweeping reductions. By my advice those men agreed to pay eighteen years purchase. I explained to them that eighteen years purchase for them was a less price than nine, eleven, fourteen, and fourteen and a half years I had advised the other tenants to offer."
  In these circumstances is it tolerable that a tenant should be asked to give nineteen or twenty years purchase as a minimum? I will now give the report of the landlords themselves. I take this from a very valuable pamphlet called "The Landlords' Case," which, I would say, is of especial interest to those who are forcing the landlords' case. Referring to the tenants, the pamphlet says—
  "Only in exceptional cases can they be induced to agree to more than from seventeen to nineteen years purchase of the existing rent.… But the trouble does not end here. When the tenant has, in spite of adverse influences, agreed to a sale and purchase even at a figure only equal to eighteen or nineteen times the rent, the Lane Commission has come in, as broker for the mortgagee, and, if its inspector took peculiar and pessimistic views of the future value of land, or of the solvency or moral character of the tenant, the advance was refused, or only granted to a less amount."
  I have spoken of the unanimity of the Irish people on this question. I hope we will get equal unanimity on the part of English Members on the question. I put it to hon. Members on the opposite side of the House, who are friends of the Bill, that the interests of the taxpayer and the Irish tenant are exactly the same in this matter. The tenant that gives too many years purchase for his holding becomes a dangerous creditor of the State. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and his supporters in the House will keep their minds open on this question, and that they will try not only to pass the Bill, but pass it in such a form that it will be accepted cordially and enthusiastically by all Ireland. All Ireland only yearns for the opportunity, and, therefore, our arguments on this question deserve a patient hearing from all parts of the House.
  On the question of the security of the State let me say that this Bill—for reasons which I will examine presently and many of which are good—removes certain securities of the State creditor. Under previous Purchase Acts
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  the Land Commissioners did not bother themselves about the affairs and interests of the tenants and landlords as their primary consideration. They regarded themselves as the trustees of the State, and they regarded the security of the State as their first consideration. I want to say this word of caption. Even if the right hon. Gentleman stated that these limits should be kept in the Bill, and that the tenants were ready to give twenty-two or twenty-three years purchase, that would not be an unanswerable argument in favour of keeping them in. I know that I am expressing the opinion of every man around me when I say that the tenant has to be protected against himself. The land hunger still rages with its old voracity in Ireland, and perhaps that voracity has been increased by the experience of land purchase. The tenants, even if the Bill be not amended, will get a large reduction of their rents, which is an immediate advantage, while the responsibilities are remote; and thrifty as they are, the temptation is great—the sense of ownership, the idea of having something stable in the land, the idea of being rid of the blood, the bailiff and the garrison—those ghosts and spectres of Irish life for centuries—the temptation is great, and the Irish tenant would pay almost any price for the land, and it is the duty of the Irish representatives in this House to stand between him and his fighting soul. Let me say in connection with this, that some hon. Members have spoken of repudiation as a possible danger and a possible policy. I repudiate both the one and the other. It is impossible. There is no Conservative body in the world so conservative as a body of peasant proprietors. They are even more conservative in Ireland than in France, because they hold firmly by great spiritual principles in Ireland which have lost their influence in France. For myself, and on behalf of my friends, I repudiate the idea that the liberation of Ireland is to be got by making Ireland dishonest. I repeat that the tenants want protection from themselves, and the question is "Do they get that protection from the Land Purchase Acts?" Again, I go to the landlords' case. According to a paper furnished to the Fry Commission by Sir John Franks, it was stated that after the landlords and tenants had

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  struck their bargains, and after the tenants were ready to pay the money, the Land Commission stepped in and cut down the amount agreed upon under the Act of 1885, between August, 1885 and March, 1897, from £11,361,824 to £9,984,959. That is, that for the protection of the tenants the Land Commission reduced the sum they had consented and were ready to pay, by £1,376,865, or 12 per cent. I have shown that this House is bound, not merely out of regard to the tenants, but of the interests of the British taxpayer to see that these bargains between landlord and tenant are free, and not made on a price artificially inflated by Acts of Parliament. I come back to the question raised more than once, "What will be the political consequences of this measure?" As to that, we are willing to take our chance. I confess that it is worth while having given a quarter of a century of effort to get such a Purchase Bill as this. What was the favourite and popular representation given of us for more than twenty-three years? It was that we were paid agitators, living on lawlessness and disorder, and afraid of all things in the world that an end should be put to that disorder and social warfare. I am surrounded by the captains and the leaders of the land war in Ireland. And there is not one of them who does not hope, who does not pray that, if this Bill, properly amended, should pass into law, there is a parting of the ways in Ireland. The sword will be turned into a ploughshare, and the Grand Army of Irish revolution will be dispersed and disappear. We are ready to accept this peace on honourable terms to both sides; and I beseech the House to help us in that work, to listen to our reasons and arguments, and join us in making this Bill such as to open up a new era for Ireland and the Empire.
  MR. GORDON: I cordially join in the sentiments of the concluding sentences of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I think we in Ireland owe a deep debt of gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman, the Chief Secretary, for the courage with which he has faced this question, and for the time he has devoted to framing the measure before us. Of course, as in the case of
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  every great measure of reform, some of its details require to be considered carefully and amended. I must say that it was highly desirable that the right hon. Gentleman should, at this early stage, know what are the points in which Irish Members are specially interested, in order that he might consider how to deal with them. However, I wish to address myself to what is more relevant to a Second Reading discussion. The unanimity of Members, not only for Ireland, but on all sides of the House is wonderful in general approval of the Bill; and it is curious that only six or seven Members have supported the hon. Gentlemen who moved and seconded its rejection. And when one comes to analyse the arguments of these Gentlemen against the Bill, one can hardly fail to acknowledge their weakness and futility in comparison with the arguments put forward in favour of the Bill. One thing which amazed me was the speech of the hon. Member for King's Lynn, who began by an attack on the Prime Minister, and then went on to express his views on Home Rule. He professed great sympathy with the people of Ireland, but when he came to translate that sympathy into speech, he found nothing but objections to the measure before the House for the benefit of the Irish people. He brought to bear the great knowledge of finance which the hon. Gentleman asserts he possesses, in order to destroy the whole financial framework of the Bill. What is the hon. Gentleman's position, because it illustrates very much what is that of some other Members, and of certain people outside the House, with reference to the measure? The hon. Gentleman said that the method of the finance of the Bill absolutely amazed him. And what was the subject of his amazement? First, the gift of £12,000,000. But there need be no amazement about that. There is no mystery about it. It is a simple business transaction, which, taken at its worst, only means a gift of that sum of money; and there are good reasons to show the necessity for such a gift being made. As the hon. Member who has just sat down demonstrated most forcibly, it would, in the end, not be a gift at all. It would be more than repaid by the saving in the present expenditure on Ireland. What is the other ground of the hon. Gentleman the

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  Member for King's Lynn, for amazement? It is that the Bill offers to pledge the credit of the State to the two parties in Ireland—the landlords and the tenants—to enable them to get rid of their difficulties and the sources of these difficulties and annoyances, which in many respects are a discredit to the whole British Empire. I was surprised that the hon. Member spoke as if the British Empire were advancing that money on terms that would result in loss, because the Irish Land Commission will pay interest at the rate of 3¼ per cent., while the money can be borrowed at 2½ per cent. Instead of that being a loss, it would be a source of gain to the Empire. Then, the hon. Member exclaimed "What is the security?" Well, we are giving the security of the land; but there is another point which has not been taken note of hitherto in the debate. The security will not be the value of the landlords' interest alone, but also the value of the tenants' interest, which is often much greater than that of the landlord. Assuming that the true value of the landlords' interest is £100,000,000, that of the tenants must be something like £200,000,000. Surely that is something tangible and real. Then the hon. Member said that the next security is the moral security. I wonder if the hon. Gentleman has ever considered how much trade and commerce are carried on upon what may be regarded as moral security? Has he ever considered how many Banks in Ireland and this country lend money when the chief security is the character, the business capacity, and the honesty of the men to whom their advances are made? We can judge the future by the past. So far as I can see the financial position of this Bill is safe and secure. The money which will be advanced will be amply secured, and it is idle to talk of any real danger, any real chance of loss to the State by advancing these sums to Ireland. I am not taking into account the power under this Bill to take out of the guarantee fund any deficiency that may arise in the payment of the instalments. I think from a financial point of view the Bill is sound, and can be accepted by the House and the country.
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  It has been suggested that under the Bill the tenant can pay too much for his holding. That is a matter to be dealt with in Committee. The assumption is that the way in which the payment is to be made, and the amount to be paid by the tenant, are to be calculated upon the number of annual instalments which he will have to pay. Under the last Purchase Act eighteen years was the average, but the average after this Bill will be twenty-one and a half or twenty-two years. Nevertheless, you will have no greater instalment under this Bill than you had under the eighteen years purchase. The Act of 1881 has done a great deal of good, notwithstanding the delay in giving effect to its provisions, and, whilst fault has been found with its operation, no one has ever proposed its repeal. I do not think there would be any want of security, and I agree that there should not be a minimum price fixed for any holding. Another important matter to be taken into account is that of the necessity for this measure. The process of the Act of 1881 was necessarily slow, because it had to deal with 400,000 tenants in Ireland, and before all their cases could be dealt with we should have to go forward a century. No one either in Ireland or England can desire to see disputes between landlord and tenant prolonged for that period. If by the gift of £12,000,000 and by pledging the credit of the country for £100,000,000 you can put an end to this warfare between landlord and tenant for all time, I think all parties will desire to agree to the loan being made.
  Having come to the conclusion that the Bill is necessary, the next thing to consider is, what is to be done. It must be done either by compulsion or inducement to landlords to sell. All parties who understand this question—except the hon. Member for the Launceston Division—seem to think that the occupier ought to become the owner of the land which he rents. The Government from time to time have announced that they are prepared to carry out the principle of inducement, and get rid of dual ownership. We now come to this question. If you are going to offer inducements, you have to consider first what would be a

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  reasonable inducement to get the landlord to sell, and secondly you have to see that the tenant is not asked to pay too much for his holding. Another point is as to the British taxpayer. No one thinks he is in the slightest danger. The right hon. Gentleman had before him, in fixing the minimum price, a desire to see that the landlord might have a sufficient inducement to sell, but I do think, now that he has heard the universal expression of the House of Commons, he will consider that matter, and that he will not endanger the harmonious working of this Bill. When we come to deal with the question of Amendments I hope hon. Members will show the same spirit of conciliation that has been shown equally, both inside and outside the House, towards the Bill. The principle of inducement having been accepted, there can be no opposition to the Second Reading. But what are the objections that have been offered? One does not like to use strong language, but they do appear to be unreal, unsubstantial, and inappropriate. The mover of the Amendment says that we ought not to pass the Bill because the King is going to visit Ireland in the summer, and a motor-car race is going to be held there, both of which events will cause a heap of money to be spent in the country. What has that to do with the Bill? The hon. Gentleman also asserts that everything shows that Ireland is increasing in prosperity. I must say that Ireland needs any such increase because it is the poorest place in the three kingdoms. Do hon. Members grudge any increase of prosperity? Is it not better for us all, for the British Empire as a whole, to be prosperous? Ireland is still a long way behind England in the matter of prosperity, and of that which she now enjoys a great deal is due to the various pieces of land legislation that we have had, and a great deal is due to the greater interest the tenants have taken in their farms since the Act of 1881.
  Another argument advanced against the Bill was that the Unionist Members opposed the Land Purchase Act of 1886, but that was seventeen years ago, and experience shows that under this very Land Act there was increased prosperity to the Irish people. Will the hon. Member say that we are never to depart from the attitude which was taken up, rightly or wrongly, seventeen years ago. There
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  were various reasons why that attitude was taken up at that time, and I quite agreed with them. It was not a Land Bill framed on lines like this Bill, and suffice it to say that everything was different at that time. We are now dealing with the question under new circumstances, and I sincerely hope that a new attitude will be taken up by Parliament and the country. I am as strongly opposed to Home Rule as any one in this House. One of my strongest claims to election was that I was a strong Unionist, and if I thought the Union was in any danger here, not only would I not support this Bill but I would go much farther, but my belief is that the Union is not in the slightest danger; my belief is that the Union will be strengthened by this Bill rather than weakened, and I believe that a large number of those who, like myself, oppose Home Rule believe that giving the tenants an interest on their holding, and giving them to understand that they will no longer be subject to interference in their holdings or in the cultivation of them, would have a great tendency to prevent them from continuing to contribute to the keeping up of an agitation which is largely based on agrarian discontent. What is the necessity for going to the country upon this matter? I have listened to about forty speeches on this debate, and we have had Members from all sides of the House expressing their opinion, and five-sixths of that opinion is in favour of this Bill. I think the House of Commons is a fair representation of the opinion of the country on this particular measure. The other arguments are equally futile. The hon. and learned Member for South Shields discussed the question of the inconsistency of the Unionist Party. There is no inconsistency; the Prime Minister has explained the position in a way nobody could fail to understand. He has explained that for seventeen years he has been in favour of land purchase. Then we are told that a sum of money was granted to Ireland in 1898 and another last year, but it must be remembered that those were equivalent grants, granted as an equivalent to the money which England got for education; and the only reason why the Board of Agriculture got its portion was because

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  of the relation of agriculture to education in Ireland. Then there is the argument of the hon. and learned Member for Launceston. In answer to that it is sufficient to say this—that the whole of the tenants of Ireland who are paying rent, and those who represent them, have considered this measure and have come to the conclusion that there is no comparison between the man who pays rent and the man who occupies his holding. No argument has been adduced against this Bill. The hon. Member for King's Lynn said there are other questions in Ireland, but surely we must legislate for matters as they arise, and, having legislated for this matter, if other questions arise a terwards the House will deal with them wisely and justly. The hon. Member seems to think that there is no use in dealing with any question for Ireland unless he gets a pledge of finality.
  Now I wish to speak with regard to the Amendments. Might I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman a different mode of dealing with encumbered and unencumbered estates. The unencumbered estates will be the most difficult to get into the market, because the life tenants of those estates would have to invest the money they receive at a lower rate of interest than they now get, whereas the owner of an encumbered property has a ready means of investing his money at once by paying off his encumbrances, and so reducing the 4½ per cent. he now has to pay upon them. He would therefore derive far more benefit from the side than the owner of an unencumbered property, and if the right hon. Gentleman is to graduate these bonuses at all, I would suggest to him whether it would not be better to graduate them in such a way as to bring in the owners of solvent property. Now I have said all I intend to say about the question of minimum price. I hope that will be dealt with, as all the other questions, in a conciliatory manner, and with a frank desire to make the Act work properly. With regard to Clause 17, I do not think it would be desirable to put an end to the right of tenants to have fair rents fixed until the tenants have become owners. I think this Clause is capable of Amendment, and I think
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  it would be most desirable that, if the tenants should be offered their holdings at a price at which three fourths or five-sixths are willing to buy them, they should be treated as having been purchasers from that time. I think that would get rid of the difficulty that is raised, and it would not be at all an unreasonable coercion to enforce on the minority who might refuse to buy. We are all desirous, and will probably be able to come to some reasonable arrangement. The hon. Member for North Louth has referred to some Amendments which are worthy of being taken into consideration. I think it is an important matter that the Act should be got to work soon, and that everything should be done as rapidly as possible. There is one matter which has been referred to several times, and it is to my disappointment that I found nothing more substantial in the Bill with regard to labourers, and I hope that the Chief Secretary, either this session or next, will bring in a Bill dealing adequately and fairly with this question of labourers. I hope that the Bill before the House will be carried by a large majority on the Second Reading, and that we may look forward with hope and abundant expectation to a friendly passage through Committee, and to the fact that the Bill will emerge a good, useful measure of permanent benefit to the landlords and tenants of Ireland.
  MR. COMPTON RICKETT: I do not wish to interpose for more than a few moments. I merely wish to draw attention to a few of the objections which English Members have to the Bill, although I intend to vote for it. I am glad to see such a step forward towards the solution of political troubles which have struck their roots deep in social questions. My only doubt is the possibility of working this Bill to the satisfaction of those who will come under its operation. The freehold appears to me to be of a very vicarious character. One may feel some impulse of satisfaction that one's grandson or one's great-grandson may come into the freehold of the farm in sixty-eight years time, but the only advantage beyond sentiment coming to the tenant to-day, will be a reduction

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  of 10 or 15 per cent. in the rent. Such reduction will seem a great boon at the moment, but when we have a leasehold to be converted into a freehold at the end of sixty-eight or seventy years, how can we suppose the value of the land will not change considerably during the next fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years. As there is no compulsion in the matter, a bargain now may not be a bargain in twenty years time. The landlords may wish for a higher price. On the other hand, the land may decrease in value, and suffer with the whole country in some economic change, and the tenants who have already bought will be unwilling to follow the example of their predecessors. Should either of those circumstances arise, the Act will be arrested and paralysed. To meet the changed circumstances will involve an alteration in the rates already fixed for purchase, which retrospectively will destroy the Bill. There appears to me to be no satisfactory solution apart from a form of compulsion, and that compulsion can hardly be effected by a bargain between the Government of this Empire and the tenant farmers of Ireland. It might be a bargain if there were an authority in Ireland who could covenant with the Government for a scheme of compulsory purchase. Such an authority could control the tenants on the one side, and on the other the landlords would understand the full value of such a bargain and would consider it in coming to terms. If that is not done, I do not see that we are free from the danger of losing our security for the enormous sum it is proposed to advance. We cannot dissociate the question of land from the other Irish question of the government of Ireland on national and popular lines. Those two questions have been wedded in the past; they are connected to-day. It is frankly confessed that this is only a stage in the settlement of Ireland, that it will be received as an instalment, and only as an instalment, and that we must expect the agitation to go on for what Irish representatives consider to be the emancipation of their country. We are bound to remember that present Members of this House will go, and others succeed them, that other farmers will succeed the farmers of
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  to-day, and that there will be an irresistible temptation to put pressure on the Government of this country to secure more political concessions. It has been shown again and again that the Government could not resist a strike on a large scale against rent. You could not evict a country. Such a course would require a provision on a larger scale than was necessary to meet the Boers in South Africa. But though it might be considered as iniquitous, and stigmatised as a breach of agreement, such a thing is possible. The sums granted in relief of local taxation might be used as a security, had we an authority in Ireland to treat with. But supposing there was a strike for a lower rent in one county, and that in consequence the county allowances were not granted. How could you treat the Council of that county as responsible for the tenant farmers? Large numbers of the community who share in the benefit of these grants would be punished through the Council for no fault of their own. Were the contract with an authority it would be a security, but to stop grants needed for education, the repair of roads, and the maintenance of asylums would be out of the question.
  We have also to remember that there are other improvements needed. A vast number of these farmers are very poor. A mere reduction of 15 per cent. in their rent is not sufficient to make them capable farmers, or to bring their land to a cultivatable condition. To suppose that we shall change the condition of the population, and effect a reformation in economic conditions simply by a reduction in rent is surely beyond the conception of any reasonable man. What is required is such an advance as will put the farmers in a position to make their land of real value. That could be done were there an authority in Ireland, and that authority made a grant for the purpose of assisting, on the security of the land, such farmers as they chose so to assist. The prohibition of mortgage really hinders rather than assists the progress of the farmers. There are also larger matters. The country is like a business that has gone down. The whole country needs a great deal of money spent upon

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  it. It is really like a colony which is not yet in hand. It needs drainage, affecting perhaps hundred of miles of country, canalising of rivers, improved access, and the deepening of harbours. All these things indirectly affect the value of land, and have a reflex effect upon it. But for such there is no provision, and it is not likely that the Government will make further grants to improve the country, and put it on a footing to attract the capital of private investors. These things can be done only by giving powers to some kind of executive—call it any name you please. That is the corollary, the natural consequence of going so far as you are going now in the enfranchisement of the tenant farmers. You cannot stop at this enormous expenditure. More money will have to be spent, and it cannot come out of the funds of the United Kingdom. The question is an economic more than a political one. You are directly fostering a system which promotes patriotism and a persistent movement in favour of an independent Government by tethering the people to the soil There will be an arrest to emigration. People will stay in Ireland on the chance of getting their share of the land. Others who are away will come home, and as the population gets larger and more active you will foster and increase the idea of Nationalism instead of stifling it. Nationalism will make a great stride forward in the direction of Home Rule. We have in this country patriotism growing more in Imperial directions. Germany has a patriotism finding her fatherland where the German tongue is spoken. In France the peasant holds to the soil with great tenacity from family inheritance; his patriotism is intensely parochial. You are creating the same state of things in Ireland by this Bill, and it is impossible to suppose that you will not have to face such a state of affairs. Better face it now than render yourself liable to greater anomalies by trying to legislate on separate lines. We have to find under this Bill a sum of £12,000,000 for Ireland. On the same ground we cannot refuse similar grants to the farmers of Essex, or to the crofters of Scotland. In the future, if this Bill passes, it will be difficult indeed to resist other grants to landowners in this country,
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  or to trades of various kinds which are essential to the welfare of this country. If that be so, why should we, not make this a grant raised upon the security of Irish land and Irish taxation, giving a guarantee for a certain number of years to some authority in Ireland? By doing this we escape from the anomaly and difficulty of voting a sum of money which we are unable to defend in the constituencies of this country.
  MR. BUTCHER: So far as I am aware this is the first time in our history in which the representatives of the landlords and tenants in Ireland have come to this House jointly asking for a land reform on which both are agreed. This is a striking and unique fact, and if anyone had ventured, even two years ago, to predict such a result, it would have been looked upon as the dream of a visionary impossible of realisation. But, Sir, it has come true, and for my part I think that this House would be undertaking a grave responsibility if it were to reject, on the Second Reading, a measure which promises so much benefit for Ireland. The hon. Member who has just sat down might, I think, even in his gloomy soul, find some comfort from the fact that the landlords, the tenants, and the whole of Ireland are agreed upon this measure. I gather that the hon. Member would prefer to postpone this measure until the country had been persuaded to grant Home Rule. I do not think it is likely that Ireland would get this money cheaper or better in any financial circles in Europe on the security of the land under Home Rule, than upon the credit of this country. One of the greatest advantages which Ireland derives from its continued connection with this country is that it will be enabled to obtain money for carrying out such beneficial changes as are contemplated by this Bill, by the use of the credit of this country. We are told that this Bill imposes onerous liabilities upon this country. I do not think they will become unduly onerous. But is this country under no obligation to Ireland? Why, Sir, her whole existing land system is the creation of British rule, and if there is one fact more than another upon which hon. Members on both sides of the House are agreed, it is that the present system of land tenure in Ireland is a disastrous and deplorable failure.

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  No hon. Member has given utterance to that view more strongly than the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, and in that view he is supported, I think, by the whole of his colleagues from Ireland. For twenty - two years these experiments have been tried, and those years have proved that the system must end in ruinous and disastrous failure. It has brought great loss to the landlords: it has not brought contentment to the tenants. It has fastened on Ireland a universal and never ending system of litigation of which both parties are heartily sick. I listened two nights ago to the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the late Solicitor-General for Scotland, who seemed to think that in Ireland, at any rate, litigation between poor people was rather a good thing. [An Hon. MEMBER: He never said that.] He said there were worse things than litigation. I venture to say that if he consults the impoverished landlords and the poor tenants, they will not take the same view of this perpetual litigation which accompanies the rent-fixing clauses of the Act of 1881. But there is another objection to the working of that Act. It has rendered impossible the proper cultivation of the soil. There is no inducement to the landlord to advance one single shilling for the improvement of the land, while, on the other hand, there is every inducement to the tenant, during the last two or three years of his judicial term to deteriorate his land in order that he may avoid an increase of rent.
  If that is the condition of things, I think we are all agreed that this is an intolerable system, and it is the duty of the Members of this House to discover a remedy. No remedy can be found except that of land purchase. Some of the objections which have been urged against this Bill might have been urged with more force eighteen years ago. They might have been urged at a time when we had no experience of the effect of land purchase by State aid in Ireland. Now we are in a different position. For eighteen years that experiment has been tried, and I will undertake to say that it is the only experiment in the reform of the land system which has ever been a success in Ireland. What has been the result of it? You have had tenants purchasing. They have
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  the knowledge that everything they put into the land, whether in labour or money, will be their own absolutely. That has stimulated the better cultivation of the land, and all this has been done without litigation, without friction, and, I will add, without any loss to the British Government. There is nothing more remarkable in the working of the land purchase system in Ireland than the fact that in these eighteen years, when large sums have been advanced, the tenants have paid their instalments regularly, without compulsion, without police, and without getting into arrears. I think I am right in saying that it has been accompanied by another remarkable result, namely, that these instalments have been paid almost entirely free of cost to this country. If this purchase system has succeeded so far, what reason is there to suppose that it will not succeed equally well in the future? I maintain that the experience we have had, leads us to believe and hope that it will succeed in future as it has in the past eighteen years.
  There are one or two points in the Bill to which I should like to call the attention of the Chief Secretary. First of all, there is the provision about the evicted tenants. Now I believe myself that if this Bill is to be a success in Ireland—and that also means a success in this country—its operations must be conducted with the help and goodwill of everyone in Ireland, and I have come to the decided conclusion that if you treat the evicted tenants generously, by restoring them as far as possible to their holdings, or finding other holdings for them, you will have gone a long way to establish that harmony and goodwill upon which the successful operation of this Act depends. There is also the labourers question, which I also believe will have to be dealt with in a larger spirit than the Bill does in its present form. A question which has caused much difficulty is that of the purchase price to be paid by the tenant. There are limitations in both directions: the Bill specifies the maximum and the minimum instalments the tenant will have to pay. If this were a bargain between a landlord who was the absolute owner of the land on the one hand, and a

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  tenant who was a purchaser on the other hand, and if no other interest intervened, I cannot see what would be the object of any limitation at all. But that is not the case. In the first place, you have the interest of the State, which is making a large advance, and in the interest of the State it is necessary that there should be some limit on the amount the tenant should pay. I therefore say that there should be a certain minimum reduction. There is much difference of opinion as to the maximum reduction. There was a point mentioned in the course of the debates by my hon. and gallant friend the Member for South Glamorganshire, and that was in regard to the "remainder man." As we all know, most of the owners in Ireland who will be entitled to come and make bargains under the Bill are what you call limited owners. They have only an interest for life, and behind them are their successors, the "remainder men." Now I put this to the House—Would it be reasonable to allow a man who has only an interest for life to come and make a bargain with his tenants behind the back of the man who will come into the estate afterwards and to sell at ten years or six years purchase without considering the interest of his successor? I say it would not be fair to allow him to make that bargain without providing some protection for those who are to come after him. There may be exceptional cases where there ought to be more than 30 per cent. reduction on the existing rents, but these cases might be met by a provision in the Bill empowering the Land Commission to sanction a larger reduction. By that means the interests of all classes requiring protection would be protected. I wish to refer to a class whose co-operation is essential for the proper working of the Act; to the land agents who have a moral claim upon us. They have discharged their duties often under circumstances of great difficulty, and even great danger. It is not their fault that the system of fixing rents under the Act of 1881 has broken down and the present Bill has become necessary. They have a right to come to us and ask us to make some provision for them, and I therefore beg the Chief
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  Secretary to consider what he can do in that direction in the interests of the working of the Bill itself. I shall support the Bill as an Irishman ardently desirous of the prosperity of my native country, anxious to do justice to it, and to bring it peace. I shall vote for the Bill because it appears to me to hold out the only hope of putting an end to the hitherto interminable land-war, and of securing to Ireland not merely material progress, but, what to my mind is even more vital and necessary, complete harmony and goodwill amongst all classes who inhabit that island.
  MAJOR JAMESON: I have followed this debate carefully for the last two days, and the matter has been so well discussed that it is quite unnecessary for me to comment on all the vast array of figures and details which must of necessity form part of this great Act and measure of Reform, which is now before the House of Commons, an Act second to none, in my opinion, in importance for securing the peace, the happiness and prosperity, not only of Ireland but of your vast Empire. Before touching on the point I consider of vital importance in the Bill, I should like to congratulate this House on the fact that, with a few exceptions, the speeches delivered from both sides of this House have been characterised by studious moderation and by an earnest desire to forget all the bitterness that has for so many years characterised debates on Irish questions, and an apparent desire to sink passion and prejudice in order to make this Bill a measure of lasting good to Ireland, and a landmark of national and Imperial peace and goodwill. Among those speeches that I regret were made, were the speeches of the hon. Member for Launceston, and the hon. Member for South Shields. The hon. and learned Member for Launceston, who can so ably hold a brief on any subject whether he has a case or not, took a line of his own, founded on the theory that if the Bill of 1881 had been properly worked, dual ownership would have been a success, and a system of land tenure that has failed everywhere else in the world would have been, according to him, found suitable for the Irish people. The hon. Member appeared to have patented the Bill of 1881 in some extraordinary manner, and I fully

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  expected to see him produce some patent machine into which the Bill of 1881 was put on one side, and on turning a handle wealthy landlords and prosperous tenants would at once emerge from the other. I do not think the hon. and learned Member convinced either the House or himself, and I trust that the repudiation of the way in which he put his case before the House will be sufficient to deter others in following a similar course. Then we had the hon. Member for King's Lynn, who opposed the Bill as a benevolent man. I have seen the right hon. Gentleman in every possible capacity and disguise, but never in that of a benevolent man, and I do not believe that he is benevolently disposed either to the Bill or to Ireland. The hon. Member in posing as a beneficent fairy gives as his sole reason for rejecting the Bill that he desired to make an attack on the Prime Minister. He said he was a friend to Ireland, but if that is so all that I can say is "preserve me from my friends," for the right hon. Gentleman appears to spend his time in picking holes in his friends.
  There are some points in this Bill that I should like to say a few words on, and I would plead with the Chief Secretary, with all the earnestness that is at my command, on the subject of the restoration of the evicted tenants, and on the subject of what is known as the "minimum price" in this Bill. As regards the evicted tenants, I should like to point out to the House that during the last twenty-five years some 9,992 tenants have been evicted, and although one of the Ulster Members stated that of evicted tenants there were none, or few, in Ulster, it might surprise him and the Members of this House, to know that Ulster heads the list with 2,657 cases. I would like to point out that 4,090 of these evicted tenants had a rent of under £10, and that in no fewer than 8,318 cases out of a total of 9,992 the rent in no case exceeded £50. As these 8,318 would apparently come under the restoration clauses of the Bill, there would be apparently only about 2,000 excluded from the benefits of this Act. Surely to restore such a large number and to exclude such a small number is absolutely indefensible, and I am certain that the Government will meet the earnest desire of the Irish people by doing all in their power to restore these
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  evicted tenants, and by giving them the same privileges that are granted to the others. As regards the "minimum price," I will plead most urgently with the Chief Secretary to give this his best consideration in order that a solution satisfactory to this side of the House, may be arrived at, and I hope we shall yet hear that the Solicitor-General for England, himself an Irishman, who promised with so much pathos at Oxford on Saturday, his minimum support to this Bill, will be able, with his great legal knowledge, to eliminate the question of minimum price from it. Notwithstanding all that has been said, it appears to me there is very little between the ideas of the various sections of the Irish community, who have come together for the first time in history, and united together to endeavour to solve the Irish land question, and to bring prosperity to their country. As regards the impression, those who have spoken against the Bill have endeavoured to convey to the House, that England will have to bear the cost of giving effect to this Bill, it has, I think, been demonstrated beyond all doubt to every unprejudiced mind that the cost of the working of this Bill will be borne by Ireland, and not by the British taxpayer, and that the maximum expenditure after several years cannot exceed £390,000 in any year. We have had several speeches from the front Opposition Bench worthy of the best traditions of English statesmanship, and among them I would like to express my gratitude for that of the hon. Baronet the Member for Northumberland. We have also had a speech from the hon. and gallant Member for Glamorgan, who appeared and brought himself to the notice of the House in the new character of a "remainder man." Long may he remain to give vent to the kindly and patriotic sentiments he spoke, and I hope the "remainder man" will insist on getting a share of the bonus. I desire before concluding to say a few words on the subject of rent charge. I think an eighth too much, and I believe that if the rent charge was handed over to an Irish central authority many of the objections to it would fade away. Surely the earmarking of Irish money and "equivalent grants-in-aid," which has met with universal approval, is a precedent for an Irish central authority having control of any rent charge that may

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  be imposed. I have endeavoured to express my gratitude for speeches made in favour of this Bill from both sides of the House, but in doing so it would be ungenerous of me not to openly express gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland who has brought this Bill forward at a time when most Ministers would have shrunk from doing so, and whose audacious courage and chivalrous persistency will, I believe, be rewarded by giving peace and prosperity to Ireland, by giving a blessed emancipation to our people, and placing this great Reform Act on the Statute-book of the House of Commons.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the Clock, the debate stood adjourned till this evening's sitting.

  EVENING SITTING.

    IRISH LAND BILL.
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned debate on Amendment to Question [4th May], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    Which Amendment was—
    "To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.'"—(Mr. Coghill.)
    Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    Debate resumed.
    MR. T. L. CORBETT: I think the House will realise that the great difficulty of one speaking in favour of this Bill is not to meet the opposition offered to it, but in the fact that all who have spoken upon it have spoken in its favour, and that the real interest is now centred in the Committee stage rather than in the Second Reading of the Bill. Very few Members have spoken in opposition to the Second Reading, but one of the most powerful and vigorous attacks against the Bill was the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Launceston. The hon. and learned Gentleman alleged that all Irish debates were conducted in an atmosphere of passion or sentiment. No measure affecting the welfare of Ireland has ever been debated with less passion than this, and when the hon. and
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    learned Member talks of passion, I think we might confine the criticism to his own speech, and two or three speeches made by Liberal Members, because the atmosphere of passion has scarcely been stirred from any quarter of the House. The hon. and learned Member for Launceston said that if passion were not present, then there was sentiment. Those are the two charges he brings against the conduct of Irish debates in this House. But sentiment is one of the most powerful, vigorous and practical forces in the Government of a country, and most of all in the Government of a high-spirited and sensitive people like the Irish. I recollect when Lord Curzon was leaving these shores for India, to take up his duties as Viceroy of India, he said two qualities were required for a Viceroy of India, courage and sympathy. If those two qualities are required in a Viceroy of India, they are required still more for the government of Ireland, and it is because those two qualities so permeate the whole measure before the House that it has been so well received, not only by the people of Ireland, but by the people of England and Scotland. I earnestly hope that those who are sanguine enough to believe this will mean the end of the land war in Ireland will be justified in that belief. One thing I can say. The landlords of Ireland have it in their power to make this a final settlement. In the south and west of Ireland I have every hope and confidence that this will prove a final settlement of the land question, but in the north I am not so sure. I fear that in the north, where the tenants have readily paid their rent, and where they are a law-abiding and peace-loving people, the landlords will not be so anxious to sell as they are in the south and west. That, perhaps, explains the reason why this Bill has not been received with the same enthusiasm in the north of Ireland. And this fear that the landlords of the north will not be so willing to sell as those in the south and west, makes it incumbent on those who represent the tenant farmers in the north of Ireland to see that the tenant farmers there shall not be placed in a worse position by this Bill than they were before it was passed. Like every other Unionist and county Member of this House I am a believer in compulsion. There is not a single Unionist Member for Ireland,

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    and I do not except even the Attorney-General, who has not professed his belief in the possible necessity of the ultimate principle of compulsion being brought into the Bill. I do not for a moment believe in the possibility of that principle being brought in at once. I think and hope the generous proposals of this Bill are sufficient to enable us to do without compulsion, and I join in the earnest hope which has been expressed by my colleagues that we may be able to do without the principle of compulsion altogether. If compulsion be applied it must not be one-sided compulsion, it must not be such compulsion as will create a new grievance in the north of Ireland, and which will compel the tenants to be in the position Clause 17 compels them now to be in, by taking away from them the rights and privileges they now have, and putting pressure and compulsion on them, whilst compulsion is not applied to the landlord. I hope on this and other Amendments that have been foreshadowed, such as that dealing with the labourers of Ireland, the Government will, as the Attorney-General has promised it shall, lend a friendly ear. If the voluntary arrangements proposed in this Bill really create a peasant proprietary, and really end the land war that has been carried on for so long, I do not think it is possible to calculate the gain that will come to Ireland in this matter when it is free from the constant and bitter controversies between landlords and tenants. No one who does not know Ireland can calculate the economic gain that will come to Ireland from this measure. These are days when old men are seeing visions and young men are dreaming dreams of a new era of peace, plenty and prosperity for Ireland. We share the hope that those visions and those dreams will be fully realised and join in support of all Irish representatives from every quarter of the House, in believing that this Bill is a great measure of justice and a great message of peace to the people of Ireland.
    MR. CHANNING: In the course of this debate this afternoon we have had a remarkable speech from the hon. and learned Member for Louth, and I wish he were here now that I might express from these Benches the profound sympathy, pleasure and delight
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    with which we listened to the noble words with which he concluded that broad and generous handling of these questions. The tone and spirit of that speech are the tone and spirit in which I, as an English Member, would wish to approach this Bill. I confess that the line of reasoning which has forced itself upon me since I have considered this measure is something of this kind. What is the Bill which the people of Ireland themselves desire? I have listened to every representative speech delivered by Members who are entitled to speak for Ireland, and I ask is the Bill which they are going to vote for to-night the Bill they wish to vote for? or is it another Bill—an ideal Bill to give a widely different solution of this problem to Ireland. It appears to me that much will depend upon the answer the Chief Secretary will give to-night to the points laid before him. I have endeavoured to examine the provisions of this Bill dispassionately, and the very definite opinion I have formed is based on long consideration of this subject. I agree with the hon. Member for South Tyrone that, to secure agrarian peace in Ireland we can scarcely name the number of millions that it would be to our interest, and that it would be our duty, to devote to that purpose. But what we have to ask ourselves is whether we are really obtaining a final and complete settlement of the land question, or are we attempting to build a temple of peace upon the quick-sands, when the winds and waves of human passion and economic laws will inevitably beat it down? Much light has been thrown upon this issue in the course of the debates, and not least by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, who spoke this afternoon, and urged that everything depended on the price of the land, and that the tenants must be protected against themselves. I might further remind the House that the hon. Member for Cork City, and the leader of the Irish Party himself, in the previous debates both insisted on this point, that the price of the land was absolutely vital to the success of the measure, and that the tenant must be free to make his own bargain and should not be obliged to pay a larger price than had been paid by purchasers in the open market under the

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    existing Acts. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool had dwelt upon the report of Mr. Bailey. That report is encouraging, as it shows the industry and intelligence of the tenant purchasers and points out that they have put such little capital as they have into the development of the land. But the hon. Member also pointed out that these men had been buying under the old Act at seventeen, sixteen and even nine years purchase, and that it was at that rate of purchase they had been able to look for the successful working of the land. Where you are compelled to buy land at a higher price than its economic value, I ask whether it is possible to look forward to anything like the same future of success as had attended the tenants who have been able to buy in a fair market under the Ashbourne Act, or the Act of 1891. I perfectly agree with what has fallen from many hon. Members for Ireland that we need not look to Ireland or to Irishmen for a policy of repudiation of their debts, or for a policy of veiled or open rebellion against this country, because of the position in which the two countries may be thrown by the operation of economic law; but economic facts are stronger than any other facts you can produce. You cannot draw blood from a stone. To force up artificially the price of the land in the interests of the landowner is to over-capitalise the new venture of the peasant proprietary in Ireland, a policy which reminds me very much of those companies which were floated a few years back by a gentleman whose name is familiar to the House—companies the whole object of which was to secure a vast preliminary profit to the promoters by over-capitalisation and which left the unfortunate shareholders who had invested their money in those concerns to struggle for a profit under absolutely impossible conditions. I have always attached, and I have no doubt many Irishmen attach, great importance to the opinions of our old friend Mr. Michael Davitt, for whom I personally have a deep regard. I deeply regret that he felt himself compelled to withdraw from this House three years ago. I read with considerable interest one of Mr. Michael Davitt's recent speeches on this question, and I feel that some of the
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    passages of that speech ought to be laid before this House. Mr. Davitt says—
    "The total minimum compensation provided for the landlords in Mr. Wyndham's Bill will be fully £50,000,000 above the market value, which will be £17,000,000 over and above all the reductions effected inside and outside of the Land Courts since 1881. In addition to this the landlords have already received a capitalised value, in freedom from poor rate of some £20,000,000 under the Local Government Act of 1898; so that they stand to receive back again from the tenants and taxpayers every farthing which the Land Act of 1881 took from them, and a neat little bonus of £37,000,000 over and above that amount besides ensuring for themselves another income..… Your tenant farmers will have to compete with all the cheap lands of the world in the supply of food to the markets of Great Britain and you are placing upon them, almost in a compulsory form, a bargain which prohibits the possibility of their working the farms at a profit. Purchase on the Wyndham terms would result in three-fourths of the farms of Ireland being thrown upon the hands of the State before a third of the purchase of the debt was liquidated. What is essential to the peace and progress of the country is that this settlement shall be final."
    He thus closes this part of his speech—
    "But we must take care that the final act of the landlords and their English backers shall not be the placing of a load of debt on Ireland's shoulders, and a tax upon our chief industry, such as will weigh the country down, so as to fatally hamper her progress during the next seventy years."
    Those are very weighty words. The over-capitalisation of this scheme in Ireland is a tremendous fact with which we have to deal. The Bill attracts the tenants with the hope that it may become universal, but it is certain that it will not be universal, that there will be estates like Lord Clanricarde's as centres of unrest, and the difference between these purchases and those under the former Acts would arouse discontent. The criticism of the Act of 1881 by the Chief Secretary and the First Lord is really—if not discourteous to say so—puerile.
    It is easy to say that the Act of 1881 has caused litigation and irritation. But the real problem which caused the agitation and trouble in Ireland for generations past is the problem which was declared sixty years ago by the Devon Commission to be the real issue, the problem of separating

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    what was the property of the landlord from what was the property of the tenant. Say what you will of the machinery of the Act of 1881, or any irritating quality it had, it could only irritate the landlords—the problem put before the country and before Parliament then by Lord Devon was solved by that great Act. What has been the history of all these Land Purchase proposals? I am strongly in favour of the principle of land purchase in the sense in which John Bright used it thirty years ago. John Bright was in favour of the creation with the aid of Imperial credit of a peasant proprietary in Ireland. But the whole of this policy which was started in 1883, as the First Lord of the Treasury stated on the first day of this debate, has been simply and solely to replace in the pockets of the landlords money which, judicially, does not belong to them. There is no doubt of that proposition. The report of the Conference frankly states that the losses of the landlords, owing to the fixing of fair rents, is one of the motives for legislation on these lines by this House. Lord Donough more in 1882 in moving for a Committee said—
    "They wanted a Committee to take some steps to check, before it is quite too late, that 'heavy loss and ruin' which the Prime Minister himself repudiated and disavowed, but which is being inflicted day by day upon an admittedly guiltless class, the landlords of Ireland."
    And Lord Cairns, then Lord Chancellor, said in the same debate—
    "The Land Commission are alienating from one-fourth to one-third of the ownership of those who hitherto held it to those who have never held it at all."
    I well remember the debate in which Mr. Gladstone, in 1882, denounced the action of the Irish Peers for trying to tear up his Fair Rent Bill by the roots before it had fairly got started. The whole of these Acts have, in my opinion, been nothing more nor less than Landlord Compensation Bills. In the Bill before the House we have an extraordinary proposal that we should artificially increase the value of the land in Ireland by some 30, 40, 50, or even 100 per cent. I should like to know where the landlord exists in this country, who, even in the case of a railway arbitration, has received 100 per cent. increase in the value of his land. This is a
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    monstrous proposition, and what I have to say is that it seems to me, if we are ready to provide a vast sum for compensating Irish landlords, it would be a far more rational proposal for us to say to them, "By all means have your full market value, and, if necessary, let us add what is the equivalent for compulsory expropriation in this country, but do not let us enhance the value of the land to the purchasing tenant by a single penny." Ireland does deserve the help of the Imperial Exchequer to the fullest extent. If you want £40,000,000 in heaven's name let us give it for the development of the land, but do not pass the money on into the pockets of the landlords, who are the least deserving class in Ireland. That money ought to be expended in improvements upon the land, and not for the pleasure and gratification of the landlords.
    This Bill will throw an enormous burden upon the new peasant proprietors in Ireland. If land purchase is an Imperial matter, then, even as regards the bonus, Ireland is contributing more than her share. The other day I saw an important memorial presented to the Lord Lieutenant from the Christian Brothers and Catholic school headmasters in Ireland, demanding that the equivalent grant for education should be applied to specified types and forms of education in Ireland, and it seems to me that the reply of the Chief Secretary for Ireland the other day on that point was eminently unsatisfactory. He said that the previous equivalent grant had been practically wasted, and this grant could not be applied usefully, because elementary education in Ireland was in such an unsatisfactory condition. That is the very reason why every one of the resources of Ireland should be preserved, and not withdrawn from application for the benefit of the whole people, and handed over as an endowment to a single privileged class. I protest most strongly against that error in the Bill. At the same time I feel that we must look in the broadest spirit of hope to the development of a real and sound principle of peasant proprietary and land purchase in Ireland, on the lines indicated by hon. Members who have laid the general scope of their Amendments before the Government. I

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    do not myself see how the Government can refuse those Amendments. I shall support those Amendments, and I am satisfied in my own conscience that by giving a vote against this Bill I am protesting against the misapplication of these great funds which ought to be devoted to the development of agricultural industries in Ireland and not handed over to one class in that country.
    MR. FLOWER: I think the unanimity that prevails upon this question amongst all those who are entitled to speak with authority upon Irish matters, justifies the House in passing the Second Reading of this Bill, in the belief that from the deliberations in Committee will emerge a Bill generally acceptable to the Irish people. I have listened to criticisms from my own side of the House of great interest and importance. I think my hon. friend the Member for Stoke-upon-Trent stated that he was moving the rejection of this Bill because it was a step towards Home Rule. I am not concerned to deny that the passage of this Bill into law will have as its by-product a large extension of local government in Ireland, but I would ask whether it is to be an article of creed amongst us Unionists that local government is not to be extended from time to time to Ireland alone among the countries of the United Kingdom, as political exigencies render it necessary. If that were indeed the policy of the Unionist Party then I confess I do not understand how it is that we are asking the Irish people to become reconciled and friendly to our policy on the ground that this Imperial Parliament is able to remedy their grievances and to redress their legitimate complaints.
    MR. COGHILL: Does my hon. friend forget the Irish Local Government Bill?
    MR. FLOWER: No, on the contrary, I rejoiced at the Local Government Bill, and I rejoice at this Bill, and I am not at all sure that in future a larger Local Government Bill will not be a necessary consequence of this Bill. There is no finality in Irish politics any more than there is
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    finality in English self-government. There is another criticism which has been made against this Bill, and it has been made by more than one speaker from the Opposition side of the House. The suggestion seems to be made that under this Bill the Irish landlords are going to get more than they ought to get. Let us just look at that for a moment from an economic point of view. You have in the first place the working of the Ashbourne Acts, and under those Acts, I suppose, a large amount of the landlord's interest in Ireland has been transferred to the tenant, and of that large amount a great deal has been sold by landlords who have been pressed by the exigencies of their circumstances to sell. You have had flocking into the market under these Acts landlords under serious pressure from their tenants. That pressure to sell under the Ashbourne Acts will cease. And it has become an absolute necessity to devise new machinery. I believe that the machinery which the Chief Secretary has proposed in this Bill is one which is admirably calculated to effect that object. I think that the House ought to bear in mind that the policy of the Chief Secretary and the Government is a policy of voluntary purchase and that therefore they have to consider not only the interests of the landlords and tenants and the State, but they have to consider the combined interests of all three, and they have to so combine them as to produce a scheme which is acceptable to each of the three parties to the contract. You might pass through the House of Commons a Bill acceptable to the Irish tenants and acceptable to those who constitute themselves the guardians of the public purse, but if that Bill was one which would not be accepted by the Irish landlords one would be merely adding another to the score of Irish Land Acts, and really effecting nothing in the nature of a permanent settlement of this question. You have to consider the fact that under the Ashbourne Acts, a very large number of those landlords who wish to sell have sold. I do not doubt that under any form in which this Bill passes, a large number of landlords will sell. No doubt you will get rid of the impecunious landlord, but that is not the real object of the Bill, which is intended to provide the lines of

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    a final transfer of the landlords' interest to the tenants throughout Ireland, and to do that you must pay due economic regard to the interests of the landlords.
    There are a great many points in this Bill which have been discussed during this Second Reading debate, and I am not at all sure that that discussion has been very beneficial to the Bill, because I believe when the Bill comes to the Committee stage a spirit of give and take will prevail and we shall be able to arrive at satisfactory conclusions on the points which have been thrown out. I venture to hope that the Chief Secretary in his reply will not commit himself in any one direction. I believe that this Bill, if it is carried through in the spirit in which it was introduced by the right hon. Gentleman, will be of great benefit, and will be a great success, more especially if it emerges from the Committee stage in the same spirit which animated that notable conference which discussed the details of the Irish Land Question in Dublin. It is in that spirit that I hope the subsequent stages of the Bill will be dealt with, because I feel confident that it is only by a general recognition of all the interests involved that we can get a really great measure passed through Parliament. I am very grateful to hon. Gentlemen from the north, south and west of Ireland, who have addressed themselves in language of moderation to this great question. If, in the Committee stage, the same spirit is manifested, and if we have a full and free hand in dealing with it there, I think we shall be able to do a good day's work for Ireland.
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: I did not expect to be recalled into the thicket, or, shall I say, the jungle, of the Irish Land Question once more, but I find it difficult during the course of this debate to be perfectly silent. It is a question in which I have taken, for a great many years, a direct, large, personal, and responsible interest. I have listened to the remarks of the hon. Member who preceded me with interest. I observed that the hon. Member, like the hon. Member for King's Lynn, who spoke before the adjournment, says in effect that what he calls, euphemistically, a large
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    extension of local self-government to Ireland, has no longer the terrors for him that it once had.
    MR. FLOWER: As a by-product.
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: Oh, he says it is a by-product—that Home Rule is to be a by-product. From that description of the situation I, for one, am not at all inclined to dissent. The hon. Member for King's Lynn used a remarkable expression. He said—
    "I confess that Home Rule has no longer any fears for me."
    Therefore, we have to-night, within three or four hours' space of time, two hon. Members of unimpeached Conservative orthodoxy, on that side of the House, admitting that the by-product is not very remote. I venture to dissent from the hon. Member who has just sat down in one particular, a point on which I have not the right to advise the right hon. Gentleman opposite, a point of tactics. He said he hoped the Chief Secretary would not commit himself or the Government at this stage to decisive or specific pronouncements. I venture with great respect to take exactly the opposite view. In my opinion it would save the time of this House, and, it may be, the temper of this House, if the Chief Secretary to-night would tell us, on two or three points, that are really the only serious points of dispute, what his position is and how far he intends to maintain it, and where, on the other hand, he is open to Amendment or to make concessions. I should like to begin with a word or two oh the Act of 1881. That is no amusement in the way of historical reminiscence, because we are told every day—it is part of the clap-trap of the discussion going on in the Press and elsewhere, I mean the Ministerial Press, that this large extension, a revolutionary extension as I shall hope to show that it is, is not at all due to the Act of 1881, but it is due to what has been declared by the Prime Minister to be the special policy of the Unionist Government. It is not because the Act of 1881 was passed that you are bringing in this Bill. There is another reason. In consequence of the operation of the Purchase Act you have farmers on one side of a

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    fence paying rent, and farmers on the other side who have purchased annuities paying much less. It is a complete error on the present occasion to lay the whole blame on the Act of 1881. I am not at all inclined to stop there. It is said constantly, it is a subordinate part of the clap-trap, that Mr. Gladstone in 1881 created dual ownership in Ireland. What he did, no doubt, was to legalise the dual ownership; but, as the Prime Minister himself admitted in his powerful exposition of the views of some of us on this side of the House, and of Gentlemen below the Gangway, there was a natural sentiment of dual ownership; and, after all, what Mr. Gladstone did in 1870 first of all, and afterwards in 1881, was to give the sanction of law to the social conditions and Irish ideas which are called ideas of dual ownership. To test this point, suppose the Act of 1881 had never been passed, suppose that Mr. Gladstone in 1881 had brought in a purchase instead of a tenure Act—I put to you the question—How could you have got a basis for your purchase policy? What you would have done, I suppose, would have been what Parliament did when it passed the Encumbered Estates Act; you would not have separated the improvements of the tenant from the property of the landlord, and, as formerly, the tenants' improvements would have been confiscated, or if the purchase policy had been adopted, without the tenure policy of 1881, you would have had most mischievous results. I understood the Prime Minister the other day to say, very candidly, that he was not at all sure that any of us who might have been responsible for the government of Ireland in 1881 would have found a better course to adopt.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): That goes rather beyond what I said—
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: At all events I amsure there would have been no difficulty between the right hon. Gentleman and myself upon this, that in 1881 and 1882 Ireland was in a state practically of social chaos. I myself well remember when I was in Dublin Castle speaking to one of the officials there, a man of enormous experience, who had gone through all the
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    fire of that revolutionary agrarian war of 1881–82; he said—
    "You have no idea what Ireland was like in those days."
    I asked him whether the Ireland with which the right hon. Gentleman had to deal in 1887 was comparable to the Ireland with which Lord Spencer had to deal in 1882—though I certainly had no wish to disparage the right hon. Gentleman. He said—
    "There was no comparison, Ireland in 1881–82 was in a state of social dissolution."
    That was his own phrase. Who can pretend for one instant that any of us who were responsible for Ireland in those days could have ventured to come forward with a Bill of purchase? The Chief Secretary the other day said that the Act of 1881 produced litigation, and apparently, I gathered from him, nothing but litigation. But I have heard cases decided in the Land Commission Courts, and I venture to say that of the proceedings before the Land Courts there is not 5 or 10 per cent. that can fairly be called litigation, and the rest is what can be called, and what is, valuation. That may be due, perhaps, to some defects of Irish temperament, but so it is. Now, Sir, why was legislation necessary before the second term rents revision came on? I will tell you why. Legislation was necessary because the courts in Ireland, on which I do not cast any imputation whatever, construed the Act of 1881 differently in various cases, which the Attorney-General for Ireland will remember. Legislation was necessary in order to carry out the intentions of the Act. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, to whom, as my hon. and learned friend the Member for Louth said to-night, Ireland owes a great deal, in the Local Government Act and the Act of 1896, made his mark on the Irish situation. But the Act of 1896, passed by you and not by us, showed that legislation was necessary. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, who spoke with some freedom of the Act of 1881, will not deny that in 1887, when he was first Chief Secretary for Ireland, he had to deal with a rather turbulent and difficult situation. What did he do? He actually extended the Act of 1881 and filled up all the gaps in the Act of 1881 which Mr. Gladstone had unfortunately left in it.

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    Yes, the Act of 1887 was quite as revolutionary an Act as the Act of 1881. Why, Sir, I remember very well, I believe the first vote I gave in this House was a vote for a Bill, introduced by Mr. Parnell in 1882, for the purpose of remedying defects in the Act of 1881. I think it was my first vote, and there were, I think, in the same Lobby only about fifty, including Gentlemen from Ireland, and I believe I was alone with five or six English and Scotch Members—against Mr. Gladstone recollect. Mr. Gladstone, for good reasons, for the moment resisted the Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman, when he was pressed by circumstances, did extend the Act of 1881 in the very particulars that Mr. Gladstone himself refused to extend it. Now, Sir, I thought it right that I should embark on this digression in justice to the great men who are gone, and in justice to what I consider a wise and beneficent piece of legislation. For my part, I am not at all sure that when history takes stock of Mr. Gladstone's contributions to effective legislation in this country, the Land Act of 1881 will not be the one chosen as the greatest of them all.
    I should like to make a remark on something that fell from my hon. and learned friend the Member for Launceston the other day. He was in favour of the Act of 1881, but he asked, "Why did you not have an automatic scale?" I think my hon. and learned friend cannot have considered the circumstances. All I know is that when I had to bring in the Land Bill of 1895, I consulted all the experts in both countries—and I believe my successor did exactly the same thing in 1896—and it was found hopeless to find anything like a basis for an automatic scale.
    Now, Sir, I come to the Bill and to the Amendment; and I think I have some right to ask the indulgence of the House while I say a word or two about the Amendment, because I understood from the speech of the hon. Member for Stoke, who moved the Amendment, that one of his reasons for moving it was that he and others round him had, for over seventeen years, pointed the finger of scorn at me. No doubt, Sir, it is a painful thing, and perhaps justifies an Amendment, that you should have been pointing for seventeen years the finger of scorn at the wrong man. There is no doubt that, the world of Parliament
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    being what it is, it is astonishing to think that a Member of Parliament can hold Irish opinions upon Irish questions, that, in the phraseology of this Bill, are worth seventeen years purchase. Sir, in judging this Bill, I believe I happen to occupy rather an impartial position, because I think hon. Gentlemen from Ireland will admit that during the twenty years I have been in the House, years on their part of storm and battle—and I congratulate them on to-night's issue of the battle—I think they will admit that I have been, so far as an Englishman could be, their comrade, and I have no intention of parting company now with their constitutional purposes and objects. On the other hand, I know by experience, not a very long experience, but still what mathematicians would call an adequate and sufficient experience, what the responsibilities and difficulties of Irish Government are, and certainly nothing would induce me to offer any obstacle that I could help to the measure the Chief Secretary has produced—the bold, the courageous, I would almost even call it the daring measure he has intro-troduced in order to turn over a new leaf in the chapter of the relations between Great Britain and Ireland—those relations so sinister, so mournful, I had almost said so demented. Therefore, from me the Chief Secretary will have no opposition that can be reasonably avoided.
    The hon. and learned Member for Launceston the other night said the Second Reading of this Bill ought to be discussed without passion and without sentiment. I absolutely agree with him. We shall get to great mischief, and we of this Parliament shall get into the same discredit with our descendants as previous Parliaments have got into with us, unless we keep our eyes fixed on the hard facts of the situation. Let us see what we are doing. What is the principle of this Bill? So far as I can make out, the principle of this Bill is that Parliament is to make a present of twelve millions of money to a certain body of Irishmen in order that they may give us the privilege of lending £120,000,000 to another body of Irishmen. That is the principle of the Bill. Everybody will agree that it is a very extraordinary

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    principle. Everybody will agree that there must be something of an unparalleled character to justify a Bill of which that can be said. I admit to the full the force of objections that have been raised on this side of the House, and, perhaps, in a less degree, upon the other side of the House, and vigorously urged against the Bill. I think I have never known a Bill brought into this House which could be so riddled with objections if everybody liked to urge all the objections that could be brought against it. I have heard even to-night objections which in themselves cannot be answered. I wonder if a financial paradox in this House ever went farther than in a clause—to which I take no objection—which allows a landlord to sell his demesne at a certain price and then to buy it back again from us at a price that will leave him far better off than he was before. I do not think that financial and political paradox could go much farther. And then there are all the points that the hon. Member for South Tyrone raised under the head of what he well called "the submerged bonus." Of course, the Bill could be riddled from the view of abstract argument, or argument that is perhaps not entirely abstract, but is a mixture of the abstract and concrete. But we are not in this House to-night arguing—I hope we never will argue—in vacuo. We are dealing with one of the most complicated, intricate, inveterate, and abnormal maladies with which any country in Europe was ever afflicted; and that being so, I, for one, am not inclined to shrink, and I hope none of my hon. friends will be inclined to shrink, from a fair consideration of abnormal remedies; and the remedies of this Bill are rather abnormal. You may riddle the Bill unless you recognise that it is the creature, I will not say of a political necessity, but of a social necessity, which goes far deeper than the urgency of social order. That is the point of view from which I shall give my vote on this Bill to-night. I am not going to argue about the objections to it. I am very sceptical—and I commend this scepticism of mine to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—about the promised retrenchment. I know what Ireland is. You have there got a brazen citadel of men of all kinds—of three appointed to do the work of one; of Judges—three to five doing the
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    work of one, and so on. I have always been convinced that you will never have effective retrenchment in what is the most preposterously extravagant Government in Europe until you make the Irish themselves responsible for the payment of it and give them the power to control it.
    A word upon the reserved eighth. When I first saw this in the public prints I was greatly taken by it. I thought it opened a new chapter in Irish land legislation in this country. It is not quite a new chapter, I believe, because I rather understand that a measure, called the Small Holdings Act, thanks to the exertions of my right hon. friend the Member for Bordesley, contained this very principle of the State reserving a fraction to itself. So I am informed. It was not an Act that greatly engaged my attention. I confess that now, upon consideration of a perfectly impartial kind, I do not quite see how the reserved eighth is to effect what you desire to effect in restraining the gombeen man and subdivision. As you have taken powers in your Bill to make sub-division and mortgaging penal—that is to say, the holding will be sold if either of these restrictions is disregarded—I do not quite see that you want it. And then I put this objection. Is it not a very dubious thing to introduce into a great agrarian scheme of this kind an idea which is entirely unfamiliar to the people to whom this scheme is addressed? For my own part, I should be glad if the Government could see their way—although I say it with some regret and even with some doubt—to the removal of this provision.
    One feature in the Bill does affect me with misgiving; but I suppose it was inevitable. It is the extension of the time for repayment. I would remind the House that in the first Act by which public money was used for the purpose of land purchase, the term was thirty-two years. Then, in Lord Ashbourne's Act in 1885 the term was extended to forty-nine years. That extension was considerable. But now we are extending it to heaven knows what—to sixty-five, sixty-eight or seventy years. That is a tremendous mortgage of the future. As to the general security, I agree with those who think it is good. The hon. Member for King's Lynn said—" Oh, but if there

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    was an Irish famine it would be impossible for you, as humane people, to insist upon these annuities being paid."
    When Ireland went down in the fright-fulabyss of the famine of 1846–47 England came forward, with the greatest generosity, and made great sacrifices; and therefore the remission of the annuity in the case of so horrible a disaster as an appalling famine would be no greater sacrifice than we voluntarily made in 1846–47.
    There are two other points to which I wish to refer. The first is a personal point, but a most important point. It was dwelt upon with great force by my hon. friend the Member for North Louth. That is the constitution of the Estates Commission. This is the way things in Ireland always go wrong. You pass excellent measures; then you send them across St. George's Channel, and whether they be Crimes Acts, Purchase Acts, Evicted Tenants Acts, or Arrears Acts, they fall into the hands of men who administer them in an entirely different spirit from that in which Parliament passed them. In reference to the Estates Commission, I have the pleasure of knowing Mr. Wrench very well. I worked with him for three or four years, or more, upon the Congested Districts Board; and no word will ever fall from my lips, and no vote will ever be given by me in any way to indicate a want, on my part, of the highest esteem and regard for Mr. Wrench. But we must look to the position of the other two gentlemen on the Commission. This is not a question of an ordinary Irish appointment, it is a matter upon which will depend largely the success of the Act, for if you, by your conduct, diffuse through Ireland the suspicion that the Estates Commissions are in any degree specially sorted you will do the greatest possible injury to the working of your own policy. What do you do? You draw a line of difference between Mr. Wrench and the other two Commissioners. Mr. Wrench is to have the tenure of a County Court Judge, holding office during good behaviour, and he is to get £3,000 a year from the Consolidated Fund. The other two gentlemen have not the tenure of a County Court Judge; they are not on the Consolidated
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    Fund, and they are not to get £3,000 a year, but only £2,000, which, in my judgment, is ample—for all Irish salaries are exorbitant, except that of the Attorney-General. See what may happen. Mr. Wrench is entirely removed from the criticism of this House. It is quite true he can be deprived of his office, but only on a solemn address by both Houses of Parliament. The other two gentlemen of the Commission—who ought to be on exactly the same footing as Mr. Wrench—are removable at pleasure. The Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary may remove these men. It may be said that they will be responsible to Parliament for their action. But that blow will have been struck, and after such a blow has been struck by the executive behind the back of Parliament, it is not easy to undo the revocation of an appointment. Therefore I say this is not an ordinary objection. It is an objection which goes to the root of the prospects of success of the Bill. I think the members of the Estates Commission ought to be all on the same footing and have the same authority; and that no ratification of a bargain between landlords or tenants, no rule of the Commission should be valid unless the three Commissioners—or two out of the three, at all events—agree. There is only one other objection. I think it is upon what is called the zones of purchase that the real danger of the Bill will lie. I am not going to repeat what so many speakers have already laid before the House. We have it from the report of Sir John Franks that during the years the Ashbourne Act has been in operation the variation in the number of years purchase has been from forty five to six-Some estates have sold at forty-five years purchase, and others at six years purchase. As I understand this Bill, a man who bought at six years purchase would not be able to avail himself of its advantages. A man cannot buy under this Bill—as I understand it—except he agrees to twenty or twenty-two years purchase. If the transactions under the Ashbourne Act at six years purchase are good transactions, and the Land Commission has sanctioned the advance of the money upon them, surely that proves that the zone clause of this Bill is a mistake. If the landlords and

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    tenants agree and sign an agreement together—I am not sure that the House understands all this mystification, I do not say deliberate mystification — well knowing what they are about, yet if the price agreed upon is at a lower figure than that prescribed by the Act, the Estates Commission will have to reject it. I ask the Chief Secretary to tell us plainly and fully what is the secret of that clause. I cannot make out what it is. The Attorney-General for Ireland spoke the other night about protecting the landlord. Protect him against whom? Perhaps the Attorney-General will say. Is it against the tenant or against the Estates Commissioners? Against whom is the landlord to be protected? The transactions are voluntary transactions, and he can please himself. Let me say further that the notion which I gather from conversations which I have had is, that you are dealing with a lot of the bankrupt stock of landlords in Ireland, who are obliged to sell. But that is not so. I am told that the owners of bankrupt stock will be cleared out, and that you are now dealing with landlords who are perfectly well able to protect themselves. I observe it is said, "Ah, but the landlord needs to be protected against irregular and unlawful combinations and conspiracies forcing him to sell." I should like the Chief Secretary to explain what new motive there is for this provision. Surely, the whole reason for, and the whole principle of, the Bill is that there are landlords who can hold on, and mean to hold on, and to whom, in order to induce them to give up holding on, you are going to give large sums of money. I am quite unable to understand the policy of these clauses. I can imagine these combining tenants going to the landlord and saying, "We are willing to buy from you at a zone price, and we expect you to sell at that price." That is my opinion of the working of it. You are just as likely to have those combinations under your zone clauses, and more likely, than if you did not have them at all. Sir, this is the way Irish Bills are spoilt. You construct—Liberal Governments and Conservative Governments—an ingenious machine, and then you pour grit into the machine and so prevent
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    its smooth working. Mr. Gladstone in the Acts of 1870 and 1881, was constrained, as the Chief Secretary is constrained, to spoil the machine he had constructed, and to leave this grit to prevent its smooth operation. One observation I would make to some friends of mine who have spoken against the Bill and are not well inclined to it, and I would also address it to the Chief Secretary himself in view of what I may call, without offence, his landlord provisions. What is the alternative? Let us suppose that this Bill fails. What will happen? There will be no more purchase, because the landlord will not sell at the prices which have hitherto been going, and when he finds dangled before him these high prices and the bonus as well, no landlord will sell for eighteen years' purchase any more when he has had twenty-two years offered to him by a Unionist Government. What will happen to the tenants? They will be thrown back upon the Act of 1881. Landlords ought to consider this as well as any other portion of the House. Then what will happen? You will shortly be within sight, within measurable distance, of a third revision of rents. Therefore, if I were a landlord, I should not quarrel on account of the zone clauses, with such a prospect before me as the rejection of this Bill, perhaps not by this House, but in Ireland, by the measure not operating. If I were a landlord I should consider that if this Bill does not go forward there is nothing for it but one of those accursed revisions of rents. I am not going to stand for more than two or three minutes between the House and the Chief Secretary. To go back to what I have said, I do want the House to know where it stands, and what it is doing. It is all very well to talk of purchase and say this is only a continuation, as the Prime Minister said the other night, of the policy of purchase. There is an absolutely radical difference between what was ever known of purchase before and this Bill.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, no.
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: Let me remind the Prime Minister that the first apostle of purchase was Mr. Bright.

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    What did he say? Did he say anything about a bonus? In the case of any deserving farmer who could produce one-fourth of the price of his holding Mr. Bright was willing to reward him for his thrift and solvency by advancing him the remaining three-fourths. That was a very sober and safe policy. But it did not go far. I think there were only 6,000 purchasers under the Church Act of 1869. Then came the Act of 1870, and I may mention this—that Mr. Bright entirely detested the Act of 1870, and on the other side Mr. Gladstone thought Mr. Bright's policy would land this country in a lot of land jobbing operations, and he fell back upon a great reform of tenure. Then came the next great revolution, the Ashbourne Act, and an immense revolution it was, where the whole price, for the first time, was advanced by the State. I think under the purchase clauses of the Act of 1870 only about 800 transactions took place, and under the Act of 1881 there were about 600 or 700. They completely failed, for the reason that they did not advance the whole price. Then came the Ashbourne Acts, and the purchases went up to 26,000 in one year, 36,000 in another, and so forth. Therefore, do not let us suppose that purchase always means the same thing. It does not; and it never before meant what it does in this Bill. I was taken to task by the President of the Board of Trade because I called this a revolutionary Bill. For the first time you are compelling the Land Commissioner to deal with estates. Hitherto all Purchase Acts have been Acts dealing with individual transactions between a landlord and one or more of his tenants. What is the significance of this great change? It is that the landlord is to disappear. It is true that he may buy back his demesne at a reduced price, but he buys it back as a tenant; the man with all the official relations around him disappears. It is nothing more nor less than the abolition of landlordism; it is a complete revolution, I think a blessed revolution, of the policy upon which you have governed that country. I listened to the speech of the Prime Minister the other night, which I think is an historic landmark in the history of Ireland and in the
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    relations between Ireland and this country. I will make no ungenerous recrimination againt the Prime Minister, except in a sentence to deplore that during the twenty-five or thirty years he has been in this House he has never until Monday night recognised the fundamental condition of Irish land tenure. [Cries of "Oh, oh."]
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Often, often.
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: I should be very sorry to enter into a controversy with the right hon. Gentleman, but I shall not shrink from it What did he ever do except borrow the policy of the Act of 1881 and pass the Act of 1887? He has never before said that the land system of Ireland is at every point at variance with the land system of England and Scotland.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have constantly said it. Has the right hon. Gentleman never heard of my Land Act of 1891?
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: The Act of 1891 was based on propositions which he himself had never advocated It was based on what Mr. Gladstone had done by safe guarding the tenants' improvements by the Act of 1881, and after, by the Act of 1870, he had recognised by law the interest of the tenant in his holding—that was what I call admitting the principles which the right hon. Gentleman admitted fully and frankly the other night.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: You will find it in my speech of 1883.
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: I read that speech the other day, and I am bound to say that I did not discover in the Act of 1883 a perfect recognition of solving the question by means of purchase. There was, however, no recognition of the historic fact that land tenure in Ireland was at variance in every point with the land systems of England and Scotland.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Oh, yes.
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: Then all I can say is this. What are the admissions of

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    the right hon. Gentleman the other day? To any one who knows anything of what has occurred in Ireland since the history of the Union they are a condemnation of the landlords, a condemnation of his own Party, which resisted every attempt to recognise tenant-right.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No.
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: They are a condemnation of the legislation of this united Parliament called into existence by the unfortunate Act of Union. ["Oh, oh!"] Yes. I wonder how many hon. Members are aware of the number of Acts which were passed from the Union until 1870? If they will only tell me of any of those Acts in favour of the tenant I will abandon my proposition. They passed Act after Act, and they were all in favour of the landlord. I will say this of this Bill, however. It marks the collapse—and I am not using any unmeasured words as to the real, deep, far-reaching political significance of the Chief Secretary's Bill—of the system on which this country has governed Ireland ever since the Union. Your whole government was based upon the land system, which the Prime Minister so powerfully exposed the other night. It was based on the idea that the land tenure in Ireland was the same sort of thing as in England and Scotland. That is now abandoned. This Bill plucks up the old land system root and branch, and you are going to pay £12,000,000 down and are going to risk £100,000,000, or £150,000,000, afterwards in order to abolish it. Do not let us deceive ourselves that this is an old-fashioned Purchase Bill. This is a Bill that points to, and will lead to, an immense social revolution. It will require a far bolder man than I am, to attempt to gauge the political and social effects of this Bill. Who will attempt to gauge what sort of an Ireland will rise from the changed foundations which this Bill is most assuredly making? How will it affect the position of the Roman Catholic Church? How will it affect the national demands for self-government? How will the energy of that demand be affected? Only do not let us dream that an Ireland without landlords as such, an Ireland of small owners—whether it be a peaceful and prosperous Ireland, as we all fervently hope, and as I, for one, expect it to be,
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    or whether it fall into unseen tribulations—in either case, do not let us dream that the special problems and the special tasks which spring from that new kind of society of peasant proprietors will not offer new burdens to the House if we are to maintain our effective and day-to-day control over it. Is this House well qualified to settle these special problems I have been in the House during the debate, and I say that no man in it has a more profound respect for the House than I have; but I confess when I see hon. Members trying to probe their way through these discussions, speaking of the prices, the years of purchase, zones, and all the other mystifications of Irish land tenure, I think it is like a sort of listless audience listening to a very dull play performed by actors speaking in an unknown tongue. But be that as it may, whatever happens, the mere production of this Bill has made an enormous change. It has set up for the first time the character of Irishmen, and, of course, I rejoice in that because I believe it will lead if this House remains in the mood of which we have had indications for the last three days, to a permanent general settlement; and, therefore, I, for my part, shall vote heartily for the Second Reading.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): Before I sit down I shall have to say a few words in reply to the concluding portion of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, which was somewhat oracular. He said that the future would be very different from the past and would include many great events of moment. I agree with him. But the right hon. Gentleman indulged in a few perfunctory partisan parentheses in order to prove that we are guilty of inconsistency. I will go back to that if time permits, but it has very little to do with the great problem on which we are engaged. I will go back to the middle of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, in which he dealt with certain important points raised in the debate; and I will try to make myself intelligible to hon. Members who sit for English constituencies; for I admit that the vocabulary in which the Land Question is couched is very technical and not very easily interpreted.

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    But I am first obliged very reluctantly to take note of the right hon. Gentleman's opening sentences. Of all the speeches to which we have listened during three days the right hon. Gentleman selected those made by the hon. Member for King's Lynn and the hon. Member for Bradford; and he alleged that these hon. Members had made themselves responsible for the statement that Home Rule must of necessity be a by-product of land purchase. I should not pause to note that speculation were it not that in certain quarters every subject but land purchase is discussed when I make a speech on the matter. And the quarters in which this bogey of Home Rule is raised are precisely those quarters which, from some vis inertice of the brain, think that because they have opposed every other Land Bill they are bound to oppose this Bill. But the quarters in which I am supposed to be a Home Ruler are the same quarters in which the hon. Member for Waterford is supposed to be a Unionist. Although it was not on the programme, the hon. Member was driven at the National Convention in Dublin to state explicitly that he was still a Home Ruler. I am driven by these two speeches, and by the notice which the right hon. Gentleman has taken of them, to state explicitly and in terms that I am a Unionist. Having brought in this Home Rule bogey to our feast, the right hon. Gentleman said that he hoped I would give a decisive pronouncement on certain points which have been raised. I am prepared to discuss them, but I should minimise their importance if I attempted in a Second Reading speech to give a deliberate verdict on every one of them. The latitude we enjoy in Committee, which admits of interruptions and explanations, is necessary in dealing with matters of such importance, and if I attempted to deal with them exhaustively now I should subject myself to a legitimate fusillade of interruptions. The right hon. Gentleman harped upon the Act of 1881. He said that it did not create the sense of co-ownership, but legalised dual ownership; and the right hon. Gentleman tried to draw a great contrast between the attitude of the Conservative Party in 1881 and their attitude now. But when the Act of 1881 was under consideration a Motion was made by the Conservative Opposition of the day to this effect—that the land purchase clauses of the Act
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    should be taken first, and that the rent-fixing clauses should be adjourned; and the whole of the Tory Party and of the Nationalist Party of the day went into the Lobby in favour of that Motion. I believe that that would have been the truer policy. It may be that it was impossible to adopt that policy then. It does not lie with any Chief Secretary to say what this or that predecessor might have done. We know how great the difficulties are, and that all Irish legislation turns upon occasion. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that there must be something of an unparalleled character to justify this Bill. I do not quite admit that. If it were worth while I should be prepared to demonstrate the consistency of the Conservative and Unionist Party in prosecuting this policy of land purchase, and to say that it was our answer to the Act of 1881, In 1878, even, a Committee appointed by Mr. Disraeli, and largely composed of Irish landlords, advocated the policy of land purchase. So that something unparalleled is not necessary to explain the character of this Bill. But I agree that something unparalleled is necessary to explain the moment at which it has been brought forward. After a great war, when £250,000,000 have been added to the National Debt, when taxation stands at a higher figure than it has stood since our great struggle with Napoleon—that is not the moment which any Minister, with a due sense of the situation, would have chosen to bring forward a Bill of this kind. Yes, but think of the occasion in Ireland. Has not the tragedy of the past in the relations of the two countries always been that the occasion in Ireland did not synchronise with the occasion in England? Must not great reasons be adduced if we are to let so marked an occasion go by without taking profit by it? Must not those reasons be more overwhelming than any which have so far been adduced in this debate by the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent, by my hon. friend the Member for Islington, who repudiated this Bill, and one or two hon. and learned Gentlemen who supported the Bill but did their best to stab it to death?
    Let me touch on those speeches for one moment. Those hon. and

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    learned Members insisted on the great merits of the Act of 1881. Far be it from me to depart from the attitude taken up by the Prime Minister, who said that although he did not, and I do not, approve of the Act, he would find it very hard to say what another Government would have done at that time. Far be it from me to depart from that standard of charity and good sense. But they praised the Act of 1881 in such a way as to lead the House and the country to suppose that it settled the Irish question; that there was no need for anything more, and that everybody was perfectly happy. There is no necessary contradiction in saying that that Act is prized by Ireland, as hon. Members have said, and in saying at the same time that it affords no final and permanent resting-place for the agricultural community of Ireland. From the very first, as I think I have shown, when I reminded hon. Members that the Nationalists and the Tories went into the Lobby together to demand land purchase, the Act of 1881 was only looked upon as a strategic position from which Irishmen would advance towards their hearts' desire, which was that in Ireland, as in almost every other country which is similarly circumstanced, in almost every other country that is mainly agricultural, the tiller and the occupier of the soil should be the owner of the soil. That was the strategic position lauded by three hon. and learned Members. I hope I have great deference for them. They are my friends—one of them is my friend. I hope I have great deference and respect for the profession which they adorn; but the songs of praise and triumph which they sang over the Act of 1881 will never shake my opinion that, whatever other merits may attach to the law, legal procedure is neither the shortest nor the cheapest method of determining the value of articles which one man has to sell and another man has to buy. I think I found a clue to their philosophy of the Irish situation in an unguarded phrase that fell from one of them—the hon. and learned Member for Hawick. He said—
    "There are worse things than litigation."
    If the agrarian situation in Ireland is a strategic position, may we not compare it to a strategic position
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    occupied during an actual campaign? No one will evacuate that position except upon terms of honourable treatment; but it does not follow that it is a very agreeable resting-place. And if you arrive at a strategic deadlock I should not be very much impressed if three eminent firms of contractors, who supplied the ammunition with which the parties in this strategic position fired into each other, were to say, "Well, after all, there are worse things than a strategic deadlock in a campaign." What emerges from this three days' debate is that, after twenty years of strategic deadlock, the two parties in Ireland who have been brought into sharp antagonism with each other, who have suffered much in this warfare—the landlords of Ireland who, rightly or wrongly, and I think rightly, hold that they have been wronged—yes, those who bought under the Encumbered Estates Act, with a Parliamentary title giving them absolute ownership from the surface to the centre of the earth, who were urged to give a larger price for the benefit of the general taxpayer on the explicit plea that rents were low, and that they could put them up—I think that these men—men in business, shopkeepers, professional men in Ireland, who bought land, not out of greed but because they were told that it was the last economic fad of the moment—have some sense of wrong to which I ought to do justice. And those men of the old stock, as they are called, the men who stood the racket of dynastic and religious warfare in Ireland, and to whom the alternative of "Hell or Connaught" was far more generally applied than to any other men in Ireland — those men have suffered as no other aristocracy in the world has suffered. And the descendants of the old stock, and the business men who bought encumbered estates, who have been fighting for twenty years and have seen their incomes reduced by 40 per cent. by enactments of this House—it is these men, who might be embittered and actuated by enmity, who come to us now and say, "We want peace, although we are ready to fight for another thirty years at least." And who is the other party? The tenants of Ireland, and the representatives of the tenants of Ireland, who also, for historic causes which I do not wish to rake up, have felt, not only

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    the sense of co-ownership, but that, if certain wars had issued in eventualities which did not take place, they would be the owners of the land, and not others. It is these men and their representatives who have struggled, and gone to prison, and broken the law—and when they break the law I hold that they ought to be made amenable to the law—it is these two antagonistic and opposing camps who have come to us during the last three memorable months and have said, "We wish to be united, to bury this ancient feud, to advance together, not only in order to secure the prosperity of agriculture but in order to liberate the initiative of our countrymen in other walks of life, and in order to start industries in Ireland in order to be rid of this nightmare, which has not only impeded us in the prosecution of agriculture but has concentrated all mankind, professional, commercial, and agricultural, upon the barren issue of an endless strife." Sir, is the tragedy of allowing the occasion in Ireland to pass because the occasion has not yet occurred in England to be repeated? Is it to be repeated in deference to such financial arguments as those which were used by the hon. Member for South Shields?
    I would not revert to a speech made forty-eight hours ago were it not for the fact that there is a danger that the £30,000,000 given according to him to one class in Ireland may take root in the popular imagination. Let me now and at once pluck it out. [Laughter, and "Oh!"] I am delighted to hear an interruption of that character, because it explains what at the time surprised me. I listened to that speech aghast, and I was surprised that it seemed to make so slight an impression upon his audience. The explanation is that speeches couched in similar phraseology have educated this House to a certain extent, and the public to a very large extent, into the belief that England is habitually taking sovereigns out of her pocket and handing them over to Irishmen, who may be very good fellows in their way but are always coming and asking for more. There is not a vestige of truth in it. I should like, if I may, to examine this financial argument, because a great deal of the doubt in some men's minds as to the justice of accepting this Bill turns upon
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    that and similar financial arguments. The hon. and learned Member instanced the agricultural grant. He put it a little high, but I will take his figure. It is £730,000 a year, calculated upon precisely the same basis as that upon which the English agricultural grant was made. I admit that if you take the doctrine of the equivalent grant Ireland would have got much less; but that would be stretching the view of the union of the two Exchequers to an extravagant point in favour of England. Ireland is mainly an agricultural country, and suffers on that account. Ireland pays the same taxes as we pay for the Army and the Navy, and is now paying the war taxation. I do not suppose it is any easier for an Irish landlord, living on £500 a year, to pay an Income Tax of 1s. 3d. than it is for anybody else, or for an Irish tenant to pay tea, whiskey and other duties than it is for anybody else. I admit that Ireland has a slight advantage on the local taxation account, but was Ireland to be deprived of her chance of local taxation reform because some hon. Members thought that large grants were made by England to Ireland? But when they gave £185,000 to Ireland it was forgotten that £1,400,000 was given to education in England. That was represented as a gift to the Irish landlords. Then the hon. and learned Member capitalised this sum and said—
    "There were £30,000,000 given to Ireland—given to Irish landlords—by England, and are We to add another £12,000,000 to it. Was it not time to stop this system?"
    The hon. Member went on to speak of £42,000,000 and he took the local taxation account, but he entirely overlooked the large items which were taken for England and Scotland, where the expenditure has increased at a greater pace than in Ireland. I say frankly to hon. Members who sit for English constituencies that on the local taxation account Ireland has an advantage of £280,000 a year. Call that £9,500,000. But, again, the hon. and learned Member seemed to forget the grant made to voluntary schools in 1897 amounting to £620,000, and he also seemed to forget that there was a grant to Board schools in the same year amounting to £180,000, but no equivalent grant was given to Ireland. I do not complain. I am repeating the

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    argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman; and if I were to capitalise those grants of £800,000 for education might I not say, to paraphrase his words "Here are £27,000,000 which Ireland gives to the national schools of England, so that you may improve your education. You do not seem to carry on your education up to the German standard, so here is this money to enable you to do it." And then it might be added from the Irish point of view, "Have we not reached a point at which we should stop?" What is it that this sum is to be given to Ireland for? The money is to be granted so that Ireland may not miss the opportunity which is presented by these two antagonistic forces being brought together. Surely we should not miss this opportunity of bringing about a settlement which we believe, and hon. Members opposite believe, will have a lasting good effect on Irish life. But some hon. Gentlemen have said, with reference to some remarks which were made in the last debate, that this was not the moment which I should have chosen to introduce a Bill involving a charge of so many millions of money, although I have been careful not to make it at present a burden on the country. I agree that it is a grave matter; and I think that hon. Members who sit for Irish constituencies will see that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I have done what we could at a moment when it was most inopportune for us, but at a moment when, from all that we know, it was for Ireland most opportune. We saw this conference held, and we saw the amicable feeling which was displayed on both sides, that of the tenants, and that of the landlords, and we could not accept the grave responsibility of allowing such an exceptional chance to slip from us.
    I now pass from the £12,000,000 grant to the security for the loan. That is a graver question. Hon. Members have a right to conjure up every conceivable danger with regard to the loan; but is it to be supposed that the Irish tenants would go in for general repudiation of the bargains into which they are to enter if this Bill passes into law? Now may I elaborate that point a little; and here let me refer to what occurred in 1881. Then there was a no rent campaign
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    carried on by the whole force of a great organisation, but was there any general repudiation then? In 1887 there was the Plan of Campaign, as it was called, supported, though not at first, but after a short time, by the whole of the popular Irish Party. Was there then a general repudiation of rents on the part of the Irish tenants? There was no general repudiation: there was repudiation in some parts of the country, or rather it was not a repudiation: it was a case of saying "only such and such a proportion of the rent will be paid." But was it universal? No. We know that the number of Plan of Campaign estates was something under twenty—thirteen or fourteen, I think, was the number—and the number of tenants evicted from those estates was so small that Irish Members have said that from the financial aspect the question of dealing with these is a mere bagatelle. In a time of great disorder, in a time when the climatic conditions were adverse to Irish industry, at a time when the whole country was roused from end to end with agitation to bring about a general repudiation of bargains objected to, the repudiation was sporadic and insignificant. And now, when the whole people of Ireland, when landlords and tenants, when their representatives on both sides have affirmed what is matter of notoriety, that there is anxious desire to keep up punctual payment under the purchase clauses, I am asked to believe that is possible which all the forces of disorder and of nature arrayed together failed to bring about, a general repudiation of rent. But it is said there is the question of partial failure. Our best security, apart from material security, is our moral security in the desire of the Irish people to become a peasant proprietary, their willingness to make sacrifices for this purpose; and the fact that any one who evaded his responsibility would be regarded not as an object of sympathy but as an enemy of his fellows. But there are other material assets. There is the value of the land. Well, I am told if there is general failure that would be worth nothing. But there are two interests in the land, the landlords' interest and the tenants' interest; it is

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    the landlords' interest we propose to purchase. For the tenants' interest forty-seven years purchase was given throughout the whole of the Mercers estate the other day; and does anybody believe that, with land hunger creating such a price, the asset of a vacant holding, to which no odium of eviction attached, would not command a price in the market which, I believe, is even dangerously high? If time admitted I should like to correct an impression which may have been created by the hon. Member for King's Lynn by his reading of every reservation he could find in Mr. Bailey's report on the results of land purchase. But that report declares that purchased holdings are largely improved in all parts of Ireland, that new buildings are springing up, and the condition of the houses on the purchased estates shows a marked improvement from what they were before purchase. And these houses and buildings will be material assets in the guarantee fund. It is noted that, far from there having been improvident borrowing, the gombeen man, the usurer, has had to "fold his tent like the Arab and silently steal away." Finally, I would commend to Members for English constituencies, who are racked with anxiety as to our security, the page of the report where it is said that political unrest, which frequently prevailed before the tenants became purchasers, has disappeared, and that their intelligent activities are mainly turned in a direction which they think will materially improve their environment. A letter from a leading solicitor was to the effect that where purchase has been general there is not discontent or agitation, but almost what may be called political lethargy. I have seen a letter written by one who might be called an agitator—at any rate one who has taken great interest in political movements in Ireland—in which he complains of the ingratitude of those who, since they had bought their holding, would not subscribe a sixpence to any political body at all. I have personal knowledge of another
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    event of a somewhat similar kind. It so happened that a speaker wished to hold a meeting upon a holding about which there had been trouble, and which happened to have a belt of purchased holdings all round. The speakers had to be imported, and what I wish the House to take from me is that the audience had to be imported too. There is not a man who had purchased his holding who would have walked 200 yards to listen to a speech from Demosthenes.
    Let me pass to the second line of security. The moral desire of the whole of Ireland to support this system is, in my opinion, the real security in this case. Let me pass to the second line of security—to the cash security. Hon. Members who have criticised the Bill have spoken as if the security could not be enforced without stopping the local administrative work for which the money is required. The Exchequer contribution from this country to Ireland amounts to more than £3,000,000 in any one year. But that does not all go to the lunatic asylum or the payment of the school teacher. The guarantee fund is divided into two portions—a cash portion and a contingent portion. The cash portion is money which is immediately available. Out of the guarantee fund the total amount of the cash portion would cover advances amounting to £35,776,000. Therefore, you have got to assume failure or repudiation covering an advance of £35,000,000 before you come to your lunatics, education, and the rest of it. That can be got out of money which is there for very desirable purposes, I admit, but for purposes which frequently are not yet sufficiently mature to warrant the expenditure of that money, because, taking the existing guarantee fund without the new additions that have been made to it, and taking the cash portion of that fund, I find that we have balances in hand of £78,670. There is no claim at all for them. The total balances in hand that you can use to-morrow, which

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    cannot be allocated to any of the purposes for which they exist, amount to £173,000. What has been our experience in the past? Seventy-three thousand purchasers have completed their bargains. They pay regularly to the State £840,000 a year. The question of punctuality arises. There was a sum of £8,000 not paid on the very day. Of that sum £5,000 has been paid within six weeks. Among the 73,000 purchasers only three are eighteen months' late. In twelve years of transactions of that volume there have only been two irrecoverable debts. Is it not fantastic to impeach the security of this operation? I do not know as much as some hon Members do about business; but I should suppose that a great firm which collected £840,000 a year from its customers, and found only £8,000 of arrears during some six or seven weeks, with only three of its customers eighteen months late in their payments, and two irrecoverable debts in connection with transactions involving £25,000,000, would be quite prepared to go into the market. Those who have suggested that this is a risky financial operation would tumble over one another to buy the ordinary shares of such a company. That is not all. We are asked to believe that the Irish tenant purchaser will select this operation of land purchase in order to illustrate his dislike of the Union by a general repudiation. Why should he? An hon. Member referred to the fact that we collect a great many millions of taxation in Ireland. Let me take other loans. The total of loans quite irrespective of land purchase, of advances for certain purposes, drainage schemes, and so forth, on the security of land, is £9,940,000. That is for the last half century. I am not taking into account, for I wish to be perfectly fair, sums
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    that were remitted, four millions odd of famine loan which were remitted, and properly remitted. Someone has spoken, of our generosity in remitting that loan. It was explicitly remitted as a set-off to the imposition of Income Tax in Ireland. I thought it right to tell hon. Members for English constituencies that nearly £5,000,000 was written off for the famine loan and more than £1,000,000 in respect of some drainage schemes which failed to achieve the objects for which they were undertaken. But, if I except these remissions, the amount written off, not remitted, and never collected on that £10,000,000, is only £40,000. Then we take advances on the rates. Hon. Members seem to think it is fantastic for a Unionist Government to lend money to Ireland. Why, our great claim and vindication of the Union is that the credit of the common Exchequer is available for every part of the United Kingdom. And, as a matter of fact, in every year we lend in Ireland, on the security of the rates, quite apart from land purchase, more than half a million of money. Last year we lent £520,000. That was a year when, my right hon. friend would tell us, there was not much money to spare; and in other years the amount has often been £600,000. The total outstanding amount to be repaid on these loans was on March 31st of last year nearly £5,000,000, and the arrears were £1,100. Well, if Irishmen are going to repudiate their debts as a protest in order to enforce constitutional views on which we differ, why are they to begin on these land purchase loans, which are dear to everybody in Ireland, when they pay up on the nail in respect of £500,000 a year? Let me take another illustration. Hon.

    141
    Members were shocked to find how much money was lent to Ireland. For seed potato loans, made in time of dire distress—loans made to the poorest people and people on the very edge of starvation—£863,000 has been advanced. Every penny has been paid back, with the exception of £10,000, or less than 1¼ per cent.; and the whole of that default is accounted for by people who died of starvation or left the country. I find that I have been led away to speak at far greater length than I had intended [Cries of "No."] upon the financial aspects of this Bill; but almost every one in this House has spoken in favour of the Second Reading of the Bill, and every representative of Ireland has spoken in favour of the Second Reading. The Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Baronet the Member for Berwick in a notable speech—all have spoken in favour of the Second Reading. If that is so, was it not my duty to dwell rather upon the only objection which, in my own mind, can legitimately be raised against reading such a Bill a second time now—the objection that this is not the moment which any Government would willingly have chosen for adding to the credit obligation or the cash obligation of this country? I admit that that objection may be raised; and I have thought that the best way to answer it was to insist, in the first place, on the marked and signal character of the occasion in Ireland, and, in the second place, on the security, the moral, material, and financial security, which, in my opinion, makes such an operation not only legitimate, but eminently desirable at such a moment as this.
    I have but seventeen minutes left in which to speak. I had hoped to deal with the points which have been raised in the course of this debate. I do not
    142
    minimise the importance of those points and I am repeating what I said at the outset if I say that they are Committee points. That is to say, they are points which must be carefully discussed, and upon which, for my own part, I would not for the world offer a decisive opinion to-night until I have heard all that can be urged. Time, certainly, does not admit of my dealing with those points now. I have them very present to my mind. The question of prices, the limitation, particularly of the reduction, the question of the evicted tenants, the question of dealing with congestion, and the question of either dealing adequately with the labourers or else excluding that section from this Bill and bringing in another—all those points are present to my mind. I have weighed carefully all that has been said; and I do not despair of this Bill going through the House of Commons without any damage being inflicted, not only upon the Bill but upon the consequences that we can anticipate from its passage in Ireland. But the occasion which alone justifies our bringing in this Bill does consist in the peace which has been made between the two parties in Ireland. It can only be maintained if the spirit which actuated the representatives of the landlords and the tenants at the Dunraven Conference is also maintained during the whole course of our debates in Committee. I hope hon. Members will not think that I have designedly evaded discussion of these points. I wish I could speak for another hour, and I should be prepared to go into every one of them; but I want the latitude of Committee discussion in order to bring them to a proper issue, and in order to say exactly what we feel. But let me say this. If the conclusions at which we have arrived

    143
    on any of these points seem from any point of view to be illogical or inadequate, I would beg hon. Members who are conversant with this question to accept it from me that we have arrived at those decisions in view of three considerations which we hold to be essential. We must deal adequately with congestion in Ireland and non-economic holdings. We must avoid in the future the delay and the cost which attaches to judicial or quasi-judicial procedure. And we must have regard to the obligations, whether of cash or of credit, which are placed on the general taxpayer. Those three conditions to a certain extent must modify an ideal solution of any one of the many complicated features of this problem. But I see nothing in those three conditions which forces me to say now that I anticipate any risk to the passage of this Bill, or any risk to the continuation in Ireland after this Bill has been passed of the good feeling which has been evinced at the Land Conference and during the last three months in that country. We are not so arrogant as to claim that we have arrived in every case at an ideal solution; and I do say honestly and candidly, and without mental reservation of any kind or description, that I shall discuss the first clause in counsel with hon. Members representing all the interests of this House, and not with any predetermined view to pass it in the shape in which it is now. But more than that I cannot say. I could not discuss the five great points raised by the hon. and learned Member, re-echoed by the hon. Member for East Mayo, supported in almost every speech to which we have listened, without speaking at very
    144
    great length. If I attempted to be short I should mislead the House, and I should defeat the very object which I have at heart, which is that the great occasion which has happened in Ireland should not be lost.
    In bringing in a Bill of this magnitude, a Bill which imposes a great obligation on the credit of the Empire, and which imposes a considerable burden on the taxpayers, I am deeply sensible of the kind of criticism to which any attempt to pass remedial legislation for Ireland is always exposed. We are asked whether this will settle the Irish land question. We are taunted with inconsistencies. It is pointed out by some that less than a year ago there was trouble in Ireland, although now there is peace, and that we who then felt it our duty to take steps to vindicate the law are now coming forward to assist some, at any rate, of the objects which were aimed at by those who broke the law. Well, that is a common phase of Irish politics. If hon. Members would take the situation in Ireland as it is, there would be no need to rake up the bitter histories of the past. But they do not take it as it is. Speech after speech was made by hon. and learned Members on the opposite side, which, if they had any meaning at all, meant that the agrarian situation in Ireland is precisely on all fours with the agrarian situation in England—which meant, I suppose, that the history of Ireland is analogous to the history of England. Well, I do not wish to go at great length into the past. We, as in the case of every country in Europe, have had our ages of warfare, dynastic and religious; but is there any country in Europe, save and except Ireland, which has been ravaged without intermission for century after century by dynastic and religious

    145
    war? Those wars ended with the Treaty of Limerick towards the end of the seventeenth century, and two sinister heritages were bequeathed—the Catholic question, as it is called, and the Land Question, as we now call it. When I listened to some of the arguments which have been urged against this Bill, some of the gibes and taunts which have been thrown against the Government for bringing it in, there arose melancholy reflections. It was but a hundred years ago that the Catholic question, as it was called, the claim that Irish Catholics should have equal civil and political rights, was the term in which the Irish Question was discussed, when Tory statesman after Tory statesman claimed the right to denounce the Catholic Association, claimed the right to proclaim it, claimed the right to prosecute and imprison those who in the cause of the Catholic claims were guilty of what are, in our opinion, crimes against the law. Yet those Tory statesmen at the same time, some of them, urged that there must be political and civil equality between the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. And now it is the land. We are asked, "Will you settle the Land Question, will you settle the Irish Question? Sir, I do not know. I have my own view, which may differ from that of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford; but of this I am certain, that, just as we had to settle the Catholic question, so we have to settle the Land Question; and till both those questions, left over at the end of the long period of civil war in Ireland, have been settled there can be no settlement of the Irish question. How long are we to be about it? At the beginning and during the first quarter of the last-century
    146
    the Catholic question was debated; it took thirty years. There was an excuse; the answer, given with great force by apologists, pointed to the illness of an aged Sovereign, and to popular passion; and no one can honestly say that equal civil and political rights could have been given much sooner than the date at which those rights were given. We, also, on both sides of the House, since the year 1870, have been trying our hands at the land question, and the same arguments are used. The question will be the same, the verdict will be the same. History will ask—Why did not you do it thirty years before? "We shall have our answer. We shall point to the divisions and the sharp animosities which have rent and poisoned social life in Ireland, and the misgivings which these divisions and these animosities have, not unnaturally, aroused in English minds here. But after this year, after 1903, after the memorable months through which we have passed, after the occasion offered by the Land Conference, apologists for British statesmen in this respect will seek in vain for defence, explanation, or excuse. They will see that the divisions are closing up, that for the social venom an antidote has been found in the general good feeling and in the unity of purpose actuating all by the hope that they may increase the prosperity of their common native land. In view of all these conditions, unhoped for but decisive, the load of responsibility will be heavy upon the head of any man who through timidity or callousness or an undue insistence upon some one feature of this many-faceted problem tries to impair an opportunity, pregnant, as in my con science I believe it to be, with the best

    147
    possibilities for that portion of the United Kingdom from which hope and enterprise, the child of hope, have been banished for so long.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes, 443; Noes, 26. (Division List No. 76.)

    AYES.

    Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

    Cautley, Henry Strother

    Esmonde, Sir Thomas

    Abraham, William (Rhondda)

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

    Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidstone

    Allhusen, Aug. Henry Eden

    Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.)

    Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.)

    Ambrose, Robert

    Cawley, Frederick

    Faber, George Denison (York)

    Anson, Sir William Reynell

    Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Farquharson, Dr. Robert

    Arkwright, John Stanhope

    Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

    Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

    Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

    Chamberlain, Rt. Hon J. (Birm

    Fenwick, Charles

    Arrol, Sir William

    Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Worc

    Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith

    Ashton, Thomas Gair

    Chaplin, Right Hon. Henry

    Ffreneh, Peter

    Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

    Chapman, Edward

    Field, William

    Atherley-Jones, L.

    Charrington, Spencer

    Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

    Atkinson, Right Hon. John

    Churchill, Winston Spencer

    Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

    Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

    Clancy, John Joseph

    Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

    Austin, Sir John

    Clare, Octavius Leigh

    Fisher, William Hayes

    Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

    Clive, Captain Percy A.

    FitzGerald, Sir Robt. Penrose

    Bailey, James (Walworth)

    Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E.

    Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund

    Bain, Colonel James Robert

    Cogan, Denis J.

    Fitzroy, Hon. Edw. Algernon

    Baird, John George Alexander

    Collings, Right Hon. Jesse

    Flannery, Sir Fortescue

    Balcarres, Lord

    Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    Baldwin, Alfred

    Colston, Chas. Edw H. Athole

    Flower, Ernest

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

    Compton, Lord Alwyne

    Flynn, James Christopher

    Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds

    Condon, Thomas Joseph

    Forster, Henry William

    Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

    Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

    Foster, Sir Michael (Lond. Univ.

    Barran, Rowland Hirst

    Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

    Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S. W.

    Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

    Craig, Charles C. (Antrim, S.

    Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

    Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benj.

    Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark

    Fuller, J. M. F.

    Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

    Cranborne, Lord

    Fyler, John Arthur

    Beckett, Ernest William

    Crean, Eugene

    Galloway, William Johnson

    Bell, Richard

    Cremer, William Randal

    Gardner, Ernest

    Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

    Cripps, Charles Alfred

    Garfit, William

    Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

    Crombie, John William

    Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H. (City of Lond

    Bignold, Arthur

    Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton)

    Gilhooly, James

    Bigwood, James

    Crossley, Sir Savile

    Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert J.

    Bill, Charles

    Cubitt, Hon. Henry

    Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

    Blake, Edward

    Cullinan, J.

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

    Blundell, Colonel Henry

    Cust, Henry John C.

    Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

    Boland, John

    Dalrymple, Sir Charles

    Gortlon, Maj. Evans- (Tr. H'ml'ts

    Bolton, Thomas Dolling

    Davenport, William Bromley-

    Gore, Hn. G. R. C. Ormsby (Salop

    Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

    Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

    Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-(Lincs.

    Bowles, Lt.-Col. H. F. (Middlesex

    Davies, Sir Horatio D. (Chatham

    Goschen, Hon. Geo. Joachim

    Brassey, Albert

    Delany, William

    Goulding, Edward Alfred

    Brigg, John

    Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway

    Greene, Hy. D. (Shrewsbury)

    Broadhurst, Henry

    Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.)

    Grenfell, William Henry

    Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

    Dewar, Sir T. R. (Tr. Haml'ts

    Greville, Hon. Ronald

    Brotherton, Edward Allen

    Dickinson, Robert Edmond

    Grey, Rt. Hn. Sir E. (Berwick

    Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

    Dickson, Charles Scott

    Gloves, James Grimble

    Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

    Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

    Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

    Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

    Digby, John K. D. Wringfield-

    Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

    Brymer, William Ernest

    Dillon, John

    Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

    Burdett-Coutts, W.

    Donelan, Captain A.

    Hall, Edward Marshall

    Burke, E. Haviland-

    Doogan, P. C.

    Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

    Burns, John

    Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

    Hamilton Rt. Hn. Lord G. (Midd'x

    Burt, Thomas

    Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E.

    Hamilton, Marq. of (Londondy

    Butcher, John George

    Doughty, George

    Hammond, John

    Buxton, Sydney Charles

    Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

    Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tyd

    Caldwell, James

    Doxford, Sir William Theodore

    Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashfd

    Cameron, Robert

    Duffy, William J.

    Harmsworth, R. Leicester

    Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin Univ.

    Duke, Henry Edward

    Harrington, Timothy

    Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

    Duncan, J. Hastings

    Harris, Frederick Leverton

    Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

    Dunn, Sir William

    Harwood, George

    Carew, James Lawrence

    Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

    Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

    Carlile, William Walter

    Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

    Haslett, Sir James Horner

    Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

    Egerton, Hon A. de Tatton

    Hatch, Ernest Frederick G.

    Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton

    Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

    Hay, Hon. Claude George

    Causton, Richard Knight

    Emmott, Alfred

    Hayden, John Patrick

    Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.

    M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

    Remnant, James Farquharson

    Healy, Timothy Michael

    M'Laren, Sir Charles Benj.

    Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

    Heath Arthur H. (Hanley)

    Manners, Lord Cecil

    Renwick, George

    Heath, James (Staffs., N. W.)

    Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

    Rickett, J. Compton

    Helder, Augustus

    Mather, Sir William

    Ritchie, Rt. Hn. C. Thomson

    Helme, Norval Watson

    Melville, Beresford Valentine

    Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

    Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Chas. H.

    Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

    Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

    Henderson, Sir Alexander

    Middlemore, John Throgmorton

    Roche, John

    Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

    Mildmay, Francis Bingham

    Roe, Sir Thomas

    Hoare, Sir Samuel

    Minch, Matthew

    Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

    Hobhouse, Rt. Hn. H. (Somerset E.

    Mitchell, Edw. (Fermanagh, N.

    Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

    Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

    Mitchell, William (Burnley)

    Rose, Charles Day

    Horniman, Frederick John

    Molesworth, Sir Lewis

    Rothschild, Hon. L. Walter

    Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

    Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

    Round, Rt. Hon. James

    Hoult, Joseph

    Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants.)

    Royds, Clement Molyneux

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Mooney, John J.

    Runciman, Walter

    Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham)

    More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire

    Russell, T. W.

    Hudson, George Bickersteth

    Morgan, David J. (Walthamst'w

    Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

    Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

    Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

    Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

    Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

    Morley, Rt. Hn. John (Montrose

    Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

    Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

    Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

    Samuel, Herbt. L. (Cleveland)

    Hutton, John (Yorks., N. R.)

    Moss, Samuel

    Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

    Jameson, Major J. Eustace

    Mount, William Arthur

    Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

    Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

    Muntz, Sir Philip A.

    Schwann, Charles E.

    Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred

    Murphy John

    Scott, Sir S. (Maryledbone, W.)

    Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton

    Murray, Rt. Hn. A. Graham (Bute

    Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln

    Jones, David B. (Swansea)

    Murray, Chas. J. (Coventry)

    Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isle of Wight)

    Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

    Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

    Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

    Jordan, Jeremiah

    Nannetti, Joseph P.

    Shackleton, David James

    Joyce, Michael

    Nicol, Donald Ninian

    Sharpe, William Edward T.

    Kearley, Hudson E.

    Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway N.

    Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

    Kemp, Lieut.-Colonel George

    Nolan, Joseph (Louth, S.)

    Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew

    Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.

    Norman, Henry

    Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

    Kennedy, Patrick James

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

    Shipman, Dr. John G.

    Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

    O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid)

    Simeon, Sir Barrington

    Keswick, William

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

    Kimber, Henry

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

    Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

    King, Sir Henry Seymour

    O'Brien, William (Cork)

    Skewes-Cox, Thomas

    Knowles, Lees

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

    Sloan, Thomas Henry

    Lambton, Hon. Fredk. Wm.

    O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

    Smith, H. C. (Northum. Tyneside

    Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

    O'Doherty, William

    Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.

    Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. N. R.

    O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

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

    Layland-Barratt, Francis

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

    Soames, Arthur Wellesley

    Leamy, Edward

    O'Dowd, John

    Spear, John Ward

    Lees, Sir Elliot (Birkenhead)

    O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

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

    Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

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

    Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset)

    Leigh, Sir Joseph

    O'Malley, William

    Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

    Leng, Sir John

    O'Mara, James

    Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

    Levy, Maurice

    O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

    Stone, Sir Benjamin

    Lewis, John Herbert

    Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

    Stroyan, John

    Llewellyn, Evan Henry

    O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

    Sturt, Hn. Humphrey Napier

    Lockie, John

    O'Shee, James John

    Sullivan, Donal

    Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

    Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

    Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

    Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham

    Partington, Oswald

    Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ.

    Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S.

    Paulton, James Mellor

    Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

    Lough, Thomas

    Pearson, Sir Weetman D.

    Taylor, Theo. C. (Radcliffe)

    Lowe, Francis William

    Peel, Hn. Wm. R. Wellesley

    Tennant, Harold John

    Lowther, C. (Cumb. Eskdale)

    Pemberton, John S. G.

    Thomas, Sir A. (Glam., E.)

    Lucas, Reg'ld J. (Portsmouth)

    Percy, Earl

    Thomas, F. Freeman- (Hastings

    Lundon, W.

    Perks, Robert William

    Thompson, Dr. E. C. (Monagh'n N.

    Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

    Platt-Higgins, Frederick

    Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.)

    Macdona, John Gumming

    Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

    Thornton, Percy M.

    MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

    Power, Patrick Joseph

    Tomkinson, James

    MacIver, David (Liverpool)

    Pretyman, Ernest George

    Toulmin, George

    Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

    Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

    Purvis, Robert

    Tritton, Charles Ernest

    Maconochie, A. W.

    Quilter, Sir Cuthbert

    Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Randles, John S.

    Ure, Alexander

    M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

    Rattigan, Sir William Henry

    Valentia, Viscount

    M'Calmont, Colonel James

    Reddy, M.

    Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

    M'Fadden, Edward

    Redmond, Jn. E. (Waterford)

    Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.

    M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W.

    Redmond, William (Clare)

    Walton, J. Lawson (Leeds, S.)

    M'Kean, John

    Reid, James (Greenock)

    Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

    M'Killop, Jas. (Stirlingshire)

    Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

    Wanklyn, James Leslie

    150

    151

    Warde, Colonel C. E.

    Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

    Wylie, Alexander

    Wason, J. Cathbart (Orkney)

    Wilson, John (Falkirk)

    Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

    Weir, James Galloway

    Wilson John (Glasgow)

    Wyndham-Quin, Major W. H.

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

    Wilson-Todd, W. H. (Yorks.)

    Yerburgh, Robt. Armstrong

    Wharton, Rt. Hon. J. Lloyd

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

    Young, Samuel

    Whiteley, H. (Ashton-u.-Lyne)

    Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

    Younger, William

    Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

    Wood, James

    Whitmore, Charles Algernon

    Worsley-Taylor, Hry. Wilson

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

    Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

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

    Sir Alexander Acland Hood and Mr. Anstruther.

    Wilson, F. W. (Norfolk, Mid)

    Wrightson, Sir Thomas

    NOES.

    Allen, Charles P. (Glouc., Stroud

    Lambert, George

    Soares, Ernest J.

    Banbury, Sir Frederick George

    Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall

    Stanley, Hon, Arthur (Ormskirk

    Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

    Mansfield, Horace Rendall

    Strachey, Sir Edward

    Channing, Francis Allston

    Markham, Arthur Basil

    Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

    Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

    Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen

    Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

    Elibank, Master of

    Moulton, John Fletcher

    White, Luke (York, E. R.)

    Grant, Corrie

    Phillips, John Wynford

    Griffith, Ellis J.

    Pirie, Duncan V.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

    Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale-

    Reckitt, Harold James

    Mr. Coghill and Sir George Bartley.

    Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristl, E.

    Robson, William Snowdon

    Resolution agreed to.

    SOUTH AFRICAN LOAN AND WAR CONTRIBUTION [GUARANTEE.]
    Resolution reported. "That it is expedient to authorise the Treasury to guarantee on the security of the Consolidated Fund the interest of a loan to be raised by the Transvaal not exceeding in the aggregate an amount sufficient to raise thirty-five million pounds, and the principal of any such loan by means of the guarantee of Sinking Fund payments, and to provide for the application of any sums paid by the Transvaal or Orange River Colony in respect of expenses incurred in or incidental to the prosecution of the late war in South Africa."
    Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution by the Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Chamberlain, Sir Alexander Acland-Hood, and Mr. Arthur Elliot.

    SOUTH AFRICAN LOAN AND WAR CONTRIBUTION BILL.
    "To authorise the Treasury to guarantee the payment of a loan to be raised by the Transvaal, and to provide for the application of any sums paid by that Colony or the Orange River Colony towards the expenses incurred by His Majesty's Government in or incidental to the prosecution of the late War in South Africa," presented accordingly, and read the first time.
    To be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 189.]
    Adjourned at twenty minutes after Twelve o'clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:—
Charing Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway; City and South London Railway.
Also the Certificates that no Standing Orders are applicable to the following Bills:—
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 1); Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3).
And also the Certificates that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:—
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2); Local Government Provisional Order (Housing of the Working Classes).
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Report from, That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Petitions for additional Provisions in the following Bills ought to be dispensed with, and leave given to the Committees on the Bills to insert the additional Provisions, viz.:—
North-Western Electricity and Power Gas [H.L.]; Salford Corporation [H.L.]; Hove, Worthing, and District Tramways [H.L.]
That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (Extension of Time) Bill ought to be dispensed with.
That the further Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Maidstone

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Gas Bill ought to be dispensed with, and the Bill allowed to proceed:
Read and agreed to.
Fife Electric Power Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill, the Opposition thereto having been withdrawn; read, and ordered to lie on the Table: The orders made on the 12th of March and Thursday last discharged, and Bill committed.
Bangor Corporation Bill [H.L.] Petition for additional provision; of the Corporation of Bangor; together with the proposed Amendments annexed thereto; read, and referred to the Examiners.
Southampton Harbour Bill [H.L.] The King's consent signified; and Bill reported, with Amendments.
Poole and District Electric Traction Bill [H.L.]; Reported with Amendments.
Birmingham Corporation Bill [H.L.] Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Hastings Harbour District Railway Bill [H.L.] Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill, the opposition thereto having been withdrawn; read, and ordered to lie on the Table: The orders made on the 19th of March and the 30th of April last discharged; and Bill committed.
Pontypridd Urban District Council Bill [H.L.]; Taff Vale Railway Bill [H.L.]; London and North-Western Railway Bill [H.L.]; Aston Manor Improvement Bill [H.L.]; Macclesfield and District Electric Tramways Bill [H.L.]; Torquay Corporation Water Bill [H.L.]; Rochester Corporation Tramways and Improvements Bill [H.L.]; Chatham and District Light Railways Bill [H.L.]; Brighton Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Bury and District Joint Water Board Bill [H.L.].
Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Lord Redesdale be proposed to the House as a member of the
4
Select Committee on the said Bills in the place of the Viscount Powerscourt; read, and agreed to.
Ipswich Gas Bill; Burgess Hill and St. John's Common Gas Bill; London Hydraulic Power Bill; Sutton District Water Bill; Winchester Water and Gas Bill. Read 2a, and committed.
Wellington (Salop) Gas Bill [H.L.]; I Frinton-on-Sea Sea Defences Bill [H.L.]; Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill; Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway Order Confirmation Bill. Brought from the Commons.
Great Eastern Railway Bill; Great Northern Railway Bill. Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway Order Confirmation Bill. Read 1a; to be printed, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899), deemed to have been read 2a—The Lord Balfour), and reported from the Committee. (No. 55.)
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill. Read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 56.)

PETITIONS.
  DECLARATION OF THE SOVEREIGN AGAINST TRANSUBSTANTIATION.
  Petition for abrogation of; of Roman Catholics residing in Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
  LAND REGISTERS (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
  Petition for amendment of; of the Aberdeen Corporation; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
  Code of Regulations for Continuation Classes, 1903.
  RAILWAY RETURNS (PRELIMINARY STATEMENT).
  Return relating to the railways of the United Kingdom for the year 1902; with comparative figures for the years 1900 and 1901.

  ARMY (CANTEENS AND REGIMENTAL INSTITUTES).
  Evidence taken before the Committee on Canteens and Regimental Institutes.
  Presented [by Command], and ordered to lie on the Table.

  NAVAL FORCES BILL.
  Read 3a [according to Order], and passed.

  BERWICKSHIRE COUNTY TOWN BILL.
  [THIRD READING.]
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Before this Bill is read a third time I should like to ask the noble Lord a question. I have no doubt he has explained the measure, but I missed his explanation. I should like to know why Greenlaw is to cease to be the head burgh or county town of Berwickshire, and why Duns is to take its place. I suppose the latter town is more prominent now than it used to be, but will not the change involve considerable expense to the ratepayers? I presume that buildings will have to be erected at Duns for county purposes. I should like some explanation on the point.
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Lord BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH): This Bill passed your Lordships' House last session and the session before, and on the first of these occasions I gave generally the reasons for this change. Until this year the Bill had not passed the other House of Parliament, but this year it originated in the House of Commons and it has passed through that chamber without opposition. Every authority in the county that has communicated with me is in favour of the change, including
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  the County Council. They have been most anxious for it for several years, and the Member of Parliament for the county supports the Bill. My noble friend Lord Tweedmouth is also desirous that this change shall be made. Greenlaw is a small place of some 200 or 300 inhabitants. It is very much out of the way, and, although it has a county building, it is very inconvenient for the county councillors. The railway communication at Duns is much better; that town is more central, and it is the old capital of the county. I think I can say to your Lordships that everybody in the county who has a right to express an opinion is in favour of this change. In three years I have received no representation against it, and therefore I think your Lordships are safe in passing the Bill.
  On Question, Bill read 3a and passed.

  THE STRANDING OF THE "FIRTH OF FORTH."
  LORD MUSKERRY, who had given notice "To call attention to the case of the second officer of the ss. 'Firth of Forth,' who, at the Board of Trade inquiry into the stranding of this steamer was found to have acted throughout in a careful and intelligent manner, and much impressed the Court by the way in which he gave his evidence, the Court suggesting to the solicitor to the Board of Trade that the Board might very properly reimburse this officer for the legal expenses incurred by him in attending the inquiry; and to ask if this recommendation has been acted upon, and, if not, why not"—said: My Lords, this is a case where Mr. Stobbs, the second officer of the "Firth of Forth," acquitted himself in a most creditable manner, both before the stranding of the vessel and afterwards in giving evidence at the Board of Trade inquiry; in fact, the Court stated that he was the only one who really came out of the inquiry satisfactorily. This inquiry involved the suspension of the certificate of the officer in question, one of the questions submitted by the Board of Trade to the Court being—
  "Was serious damage to the ss. 'Firth of Forth' caused by the wrongful act or fault of the master, chief, or second officers, or any of them?"

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  Therefore this officer, in self-protection, was compelled to secure legal assistance in order to avoid what might have been very serious consequences in the cancellation or suspension of his certificate. He was consequently not only subjected to great anxiety, but to serious expense, which, on the Court's recommendation, should justly be recouped by the Board of Trade, who were the responsible party in detaining him for the inquiry. Masters and officers are readily enough punished, but when meriting encouragement and assistance they generally fail to receive it. I hope to hear that in this case the Board of Trade have acted on the most praiseworthy recommendation of the Court of inquiry, and that an officer who has so ably conducted his duties shall not be allowed to bear the burden of legal expenses incurred in protecting his professional reputation owing to the action of the Board of Trade.
  LORD WOLVERTON: AS this is purely a Departmental question I will content myself with reading the answer of the Board of Trade. "The recommendation referred to by the noble Lord as to reimbursing to the second officer of the steamship 'Firth of Forth' his legal expenses in attending the inquiry held into the stranding of that vessel has not been acted upon. The Board of Trade have no funds out of which they can defray such expenses, and the fact that an officer has acted properly and given his evidence in a straightforward manner would not, in the opinion of the Board of Trade, in itself justify them in making a special application to the Treasury in such a case."

  PROTECTION OF WILD BIRDS IN IRELAND.
  THE EARL OF MAYO: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government why notices with regard to the Wild Birds Preservation Act, Close Season (Ireland), have not been posted up for the last three years on all the Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks in Ireland. It is felt in Ireland that the posting of these notices tends very largely to the preservation of wild birds, as it enables people in out-of-the-way districts to know what the law is. In August, 1901, the noble and learned Lord, the Lord
  8
  Chancellor of Ireland, replying question which I put to him, said—
  "In July, 1899, my noble friend asked the Irish Government for information with reference to the protection of wild birds, and he was then told that the constabulary were specially and fully instructed by general circular in May, 1899, to enforce the Wild Birds Protection Acts. I believe that has been loyally carried out."
  I therefore beg to ask the Question standing in my name.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I hope the noble Earl will accept the answer from me in the absence of my noble friend who represents the Irish Office. In reply to the Question, the Irish Office say that in May, 1899, the police throughout Ireland were instructed to enforce the Wild Birds Protection Act 1880, as amended by the subsequent Acts of 1881 and 1894. The police, at the same time, were instructed to endeavour to have these statutes obeyed by first warning persons detected of offences against the law, and, where a warning was ineffectual, the facts of the case were to be reported to the local police officers for instructions with a view to the institution of proceedings. Placards were also posted up outside each constabulary barracks informing the public of the danger they would incur by offending against the law. It has not since been considered necessary to renew the posting of these placards. Prosecutions have been undertaken by the police under the provisions of the Act in each year since they were instructed to enforce it. In 1899, six prosecutions were instituted, resulting in two convictions; in 1900, the same number of prosecutions resulted in one conviction; in 1901, three prosecutions were instituted, resulting in three convictions; and in 1902, four prosecutions resulted in four convictions. The police are thoroughly alive to their duties under these Acts, and the Irish Office are not of opinion that the repeating of these notices will make the police more vigilant. At the same time I am asked to add that if the noble Earl who put this Question has any evidence which goes to show that the Act is not strictly enforced and will supply it to the Irish Office, or to Lord Denbigh, who

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  represents that Office in this House, immediate inquiry will be made, because it is the desire of the Office, and they have, they believe, the active co-operation of the police, to see these valuable Acts enforced as thoroughly as possible.
  House adjourned at twenty minutes before Five o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.