Sitting of 24 February 1909

Preamble
The House met at Eight Minutes before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the chair.

PRIVATE BILLS.
The following Bills were read a second time:—
Ammanford Gas Bill.
Conway Gas Bill.
Heywood Corporation Bill.
Llanelly Water Bill.
Mountain Ash Urban District Council Bill.
Prestatyn Urban District Council Bill.
Watford Urban District Council Bill.
Wandsworth Borough Council (Superannuation) Bill. (By Order.)

NATURALISATION OF ALIENS.
Mr. HERBERT SAMUELmoved for a Return showing the names of all Aliens to whom certificates of Naturalisation or readmission to British nationality have been issued, and whose oaths of allegiance have during the year ended the 31st day of December, 1908, been registered at the Home Office, giving the country and place of residence of the person nationalised or readmitted, and including information as to any Aliens who have, during the same period, obtained acts of Naturalisation from the Legislature (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 75, of Session 1908).
Motion agreed to.

NOTICES OF MOTION.
Mr. JOHN HODGE: This day fortnight, to call attention to the administration of the Fair Wages Resolution of this House, and to move a Resolution.
Mr. G. P. GOOCH: To call attention to the state of affairs in Persia.

PRESENTATION OF BILLS.
Mr. DUNDASWHITE—Outdoor Relief Friendly Societies (Scotland).—Bill to amend the Law relating to the grant of Outdoor Relief to members of Friendly Societies in Scotland. (To be read a second time, 1st March.)
Mr. MENZIES—Fruit Growers—Bill to give increased security of tenure to Fruit Growers in Scotland. (To be read a second time, 26th February.)
Mr. JESSE COLLINGS—Purchase of Land.—Bill to provide facilities for the sale of land to occupying tenants, and to extend the system of peasant proprietary in England and Wales. (To be read a second time, 15th March.)
Mr. LUTTRELL—Cruelty to Animals.—Bill to prohibit the hunting, coursing, and shooting of animals which have been kept in confinement. (To be read a second time, 10th March.)
Mr. LUTTRELL—Clerks of the Peace and County Councils.—Bill to amend the Law with regard to the appointment of Clerks of the Peace and County Councils. (To be read a second time, 10th March.)
Mr. LUTTRELL—Justices of the Peace.—Bill to amend the Law with regard to the appointment of Justices of the Peace. (To be read a second time, 10th March.)

HIS MAJESTY'S GRACIOUS SPEECH.
  DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.

    IRELAND.
    Order read for resuming Debate on Question [16th February], "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth: Most Gracious Sovereign, We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—[Mr. Rogers.]
    Another Amendment proposed, at the end of the Question, to add the words,—
    "But we humbly submit that the condition of large portions of Ireland is deplorable and is becoming worse, and express our regret that Your Majesty's Ministers are making no effectual efforts to restore the authority of the Law or to protect the elementary rights of Your Majesty's subjects."—[Earl Percy.]
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    Sir EDWARD CARSON: The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in the opening sentences of his speech yesterday, accused us, and I suppose he included me amongst the number, as going about the country according to the orders of party organisations. I freely admit I have been going about, and that I have taken every opportunity of referring to the disturbed condition of certain portions of Ireland, but I deny that I have done so at the request of any party organisation, and I also deny that the question has become acute in this country by reason of any party organisation whatever. What has made it acute are the facts of the case, and the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman himself in the administration, or, rather, may I say, in the want of administration of the law in Ireland. After all what else could we do but go about and bring these matters before the English people in the Constituencies?
    We have appealed to the right hon. Gentleman in this House on many occasions, we were appealing to him yesterday, and we are appealing to him to-day, but the right hon. Gentleman and his Government hold out not a single ray of hope as to any better state of affairs
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    or better condition of affairs occurring in Ireland. I ask the right hon. Gentleman if we can get no hope from him if the state of affairs in Ireland are such as he confesses them to be what can we do but go and ask the people of this country to relieve us and to relieve those poor peasants in Ireland who are being persecuted through want of any strength or confidence in the administration of the law, to ask them to relieve them at the earliest moment, and to insist on their part on their being relieved from a state of affairs which I venture to say is intolerable.
    The Leader of the Irish party, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Waterford, made a quotation, and did me the honour to quote from a speech which I made a few nights ago. I do not know why in the least he made that quotation. I adhere to every word I said in that speech. When I am accused of having either exaggerated or mis-stated any facts in relation to Ireland, all I can say is that in every speech that I have made I have given them the actual figures of the condition of Ireland from the lips of the right hon. Gentleman himself. I know that right hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway —[Several HON. MEMBERS: "Hon."]—hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway seem to think that we love going about. They never give us credit for any honesty they never give us any credit to do what we think right towards the people of Ireland. I am sorry for it. I think they are wrong. I do not know from what reason the hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Irish party imagines that it is any pleasure to me to depict the state of my country or the evils of my country except for the purpose of trying to have the condition relieved. The hon. and learned Member the Leader of the Nationalist party in this House last night expressed strong disapproval of many of those crimes that are going on. [An HON. MEMBER: "All."] I shall make an offer to the hon. and learned Member if he and his colleagues who are the representatives of the people in those parts of Ireland will assist the right hon. Gentleman to go down into those parts and denounce outrage and crime——
    Mr. JOHN REDMONDWhy did not you go down and denounce the cattle-maiming in Grimsby?
    Sir E. CARSON: I do not think I ever interrupt any hon. Member.
    Mr. JOHN REDMOND: I shall not do so again.
    Sir E. CARSON: I repeat my offer, and let the House judge whether it is a fair one. When I am accused of undertaking the pleasure of going down through the country and depicting a false state of affairs in my own country, I say if the hon. Gentlemen, who have, I believe, so much influence with the people, went down to those districts and denounced, as the hon. and learned Member did last night, those circumstances of maiming of cattle, of cattle-driving, of boycotting, of intimidation, and all the rest that constitutes a deplorable condition in those parts of Ireland, I will undertake upon my own behalf, and I believe I can undertake on behalf of every Gentleman on this side of the House, that we will not mention again the subject of disturbances. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the Craigs?"] Hon. Gentlemen laugh. I do not mind them laughing. Is it a fair answer to the accusation that is made against me, that I go down simply for the purpose of telling falsehoods about my country?
    I am perfectly aware of the influence of hon. Members below the Gangway, and the least they might do in supporting the efforts of the right hon. Gentleman to govern the country by what he is pleased to call the ordinary law, such assistance as by doing their best in the districts where they have most influence to putting an end to the crime and outrage which I believe every man in this House deplores. I put another matter to the hon. and learned Member: Does he really think that the cause of Home Rule, which I know he has at heart, and which I know hon. Members below the Gangway have at heart, that that cause makes progress by those outrages under a system which is, I think, trying to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas?
    I should think the hon. and learned Member may have thought that the time had come when if ever he was going to make progress he might try and encourage those who have great fears and great concern as to what might happen if a Home Rule Bill was passed, to try and encourage them by showing even now he was determined that, having influence with the Irish people in those districts, to show how that influence would be exerted by himself and his collegaues to try to put an end to this deplorable state of affairs in Ireland.
    May I call attention for one moment to the terms of the Amendment to the Address?
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    "But we humbly submit that the conditions of large portions of Ireland is deplorable, and is becoming worse…"
    Is that denied by any Member who has followed the course of events in Ireland? Is it denied by the right hon. Gentleman himself? He confessed it yesterday, and no responsible person who has spoken on the subject has denied it. It is deplorable; it is becoming worse. The Chief Secretary shakes his head. I really hope that that means that it is not becoming worse. No one would hail that fact with more satisfaction than I should. But where is his ground for such a belief? The figures from day to day certainly show that the condition has got worse since we discussed the matter last year. In regard to every item—whether boycotting, people under police protection, firing at the person or into houses, cattle-driving, or agrarian outrages—the figures are worse.
    If you take the figures given by the right hon. Gentleman, the fact that the condition is growing worse is beyond dispute. He has proclaimed eight counties as being in a disturbed condition. Is he going to remove that proclamation from any one of them? He dare not. He has stated that the number of persons boycotted on 31st January last was 874. I decline to draw a distinction between cases of "major" boycotting and cases of "minor" boycotting. They are all acts of excessive intimidation, and behind every one of the units making up that total of 874, if we could depict it here, would stand revealed a terrible tragedy, involving the liberty and property of the most humble subjects of His Majesty in Ireland.
    The number of cases of firing at persons and firing into houses—agrarian and non-agrarian—has increased from 29 to 132. My right hon. Friend and colleague in the representation of Dublin University drew attention yesterday to the fact that, according to an Answer given by the right hon. Gentleman himself on 15th December last, up to that time there were 193 cases, whereas, according to the figures furnished since the House met, the number is only 132. No reason has been given for the discrepancy, and I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would give the figures now. The point is of some importance, because 192 cases of firing at the person and into houses is a matter of extreme gravity in Ireland, and I shall refer to it presently in relation to the question of the repeal of the Peace Preservation Act.
    The right hon. Gentleman spent a considerable amount of time yesterday in reading a Report which he had recently obtained from the police, and I must say that to anybody interested in the peace of Ireland it was most dismal reading. The right hon. Gentleman put in the forefront of the Report the favourable accounts of districts of which we have made no complaint whatever; but when he read the accounts of Clare, Galway, and other disturbed districts I thought how little the Report revealed of the reality of the condition of affairs. When you gloss over in mild and soft accents such phrases as "a considerable amount of intimidation and boycotting," "intimidation rife," "intimidation very prevalent," "no overt acts of intimidation"——
    (Mr. Cherry)What about prosecutions?
    Sir E. CARSON: I was not talking about prosecutions. I wish the right hon. Gentleman would think more about prosecutions when in Ireland. The phrase "no overt acts of intimidation" is far more eloquent to anybody who knows the facts, and to the gentleman who drew up that Report, than any statistics of the acts which can be detected and are available for inclusion in the figures presented to the House. I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman read that Report. Was he suggesting that it was a satisfactory state of affairs or that it was a deplorable state of affairs? Was he making any suggestion at all?
    Anybody who listened to that Report, after it had passed over the counties in a peaceful condition, must have come to the conclusion that every word we have been saying in England during the last two or three months in relation to the condition of portions of Ireland was absolutely justified. I am not going into these various figures in detail. The worst of it all is that the figures are a very slight index to the real state of crime in the various counties of Ireland. The figures are really only the statistics of those who, because they have refused to surrender their liberty, have had issued against them the terrible edict of the National League, which runs supreme in the various districts from which these people come.
    The hon. and learned Member for Waterford gave the House a great deal of information last night about crime in England. No doubt there is crime in England. Nobody doubts it. But what is the whole difference between crime in England and
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    crime in Ireland? It is that in Ireland crime is organised for the purpose of stamping out liberty, whereas in England it is sporadic, the work of individuals, sometimes out of malice, sometimes due to poverty, and various other causes.
    In Ireland crime is organised for the set purpose of making anybody who is unwilling to do so bend the knee to those who set themselves up as being the real governors in portions of the country. A great deal has been said about the decrease in the number of murders in Ireland. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will think I am sincere at least in saying that I am devoutly glad that that phase of crime has to a large extent passed away. But why has it passed away? A gentleman named Denis Johnson, who, I understand, is a paid organiser of the League, speaking in Ireland last year, said:—
    "These graver crimes and graver outrages are now entirely unnecessary; we can effect all our objects by the more simple methods of boycotting and intimidation."
    While I rejoice, as everybody must, at the decrease of such serious crime as murder in Ireland, I am sorry to think that one of the reasons for that decrease is that the liberty of the subject has been so trampled upon by the success of the methods which are allowed to go unpunished that that serious crime has become unnecessary to secure the object in view.
    I said just now that these figures are but a slight index to the real situation in various parts of Ireland. I read the Irish papers with considerable assiduity, and almost every day I read of people being summoned before the Land League Courts and fined by the decrees of the Land League. Where will you find those in the Reports? Nowhere. These are ordinary legitimate acts in Ireland. I read of persons who have attended before the League, and, at its dictation and through terror, have surrendered their farms. Can the right hon. Gentleman give me any statistics as to those people? Of course he cannot. Is not that as grave an invasion of the liberty of the subject as any outrage that is included in these Returns? Every day I read in the Irish papers of people who have left their employment and gone into a state of penury and want in consequence of the dictation of the League.
    Under what head will you find that?
    I read a case the other day in Ireland which really showed to what a pass the liberties and the property of the people had come. A gentleman had a farm on which there was a cattle-drive. The police

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    prosecuted a certain number of men for driving cattle over this man's farm. There was an adjournment of the case, and when it came up again after the adjournment what happened? It was announced in Court that terms had been arranged, and what were the terms? The terms were that these men were no longer to injure this gentleman on the condition that he surrendered his farm. The magistrates congratulated the parties all round upon the triumph of law and order. That was not a triumph of law and order. It was a peace which was a triumph of terrorism. That is not an exceptional case. It is a case of everyday occurrence in Ireland, and these are matters which you will find in no Blue Book, in no White Paper, and to which no answer can be given by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. Nobody knows better than the Chief Secretary the real condition of things.
    Nobody knows better than the Chief Secretary the hopelessness of his own position with regard to the government of Ireland. Of course, he is bound to make a defence as best he can, and I will say this much, that I think yesterday he gave the House the idea that he took a grave view of the condition of affairs in Ireland. What is the kind of defence—I will not call it a defence, but rather his mitigation? The first point he made was that he had made a comparison between 1886 and 1908—an interval of 22 years. What on earth was that comparison made for? Surely the time for which the right hon. Gentleman is responsible is the time in which his own Government has held office. Does he mean to suggest that we must wait until we go back to the same state of things as existed in 1886 before he puts such powers in force as are necessary to grapple with the situation? Otherwise I do not know how these figures were quoted at all. All I can say is that, if we are to wait year after year for things to get worse, and until we get back to that situation, the condition of Ireland is even more hopeless than before this Debate took place.
    In one part of his speech he seemed to suggest that before he could come down and claim such exceptional powers he should have to be able to come down and point to a condition of affairs such as existed in 1886. Why? If you have a disturbed condition of Ireland with which you are unable to grapple, what does it matter whether your statistics agree with one period or another? It is certainly
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    very little consolation to a man living in a disturbed part and surrounded by crime, outrage, and intimidation to be told, "You are not nearly so badly off as somebody else was in another part of Ireland in 1886. You should be perfectly well satisfied, and, until I get the country into such a condition that I can go to the House of Commons and say 'I have exactly the same condition of affairs as existed in 1886, it is really impossible for me to do anything to protect you or your property.'"
    Mr. BIRRELL: There must surely be some relation to the state of crime in the country and the suspension of the ordinary law.
    Sir E. CARSONI will ask the right hon. Gentleman a question about that in a moment. I believe so. But what is the necessity of going back to 1886? That is my point. The right hon. Gentleman says that it is only portions of Ireland that are disturbed now. That is perfectly true, but let him see what additional strength that argument gives to those statistics which are confined to a limited area, and which do not apply to the whole or the greater part of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman says that there must be some relative condition. I do not think he really sets up the condition of 1886 as a condition which would entitle him to come and demand the Crimes Act. I will tell you why. Even with that condition he would not have the Crimes Act. He was one of its opponents.
    I am still further at a loss to understand what is the relation to this question of 1886 at all. I would remind him that the Crimes Act was passed not merely for the putting down of a temporary state of affairs, but in order, when it had put it down, to prevent its recurrence. The Crimes Act was in operation from 1886 to 1891, and it was stated at the end of that period that there was no serious crime in Ireland. But surely the duty of anyone administering the law is not to go back to the condition which existed in 1886 as a plea for not using powers now to bring about a satisfactory state of affairs.
    The right hon. Gentleman has been over and over again attacked for not putting the Crimes Act in force. I myself do not think it is worth while pursuing that matter, I may say in passing that I might find it difficult to see, having regard to the right hon. Gentleman's own mind and view, why he is so enamoured of the Statute of Edward III. and so much afraid of making any use of the Statute of Queen

    749
    Victoria. The Statute of Edward III. is a wonderful Statute. In the first place, what does the right hon. Gentleman do? He brings up his delinquents before one resident magistrate. Does he prefer that to bringing them up before two under the Crimes Act? He brings them up under a procedure under which there is no appeal. Does he prefer that system to the system under the Crimes Act, by which they would have an appeal to the County Court?
    But, in addition to that, he brings them up under the Statute of Edward III. under which no prisoner is allowed to give any evidence for the defence. He prefers that to the system under which they would be allowed fully to state their case. All I say in passing, is that I do not quite understand the frame of mind of the right hon. Gentleman, who says that there is no hardship, no tyranny, nothing to complain of in the Statute of Edward III. with these disadvantages to the man accused, and refuses absolutely to take any proceedings under the Crimes Act, or, as he chooses to call it, the Coercion Act.
    I quite understand that the right hon. Gentleman never can or never will use the Crimes Act, I think it is quite vain to keep rubbing the Crimes Act into the right hon. Gentleman. He dare not use it. How could he? He has said over and over again that he would never use it. His whole party said at the time that the Act was going through that they never would be party to any proceedings under it. They themselves have voted for the repeal of it. It is only to be expected that the right hon. Gentleman should say that he never can and never will use it to deal with the condition of crime in Ireland. Nor can the party opposite do it, having regard to all that they said, and having regard to the alliance they have entered into. That is perfectly true; but look at the position in which we are placed with that being the fact. I venture to think that no such unconstitutional doctrine has ever been laid down as has been laid down by the right hon. Gentleman and the Government, namely, that they have the power, because for political reasons and owing to political exigencies they denounced a particular Act of Parliament passed by Parliament, if they like to suspend that Act. The right hon. Gentleman said yesterday that the Act was in a sense a political Act. It required an Executive Act to put it in force.
    The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that one of the sections of the Act is part of the ordinary and general law of the land. Perhaps he also knows
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    that that section was made part of the ordinary law at the instance of a Nationalist Member. Why does the right hon. Gentleman suspend that part of the Act? Where is the Executive act in the matter? It is exactly the same as any other Act of Parliament, and I say again that nothing more serious could have arisen, particularly in these democratic days, than that any Minister entrusted with the administration of the law, either in Ireland or any other country, should take upon himself the responsibility, or assume to himself the power and authority, of refusing to enforce an Act of Parliament which the Houses of Parliament and the Estates of the realm have passed into law. All I can say is that it is a strange democratic principle that, in the interests of the subject, any Minister holding a high official office should be able to set at nought an Act of Parliament solemnly passed by Parliament.
    Having exonerated the right hon. Gentleman from using the Crimes Act, and, having regard to the peculiar position in which himself and his Government have placed themselves, and, having regard to the present position of affairs in Ireland, I will put to the Attorney-General this question. Does he consider the law adequate or inadequate to deal with the present situation? Is it adequate? Is the law adequate to deal with the present situation?—a situation admitted to be deplorable. Yes or no? Is it adequate? The country, according to the right hon. Gentleman's own view, was, when the present Government came into office, quieter than it had been for 600 years. Yet, in two years a situation has been produced the gravity of which can hardly be exaggerated. On the other hand, if it is inadequate, is it consistent with the duty of any Member who is accountable to this House for the elementary preservation of law and order in Ireland—is it consistent with his duty for the purpose of upholding what he is pleased to call Liberal traditions to acquiesce in the inadequacy of the law?
    What is the situation? I ask this simple question. How long is this state of affairs going to continue? I ask the Government, is there any time limit for it—for they are fond of time limits? Is there any date which they can give on which we may have some hope that at some time we may expect to see an improvement in the condition of Ireland? We can fix no time. We have to pronounce to the people of Ireland and the people of

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    this country that while the deplorable condition of affairs is admitted to exist in Ireland the Government can hold out no hope that it will end so long as they are in power.
    If I am not wearying the House, I should like to say a few words about the non-renewal of the Peace Preservation Act, because to my mind it is one of the most serious acts done by the Government. I ask the right hon. Gentleman this question—does he say there is no connection between the refusal to renew the Act and the increase of outrages by firearms? It is a very simple question. If not, how does he account for the increase of outrages by the use of firearms? The Noble Earl who moved this Amendment put a very pertinent question, which has remained unanswered, and that was, were the police, who are entrusted with the maintenance of order in Ireland, consulted, and was it by their advice that this Act was allowed to drop? That question was put yesterday and not answered by His Majesty's Government.
    We challenge an answer. If the police were not consulted, and if this Act was not dropped by their advice, is not the conclusion inevitable that this disastrous course was adopted to satisfy political exigencies? The right hon. Gentleman admits that revolvers are not employed in Ireland in the same way as they are in England and that in Ireland they are employed for the purpose of intimidation. Having told us all this, and having deplored the increase in the importation of arms, the right hon. Gentleman expresses the hope that the practice of carrying arms will be put down. By whom? He himself proposes to do nothing. I think if the right hon. Gentleman proposes to do nothing in relation to this question of carrying arms he is taking upon himself a terrible responsibility.
    It is quite true he said, "You cannot have coercion without paying for it." Yes, Sir, but the unfortunate thing is, if you refuse to pay yourself, other persons have to pay for it. May I ask again, in relation to arms, as I asked in other matters, the simple question—What is the right hon. Gentleman going to do? Mr. Speaker, the right hon. Gentleman said that one of his difficulties in Ireland was that he found it difficult to procure evidence. I know as well as anybody what that is, for at one time I was in charge of what hon. Gentlemen opposite are pleased to call the Coercion Act. The only way in which the right hon. Gentleman will ever get evidence is by
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    causing the people to believe that you are in earnest in the enforcement of the law.
    Mr. MACNEILL: How did you get Pigott?
    Sir E. CARSON: The hon. Gentleman is always the best behaved of the Irish party. Does the right hon. Gentleman never ask himself, with this abhorrence in Ireland at these outrages—which are growing day by day—whether the reason is that people are afraid to give evidence? I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman has ever read the protest made by the boycotted Protestants of Sligo when they were summoned to give evidence? After detailing their sufferings, the solicitor who represented them said:—
    "This state of things has existed for months, and has been, and is well known to them, but nothing, not one little thing has been done by them. No real attempt has been made to protect the Protestants, or to allow them the ordinary liberty of action to which a subject of the King is entitled. In fact, the Government considered it a trivial matter until blood was shed. Now that life has been taken, the Government draws these unfortunate Protestants into the arena, after refusing for six long horrible months, or at any rate, neglecting, to give them the protection and assistance to which they are, as loyal subjects, entitled. My clients protest against this conduct, and each man and woman knows that after he or she gives evidence here they will be marked; after having been made use of by the Government they will be discarded."
    Sir F. CANNINGWhat date is that?
    Sir E. CARSON: The 11th of November, 1908
    Mr. J. MACVEAGH: The name of the solicitor?
    Sir E. CARSONI can give the name of the solicitor; but I merely read this as an illustration of the belief in the minds of these people that they were not to be protected if they gave evidence, and if not protected they will not give evidence.
    (Mr. Cherry): Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not aware that all these people did give evidence.
    Sir E. CARSON: I am aware of it. What they said was: "Of course, if the Government compel us to give evidence, we will do so," and of course they gave evidence, and it was not contradicted, and the magistrates refused to send the defendants for trial. After all, it comes back to this, that the right hon. Gentleman is really unable to enforce the law, and he falls back upon this—he says, "if I am not able to enforce the law, I can give people police protection." There are 335 people at the present moment in these limited districts under police protection. Does he really hold that a man under police protection is leading the life of any ordinary citizen or a life which he ought to lead?

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    He said Mr. Clarke has and will have constant police protection. Does he know how Mr. Clarke lives? Against Mr. Clarke nobody can say one word in relation to his tenants or labourers or anybody else. He was asked to sell his lands to his tenants, and he sold them, and I am afraid that he will be a very long time before he is paid for them. Because he kept his demesne and home farm he committed an egregious crime. What is the life he leads? He has a police barracks on his demesne—an interesting object no doubt, but not a very pleasant one. In his gamekeeper's cottage there are 15 policemen, not for the purpose of protecting the game, but for the purpose of protecting him. He is the game. His butler's house has seven policemen in it. When he goes to Thurles or Cashel, the county towns, for the purpose of giving evidence on the summons of the Crown in these cases in which he is attacked, he is accompanied by police upon his motor-car, and when he enters the town a force of constabulary lines the streets, so that he may be able to walk in safety to the courthouse. What has Mr. Clarke done? He has 127 men in his employment at the present time—
    Mr. CULLINAN: No, no. Read the answer of the Chief Secretary.
    Sir E. CARSON: He has 127 men in his employment, and these 127 men are boycotted. I take that case, and I ask what do you propose to do for Mr. Clarke and gentlemen in his position. The right hon. Gentleman unfortunately can only tell us he proposes to continue the same state of affairs, and to give him a sufficient amount of police for the purpose of guarding him. We are accused of exaggeration. I am accused, because I said I did not believe in any civilised country any similar state of affairs existed, or would be allowed to exist. I repeat it here, and I say that I, at all events, know no country in which a similar state of affairs exists. Then we are to have no additional enforcing of the law; no additional powers applied for. Things are not bad enough to move in that direction. What, then, is the alternative? I could understand the right hon. Gentleman saying the alternative is, as the hon. and learned Member for Waterford suggested last night, the alternative of the Liberal Government is at once to bring in a Home Rule Bill, and to put the whole responsibility upon the Irish people. That is not your policy.
    You have undertaken not to bring in a Home Rule Bill, at all events, during the present Parliament, and as far as I can
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    understand it is likely to be an issue removed, as far as possible, from the next General Election. Is it Devolution? You told us that you had a mandate to bring in a Devolution Bill. It was kicked out, not by the House of Lords, but by the Irish Convention—a much greater body as regards the present Government. Is it by your Land Bill policy that you hope to make these things better? So far as I can see, and so far as I have been able to follow the land policy you are proposing, if it is to be the same as last year—and I think I have the concurrence of some hon. Members below the Gangway—your land policy is going absolutely to stop the very purchase which was the object, and the successful object, of the Act of 1903.
    What is left? I should have thought that, at all events, if you were going to pursue the same policy as you have been pursuing, with such disastrous results in Ireland, of leaving matters to drift until they have come to the unfortunate position they are in at present, you would have summoned up your courage to say, as an alternative, that "we must at least see whether the Land Question cannot be hastened on, and the wishes and desires of those, on both sides, who want to see that question settled at last carried out." While you are playing with crime in Ireland, while you are palliating outrage, and while you are allowing this deplorable condition to increase from day to day, I can see no hope of any immediate accomplishment, of any real carrying out the sales and purchases, which have been entered into at the present moment in Ireland.
    Therefore, as far as I can see, the whole situation under the present Government S an impossible one. You are not prepared to follow out, to its logical conclusion, your Home Rule theory, you are not prepared to take your courage in your hands and ask the electors what they think of your Home Rule theory, and that the same time, as you are putting into the background your Home Rule policy, you are pretending, and it is nothing but a pretence, to govern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. I say that any Government which wavers between these policies of Home Rule and Unionism—
    Mr. MACNEILL: Hear, hear.
    Sir E. CARSON: Yes, I have said that very often before. I say that any Government that wavers between Home Rule and Unionism is doomed to failure. I say

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    if you are not prepared, if the people of this country are not prepared, as I hope they are not, to grant Home Rule to Ireland, I say it is your duty so long as the Union lasts between these two countries, and so long as you are accountable and this Parliament and Government are accountable, for the Government of Ireland to take care that every citizen of the King enjoys civil and religious liberty.
    Mr. DILLON: Up to this moment we have not heard, as I think we were entitled to hear, some explanation from the Opposition benches as to the cause for the postponement of the moving of this Amendment. The tone of the speech to which we have just listened was most moderate, and I must say it was one of the most remarkable speeches I have ever heard delivered from these benches. It was very different in tone from the speeches delivered on platforms by the right hon. Gentleman and by his colleagues. In those speeches for the last six months, as we heard from the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, the condition of Ireland was represented to be that of a community sinking rapidly into chaos. The law was suspended in three provinces, the King's Courts were almost paralised, and the King's writ did not run, and to use the very language repeated on a dozen platforms, the only Courts in these three provinces of Ireland were the Courts of the United Irish League, and we were told that Parliament would not be sitting for twenty-four hours until this Government would be indicted and placed upon its trial for the infamies of its rule in Ireland.
    I say if there had been one word of truth, or anything approaching to the truth, in the statements made upon these platforms, this Parliament ought not to have been allowed to sit for 24 hours without calling the Minister responsible to account for his conduct. Even after Parliament assembled we were led to believe the very first work of the Opposition would be to indict the Government. But suddenly a change came over the spirit of the dream, and this great Amendment, which had been heralded with such fireworks in the country, was put in the background, and another Amendment was brought forward, and was moved from the Front Opposition Bench, and the question of the State of Ireland was postponed.
    That other Amendment raised the question of Tariff Reform, but it raised it in
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    a new shape. For the first time the word Ireland was inserted, and I say deliberately, and I charge those gentlement with it, that this manœuvre was for the purpose of ascertaining where we stood on Tariff Reform.
    Mr. BALFOUR: Quite untrue!
    Mr. DILLON: No explanation has yet been given why these repeated declarations of the Unionist Party that the first work of the Opposition would be to indict the Government upon their Irish policy was departed from. The right hon. Gentleman may say "Quite untrue," but we all know enough of this House to know that there was a struggle over the question, and that the Opposition were not unanimous upon their policy, and I say that the postponement of the Irish Debate and the insertion of the word "Ireland" for the first time in the Tariff Reform revolution indicated a purpose to ascertain where the Irish Party stood on Tariff Reform before the Government were assailed upon their Irish policy. The whole of this Irish Debate, after that manœuvre, is a sham and a Political farce. It is nothing more nor less than a dishonest attempt to do what has often been done before by British Parties, to construct out of the difficulties and troubles of Ireland a platform for a British Party to mount into power.
    I think hon. Members will all have noticed the chastened and comparatively modest language in which this subject is dealt with by Unionist representatives in this House, as compared with the orators on platforms. I have taken part in every debate in the House on the state of Ireland for the last twenty-five years, and I venture to say anything more dead, hollow, unreal, and feeble than the present debate I have never heard. Yet on the platform for the last six months the condition of Ireland was represented to be the worst that was ever known, and I say when it is brought to the test in this House no case whatever has been made for this motion. But if anything were wanted to give away absolutely the whole case of the Opposition, it was the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to which we have listened. What does he say? He said he knew, and the Opposition knew, that no Liberal Government could put the Crimes Act in force. Then what is the purpose of this whole debate.
    You cannot turn out the Government and you are calling upon the Government to put the Crimes Act in force although the right hon. Gentleman admits he

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    knows perfectly well they cannot do it. He again and again asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland why he went back to 1887. It is quite plain why he went back to 1887. He went back to 1887 because in that year, when the then Government were making out a case for the Crimes Act, there was by their own admission more than double the number of outrages in Ireland than there are to-day, besides being of an infinitely more serious character. There were eight times as many murders. Yet the whole of the Liberal party resisted the Crimes Act, and how can the Liberal party, with that record, come forward now and say they claim those powers which they resisted and opposed twenty years ago?
    "Oh, but," says the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College, "it is unconstitutional! How dare they suspend the ordinary law of the land!" It is not the ordinary law of the land. It is a law forced upon this House by fraud and perjury, and by a great conspiracy between "The Times" newspaper and the Prime Minister of that day, and it is a law which lays down that it can be enforced or not, according to the will of the Executive Government. That is the essence of that law, and the right hon. Gentleman forgets when he uses this argument that the Peace Preservation Act has been repealed by this House by an overwhelming majority, and, inasmuch as the Executive Government of this country is responsible to this House, and not to the House of Lords or to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I say the Government are going in strict accordance with the Constitution when they declare their inability to put it into motion. It would be an outrageous violation of the spirit of the constitution if after repeated votes in the House of Commons in favour of repealing that law, the Government were to use it. Of course everybody knows that it would have been wiped out of the Statute Book years ago only for the House of Lords.
    There is one thing I think we are entitled to know about which up to the present we have had no information. What is the whole policy for Ireland of the Unionist party? At all events, we are entitled to ask, and, I think, to learn, what is the policy for Ireland of the Confederates, who are the only section of the Unionist party which really counts. [An HON. MEMBER "Who are they?"] They are the power who control the Unionist party, and we have been led in Ireland by many publications during the autumn
    758
    to believe that the Confederates have a policy for Ireland very different from that which is now advocated in this Motion. This Motion raises a far wider issue in reality than the mover contemplated. It raises the whole question of how law and order is to be maintained in Ireland, and the question of how law and order can be maintained in any country raises the whole question of the Government of the country. Anyone, as has been frequently said, can govern in a state of siege, and law and order is maintained in a fashion in Russia, but, as I say, when you are considering a question of this kind, and an indictment such as has been made against the Irish Government to-night, it raises the whole question in its broadest sense of the Government of the country, and the principles upon which the Government of Ireland is to be carried on in the future is brought forward by this discussion. We have even in this somewhat stupid Debate heard lurid and most absurd exaggerations—grotesque exaggerations of the condition of Ireland. Government, we are told, has ceased to exist in that country; chaos, anarchy reign supreme in three great provinces, but this is the most extraordinary thing in the course of that indictment, and it was repeated by the right hon. Gentleman, that where there is no crime there it is the worst of all.
    Really it is impossible to please these Gentlemen. Hit high, or hit low, it is impossible to please them. If you have crime and disorder you must have coercion, but if there is no crime it is worse, because that proves that crime is unnecessary, and it proves that the condition of the country is much worse. Here is the language used by the hon. and learned Member for the University of Cambridge, who is a past-master of language. He said:—
    "The eye of the League follows its victims from the house to the market and fair. It dogs the children to school. It marks them down and hunts them out of it, the whole system is malignant, ubiquitous, penetrating, piercing."
    He has a great gift of language has the hon. Member for Cambridge and he lavishes it in his speeches, and that is a description which you are called upon to accept as applying to the condition of Ireland. We are told that that is the position of the greater part of the country under a system of tyranny described in that language which would be the most hideous that could prevail anywhere. I doubt whether it has ever prevailed in any country and I deny that it actually exists in Ireland to-day.

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    On the other hand, the hon. Member for Cork City, who is quoted as an authority has declared that there is not a single branch of the League alive to-day, and the "Times" newspaper the week before last said—
    "There is abundant evidence accumulating day by day that Mr. John Redmond and his colleagues are rapidly losing all control over the Irish people."
    You cannot have it both ways. According to the hon. Member for Cambridge and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin we have such control that we can pursue every human being in all the affairs of his life and exercise over him while we are in London a tyranny unequalled in the annals of mankind, and yet the "Times," when it suits its pur pose and it wants to look at the matter from another point of view, says there is this abundant evidence accumulating day by day, that we are losing all control over the Irish people. As I say, you cannot have it both ways, and you must elect to stand upon one leg or the other.
    Then there is another aspect of this picture which has been drawn of the state of Ireland. It is a very peculiar and interesting one, and has not been alluded to. Surely from these declarations one would conclude that if the country was in this great disorder there must be some corresponding decay in its great industries. Would not that be the natural inference?
    But what are the facts? Why, you find according to the statistics published by the Board of Agriculture there is a most marked recovery in all the industries of Ireland, and, above all, in those industries which are practised most in the disturbed districts. The small peasant industries are all without exception improving. There has been for the first time in the history of Ireland some sign that we are turning the corner, and the process of decay is being arrested. But observe the extraordinary deduction which necessarily follows from that state of things. Have chaos in the country, abolish the law, play havoc, and let slip the dogs of war, and trade will improve. Restore law and order and decay recommences in the country. What an evil lesson to teach Ireland. Then they talk about the cattle trade, and say the cattle trade was destroyed.
    Even the Prime Minister himself, in the fulness of his knowledge about Ireland, in a speech at Aberdeen declared that great and serious mischief had been done to the cattle trade in Irleand by these cattle drives. I must differ from him, and chal-
    760
    lenge contradiction when I say—I deal a little myself in the cattle fairs in Ireland in a small way—that there never has been a better year for the cattle trade of Ireland than the present year. We were told that the poor small farmer of the West Riding will be the first to suffer. These Gentlemen above the Gangway are always dropping tears—I do not like to be offensive, but I sometimes think that they may be described as crocodile tears—for the sufferings of the small farmer in the West; they do not champion the richer landlord. The small farmer was to be destroyed, and all the cattle fairs which his small stock went to were to be destroyed, so that he would not be able to sell his cattle.
    At the Western fairs during the last four months there has not been a beast to be got after ten o'clock, and we have never known of such prices and of such a sweep. What is the argument if I were inclined to argue with as much logic as has been shown above the Gangway? The argument is, turn the country upside down, abolish English law, and let chaos prevail, and immediately the country begins to flourish. You have been maintaining law and order in Ireland for a hundred years, and what is the result of your hundred Coercion Acts? You have diminished our population and destroyed all their industries, and if this is the result of chaos, I prefer chaos to the prosperity of your administration of law and order.
    So much for the result of this terrible state of things, and so much for the effect of cattle-driving on the cattle trade. I have pointed out over and over again that all this interesting nonsense is absurd to anyone who understands Ireland. I think there are certain grass lands which ought not to be cut up into small farms because they are too heavy; but if the greater part of this grass land were broken up and cultivated by small farmers the result would have been immeasurably to increase the wealth of Ireland, and it is impossible to tell me that when you increase the wealth of Ireland you are injuring the cattle trade. But if you do injure the cattle trade, is that any reason why the population should not be on the land?
    I have heard a great deal to-night and last night about the crime of cattle-driving. I listened to the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge, an Irishman, who is a study of unending interest to me, a man who reminds me of the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde more than any man I have ever known. When he is in a better mood, as on the question of educa-

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    tion, we find him a brother Irishman whom we can love and with whom we can work. He has his deepest heart open to the sympathies of his countrymen, and, in any case, of his genius we are proud. But when this unhappy question arises he becomes pale and haggard and full of pain. That comes down from ancient ancestry, and he then goes for Ireland with a fury which is really absolutely incomprehensible to those who have the honour of his acquaintance in private life. What did he say last night speaking of boycotting and cattle-driving? He said he could never understand, and what filled him with horror and amazement was this system of Irishmen persecuting each other.
    Did he ever hear of peasant-driving? Did he ever hear of the great clearances in Ireland when whole villages and hundreds of human beings were hunted out on the roadside in misery and ruin without one shadow or shred of excuse. I wonder where was his indignation and horror and surprise at those things that happened in his boyhood and in mine. He seems to have forgotten it, he seems to have bottled up all his indignation and his horror. But when cattle are driven then his indignation and horror rise to boiling point and he pours it out. Cattle-driving is a very rough thing, it is a method of expressing public indignation with which I can quite understand the House does not sympathise, but let me say this, and draw attention to the remarkable figures given by the Chief Secretary when he said that in all these cases of driving there were only three cases of men hurting the cattle. All this talk about men hurting the cattle is gross calumny and exaggeration. In my own knowledge there is more cruelty in one week in driving cattle through the streets of Dublin and shipping them to England for English food than there has been during the whole of this cattle-driving; that is a matter of fact. What mockery and hypocrisy it is for hon. Gentlemen to get up and talk about cattle-driving. I would pay more heed to their talk about the cattle-driving if they had a word to say about the people who were driven off the land. One would suppose that Ireland had no history, that these people are simply driving cattle because they want to grab other people's land and to take other people's property That is the view that is put forward on these benches.
    But whose property is that land, if law and justice prevailed in Ireland? The property of the poor people who tilled it for
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    centuries until the clearances of 1850 and 1867, when thousands of them were done to death by the most infamous system of oppression that ever prevailed. And the men who to-day are driving the cattle off these lands are the children, and very often, in the case of old men, the very men whose homes stood upon these lands over which bullocks now roam. To tell me that this is parallel or to be compared with ordinary robbery is an outrageous libel upon our people. These men who engage in these cattle-drives are often honest, decent, and respectable men, who never had any record against them. He may condemn their action, but he cannot deny it, because his own police know it well. They engage in these cattle drives, to my own knowledge, very often without having any desire to get part of the land. Some do, but many do not; and they engage in them because the grazing system has become an abomination in Ireland, and in spite of 20 Coercion Acts we will crush it and drive it out of the country.
    As I say, this whole subject is argued as if Ireland had no history, as if there was not beneath the surface of Irish society a burning sea of lava of national hate, molten with the feeling of 100 years of wrong, and ready to burst out on any possible occasion and to make havoc.
    When you talk of cattle-driving, have you forgotten the words of Swift, that great Irishman, written 170 years ago, who said: "Don Quixote was looked upon as mad when he mistook a flock of sheep for his enemies, but the people of Ireland will never be sane until they make the same mistake." Cattle-driving was going on in Ireland on an infinitely greater scale and on a far more cruel scale than now, for in those days they drove tens of thousands of bullocks over the cliffs into the sea and killed them on the spot. One difficulty that hon. Members above the Gangway labour under is the difficulty of explaining what has been proved beyond contradiction—the greater criminality of Great Britain over Ireland. That is an admitted fact in all the more beastly and serious forms of crime.
    The right hon. Gentlemen the Members for Cambridge University and Dublin University say the difference is that in England these acts are sporadic—the acts of individuals—while in Ireland they are organised. But we labour in Ireland under the great disability of having no criminal classes, and that, I suppose, is one of the reasons why we should be coerced. But that, I assume, is a privilege which requires

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    a higher civilisation than we possess. In time, perhaps, we may reach that stage of civilisation. But here comes in the great theory of the dupe. The theory is always adopted by hon. Members above the Gangway that you have a poor, ignorant body of peasantry, only anxious to be left alone to the tender care of their landlords and the law if the agitators would let them alone.
    We are the agitators, there is no mistake about that, and if we would let them alone and not make them our dupes they would be decent and orderly people. But by some extraordinary process which I could never understand we are able to dupe or mesmerise them, and make them drive cattle, commit outrages of all kinds, and do whatever we desire them to do without expressing our wishes. That is the theory, and we are supposed to devote our time to agitating, with occasional retirements to Kilmainham gaol and other fashionable hotels just as the weary statesmen here would retire to the Riviera or Monte Carlo.
    I notice with great interest that the late Under-Secretary for Ireland, Lord Mac-Donnell, delivered a speech in the House of Lords the other day on this theory, which was extremely significant. The reason, in his judgment, for the present state of things was this—
    ?The proceedings of the Royal Commission, under the Presidency of Lord Dudley, were protracted. This led the people in the West to entertain the belief that the relief of congestion was not a serious object of the Government, and, in order to bring the Government to what they considered a proper conception of its duty, advantage was taken by the agitators of the state of the Western districts, and the statistics relating to grass lands, which were in fact the only vulnerable point open to them. The agitation had been gotten up at the present time, and it was a question whether the Government was not blameworthy in not taking adequate steps to put an end to it. But if he were asked what was his opinion in regard to the agitators, he would say if the same circumstances were to occur again, he would give them a very short shrift."
    I suppose on Indian principles. I remember the day when Lord MacDonnell was very glad to avail himself of the assistance of the agitators to protect himself against the Gentlemen above the Gangway, who, although he was an officer of their own Government, made charges against him and attacks upon him much worse than anything they are now making on the Chief Secretary. But now he says he is sorry he did not give the agitators short shrift. I daresay he is. I know the purpose for which he came to Ireland. It was to break up the Irish party, and he has failed in that purpose. He is now
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    sorry, I suppose, that he did not get some of us under lock and key.
    The question is raised—What are we going to do in the present condition of Ireland? In the whole course of the Debate, no speech aroused my interest more than that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College. I think it was a Home Rule speech. It was a most valuable speech, and with the concluding portion of it I most heartily agree. I think a Government which hesitates for long between the policy of trying to rule Ireland from London and giving it Home Rule is lost, because they are attempting an impossible task, and the warning of the right hon. Gentleman was absolutely true. He began by saying, turning to us, "you will never give us credit for honesty." We should be only too glad to give him credit for honesty, but how much credit do these Gentlemen give us for honesty—the agitators whom they are so anxious to get under lock and key. If we are met fairly we are always only too ready to meet our fellow-countrymen more than half-way. In fact, I think we sometimes go three-quarters or four-fifths of the way.
    He then proceeded to make an offer—one of the most remarkable I ever heard and a very significant one. I noticed an ominous silence behind him. There was not a single cheer, and I saw some hon. Members exchange uncomfortable glances. The offer was in these words: "I will undertake," he said, "on my own behalf, and, I think I can undertake on behalf of my colleagues, to say not one word more of the condition of Ireland if the Irish Members will go down to those districts and denounce outrage." I wish to make a reply to that. This is a very serious matter, because the tone of the right hon. Gentleman was entirely different from what I have been accustomed to. I say the Irish Members would be perfectly willing not only to go down and denounce outrage, but to put down outrage absolutely if this House will put us in the position to tell the people that their legitimate grievances will be remedied, and remedied in the near future. You have taught the people of Ireland by long experience that if they are quiet they get nothing. What is the use of telling us to go down and denounce outrage if we are not in a position to say: "Give up all this disturbance and disorder and your voice will be listened to in Parliament and your legitimate grievances redressed." Irish outrage is the inheritance of centuries of bad government.
    You have put into the hearts of these people that belief, and until you remove

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    it no amount of eloquence and denunciation will preserve peace in those districts. I recognise in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that very remarkable statement and the conclusion that the real truth of the case is that the way effectually to put down outrages in Ireland and to render it the most crimeless country in the whole world would be to throw upon the representatives of the Irish people the responsibility of governing them. Is not that mooted in the invitation of the right hon. Gentleman? I have heard men on this side of the House denouncing in the wildest language the idea that the Irish Secretary should lean on Nationalist Members to aid him in putting down outrage and in governing Ireland, and the moment you appeal to the representatives of the Irish people to aid you there is mooted the assumption that the voice and advice of the Irish representatives should be accepted in governing the country.
    Therefore I say I am entitled to claim that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was in reality a Home Rule speech.
    Let me deal with another aspect of the question which has not been touched upon at all. It has been assumed throughout the whole course of the Debate that the peaceable condition of Ireland which admittedly prevailed in 1906, when this Government came into office, was due to coercion. But nothing is so soon forgotten as realities, because they are completely beyond the memory of men, even of those who take part in them. What is the history of Ireland during the last eight years? From 1900 to 1902 there was a tremendous agitation in Ireland, a more widespread agitation than at present, and that was followed by coercion; and I recollect well the denunciations that used to come from those benches, from the Ulster Members, against the hon. Member for Dover and Lord MacDonnell—though he is now a great favourite of theirs—because they were not using the Coercion Act with sufficient vigour, and I have at home a dossier of speeches by the Member for Antrim and a number of these men denouncing their own Government of 1901 and 1902 because the Coercion Act was not used with sufficient vigour.
    The Coercion Act was tried and proved an absolute and utter failure, and the country was drifting rapidly from bad to worse, and combinations against rent and disorder of all kinds were spreading rapidly, as always happens in these circumstances. The clamour was incessant from Ulster Members for more and more coercion. How was the peaceful condition of 1906 pro-
    766
    duced? In the autumn of 1902, in the very height of the agitation, while the Coercion Act had produced no effect whatever, the hon. Member for Dover surrendered to the forces of disorder, abolished the Coercion Act, and appealed to conciliation, and he was denounced and hunted from office by the Ulster party because he had done so. And then, not because of the Coercion Act, but because, in the face of the forces of disorder, the hon. Member for Dover surrendered to them—I am using the language of the Tory Benches now—and appealed to conciliation, you had undeubtedly great peace settling over Ireland. That peace lasted until this Government came into office. It was not a peace that was bred by coercion, but it was bred and created by the promises which were made in the speeches of 1903 to the Irish people.
    What were those promises? They were that there would be complete relief given to the congests in the west, and that the great grass ranches would be broken up. What has been the genesis of the present disturbance in Ireland? It may be well, and I think it no betrayal of a secret, to tell you that the first day when Mr. Bryce took over the Secretaryship of Ireland in the spring of 1906 I went to him myself. I spent two hours with him, and I said: "In the name of God let us have a Land Bill immediately, because there is peace in Ireland now, and you never had such a chance of showing the Irish people that the Government will be just without disturbance; but if you postpone dealing with this question you will have a disturbance of a most serious character on account of the breakdown of the most important parts of the Act of 1903 and the other disappointments of these great promises about breaking up the grazing ranches." The Government took a different course under the guidance of Lord MacDonnell—the gentleman who is so sorry now that he has not us all under lock and key—and they introduced their Council Bill.
    Lord Dudley's Commission was appointed, and although we advised the appointment of it it was not our policy; it was only as an alternative to doing nothing. But they appointed the Dudley Commission and then did nothing. It sat for two years, and then the people got it into their heads—the fatal lesson that has been taught us in Ireland— "Once more we have had a promise in Ireland; it was made four years ago, and they have done nothing; we have waited and waited, and now they have appointed a Royal Commission, and it will

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    never report, and we will never get anything in Ireland." Then the agitation commenced again. That is the real history and origin of the present disturbance in Ireland. And anybody who studies Irish history will come to the conclusion that it was not a lesson as to the value of coercion in putting down disturbance, but the very reverse, and that it was a lesson as to the futility of coercion, and showed that the only remedy is to remove the grievance. Therefore I say that the remedy for all this trouble is to pass, and pass rapidly, a Land Bill which will convince the people that the Government are in earnest in their determination, and that this House is in earnest in its determination to redeem the promises which were made in 1903, and which have never been fulfilled.
    There is one aspect of the land question which is absolute proof of what I say. There was no branch of the land question about which there were bitterer feelings and more outrages than the question of the evicted tenants. The right hon. Gentleman has honourably redeemed his promise about the evicted tenants, and we do not hear of much trouble about that question now. It is rapidly being settled, and in about a year I think the whole of that bitter chapter will have been closed, because he did pass through the House two Acts which have given real power to reinstate the evicted tenants. I say that that is the only real remedy. Hon. Members who have supported the Amendment know that they are engaged in a farcical and unreal Debate. They say they know that this Government can never use the Crimes Act. Therefore that remedy is barred out of this discussion. They know that this Government cannot give Home Rule in this Parliament because they have pledged themselves against it. There is only one remedy—a temporary remedy I admit, but an effective remedy if undertaken boldly—and that is to pass a good Land Bill on the lines introduced by the right hon. Gentleman, which I might say here in passing—though I know it is out of order—will not stop land purchase; but, on the contrary, in my opinion will put land purchase on a sound and solid basis.
    In conclusion, I may say a word on the subject of boycotting. With the exception of the case of Mr. Clarke, we had almost no case at all cited in this discussion. In the old discussions we always had long lists of cases of hardship and cruel out-

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    rage. In the present discussion we have only had three cases mentioned, and one of those was the case of Mr. Clarke, with which I shall deal very briefly. But there was another case mentioned by the hon. Member for Cambridge of an old lady in the County Clare, who, he said, is boycotted because she will not give up her home. All I can say about that case is this, if the facts are as stated by the hon. Member for Cambridge, we are ready in the Dublin League to use the whole strength of our organisation to rescue that old lady. But we have never heard anything of the facts. Inasmuch as his statement of the facts in the Clarke case is absolutely misleading, I must make the qualification that if the statements of fact made by him in the Clare case can be substantiated, then the whole strength of our organisation will be used to crush that state of things.
    He stated that there was a campaign to compel people to give up their demesnes and home lands. That is absolutely false. Only one or two cases of the kind came before our Committee in Dublin during the last two years, and we stamped upon them at once. It is totally against our principles. And now I may say a few words about the Clarke case. Mr. Clarke is a gentleman who has a demesne. He has sold all his agricultural land, and it is said that thereupon the people out of pure greed, and for no other reason, come to him and say, "Though you have sold all your agricultural land, and are a large employer of labour, we also require you to give up your demesne." If that were true it would be a most infamous thing; and I say deliberately that all Mr. Clarke would have to do would be to acquaint us in Dublin with that, and we would dissove all the branches of the League concerned in such a transaction; and so far as our influence would go—I do not say that it is as great as is believed by some—it would be placed at his disposal.
    But it is not proved that the facts are as have been stated. As I am informed the facts are these—and I do not for a moment say that I am accurate in every particular; but both sides of the case must be heard, and let anybody who likes investigate. Mr. Clarke is a great employer of labour, and has sold his agricultural land. In connection with the sale of that land he holds still in his possession, outside his tenanted land which he has sold, about 1,700 acres of land. Of that I believe that about 200 is his demesne. The balance of it is mostly land—certainly about 1,200 acres of it—from which the people were evicted

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    about 50 years ago by his grandfather, the lands being swept clean.
    There were 1,550 acres of evicted land from which the people have been evicted within living memory; and there are still to be seen on that land, which he calls demesne land, the ruins of the houses from which the people were evicted. If that be so is not it manifest to anybody that that revolutionises the whole case? These local farmers claim that Mr. Clarke should give up, of that 1,700 acres of land, 400 acres, to be divided among the neighbouring farmers, selling it through the Estates Commissioners. That would leave in his own possession over 1,200 acres of land, including his whole demesne, which nobody ever proposed to take from him. In the immediate neighbourhood of that estate there are two other Tipperary estates, on both of which similar clearances were made. One of these is the estate of Mr. Carden—Woodcock Carden—one of the most infamous men who ever lived in Ireland, who destroyed the homes of 80 families, whose rent was paid up to the day they were evicted, and who turned a vast tract of land to the north of Templemore into a grazing ranch.
    That land under the Bill has been bought and distributed among the people. Is it any wonder—human nature being what it is—that that excited the feelings of the people on the Clarke estate? They say to themselves, "inasmuch as a great act of restitution has been done on the Carden estate, why not on the Clarke estate also?" But they asked, as I understand only for 400 acres. A dispute went on for some time. Then the people found out the fact that Mr. Clarke was actually selling some of this land under a system which the Estates Commissioners consider to be an evasion of the Act, and which we all condemn as most injurious to the interests of the people. He was dividing his land into farms and was putting a rent on the farms and was then selling it by auction to neighbouring farmers, getting, owing to their land hunger, the greatest possible fines. And then he was telling them not to allow the Estates Commissioners to know that they had paid any fine for the land, and then they were to come in and buy the land from the Government.
    The infuriated people thought they were being swindled, when this land was being sold under this system, which I confess we are attacking and putting down by every means in our power and which I think is a most disgraceful system. That was the condition of affairs when the row com-
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    menced. There was what you call a "drumming party"—a lot of young fellows coming home from some entertainment, I suppose, pretty lively. They passed through a portion of Mr. Clarke's land and played a drum. They were summoned and taken to Cashel and tried. On the occasion of the trial at Cashel there was a series of baton charges by the police of a most scandalous kind without the slightest provocation, and many heads were broken and a great number of people were knocked down. This infuriated the people and I think it was when returning from these baton charges that they made the attack on Mr. Clarke's house and threw the stones. But previous to that a number of men had been sent to Cork for trial for one of these demonstrations against Mr. Clarke's house and they were convicted on Mr. Clarke's own evidence, and when the second batch came up for trial they pleaded guilty, and I remember Mr. Justice Johnson said from the bench that he understood a better feeling was prevailing in the district, and he would release them to come for sentence when called on, and that he hoped a still better state of feeling would continue to prevail.
    At the trial Clarke swore that he did not believe anyone of them ever meant to hurt a hair of his head. Observe the extraordinary charge which is now made against the right hon. Gentleman. He is charged with not having a sufficiently large police force, and a dreadful picture is drawn of the police. I am reminded when I hear all this talk about Mr. Clarke, and the gross exaggeration indulged in, of a certain case that occurred in this House only eight years ago, during the Boer War. May I remind the House what happened when I brought forward a case which occurred at Stratford-on-Avon, where a man had his house attacked and his furniture was thrown out into the street because he said he was a pro-Boer? At that time I appealed to the Leader of the Opposition, who was then Prime Minister, and asked him whether he was going to leave this man without any protection. What was the answer I got? The right hon. Gentleman's reply was to the effect that the occurrence was extremely regrettable, but there were limits to human patience. Mr. Clarke had his windows broken, and yet he swore that he did not believe that the mob meant to hurt a hair of his head.
    Nevertheless, there are over 100 police protecting Mr. Clarke, although in the Stratford-on-Avon case all the assistance the man got from the Leader of the Opposition was a hint to his persecutors that

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    there were limits to human patience. With regard to mobs, I myself, in company with one of the present Ministers for Cape Colony, was hunted by a mob through the streets of London, and my life was barely saved by the intervention of the police at the last moment. And why was I attacked in this way? Simply because I happened to be a pro-Boer. Then there is the case of Mr. Rowntree, who is one of the most respected men in this country. Within my own memory Mr. Rowntree had to fly out of his house and take refuge with his friends because the police of Scarborough and York declined to be responsible for his safety. In that case where was the indignation of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition? All this talk is really hypocritical nonsense, and all these tears over the wails of Irish landlords are shed purely for party purposes.
    I say deliberately that if the Chief Secretary is guilty of any crime at all in regard to this matter, he is guilty of sending too many police into these districts. If these gentlemen do wrong, then they ought to be taught the lesson that they ought to learn to live like good neighbours amongst their own people. If they were taught not to rely so much upon the police they would live happier lives.
    Hon. Members above the Gangway have drawn pitious pictures of the life of men under police protection. I think it is a very miserable life, but if the Irish landlords had long ago been taught that they were not going to be made a petted minority they would not have needed police protection, because it is well known that they live amongst some of the kindliest and most friendly people in the whole world, who are always the friends of any man who acts fairly towards them. I appeal to this House by its vote to-night to put the brand of its disapproval upon this abominable system of endeavouring to turn this House into a platform for libelling and slandering Ireland. And I ask hon. Members not to again commit the infamy of subjecting to the suspension of the Constitution and coercive law the most crimeless nation in the whole world.
    Mr. WILLIAM MOORE: I do not think anyone who has listened to the speech we have just heard can complain that it was subdued either in tone, temper, or taste. It certainly was not subdued so far as accuracy was concerned, because more wild, inaccurate, and rambling, statements upon questions of fact, which ought to be within the hon. Member's knowledge, and
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    experience, it has never been my lot to listen to. I have the honour of calling Mr. Clarke a friend of mine, and I have known him since I was three feet high. I have stayed in his house, and I say that what has been stated here about him is an absolute tissue of fabrications. I do not know who is responsible for the statements made by the hon. Member for East Mayo, who has, no doubt, been speaking from information supplied to him, but whoever put him in possession of the rigmarole he has given to the House about the Clarke estate has done a great injustice to Mr. Clarke and a great indignity to this House.
    Mr. CULLINAN: I have all the facts here, and I can give them to the hon. and learned Member. My hon. Friend's statement is quite accurate.
    Mr. MOORE: Only last night the Chief Secretary said that Mr. Clarke's case was one of two exceptionally bad ones. The hon. Member who spoke last took up the attitude which has been taken up by branches of the League in the constituency of the hon. Member who has just interrupted me. It is quite true that hon. Members below the Gangway are always declaring that they are the last persons in the world to touch a poor landlord's demesne or home farm; they always express their pious sympathy in this way, but how do they carry out their professions?
    They call a meeting of the League, and proceed to denounce the man, and they provide an excuse by saying that, although it may be a home farm or demesne now, everybody knows that it was in the tenant's hands some years ago. Then they proceed to abolish the restriction placed upon the land by a League resolution, and that at once leaves the demesne ready for attack. That has been done in repeated cases throughout the country, although the supporters of the League policy have constantly declared that they would never be so base, or such savages, as to take a home farm, or demesne, from one of these landlords. What has a person in Ireland, who is savagely boycotted, to do?
    The conception of the hon. Member for East Mayo as to the duty of a man who is boycotted amuses me. If you please, he has to appeal to the head centre of the National League in Dublin. That is where he has to get redress, and that is the only remedy suggested. I maintain that a man who is boycotted is entitled to the same protection from injustice as any other man. The man is told that he must appeal to the National League in Dublin, who will

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    deal out to him National League justice. The minority in Ireland have had experience of what is meant by National League justice, and very few, I think, will be found willing to trust themselves to the clemency or mercy of the Central Branch of the National League. It is the right of every boycotted person to obtain justice, if necessary, through the forces of the Crown who govern Ireland, who ought to protect all sections of the people and secure for every man his own individual rights. It is only because during the last two or three years the Crown has lacked its duty in this respect that this indictment has been brought forward at the opening of this Session.
    There is only one other matter I wish to refer to. I desire to disclaim the suggestion which has just been made by the hon. Member for East Mayo. I have spoken on many platforms since the House rose last August, and I have no desire to withdraw in any shape or form from anything I have said on those platforms, or from what I am going to say now. I have said on platform after platform what is the opinion of many men living in Ireland who are familiar with Irish history, and it is this, that when it comes to the fulfilment of the ordinary duties of the Government and securing equal right to every man and to every class of the community, whatever position they hold, this Government have deliberately neglected and refused to secure those rights for the people of Ireland.
    The Chief Secretary may be accustomed to that kind of thing, and, of course, it all depends upon what his conception of his duty is. According to my conception of the duty of the Chief Secretary, the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have miserably failed in that respect. When any Minister finds in existence a startling state of affairs, involving the whole welfare of a country, surely it is his duty to look for the motive. I have found that motive. My inference is the only one which can be drawn, and it is that the right hon. Gentleman is influenced by the political exigencies of the situation. I believe that it is the power and the political influence in this House of hon. Members below the Gangway and those who are supporting this agitation that induces the right hon. Gentleman to remain hand-bound and tongue-tied, no matter who is suffering. This is called, is said to be, political in its origin, this system of terrorism which exists in parts of Ireland. I have never said that it is general throughout Ireland.
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    I notice that the Member for Waterford, who assumes the right to speak for the whole of Ireland—frequently does that—though he certainly cannot for any county in Ulster, which returns a Unionist Member, counts the population of Ireland by head, and also the percentage of crime, forgetting that the bulk of the population is concentrated in counties with which the right hon. Gentleman has no connection. The Member for Cork, it was said the other day, has driven the United Irish League out of the county of Cork. There are six or eight Members in that part of the county who would repudiate the suicidal tactics of the Members for Mayo and Waterford. I really think when the latter really pretends to speak for the whole of Ireland he might at least limit his claim to the parts to which the Crimes Act would be limited, if in force, and to those parts of the country which he can really claim to represent.
    It is absurd to say there is no crime there, and that it would be an injustice to enforce the Crimes Act in these counties.
    The question is: How are you to deal with these particular disturbed areas? The whole of the exceptional crime which we are asking to be dealt with here is concentrated. Through the country, here and there, crime is concentrated, forming an exceptional and special condition. That is why we say that in the ordinary interests of good Government special legislation should be put into force.
    It is said, and that is the excuse made for it, that this crime is political in its source. Some Members who stated that seem to have that excuse for all crime. The Chief Secretary has again and again made that excuse. You mention crime of this sort. It is stated—it was stated by Lord Crewe and Lord Denman in the House of Lords—"Oh, it is a quite harmless sort of crime; it only arises out of the intense desire of the people to possess the land." But why, if it is a fact, and it arises from land hunger, should it be ignored, as the Government have and are ignoring it? I have said it is political. I think there will be little difficulty in tracing that. The hon. Member for Waterford made a remarkable speech.
    After the passing of the Evicted Tenants Bill in this House. He wanted to have things all his own way. He summed up the general situation. He was complaining of the rejection of some particular Amendment. He said that the House of Lords, representing the loyal

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    party, would not dare to deal with this Bill in the way it had done if there was a strong and menacing agitation afoot in Ireland at the present time. Then he passed on to say that if they wanted to get next Session the land legislation they so desired, and get the Land Act of 1903 amended, they would have to close up their ranks, make their movement sufficiently strong and menacing, and overcome both the Members of Parliament above the Gangway and the House of Lords.
    Then he went home to Ireland, and said he wanted a virile and active agitation set on foot throughout the country. During the Easter Recess he said that he had asked the country for a vigorous agitation, and that it was not vigorous enough. That was how the agitation was set on foot. The way it is carried out is by the developing of the organisation, and increasing the membership of the branches and forces of the United Irish League in every district. And you find the crime in proportion to the strength of the agitation, and the strength of the agitation in proportion to the strength of the branches of the United Irish League. Let me quote a speech made by the Attorney-General for Ireland, whom I understand will take part in this Debate. Speaking on March, 13th, 1907, on a similar question, he said:—
    "There were in Ireland, in 1906, 234 agrarian crimes."
    Then, dealing with police reports, he said:
    "Throughout Galway and the East Riding it was reported that there was no improvement in the condition of the Riding, which continued in a lawless and unsettled state, except in certain districts. Persons were under constant protection. The United Irish League was still a paramount power in the Riding. There were several cases of partial boycotting. Intimidation was very prevalent, and that was the only report that he could really say was unsatisfactory. On the whole he thought the position was satisfactory."
    The Attorney-General used the words "paramount power" in relation to the United Irish League, and this was the only unsatisfactory division of Ireland at that date. But this is no longer the exception. The agitation has got to Tipperary now. Lord MacDonell, with whom I on this occasion find myself in agreement, said that "it was very unfortunate that he did not make short shift of the gentlemen who began this virile and vigorous agitation." Let me quote the words of the Bishops of Ardagh, Elphin, Killaloe, and Raphoe, at the risk of being told that the devil car quote Scripture. The Bishop of Ardagh said:—
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    "I feel it my duty to call your particular attention to the sinfulness of boycotting that exists in a few parishes of this diocese. With the aims and objects of the societies that adopt this sort of punishment I am in sympathy. They wish to stop emigration and to make the people happy by a more equitable distribution of the land. That is all right and highly to be commended. But what are the means that are adopted to reach this end? Proscription, public denunciation and violence. These as instruments in the hands of private individuals are unlawful, prolific of evil, and quite opposed to the teaching of the Gospel. It is fortunate we have not had murders such as disgrace other parts of our country."
    Then Dr. Fogarty, in his Lenten pastoral
    "condemns the inhuman and un-Christian outrages which are perpetrated in one or two localities of the diocese. He especially referred to assaults on human life, firing into houses, terrifying defenceless women and children, and burning and destroying property, for which innocent people had to pay. These crimes were horrible, and when perpetrated in furtherance of private greed or malice were not only awful but alarming."
    Four Roman Catholics have found it their duty at this season to admonish their flocks against the methods of this vigorous and virile agitation. They are witnesses upon the spot.
    Let me quote from the inside. There was a period when Parnellites and anti-Parnellites persecuted each other, and this is the description given by the bon. Member for Clare, who took the chair at the National League on 22nd March, 1892, in Dublin. He said:—
    "They in Dublin were lucky to live in that City. where they could congregate in vast numbers, and where intimidation of a spiteful kind dare not be attempted against them. (Hear, hear.) The men in Cork, the men in Waterford—(applause)—the men in all cities, were all right, but throughout the length and breadth of the land, in little country districts where the people lived In an isolated condition, where they seldom saw any newspapers, where they seldom had public meetings to give them courage, to inspire them and teach them, there were thousands of men through Ireland, farmers, shopkeepers, and labourers, who, since the commencement of this struggle, had been suffering a life of hell because of the boycotting and persecution to which they had been subjected, because their cow-sciences taught them to stick by Mr. Parnell."
    I have given the date, and I am sure he will find it in the "Freeman."
    Mr. W. REDMOND: The "Freeman" were deadly opposed to me at the time, and they would not publish a word of what I said.
    Mr. MOORE: The point is that you have both elements of the Nationalist party, not persecuting each other, but directing their energies to persecuting the minority in Ireland, whom the Government refuse to protect. I do not say they would refuse protection, for if a man is sufficiently stirring they send policemen to his door to give him protection. The Attorney-General says, and I believe the Chief Secretary shares the sentiment, that we will never have peace in Ireland until the people come to love the law, and it is

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    going to be his pleasing duty to teach them how that should be done. If you wish the people to have trust and confidence in the law, there should be no discrimination. If you find that the power of the League is paramount, that illegal agitation is rampant and rife, and crime follows, then you have no right to discriminate between the dupes who carry out the agitation and the people who are responsible for it. At Mr. Clarke's place about thirty young men were arrested for unlawful assembling, in one form or other, for a vigorous and virile political agitation; but the hon. Member who interrupted me just now was present with his colleague, and were part and parcel of the demonstration against Clarke. The Government myrmidons take the small farmers or the labourers to be dealt with by the resident magistrates, or they are tried at the assizes, and they lie in Clonmel gaol. I know that the hon. Members do not disavow responsibility.
    The hon. Members for Tipperary took part in the meeting held to intimidate Clarke, but they now walk about the House here; they shake hands with the Chief Secretary and the Attorney-General, and express their pleasure at meeting one another again in the bright air of freedom. How can you ask people to have confidence in the law when it discriminates between the humble peasant and his representative in Parliament? There was another case at Limerick in which the Attorney-General was attacked because he ordered jurors to stand aside. He gave an explanation in this House of why he took that course. He said there was a Sligo case to be tried, and that he had information of attempts which had been made to canvass jurors. He had the names of those who attempted to canvass the jurors, and he also said that he would do all in his power to stop such a reprehensible practice.
    Why does not the Chief Secretary or the Attorney-General prosecute these people? He has their names; he told the House he had their names. Is it the fact that the men who canvassed the jurors in the Sligo case were Members of this House? If it is the fact, and if the Attorney-General has the names, why does he not prosecute them?
    Mr. CHERRYIt is not, as far as I am aware of.
    Mr. MOOREHe has the names.
    Mr. CHERRYI have the names of those who were suspected of it, but they were not Members of this House.
    Mr. MOOREWill the Attorney-General now make inquiries as to what share the two hon. Members took in canvassing the jurors in the Sligo case?
    Mr. T. M. HEALYIs it in order, Mr. Speaker, to make imputation of crime, either on suspicion or otherwise, against hon. Members of this House?
    Mr. SPEAKERI think we have always scrupulously avoided any suggestions of that sort, and I think they are very undesirable. I understand the Attorney-General to say that he has not any information which would bear out the view of the hon. Member.Mr. SPEAKER: I think we have always scrupulously avoided any suggestions of that sort, and I think they are very undesirable. I understand the Attorney-General to say that he has not any information which would bear out the view of the hon. Member.
    Mr. MOOREI express my regret if I have committed a breach of Parliamentary usage. Whatever the result of this Debate may be, it is simply a further illustration of the lesson—which has sunk deep into the minds of the British elector—of the barren and fruitless results of three years of Liberal administration in Ireland. When its epitaph comes to be written it will be this: The Liberal administration in Ireland, by neglect of its primary duty, by its cowardice, moral and political, and by its ineptitude, turned a large part of Ireland, once the scene of prosperity, into a desert, and called it peace.
    (Mr. Cherry)I trust the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down will excuse me if before I deal with his speech I say a few words as regards the very remarkable and eloquent speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Senior Member for the University of Dublin. As regards the tone of that speech, the Government has, in some respects, cause to be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, because he did not, as some of his colleagues have done, notably his own colleague in the representation of the University of Dublin, impute to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary or to me any desire or intention to increase the amount of lawlessness in the country for political purposes. He said very fairly, and I am sincerely grateful to him, that he believes nobody would be better pleased than we would be, or any Member of the Government, if there was a distinct improvement in the condition of Ireland. The Government have not denied during this debate, nor as to anything that has been said in this House during the last twelve months, that a very serious state of affairs does exist in a portion of Ireland. We have never denied the seriousness of the state of intimidation which prevails in, at all

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    events, a portion, though I am happy to say a small portion, of Ireland—much smaller than has been represented in the speeches made in the course of this debate. On the other hand, it is not right or fair that the gravity of that situation should be exaggerated. In the speeches made in the country and made in this House from the Benches opposite, I think it has been greatly and grossly exaggerated. The Noble Lord who moved the Amendment began by stating that there were 22 counties in a disturbed state. As a matter of fact, the returns show that only 11 counties, and only portions of those 11 counties, are in a disturbed state. The Noble Lord, who appeared to be speaking from a carefully-prepared brief, actually doubled the number of counties which were in a state of disturbance. When we come to discuss the particular counties, or particular portions of those counties, and inquire into the circumstances of a locality, we find the same tendency to exaggeration. Now, the right hon. Gentleman, by his rhetorical power and eloquence, leads the House to attach far more importance to particular circumstances than they would otherwise do. He deals with the subject of boycotting, and refers to a number of cases. Then he goes on to say that behind these cases of persons boycotted there is an appalling tragedy. But that is a statement which can be made about every crime in every civilised country of the world. If a wife is beaten by her husband in the slums of an English town, is not that a tragedy of an appalling kind? If an unfortunate cashier is shot in the back of the head with a revolver and robbed of the money of which he has charge, is not that a tragedy of an appalling character? If a poor child is sent into the streets, is not that a tragedy of an appalling character? If the virtue of a girl is taken away from her that is a tragedy of an appalling character. But none of these crimes excite the sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman. He reserves his sympathy for the owner of a motorcar who was compelled to carry a policeman in it. [An HON. MEMBER: "He was not discussing general crime."] But I am. We cannot, by exaggerating the condition of the country, effect any purpose. Every crime is bad. The only question is, Are the crimes so numerous and so bad as to justify the putting aside of Constitutional methods for the prosecution of crime and adopting one exceptional method? The
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    right hon. Gentleman went on to deal with intimidation, and we had the same sort of picture drawn. Of course, intimidation is bad, and I would be sorry to say one word to encourage it in any way. What does he suggest should be done? He said the worst cases of intimidation were those where there were overt acts. But how can you prosecute if there is no overt act? I asked. What was his reply? "I am not talking of prosecutions," he said. Then why does he blame the Government? What can we do if there is no overt act of intimidation brought to our notice? Where there is evidence we instruct a prosecution in every case. We have never refrained from doing so, and it is a gross slander on me and my colleagues, and to any person who is in charge of the duties of Government at Dublin Castle, to say that we do not prosecute in every case when the circumstances are brought to our notice.
    We enter a prosecution in every case in which crime is reported to us and where evidence is available. We cannot institute prosecutions if no evidence is available or where no evidence would be possible, unless there is some overt act.
    What is the pith of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, and the remedy which he suggests? I listened carefully to what he said and I observed that he confined himself to one. His suggestion was we should put in force the Second Section of the Crimes Act. He did not say anything of proclamations. We are told over and over again it is part of the ordinary law, and why, he asks, does the Chief Secretary suspend that part of the ordinary law. The Chief Secretary has no power to suspend any portion of the law, but he can do this, and we can do this: we can choose the particular method by which we proceed against crime. We can either go by indictment or proceed to bind to the peace persons we suspect of having committed or about to commit crimes; or constitute a special court under the Crimes Act. Because we do not take the third course, he says we are suspending that portion of the ordinary law, and his colleague, as Member for the University of Dublin, suggested that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary was violating his oath of office, because he did not proceed against persons who commit crimes by this method which is pointed out by the Crimes Act.
    I would like to ask the senior Member for the University of Dublin, and I will venture to address it also to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition,

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    who, I understand, will speak later, I want to know between 1895 and 1901, when the late Conservative Government was in office, when the right hon. Gentleman was Leader of the House of Commons, and afterwards Prime Minister, and his colleague was Solicitor-General for Ireland, why were not proceedings taken under this section at that time, and there were none. Some hon. Members say there were, but I have looked very carefully into the matter, and I think they will find themselves mistaken. I find until 13th August, 1901, from the year 1892, there was no proceeding whatever in Ireland, North, South, East, and West, under the Crimes Act, under this particular section; no proceedings whatsoever.
    Possibly it might be suggested by hon. Members opposite or the right hon. Gentleman, that there were no offences that could be prosecuted in that way. We find, however, that there were a great many cases of boycotting in those years, and that the number of persons boycotted increased steadily from 1895 until 1900, while the Conservative Government was in power.
    In the year 1895 there were 35 persons reported as wholly or partially boycotted. At that time cases of minor boycotting were not reported, and we had no return whatsoever of the number of those cases. Those 35 were all serious cases, and in not one of those cases was there a prosecution. What answer can be given to that? Did the right hon. Gentleman suspend the law or did he violate his oath of office as the Chief Secretary is alleged to have done? In 1896 that number increased to 45 "units, behind which terrible tragedy lurks." And no prosecution. Next year, 1897, we have 64 cases, or almost doubled in two years. That is the terrible state of affairs we are told exists in Ireland, with those agrarian crimes increasing. They were increasing in 1895, 1896, 1897, and in 1898. We had them up to 120, and in 1899 to 180—actually double the number reported on 1st January of the present year.
    I am speaking of serious cases, not with minor boycotting, which were reported for the first time in 1902 and form a distinct class by themselves. As a matter of fact, there has been some confusion, and they have been lumped with the others and compared with years in which only the serious cases were reported. In 1899 we had 180 cases of wholly and partially boycotted, as against 94 on the 1st January last. Then we are told my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and his colleagues are violating our oaths and allowing the coun-
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    try to drift into disorder because we do not take proceedings under the Crimes Act. During the whole of those years—and I challenge contradiction on this—that from 1895 to 1899 there was not one single prosecution either by indictment or summary proceeding or otherwise against the persons carrying on this boycotting.
    Then is the law to be laid down for the Liberal Government, while a Conservative Government may talk of governing according to Irish ideas if Lord Cadogan happens to be Lord Lieutenant? When the Liberal Government comes into office the flame bursts forth, and Members fly through the length and breadth of the land and talk of the disturbed condition of Ireland.
    I now come on to the year 1900, and in that year there was the worst case of boycotting that ever occurred in the whole history of Ireland, far worse than the Clarke case, far worse than the Rivers-town case, or than any of the cases mentioned in the course of this debate. I refer to what is known as the Tallow case. A systematic boycott was started against a rich, well-to-do merchant in the town of Tallow, who made himself obnoxious with the local branch of the League. He was completely ruined. Sentinels were. stationed outside his shop, public meetings were held in the town, he was denounced by orators, who declared the grass would be made grow outside his hall door. That was successfully done, and the man's business ruined and destroyed. Everybody in Ireland knows I am speaking the truth.
    What did His Majesty's Government do? Did they put in force the Crimes Act? They did nothing of the kind. They did what we have done—they commenced prosecutions before a jury in the ordinary way. That prosecution in the Tallow cases was tried at the Spring Assizes of 1901 in Waterford, and resulted in a disagreement of the jury. Did they then resort to the Crimes Act? No; there was not a word or a suggestion about the Crimes Act, although the strongest evidence was brought against the accused. They changed the venue to Cork just as we changed the venue to Dublin.
    We have been reviled and reproached for our failure to secure convictions. They met with exactly the same fate in Cork as in Waterford. There was another disagreement. What happened then? Did they resort to the Crimes Act? No; they abandoned the prosecution altogether, and let the poor unfortunate man go back. Then he took the remedy into his own hands, and brought a civil action, which was tried by a special jury before the

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    Lord Chief Baron, the ablest Judge we have on the Bench in Ireland, and resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff in the large sum of damages against the defendants of £5,000. I venture to assert that it was that verdict put an end to boycotting at the time, so that there are some advantages in resorting to the ordinary law even when you are dealing with boycotting. Apparently those advantages were appreciated by the Government in office between 1895 and 1900. So much for boycotting. I think I have given a complete answer to the charge made against the Government in regard to that.
    Now, as regards the other matters, I said there were exaggerations. It is quite true. We have seen inflamed placards in the newspapers, such as:—
    "Paralysis of the Law in Ireland."
    There is no paralysis of the law in Ireland, as everyone who lives in Ireland knows perfectly well—absolutely no paralysis. The law is enforced in Ireland the same way as it was by the hon. Members opposite when they were in power. They put in force the Crimes Act for a short period, but they dropped it again. They began it in 1901, continued in 1902, and in 1903 they withdrew it, and never prosecuted under it again. The other day I took up one of the Unionist papers, and in which was one of the sensational headlines we see in those papers:—
    "Anarchy in Ireland."
    "Chaos in the Irish Office."
    I had been to the Irish Office the day before and I could see no chaos. I saw the chaos referred to a speech of Lord Donaghmore, in which he compared some figures given by Lord Denman with some given by Mr. Birrell, and said there was an inconsistency between them. The inconsistency arose in this way: My right hon. Friend was dealing with agrarian outrages and Lord Denman was dealing with outrages of all kinds, so that there was no means of comparing the two. But the anarchy is as unfounded as the chaos in the Irish Office.
    I invite any English Member to come and see Ireland and travel through it from the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear, from Connemara to the Hill of Howth, and he will be just as safe as in the streets of London, and even a great deal safer. He will see no sign of disturbance, he will not see any boycotting, he will not see any riots. By mere chance, he might have an opportunity of seeing a number of boys
    784
    with tin whistles, as was the case in Thurles the other evening and who were dispersed by the police. Anyone will see just as much disturbance if he goes through England or Scotland. We have unfortunately—and it has never been denied—this system of intimidation going on in the grazing districts, and during the last year or so we have had this cattle-driving. We are doing our best by every possible means to stop it; but you cannot put an end to it in a day.
    Then we are told that there is a number of cases where crime goes unpunished, and we are given appalling figures, which, it is said, have been unwillingly given by the Chief Secretary. My right hon. Friend has given hundreds of figures during the last six months; I do not think he has refused any to anybody. What are the facts about unpunished crimes? My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General pointed out last night that in the year 1907 there were 25,665 cases of crime in Scotland, for which no persons were made amenable. If those had occurred in Ireland everyone of them would have been made the subject of one or more questions in this House, because whenever a crime occurs in Ireland it is put on the Question Paper, and we are asked how many arrests have been made and what punishment has been inflicted. Imagine 25,000 questions having to be answered! It cannot be said that even in law-abiding Scotland crime is always punished even when discovered. Only a few days ago there was a case of a gross and brutal crime going unpunished, and I will tell the House what it was. In the "Times" of Friday last an account was given of a Tariff Reform meeting held in Central Glasgow. A Socialist lawyer happened to be present. Of course, a Socialist lawyer had no business to be at a Tariff Reform meeting. He was being quietly removed by the stewards when, according to the "Times" correspondent:
    "he was approached from behind be a gentleman who. I am afraid, was a Unionist."
    and struck a violent blow on the back of the head with a thick stick. The blow drew blood; the poor man's head was streaming with blood. The police were summoned, and one would naturally have expected arrests and prosecutions. But what does the "Times" correspondent say:
    "The police, as usual, behaved splendidly, remaining stolidly calm, and refraining from arresting anyone."
    Suppose that, instead of being a Socialist lawyer, the victim had been a Unionist landlord in Ireland? Suppose Mr. Clarke in his motor-car had had the back of his

    785
    head struck by a Nationalist, and blood drawn, and that the police made no arrests although they knew who struck the blow, what would the hon. Members for East Down and North Antrim have said? What would the "Times" have said?
    Mr. MOORE Mr. MOORE: I do not think you ought to suggest it.
    Mr. CHERRYI do not wish to suggest it.
    Mr. MOOREYou have done it.
    Mr. CHERRYHere is a case of a man being struck on the head, and there is no prosecution, but because it happens in Scotland nothing is said. If it had been in Ireland every platform throughout the country would have reverberated with cries about "Anarchy" and "Paralysis of the law."
    I have noticed throughout this Debate that the attention of the House has been concentrated upon agrarian crime, as though there was something specially bad about agrarian crime. Is not all crime equally bad? Is it not the duty of the Government to put down and punish every crime, whether agrarian or not? Why should we confine our attention to agrarian crime? If you take crime as a whole, crime in Ireland, instead of increasing, is steadily diminishing. I challenge contradiction when I say that, according to the official statistics, crimes in Ireland, as reported by the Registrar-General, for the years 1905-6-7, have been steadily diminishing. With regard to agrarian crime, although I regret to say that it has unfortunately increased considerably, yet fortunately the increase has been in the less serious forms of crime. The House must not lose sight of that fact. During the years 1906-7-8 there was only one murder classed as agrarian in Ireland, whereas, 20 years before, in 1880-1-2, there were 51 agrarian murders. In 1880-1-2 there were 148 cases of firing at the person; in the latter period there were 27.
    With regard to the total of agrarian outrages, it must be borne in mind that a very large proportion of these outrages are very trifling in character as crime. No crime is trifling, but they are trifling as crime. Out of a total of 576, there are 233 cases of threatening letters. As everybody knows, threatening letters are treated with contempt by the persons who receive them, and they never lead to anything. I have had them reported to me again and again, and I am always told that the men who receive them know from whom they come; they cannot prove it, because of the disguised writing, but they
    786
    treat them with contempt, and are not in the least afraid of them. Yet everyone of those letters is recorded as an agrarian outrage. I am not blaming the statisticians or the police; it is their duty to record them; but when we are considering the state of Ireland and whether or not we should suspend the Constitution—because that is what it comes to—and put in force exceptional powers to set up special Courts to try particular classes of offences, we must consider the gravity of the crime.
    Cattle-driving has been referred to. None of us here would attempt or wish to defend cattle-driving. We know that it has done a great deal of injury to the country, that it is causing enormous expense to the ratepayers, and that it has injured the cattle trade, though not so seriously as might have been supposed. Still, after all, it is not such a very terrible thing that a number of young men, anxious to get land, go out, and, to make a demonstration, drive the cattle off a farm for a few miles, where they are found next day by the police and brought back again. ["Oh, oh!"] I will ask the attention of the House to the manner in which it was described by a Unionist Lord in another place a few days ago. Lord Dunraven—
    Mr. MOOREIs he a Unionist?
    Mr. CHERRYI think so. He always. describes himself as such.
    Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL.He was a Member of the Coercion Administration of 1887.
    Mr. CHERRYHe describes himself as a Unionist, although I believe he is a Devolutionist. At any rate, he is Lord Dun-raven and a landowner in Ireland. Speaking of cattle-drivers, he said:—
    "They were like a pack of naughty children, not altogether from vice, but from exuberance of spirits, who tried to see how far they could defy a rather weak governess."
    I think that that is a fairly good description.
    Mr. MOOREAre there any being prosecuted at present?
    Mr. CHERRYI am afraid I cannot answer that now. Whenever cases of cattle-driving are brought before me prosecutions are invariably directed when there is sufficient evidence, either before resident magistrates or before Petty Sessional Courts, or otherwise. I think the method by which the Government has proceeded in the matter of cattle-driving has been the proper one. People have been brought up before the

    787
    magistrates and shown the seriousness of what they, were doing. It may not be a case where you would want the man to be sentenced to a long term of penal servitude, but you want to stop the practice, because if it is allowed to continue it may have a serious effect upon the people. I do not think anybody will accuse me of ever having said the contrary to that, although a speech of mine has been largely but inaccurately quoted by hon. Gentlemen opposite to the effect that I had described Ireland as being in a position worse than that of savages in Africa. What I said was that if this cattle-driving were allowed to continue unchecked it would produce a state of things worse than that among the savages of Africa. To that statement I adhere. It is desirable that we should, as far as possible, put a stop to cattle-driving, and we are doing our best. I am happy to say that cattle-driving has diminished very considerably during the last two months. According to the returns of the police it is far less prevalent than in the corresponding period of last year.
    The real evil in Ireland is not the extent of crime nor the fact that crime is allowed to go unpunished. The real evil is, as was pointed out by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford last night, that the people, as a whole, are indifferent to the enforcement of the criminal law; they will not assist in it; they act towards the judges and Courts like schoolboys towards their masters: they will not give any active assistance. This evil, which I admit is a serious one, cannot be got over by coercion. That is a fact I should like to impress upon hon. Gentlemen opposite. If you introduce the Crimes Act, good-bye to any attempts to reconcile the people to the law. The object of the Government has been, and I hope it will continue to be, to impress upon the people that the criminal law is their friend, not their enemy. [A laugh.] I do not know why that should be greeted with laughter. Does the hon. Member suggest that it is a laughing matter to say that the minds of the people ought to be impressed with the idea that the law is their friend, and not their enemy? The only way in which you can make that impression is by firmly and justly administering the law, by strictly and impartially meting out justice to everyone, by not seeking by indirect and improper means to secure verdicts from juries, but by dealing with them fairly and impartially in every respect. And
    788
    that is not my opinion alone; it is the opinion also of the last Conservative Viceroy in Ireland. Lord Dudley's remarks have often been quoted, but I will read them again. Lord Dudley was the last Lord Lieutenant to put the Coercion Act in force. He was Lord Lieutenant when the proclamations were issued in 1901;he continued in office during the whole period until they were withdrawn in 1903, and, speaking in the House of Lords on February, 1908, he gave his opinion of the Crimes Act as a means of restoring tranquility in Ireland in these words:—
    "I cannot therefore now refrain from dissociating myself with the advocacy of a policy (that is the enforcement of the Crimes Act) which, though perhaps temporarily efficacious, to my mind cuts at the root of all true union between England and Ireland. and which embitters public opinion in that country to such an extent as to render successful government difficult, if not impossible."
    These are the words of the late Unionist Viceroy of Ireland, and I ask the House to endorse them. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may sneer at our attempt to get from the mass of the people of Ireland co-operation in the enforcement of the law; but if our attempt has not been successful as they seem to think, or as they seem to hope—[OPPOSITION cries of "Oh!"]—I say seem to hope, judged by their appearance at Question time whenever it is announced in this House that no arrests have been made. These announcements are greeted with loud cheers by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. [An HON. MEMBER: "With loud laughter."] They are greeted with loud laughter and loud cheers. It is because the Gentlemen who laugh and cheer do not desire to see Ireland pacified. They desire to see the Crimes Act put in force. The results of jury trials in Ireland for agrarian offences were more satisfactory in 1908 than in the previous year. As to the question of empanelling juries, it has been suggested in some quarters, and particularly by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin University, that it was done during 1908 in a different way from that to which was followed in 1907.
    Mr. JAMES CAMPBELLThe right hon. Gentleman is entirely misrepresenting me. What I said was that in another place the Lord Chancellor stated that at the Limerick Assizes convictions were got without ordering a single juror to stand by. I showed that a minimum of ten were ordered to stand by in every case.
    Mr. CHERRYI do not think that the Lord Chancellor made any such statement, and if he made the statement he was in error in doing so. But that is an

    789
    observation which has nothing whatever to do with that question. It is not a question of what the Lord Chancellor said at all, but what was done. The instructions that were given by the Attorney General to the Crown solicitors throughout Ireland were the same in 1907 as in 1908. There was no change whatsoever so far as I know in the practice. In almost every case, whether it is agrarian or non-agrarian, there are some jurors ordered to stand aside. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that the names of the jurors are set out in print, and that there was no packing in 1908, if you mean by packing the placing of jurors in the box simply because they have one set of political opinions. That has been forbidden since the present Government came into office and since I came into office, and I hope it will never be done. The number of persons put on trial at the assizes in 1907 for agrarian offences was 90, and in 1908 93. What was the proportion of convictions? In 1907 five persons were convicted, and in 1908 49. There were five per cent of convictions in the one case and nearly 50 per cent. in the other. Is not that an improvement? if it is an improvement, is it condemned by hon. Gentlemen opposite? I think it is a satisfactory and hopeful statement in favour of the policy the present Government has adopted, namely, to administer the ordinary Law fairly.
    In 1907, there were only six persons convicted by juries of agrarian offences. In 1908 there were 65. That is taking the whole of the three Assizes—Spring, Summer and Winter. These are, to my mind, hopeful facts. They are more than that. They are satisfactory facts, because they justify the policy inaugurated by my right hon. Friend—a policy which I hope he will persist in so long as he remains in office, and that he will disregard the Crimes Act and all forms of exceptional legislation, while adhering to and humanely administering the ordinary Law and trusting to the good sense of the people for support in restoring peace to the country.
    Mr. BALFOURI do not think the speech we have listened to from the right hon. and learned Gentleman shows that he has at all appreciated the gravity of the issue now being discussed by the House. The hon. Member for East Mayo began his speech by a violent attack upon this front bench for arranging that this Amendment should come on at a time
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    when in his opinion it seemed to indicate that we regarded it as of small importance. Indeed he went so far as to say that this Amendment dealing with the administration of the law in Ireland really had some mysterious connection with the Amendment we put down with regard to Tariff Reform, and that in bringing forward this Amendment on Tuesday instead of Friday, it was our desire to know the reception which bon. Gentlemen below the Gangway would give to the Tariff Reform Amendment. The hon. Member for Mayo seemed to think that if the reception given to the Tariff Reform Amendment by the Irish party had been of a more satisfactory character to us, then very little would have been heard of the Amendment with respect to Ireland. Of all the ingenious mare's nests ever invented, I think that is really one that does the greatest credit to the inventor. Whether it was invented by the hon. Member for East Mayo or the Chief Secretary for Ireland, I do not know. I think the Chief Secretary also made reference to this. The two amendments were handed in by the Whips of the party at the same moment, and there is no suggestion of deciding on the merits of the two questions. They are not pari materia. Both of them were discussed within a week, and it does not matter in the least in what order the amendments were taken. I have never heard anyone suggest that as between two amendments to be discussed within a week, both moved from the same Front Bench, and both involving censure upon the Government, there was a pin to choose between the two as to the relation or order in which they were to be brought forward. If any party or group in this House supposes for an instant that the policy of the party to which I have the honour to belong to, is, at any rate, so long as I belong to it, going in the smallest degree to be modified in relation to the direction it takes with reference to Irish affairs, not by what we think ought to be done for Ireland, but by what we think Irish votes in this House, or out of it, are going to do for us, they are greatly mistaken. I would strongly advise no politician to found his policy upon any such shifty and sandy foundation. I do not know that that assurance was necessary, but at all events it may be desirable as two important gentlemen have referred to the matter, that I should put it, so far as I am concerned, absolutely

    791
    beyond doubt or question. To return to the substance of the Amendment, I do not think the Government can feel that they come satisfactorily out of this Debate. It is true that the Chief Secretary for Ireland informed us that he had surveyed the whole of his career during the troublesome time of his administration, and so far as his critics were concerned, or the matters on which he had been criticised were concerned, he had no reason to regret anything he had done. The Chief Secretary put a vote of confidence in himself to himself and passed it unanimously. No doubt that was eminently satisfactory to the right hon. Gentleman, and rightly so. He is happy, and after all it does not matter to him what happens to anybody else.
    Mr. BIRRELLI may be allowed to have a conscience of my own.
    Mr. BALFOURYes; certainly. And more than that, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has a conscience. I am only glad that his conscience is of so satisfactory a character, and that it gives him so much gratification in the face of difficulty and embarrassment. But has the right hon. Gentleman attempted any defence upon the facts? He has read out, and it is, as far as my experience goes, a new procedure, a long Parliamentary paper in which there were many extracts, given by the police, referring to the state of every county in Ireland. We learnt with gratification that the relations in this country and that between landlords and tenants were all that was desired, that perfect peace prevailed in that county and the other; but when we came to the counties with regard to which the indictment is levelled I did not discover that these condensations of police reports gave any different impression to the House or to the country than that given by hon. Friends of mine near me with regard to the state of things prevailing.
    It is quite true if you simply put in a sentence that "intimidation prevails in this district"—and this was stated in a great many of the paragraphs—the sentence by itself conveys very little to the hasty reader. It is true also that this development, when it is developed, by questions. and by speeches made in the country and the House by hon. Friends of mine, that meagre sentence takes a new complexion, and people ask themselves whether, in the face of the state of things reviewed, it is not the duty of the respon-
    792
    sible Government of the country to take every means in their power to deal with it. As to the report itself, the right hon. Gentleman gave the whole case away. I cannot quite say that the hon. Member for Mayo takes a different view of the state of Ireland from the Chief Secretary and also as to particular cases that have been put before the House. There is the Clarke case for example. The House was empty when the hon. Member for Mayo was defending the Clarke case. I have no special knowledge of the case, but the defence of the hon. Member for Mayo put side by side with the admissions or the statements of the Chief Secretary made me feel that the eyes with which the hon. Member looked at agrarian crime are different from the eyes of the Chief Secretary, though the practical conclusions and the remedies to be applied are manifestly identical. The hon. Member for Mayo will not deny that Mr. Clarke was boycotted, that many of his labourers whom he employed were boycotted, but his excuse was that the grandfather of Mr. Clarke had evicted certain tenants from land which Mr. Clarke now cultivates, and which was cultivated before him by his grandfather and was not cultivated by the descendants of those evicted tenants. But the cousins and great-nephews, looking back on what happened two generations ago, were, I understand, justified in coining forward and preventing Mr. Clarke in doing with his land what he had a right to do.
    Mr. DILLONI never uttered a single word as to the question of justification or excuse. What I said was that the facts of the case given to me by the local men were entirely different from the version furnished by hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House above the Gangway.
    Mr. BALFOURI think that the hon. Member will admit that what I have said about the feelings of the local people with regard to the fact that Mr. Clarke's grandfather had done something which justified the tenants in acting in the way they did is accurate. It was part of the case he laid before the House in great detail. Why he laid it in such detail unless it had some relation to the crime prevailing in that part of Ireland I am at a loss to understand. I may have misinterpreted the hon. Member, but why he makes his assertions except to draw inferences which I have drawn I am utterly unable to understand. At all events, nobody who heard the speech will deny that the language used by the hon. Member is wholly inconsistent

    793
    with the statement which the Chief Secretary made that Mr. Clarke's case was a bad case because the people wanted the untenanted land made into farms. But if the hon. Gentleman did attempt to minimise the amount of crime in Ireland, he has been followed by the Attorney-General, who in the early part of his speech used a great many phrases to prove that the state of Ireland was very serious, and then proceeded to discuss crime in Scotland and in England. He asked, "Why are we to be asked to deal with this question of agrarian crime—why is agrarian crime different from other crimes; and if many crimes go unpunished in Scotland why are we to be blamed because agrarian crimes are unpunished in Ireland?" I do not believe that any Attorney-General for Ireland, no matter to which party he belongs or any Chief Secretary to which party he belongs, ever before made such a preposterous argument. I do not go into these comparisons of general crimes. I will take, if you like, the facts as you state them. I will not quarrel over any of these facts. I will admit that in the rural populations of Scotland there may be great crimes. The facts, from my point of view, are irrelevant, because in my judgment they have been regarded as irrelevant by everyone who has been responsible for the Government of Ireland, whether belonging to one party or the other, and who has ever spoken in a responsible position. Why? Because, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Cambridge University, the crime in Ireland to which we draw attention is organised crime, using organised instruments to compel people to abstain from doing things which they had a right to do, and compelling them to do things which they did not want to do. All crime is abominable from the amount of suffering it produces. But organised crime, in addition to all the suffering it produces in the shape of physical pain or material loss, is an invasion of the liberties and the rights of individuals with which sporadic crime, however frequent in England and Scotland, is not really comparable, and everybody knows that distinction exists, and that that distinction is relevant.
    The Attorney-Generalsays that there is a great deal of crime in Scotland which has not been punished, and in connection with which no one has been made amenable or in which the evidence is forthcoming. If that is true, it is a melancholy and regrettable fact; but, at all events, the evidence has not been with-
    794
    held, and all those anxious to convict were not afraid to give evidence. A crime has not been committed in combination with a great semi-political organisation for carrying out of a particular political object. At all events, when evidence has been produced and brought before a jury the jurors are prepared to convict on the evidence. Those three facts alone, if there were no others, show what folly it is to draw a distinction which is natural in the mouth of the hon. and learned Member who leads the Irish party, but I never thought that I would hear it repeated by anyone holding the responsible position of Attorney-General for Ireland.
    I need not argue any longer about the condition of Ireland being serious in certain parts. I now come to the defence of the Government as to why they have not used all the legal and constitutional methods in their power to put down an admitted evil. What was the defence of the Attorney-General? He said: "Why are we to put in force the Crimes Act? You did not out it into force in 1898 and 1905, except during eighteen months, and during that period there were cases of boycotting." I have not the figures, and accept the hon. and learned Member's figures. No doubt there were cases of the kind; but does the hon. and learned Member really mean to tell us that the condition of Ireland at any time from 1895 to 1905 was comparable with the condition of Ireland as it is now? That is really the point he has to deal with; but he did not attempt to deal with it. We did not reproach him in 1906 for not having put in force the Crimes Act. But what has happened since 1906? We do not deny that there might be cases of boycotting, but there was no sign of the increasing demoralisation nor had crime in any part of the country reached alarming magnitude. What has happened since 1906? By the admission of the Government themselves this particular class of crime, which has always to be dealt with by every Government in Ireland, has increased to a lamentable extent and undoubted rapidity. That is not denied. What on earth is the use of telling us in a totally different state of things when crime was not increasing by leaps and bounds that there is no evidence of demoralisation in large districts of the country, and that we do not put in force the Crimes Act? That is no defence at all, and I think that the Attorney-General must have been perfectly aware that it was no defence. The thing he says is that what he calls the ordinary law is sufficient to deal with the

    795
    situation. I must here make a comment on the Lord Chancellor, and the want of defence of the Lord Chancellor just made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
    It appears that the Lord Chancellor said—and I mention this again because it is of great importance; it was referred to last night by my right hon. Friend the Junior Member for the University of Dublin, and although the Attorney-General was present he has not taken the trouble in the interval to make himself acquainted with what the Lord Chancellor really did say—it appears that the Lord Chancellor said—I do not profess to quote his exact words, it was a proof that exceptional means of supporting the law are unnecessary when you find jurors in Limerick convicting prisoners without asking jurors to stand aside. On that text the Lord Chancellor denounced the system of what it called jury packing, and said it was inconsistent with our ideas of English liberty and English law, and the impression left upon the less well-informed among his hearers was that the Government had given up the system of asking jurors in Ireland to stand aside.
    The Lord Chancelloris entirely wrong in his facts. It is admitted that these convictions were obtained in Limerick by juries after jurors had been asked to stand aside. If I understood the figures of my learned Friend rightly—I have not verified them myself—they showed that the more jurors that were asked to stand aside the more nearly the verdict of the jury conformed to the evidence. It is a matter of very small importance that the Lord Chancellor, misinformed by those who got up his facts for him, should have made an unintentional misstatement in the House of Lords, but it is very important to know what is the real policy of the Government. The Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Attorney-General for Ireland have been boasting that they are governing Ireland by the ordinary law. The Lord Chancellor, lays down, in his official capacity, that asking jurors to stand aside is not governing Ireland according to the ordinary law, and is not liberty as we in England understand it. Now, who is right?
    Which is the policy of the Government Does the Chief Secretary share the views. of the Lord Chancellor? If so, why does he violate this theory by permitting his subordinates to direct jurors to stand aside? On the other hand, if he differs from the Lord Chancellor as to what is
    796
    consistent with our ideas of English liberty, he and the Lord Chancellor may both carry their studies further, and, as they do not agree on this fundamental issue, perhaps they may, after the Debate is over, agree to the view which we hold, namely, that, after all, that machinery of justice is to be most esteemed which is effective in dealing with the evil-doer, and does not permit injustice upon the well-doer. Nobody ever suggested that under the Crimes Act innocent people were convicted—
    Mr. DILLONIndeed they were; many times under your Government.
    Mr. BALFOURNo, no.
    Mr. DILLONWhat about Sheridan?
    Mr. BALFOURNobody, so far as I know, contends that the machinery of the Crimes Act is one under which injustice is in the least more likely to be done to an innocent man than under the law which obtains in England or Scotland or Ireland, while undoubtedly it is more effective for dealing with certain kinds of offences.
    Mr. JOHN REDMONDAbolish trial by jury in this country at once—
    Mr. MACNEILLYou would if you dared.
    Mr. BALFOURIf ever our system of trial by jury reached the level of the jury system in Ireland you would find a large number of Gentlemen on both sides of this House and also in the country who would say that some modification should be introduced. I am quite unable to understand why the Government are content with the results which they have obtained, or even results which they would have obtained if the law has worked as it was meant to work. How are they dealing with this cattle-driving which they admit is doing so much harm, but which the hon. Member for East Mayo sees no harm in at all?
    They are dealing with them by bringing them up under the statute of Edward III., and binding them over to keep the peace. Even if they did get evidence, do they think that an adequate way of dealing with crime and intimidation? I wish the House would compare the methods in which the cattle-drivers are dealt with by the Chief Secretary and the manner in which the suffragettes are dealt with. I am not going to compare these ardent political ladies with cattle-drivers—let everybody settle that his own way—but when we have to be protected from their intimidatory acts we are not at all content with binding them over to keep the peace. They are brought before a single magis-

    797
    trate and tried without a jury, and they are fined, and if they do not pay the fine they are sent to prison, not as untried prisoners, but as ordinary prisoners, subject to all the inconveniences of prison life—
    Mr. DILLONSo much the greater shame.
    Mr. BALFOURI am not in the least complaining of the action which the Home Office or the Government or the magistrates have taken in England with regard to these particular persons. It is quite out of my province, but it is ludicrous to tell me that that is the proper way to deal with suffragettes, and that the proper way to deal with cattle-drivers is simply to ask them to be of good behaviour, and if they refuse to make them first-class misdemeanants. You cannot make any comparison between the two, and if the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who is responsible for the action taken, seems to be quite satisfied that the machinery of Edward the Third in regard to cattle-drivers, I ask him to compare the procedure taken in that portion of the United Kingdom under his immediate supervision with that which his colleague has taken in this Kingdom in a matter which very nearly concerns their comfort and ours.
    That, after all, brings us back to what is the essential point between the two sides on the matter in dispute. The great mass of the House on both sides take the view that there are portions of Ireland where the condition of things is extremely dangerous and unhealthy, where demoralisation exists and is growing apace, where intimidation is rife, where boycotting goes on unrestrained, where firing into houses, arson, and other crimes against life and property are perpetrated with appalling frequency—all are agreed about that. [Cries of "No, no," from the NATIONALIST benches.] I do not say it is agreed by hon. Members below the Gangway. I say the rest of the House agrees, and it is admitted by the Chief Secretary.
    Mr. BIRRELLNot with appalling frequency.
    Mr. BALFOURIt is not denied in any quarter of the House except below the Gangway that the condition of Ireland in parts is extremely anxious and disquieting, and that crimes exist and go unpunished. The difference is a much narrower one. It is not a question of the disease to be remedied, but of the remedy to be applied. That is the real difference between us, and we, founding ourselves on experience of what is unhappily now
    798
    a long past, say that for these exceptional Irish difficulties the only method of dealing with crime is to put in force such provisions as those contained in the Crimes Act, and which, we contend, were contained in far stronger form in a long series of Crimes Acts, of which the great majority were passed by men describing them selves as Liberal and Radical politicians.
    That has been the unfailing experience of the past. Why are we going to throw that experience to the winds? Why are we to believe that the remedy which has been tried and not found wanting is not to be tried again? The only reason given, absolutely the only one, is that it is inconsistent with Liberal principles. Why is it inconsistent with Liberal principle? Judging by the past, it is not inconsistent with Liberal principle. There was no Liberal politician at the head of his party before 1885 who had not had a hand at some time or another in passing a Crimes Act for Ireland. Therefore it is not the old tradition of the Liberal party; it is the new tradition. It is not the tradition in which Mr. Gladstone was brought up, nor Sir George Trevelyan, nor Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, nor Lord Spencer. All those gentlemen were responsible for passing Crimes Acts and defending Crimes Acts.
    Therefore the Liberal principle has changed since 1885. Is it only since 1885 that we discovered in what the true principles of Constitutional freedom consists? Is it only since 1885 we have learned under what system of law a man can be described as a free citizen? The thing is surely a calumny upon all the great statesmen belonging to all great parties to say they were guilty of crime against the fundamental liberties of this country when each in their turn was forced by the condition of society in Ireland to pass exceptional measures for dealing with it. Is it according to Liberal principle that a man should not cultivate his land in his own way? Is it Liberal principle that the farm labourer working for a man who has offended in some way the local branch of the League should not get the necessaries of life?
    We have to add to the martyrs to the cause of Liberalism those unfortunate persons in the West and South of Ireland whom the right hon. Gentleman could protect but will not protect, because of Liberalism. Is it a Liberal principle that a man should not cultivate his own land in his own way? Is it a Liberal principle that a farm labourer who has offended in some way a, local branch of the League

    799
    should be denied the necessities of life? Are we to martyr to Liberal principles and to sacrifice to a modern development of an ancient and honourable political creed these people who happen to have incurred the wrath of those who think that their own personal position would be improved by some modification of the tenure of particular plots of land. To admit that these are Liberal principles seems to me to destroy the whole of Liberalism.
    Are you seriously going to say on the platforms of the country, "I admit that this man should be free from the tyranny which besets him, but Liberal principles prevent me from doing it; that unfortunate person has his house shot into, but Liberal principles will not allow me to hold an inquiry under conditions which will bring the criminals to justice; that notorious intimidator or malefactor might be brought to justice, but Liberal principles would not allow me to use the machinery by which justice might be done?" That the policy of the Government is disastrous to Ireland seems to me to be obvious from the statement of the Chief Secretary himself. When those statements are backed up by such opinions as we have heard to-day from Roman Catholic prelates, the present position of things is utterly demoralising to a large portion of Ireland, and I think the treatment of it by the Government extends the demoralisation from Ireland to Great Britain itself. If you are going to tell people that the fundamental principles of your party—that Liberal principles—stand in the way of carrying out elementary justice and of the Government performing their fundamental duty, that it seems to me is a policy which will have a re-action far beyond the limits of Ireland, and will be disastrous to the fate and fortunes of the party that is reckless enough to adopt it.
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith)The House, I am sure, is anxious to come to a division, and the case on behalf of the Government has been so ably and fully presented by my right hon. Friends that I shall not intrude upon its attentions for more than a few moments. But one or two words seem to be called for in reply to the speech which has been made by the right hon. Gentleman. I will not go into the question, interesting though it will be, to the historian of the future, how it was that as between the two official Amendments of the Opposition
    800
    priority was given to one, and posteriority to the other. I am disposed to gather from what the right hon. Gentleman said that the persons responsible resorted behind the scenes to the process of "tossing up." I hope that is a gratifying announcement in regard to the progress of Tariff Reform. Nor need I waste many words on the noble professions of independence of the Irish vote with which the right hon. Gentleman adorned the exordum of his speech. Nothing is easier than to rise superior to the temptations of tomorrow. We shall see what time will bring forth. No, Sir; I will go at once to the more serious matter which formed the staple of the right hon. Gentleman's speech.
    As regards the facts as to the condition of Ireland, there is a great deal of common ground, and among that common ground is this, which is to my mind far the most remarkable and significant, that if you take Ireland as a whole it is a country in which respect for law is more widely spread, and in which disobedience to the ordinary law is more rare in occurrence than probably in any other part of his Majesty's dominions. On the other hand you have, who can deny it, these black areas in some of the counties of Ireland in which a state of things prevails which no man in this House would venture, or attempt or desire to defend. That is the really significant thing about it. How is it that in Ireland, with a population which so far as the ordinary temptations to law breaking are concerned, shows itself signally and exceptionally capable of self-restraint you get in particular areas, and at particular times these regrettable and malign outbursts of lawlessness. That is a question with which the right hon. Gentleman did not attempt to deal. He was full of the Statute of Edward III. and what is commonly called prohibition. These are simple remedies of detecting and punishing crime that has been committed, but you do not approach within measureable distance of the heart and core of the matter until you have tried to investigate the causes which produce such a state of things and make that standing paradox in Irish history not only possible, but of common and periodical recurrence. I will say a word as to what I call these superficial remedies.
    I perfectly agree that it is the duty of the Executive Government to resort to every remedy that it thinks will be effectual for the purpose. The main

    801
    gravamen of the right hon. Gentleman's charge against us was that we have not resorted to the Crimes Act. Why have we not done that? Because we do not believe that it would have been effective. He has given the names of great Liberal statesmen like Lord Spencer and the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who in times past have been responsible for proposing to this House coercive legislation, and who have administered it in Ireland with a ruthless impartiality which has not always been exhibited by their Conservative successors, and he says that these men surely were great in the traditions of Liberalism, imbued with true Liberal faith, and asked "Why are you turning back on them, and repudiating their example." For the same reason that they themselves having tried the experiment, one and all said, "We are not going to repeat it." Because experience teaches us that it is one of those so-called cures that are worse than the disease, and only aggravate the symptoms, and do not touch the cause.
    But really, when we come to this almost hysterical display of indignation against His Majesty's Government because they do not resort to the Crimes Act for the condition of things now prevailing, I must go back to that state of things which prevailed in the year 1900—not further than that—when the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues were responsible for the administration of the country. I have here a copy of the proceedings of the annual meeting of a body called the Irish Unionist Alliance on the 31st of May, 1900. What do they say of the condition of Ireland at that time? (The right hon. Gentleman read the extract, in which complaint was made of the recrudescence of crime in Ireland.)
    If I look at the figures of the number of persons then under police protection, I find that they were: on January 1st, 1900, 591; on January 1st, 1901, 401; whereas on January 1st, 1908, they were 281, and on January 1st, 1909, they were 344. I am comparing the years 1900 and 1901 with the last two years, and I am pointing out that a state of things prevailed which was described by the official organisation of the Unionist Party in Ireland as at least as had as it is now, and that according to the official figures the number of people under police protection was very much worse. But the right hon. Gentleman himself made no attempt whatever to put the Crimes Act into force. The Crimes Act was not resorted to by his administra-
    802
    tion until the 13th of August, 1901—that is 18 months after the statements to which I have just referred. Is it not rather absurd that gentlemen with such a record should come down to this House and exhaust the violence of vituperation in denouncing His Majesty's Government for not resorting to the Crimes Act? Then there is one other point raised by the right hon. Gentleman—cattle-driving.
    I pointed out on the first night of the Session that so far from the Executive having been supreme in dealing with this most stupid and foolish offence, they have prosecuted in over 100 cases in regard to which the police said that the offence was committed by organised bodies of persons and evidence was practicable. The right hon. Gentleman said, "Why don't you proceed under the Statute of Edward III." I think my right hon. Friend said out of something like 1,000 cases in which persons had been bound over, in only a very few cases—an insignificant number—has the obligation been violated. That shows that we have taken the best and most effectual steps to prevent the re-commission of the offence.
    I agree that if cruelty and violence are used and those poor animals are in any way maltreated, as used to be the case unfortunately in the olden days of Ireland, and mutilation and offences of that kind are resorted to, the Statute of Edward III. for the process of binding over is, not sufficient. But there have been only four such cases, and although I am the last man in the world to apologise or say a word in extenuation of cattle-driving, anybody who is acquainted with the melancholy story of agrarian crime in Ireland cannot but notice with something approaching gratification and satisfaction that the terrible practice of cattle maiming which used to prevail in the old days is, I will not say altogether extinct, but very nearly obsolete. I hope I shall not be supposed to be standing here and advocating disrespect for the law, but when it is a case simply of cattle driving pure and simple by organised bodies of persons opening gates and letting the cattle loose on the road—a very stupid and inconvenient proceeding—I think the Statute of Edward III. is admirably adapted to meet the requirements of the case.
    I am not going into detail into the action of the Executive—I think it has been sufficiently dealt with—but you will never approach anything in the nature of a real remedy for the condition of things which exists in certain parts of Ireland

    803
    until you go to the root of the matter, and deal not with mechanical preventives, but with causes. I am the last person to make adverse criticisms upon the intention of the Land Act of '03. The scheme of land purchase instituted by that Act is a very admirable thing, and in its intention and in its effect I believe useful for Ireland. But undoubtedly expectations were created by the passing of that Act with regard to untenanted land, which expectations have not been justified. I am not defending people for showing their resentment at the non-fruition of their hopes, but until you have remedied, or attempted to remedy, the defects in that legislation, you will not have struck at the root of agrarian disorder; and His Majesty's Government, side by side with the rigorous enforcement of the law, by all means which they think effectual to the purpose, are endeavouring by

    Division No. 7.

    AYES.

    [8.7 p.m.

    Anson, Sir William Reynell

    Fletcher, J. S.

    Moore. William

    Anstruther-Gray, Major

    Gardner, Ernest

    Morrison-Bell, Captain

    Arkwright, John Stanhope

    Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

    Newdegate, F. A. N.

    Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hon. Hugh O.

    Gooch, Henry Cubitt (Peckham)

    Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

    Ashley, W. W.

    Gordon, J.

    Oddy, John James

    Balcarres, Lord

    Goulding, Edward Alfred

    Parker. Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Gretton, John

    Percy, Earl

    Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (City Lond.)

    Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston)

    Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

    Banbury, Sir Frederick George

    Guinness, W. E. (Bury St. Edmunds)

    Ratcliff, Major R. F.

    Banner, John S. Harmood-

    Haddock, George B.

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Baring, Capt. Hon. G. (Winchester)

    Hamilton, Marquess of

    Remnant, James Farquharson

    Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks

    Harris, Frederick Leverton

    Renton, Leslie

    Beckett, Hon. Gervase

    Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

    Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

    Bignold, Sir Arthur

    Hay. Hon. Claude George

    Ronaldshay, Earl of

    Bowles. G. Stewart

    Helmsley, Viscount

    Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

    Brotherton, Edward Allen

    Hill, Sir Clement

    Rutherford, W, W. (Liverpool)

    Bull, Sir William James

    Hills, J. W.

    Salter, Arthur Clavell

    Burdett-Coutts, W.

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

    Sandys, Col. Thos. Myles

    Butcher, Samuel Henry

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

    Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

    Hunt, Rowland

    Sloan, Thomas Henry

    Carlile. E. Hildred

    Joynson-Hicks, William

    Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton)

    Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

    Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.

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

    Cave, George

    Kerry, Earl of

    Stanier, Beville

    Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Keswick, William

    Starkey, John R.

    Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

    Kimber, Sir Henry

    Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire)

    Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc?r.)

    King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

    Stone, Sir Benjamin

    Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

    Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

    Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

    Clark, George Smith

    Lane-Fox, G. R.

    Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.)

    Collings, Rt. Hon. J. (Birmingham)

    Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

    Thornton, Percy M.

    Courthope, G. Loyd

    Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham)

    Tuke, Sir John Batty

    Craig. Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

    Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.

    Walker. Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

    Craik, Sir Henry

    Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham)

    Warde. Col. 0. E. (Kent, Mid)

    Dalrymple, Viscount

    Lonsdale, John Brownlee

    Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

    Doughty, Sir George

    Lowe, Sir Francis William

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

    Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

    Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

    Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

    Du Cros, Arthur

    M?Arthur, Charles

    Wyndham. Rt. Hon. George

    Faber, George Denison (York)

    M?Calmont, Colonel James

    Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants. W.)

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.?Sir A.

    Fardell, Sir T. George

    Marks, H. H. (Kent)

    Acland-Hood and Lord Valentia.

    Fell, Arthur

    Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

    Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

    Mildmay, Francis Bingham

    NOES.

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

    Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

    Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

    Acland. Francis Dyke

    Astbury, John Meir

    Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

    Agnew, George William

    Atherley-Jones, L.

    Beale, W. P.

    Ainsworth, John Stirling

    Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

    Beauchamp, E.

    Alden. Percy

    Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

    Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

    Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

    Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

    Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonport)

    Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

    Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

    Bennett, E. N.

    Ambrose. Robert

    Barker, Sir John

    Bertram, Julius

    Ashton, Thomas Gair

    Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset

    Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

    804
    legislation to remove those defects, and to bring the law more into harmony with the requirements of the country.
    I will go a step further. The agrarian and the political side of things in Ireland are to-day, as they always have been, inextricably intertwined. You cannot segregate the one for the other. They blend together and they will always confront you. You will never really and effectually deal with these outbursts of defiance to organised contempt of, and indisposition to assist and to aid, the enforcement of the Law in Ireland till you have succeeded by your legislation, as well as by your administration, in associating the people and the sentiment of Ireland with the Law.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes, 118; Noes,. 336.

    Birrell. Rt. Hon. Augustine

    Hazel, Dr. A. E. W.

    Mooney, J. J.

    Boulton, A. C. F.

    Hazleton, Richard

    Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

    Brace. William

    Healy, Timothy Michael

    Morrell. Philip

    Bramsdon, T. A.

    Hedges, A. Paget

    Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

    Brodie, H. C.

    Helme, Norval Watson

    Muldoon. John

    Brooke, Stopford

    Hemmerde, Edward George

    Murnaghan, George

    Brunner. J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)

    Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

    Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

    Bryce, J. Annan

    Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.)

    Murphy, N. J. (Kilkenny, S.)

    Buchanan, Rt. Hon. Thomas R.

    Henry, Charles S.

    Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincaid)

    Buckmaster, Stanley O.

    Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

    Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)

    Burke, E. Haviland-

    Higham, John Sharp

    Myer, Horatio

    Burns, Rt. Hon. John

    Hobart, Sir Robert

    Nannetti, Joseph P.

    Buxton. Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles

    Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

    Napier, T. B.

    Byles. William Pollard

    Hogan, Michael

    Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

    Carr-Gomm, H. W.

    Holland, Sir William

    Newnes, Sir George (Swansea)

    Causton. Rt. Hon. Richard Knight

    Henry Holt. Richard Durning

    Nicholls, George

    Cheetham, John Frederick

    Hooper, A. G.

    Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

    Cherry. Rt. Hon. R. R.

    Hope, John Deans (Fife. West)

    Nolan, Joseph

    Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

    Hope, W. H. B. (Somerset, N.)

    Norton, Capt. Cecil William

    Clancy, John Joseph

    Horridge, Thomas Gardner

    Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

    Clough, William

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Nussey, Thomas Willans

    Clynes, J. R.

    Hudson, Walter

    Nuttall, Harry

    Cobbold, Felix Thornley

    Hyde, Clarendon G.

    O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid)

    Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

    Illingworth, Percy H.

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Collins. Sir Wm. J. ( S. Pancras, W.)

    Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

    Jardine, Sir J.

    O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

    Condon, Thomas Joseph

    Jenkins, J.

    O'Doherty. Philip

    Corbett. C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)

    Jones, Leif (Appleby)

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

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

    O'Grady. J.

    Cotton. Sir H. J. S.

    Jowett, F. W.

    O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

    Cowan, W. H.

    Joyce, Michael

    O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)

    Crean, Eugene

    Kavanagh, Walter M.

    O'Malley, William

    Crooks. William

    Kearley, Sir Hudson E.

    O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

    Crosfield. A. H.

    Kekewich, Sir George

    O'Shee, James John

    Cullinan, J.

    Kettle, Thomas Michael

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Dalziel. Sir James Henry

    Kilbride, Denis

    Partington, Oswald

    Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

    Kincaid-Smith, Captain M.

    Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

    Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

    King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

    Pearce, William (Limehouse)

    Davies. Timothy (Fulham)

    Lamb. Edmund G. (Leominster)

    Perks, Sir Robert William

    Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol. S.)

    Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

    Philips. Col. Ivor (Southampton)

    Devlin, Joseph

    Lambert, George

    Philips, John (Longford, S.)

    Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.)

    Lamont, Norman

    Pirie, Duncan V.

    Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)

    Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

    Pollard, Dr. G. H.

    Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

    Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    Dilke, Rt Hon. Sir Charles

    Layland-Barrett, Sir Franc's

    Power, Patrick Joseph

    Dillon. John

    Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E.)

    Radford, G. H.

    Donelan, Captain A.

    Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington)

    Raphael, Herbert H.

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    Lehmann. R. C.

    Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

    Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)

    Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich \

    Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

    Dunne. Major E. Martin (Walsall)

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Redmond, William (Clare)

    Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

    Lewis, John Herbert

    Kendall, Athelstan

    Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

    Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

    Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.)

    Erskine, David C.

    Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Richardson, A.

    Esslemont, George Birnie

    Lundon, W.

    Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

    Evans, Sir Samuel T.

    Lupton, Arnold

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.)

    Everett, R. Lacey

    Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

    Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

    Fenwick, Charles

    Lyell, Charles Henry

    Robinson, S.

    Ferens, T. R.

    Lynch, H. B.

    Robson, Sir William Snowdon

    Ffrench, Peter

    Macdonald. J. R. (Leicester)

    Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

    Field. William

    Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

    Roche, Augustine (Cork)

    Flavin. Michael Joseph

    Mackarness, Frederic C.

    Roche. John (Galway, East)

    Flynn. James Christopher

    Macnamara. Dr. Thomas J.

    Roe. Sir Thomas

    Fuller. John Michael F.

    MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

    Rogers. F. E. Newman

    Gill, A. H.

    Macpherson, J. T.

    Rose, Charles Day

    Ginnell, L.

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)

    Rowlands, J.

    Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John

    MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal. E.)

    Russell, Rt. Hon. T. W.

    Glover, Thomas

    M`Crae, Sir George

    Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

    Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

    M'Kean, John

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

    Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)

    M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

    Griffith, Ellis J.

    M'Killop, W.

    Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

    Gurdon, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Brampton

    M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

    Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne)

    Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

    M`Laren. H. D. (Stafford, W.

    Sears, J. E.

    Hall. Frederick

    M'Micking. Major G.

    Seaverns, J. H.

    Halpin, J.

    Mallet, Charles E.

    Seddon. J.

    Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)

    Marnham, F. J.

    Seely. Colonel

    Harcourt. Robert V. (Montrose)

    Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

    Shackleton. David James

    Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Massie, J.

    Shaw, Slr Charles Edward (Stafford) )

    Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-sh)

    Meagher, Michael

    Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

    Hart-Davies, T.

    Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

    Sheehy, David

    Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

    Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)

    Shipman, Dr. John G.

    Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

    Menzies, Walter

    Silcock, Thomas Ball

    Harwood. George

    Micklem, Nathaniel

    Simon, John Allsebrook

    Haslam. James (Derbyshire)

    Molteno, Percy Alport

    Smeaton. Donald Mackenzie

    Haslam. Lewis (Monmouth)

    Mond, A.

    Smyth. Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    Haworth, Arthur A.

    Montagu, Hon. E. S.

    Snowden. P.

    Hayden, John Patrick

    Montgomery. H. G

    Soares, Ernest J.

    806

    807

    Spicer, Sir Albert

    Wadsworth, J.

    Wiles, Thomas

    Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.)

    Walsh, Stephen

    Wilkie, Alexander

    Steadman, W. C.

    Walters, John Tudor

    Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

    Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

    Walton, Joseph

    Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

    Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

    Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

    Williams, A. Osmond (Merioneth)

    Strachey, Sir Edward

    Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

    Williamson, A.

    Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

    Wardle, George J.

    Wills, Arthur Walters

    Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

    Waring, Walter

    Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)

    Summerbell, T.

    Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

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

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

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

    Tennant. H. J. ( Berwickshire)

    Waterlow, D. S.

    Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

    Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

    Wedgwood, Josiah C.

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.)

    Weir, James Galloway

    Wood, T. M`Kinnon

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    White, Sir George (Norfolk)

    Thorne, William (West Ham)

    White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.?Mr.

    Tomkinson, James

    White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)

    Joseph Pease and the Master of

    Toulmin, George

    White, Patrick (Meath, North)

    Elibank.

    Ure, Alexander

    Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

    Verney, F. W.

    Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

IMPRISONMENT OF BRITISH SUBJECTS IN INDIA.
Mr. MACKARNESSI rise to move as an Amendment to the Address, at the end, to add: "But humbly represent that this House, while cordially welcoming the proposals which have been laid before it for the reform of the Government of India is of opinion that the success of those proposals is gravely endangered by the fact that British subjects in that country are subjected to imprisonment and deportation without having had any charge made against them, and without having been convicted of any crime."
It is unnecessary to say much about the first part of the Amendment welcoming the reforms in the Government of India, because every step taken in the direction of associating the people of the country more closely with the government of their own country must be a step in the right direction. The proposals are undoubtedly in the right direction and especialy after the conspicuous success which hat attended the experiment of associating the people of the Transvaal and of the Orange State with the government of these countries, this Government ought to be prepared to try the same experiment in other parts of the Empire. Therefore I need hardly say that we welcome the steps which Lord Morley is taking, though they may not go far in the direction of self-government in India.
But the other parts of the Amendment are those to which I desire to direct the attention of the House. Those are the parts of the Amendment which urge that the success of reform cannot be complete as long as arbitrary measures are taken by the Government of India which include deportation and imprisonment for unlimited periods of British subjects without any charge being made against them, and without their being told what their offence is, and without their being con-
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victed of any crime in any court of justice. Two features of the new policy are to revive what is called the Bengal regulation of 1818, which now seems to have been made part of the normal machinery of government in India. Under that no less than eleven British subjects in India within the last few years have been banished from their homes and imprisoned for an indefinite time without being charged with any crime.
There has also been passed quite recently what is known as the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1908. Under that Act large numbers of British subjects in India—I do not quite know how many—have been declared criminals and rendered liable to criminal prosecution merely from the simple fact of belonging to certain associations. Those associations have been declared criminal by the Government of India without anything whatever being proved against them. The objects of these associations in the first instance were admittedly not only innocent but laudable ones.
The Secretary of State for the Viceroy's Government, the other day, in describing them in the Viceroy's Council, said they outwardly professed to be devoted to certain laudable objects, such as the keeping of order at meetings, and the helping of pilgrims at festivals; and there is no doubt they have done a great deal in that perfectly harmless and laudable way, but though they have never been engaged in any disturbance, yet, simply because they were supposed to be engaged in some seditious propaganda, the simple fiat of the Executive has declared them unlawful, and their members liable to criminal prosecution and to be punished. The very same thing was done in this country in 1887 by the Coercion Act in Ireland under which the Government were given powers to proclaim the Land League and all its branches. The whole Liberal party led by Mr. Gladstone protested against the Act.
Mr. Gladstonewhose name to all Liberals is a great and venerable name, spoke on that occasion in these words:—
"The arbitrary will of the Government is to be substituted for the regular action of law. This principle of assumption of guilt in place of law is a principle most dangerous, and I think most disgraceful to be enacted in any country."
I call attention to the words "in any country," because it is frequently said that you can do all sorts of things in India which it would not be right to do here or now. Mr. Gladstone, with his wide knowledge of India and the whole British Empire, observed that this particular method would be a disgrace to be enacted in any country.
But that is not the only objectionable feature of this Act. Under this Act British subjects may be committed for trial on most serious charges—murder for instance—by a magistrate sitting in secret in the absence of the accused, without anyone to represent the accused or anyone being there on his behalf and without any chance of his calling evidence to rebut the charges made against him. The provisions of this Act are absolutely unparalleled in this or any other civilised country. It is provided that "the accused shall not be present unless the magistrate so directs, nor shall he be represented by any pleader during any such inquiry, nor shall any person have any right of access to the court of the magistrate while he is holding the inquiry."
That is not all, because afterwards the accused is tried by judges without a jury, and if the witnesses who have given evidence against him in secret in his absence before the magistrate do not appear on the trial before the judges, and the court think that the disappearance is in the interests of the accused, he may then be tried by the Judges on the depositions of the witnesses who have given evidence in secret in his absence, and he might be convicted on that evidence which he has never seen, heard, or had any opportunity of knowing anything about.
That is quite contrary to anything allowed by our law. I know of no other law which allows such a thing. It is allowed in our laws to take what are called the dying depositions of somebody on the point of death, and the evidence of that person so given may afterwards be used, though it has never been heard by the accused or cross-examined on. With that exception, I believe it to be quite unprecedented to allow evidence that has never been heard by the accused or cross-examined on by him to be used against him afterwards on the trial. I go on to the Bengal regulation. That dispenses
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with every form of trial whatever. Under it persons are deported and imprisoned for an indefinite period without being told what is against them, or being heard any way in their own defence. I will read the words of the regulation in order that the House may see that under it, ex hypothesi, the persons are those against whom there is no legal evidence. Here are the words of the regulation:—
"Whereas reasons of State occasionally render it necessary to place under personal restraint individuals against whom there may not be sufficient grounds to institute any judicial proceedings,
"Whereas the Governor-General in Council. for good and sufficient reasons, has seen fit to determine that A.B. shall be placed under personal restraint at—, You are hereby requested to receive him into your custody and deal with him according to the orders of the Governor-General in Council."
That is the power that was exercised by Charles I., and which led to civil war in this country. It is a regulation which violates the fundamental safeguard of our liberties laid down in Magna Charta as long ago as 1215, affirmed by 37 statutes in the course of the next 200 years, reaffirmed just before the Civil War in the celebrated Petition of Rights, and which was actually finally vindicated by the Parliament of Charles II. by the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679. I am almost ashamed to have to say to a House of Commons in the 20th century what that principle was, but I will venture to read to the House the following words from Magna Charta:—
"No man, of whatever state or condition that he be, shall be taken, nor imprisoned, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without being brought to answer, by due process of law."
That was Magna Charta in 1215, but it was a fundamental part of the common law of England long before that, and was derived, no doubt, from the Roman Law. We have on record the Roman Law as declared by one of the greatest Emperors in the year 102, at the beginning of the 2nd century of the Christian Era, in regard to a proposal to do in an Asiatic province in the Roman Empire precisely what is being done in India to-day—namely, lock up people without charge or trial, and without any sworn information on part of the accuser. In answer to a proposal of that kind the Roman Government issued this very distinct order, which ought to be written in letters of gold over the door of the India Office:—
"Under no circumstances should anonymous accusations be listened to. They are of the worst example and quite contrary to the spirit of our age. Suspected persons are not to he sought out. When properly charged and convicted, then they must be punished."
That is the Roman Law of 102. But we have a higher authority than any of those great and memorable authorities—namely, the Prime Minister. Only five days ago in

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this House the present Prime Minister laid down this salutary maxim:—
"You cannot convict without evidence. No tribunal in the world, not even a drumhead court-martial, ought without evidence to convict any man of any crime with which he may be charged."
That was his answer to a taunt that the Secretary of State for India was administering coercion in India. If coercion is wrong in Ireland—and I think that is admitted—I fail to see why it should be right in India. Regulations taken over from the East India Company are being enforced, and already 11 British subjects have been put into prison without trial. Several of them are men well known to this country, men of great social and educational achievements, whose character and record are blameless.
The best known among them perhaps are Lala Lajpat Rai, Aswini Kuman Dutt, Krishna Kumar Mitra, and Satish Chatterjea. I only know the first one personally; I made his acquaintance when he came over to this country after having suffered imprisonment in the way I have described. I have learned from personal acquaintance that he is a man of high character, and I should say of moderate opinions. His record shows that he has been unceasingly engaged for over 25 years in philanthropic work organising funds for the relief of famine and earthquake victims; and the moment he came out of gaol after deportation he began to organise a fresh fund for the relief of the victims of the recent famine. That is one of the men who have been deported as a seditious person. He was charged by a newspaper in India and in this country with sedition, and he has come over to this country to vindicate his character.
As soon as he brings his action against the English newspaper the proprietors put in a defence that they do not intend to justify the charge, and they pay him over money as damages. Mr. Kuman Dutt is known to many hon. Members of this House, for he is the founder of a great educational establishment at Barisal, and he has been several times at the head of the Municipal Council in that town, and he has exercised, so far as I know, a most wonderful influence for good among all the people in his district. It is quite true that he has been a strong advocate of the promotion of home industries in India as against the importation of goods from this and other countries, but surely, in the British Empire, we can hardly regard that as detrimental.
Then there is Mr. Krishna Kumar Mitra
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and he is a man who was also engaged in educational work in Calcutta at the City College, and he has borne the highest character. He is also the editor of a newspaper, and the most remarkable thing is that just before he was arrested, in his newspaper he addressed an appeal to his readers to have nothing to do with the unlawful and violent means of promoting their political views. I have here the appeal which this gentleman issued, and I desire to call the attention of the House to it:—
"No nation on earth has ever gained anything by murder. Read the history of the world and you will find that nations which have tried to gain freedom by terrorism have only degraded themselves and worsened their condition. Wrongdoing can never help a good cause. This is an eternal truth."
That does not seem to be the sort of man the Government would do good by deporting. The other man is Professor Satish Chatterjea, and from those who, know him I gather that his record is equally good. There is a well-known Constitutional way of dispensing with legal proceedings and imprisoning men without trial, and it is by proclaiming Martial Law when it has been found impossible to deal with citizens by the ordinary legal processes. If a case of that kind had been made out here, it would of course be entitled to a very careful consideration.
But there must be a condition like that of war or insurrection. And I maintain that no case has been made out. Yet, this has been an axiom of statesmanship that before you can enter upon those extra legal proceedings you must establish such a case. Here, again, I quote the Prime Minister. On the same day that he made the quotations which I have already given, he said defending himself against the introduction of coercion in Ireland on the ground that there were only 576 agrarian offences last year in Ireland: Take the three great Coercion years. In 1880 (he said) there were 2,585 cases;in 1881, 4,439;in 1886, 1,056; and 576 in 1908, and he added that there was no case. We have not been given in this House, and so far as I know in the House of Lords, any record of prevalent crimes which would justify this extra legal method. In another place the Secretary of State contented himself with a reference to the speeches of the Viceroy and Sir Harvey Adamson in the Viceroy's Council.
I have read these speeches with all the care they deserve, and I am bound to say that, although Sir Harvey does cite a certain number of crimes of violence—the two attempts on the life of Sir Andrew Fraser and three or four others, and a

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certain bomb conspiracy that is still sub judice; with these exceptions there have been no series of crimes that can possibly be called justification for deportation and for the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
There is still a graver aspect than that which I have alluded to. That is that the agency through which these extra-legal methods are carried out is the agency of the Indian Police. The Report of the Royal Commission, appointed by Lord Curzon in 1902, and which reported in 1905, was a scathing indictment of the whole force, the truth of which has never been questioned. It was presided over by Sir A. Fraser, then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. The Commissioners visited Assam, Bengal, the United Provinces, the Central Provinces, Burmah, Madras, Hyderabad, Bombay, the Punjaub, and the North-West Provinces. That Commission examined every grade of policeman. Let me read a few things said by this Commission.
It says:—
"The evidence in most provinces is that the canker of corruption affects the force in greater or less degree from constable to inspector (p. 93)." And that—"Suspects and innocent persons are bullied and threatened into giving information they are supposed to possess…Inquiries degrading in their character are conducted corom populo… Actual physical torture is now rarely resorted to, but it is easy, under the conditions of Indian society and having regard to the character of the people, to exercise strong pressure and great cruelty without having recourse to such physical violence as leaves its traces on the body of the victim. (p. 17)." They summed up their indictment as follows:—"There can be no doubt that the police force throughout the country is in a most unsatisfactory condition, that abuses are common everywhere, that this involves great injury to the people and discredit to the Government."
As to the constables, the Commission reported:—
"Everywhere we went we heard the most bitter coin-plaints of the corruption of the police……The corruption of the constable is more intolerable, because of the greater opportunities of oppression and extortion which his police powers afford.…These men are too often rough, ill-trained, and underpaid.ߪThe annoyance and vexation which their practices of extortion and oppression of ten inflict on the people have been strongly urged before us.,'
Next as to investigating officers, who are selected constables, the Commission said:—
"We regret to have to report that we have the strongest evidence of the corruption and inefficiency of the great mass of investigating officers of higher grades.…The forms of this corruption are very numerous. It manifests itself in every stage of the work of the police station. The police-officer may levy a fee or receive a present for every duty he performs.…More money is extorted as the investigation proceeds.…A body of police comes down to a village and is quartered on it for several days.…Suspects and innocent persons are bullied and threatened into giving information they are supposed to possess.…If, in the police-officer's opinion, enough evidence is not thus obtained to secure a conviction, he will not hesitate to bolster up his case with false evidence.…Deliberate association with criminals in their gains, deliberately false charges against innocent persons on the ground of private spite or village faction,
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deliberate torture of suspected persons and other most flagrant abuses occur occasionally.…What wonder is it that the people are said to dread the police?"
I next come to the inspectors. The verdict of the Commission on them is as follows:—
"We find that the public do not regard them as honest.…They have not generally the respect of their men, nor the necessary influence over them, even if they were animated by an earnest desire to permit only that which is right. One of the strongest proofs before us, of the corruption of the police, is the testimony of respectable parents, teachers, and other gentlemen as to the difficulty experienced by a young man in accepting one of the direct appointments of sub-inspector or inspector now sometimes offered. He finds himself a member of a corrupt service. He is surrounded by influences that forbid his acting uprightly.
Finally, here is the view of the Commission about the superintendents:—
The prevailing opinion…is that the superintendents are, with the rarest exceptions, upright men beyond the influence of corruption.…The charges made against them are, that they are often not well educated or intelligent men, that their training is defective, that their knowledge of the vernacular is not such as to enable them to have free intercourse with the people…that they are too much in the hands of their subordinates, that they are not accessible or even courteous to natives, that their views are too narrow…to allow them to pay due regard to complaints against their subordinates…The Commission is of opinion that there is a great deal of truth in these complaints."
It is through the instrumentality of such a police force that we Liberals are allowing our fellow-citizens in India, not only to be deported and confined by the Executive, without charge or trial, but to be prosecuted on the most serious charges known to the law in their absence before magistrates. At these secret inquiries it is the police who, as prosecutors, found the charges. And what says the Commission of them?—
"These officers are ignorant of law and procedure and inefficient for the purpose required. In Bengal the prosecution of police cases before the magistrates is in the hands of sub-inspectors. They have sometimes court head constables as assistants. They are ill-trained and incapable of conducting a case of any intricacy before the Court."
It will be seen, therefore, that every grade of policeman, from the top to the bottom, has received severe criticism from this Commission, which reported only three years ago. If there be any question about these strictures holding good, I think it will be removed by recalling the grave scandals which took place in more than one well-known trial within the last year or two. There was one case at Rawal Pindi, in which 56 out of 59 men were charged with sedition, and owing to the breakdown of the police evidence they were ordered to be discharged. In another case at Midrapur, out of 26 men charged, the case against 23 broke down hopelessly, because it was said that the principal police witness had been either bullied or tortured into making a false

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statement. Since then he has been prosecuted for perjury; I do not know what the perjury consisted of. But we know the fact that the witness was withdrawn, and the whole case collapsed against 23 of the 26 men.
All these men were kept in gaol for several months. Within the last few weeks there have been two very serious cases of police torture. There was a case at Secunderabad in December, where two policemen were convicted of torturing a man badly in order to compel him to confess his guilt. The last case, which only appeared in the papers which came by mail this day week, is a much worse one. A woman was actually charged with murdering her husband by poison in the Punjaub. The chief evidence against her was an admission of her own that she had poisoned him. Upon the case being brought before the High Court, the Chief Court of the Punjaub, it appeared that the evidence of the woman had been extorted by the police. This was the finding of the two judges: that the police had first brutally outraged the woman and then actually tortured her.
That will be found in the judgment of the learned judges, who said that the matter was a most serious one, and ought to be inquired into at once by the Government. I cite those two cases to show that the condemnation of the Commission in 1905 seems to be a condemnation which is as true to-day as it was then. If this is so, are the Indian people, watching these things, likely to receive favourably boons even of administrative reform? Some of the most respectable Indian citizens are liable to be prosecuted or deported on the evidence of the police, whom they know to be of this character. Just before Mr. Gokhale left this country—he is a man who enjoys the confidence of the Secretary of State, as well as of a great number of people in India—he spoke in the strongest terms on this subject of Reforms. Reforms, he said, could be of no use unless accompanied by a conciliatory measure of amnesty for political prisoners.
We have never been told, either by the representative of India in this House, or, so so far as I know, by the Secretary of State, for what offences these men have been so treated. We are told that they are deporte d under these regulations, save that it is for good and sufficient reasons, or it is for good and sufficient reasons, or because the internal peace of the country demands it. Anything more specific than that we have not been able to obtain.
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The Correspondent of the "Times," telegraphing from Calcutta on the 22nd. January, says:—
"Information from Eastern Bengal shows that the deportations and the disbanding of the Samitis have exercised the sobering effect which was expected. The simple villagers round Barisal acted on the principle that the man to whom they had to defer was the man who exercised authority. Many signs have indicated that Aswini Dutt was this man. He controlled the supply of the magistrate's servants, ordered the people to buy dear country-made instead of cheap Manchester dhoties, placed pickets before the dealers in European goods, and had this man beaten and that ostracized for refusing to obey his orders. The British Raj seemed helpless to protect the loyal natives or to defend British trade."
Is this really the sum of the offence? I say with all respect that we have not been able in this House or anywhere else to see what offence has been committed. I believe that crime committed by any of these gentlemen should be punished, and punished severely, as it deserves, but a thing is not a crime until it is proved. At the present moment we have in India the most drastic laws for the purpose of detecting and punishing all kinds of crime of a political nature. The last two years have been years of increasingly repressive legislation. There is the Penal Code, the New Press Act, the New Public Meetings Act, the New Explosives Act, and finally the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
Therefore, why was there any reason to resort to the arbitrary measure of deportation without charge or trial? They are methods unknown in this country since the Stuarts, but which were used by Louis Napoleon to carry out that great political crime by which in 1851 he seized supreme power in France, and methods which are denounced by the opinion of the civilised world. You may cut down the freedom of the Press in India. You may forbid political meetings. You may abolish trial by jury, and introduce ex parte inquiries held in secret. You may place the personal liberty of British subjects at the disposal of an Executive supported by a hopelessly corrupt police force. But you cannot crush out the two root causes of the unrest, namely, the passionate feeling against the partition of Bengal, and, what Mr. Gladstone salled. "those laudable sentiments of national independence which lie at the root of patriotism." A little time, as he said. may no doubt be gained by gigantic labours in repression, during which not even the slightest ripple of discontent will he discernible. And within that little time statesmen, dressed in their brief authority, may claim credit of the world for the peremptory assertion of power. But they are only damming up the stream and

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accumulating the waters which, when the day of bursting comes, will be absolutely ungovernable.
In the great biography of Mr. Gladstone with which the Secretary of State has enriched our literature, there is a striking description of how in 1881 a knot of Irish Members made a memorable fight in this House against Mr. Forster's Coercion Act. Upon this incident the biographer of Mr. Gladstone makes this pregnant comment: "After all, the suspension of habeas corpus is a thing that men may well think it worth while to fight about." Most true, indeed. But if true about Ireland, how much more about India? In Ireland the suspension of habeas corpus was for a limited time, and under the watchful scrutiny of this House, with its able and zealous representatives of the Irish people. In India the suspension is permanent at the will of the Executive, and the people affected have neither voice nor vote to influence that Executive. Unrepresented in their own country and unrepresented here they have nothing to rely upon but that which they have been taught to believe to be a fundamental right of every British subject—the right not to be deprived of liberty until convicted after a fair trial of a breach of the law. I cannot believe that the House of Commons, upon whom the Constitution has placed the ultimate responsibility for the Government of India, will by sanctioning these arbitrary measures teach the people of India that it is only within the limits of these islands that a British subject can count upon personal liberty and the protection of the law. If it did it would mean that the rules of freedom which we have inherited from our ancestors are to be abandoned in favour of the despotic methods of Oriental rule.
Mr. T. HART-DAVIESI beg to second this Amendment, and I think it is certainly time that this ancient piece of legislation should be ended. When we recollect what India was in 1818 and what it is now it is an extraordinary thing to me, and one I never could understand, how such ancient legislation has existed with its monstrous and horrid provisions. The political life of a statesman who would propose such legislation at present would not be worth a moment's purchase. If it is absolutely impossible to introduce such now I think the sooner it is taken off the Statute Book the better, because it is incompatible with all one's ideas and with most of the existing Indian administration.
We have given freedom of the Press to India, and I cannot see how such a law is compatible with that. We practically
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say to the Press you can publish anything you like, "and at the same time we reserve the power, if you say anything we do not like, to send you to gaol for unlimited time or deport you from the country without any procedure at all, and simply from our own free will." I admit that when the freedom of the Press was introduced there was a good deal to be said on the opposite side. It was altogether a new thing. Now that we have freedom of the Press I think it was quite right, and I am quite sure it would be absolutely impossible to take it away.
It seems to me that to keep on this piece of legislation is not only absurd, but dangerous to the common weal. I remember I was talking to a professor in Moscow who had been the victim of an "administrative order." He had to go and live in a small village in Siberia as long as the Government choose. We were talking about this monstrous abuse of power. He was a well-educated man, and said to me "I may observe you have law in India that we have in Russia." I could hardly say that was not the case. All I could say as a feeble rejoinder was that it was hardly ever acted upon. That is the case.
As far as I remember, it was only acted on once while I was in India, and that was in the case of a man who was one of the descendants of a former ruling family, who had come to India, where he was arrested and deported. The mistake was in alowing him to land. Every Government is fully justified in refusing admission to those who would be likely to create political disturbance. I remember the subject came up in the newspapers, and there was talk of repeal, and it was stated the law had practically become a dead letter.
Of recent years, however, it has been acted on very frequently, and I think the political dangers of acting upon it can hardly be exaggerated. After all, on these occasions, as the hon. Member for Newbury has truly said, the administration ultimately depends on the reports made by the police. I do not wish to make a sweeping accusation against the police in India; I have been a police officer there myself. All I can say is that they are underpaid, that they require a great deal of looking after, and that they do not get as much looking after as they ought to have. They have always been open to charges of corruption, and public opinion among the natives of India is that they-are a corrupt and blackmailing body. In the course of my experience they have been accused of blackmailing, very often undeservedly; but, on the whole, they are

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a body of men I would not go out of my way to trust.
I remember when plague first arrived in India, I was on plague duty, and had to carry out sanitary measures. The people came to me and said they would carry out any orders I chose to give, but they said, "For Heaven's sake, do not let the police have any share in the carrying out of the orders." That is an illustration of the way in which the police are regarded in India. They are a very unsafe reed to rest upon. I should look with very great suspicion on evidence which rested entirely with them; it might be rendered in the form which they thought the Government would probably like. Lord Macaulay pointed out long ago how extremely easy it is to produce evidence—it grows out of the ground, as it were—if it is the popular idea that it falls in with the wishes of the Government. For these reasons, I think that it is an extremely doubtful and dangerous enactment.
I have no doubt that very often the Government have got hold of the wrong man. In the case of Lajput Rai, I believe they got hold of the wrong man altogether. Lajput Rai, who is a reformer, very enthusiastic, of a deeply religious character, high-minded, and high-principled, told me, and I believe him, that there was no reason whatever for the charges supposed to be brought against him—he never really knew what those charges were. I look upon the Secretary of State's reforms as extremely valuable; I believe Lord Morley will go down to history as a wise and courageous reformer. But it is an infinite pity that the effect of those reforms should be spoilt by these arbitrary arrests going on at the same time, and the putting in force of this ancient enactment under which a man is condemned without trial and without publicity.
It is customary in the East, when any great event occurs—such as the Jubilee or the taking over of India by the Crown—that prisoners should be released. It seems a curious way of celebrating one's joy, but that is what is done. But the way in which that is carried out seems to me an extreme instance of judicial foolishness. Apparently all the criminals have remitted one month for every year of their sentences; so that an enterprising burglar, sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, would get out of gaol eight months earlier than he would otherwise have done. That is not exactly a measure to kindle the enthusiasm of the people. What one wants to do on these occasions is to kindle
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the enthusiastic feelings of loyalty which, I believe, are only dormant; and they should be aroused in a way which would not lay us open to the charge of absurdity, as I believe this proposal does.
These reforms are to be sanctioned, and a new era is to open for India. Would it not have been better to have said, "Now let us all—reformers and people who have distinguished themselves by aspirations for a higher future for India—let us all join hands. We will release everybody from gaol who is there for political offences—not those guilty of actual violence; we will at the same time repeal the obnoxious enactment which places the liberty of every man at the disposal of the Government. Let us work hand in hand for the regeneration of India." If only the Secretary of State had the imagination and sympathy to accompany these reforms by such a universal peace-making declaration as that there might be a very great future for his proposals in India.
The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Buchanan)I am anxious at an early moment in the debate to say what I have to say upon this Amendment. My hon. Friend, as almost all here are, is a supporter of the reforms which have been brought forward by the Secretary of State. I should be the last person to deprecate the discussion of any political subject in the House of Commons; I spent too many years in Opposition to do that; but I do sincerely think that any detailed discussion, giving rise to acute diversity of opinion to-night, would at any rate not help forward the cause of those reforms in India. I regret very much—I hope he will not object to my saying so—that my hon. Friend should have felt it his duty tonight to bring forward this Motion, at the very moment when those reforms are under discussion in Parliament.
In another place, as he is aware, last night and to-night an interesting debate has been in progress. The House of Lords has the opportunity of considering the brighter side of the situation in India—the brighter side, which I hope will eventually develop into a still brighter day. We are to-night called upon by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury to contemplate the dark side of the picture. I would at the beginning of my remarks lay stress on the fact that the unrest, as it is called, in India, and all the political troubles which undoubtedly exist there, are local, and that we beleive them to be temporary. We also believe that important and permanent remedies will be carried into effect at the earliest moment.

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In regard to the Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend, I do not propose to go into details on the subject. I am sorry that he delivered a detailed attack on the police. I am perfectly well aware of the Report of the Commission of three or four years ago that the state of affairs in the police force was one of serious evil, and deeply to be regretted. The hon. Member is perfectly well aware that it has been stated by myself and my predecessor that considerable steps have been taken to remedy the defects which were pointed out. I am informed that the money expended on the force, amounting to more than a million sterling per annum, has had considerable effect in making the force more efficient and trustworthy.
We have got a better class of men there, and there is ample evidence to show that an improvement has been brought about. I took the opportunity of speaking to-day to a man high in the police force in Bengal, where the police force numbers, I think, 30,000 men, and he assured me that there had been an enormous change in the state of things which existed a few years ago. I think it would be only fair and right that my hon. Friend should recognise the efforts which have been made.
Mr. MACKARNESSDoes my right hon. Friend deny the miscarriage of justice which I have called attention to?
Mr. BUCHANANI am not prepared to affirm or deny the state of affairs the hon. Member alluded to; but I would call attention to the fact that he had only seen it in the newspapers which arrived by last mail. I think he was a little premature in immediately citing as an actual fact a statement which he had just seen, and in founding upon that a general charge.
Mr. MACKARNESSI cited the judgment of two judges, given verbatim in the Court of Appeal. I could not do more than that.
Mr. BUCHANANI do not think my hon. Friend was justified in making a personal attack on the police in India and suggesting that it was upon the information of the corrupt members of the force that we had founded our action. If that was not implied in the statement of my hon. Friend, I do not know what was implied. I told him yesterday that that is not the fact. With regard to the deportations, the reports handed in to the Government of India, and upon which they have depended solely, has been made by the higher officials of the police force—the Deputy Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department and the officials imme-
822
diately around him—men who are as implicitly to be depended upon as the best officials in Scotland Yard, men who are as careful in their judgment and in their inquiries, and on the veracity of whose reports the utmost credit may be placed.
After all the objections which my hon. Friend takes to our action have reference to principle, and not to detail. He objects to what we have done under the Regulation of 1818. What does that Regulation enable us to do? It enables us to put persons in prison without formulating a charge against them, and without putting them on their trial; and it gives us the power of detaining them in prison for an indefinite time. I think I have fairly summarised the powers conferred by the Regulation under which we are acting. It is to the powers thereby given that both of my hon. Friends are resolutely opposed. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, who seconded the Amendment, alluded only for a moment to one point of detail. He objected to us acting under the Regulation of 1818 because it was such an old law. What would have been the alternative? Surely on the representations which were made by the Government of India to us the probability is that there would have been the expression of a desire that the Legislative Council should pass an Act giving powers analagous to those in the Regulation of 1818. The Viceroy would have been willing to give similar powers under an Act passed by the Legislative Council. I should be the last person to deny for a moment that that Act might be abused. Its abuse is quite possible in the hands of a weak or panic-stricken Government, but I think during these troubled times the Government have not shown any sign of panic whatever.
I think that of all the good services Lord Minto has rendered to this country and to India during the past two years there is none greater than the steady, calm, and silent coolness with which he has faced a difficult situation. By his coolness and courage he has prevented others in times of great emergency from being panic-stricken. No one can say that the Government of India has been hasty in dealing with the troubles with which they have been faced. The comments passed on their action, both here and in India, have been quite in the other direction. I daresay that in the opinion of my hon. Friend the member for the Montgomery Boroughs they have been too slow, but Lord Minto and his Council affirmed all through that it was their duty as long as possible to use the ordinary law, and it was only when

823
the ordinary law had conspicuously failed, when criminal justice was no longer obtainable, and when crime became master of the law and not law of crime, that it was considered necessary to have recourse to special legislation or to special administrative action. Its abuse is possible in the hands of a weak and vacillating Executive, and with regard to its use it will be only resorted to in times of real emergency. On such occasions of real emergency and danger it is absolutely essential that the Government of India should retain such power in its hands. On this point His Majesty's Government are perfectly clear and decided. I need hardly say that I am not going into detail with regard to particular cases, as I have been invited to do so by my right hon. Friend.
We were asked to formulate charges against individuals who have been arrested under this regulation. I cannot here formulate charges against them on the floor of the House of Commons. All I can say is that when the Secretary of State gave his consent to the action of the Government of India he did so on the assurance that each case had been investigated. Under this order the authorities can lay their hands upon individuals who are the real instigators—behind the scenes—of many of the outrages that have taken place; and of the nine men who have been arrested under this regulation they believe and we believe that we have got amongst them some leading agitators. It is not always the actual perpetrator of the crime who is the great criminal. It is impossible not to feel some human pity for the miserable boys and young men who at the bidding of others have been induced to take part in these deeds of murder, and sacrifice their own lives. That they were bidden to do so by men behind the scenes, and in the safety of being behind the scenes, we know by their own confessions. The young man now under sentence of death has said so. The two young men who murdered the Kennedys said so, and we have evidence in other cases to the same effect. Let us really recognise the facts—the evidence is overwhelming from the Alipur case and from other sources.
There is in Bengal and Eastern Bengal an organised conspiracy, the definite object of which is to subvert British rule. It will not attempt to attain that object by an armed rising.
Several of the decoities that have recently occurred in East Bengal have been committed by bands of young men acting
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under orders for the declared purpose of obtaining money for this revolutionary propaganda. Then there is an active and militant section, the object of whom is to obtain explosives and arms. They are the men who make the bombs and who use them. The general plan of campaign has been terrorism—to paralyse the administration of the law and to paralyse the action of the Executive Government. For this object they have boasted that they have murdered and intend to murder. We ought to recognise the fact that they have not been unsuccessful in carrying out their plan of campaign. The fate of a public prosecutor—Ashulosh Biswas—is one that surely should not pass unnoticed in the House of Commons. He was a man of the highest intelligence, integrity, and ability. His political opinions were what we all call advanced, and he was quite outspoken in declaring them, and he was equally outspoken in opposition to all resort to violence or murder. It was not part of his duty to undertake the prosecution, but he was asked to do so because of his known capacity. He was complete master of the case, and when he was asked to prosecute he said: "If I do so I shall be shot." The superior officer said, "I receive many more threatening letters than you do. After all, it is our job, and we have got to do it," and he said, "If you put it to me in that way I will do it." The House of Commons may surely pay a tribute to a man who has perished in the discharge of his duty.
I do not want for many reasons to dwell in detail on this subject or to draw up a catalogue of crimes. In the speech delivered by Sir Harvey Adamson on December 11th will be found a list of the grave and more recent crimes—the successive four attempts in the year on the life of Sir Henry Fraser, attacks on trains by which European officials were known to be travelling, the murders of policemen and witnesses and others. That is a serious catalogue of crime. To my mind, anyhow, it is of such a serious character, and in the mind of the Government of India such a catalogue fully justifies the demand for exceptional treatment. The British race is the ruling race in India; our fellow-countrymen are few in number and are scattered over large areas. Can anyone wonder at their impatience at the continued evidence of insecurity and danger around them. And it is not from our fellow-countrymen alone that representations have been made as to the dangers of the situation. Week by week and day by day for the last six months and more con-

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tinuous complaints have been addressed to the Governments of India and Bengal by natives in all stations of life as to the state of terror in which they live and the intimidation practised upon them, and they appeal for protection. No one suffers in Bengal more than the ordinary Indian citizen who wants to go about his daily business unimpeded and to be allowed to earn his livelihood and to enjoy the fruits of his labour and to depend upon the even administration of justice. We believe that the disease is local and temporary.
If ever an occasion called for exceptional remedies, surely this is such an occasion. May I bring one point before my hon. Friends and the House? In the action they are taking to-night in the strong attack that they are making here and in the Press against the Government of India and His Majesty's Government they are more Indian than the Indians. They read the native Press, and so do I. The selections that I read always contain, and are intended to contain, all the strongest and most hostile comments that are made on the Government's action in India, and we all know how unfair are their denunciations, how implacable their anger, how bitter their language. And yet with regard to both the Deportation and the Criminal Law Amendment Act their language has been not only studiously moderate, but remarkably so. No one would deny this, no one would expect anything else with regard to the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
Mr. MACKARNESSDoes the right hon. Gentleman represent that the Press is free?
Mr. REES: Are they not much more than free?
Mr. BUCHANANI am only expressing my opinion, and I say no one will deny that the constitution of a special tribunal with summary powers of trying these offences was the particular form of remedy that was generally demanded as much by Indian as by European opinion. The Tribunal we have set up—the three judges—is a tribunal that was suggested by Public opinion and it is the tribunal that commands general confidence. The details of the procedure. The details of the procedure of commitment on which my hon. Friends have laid so much stress, received comparatively little criticism in India. An hon. Member called attention to the nature of what he called the secret nature of the Criminal Inquiry. In Scotland we have Secret Inquiries for many generations, and the proceedings under
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the Criminal Law Amendment Act is exactly the procedure that has existed in Scotland for generations.
Mr. MACNEILLBut never used.
Mr. BUCHANANAlways used. I was not a witness, nor was I ever brought up on a criminal charge in my own country or elsewhere, but I took the liberty of asking my right hon. Friend the new Lord Advocate, and I went through with him a couple of nights ago the clauses of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, and I asked him: "Am I justified in stating to the House that it is exactly the same procedure as in Scotland?" and he told me I was perfectly justified in doing so, and that there was only one variation, and that this variation in procedure was more in favour of India, and that is where the witnesses are put on oath.
Mr. MACKARNESSThe great difference is that the evidence of the accused would not be used against him in his absence. In his absence the evidence should not be used against him.
Mr. BUCHANANI am dealing at present with regard to the Second Preliminary Inquiry. If a witness is dead, he cannot be produced. Witnesses have been murdered or put out of the way, after the evidence was recorded, and we intend, no doubt, in exceptional cases to avoid any such difficulty in future, due to murder or the making away with witnesses already examined.
They in India regret as we do that we should have to resort to these expedients, but they, at least those who are not in sympathy with the extremist party, recognise the grave nature of the emergency, and the absolute necessity of taking steps to deal with it. I am occasionally appealed to in regard to the administration of the native states, and I admit that the administration of the native states is sometimes most admirable, but I took the trouble to inquire as to the power of the rulers of those native states, and there is not a single native state of any magnitude which does not possess this power, and does not use it more or less frequently. Then I think the people of India recognise another thing, and that is that in using the regulation and in passing the Criminal Law Amendment Act, the Government are in no sense endeavouring to inaugurate a reactionary policy, or in any form revert to a system of coercion.
Looking at the facts as they are, what do they find? They find that in the

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second week in December, on Friday, the 11th of December, the Criminal Law Amendment Act was passed, on the 13th of December the nine men were deported under the Regulation of 1818, but before that week was out, on the 17th of December, the announcement was made in Parliament—in this House and the other House—of a wide and great scheme f administrative and legal reform. They saw that with their own eyes, and they knew that in passing the Criminal Law Amendment Act, and having recourse to the Regulation of 1818, we were dealing with an exceptional emergency, and that our permanent policy for the amelioration of India was contained in the reforms proposed.
The House will remember that in the autumn of last year, or those who follow these things will remember, that considerable pressure was put upon the Government of India and upon us here to postpone these reforms until measures had been taken to repress outrage and restore order in Bengal. The Government of India and the Secretary of State here declined to take any such action. They said the reforms had been long promised, carefully elaborated, and it was intended that they should be, and it was firmly believed they would be a permanent step forward in the better government of India and in securing the contentment of the people of India. From another quarter pressure was brought to bear upon the Government of India to postpone the Criminal Law Amendment Act, and the Deportations until after the Reforms had been introduced and passed, the Government here and the Government of India refused, and said that the maintenance and security of the country and of the unquestioned supremacy of the law over crime is the first and elemental duty of a Government, and that that duty should be discharged at the earliest possible moment, irrespective of other considerations.
The extremists, as they are called, have done their best to prevent the introduction of the reforms to depreciate their value, and will do their best to prevent and frustrate their operation. But there are extremists and extremists, both here and in India. In India there are those who have held and preached extreme views, but who have scorned to preach or practice or connive at violent methods, and we are confident, and I think we have grounds for that confidence, that the extremists of this character will be in-
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fluenced, shall I say softened, by what we propose to do in the Councils Bill and the other measures which we have introduced. We cannot, of course, give them all they want, it is impossible to do that, but we offer them a great deal, and as practical men looking to the practical benefit of their country, I believe that they will see that we are sincere in endeavouring to make a success of these measures.
Of course, there are other extremists—those who desire to advance their views by violent deeds and methods, by bombs, assassinations, intimidation or revolution. With them we can make no terms. It is for them these measures are specially intended. We owe it to India as a whole and to humanity that these outrages and crimes shall be made to cease, and their perpetrators and abettors be sternly punished.
One word to my hon. Friends before sitting down. Do not let them imagine that I in any way misunderstand the motives that actuate them in this matter and the speeches they have made. They would like and they think that it is possible to apply rigidly and in all circumstances the exact process of Law and Constitutional Government that we enjoy here to the British Government of India. They talk about Magna Charta and other doctrines of that kind.
That is an aspiration, an ideal. But. after all, in the practical work of government, especially a Government such as our Government of India, emergencies will arise, difficult emergencies, in which theories and ideals have to be put on one side, and rough work begins, and when facts have to be dealt with by the best means at command. But we shall not allow this temporary emergency—for it is temporary—to divert us from advancing along the road of administrative progress. The sincerity of our intentions is admitted in India. The scheme is welcomed, and warmly welcomed, by all classes. Do not let us here to-night say or do anything that can in any way frustrate the permanent march of India along these safe and peaceful lines of Constitutional development.
Earl PERCYI am not quite sure what the right hon. Gentleman who just sat down referred to when he said that during the last few years, and during last year, the Government has been strongly pressed in some quarters to delay the introduction of reform until agitation had been put a stop to. I do not think that suggestion was made by anybody on this

829
side, but certainly not by me, and I took great care on the last occasion that I spoke on the subject expressly to repudiate any idea of it. Having entered that caveat, I merely rise now to express in a few words my entire support of his Majesty's Government and my entire agreement with everything that has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman.
And perhaps at the same time he will allow me to offer him my heart-felt sympathy. He said very truly that what we were engaged in discussing was an abstract principle. We have been engaged in discussing an abstract principle for the last two days, and I agree it is extremely unfortunate for his Majesty's Government that, on the very day on which they should have been put on their trial for refusing to prosecute offenders before two resident magistrates with power of calling evidence and with the right, in the event of conviction, of an appeal to superior courts; they should have to defend themselves for deporting Indians not only without trial and without appeal, but without any charge being made against them at all. That, I confess, seems to me an awkward position, but at the same time I intend to support his Majesty's Government, and I shall support them with all the more readiness because it affords me an opportunity of expressing my pleasure that at last at the India Office we have that rara avis, a Liberal statesman who does not care a pin about charges of personal inconsistency and is determined to do his duty, no matter whether it squares with an abstract political shibboleth or not.
The Amendment asks the House to assent to two propositions. It asks us in the first place to express our satisfaction with the scheme of Reforms which has been presented to us. I think there is a very general consensus of opinion in favour of the general outline of these Reforms, whatever differences of opinion there may be upon matters of detail. But I think everybody will agree that to express a judgment of that kind after a Debate confined to a few hours, and dealing not with details of the Reforms themselves, but with what I contend is a wholly irrelevant issue, would be a somewhat absurd course for the House to take.
The second proposition which the Amendment invites us to register is that the success of the reforms will be prejudiced by the executive measures which the Government have taken. That proposition really conveys no meaning to my mind at all. I should have thought the
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object of the Reform scheme admittedly is to broaden the basis of representation, and to give larger opportunities and powers of criticism to the Legislative Assembly. Therefore I should have thought if there were any connection at all between the alleged basis of executive power and these reforms, the connection with that these reforms would give to the minority of the Viceroy's Council a more effective check upon the Executive than they have exercised hitherto.
The Amendment before the House really invites us to pronounce censure not only on the Government at home, but on the Executive in India, and I entirely agree with what the hon. Gentleman said when he pointed out that it was not a sufficient basis on which to ground a vote of censure of that kind, merely to establish what indeed is incontrovertible, and no one would think of disputing that every exceptional power which you use is capable of abuse. That is the great objection, such as it is, to the employment of exceptional powers at all, but before you can make out a case for censure you must establish that there has been acknowledged perpetration of at all events some abuses, in some cases of injustice. The hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment failed to establish any such contention, and I think he admits that fact. But even if he did establish it, I do not think even that would be a sufficient warrant for passing a vote of censure, because after all there are crises in every civilised community in which the Government must be guided practically by the motto, Salus populi suprema lex. where the consideration of the safety of the whole nation must necessarily override considerations of the rights of the individual. I do not think any one desires that a situation of that kind had arisen last year.
Certainly in the debates which took place the other day on the new machinery proposed in the Legislative Council, no Member got up to deny that a case had arisen for resort to exceptional measures. I do think that if any point is to be made against His Majesty's Government it is the opposite of that; it is that possibly it might have been unnecessary ever to resort to this policy of deportation under the Act of 1818 if they had adopted sterner measures before. I am not referring so much to the use of exceptional legislation; I am rather referring to the action of the Government of India itself and the action of the Indian Council. The acceptance of the resignation of Sir Bampton Fuller, followed by the introduction of the very

831
reforms which they had refused to carry out and which he had recommended, and the decision not to reverse the partition of Bengal, accompanied as it was at the same time by an expression of opinion that the original policy of partition was mistaken—the action taken in these two matters was calculated to produce—I dare-say quite unjustly—an impression of weakness, of indecision, and of vacillation which of course encouraged the agitators to continue their agitation. I do not want to dwell on that. I do not rake it up for the purpose of making any charge against His Majesty's Government. If we were to found any argument as to the necessity for the use of these exceptional powers on what has happened in the past, I think that that would be a fair criticism. But what we have to decide this evening is not what has happened in the past, but what ought to be done in the future.
The question is whether anything has occurred during the past three or four months since Lord Morley announced his proposals for reform in the House of Lords which rendered resort to this exceptional form of procedure necessary. The hon. Gentleman who moved this Motion and the hon. Member who seconded it contend, as I understand, that the mere introduction of this scheme of reform ought to enable the Government of India to dispense with these exceptional powers. I dissent from them altogether, and for this reason among others, that that reform was never framed so as to meet the grievances of the extreme section who are really so irresponsible, nor could the reform by any possibility meet their aspirations. There is another reason. I think the mere fact of the introduction of these reforms renders it the more inadvisable to part with any power which the Executive already possesses. In times of political transition you have a certain unsettling of men's minds. You have an apprehension on the part of the minority that they will suffer injustice. You have a general disturbance of conditions that is very likely to have a deterrent effect on the free introduction of capital, which is of such vital importance to Indian industries and to the economic future of the country.
Therefore I say that the period of political transition through which India is about to pass is the very last period at which the Indian Government should be asked to dispense with any powers which may strengthen the Executive. There is one other point which I wish to make
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against the Amendment. The process of deportation under this particular Act of 1818 is not a very desirable power to use if it can be avoided, and if for no other reason than this, that when you release the deported man after a time you invariably create an impression, which I daresay is unfounded, that there may have been a miscarriage of justice.
Therefore I do not like that procedure if it can possibly be helped. Perhaps it may be thought that the Government of India, having now armed itself with special powers of summary jurisdiction, may be able to dispense, at all events, to a larger extent, with the exercise of this particular power under the Act of 1818. The main reason for that is that Sir Edward Baker in the Legislative Council, when discussing the Public Meetings Bill, the Seditious Press Bill, and the Summary Jurisdiction Bill, expressed very grave doubt whether even those powers would be sufficient to cope with sedition.
At all events, I think the House will feel that, particularly at the present, when you are contemplating giving to the Indian people larger powers of criticising the Executive, it is absurd for us to anticipate that criticism, and I strongly suspect myself that when the Legislative Councils are formed, if they prove to be more truly representative of every class of people in India than Legislative Councils have hitherto been, I shall be very much surprised if it is found that a con-census of opinon on those Councils is in favour of withdrawing from the Executive authority any powers they now possess for dealing with anarchy or crime.
Mr. KEIR HARDIEThis is the second discusson we have had upon coercion in connection with the Address. On both occasions the hon. Members who occupy the Conservative Benches have been consistent in advocating coercive legislation in connection with the alleged lawlessness both in Ireland and in India. The Government is occupying to-night a position the direct opposite of what it has occupied during the past two nights in connection with the debate concerning crime in Ireland. It is quite true no one denies that there have been outrages in India; but. considered in proportion to the population, how many are they? That was the test by which the Government justified their refusal to resort to exceptional powers for the repression of crime in Ireland. Surely, an argument which holds good in connection with Ireland, might well apply to India, and if that test

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be applied in the matter of crime in India, then that country occupies even a better position compared with England than does Ireland itself.
But there is one point I want to press—I hope the House on both sides will agree that it should be pressed—upon the attention of the Under-Secretary of State for India. He has drawn a very grim picture of India, and especially in the Presidency of Bengal, and is not content with blaming the deported persons with carrying on ordinary political agitation, but has also charged them with being responsible for the outrages which have taken place during recent months. In that connection he gave the impression—to me at least—that the reason for the deportations which have taken place was because the Government had satisfied themselves that the men deported were the prime originators of these outrages. Hitherto the charges against these men have not been formulated, neither to them nor the country. The natural inference now is that the reason why the Government has taken this extreme action in regard to these men, whom the right hon. Gentleman must admit, are men of high social position, is because the Government have satisfied themselves that they have been instigating, and supplying the funds, for the commission of these outrages.
I put it to the right hon. Gentleman, the Under-Secretary, that either he has gone too far in his statement of the fact, or not far enough. Either the ground upon which these men have been deported should be made public, or otherwise his inuendo that they are responsible for crimes that have been committed should be publicly withdrawn. It is most unfair to men who have no chance to defend themselves. These men are not common agitators. Mr. Oswini Kumar Dutt is the head of one of the largest educational establishments in Eastern Bengal, at Barisal. It was founded by his father. The second man who has been deported is a professor in his college. The third is Mr. Kumar Mittir, a religious teacher and journalist and a man who throughout has always been opposed, both in his writings and speeches, to crime or outrage in any or every form.
Now, these are the gentlemen who have been deported without trial, and whom we are now asked to believe are held by the Government to be the prime movers, originators, and instigators of outrages which everyone condemns. It is most unfair, and I hope the matter will not be allowed to rest there.
834
Then with regard to special legislation. The parallel drawn by the right hon. Gentleman between the Procurator-Fiscal in Scotland and these cases in India is far-fetched. The Procurator-Fiscal in Scotland makes private inquiries to ascertain what grounds there are upon which to found a charge to be subsequently tried in the court. The person accused is not condemned on the strength of these private inquiries—
Mr. BUCHANANNor is he here.
Mr. KEIR HARDIEThe investigations are used to ascertain whether there is a prima facie case to justify criminal proceedings. That is all—
Mr. BUCHANANThe same here.
Mr. KEIR HARDIEAnd when the proceedings are before the court every one of the witnesses upon whose statement the charge has been brought is entitled to be cross-examined. But that procedure that enables a court to proceed and condemn a man upon the evidence of witnesses who cannot be produced is not only a serious innovation, but in the existing state of affairs in India is a positive danger to every person.
Let me illustrate the point. The main facts are not disputed. There was the case at Midnapur in which 36 men, all of good social position, including one landlord and a number of lawyers, were arrested and cast into gaol on the strength of a statement made by an informer. The men were kept in prison for weeks or months. ["Months."] It was then discovered that the statement of the informer was not his statement at all, but had been prepared for him by some minor police officer. He had been compelled to sign it under threat, but in signing it he took the precaution to pencil on the back of the statement that it was not his, but that of the police, and which he had been forced to sign. Supposing these men had been tried under the new Act, the same police officer who committed the crime of getting this man to sign a forged statement would not have been above keeping him out of the way during the trial, and the only evidence, therefore, upon which these men would have been convicted would have been that of a perjurer acting under the compulsion of the police official, and who would not have been subjected to cross-examination.
This method of trying an accused person without being able to submit the witness to the test of cross-examination is one of the gravest danger under the conditions which obtain in that country. The right

835
hon. Gentleman admitted that the powers for deportation are only to be resorted to in times of real emergency and real danger. Does that emergency exist at the present time in Eastern Bengal? Is it not a fact that the agitation there has considerably abated? Oswini Kumar Dutt, head of a great educational institution in Barisal, East Bengal, was two years ago charged by a higher grade official with having confessed to being a seditious person. The charge was publicly made. Oswini Kumar Dutt brought an action against the official, and obtained damages against him in the Law Courts in justification of his character. Let me ask whether it is on the strength of the statements horn the same police officials that Mr. Dutt has now been deported?
Surely, in cases like that, where there is evidence of police persecution, the greatest possible care should be taken. The point of the Amendment is obvious and plain. The reforms suggested by the Government, and the Jubilee proclamation by His Majesty the King are intended to inaugurate a new era, and to enable the people of India, as it were, to make a fresh start.
Let us try to put ourselves in the place of these people. For half a century they have been agitating for reforms, and the reply of the Government has been coercive legislation and repression. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the moderation of the Press in regard to recent repressive legislation. Surely it is a case of cause and effect. If the comments be anything else but moderate the paper would be suppressed. Here is the fact: the educated classes in India have for half a century been agitating for reform. The men who have been deported have been the most honoured and trusted leaders of those people. Now that reforms are about to be inaugurated and that these men are deported without trial, will that produce content or satisfaction or peace? Will not loyalty to their colleagues compel those who have not been deported to agitate for the release of their friends? Why not make a fresh start?
See that when the change is to be made it will be under conditions which will make for its success, and that the spirit of the Amendment of my right hon. Friend opposite be adopted and put into practice by the Government. There can be no doubt whatever of the beneficial effects on
836
the people of India of such a course. I was sorry beyond measure to hear the reactionary spirit which animated the speech of the Under-Secretary. He held out no glimmer of hope whatever. Even the Noble Lord showed more breadth of view in connection with this matter. Since a new beginning is to be made, let something approaching justice be done in order to restore good feeling, which the people of India desire to entertain towards this country.
Mr. REESI agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and with the Noble Lord, and with all the views that have been expressed by the Noble Lord, and his hope that we may be able to administer affairs in India without recourse as far as may be to this exceptional legislation. I did not gather from the right hon. Gentleman, despite what the hon. Member for Merthyr has said, that he desired that recourse to that legislation should be anything but exceptional and as rare as possible. I do take the strongest exception to this Amendment. I cannot see that its two portions are connected one with the other, or how it could be desirable to introduce in this passing manner the question of the reforms now before the House of Lords, which it is perfectly obvious cannot be dealt with to-night in a satisfactory manner.
My hon. Friend who seconded the Amendment was in a great hurry to introduce the new era, and he went so far as to decide what remissions of sentences should be given when it dawned. But you must first catch your chicken. Surely it is early times to say that we have got a new era. I do not remember in the history of any country proof that any legislation ever introduced a new era straight away. That the proposed reforms will have some effect in that direction I for one believe, and in the main I am a strong supporter of them, but to say that the moment they are passed there is to be a new era in India, and that repressive legislation or the power to have recourse to it should no longer exist would be, it seems to me, most fatuous folly, and quite unworthy of any sane, deliberative assembly. The hon. Member for Merthyr shared the same hope as the hon. Member for Hackney, but as he thinks the Government of India is altogether bad from top to bottom, he is naturally in a hurry to dispose of any of the props on which it leans.
As to the hon. Member who introduced the Amendment, I am not at all surprised

837
that he should have brought it forward, because on all occasions he shows himself filled with profound distrust of his fellow-countrymen. It is true that that is not altogether incompatible with a condemnation of coloured people—for instance, in the case of Chinese—but that is only where such condemnation of coloured people connotes a greater condemnation of his fellow-countrymen. The hon. Member can see no good thing in any of his fellow-countrymen abroad. Why he thinks that men who have been brought up in the same way as himself, educated in the same school, brought up with the same ideals, should the moment they leave this country become everything that is black and bad surpasses my comprehension.
I am convinced that, in their sober moments, the extremist Members of this House, who are always prepared to condemn the Civil Service of India, Egypt, and every other British possession, must be surprised that the House takes seriously such reckless condemnation as they breathe right and left against their fellow-countrymen. Even to-day it was King Bomba, Louis Napoleon, and other heroes of that description who were quoted by the hon. Member as being prototypes of the Civil Service of India. He was also very ready with quotations from Mr. Gladstone. But those quotations were all with reference to Ireland. I could give quotations with reference to India. Speaking upon the India Reform Bill of 1892, Mr. Gladstone said:—
"I warn the House against those persons who come and put themselves forward as if they represented the people of India."
[Ironical cheers.] I felt sure that a quotation from Mr. Gladstone would meet with the approbation of hon. Members, and I am glad to think that they recognise that that great man, at any rate, was on his guard against the class of reformer of whom the mover of this Amendment is a conspicuous example. He can see, neither in the Civil Service of India, nor in the Government of Natal, nor in any of his fellow-countrymen abroad the most elementary principles of truth, justice, or rectitude. I ask the House whether there can be any ground for such wholesale condemnation.
The seconder of the Amendment, in a far more temperate and moderate speech, said that this Regulation III. of 1818 had never been enforced during his service in India. My hon. Friend was mistaken. I think he was in India when the brothers Nutu were dealt with under this Regulation in
838
Bombay, and there were other cases in Agency tracts.
I could give more instances in other parts of India where these powers were enforced. As the Under-Secretary of State has said, in the native States of India, the administration of which the hon. Member for Merthyr is always putting forward as so much better than that of British India, similar powers not only exist, but are often acted upon. The native Princes have never acquired the notion that a type of administration which is suitable for a county or a parish in England is suitable for a Principality in India. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment seemed to think that it was easy to get evidence. I thoroughly agree with the hon. Member that you should never act without evidence if you can get it, but it is notorious that the Government have taken this action because there has been a widespread conspiracy, and they have not been able to get evidence. It is for that reason that they have had recourse to exceptional measures, though their action has been quite legal.
The honMember for Newbury, not content with the desire to follow British Law, went back to the time of the Roman Empire and pointed out that nobody was ever put away therein without a fair trial, but he overlooked the fact that the Roman Emperors themselves were murdered wholesale, without any trial whatever. The hon. Member gave as an instance in proof of his case that Lajpat Rai, with whom he was acquainted, was deported. I suppose the fact that he was acquainted with him is a sufficient reason for discharging him on any charge whatsoever. I would ask the House to remember the debate which took place yesterday in the House of Lords when Lord Morley on the one side and Lord Curzon on the other both joined in urging all their hearers to trust the man on the spot, and believe in his honesty, integrity and desire to do justice.
I appeal to the House in the same sense, and I beg them to believe that their fellow countrymen abroad are just as anxious that their fellow subjects should have a fair trial as anyone in this House can be. The hon. Member for Newbury, who brought forward the Amendment, and those who support him, instead of being the friends of the people of India—there are many peoples in India—are really the tools of the classes who wish to rule over India. I again refer hon. Members to the high authority of one whom they are in the habit of

839
accepting whenever it suits them. I mean Mr. Gladstone. If hon. Members will look at the Debates of 1892 they will find that Mr. Gladstone warned his hearers of reformers of the class who have brought forward this Amendment.
Nor do these Indians believe in the principles put forward to-day. It happened quite lately that one of the reformers in India got into trouble and was sent to gaol. He was the owner of ships which he hoped would be employed in taking all Europeans away from India. No sooner had he got into prison than he sent a petition stating that owing to the want of European supervision he was exposed to the tyranny of his own fellow-countrymen. I ask the Under-Secretary of State what steps he meant to take to protect this patriot from his fellow-countrymen.
It has been urged to-night that the state of anarchy has been somewhat exaggerated, and that we may not look forward to a constant supply of those young assassins who are prepared to sacrifice their own lives in this cause.
I myself have had a holy man coming to me with a request to be buried alive. There are any number of religious people in India who are willing to sacrifice their lives. If the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite think that their fellow-countrymen should be exposed to assassination, I cannot envy their feelings, but I think that that is a disgrace to them. The hon. Member of Newbury seemed to minimise the list of crimes, and the Under-Secretary said that it was not wise to go into the list. But I should like to say that during the last few months four attempts have been made on the life of a governor, an English woman and her daughter have been blown into pieces, a public prosecutor was the object of other attempts on his life, a detective has been assassinated, and there is another pathetic case—that of Asutosh Biswas. I de not know why this pathetic case is a good subject for the mirth of the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite. I do not know whether I should be in order if I dwelt on the very serious fact that these anarchical enterprises in India are subsidised and helped by journals published in this country, which are imported into India and translated there into the vernacular. The translations are spread broadcast. They promote assassination and
840
murder, which the hon. Gentlemen opposite regards as a subject of mirth.
Mr. MACNEILLThat charge, Mr. Speaker, should not be made. The hon. Member has accused hon. Members of indulging in mirth on the subject of assassination. I rise to order.
Mr. SPEAKERHad I seen any reason to interfere I would have done so.
Mr. REESI will leave that to my hon. Friend, who is always so temperate in his language.
Mr. MACNEILLI never made a personal charge against any member of this. House.
Mr. REESThe hon. Member for Merthyr tried to establish a parallel between India and Ireland. I should have never tried to establish such a parallel, or to urge that because the outrages that have taken place are comparatively few in number, compared with 300,000,000 inhabitants, no exceptional legislation was in any case called for. Nor can I follow his argument that these gentlemen should not have been deported because they belonged to the highest social scale. I say if they belonged to the highest social scale so much the greater is their crime.
It is impossible to get evidence under the circumstances in India, and, therefore, the Government have been driven to take exceptional measures, which I hope, quite as well as any other hon. Member, may be but of a temporary character. When the hon. Member takes the line he does I cannot help referring to a speech he made outside the House, in which he talked of the tears and blood of an oppressed people, and said that in his opinion we would probably find that the men who had taken to bomb throwing have been instigated by a venal and corrupt police.
I askare not the Indian police Indian, and whether the hon. Members do not give away their case that the Indians are so fit for self-government if the police, who must be representative Indians, are so thoroughly unfit for their functions. No one would argue that the police in this country are other than fairly representative of the people in this country or would say that the Members of this House possess the virtues usually found in Englishmen and that the police do not. The police of India must be taken as fair representatives of the people of India. I am not saying that the people of India are bad.
On the contrary, I say the people are good, and on the whole the police are

841
good, and the cases of corruption are probably not much more numerous in India than elsewhere. As one who was associated with India all my life, I ask hon. Members not to run away with the idea that every policeman is a villain and that every magistrate is prepared to believe everything and to take away the honour of British Indian subjects on the mere word of an untrustworthy policeman. There is no ground for such a contention.
As to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Merthyr-Tydvil that these gentlemen have been deported solely because they were concerned in these outrages I do not know that any of us are in a position to say whether that is so or not. It is in the nature of such things that they are, for exceptional reasons, private, and I am not concerned to give any opinion as to whether they were concerned in those particular outrages or not, though I think it is most probable they were. Hon. Gentlemen seem to have more sympathy with those who have broken the law than with those who have to carry it out. But I would ask them to read the speeches of the members of the Viceroy's Council, Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotch-men, all of them unprejudiced, and say whether there is not a good case for the action that has been taken and the use of the exceptional powers that have been exercised. I do say that it will be a most painful and serious matter that when this Debate, which I think is a most unnecessary one—I abstained myself from putting down an Amendment of an entirely different tenour—I say it will be a very serious and painful matter when this Debate is read in India if it is said that the loss of life of our fellow-countrymen and the assassination of our countrywomen has been lightly regarded. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."]
Let me withdraw that then, and substitute another expression, and say that they have not excited so much pity in this House as the temporary deprivation of liberty on the part of those whom the Government believe are at the bottom of those outrages.
Mr. LUPTONThat is an atrocious libel upon your fellow-members.
Mr. REESI repeat it would be a painful thing if that impression went out to India, and I am glad to have been able to lift up my voice against it. I hope that in another Parliament there will be more Members to express sympathy with our own people and with the law-abiding
842
native population, and not with assassination and outrage and those who practise it.
Sir HENRY COTTONI cannot congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the support he has received in the tedious and provocative speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I do not think I am unduly arrogating anything to myself when I say that I have more knowledge and experience of the working of this unfortunate Regulation of 1818 than any other member of the House. In the first place, I have known personally, and have been on terms of more or less intimacy with several gentlemen who have been arrested and imprisoned under these provisions. My acquaintance with Lalla Raj Patrai is not of yesterday. I knew him long before his arrest, and I was always convinced that there was no foundation for the charges made against him. Those charges have now been tacitly abandoned. The newspapers which have accused him have withdrawn their accusations, and I should be very much surprised to hear that the Government or any Member of the Government can now justify the action they took in his case last year.
We have had from the Under Secretary a most important speech. We have been told that the nine men who have lately been imprisoned without charge or trial have been imprisoned because the Government of India were convinced that they were concerned in the Anarchical and murderous plot in Bengal. At least two of the men so imprisoned are men whom I have known for years—men of the highest character and reputation, and of respect amongst their countrymen, and I shall never be persuaded that they are capable of such atrocious action as has been imputed to them by the right hon. Gentleman. If ever it is believed they are capable of such action, these men of integrity, position, and character have a right and demand a fair trial. That is the gravamen which we have against the Government.
Either there is evidence against them or there is not. I gathered from parts of the right hon. Gentleman's speech that there was evidence. From other portions I gather that there was none. But for the fact of their having been arrested under the Regulation which is deliberately framed for operation in cases where there is no evidence, I presume there is really no evidence in their case. That Regulation has been recently worked in India on many more occasions than it was in former times. I have worked it myself when I was head of the police. I arrested an

843
Indian who was deported and interned in gaol, and for aught I know he is there still. That was 22 years ago, and I bring it to the notice of the House with special reference to the secrecy with which action was taken. In those days the same publicity was not given to these matters as is given now. There was not a whisper in the public Press, and not a murmur in the Bazaars. No one knew that this man had been spirited away. There were many similar cases, and I protest as strongly as I can against the resort to a Regulation of that nature under which such secret and grave injustice may be perpetrated against individuals.
The case against the Government—especially in regard to the influential gentlemen I have mentioned—is that they should have been charged formally and openly in the ordinary courts of justice and should never have been sent to prison without any evidence or any charge or any trial. On this matter we shall be obliged to proceed to a Division. We are aware of the grave strain that it imposes upon supporters of the Government to vote against them on an Amendment to the Address, but I could not in justice to my own conscience refrain from voting on this occasion to express my indignation at the un-English and illiberal action which is taken under this new and effete procedure.
Mr. JOHN O'CONNORAs one of a little nation that has taken some part by the bravery of its soldiers and the skill of its generals in extending abroad the name of the British Empire, I desire to associate myself with the mover of this Amendment. I carry my mind back to a period when the Secretaries of State for India and the late Mr. Bradlaugh ad-

Division No. 8.]

AYES.

[11.2 p.m.

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

Hazleton, Richard

Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)

Alden. Percy

Healy. Timothy Michael

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Banner, John S. Harmood-

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Muldoon. John

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Higham, John Sharp

Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

Bennett. E. N.

Hogan. Michael

Murphy, N. J. (Kilkenny, S.)

Clancy, John Joseph

Hope. John Deans (Fife. West)

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Clynes, J. R.

Hudson, Walter

O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid.)

Cobbold. Felix Thornley

Jenkins, J.

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W.)

Jowett, F. W.

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Cooper, G. J.

Kettle, Thomas Michael

O'Doherty, Philip

Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

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

Crean, Eugene

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal. W.)

O'Kelly, Coner (Mayo. N.)

Crooks, William

Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E.)

Parker, James (Halifax)

Cullinan, J.

Lupton, Arnold

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Devlin, Joseph

Lynch, H. B.

Power, Patrick Joseph

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

Macdonald. J. R. (Leicester)

Radford. G. H.

Flavin, Michael Joseph

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

Redmond, William (Clare)

Flynn, James Christopher

Macpherson, J. T.

Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.)

Gill, A. H.

MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Glover, Thomas

MacVeigh. Charles (Donegal. E.)

Roche, John (Galway, East)

Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

844
dressed empty benches when the question of India was on the tapis. As a Member of that same small nation to which the Empire is under some small obligations, I was pleased to find a new interest created in that part of the British Empire. I desire to express my indebtedness to the hon. Member for Newbury for having brought the attentions of this House to the hardships under which our fellow-subjects in India labour. I am grateful to him for having brought to the acquaintance of the House a state of things not at all unlike that which sometimes prevails in Ireland.
I desire to associate myself with the hon. Member in protesting against a continuance that state of things in India. I know what it is to live in a country where trial by jury has been suppressed. I know what it is myself to appear before a Star Chamber inquiry, though I have not been subjected to the treatment described by my hon. and learned Friend; but I know well that my appearance before the Star Chamber inquiry was followed by two terms of imprisonment. I follow my hon. and learned Friend in failing to see more than one circumstance, or one condition, under which evidence obtained before a Star Chamber can be used in a Court of Law, and that is where a man under the fear of death and in peril of death makes a statement, which may be used in evidence and which has not been subjected to cross-examination. With these observations I desire to associate myself with the protest that has been moved.
Question put—"That those words be there inserted."
The House divided: Ayes, 76; Noes, 195.

Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne)

Taylor. John W. (Durham)

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Seddon, J.

Walsh, Stephen

Shackleton, David James

Wedgwood, Josiah C

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

Weir, James Galloway

Mackarness and Mr, Hart-Davies.

Summerbell, T.

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

NOES.

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

Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Acland, Francis Dyke

Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F.

Hall, Frederick

Percy. Earl

Agnew, George William

Hamilton, Marquess of

Pirie, Duncan V.

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)

Raphael, Herbert H.

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Rees, J. D.

Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worcester)

Rendall, Athelstan

Balcarres, Lord

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Renton, Leslie

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

Renwick, George

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Barker, Sir John

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.)

Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

Haworth, Arthur A.

Robinson, S.

Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks

Hedges, A. Paget

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Beale, W. P.

Helmsley, Viscount

Rogers, F. E. Newman

Beauchamp, E.

Hemmerde, Edward George

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.)

Rose, Charles Day

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon. S.)

Rowlands, J.

Bignold, Sir Arthur

Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

Russell, Rt. Hon. T. W.

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Hill. Sir Clement

Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

Bowles, G. Stewart

Hobart, Sir Robert

Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

Brace, William

Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

Scarisbrick, T. T. L

Brooke, Stopford

Holt, Richard Durning

Seaverns, J. H.

Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)

Hooper, A. G.

Seely, Colonel

Buchanan, Rt. Hon. Thomas R.

Hope, W. H. B. (Somerset, N.)

Shaw, Charles Edward (Stafford)

Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles

Houston, Robert Paterson

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Carlile, E. Hildred

Hyde, Clarendon G.

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Iilingworth, Percy H.

Simon, John Allsebrook

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

Spicer, Sir Albert

Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

Jardine, Sir J.

Stanier, Beville

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.)

Clough, William

Kekewich, Sir George

Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire)

Collings, Rt. Hon. J. (Birmingham)

Kincaid-Smith, Captain M.

Strachey, Sir Edward

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

Compton-Rickett. Sir J.

Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)

Lambert, George

Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

Cornwall. Sir Edwin A.

Lamont, Norman

Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.)

Courthope, G. Loyd

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Cowan, W. H.

Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis

Thornton, Percy M.

Dalrymple, Viscount

Lehmann, R. C.

Tomkinson, James

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

Toulmin, George

Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Levy, Sir Maurice

Ure, Alexander

Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)

Lewis, John Herbert

Valentia, Viscount

Doughty, Sir George

Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

Verney, F. W.

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

Wadsworth. J.

Du Cros, Arthur

Lye11, Charles Henry

Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Walters, John Tudor

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

M'Calmont, Colonel James

Walton, Joseph

Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

M'Crae, Sir George

Waring, Walter

Erskine. David C.

Marnham, F. J.

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Esslemont, George-Birnie

Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

Waterlow, D. S.

Evans, Sir Samuel T.

Masterman, C. F. G.

White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

Everett, R. Lacey

Menzies, Walter

White, Sir Luke (York, H.R.)

Fell, Arthur

Micklem, Nathaniel

Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

Fenwick, Charles

Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

Wiles, Thomas

Ferguson, R. C. Munro

Morrison-Bell, Captain

Williams. A. Osmond (Merioneth)

Featherstonhaugh, Godfrey

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

Fletcher, J. S.

Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.)

Williamson, A.

Fuller, John Michael F.

Myer, Horatio

Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)

Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

Napier, T. B.

Wilson, J. H. (Middlesborough)

Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John

Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

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

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Newnes, Sir George (Swansea)

Wood, T. M'Kinnon

Gordon, J.

Nicholls, George

Gretton, John

Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Joseph Pease and the Master of

Griffith, Ellis J.

Hussey, Thomas Willans

Elibank.

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE.
Mr. JOSEPH PEASE moved"That the Committee of Public Accounts do consist of Fifteen Members: That Colonel Williams, Mr. Ashton, Mr. Bowles, Mr. Brigg, Sir Daniel Goddard, Mr. Hazleton, Sir Robert Hobart, Mr. Hobhouse, Mr. Leif Jones, Sir George Kekewich, Earl of Kerry, Mr. Kettle, Sir George M'Crae,
846
Mr. Parker, and Mr. Mitchell-Thomson be Members of the Committee: That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records: That Five be the quorum."
Motion agreed to.
The House adjourned at eleven minutes after Eleven o'clock.

QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN WRITING.

  Old Age Pensions Officers.
  Mr. ARNOLD HERBERTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he is aware that the aged persons residing at Downley, near High Wycombe, whose claims to old age pensions had been admitted, received notice from the pension officer to attend at a public house for the purpose of receiving their books; whether this procedure has the sanction of the Board of Inland Revenue; and whether he will issue instructions to pension officers to adopt some other mode of communicating with applicants for old age pensions?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd-George)Instructions were given to pension officers that rooms were not to be hired at public-houses for the purpose referred to in the Question. I am inquiring into the case mentioned by my hon. Friend.

  Housing and Town Planning Committee.
  Mr. JOWETTTo ask the Lord Advocate if he will inform the House how many of the officials of his Department were in attendance during the sittings of the Housing and Town Planning Committee last Session; what are the names

  Counties.

  1905–6.

  1906–7.

  1907–8.

  Half-year to 30th September, 1908.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  Clare

  —

  39

  13

  2

  1,888

  5

  1

  1,066

  7

  4

  Galway

  749

  15

  1

  659

  11

  7

  4,179

  14

  1

  5,050

  13

  2

  King's

  —

  —

  645

  0

  3

  393

  9

  0

  Leitrim

  —

  339

  18

  0

  636

  14

  8

  327

  7

  11

  Longford

  —

  —

  448

  6

  0

  349

  18

  1

  Roscommon

  —

  9

  19

  11

  3,347

  8

  4

  1,808

  7

  3

  Sligo

  —

  —

  —

  269

  19

  2

  Westmeath

  —

  —

  444

  19

  3

  767

  18

  10

  Wireless Telegraphy.
  Mr. FIELDasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will take into consideration the advisability of introducing a Bill to have wireless telegraphy provided on all passenger vessels, and as far as possible on all classes of ships?
  Mr. CHURCHILLYes, Sir. The question whether legislation is necessary on this subject will be considered.

  Central Unemployed (London) Body.
  Mr. BROOKEasked the President of the Local Government Board if he will
  848
  of the said officials; and what offices they hold?
  The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Ure)The Assistant Under-Secretary for Scotland and the Legal Secretary to the Lord Advocate attended the sittings of this Committee.

  Additional Police (Irish Counties).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he will furnish a statement showing as regards each of the counties declared by Proclamation issued in August, 1907 and June, 1908, to be in a state of disturbance, the total amount levied off each such county in respect of the cost of additional police employed therein for the years 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908, respectively?
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell)In accordance with statutory requirements the accounts of the cost of extra police are furnished for the half-years ending 30th September and 31st March. The following statement shows the sums levied or to be levied off the counties referred to in the Question in respect of the cost of additional police employed therein in the financial years 1905-6, 1906-7, and 1907-8, and the half-year ended 30th September, 1908, respectively—
  state what are the borough councils to which the Central Unemployed (London) Body has made grants since the 31st March last; and what was in each case the amount of the grant.
  Mr. BURNSThe following table shows the payments made out of the Parliamentary Grant during the present financial year to the Central (Unemployed) Body for London in respect of works carried out by the Common Council of the City and Councils of Metropolitan Boroughs.

  Name.

  Amount.

  Bermondsey

  £230

  Do.

  90

  City of London

  800

  Fulham

  130

  Hammersmith

  97*

  Do.

  69

  Islington

  500

  Lambeth

  343

  Paddington

  258

  St. Marylebone

  100

  St. Pancras

  220

  Wandsworth

  1,700

  Do.

  120

  *Appropriation from payment out of Grant for 1907–8

  Excise Revenue.
  Mr. BRIGGasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether in the comparison of revenue in the London Gazette of 16th February the figures for the Excise revenue include the revenue from the licences transferred to county councils by the last Budget Act, or whether the comparison deducts the amount of those licences, as is done apparently in the Estimate for Excise for the whole year; in other words, whether the fall in the Excise is owing to the transfer of licences or to some other cause?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The figures for Exchequer receipts in 1907-8 include all licences, but the figures for 1908-9 ex-elude Establishment, etc., Licences which have been transferred from 1st January, 1909, to the local authorities. The decrease in Excise revenue to 13th February, 1909, on account of the transfer of licences, is (approximately) £950,000, the further decrease of £1,260,000 being due to the fall in beer and spirit revenues, and to the fact that the period of comparison includes two days less in 1908–9 than in 1907–8.
  Mr. BRIGGasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give figures to show how the sum of £1,270,000, by which the revised Estimate of Excise Revenue for 1908-9 fell short of the Estimate on account of the transfer of certain licences to local authorities, was arrived at, as Parliamentary Paper, No. 291, gives the net revenue from these licences for 1907-8 as about £1,818,588?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEThe revenue of £1,818,588, as shown in Parliamentary Paper 291, is the net receipt for the 12 months ended 31st March, 1908, derived from the establishment licences in the United Kingdom. £1,270,000 is the estimate of the probable receipt of those
  850
  licences, during the March quarter of 1908-9, in England and Wales only.

  Establishment Licences.
  Mr. COURTHOPEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the estimated annual expenditure of each local authority on the collection of establishment licences; and what is the sum allocated to each such authority under Section 6 (3) of the Finance Act, 1908?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEI have no information which would enable me to answer the first part of the question. As regards the second part, the sums allocated to the several local authorities in respect of the financial year 1908-9, under Section 6 (3) of the Finance Act, 1908, are as follows:—

  ENGLAND.

  £

  s.

  d.

  Bedford County

  285

  5

  0

  Berks County

  540

  15

  0

  Reading County Borough

  73

  5

  0

  Buckingham County

  461

  5

  0

  Cambridge County

  231

  10

  0

  Chester County

  845

  0

  0

  Birkenhead County Borough

  70

  5

  0

  Chester County Borough

  43

  5

  0

  Stockport County Borough

  54

  0

  0

  Cornwall County

  561

  5

  0

  Cumberland County

  350

  10

  0

  Derby County

  617

  0

  0

  Derby County Borough

  82

  15

  0

  Devon County

  998

  5

  0

  Devonport County Borough

  27

  15

  0

  Exeter County Borough

  67

  0

  0

  Plymouth County Borough

  61

  5

  0

  Dorset County

  441

  5

  0

  Durham County

  743

  10

  0

  Gateshead County Borough

  37

  0

  0

  South Shields County Borough

  32

  15

  0

  Sunderland County Borough

  69

  15

  0

  West Hartlepool County Borough

  41

  3

  0

  Ely, Isle of, County

  118

  5

  0

  Essex County

  1,239

  5

  0

  West Ham County Borough

  113

  10

  0

  Gloucester County

  620

  5

  0

  Bristol County Borough

  232

  10

  0

  Gloucester County Borough

  60

  10

  0

  Hereford County

  285

  5

  0

  Hertford County

  629

  10

  0

  Huntingdon County

  124

  0

  0

  Kent County

  1,462

  0

  0

  Canterbury County Borough

  35

  5

  0

  Lancaster County

  1,412

  10

  0

  Barrow - in - Furness County Borough

  37

  0

  0

  Blackburn County Borough

  90

  5

  0

  Blackpool County Borough

  59

  15

  0

  £

  s.

  d.

  Bolton County Borough

  109

  0

  0

  Bootle County Borough

  21

  0

  0

  Burnley County Borough

  67

  0

  0

  Burnley County Borough

  41

  5

  0

  Liverpool County Borough

  383

  5

  0

  Manchester County Borough

  375

  10

  0

  Oldham County borough

  78

  10

  0

  Preston County Borough

  81

  10

  0

  Rochdale County Borough

  56

  5

  0

  St. Helen's County Borough

  55

  5

  0

  Salford County Borough

  82

  10

  0

  Southport County Borough

  59

  5

  0

  Warrington County Brough.

  38

  15

  0

  Wigan County Borough

  53

  10

  0

  Leicester County

  414

  15

  0

  Leicester County borough

  165

  10

  0

  Lincoln: Parts of Holland, County

  126

  5

  0

  Lincoln: Parts of Kesteven, County

  222

  10

  0

  Lincoln: Parts of Lindsey, County

  416

  15

  0

  Grimsby County Borough

  64

  0

  0

  Lincoln county borough

  51

  0

  0

  London County

  4,145

  5

  0

  Middlesex County

  839

  0

  0

  Monmouth County

  270

  0

  0

  Newport County Borough

  48

  5

  0

  Norfolk County

  741

  10

  0

  Great Yarmouth County Borough

  45

  10

  0

  Norwich County Borough

  99

  10

  0

  Northampton County

  360

  15

  0

  Northampton County Borough

  63

  15

  0

  Northumberland County

  433

  0

  0

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne County Borough

  145

  5

  0

  Tynemouth County Borough

  25

  10

  0

  Nottingham County

  409

  15

  0

  Nottingham County Borough

  185

  15

  0

  Oxford County

  330

  15

  0

  Oxford County Borough

  85

  0

  0

  Peterborough, Some of, County

  53

  10

  0

  Rutland County

  57

  0

  0

  Salop County

  552

  15

  0

  Somerset County

  802

  15

  0

  Bath County Borough

  75

  0

  0

  Southampton County

  935

  10

  0

  Bournemouth County Borough

  115

  15

  0

  Portsmouth County Borough

  119

  15

  0

  Southampton County Borough

  82

  5

  0

  Stafford County

  860

  15

  0

  Burton-upon-Trent County Borough

  47

  5

  0

  Hanley County Borough

  40

  5

  0

  Smethwick County Borough

  49

  15

  0

  Walsall County Borough

  60

  10

  0

  West Bromwich County Borough

  44

  5

  0

  £

  s.

  d.

  Wolverhampton County Borough

  73

  15

  0

  Suffolk, East, County

  398

  5

  0

  Ipswich County Borough

  73

  5

  0

  Suffolk, West, County

  283

  0

  0

  Surrey County

  690

  10

  0

  Croydon County Borough

  160

  10

  0

  Sussex, East, County

  690

  10

  0

  Brighton County Borough

  109

  5

  0

  Hastings, County Borough

  74

  15

  0

  Sussex, West, County

  408

  5

  0

  Warwick County

  615

  10

  0

  Birmingham County Borough

  352

  10

  0

  Coventry County Borough

  87

  5

  0

  Westmoreland County

  159

  10

  0

  Wight, Isle of, County

  154

  5

  0

  Wilts County

  541

  10

  0

  Worcester County

  608

  10

  0

  Doudley County Borough

  31

  5

  0

  Worcester County Borough

  57

  0

  0

  York, East Riding, County

  329

  5

  0

  Kingston-upon-Hull County Borough

  123

  0

  0

  York County Borough

  89

  0

  0

  York, North Riding, County

  586

  5

  0

  Middlesborough County Borough

  56

  5

  0

  York, West Riding, County

  1,527

  5

  0

  Bradford County Borough

  171

  15

  0

  Halifax County Borough

  62

  5

  0

  Huddersfield County Borough

  82

  5

  0

  Leeds County Borough

  267

  0

  0

  Routherham County Borough

  46

  10

  0

  Sheffield County Borough

  275

  5

  0

  WALES

  Anglesey County

  72

  5

  0

  Brecon County

  88

  10

  0

  Cardigan County

  85

  0

  0

  Carmarthen County

  166

  5

  0

  Carnarvon County

  Denbigh County

  180

  10

  0

  Flint County

  123

  5

  0

  Glamorgan County

  473

  10

  0

  Cardiff County Borough

  90

  10

  0

  Merthyr Tydfil County Borough

  35

  5

  0

  Swansea County Borough

  59

  5

  0

  Merioneth County

  63

  0

  0

  Montgomery County

  103

  15

  0

  Pembroke County

  128

  0

  0

  Radnor County

  47

  10

  0

  £40,000

  0

  0

  Army Discharge (Henry Orr).
  Mr. FETHERSTONHAUGHasked the Secretary of State for War, whether he is aware that Henry Orr, 3,622, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, after almost ten years' line service and getting two medals with

  853
  several clasps, was, in 1906, discharged from the Service owing to ill-health, and only got a temporary pension; is he aware that the form of order of his discharge, medically unfit for further service, seriously hampers men like Henry Orr in seeking other employment; and, having regard to Orr's long service, 9¾ years in the line and 7 in the Militia, whether a permanent pension can be given him?
  Mr. HALDANEThis man on discharge medically unfit in consequence of caries of dentine, was awarded a temporary pension of 7d. a day for 27 months, and the Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital decided, that in the circumstances, he was not entitled to any further grant. It must be remembered that his services in the Militia is not service qualifying for pension. As regards the discharge form it is essential that in the interests alike of employed and employer it should be an accurate account of the cause of dis-
  854
  charge. The medical unfitness is, of course, unfitness for further service in the Army, and this is clear on the documents. It is not proposed therefore to make any alteration in the form.

  Captain Fulton's Sight Finder.
  Captain FABERasked the Secretary for War if he will state whether any and, if so, what steps have been taken towards testing the angle of sight-finder invented by Captain Fulton, and sent to the War Office authorities in June, 1906; and whether he is aware that it is now being supplied to foreign Governments for their artillery by a London firm of opticians?
  Mr. HALDANETrials have been carried out and the instrument is being considered by the Royal Artillery Committee. Captain Fulton has been given permission to dispose of his foreign patents or to license London firms to make and sell his instruments.

INDIAN COUNCILS BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day read for resuming the adjourned Debate on the Motion for the Second Reading.
VISCOUNT MIDLETONMy Lords, I hardly think that the speeches which followed that of the noble Viscount yesterday can have been wholly satisfactory to those who framed this Bill. The noble Viscount asked us to give a whole-hearted support to the Bill, and warned us that if anything were done at Westminster to show a breach in what ought to be the substantial unity of Parliamentary opinion in face of the Indian situation, it would be a great disaster. I fully concur in his view, and I am quite certain that it is not the desire of anybody on either side of the House that such a situation should be created. I think it will be remembered that, so far as the maintenance of order and the instructions which he has had to give are concerned, he has had the unqualified and unanimous support and approval of the Members of this House.
But on the question of reform it would be absurd to conceal from ourselves that the speech which immediately followed that of the Secretary of State last night did show considerable divergence of opinion from his views. The noble Lord the Secretary of State paid a high and deserved tribute to the spirit in which the noble Lord the ex-Viceroy had carried on the whole of his work in India; and the noble Lord behind me, with equal sincerity, paid an equally high tribute to the spirit which animated the noble Viscount. The fact that no hostile spirit whatever was discernible in either speech, I think adds to the strength of the declarations which were made, and which showed a material difference between the two speakers in regard to the proposals. In view of that divergence I think there will have arisen in the minds of many of us a recollection of the appeal made by the Secretary of State in December last. He pointed out that there was a tendency to fall into a groove in Indian affairs and unless we recognised surrounding circumstances we should remain where we were, and that it was better to make some start rather than no start at all. I feel that we must face the facts.
170
We have raised up by education a very considerable population in India who are capable of taking an interest in political affairs. We have by our example inspired them with the idea of political activity. We have opened to them almost the highest posts in the law. We have given them a considerable position in the Civil Service, and, having invited them, as it were, to the threshold of government, I hardly think we can close the door in their faces. Although I think most of us will feel that there was very great force in the observation addressed to the noble Viscount the Secretary of State, that what the great mass of Indians desire is not Indian government but good government, still we have an instance in Egypt—perhaps the best instance—of what British government can do in a country which had known nothing but bad government and chaos. One of the main principles of Lord Cromer's action in Egypt always was to associate with him in the Government men differing from him in creeds, habits, and traditions who were none the less the natives of the country; and when we consider the admirable results which have accrued in that country from that policy, I think we ought to take our courage in both hands and go forward as far as we possibly can in the direction of the noble Lord who has brought forward this Bill.
I do not think, on the other hand, we can conceal from ourselves that if we pass the Bill in its present form we are practically giving a blank cheque to the Secretary of State—a blank cheque on the filling up of which depends practically the whole future of our government and perhaps of our rule in India. This Bill is largely based on regulations. I do not complain of that I recognise that we have on many occasions found ourselves coerced and shackled by the fact that Statute governed so many things in connection with Indian government. I might mention one case which came before my personal notice. By the Act which regulates the Council of India which sits in Whitehall there are various provisions to prevent men who have been too long away from India from sitting on the Council and so forth, and there is one provision that a Councillor who once resigns can never come back; the Secretary of State has no power to reappoint him. Not long ago a member of that Council, a gentleman of considerable attainments and of great knowledge—Mr. Findlay—was invited by the present

171
Secretary of State to go to India to perform a special service there. He returned after a time, but it was out of the power of the Secretary of State to call him back to his old duties. I think that when we look at the vast mass of questions that will arise under these regulations we are compelled to acquiesce in the opinion of the Secretary of State that we must not attempt to affirm them all by Statute, but must leave the power to vary them where necessary in his hands. On the other hand, we must realise that these questions are thus taken out of the purview of Parliament.
I do not know whether all your Lordships have realised in how different a way and under what different authority these regulations will be made. We all know that as regards appointment to the Viceroy's Council, which does not come under the Bill, the power is absolutely in the hands of the Secretary of State. He can make what appointment he pleases, and he is only accountable to Parliament to justify himself. With regard to the additions proposed to the Councils of Madras and Bombay, with a view, as we understand, of putting native members on these Councils, they are reserved to the Secretary of State in Council, and can be made without the concurrence or even the suggestion of the Governor-General. With regard to all the other points in the Bill—the appointment of Executive Provincial Councils, the enlargement of the Legislative Councils, and the rules of procedure—those are all made in India, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State in Council. Those are distinctions, but I am not quite certain that there is a difference. A great deal will depend whether these regulations are drawn up on the cautious plan of the Indian Administration or whether they are permeated by the more adventurous spirit which the noble Viscount has infused into what have been erroneously termed elsewhere "the fossils in Whitehall."
Lord Curzon yesterday took one by one the provisions of this Bill and the changes which it is proposed to make, and, having summed them up, he used these words:—
"The Secretary of State has in reality overruled and altered the views of the man on the spot at almost every critical and vital stage, and has substituted for them entirely independent proposals of his own."
That being so, and bearing in mind the
172
difference of opinion which has been already expressed not only here but in India as to some of these provisions, I would urge upon the Secretary of State that he should undertake, in a Bill of this great magnitude, to follow the example of many measures of far less magnitude, and provide that the regulations to be made by the Government of the day under the Bill should be laid before Parliament for forty days and should not take effect if either House of Parliament presented an address to the Crown to nullify or alter them. I do not think that is an unreasonable demand. I could cite, if it were desirable, a long list of measures in which that course has been taken.
It has been already agreed that some little latitude should be allowed with regard to the discussion on the promotion to the Viceroy's Council. It is unnecessary really to labour it very much, partly because public opinion has been so centred upon it that that one question has almost dwarfed all the others in the public mind, and partly because nothing I could say, if I entirely concurred, could add to the force of the very weighty pronouncements already made on this subject from both sides of the House. I realise that this is the centre of the struggle and that this House could only touch it by influencing the mind of the Secretary of State. I would say, however, that it would indeed be a tragedy if, when we are moving forward solely with the object of placating public opinion in India and strengthening the supreme Executive, we were to do anything which would have the effect of alienating the sympathy of considerable classes in India and of weakening the central authority. But I must go one step further than the noble Lord behind me, who said last night that, in his opinion, once this appointment of a native was made to the Viceroy's Council, you could never go back from it. I go further and say that, once the statement has been made on the responsibility of the Secretary of State in this House that it is his intention to appoint a native on the first vacancy to the Viceroy's Council, you can never go back upon that. I am very much influenced in criticising what the noble Lord proposes because I believe that it must be carried through, and I believe also that he is going to carry it through, and to do so on the lines of least resistance.
The noble Viscount hinted that he would appoint a legal member. In India

173
natives have risen to higher positions—deservedly so—in the legal than in other professions. They have obtained a great deal of public confidence as Judges. The noble Lord last night said that you were entering on a new phase when you proposed to give Indians authority in government over Europeans in India. That is, of course, very important. But, on the other hand, we must recollect that in the Courts of Law Europeans have had to plead before Indian Judges now for many years, and Indian Judges, I believe, have been held competent to decide almost any suit in which a European was concerned. Therefore you are taking the Indian at his strongest point if you appoint a legal member of Council from among Indian candidates. On the other hand, even after what was said so well by the noble Lord as regards the services rendered by the legal members to India in times past, it should be remembered that times and conditions have very much altered in regard to these appointments since Lord Macaulay's days. An eminent lawyer who is now asked to go to India to serve on the Viceroy's Council for five years has to consider whether he is prepared to give up his practice entirely in this country. He has to undertake labour which is three times as severe as when Lord Macaulay went to India; and instead of coming back, as Lord Macaulay did, with a moderate competence, he has to conduct these five years' work on not a large margin over his personal expenditure, and he comes back to find a number of careers not open to him in this country which were open to him before. And as time goes on the difficulty of obtaining a really first-class lawyer to go out and hold this very high post may increase. If it be decided to place a legal member on the Viceroy's Council, you are taking the native Indian on his strongest point and the European, as compared to other members of the Council, on his weakest point.
It is no part of my desire to travel again over the ground covered last night, but what I think we require to do is to try and get into our minds what the cumulative effects of the Bill will be on those who have to represent us in India. What will be the position of a provincial Governor as compared with the past? Instead of having a practical autocracy as Governor he will share his responsibility with a Council, and with a Council which may not always be in accord with him. He
174
used to have a say as to the nomination of the Legislative Council who sat with him; in future he will have none. He will be face to face with a small Parliament, with, perhaps, a permanent majority against him with enlarged powers, with certainly a great deal more of his time taken up in discussions in a Council having, perhaps, some dangerous elements in its composition. That is an immense change, and it is being carried out without any communication with India at all. I read in The Times the other day that it is only within the last few days that the provincial Governors have been invited to give their opinion as to whether or not this change can be carried through, and also whether it is desirable to add Indian members to the Executive Council. I do not labour this point, partly because it has been so strongly put already, partly because there are behind me three or four noble Lords, who, I hope, will speak, all of whom have intimate knowledge as to the circumstances of working with a Council in Madras and Bombay.
But when we come to the legislative proposals, I must say that I think the noble Viscount has been carried away by his own intimate Parliamentary experience. I cannot imagine anything which will be more foreign to the present spirit of conducting business in India than the position in which the Governor is to be placed vis-a-vis his Legislative Council in the future. There is nothing whatever in the Bill or in the regulations which the Secretary of State has foreshadowed to prevent a man who has been the subject of a criminal prosecution and has been deported by the Secretary of State from sitting——
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACK-BURN)Undoubtedly, one of the regulations will determine certain classes of prohibitions and exclusions. We have not yet the full list of the proposed disqualifications, but such as the noble Viscount mentions will find a place in the exclusions.
VISCOUNT MIDLETONI am much relieved to hear that. I hope that later on the noble Viscount will kindly tell us whether he proposes to make that a prohibition by regulation against a particular class, or whether he proposes to give a veto to the Lieutenant-Governor.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURNI think it will have to be done by regulation, with excluding categories.
VISCOUNT MIDLETONThat is an extremely interesting addition to our information. I think it is quite clear there might be very grave scandal in that respect, and that will be avoided by the intention of the Secretary of State. At the same time, I know that apprehension is very strong that the Lieutenant-Governor may find himself at times in a very awkward situation. The mass of the people of India are not organised, and will have very little voice in the election of these Councils. They may have the right and the opportunity, but I think all those who know India will agree that they have neither the initiative nor the organisation. On the other hand, those who agitate have organisation. A distinguished official writes—
"It will not be long before a firm phalanx of obstructionists sit in our Legislative Council."
If that is so, the work may be paralysed to a large extent, and I think the noble Viscount has hardly given sufficient consideration to the degree to which the best officials will be called away from their districts and their work to sit in Calcutta or in the other centres. I do not know if he saw the statement made the other day on this subject. This is the statement sent to The Times by a member of the Legislative Council of Calcutta, and it bears out what was stated by the noble Lord yesterday. Writing three weeks ago, this gentleman said—
"I have been here about six weeks. I have been present at one or two meetings, and have, perhaps, done two hours solid work during the whole time. I have no office to attend, and hardly any correspondence worth mentioning.…I pass my days in enforced idleness, and now they are going to appoint several more men to similar idle posts."
That may be inevitable, but it ought to be minimised as much as possible. There is no doubt that you will have a very costly system set up by these proposals.
The Secretary of State began his great speech in December by telling us that he would never be a party to establishing a Parliamentary system in India, but I cannot help feeling that he has to some extent proposed by this Bill to introduce some of the very worst features of our own Parliamentary practice. I do not believe that any member of this House who has sat in
176
the House of Commons will not agree that among the greatest abuses, though they may be inevitable, in that assembly is the enormous time which Ministers of the Crown who have important work to do elsewhere are forced to give in attendance on the House of Commons. This may be inevitable in England, but are we to set up this state of things in India?
Then there is the point as to supplementary questions. It seems a small matter, but I do not think it is going to be made a small business of in India. I do not believe that our last recruit from the House of Commons—the noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland—will contradict me when I say that the abuse of supplementary questions has produced one of the greatest wastes of time, with the maximum demand on official energy and the minimum of public information. It is a sort of sword-play which is very amusing to the public, but it involves very often hours of preparation for the man who has, say, thirty Questions on the Paper to think of the supplementary questions that may be put to him. It became so great an abuse that well recollect the late Lord Salisbury requesting his own Under-Secretary not to reply to supplementary questions on foreign affairs. I might say also that during the war, both before I was connected with the War Office and afterwards, we had vehement protests from Generals in the field at information which slipped out in answer to supplementary questions, and I should have thought the noble Lord when he was Irish Secretary would have been aware of the awful waste of time involved in replying to these conundrums. Are they going to be of any use in India? I see that the Marhatta said a few days ago—
"The power to ask supplementary questions in the hands of well-informed and skilful interrogators must expose the jugglery of official replies. A skilful cross-examiner may well hope to put the official member to shame by making him appear either ignorant or dishonest."
That is not what you are establishing this system for. My noble friend, Lord Ampthill, spoke of the difference between a trained administrator and a recently appointed Under-Secretary. I should also like your Lordships to consider the difference between a trained Parliamentarian and an official who is suddenly asked after twenty years service to place himself in

177
the position of a cockshy for every missile in the shape of questions that may he hurled at him.
I would ask the noble Viscount to give attention to the points which I have raised in no hostility to his Bill. I feel that if he is to carry with him anything like the consensus that he desires in this country, it will be very necessary for him to modify in some respects the proposed regulations and to give us assurances on others. In the first place, I would urge that he should alter the regulations in some degree to meet the speeches which have been made, and that he will undertake that they shall be laid before Parliament for the usual period of forty days. Then I would ask him, if he takes power under the Bill to constitute Executive Councils for the various provinces and to increase the Executive Councils of Madras and Bombay, not to put that power into effect before he has received and has presented to Parliament the opinions of those who are chiefly qualified to form an opinion in India—the provincial Governors themselves—and until Parliament has had an opportunity of expressing an opinion. Thirdly, I would ask him, with regard to the Executive Councils, to consider a modification of the numbers, without which the undue pressure on the officials cannot possibly be avoided, and that he will let us know something about the form of exclusion which he will propose in order to prevent inappropriate persons from being elected to these Councils. I further trust he will remove an unfortunate imitation of one of the worst forms of our own Parliamentary abuses—the allowing of supplementary questions.
These may not seem very important modifications. They certainly are not intended in any way whatever to interfere with the general course of the reforms. If you compare this proposed legislation with the legislation of 1892, it is an immense step forward. I quite recognise that since 1892 we have had a great development in India. The development of railways and communications alone has brought much nearer to the masses of the people opportunities of observation and co-operation. We have also had a great commercial development, and it is noteworthy in this Blue-book that we show very little symptom of these commercial classes being represented in the Councils. I trust that,
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even in the question of education, the noble Viscount will not forget the possibility by commercial education of diverting a number of minds into commercial channels, and preventing the mass of Indians looking to politics and the law as the sole means of airing their abilities. But if we do not go the full distance with the noble Viscount it is only for this reason, that, however we look at it, we cannot hide from ourselves that something like nine-tenths of the adult male population of India are, intellectually and politically, in swaddling clothes and do not seem to have the least desire at present to put them off. Therefore I would urge on the noble Viscount, in setting up these semi-Parliamentary institutions, not to mistake the shadow for the substance, not to do something which will give opportunities to a few individuals for self-advertisement but which might altogether clog the wheels of government in India and end in alienating the sympathies of the great mass of the governed classes in India.
*LORD REAYMy Lords, this Bill enables the Secretary of State and the Government of India to associate more closely with the various governments representatives of the native community. There is one important element which ought not to be overlooked—namely, that already a large number of the natives of India, some of them in the Civil Service and others in the provincial service, are in the Administration. No measure of any importance is taken without consulting representatives of the native community. My own experience was that the knowledge required to govern in a country where characteristics of race and religion and political and social ideals are so divergent could only be derived from ascertaining the views of those who represented those characteristics and ideals. I never experienced any difficulty in obtaining the well-considered opinions of those whom I consulted, and, as a rule, those opinions were sound and sober. Eminent members of the Civil Service entertained amicable relations with influential natives, and discussed freely with them the questions which were engaging the attention of Government. By giving to these consultations a more official character we do not introduce any novel procedure, but we give recognition to an element in the administration which is essential to its success. The French, who in Cochin-China are confronted with similar

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problems, have given it the appropriate name of la politique d'association. It is the natural result of the education we have given to the natives.
When I was Governor of Bombay I appointed to the Legislative Council—in those days there were no elected members—the leaders of the native community, men who would have been elected if there had been an election; and in dealing with legislative matters, their contributions to the debate were most valuable, and they were quite as anxious as we were that the Bills we introduced should have the practical results desired. They stated their views with courtesy, and were always ready to meet us as far as possible where we differed. Anyone reading the prolonged discussions on the Bill introduced to reform the municipal corporation of the City of Bombay will be struck by the businesslike character of the debates, and the ability displayed in those debates by the non-official members. I would have been willing—and it is now very nearly twenty years since I left India—to carry out the legislative business of the Presidency without an official majority, and I am quite prepared to accept the proposal of the Government to that effect. It is very unlikely that the non-official members of the Legislative Council will form a bloc. This is much less likely if they are a majority than if they are always a minority. I am not sure that the same might not be said of this side of the House.
Lord Curzonobjected to the enlargement of the Councils, but that enlargement is the result of proposals which have come from the Government of India and from the local governments, and all that has been done by my noble friend the Secretary of State is to embody the proposals with regard to that enlargement which emanated from India. I would point out, with regard to the difficulty that is anticipated, that the increased number of official members need not be taken from the Civil Service only; they can be taken from other branches of the service, such as the Public Works Department and the Educational Service. Therefore there is a wide area of selection. I consider that it will be of great advantage to the Government to have in the enlarged Legislative Councils an expression of opinion of the various communities and the various interests, agricultural and industrial, and to have frequent opportunities of explaining its own policy
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to the Councils. On many occasions I found it decidedly opportune to state the reasons which had induced the Government to adopt a certain course of action, and I was very glad to hear Lord Curzon emphasise that point. In order to prevent misapprehension and erroneous criticism of the policy of the Government that policy must be explained, and this explanation must reach all parts of the governed area through the members of the Legislative Council who have heard the explanation, whether voluntarily given by the Government or in answer to an interpellation. The wider facilities given, especially with regard to the consideration of the Estimates, I consider politic in order that the Government may hear what are the views of the non-official members with regard to the distribution of expenditure and the ways and means of meeting it. There is no doubt that the tendency of expenditure in India, as elsewhere, is to increase; the taxpayer must be informed why he is taxed, and the discussion of the Budget in the Legislative Council will give him a guarantee that his interests have been duly considered. Lord Curzon pointed out that these reforms will involve expenditure, but I do not think that in India this expenditure will be grudged.
The Bill does not throw any light on the constitution of the electorate and on the qualifications of those elected. This has been left to the Government of India. The conditions are so different in the various provinces that it would be almost impossible, and certainly injudicious, to enter into detail. I do not see any objection to an electoral college. Where the electors are spread over a wide area the only way of focussing their votes is in an electoral college, as obtains at present for the election of members of council by municipalities and district boards in Bombay, and this will also probably have to be done in the case of Mahomedans. Besides, the Government have not yet received the Report of the Decentralisation Committee which deals with the constitution of municipal corporations, district boards, and parish councils or village punchayats, which latter 1 suppose will be re-established. As the representatives of these local bodies will, I suppose, be called upon to elect representatives for the Legislative Councils, it may be necessary to give effect to the recommendations of

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that Report before a scheme can be drawn up for the constitution of the Legislative Council. Great care should be taken to secure a proper representation of all classes interested in the cultivation of the soil, not only big landlords, but also tenants and ryots, for agriculture is in India the great industry of the country.
I have no objection to appointing natives on the Executive Council of a Provincial Governor. The natives are admitted into the Civil Service, they are placed at the head of a district, they are appointed as Judges in the different Courts, they are dewans in native States, and there is no reason why they should be debarred from admission to the Executive Council. I should have had no difficulty in submitting the names of eligible natives, Hindus, Mahomedans, or Parsecs, if I had been asked to do so; and I am convinced that we should have found their co-operation very useful. In making the selection you must take a man who is trusted by his own community as well as by other communities. I do not think that we need fear that a native member would attempt to induce his colleagues to show favour to his own community; and if the attempt were made it would certainly fail, when the subject was considered in the full council. The increase of members of the Executive Council will lead to a better distribution of the work, and give the Governor and the members more time to attend to business which, under present circumstances of the congestion of work, cannot be undertaken. Relief will also be given by decentralisation; but, even then, the burden of administration will be very great, and there must be time for constant intercourse with members of the various native communities in all parts of the province. This intercourse is of very great importance, and on it depends, in a large measure, the success of our Administration.
The natives must have easy access to their rulers. The motive of the proposed reforms is to establish closer relations between the ruling power and those who are subject to our rule. Through all the grades of our administration this association must be maintained and developed. Personal influence in India is a mainspring of authority exercised without friction; impartial justice is secured, but it is not sufficient if it is not accompanied by the conviction that the representatives of
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British rule are desirous of cultivating personal intercourse with His Majesty's subjects. This is as important as official correspondence, and the Service should be organised with a view to allowing for the discharge of this essential duty. In training members of the Civil Service more attention will have to be given to knowledge of Indian history and sociology. On this subject I will not dilate, because the Government will receive recommendations on the subject in a Report on Oriental Studies shortly to be issued.
There is no doubt that these reforms will impose on the Civil Service more arduous duties. Their success will depend to a large degree on the ability and tact with which officials give the necessary guidance to the various bodies which are placed on a new basis. It is our duty to give to candidates for the Civil Service such training as will enable them to deal with the problems which they have to solve. An intimate knowledge of the structure of Indian society, of the complex ramifications of race and caste, must be acquired, if our rule is to rest on a solid foundation. Lord Curzon alluded to the people who have no vote and whom these reforms do not touch. I do not doubt that in the future, as in the past, they will receive the protection they require. This has always been recognised as one of the chief duties of the Administration, and there is no reason to anticipate that it will not be considered with the same care.
As regards the presence of a native in the Viceroy's Council there seems to be a good deal of apprehension. If I had been asked to submit a name for the appointment, I do not think I should have had any difficulty in giving a satisfactory answer. I could have mentioned the name of a very distinguished native gentleman who enjoyed the confidence of all the communities in the Presidency as well as of his own, the Hindu community. I am sure that he would have gained the confidence of his colleagues, and that his opinions on the subjects with which he would have had to deal would have carried great weight, as they did with the Government of Bombay at the time. He was a man of very exceptional ability, and his judgment was very sound. He would have satisfied Lord Curzon's requirements as an expert and a statesman. He would certainly have discountenanced any hazardous experi-

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ments, and he was extremely cautious and aware of the limitations of his own countrymen. I cannot admit that such men cannot be found in India at the present time. They have a great sense of responsibility, and this would be enhanced if they were called to discharge important duties. We must not forget that the office of dewan in one of the great native States involves very great knowledge of affairs, and that many men have distinguished themselves in that field as well as in the High Courts of Justice. The noble Lord, Lord Curzon, pointed out that natives could at all times be consulted by the authorities. That is, no doubt, the fact, but, if you attach importance to their advice, why should you not take it in a regular official form attaching responsibility to it? I do not think that the native member will necessarily always be the legal member. Natives with experience of administration in other departments will be available when a vacancy occurs.
The Mahomedans claim to send representatives to the various boards and councils. They do not ask for any special privileges, but they wish to be represented as a distinct community forming a nationality by traditions of race and religion. I do not wish to exaggerate the divergences which exist between the Mahomedan and other sections of the Indian people, but it is not possible to ignore them. Anyone who has followed the pan-Islamic movement will be aware of the intense earnestness of the Moslems in defending their faith. To secure the smooth working of the Legislative Councils it will be politic to give the Mahomedans their own representatives in order that they should not have a grievance. We must avoid accentuating the divergences to which I have alluded, and this object will be attained if the Mahomedans have their fair share of representatives. In Mahomedan native States Hindus are appointed to important offices, which illustrates that there is no absolute incompatibility; but there are subjects, for instance education, on which the Mahomedans hold very strong views. There will be difficulties in the creation of a distinct electorate, especially in Bombay, but these difficulties are not insuperable. Justice can be meted out to the Mahomedans without depriving the Hindu community of any advantages they have acquired through their own exertions.
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I am quite sure that sagacious leaders of the Hindu community will admit the duty of Government to protect minorities in the exercise of their rights. On most questions with which I had to deal. Hindu and Mahomedan interests were identical, and where they were divergent we always tried to bring about a modus vivendi which would allay friction. That object will be much more easily attained if Mahomedan representatives are able to speak with authority on the questions with which the Councils will have to deal, as will be the case under the conditions granted by my noble friend.
On the scheme of a council of ruling chiefs, the Secretary of State has pointed out the difficulties which exist, but has left the Government of India a free hand. The extreme importance of friendly relations with the rulers of native States is fully admitted in the November Despatch. They govern one-fifth of the present population of India; they have a great hold on their subjects; their loyalty is of great value to us; and we cannot ignore their opinion on questions which touch India as a whole. In railway management, in taxation, we have to secure their co-operation as well as in the supply of Imperial contingents. If they are not invited to form a council, it should be made clear to them that this does not exclude the strengthening of the confidential relations which have existed between them and the Supreme Government and our desire to enter into frequent communication with them and to promote the prosperity of their States.
Those who have been connected with the Government of India know how intricate and complex are the problems which arise. We have to hold an even balance in order that all classes may have confidence in our rule as the source of peace and prosperity, enabling them to reap the fruits of their industry. The policy embodied in this Bill shows that we are ready to open up closer relations with the loyal subjects of His Majesty, and I believe they will show themselves worthy of the trust placed in them and ready to strengthen the Government in its endeavours to benefit the great Indian Empire.
*THE EARL OF CROMERMy Lords, it is with some hesitation that I intervene in this debate. Although the present condition of affairs in India had been foreseen

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for many years, and is, indeed, the natural and almost inevitable result of the educational reforms which were inaugurated by Lord Macaulay, I recognise that an Indian experience gained twenty-five years ago is not of any great value under existing circumstances. Still, I should like to make a few observations, more especially on the question of the appointment of a native of India to the Viceroy's Executive Council. It is no matter for surprise that there should be considerable difference of opinion on this subject. Even those who, like myself, agree with the proposal must admit that it is to a certain extent a leap in the dark. I regret it has not been found possible to give to the House in an official form the views of the Council of the Viceroy with regard to this scheme. I am aware that the Secretary of State is under no statutory obligation to consult the Government of India on this question officially. But I think that it would have been more satisfactory, both to your Lordships' House and to the country in general, if we had been placed in possession of the views entertained on this subject by those whose Indian experience is both prolonged and recent. However, the House has been informed that the Viceroy himself is in favour of the proposal, and as Lord Minto would certainly not express an opinion on the subject without having consulted his confidential advisers, we may assume that some at least of those advisers are in favour of the project.
The Secretary of State has drawn a very striking contrast between the two different schools of thought on this subject—namely, those who attach special importance to efficiency and good government and those who are more in favour of the extension of the principle of self-government, though, perhaps, the latter definition is not very correct. But there is a third school to which, possibly, the Secretary of State belongs, and of which certainly I myself am an adherent. That school consists of those who are in favour of endeavouring to effect a working compromise between the two extremes. The same difficulty frequently confronted me in Egypt. When. some important appointment had to be filled up, the question arose whether it should be given to a European or to a native. In other words, the political argument and the efficiency argument came into conflict. The difficulty of finding an efficient native was greater in Egypt than
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it would be in India, considering that the education of the Egyptians had been neglected for years. The efficiency argument was generally very strong on its own merits. I generally had to pose as the advocatus diaboli in favour of the political argument. The departmental officers would say—
"Your political theory is excellent, and we entirely agree in it, but this is not a suitable occasion for putting it into force. You must wait for some other opportunity."
Under these circumstances, I frequently had to yield, but I always bore in mind the great importance of the political argument, and when the opportunity was favourable I put it into effect.
In like manner the main test by which the proposal of the Secretary of State is to be judged is this—is the political argument or the efficiency argument to be allowed to predominate? My own view, after giving the matter very great consideration, and also, I must frankly admit, after a good deal of hesitation, is that, in this case, the political argument ought to be allowed to predominate over the efficiency argument. If I thought for one moment that the appointment of a native of India to the Viceroy's Council would in any way shake the supremacy of British rule in India—and there has been some faint allusions to that in the course of the debate—I should be the first to object to the proposal, and I think in all probability the noble Viscount opposite would object too. But my hope certainly is that, so far from being at all weakened, the supremacy of the British Government will rather be strengthened by the proposal. I am perfectly well aware that there are many formidable objections to the proposal in detail, but they appear to deal with matters which are of secondary importance. I do not think it is possible to blind ourselves to the fact that there is now throughout Asia a movement going on having for its object the association to a greater degree than formerly of the natives of those countries, not merely in the framing of their laws, but also in the direction of the appointment of natives of capacity to high administrative posts. I do not think it would be politic to oppose an absolute non possumus to this movement in respect of the largest and most important of these Asiatic countries. Not only that. If we consider our own democratic institutions, the sympathy which is felt with native aspirations by very large and influential

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bodies in this country, and also the effects of the educational system which, whether wisely or unwisely, we have adopted for the last fifty years in India, I do not think it would be possible to resist this movement for any very considerable length of time.
It should be remembered that the position of India at the present time is almost unique. It is, so far as I know, the only important country in the world where education is advanced which is governed in all essential particulars by non-resident foreigners. It is also the only country where the Civil Service, in all its higher administrative branches, is in the hands of aliens appointed by a foreign country under stringent educational tests. That the system has yielded very good results up to the present everyone, I think, will admit; but, on the other hand, I cannot help thinking that the time has now arrived when it requires not radical alteration, but some reasonable modifications. If we are to modify it—and I think everybody agrees that it must be modified—it must be in the direction of allowing the natives of India greater scope either in Legislative or in Executive work. The opinion appears to be held amongst many that there is less objection to granting to natives of India increased legislative than to granting them increased executive functions. I rather challenge that position. The East is full of surprises, and with the example of Japan, and more recently of Turkey, before us, I think he would be a very rash man who would prophesy what would be the result of introducing anything like Parliamentary institutions into India. I know that the legislative experiment has to be tried, but I must confess that I have no very great confidence in the result of the experiment. If we consider the immense diversity of race, religion, and language in India, and also the fact that we shall be endeavouring to transplant to India a plant entirely of exotic growth and placing it in a very uncongenial soil, I must confess for my own part that I shall be very much surprised if the legislative experiment does succeed.

What the natives of India really require, and what I think should in reason be bestowed upon them, is to take some minor but effective share in the real government of their country, and that they can only do if they are given some administrative functions. These considerations are,
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to my mind, of such importance that they outweigh the very considerable objections in detail which have been urged against the project and about which I would like to say a few words. I do not attach any very great importance to the objection that it is impossible to find any native of India who will generally represent native opinion and who has sufficient capacity to be appointed to the Viceroy's Council. I do not know what the facts may be at present, but I can say that when I was in India twenty-five years ago there were men like Sir Salar Jung and Sir Madhara Rao who were not only very capable administrators, but who were, also, statesmen in the fullest acceptation of that term. They, of course, possessed special knowledge of the provinces in which they resided. The same may be said of the Indian civilians who are appointed to the Council. But they were also men of sufficient capacity to give valuable advice on the affairs of India generally. Surely this race of men cannot be extinct. I do not, therefore, attach much importance to this objection. I quite admit that there is something in the objection that the appointment of natives would hamper discussion in the Council and render it impossible for that free and intimate communication which is certainly very desirable between members of the Cabinet. The caste system does, most unfortunately, place a very considerable barrier to social intercourse between Europeans and Hindus. Moreover, the difficulty does not only arise in the case of Hindus. I have always regarded it as a most unfortunate circumstance that the Mahomedans in India have, by long association, become so far Hinduised as to have, to some extent, adopted Hindu caste practices. I do not doubt that the noble Viscount (Lord Morley) and the noble Earl (Lord Crewe) are in constant and intimate communication with each other. What, however, would be the result if the religious sympathies of either the noble Earl or the noble Viscount prevented them from adjourning to the tea-room in the course of debate, and discussing matters over a cup of tea and some bread and butter? That, however, will be the position of the native members of the Council in respect to their European colleagues. The difficulty, I admit, is considerable, and, moreover, it is insuperable. But there is no necessity to exaggerate it. I cannot see why, in spite of this social barrier, as regards all political and business relations there should not be

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free and intimate discussion between the native and European members.
I am always rather reluctant to draw any analogy between Egypt and India, because, although there are some points of similarity, there are a great many points of difference. At the same time, a case did occur two or three years ago in Egypt which is so much to the point that I will draw attention to it. Very constant complaints were being made that the Egyptian Ministers, who are all natives of Egypt, were too much under the control of the diplomatic representative and of the various English officials in the Egyptian Service. Although that criticism was mainly directed against myself, I quite agree that there was a certain amount of force in it, the truth being that Egyptian affairs when we took them in hand were in such a chaotic condition that we had to go through a period of transition, during which it was necessary to assert the paramount ascendency of British influence. The system was, however, a bad one, and there was no intention that it should be made permanent. Before I left Egypt, I took some steps to remedy it, and my successor has taken further steps in that direction. I will tell you what I did. The educational system had been the subject of very severe and unjust criticism in Egypt. I went to His Highness the Khedive and suggested that he should appoint as Minister for Education a very distinguished Mahomedan Judge, who I will not say was an Anglophobe, but who had the reputation of not being a great Anglophile. Moreover, he had made himself rather conspicuous by the somewhat acute, but perfectly honest, criticisms he had made on the educational system. A good many of my advisers shook their heads and said they thought I was wrong in suggesting him to the Khedive for this appointment. But what was the result? The first result was that this gentleman was a good deal embarrassed by his utterances in Opposition—an embarrassment not unfamiliar to politicians in this country. He was very soon sobered by the responsibilities of office. He very soon came to understand that a great deal he had heard when in Opposition was not only exaggerated but entirely untrue, and he eventually—I may say almost immediately—worked most harmoniously with myself and the English officials. I think that entirely disproved the rather sombre anticipations which were put forward as regards his nomination. In
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fact, I may say the only cause of difference I had with this gentleman was one which will elicit the sympathy of noble Lords opposite. He was rather in the habit of bringing forward far-reaching and costly proposals for reform, without having any clear idea where the money was to come from to carry them into execution. With that exception I do not think I had any difference with him at all.
Another objection which has been urged, and which I quite admit is a very formidable objection, is the question whether a Hindu or Mahomedan is to be chosen. That is the point which causes me most to hesitate. Various proposals have been put forward to meet this difficulty, but they are all open to considerable objections, and I think the noble Viscount has done well to reject them. The difficulty has to be faced. There is no way out of it, but it does admit of mitigation. There is no reason whatever, because a Hindu is first appointed, that another Hindu should be appointed when the place falls vacant. Indeed, whoever is Secretary of State, I hope he will consider as favourably as possible the desirability of allowing a Mahomedan to have his turn after the Hindu. Natives will also have to be appointed to the Executive Councils of Bombay and Madras—there will thus be an opportunity of doing something for the Mahomedans. These arguments are not entirely satisfactory, because the difficulty still remains, but the objection, great as it is, does not, in my mind, weigh against the general advantages of adopting the scheme of the noble Viscount.
Turning to more general issues, the noble Viscount must be gratified at the way in which his proposals have been received. Nothing, of course, will satisfy the extremists. They are disappointed because the reforms do not go far enough. I cannot help thinking that one of the causes of their disappointment is that they go so far that, to a certain extent at all events, they have cut the agitation from under their feet. That there is a good deal of force in this argument on which much reliance appears to be placed I fully admit. I was glad to hear the noble Viscount say that only three per cent. of the educated classes of the country could be counted as extremists; it must not, however, be forgotten that this small residuum of three per cent. is capable of doing a great deal

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of mischief in respect to the remaining ninety-seven per cent. The noble Viscount said the only way to deal with extremists who overstep the law was stern repression. I entirely agree, but I do hope that some effort will be made to deal with the extremists who dwell in this country. I do not know whether your Lordships' attention has been drawn to a letter which appeared in The Times the other day. The writer of that letter, who calls himself the editor of the Indian Sociologist, defended the murder not only of Englishmen but of defenceless Englishwomen on the somewhat irrelevant and unconvincing ground that Milton and Cromwell were regicides and that the French erected a statue to Joan of Arc. He also warns us solemnly that we are not to send our kith and kin to India because they will run a very great risk of being murdered, and as far as I can gather from his letter he seems to think it is a very right and proper thing that they should be murdered. I am well aware that the place for a man of that sort is not a gaol but a lunatic asylum; and I am very glad to hear that the matter is receiving the consideration of the noble Viscount. An answer was given in another place to that effect, and I hope it will be found in some way possible to stop these proceedings. I am informed that the man who wrote this letter was educated at Oxford, and for my own part I certainly think that an educated sympathiser with criminals of this description is as guilty as, if not more guilty than the thrower of bombs and the man who uses the knife of the assassin, who are his dupes in India.
For the rest, the policy of the noble Viscount has been to rally the moderates, and I think it may be said that the moderates have been rallied. The whole of the Mahomedan population may be counted as moderates, and I therefore heard with pleasure the noble Viscount's declaration that he was going to make some concessions that would conciliate the Mahomedans. As to the regulations, I was very glad to hear the noble Viscount say that he was disposed to consider some proposal which would enable Parliament to form an opinion of those regulations when they were framed.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURNI gave no assurance of that kind.
THE EARL OF CROMERI thought the
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noble Viscount rather hinted that something of that sort would be done. I think, however, it certainly would be very desirable that Parliament should have the opportunity of seeing those regulations, and I consider it not improbable that in Committee some Amendment in that sense will be moved from these Benches. On the matter of supplementary questions, I wish to express my very cordial concurrence with Lord Curzon and Lord Midleton. I am afraid that whatever we do a large number of the men elected will be professional agitators or astute lawyers, who will be able to take full advantage of any opportunity of that kind. I hope that on that point the matter will be reconsidered when the regulations are framed.
I entirely sympathise with the general scheme of the noble Viscount., and I hope he will not think that such criticisms as I have made derogate from that sympathy. I attach very great importance to what the noble Viscount said in regard to unanimity. I hope that when this reform scheme goes to India it will not be with the grudging consent of Parliament or as the view of one party in the State, but with the unanimous consent of Parliament and, as far as possible, of the British nation, and I trust that when we get into Committee we shall be able to come to some conclusions that will ensure that unanimity.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITHMy Lords, every Member of your Lordships' House who has so far spoken has at some period been connected with the Government of India. I venture to intrude for a few moments although I have no similar claim to your attention; but I do think there are some things which in a discussion of this kind may be usefully said even by one who is in a completely detached position so far as the Indian Government is concerned. There is a general consensus of opinion which has found expression in this debate that something must be done; and general consent has reached this point, that that something must be a development of the powers and functions of the Legislative Councils. That being so, I venture to deprecate a good deal of the criticism that has followed and which is really rather inconsistent. I think that those who consent to the end had better not begrudge the inevitable machinery which must be employed to bring about those changes.

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With regard to supplementary questions, it seems to have been forgotten that the regulation of the procedure of the Legislative Council is not vested in the Legislative Council, as is the case in regard to the two Houses of Parliament here, but in the Governor-General in Council, and it is entirely within the power of the Governor-General in Council to make rules which shall deal with any appearance of abuse of privileges. If in a Legisative Assembly the right to ask questions of Ministers exists, supplementary questions are inevitable. I have had some experience as a subordinate Minister in answering questions, and I have had more experience in watching the practice of questioning, and I can say that, in the absence of the right to put supplementary questions, a Minister will be able to put off the querists altogether with information he professes to give.
Another point of objection is the waste of time and ability, and the increase of burden on the taxpayers, by requiring the presence of so many official members in the Viceroy's Council in order to establish a Government majority. The noble Lord who spoke last night with all the knowledge gained from his experience in India dwelt on the inconvenience and expense of appointing deputy officials, and the dislocation that might be caused throughout the whole hierarchy of officials in consequence; but if the representative character of the Viceroy's Council is to be conceded, and if it is necessary to have a number of officials for a Government majority, it is of no use to grumble about the consequences. It is urged by some that the Government majority is not a necessity, and that the use of votes by members who merely express the will of the Viceroy differs little from the use of the veto. As a compromise I suggest that the gentlemen who may form the Government majority should not be required to leave their functions in various parts of India, but should be allowed to vote by proxy, their proxies being in the pocket of a member of the Government. That could be done under the regulations. The regulations are of the utmost importance. Something has been said in favour of laying them on the Table of both Houses of Parliament, but I do not think that suggestion would stand examination. I think the regulations must be made in Calcutta, and must come into force there.
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Upon the question of the manner of election, I entirely accept the conclusion of my noble friend the Secretary of State in giving way to the representations made to him on behalf of the Mahomedan population, though I do so with regret. I think my noble friend himself said that he arrived at this decision with regret; he did so because he felt it necessary to defer to the anxieties of the Mahomedans in India, but he added that he himself believed, as I do most completely, that those anxieties were misplaced. Under the scheme of election which was foreshadowed—not too clearly, I admit—in the Despatch, the Mahomedans would have obtained as full a proportion as they could desire. The Mahomedans and the non-Mahomedans, through the process of election suggested, would have got their separate representation in the ultimate Legislative Council in the exact proportion proposed to be given, and no cajolery or manipulations could have interfered with their getting that representation. I share the desire that Hindu and Mahomedan should be brought together in one electoral college, in order, if possible, to break down those antipathies which exist in so much force. My noble friend used an expression yesterday which I thought was not a very happy one. He said they would meet to pool their votes. They would not. They would meet together in order to elect a certain number of the members of the Legislative Council, but each elector would have only one vote and each vote could be given to one man only. The votes would be given to separate persons, and in the case of one man getting more votes than were necessary for his election they would be passed over to another candidate of that particular section. The result is that supposing the conclusion had been come to that one-fourth of the electoral college should be Mahomedan and three-fourths non-Mahomedan and that the body to be elected numbered twenty, the Mahomedans would certainly get five representatives and the Hindus, if they stuck together and voted for their men, would get the other fifteen.
My noble friend deprecated entering into the question of proportional representation and referred to a saying by Calvin of those who had taken to another study—that they were either mad when they took to it or became mad afterwards. Of course, the application of the parallel to students of proportional representation is easy. I do

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not know whether my noble friend would say that his master and mine, Mr. Mill, was mad before he took to it, when he took to it, or after he took to it. He certainly held it for the last thirteen or fourteen years of his life. He was regarded as sane and his teachings as well worthy of consideration; and there are other persons who have been reckless enough to enter on this particular subject without, I hope, altogether losing their reputation for sanity in consequence. The unfortunate ambiguity of the Despatch did give rise to the misconstruction which led the Moslems astray and excited their anxieties. The truth is that the scheme of my noble friend proposed and gave absolute justice to both branches of the community in India, favouring neither one nor the other.
My noble friend spoke of the general acceptance of his scheme in India. He proceeded to refer to the particular classes of politicians there, and dwelt upon the effect produced by his scheme on each of them. The noble Viscount did not hope to secure much adhesion from the irreconcilables who had a tendency to physical force; and satisfaction was expressed by the noble Lord opposite that the Secretary of State, in referring to them, had talked of unfaltering repression. The noble Earl who has just sat down referred to the same words but in a different way, for he spoke of unfaltering repression with extremists "who overstepped the law." The noble Lord last night used the expression "unfaltering repression" without any such qualification. I daresay he did not realise his omission, but I think it is very unfortunate that there should be an omission of that kind. We all agree that unfaltering repression is a necessary action when the law is overstepped. It is, of course, very essential that the law itself should be just, and that it should not aim at repressing mere desires for an ideal future which may never come. I am sure that the Secretary of State when he talks of unfaltering repression uses the phrase only in reference to the necessity of preventing crime or the incitement to crime, which everybody agrees must be suppressed.
I deprecate the division of the politicians of India into the three classes mentioned yesterday. I deprecate the habit of thinking of them in that fashion. I trust that the general effect of what my noble friend the Secretary of State has done will be a great reduction in the number of irreconcilables,
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though some, of course, will continue to exist—they exist everywhere—and the development of constitutional methods of procedure. I deprecate entirely pronouncements as to what may or may not be the outcome of all these changes in the distant future. It has taken a long time to come about, but my noble friend said last night and said truly, that what he is proposing to-day is the development of what Mr. James Mill wrote in 1833, and of what the Queen said in her Proclamation to the people of India in 1858. It is a mere form of evolution of the principle that fitness is the sole qualification for office, and that no discrimination should be made, as far as possible, in respect of race and creed. What is proposed now is the development of what was said then. Yet it is probably true that Mr. Mill did not conceive then what is being proposed now, nor can we now say what will be the development fifty years hence of the beginnings we are making to-day.
I see no reason whatever for laying down the maxim that Colonial self-government can never, under any circumstances, come to pass in India. When we consider what has been done in the last thirty years in Japan and observe the movement in China, is it not rash to declare what may be the ultimate form of government fifty years hence in India? We have had government for the people in India. It is impossible to carry that on without proceeding to government through the people of India. By and by you will come more and more to government by the people. If it is done cautiously, as I have no doubt it will be done, there is no necessity to trouble much about the ultimate goal. There must be great changes, there will be great changes, and the mass of the people of India will be associated more and more with every branch of the administration and government of India from the highest to the lowest. I am content to watch and wait, and, if the act done to-day is good, to support it thoroughly, leaving to the future the working out of one of the greatest problems that ever befel statesmen or nation—the problem of gradually moderating the government of a whole subject people by an imported handful of persons of another race, another creed, and another training. It is wonderful, under such conditions, that the problem has been so successfully met as it has been up to this time. Not a few of the people of India think that the creed of the governing race

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is an impiety, that their lives are bestial, and their touch an abomination. We have to work all that clown, and we shall only do it by great toleration of their ideals and by not attempting to circumscribe to-day what may come to pass hereafter.
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, the Bill has keen so fully discussed from this Bench as well as from other quarters of the House that I shall compress as closely as I can the few observations I desire to offer; and I shall endeavour to be doubly careful in what I say, because the noble Viscount opposite administered to me last night a very gentle rebuke to the effect that when I referred to this subject in the debate on the Address I read him a lecture or homily. I can assure the noble Viscount that nothing was further from my thoughts than to lecture him, and, having referred to the passage in question, I remain of opinion that there was nothing in it which could be so described. I was referring to the measures taken by the Government of India, with the concurrence of the noble Viscount, for dealing with sedition, and I ventured to offer the opinion that for those measures to be successful they must be prompt, and that you must trust, not the man on the spot, but the men on the spot, by which I meant all men in authority in all parts of the country. If the noble Viscount really wishes to know what was in my mind when I referred to the necessity of not depriving the Governor-General in Council of any weapon which seemed to be necessary, I was thinking of those deportations under the regulation of 1818 to which the Government of India has had resort, and which the noble Viscount, reluctantly, I have no doubt, but in a manner which greatly redounds to his credit and courage, has from time to time authorised. I intended to indicate my approval of what had been done, and my hope that a similar policy would be followed in the future.
In the course of this debate, the noble Viscount has referred to the fact that this Bill is in a sense the outcome of another Bill for which I had a considerable share of responsibility in 1892. May I say that if any credit was due for the initiation of the measure of 1892 it was due rather to my distinguished predecessor and old friend Lord Dufferin, from whom when I arrived in India I inherited the outline of a measure
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of this description. In those days, as now, there were differences of opinion as to the pace at which it was safe to proceed, and I am inclined to think that in those days the Government at home was rather more inclined to put on the brake than His Majesty's present Government. At any rate, we produced amongst us a measure which certainly was a very cautious measure. It was our earnest desire to infuse new life into the Legislative Councils, and we were fully prepared to resort to election whenever it seemed to us that election could safely be resorted to. It seemed to us best to work so far as possible from the bottom upwards, and to take as the basis of our scheme the existing municipal boards and corporations. Having those principles and views constantly present to our minds, we did not feel ourselves able to recommend anything approaching a complete or symmetrical measure of reform. We thought it desirable to confer upon those newly-created constituencies only the right of recommending certain persons for appointment to the councils, subject to the approval of the head of the Government, and we took the utmost pains to protect the Government and to safeguard its authority by leaving it in possession of an official majority, and by very carefully restricting the right of free debate and the right of addressing questions to the Government. Our Bill was a considerable step in advance, and I think it was favourably regarded in India as such.
But the question now arises whether the time has not come to go a step further. I think that question has by common consent been answered in the affirmative, and to that extent the noble Viscount certainly carries with him the opinion of both sides of the House. I will not dwell upon the reasons for which such a forward step is necessary. I am inclined to think the feeling present to most of our minds is that, in cases of this kind, you cannot stand still. You cannot go back, you cannot stand still; therefore you must go more or less forward. At certain points, moreover, I believe the Act of 1892 has not operated exactly as might have been wished, and there are defects in it which it should not be beyond our power to remove. That later consideration is evidently very much in the mind of the Government of India. The noble Viscount will recollect that in the forefront of the Despatch of 1907—the Despatch on which this scheme is founded—Lord Minto's Government stated that the
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was unsatisfactory in that it did not give a sufficiently large share of representation to the most powerful and stable elements of Indian society. By that it was explained was intended the ruling chiefs of India, the great landowners and the representatives of commercial interests in India.
The Government proposed in the first place to supplement the Legislative Councils by the appointment of advisory councils and councils of chiefs upon which the classes to which I have just referred were to be largely represented. In the next place, the Government proposed to institute certain changes in the Legislative' Councils themselves, and, more particularly, I find they proposed that there should be an additional electorate, recruited from the landed and moneyed classes. They desired that there should be more representation given to the classes who are now liable to be crowded out. That was, it seemed to me, the dominant note in the original project put forward by Lord Minto's Government and approved by the noble Viscount, and in exactly the same spirit was framed the proposal for giving special representation to the Mahomedan community. In regard to the discussion of the Budget, all that was proposed was that it should be dealt with by separate heads, so as to afford fuller opportunities for criticism, but not a word was said of any change in the rules as to the right of interpellation by members of Council. I think Lord Minto's scheme may be not inaptly described as having been conceived in a very generous and sympathetic spirit to the people of India, but it was a very carefully guarded scheme. It was pointed out in the Despatch that the Government of India desired to avoid any surrender or weakening of the supremacy of the British power in India. It was urged that the executive authority of the Government of India should be maintained in undiminished strength. In a very remarkable passage which follows they declare that if that undiminished authority is to be secured to the Government of India it should always have a numerical majority on the councils. The passage runs:—
"The principle of a standing majority is accepted by the Government as an entirely legitimate and necessary consequence of the nature of the paramount power in India, and so far as they know it has never been disputed by any section of Indian opinion that does not dispute the legitimacy of the paramount power itself."
That is, I conceive, not an unfair outline of the original scheme put forward with
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the concurrence of the noble Viscount opposite in August, 1907. Then came the consultation with the local Governors which went on for a very considerable time, and upon that consultation, the details of which are recorded in the two copious Blue-books, was founded the revised scheme of Lord Minto's Government.
Now, the original scheme came out of this ordeal very little altered. The Secretary of State appears to question that. But as I read the Despatch addressed to the noble Viscount by Lord Minto's Government, after the consultation, it stops short of contemplating anything like popular election, it desires to secure representation for the land-owning and the moneyed classes, and recurs to the proposal that there is to be an advisory council and a council of chiefs. In fact, the idea seems to have been to rally the conservative classes in India to the support of the Government. It preserves the official majorities. It secures adequate representation for the Mahomedan community. It contains no proposals for altering the regulations in regard to questions. It proposes that there should be a right of discussing the Budget, but on the clear understanding that any opinion formed by the council on the Budget should take the shape of a recommendation which of itself would have no operative effect. That was the scheme which came before the noble Viscount opposite.
I am very anxious to do the noble Viscount no injustice; but I think I am within the mark when I say that his scheme, the details of which are to be found in the Bill on the Table, in the noble Viscount's Despatch to the Government of India, and in his speeches in Parliament, goes very considerably beyond what was suggested to him by the Government of India. I hope he will not think me irreverent if I use an expression derived from a game of cards which is very popular on the other side of the Atlantic, and say that the noble Viscount saw Lord Minto's hand and went one better. I say that because the scheme of the noble Viscount is certainly based on popular election. It certainly gets rid of the official majority. It certainly extends the power of dealing with the Budget, and the right of interpellation is put considerably beyond what was proposed by the Government of India.

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But it does more. The noble Viscount's scheme breaks entirely fresh ground in this, that it deals with the question of Executive Councils—both the Viceroy's and Provincial—which, as he knows were only dealt with in Lord Minto's Despatches in a very tentative fashion. Of course, he may say, with great fairness, that many of these things are left to be dealt with by regulations under the Bill. That, no doubt, is the case. But the general result, so far as I can see, of his action has been that he has converted an extremely cautious proposal made to him by the Government of India into a scheme which, in my judgment, is very much less cautious and reaches very much further. And this is done at a moment when the greatest possible caution is necessary in dealing with Indian affairs. It was truly said by my noble friend Lord Midleton that the effect of these proposals on the Legislative Councils cannot be really understood unless you consider, not the effect of each single separate proposal, but their cumulative effect taken altogether; and I do not think that aspect of the case was much touched upon by the noble Viscount in his statement the other evening. Taken by themselves, however, these things are serious enough. You have a large increase in the number of the Councils You have a system of election which I shall always maintain is foreign to the ideas of the people of India. It is a European system which they do not understand, and which I do not believe they greatly care about.
Then there is the question of the right of the head of the Government to object to the appointment of an unsuitable and undesirable member. The noble Viscount made this evening an announcement which interested us extremely, and which I am bound to say goes far towards disarming any misgivings which I have on this particular point. We understand that in the rules which are to be promulgated there are to be certain categories of exclusions, and I have no doubt that in that net the noble Viscount will catch some of the personages whose presence on the councils would be most objectionable. But so long as the head of the Government has no right of objecting to a particular member on the ground that his presence would fatally impair the efficiency or good order of the council, so long will there be a risk, and a very considerable risk, that men will be elected—I am not speaking now of men who
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have actually undergone imprisonment or anything of that kind—that men will be elected who can be familiarly described as very dangerous firebrands, and who will take advantage of their presence on the council in order to make good government extremely difficult, if not impossible. I am afraid one must admit that in the eyes of the people of India themselves it will seem most strange and unaccountable that the Government should tolerate upon these bodies the presence of men who are known to be flagrantly disloyal and promoters of sedition. They will ask themselves why these things happen. A friend of mine showed me not very long ago a very interesting passage in an article published in a magazine in this country by a rather well-known Indian gentleman, Ooday Pertab Singh, Rajah of Bhinga, in Oude. It runs:—
"A man desirous of entering the council has now but to make a few speeches before a debating club of schoolboys denouncing the foreign rule as a curse, painting every official European as a scoundrel and every supporter of the British rule as a vagabond. Thus he paves his way to election to a municipal or local board, as a member of which he decries every measure originating with the Government as inhuman and unjust. He is honoured with the appellation of the champion of liberty, and has not to wait long for a seat in the legislative Councils, local or supreme."
That is how Indian natives look at the admission of gentlemen of this undesirable class to seats on the Legislative Council. I trust, therefore, that the noble Viscount, when he comes to deal with the question of regulations, will consider very carefully whether it is not necessary to strengthen the hands of the heads of the local Governments on this particular point.
I pass from that to the question of the official majorities. I confess that I am sorry that the official majorities are to exist no longer. I think it is a dangerous thing to expose these local Governments to the risk of being out-voted in council. I think it would be a shock to their authority, a shock which, if possible, we should avoid.
A good deal, again, has been said as to the effect of these changes upon the position of the officials who will take part in the proceedings of the Legislative Councils. I am bound to say that I entirely agree with what has been said by my noble friend Lord Curzon as to the very deplorable effect which it may have upon their position in the future. In the first place,

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this work cannot help distracting them and luring their attention away from what is their real official business. They have plenty to do, and you take them away from their proper work, disorganise the department to which they belong, and give them work for which a great many of them are by no means specially fitted.
Lord Ampthill thought that this argument was a rather unkind cut to the Indian Civil Service. I do not think so. The Indian Civil servant has his particular metier, and performs it extremely well, and I desire to associate myself with all those who have spoken with respect of this most distinguished body of public servants. But they have not been brought up to take part in the hurly-burly of public discussion. When I heard this point discussed this evening, my memory recurred to some words which were spoken at this Table by Lord Rosebery on the occasion when we were all of us lamenting the death of the Duke of Devonshire. Lord Rosebery said that none of us, probably, knew how much anguish the Duke of Devonshire used to feel when he was called upon to make an important speech. These words, I think, must have come home to many of us. I suspect most of us have at different times shared that feeling of anguish, but, if we have that feeling, what will be the feeling of a wretched assistant secretary who has got to go down to the council and stand an hour or two hours heckling at the hands of men who could hold their own at that amusement with any Scottish heckler or with any Irish Member of Parliament? Have none of us ever felt when we had office work to do, and when we have had a speech to make the next day, that our office work rather suffered in consequence? And do you not suppose that these poor gentlemen will, occasionally, spend many hours of misery and trepidation with a debate hanging over them, and that their thoughts will be turned away from their proper work to the task of preparation?
As I said a moment ago, a great deal depends on the rules which are to be made. As my noble friend truly said, this Bill is really a blank cheque, and, until the rules are made, we do not know how the cheque is going to be filled up. We are very anxious to elicit from the noble Viscount a little more information as to the extent to which he proposes to take Parlia-
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ment into his confidence with regard to these rules. I certainly gathered from him last night, and I gathered it with the very greatest pleasure, that in some shape or form Parliament was to have an opportunity of becoming aware of, and, therefore, the opportunity of discussing, these new rules. May I read the words which the noble Viscount is reported in the newspapers this morning to have used:—
"No doubt it is desirable that some of the heads of the regulations, rules, and proclamations to be made by the Government of India, under the sanction of the India Office, should be, more or less, placed within the reach and knowledge of the House so far as they are complete."
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURNMay I explain to the noble Marquess exactly what I meant and what I mean? As he will remember, I first of all read out the language used by Mr. Gladstone in 1892, and accepted at that moment by Lord Curzon, to the effect that the regulations, rules, and proclamations formed under the Act must be made in India by the Government of India. That was my general view. Then I went on to say that I thought it was right that the heads of these regulations, so far as we had then arrived at them, should be stated to Parliament, and my intention is, when we go into Committee, when, I believe, I shall have the opportunity of making some general observations on the Bill of a very short kind, to explain to the House what the general heads of the regulations are at the stage at which we have now arrived—I am in telegraphic communication with the Government of India—what is their effect, and what they come to.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEI am very much obliged to the noble Viscount for his explanation. I do not think we all understood what he said quite in that sense, and, until we have had an opportunity of listening to the promised statement on the rules, I would prefer to withhold further observations, except this general observation, that the circumstances do not seem to me to be in any way the same as the circumstances of 1892, and that, on the face of it, I should think that there would be a good deal to be said for the view that Parliament should be given an opportunity of seeing the whole of the rules in their complete form, and then, if necessary, it would be open to anyone to call attention to them or even to move a resolution with regard to them. Of course, the noble Viscount will not imagine for a moment that I want

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to suggest that the rules and regulations should be brought in as a Bill and debated clause by clause. That is not my intention at all.
May I pass for one moment to the question of the Executive Councils? We are to have enlarged Executive Councils in Madras and Bombay, and we are to have, or we may have, new Executive Councils in other provinces. One comment I venture to make upon that is that this part of the scheme has, apparently, been put through with very great haste and with not nearly the same amount of discussion and consideration which has been given to the part of the scheme which deals with Legislative Councils. The noble Viscount thought last night that I had lost my way in that part of the Bill. I do not think I have. I told the noble Viscount that I had strong views with regard to the appointment of an Indian member on the Viceroy's Council, and then I went on to say that, until the Despatch of October, 1908, we had never heard anything, and the Government of India had never said anything at all about reforms in the Executive Councils, and that is the case. The first reference to the question is to be found in paragraph 76 of the October Despatch, and what is said in that paragraph? Lord Minto's Government postulates, in the first place, that we are to have experience of the working of the new Legislative Councils before the question of Executive Councils is taken up. It postulates that there is to be a consultation with those who are test qualified to advise before the matter is disposed of, and, finally, there is no reference of any kind in that paragraph to the Viceroy's Council. What does the noble Viscount do? He does not wait for the experience of the new Legislative Councils. He does not wait for the consultation. There is a rumour that some kind of consultation is in progress at this moment. I do not know whether I am right or wrong, but what I want to ask is are we going to be told why this long and laborious consultation with experts of all kinds was necessary in the case of the Legislative Councils, why are we given all these copious materials for forming a judgment on that point, and why was there, apparently, no consultation, and why are we given no materials for forming a judgment in the case of the Executive Councils?
I am afraid His Majesty's Government have rather got into a habit of legislating
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first and consulting afterwards. We had a leading case in the Old Age Pensions Act of last year, and I think there is going to be another leading case in the Bill for the disestablishment of the Welsh Church. There is on record a considerable amount of expert opinion unfavourable to that part of the proposal which gives Executive Councils to the Provincial Governments. The noble Viscount, I am sure, remembers that in 1905 the matter was mooted in Bengal, and I have seen it stated in the Press, and it has never been contradicted, that the proposal was unanimously rejected at that time by the Government of India. If I am wrong the noble Viscount will have an opportunity of contradicting me. There does not seem to me to be any point in the scheme where consultation was more called for than this particular point. Is it really quite fair to impose upon a Lieutenant-Governor of a province an Executive Council which, perhaps, he does not want, to convert his subordinates into colleagues, and to associate with him, whether he likes it or not, one or two Indian colleagues—is it fair to do all that without, at least, giving him an opportunity of urging anything that he can urge in opposition to the proposal? There is a very remarkable feature in the scheme—and here we are dealing with a clause in the Bill and not with regulations which may be hereafter made. Under a clause in the Bill, as I understand it, the Bombay and Madras Councils are to consist of four members.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURNOf a number not exceeding four.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEOf whom two are to be qualified by official experience?
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURNYes.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEAnd the other one or two are not to have official experience?
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURNIt does not say that. All it says is that one shall have a qualification, and the other may have, or may not.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy point is this. Will it, under this clause,

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be open to the Secretary of State to put into the Council of a Governor two Indian gentlemen neither of whom has had any official training or experience, who may indeed have acquired a political celebrity, but who have never been successful in acquiring a reputation as trained and efficient administrators? That is the real question, and I hope it will be answered.
With regard to the appointment of an Indian Member on the Viceroy's Council may I be allowed to say that, although I do not see eye to eye with the noble Viscount upon this point, I do most entirely appreciate the feelings which induced him to make the proposal? I think, if I may say so, that the passage in his speech which dealt with that question was one which, perhaps more than any other, appealed to the sympathies of the House. If I may use the expression used by my noble friend Lord Cromer, I understand that this is a case in which the Secretary of State thinks that political—or perhaps I should say sentimental—considerations should be allowed to outweigh considerations based on efficiency pure and simple. I am the last person in the world to desire that in a case of this kind no weight should be given to sentimental considerations. I think it would be a bad day when in our public life we ceased to have regard to considerations which may fairly be described as sentimental considerations.
But I would ask this question—What sentiments are we thinking and talking about? Is it Indian sentiment, or are we quite sure that it is not European sentiment which we are taking into account? If it were possible to ascertain what Indian sentiment is upon this subject I believe there would be a preponderance of Indian sentiment against putting an Indian upon the Viceroy's Council. I do not know to what quarters the noble Viscount would look for an opinion of the contrary kind. The inarticulate masses for whose benefit we govern India know nothing about the Viceroy's Council, and would be profoundly indifferent. The fifty-three millions of Mahomedans are up in arms against it, and will remain up in arms against it unless the noble Viscount gives them what he has peremptorily refused to give them—a second Mahomedan member to serve alongside of a Hindu member. Then what about the sentiment of the chiefs and rulers of
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India? What is the advice which the noble Viscount has received upon that point? I am under the impression that it will be eminently distasteful to the chiefs and rulers of India that they should be governed—that orders should be issued in the name of the Government of India—by a gentleman who, if the indication given to us by the noble Viscount is correct, would probably be an extremely able Calcutta lawyer. Therefore I really believe that if one could conceive of an Indian referendum upon this point you would be answered by a great preponderance of opinion against the addition of a native member to the Viceroy's Council.
But let me put sentimental or political considerations on one side. What about the practical effect of the proposals? I presume this is one of those cases where His Majesty's Government desire to introduce representative institutions "of a practical kind," as recommended for Persia in the gracious Speech from the Throne. The practical result which the noble Viscount expects to obtain is that the Viceroy will be given a responsible adviser with a knowledge of the country who will act as a kind of counterpoise to the exclusively British element. All I can say is that the Viceroy's Council never was recruited upon principles of that kind, and I am forced to believe that if you are going to appoint an Indian gentleman to the Viceroy's Council and prefer him to other competitors because he is an Indian, you are in fact introducing a test of a wholly novel description. But the noble Viscount explained matters a little more fully yesterday. We understood from him that these appointments are to be filled with reference to the merit of the particular candidate, and if that is really so—if we could be told that the Secretary of State will look round and will not give the appointment to an Indian gentleman unless he is convinced that that Indian gentleman is really a stronger candidate from an official point of view than any other candidate in the field—then my objection is to some extent, but not entirely, mitigated.
But what really as rather shaken my confidence in the judgment of the noble Viscount on this point is the appeal which he has made in this House to two analogies—the analogy of his own Council in Whitehall, and the analogy of Indian Judges. Surely it is notorious that the

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whole position and functions of the Secretary of State's Council are wholly dissimilar from the position and functions of the Viceroy's Council in India. The Secretary of State's Council has no initiative; it is purely consultative; it has no executive functions; and, last but not least, the two Indian members of the Secretary of State's Council are wholly removed from the kind of influences to which an Indian in Calcutta will certainly be exposed. The analogy of the Judges seems to be equally wide of the mark. The Judge has to administer judicially a code of law from which he cannot depart. The functions of the Viceroy's Council are executive in the strictest sense of the word.
I regret the effect of this new departure upon the efficiency of the Viceroy's Council. The claims of efficiency may, no doubt, sometimes be pushed too far, but I confess I think that in this case efficiency ought to come first, and I think we are justified in claiming that the institution known as the Governor-General in Council has been one of the most efficient instruments of government in the world. The noble Viscount referred very appropriately the other day to the admiration expressed by ex-President Roosevelt for our system of Indian government. What has been the secret of the success of that government? It is that it has been so constituted that it has been able to observe the strictest possible neutrality so far as the people of India are concerned, and that is why the people of India trust it. I say it with no disrespect to Indian gentlemen, I do not believe that you can find such a thing as an absolutely neutral Indian, and if he is neutral nobody would believe that he is. But I know that the noble Viscount has burnt his boats so far as that part of his scheme is concerned. I can only hope that he may prove to be right, and that I may prove to be wrong. But with regard to the provincial councils a good deal yet remains open, and I earnestly hope that the noble Viscount will take in good part and will consider attentively the suggestions that have been made to him with regard to one or two points in his scheme that deal with these Councils.
I make one suggestion. I am afraid the noble Viscount will reject it summarily. But I do wish that he could find it consistent with his duty to postpone for the present. and entirely without prejudice, the two
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clauses dealing with the Executive Councils. If he would do that, if he would allow those clauses to come up in a separate Bill after he had elicited opinions from all those whom he would naturally consult, I feel quite sure the House would consider them with an open mind and with no desire to impair the usefulness of the scheme as a whole.
I apologise to the House and to the noble Viscount for having dealt somewhat critically with his proposals. But we who have had some experience of Indian affairs are bound to tell him what we think about these proposals, we are bound to warn him if we think any of them are of a dangerous character, and, after all, we are playing for tremendous stakes. This Bill may prove—or rather, I would say it will prove—to be a turning point in the history of our position in India. We should be untrue to ourselves if, while there is still time, we did not urge him to consider well whether at some points he is not going to travel rather too fast over ground which we all of us know is honeycombed with pitfalls and dangers.
*THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF CREWE)My Lords, I ought, I think, to apologise to the House for rising to address your Lordships at all at this hour of the evening; but I think it would scarcely be respectful that the debate should close without one or two observations being made from this Bench. My noble friend the Secretary of State for India will take an opportunity before the House is put into Committee on the Bill to make a general statement dealing with the various points raised in the course of this debate. I shall, therefore, confine myself to one or two observations on the question of the Legislative Councils, their constitution, and their proposed procedure. I confess that the demand made for a veto by the principal authority on the appointment or election of any particular member does seem to me to be going very far. It certainly does seem to me that the introduction of the electoral system can be of very little value if the man elected can be declared incapable of sitting not on any specific ground, but simply because the Lieutenant-Governor or Governor-General does not desire to see him on the Council. A power of that nature given to an individual is a dangerous power, and one

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to which it is unlikely my noble friend could agree.
A word or two seem necessary on the question of official majorities. What seems to me the case is this. A Council composed of an official majority and an unofficial minority works very well in ordinary times. but if it comes to a state of things when the official majority is always drawn on one side and the non-official minority on the other, then we may be quite sure that there is something altogether wrong with the condition of the Government of the country or province. You may get your way but in a manner that is by no means satisfactory, a manner that makes it scarcely worth getting. So far as the Colonial Office is concerned, if such a state of things were to become habitual, we should regard it as a very strong case for some form of outside inquiry. The blame would not necessarily be upon the Governor or the Government, but there would be indication that in some way the machinery of Government had broken down. If you have an unofficial majority in this case I understand the carrying through of what are called "wild cat Bills" is in the last resort prevented by the use of the veto. Further than that—and this, of course, is a safeguard which does not exist in the case of all unofficial majorities—when it is thought necessary to pass a particular measure in the teeth of an unofficial majority, a power is given to do so. That seems to me to safeguard your position, but it is really safeguarded, as pointed out by Lord Ampthill, in an entirely different way by the fact that these unofficial majorities are not, or certainly ought not to be, solid bodies. I should not think very much of a Governor who did not somehow find means of detaching some of the non-official members from their colleagues and transferring them to the supporters of his own point of view. I do not say that if he failed to do so on a particular occasion he would show himself inefficient, but assume that the non-official members were drawn up in a line opposed to the official members in a given case. I should be disposed to think that the executive officer, though he might be a good Governor in other ways, was not a very efficient politician or had not the qualities of a skilful diplomatist.
The noble Lord said last night that after all there was no great hardship in being in a perpetual minority, and he pointed
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to these Benches as illustrating the possibility of being in that position and yet surviving. Well, my lords, appearances are sometimes deceptive. We may maintain a calm demeanour and even attain at times to the appearance of a spurious joviality, but the noble Lord will guess, if he does not know, the effect on our general character, our tempers, and our minds, of living in a state of being perpetually outvoted. I am speaking quite seriously when I say that if the noble Lord opposite had shared our fate during the ten years before we came into office, he would know the truth of what I am saying. Most of us towards the end of those ten years were beginning to lose interest in public life, and began to think it might be well to turn our attention to the cultivation of our gardens, and had it not been for the emergence of the fiscal question, which gave new life to proceedings in your Lordships' House, I am not sure but some of us would have done so.
I pass to points upon which it is supposed some danger might arise, and the use of supplementary questions has been mentioned. Well, I should have thought that this power would prove a very useful safety-valve, I assume under proper restrictions. The noble Lord seems to forget that many more men like to talk about their grievances than expect redress. I was looking the other day at an account, by a very skilled observer, of one of the native races that come under my Office—more advanced, no doubt, than some of the races in India; and he said of them that it was a characteristic that if they had a grievance they would come and talk about it, perhaps for an hour on end, and were so satisfied at having relieved their minds by this long and elaborate complaint that they often walked away without waiting to hear what he had to say in reply. That, of course, is an extreme instance. At the same time I think noble lords underrate the value of this safety-valve of talk, and I cannot help thinking that if supplementary questions were forbidden, a great deal of the reality of the Legislative Councils must necessarily pass away. It is said that it would be hard upon officials, would take up too much of their time, and that they would be engaged in oratory against skilled speakers who merely wished to cause annoyance. Now I have always found that the man who knows his subject, orator or not, makes a good speech upon it. The speeches that are ineffective, are those made by men

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who really do not know what they are talking about. I cannot in my own mind doubt that experienced administrators will find no difficulty, in nine cases out of ten, in dealing with popular, glib but infinitely less informed speakers whom they may have to encounter.
I pass to a different point—the regulations which are to fill in the framework of the Bill. One noble Lord said we were asked to give a blank cheque, and in one sense it is a blank cheque; but it is like one of those cheques signed by a body of trustees—it will have a great many other signatures at its foot besides that of my noble friend. Something has been said about these regulations being laid on the Table of the House, with a view, I suppose, of their being altered upon the presentation of an Address from either House. That is a demand to which we could not assent. In the first place, it would be entirely foreign to practice in these matters, and to the principle laid down by Mr. Gladstone quoted by my noble friend and in general terms, I think, agreed to by the noble Lord opposite. The noble Marquess said this did not mean that the regulations would be debated clause by clause in Parliament; but it was a large demand to make by Members of this House, who have a strong position and control of our legislative proposals here—complete control except in regard to details in the region of finance. If they are going to ask also for control over purely administrative matters, they are making a demand never made before, and one to which I do not think my noble friend could possibly agree. It would simply mean that the ultimate form of the regulations would be settled by a few noble Lords who are competent to have an opinion on the question from their Indian experience and who sit on the Bench opposite. That is the simple outcome of the proposal, and, if noble Lords think of it seriously, they must see that it is not a proposal which my noble friend behind me could possibly accept.

Then I turn to the question of the native member of the Executive Council, and here I think some confusion seems to have arisen by the use of the word "representative." It is sometimes said that if an Indian member is placed on the Viceroy's Executive Council he is to be the representative of India. It is undoubtedly true, as has been already pointed out, that no one man
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can be the representative of India, because there are so many Indias. But I do not understand that, if and when this gentleman is put on, he is to be put on as the representative of India. My noble friend's proposition is not to create a representation but to remove a disability, and that is surely a very different thing indeed. A closer analogy than those which have been made seems to me the removal of Catholic disabilities in 1829. If you were to take the specific instance of the disability which still exists in appointing a Roman Catholic to the office held by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack or the Lord Lieutenacy of Ireland, the removal of that disability does not necessarily mean that a Roman Catholic will always be appointed to that particular office. It would mean, just as my noble friend's proposition means, that, other things being equal, the person who holds that creed is as fit as any other person to hold that particular office. That is all that can be actually said to be meant by my noble friend's proposition.
The ultimate method of working out the proposition is, I admit, a different matter. It may so happen that the appointment of a native member will tend towards the filling of one particular office by a native rather than by another. Obviously there are some posts on the Viceroy's Council which could never be held by a native, but we ought, I think, to get rid of this notion of representation, which has been rather unfortunately imported into the question—unfortunately because it gives a wrong idea both to people in this country and in India as to what is really meant by the proposal. I very heartily re-echo one remark that fell from the noble Earl on the Cross-benches, and that is the extreme importance of this proposition being so far as possible a unanimous one, when it reaches India. The value of anything proposed by my noble friend, I quite admit, must be diminished if it becomes the subject of acute controversy here with men, like the noble Lord opposite, who are well known and thoroughly respected in India.
This debate has undoubtedly been maintained on the high level which distinguishes your Lordships' House. Here and there there has been an observation which we on this side of the House have heard with regret. I thought, if I may say so, that the whole tone of

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the remarks of the noble Lord opposite, Lord Curzon, was somewhat unduly pessimistic about the entire scheme. He seemed to speak with lights turned half down and to the sound of rather melancholy music. I do not also, I admit, entirely appreciate the observations of the noble Lord behind me with regard to the future destinies of India. I do not know that the prophecies to which he objected were exactly necessary prophecies, but I am quite sure that the noble Lord's prophecies in turn were not needed either. What will be the future of India fifty, sixty, or a hundred years hence need not, I think, trouble us. It is on the knees of the gods, and all we have got to do is to provide, as best we can, for the conditions of the moment, having, of course, an eye to the future, but not troubling ourselves about what may happen in days when, to use Sheridan's words—"all of us are dead and most of us are forgotten." I think that my noble friend behind me has good reason to be satisfied with the recep-
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tion of his Bill. He has been himself the recipient of many tributes which, I can assure the House, give even more pleasure to his colleagues than they do to himself. I trust that the future course of the Bill in its later stages will be easy and prosperous.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.

ZETLAND MASONIC SICK AND WIDOWS AND ORPHANS FUND ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to the Zealand Masonic Sick and Widows and Orphans Fund—Was presented by the Lord Pentland; read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, section 7) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee. (No. 5.)
House adjourned at ten minutes past Eight o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.