Sitting of 10 June 1913

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
MacColl's Divorce Bill [Lords],
Read a second time, and committed.
Southampton Harbour Bill [by Order],
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Friday.
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Bill [by Order],
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Thursday, at a quarter-past Eight of the clock.
Oxford University (St. Edmund Hall and Gatcombe Rectory) Bill [Lords] [by Order],
Second Reading deferred till Thursday, at a quarter-past Eight of the clock.
Westminster Hospital Bill,
Sir Henry Craik had given notice of the following Motion: "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Westminster Hospital Bill, to consider whether it is expedient, in dealing with the present site of the hospital, to widen the street leading to the Houses of Parliament by making the frontage level with the neighbouring building, and so providing, in the public interest and for posterity, an access worthy of the dignity of the situation."
An HON. MEMBER:I object.
Sir H. CRAIK: I would appeal to the Chairman of Committees upon this matter, which is one of considerable public interest. There are various rumours with regard to a settlement, and in deference to the House and to the public interests involved, a statement ought to be made one way or the other. I appeal to the Chairman of Committees to give some time for this Motion.
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Mr. Whitley): I understood that objection had been taken. It does not lie in my province to make any statement upon the matter.
Sir H. CRAIK: Would it not be possible for the right hon. Gentleman to give an opportunity for discussion at 8.15?
Mr. WHITLEYindicated dissent.
Resolution deferred.

Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 13) Bill,

Local Government Provisional Order (No. 14) Bill,

Local Government Provisional Order (No. 15) Bill,

Local Government Provisional Order (No. 16) Bill,

Read a second time, and committed.
Ribble Fisheries Provisional Order Bill (by Order),
Trade Boards Act Provisional Orders Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Thursday.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 21) Bill,
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Cambridge, Luton, and Wakefield. "Presented by Mr. HERBERT LEWIS; supported by Mr. Burns.
Ordered, That Standing Order 193a be suspended, and that the Bill be read the first time.—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
Bill accordingly read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 201.]

DIVORCE BILLS.
Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Lords to request that their Lordships will be pleased to communicate to this House copies of the Minutes of Evidence and Proceedings, together with Documents deposited, in the case of MacColl's Divorce Bill [Lords].
Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Select Committee on Divorce Bills that they do hear Counsel and examine Witnesses for MacColl's Divorce Bill [Lords], and also that they do hear Counsel and examine Witnesses against the Bill if the parties concerned think fit to be heard by Counsel and produce Witnesses.—[The Lord Advocate.]

COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
Copy presented of Report, No. 755 (Gibraltar, Annual Report for 1912) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
NAVY (HYDROGRAPHER'S REPORT).
Copy presented of Report on Admiralty Surveys for the year 1912 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
IRISH LAND COMMISSION.
Copy presented of Return of Advances made under the Irish Land Purchase Acts during the months of August, September, and October, 1912 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
NEW MEMBER SWORN.
Patrick Joseph Meehan, esquire, for the Queen's County (Leix Division).

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to—
Dundee Corporation (Improvements and Tramways) Bill, with Amendments.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the transfer to the Southend Waterworks Company of the Western District water undertaking of the Rochford Rural District Council; to extend the limits of the Southend Waterworks Company for the supply of water; and for other purposes." [Rochford Rural District Council Bill [Lords].
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to enable the Great Eastern Railway Company to construct works and acquire lands at Ipswich; and for other purposes." [Great Eastern Railway Bill [Lords].
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act for incorporating and conferring powers on the United District Gas Company." [United District Gas Bill [Lords].
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers upon the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of the city of Leeds in regard to their water undertaking, to empower them to construct street improvements; and for other purposes." [Leeds Corporation Bill [Lords.]
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Rochford Rural District Council Bill [Lords],

Great Eastern Railway Bill [Lords],

United District Gas Bill [Lords],

Leeds Corporation Bill [Lords],

Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PURCHASE OF LAND (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
Second Reading deferred from Tomorrow till Tuesday, 8th July.
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS BILL.
Second Reading deferred from Tomorrow till Tuesday, 8th July.
SMALL HOLDINGS BILL.
Second Reading deferred from Tomorrow till Tuesday, 8th July.
ASYLUMS OFFICERS (EMPLOYMENT, PENSIONS, AND SUPERANNUA- TION) BILL.
Second Reading upon Monday, 28th July.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Mr. Fenwick reported from the Committee of Selection: That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee C (in respect of the London Elections Bill): Mr. Beckett, Mr. Norman Craig, Captain Spender-Clay, Sir John Spear, and Mr. Ellis Griffith; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the said Bill): Mr. Hayes Fisher, Sir Harry Samuel, Sir William Bull, Mr. Hoare, and Mr. Herbert Lewis.
Mr. Fenwick further reported from the Committee: That they had added to Standing Committee A the following Fifteen Members (in respect of the Dogs (Protection) Bill): Sir Philip Magnus, Colonel Lockwood, Mr. Faber, Mr. Butcher, Sir Frederick Banbury, Colonel Burn, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Duffy, Major Guest, Mr. George Greenwood, Sir Walter Menzies, Colonel Greig, Mr. Rowntree, Mr. Guy Wilson, and Mr. Charles Duncan.
Mr. Fenwick further reported from the Committee: That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee B (in respect of the Mental Deficiency Bill): Mr. Dawes, Mr. David Davies, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Rowlands, and Mr. Robertson; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the said Bill): Mr. Ellis Griffith, Mr. Cawley, Mr. Edmund Harvey, Mr. Acland Allen, and Mr. Dickinson.
Mr. Fenwick further reported from the Committee: That they had added to Standing Committee B the following Fifteen Members (in respect of the said Bill): Mr. Charles Roberts, Dr. Chapple, Sir Norval Helme, Dr. Addison, Mr. Martin, Mr. Edgar Jones, Mr. Crooks, Mr. Ffrench, Mr. Field, Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, Mr. Leslie Scott, Mr. Goldsmith, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Rupert Guinness, and Mr. Butler Lloyd.
Reports to lie upon the Table.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Egypt (Arrest of Alexandre Adamovitz).
  Mr. MORRELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can now give any further information as to the case of Mr. Adamovitz; whether he is still in Egypt; if so, where he is imprisoned; and what is the charge against him?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): I cannot give any more information than I have already given; we cannot interfere between foreign Consuls and their own nationals in Egypt.
  Mr. MORRELL: Cannot my right hon. Friend tell me whether this man is still in Egypt or whether he has yet been deported?
  Sir E. GREY: I cannot say, Sir, at the moment.
  Mr. MORRELL: Can my right hon. Friend use his influence to see that the man is not deported from Egypt until this ease has been fully inquired into?
  Sir E. GREY: No, Sir. I am clear that we cannot extend our responsibliities to the extent of interfering between foreign Consuls and their own nationals.
  Mr. MORRELLasked whether the Capitulation under which the Russian Consul claims the right to arrest and
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  deport Mr. Adamovitz, without reference to the Government of Egypt, is the Capitulation granted by the Turkish Government to Russia in 1783; whether this Capitulation contains any express provisions for the extradition of Russian subjects from Turkish territory; and whether there is any precedent for the use of the Capitulation for such a purpose?
  Sir E. GREY: Article LXXII. of the Convention of 1783 runs as follows:ߞ"If Russian subjects commit among themselves a murder or any other offence, the examination of the case shall be the province of the Russian Minister or Consul who will judge the case according to their laws and customs, and no Ottoman authority may intervene in any manner."
  It is, however, to be observed that any privilege which any one Power has under Capitulation is equally enjoyed by all. I may add that the question of extradition does not arise in such a case as the present. When the offender is under his own Consul, he is already within the jurisdiction of his own country, and the Egyptian Government has no locus standi in the matter. The Consul can try him in the Consular Court or remove him to his own country as he chooses. There are, of course, precedents for the exercise by the Powers of rights under the Capitulations which are a matter of treaty and practice.
  Mr. MORRELL: Is there any express precedent for the deporting of a man to his own country, as is the case here?
  Sir E. GREY: I think there are precedents, but I cannot quote one.
  Mr. O'GRADY: Does the Capitulation mention the word "deportation" at all?
  Sir E. GREY: What the Article I have quoted says is this: the Russian Minister or Consul will judge the case according to their laws and customs, and no Ottoman authority may intervene in any manner. What I have been asked to do is to intervene.
  Mr. MORRELL: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he stated, "in cases of murder and other charges." Has any charge been made against this man?
  Sir E. GREY: It says, "murder or any other offence." No terms could be wider.
  Mr. MORRELL: Will my right hon. Friend say what is the offence charged against this man?
  Sir E. GREY: No, Sir; because it is not a matter in which I am going to undertake any responsibility.

  Egypt (Case of Mr. Youritzin).
  Mr. MORRELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give any information as to the case of Mr. Youritzin, formerly a Russian journalist, who has been living for some years past at Helouan, in Egypt, and whose house on 15th May was raided by the Russian Consul; whether the Russian Consul was accompanied by officers of the Egyptian police; and, if so, whether he had obtained any warrant or other authority from the Government of Egypt for the action that he took; whether any criminal offence was alleged against Mr. Youritzin; and whether His Majesty's Government will cause full inquiries to be made into the circumstances of this case?
  Sir E. GREY: I have no information, and unless the action taken is not such as is warranted by the Capitulations, I see no necessity for calling for a report.
  Mr. MORRELL: Is a Russian Consul entitled to use the Egyptian prisons as much as he pleases in cases in which no offence is charged?
  Sir E. GREY: The hon. Member must give notice of any particular question.

  Persia.
  Mr. MORRELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when he proposes to lay upon the Table any further Papers on affairs in Persia?
  Sir E. GREY: Papers will be laid this week.

  Irrigation Areas (India).
  Mr. O'GRADYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the social conditions of the populations in the new settlements of irrigation areas; whether, in view of the fact that in the areas in question high charges (rent) are imposed by capitalistic landowners, and that houses are inadequate to accommodate the families living in them and are lacking in necessary means of sanitation, that roads are bad, and that there is no provision for medical aid nor for education of children, he will give instructions that in all future official surveys a comprehensive statement shall be contained in the reports setting forth the actual facts of social life in such Colonies?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): The Secretary of State has seen in a weekly periodical some notes of a visit paid by a traveller to some canal villages in the Punjab. The, description is at variance with the reports of other persons who have visited these prosperous agricultural communities, and who have praised the provision which the Government through its officers has made for the moral and material welfare of the Colonists. The matter will be brought to the notice of the Local Government, which will consider whether any amplification of the Annual Report on the Colonies is desirable.

  Mill Coolie's Death (India).
  Mr. O'GRADYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the verdict in the case of James Henderson, who was fined Rs.100 for violence against a mill hand working at the Victoria Jute Mill, near Calcutta, resulting in the death of the man, the magistrate who tried the case stating that there was dangerous and unnecessary violence and that Henderson was criminally careless of possible results; and whether, having regard to the difference in treatment of Indians and Europeans when before the Courts on crimes of this character, the Government will consider the question of deporting and excluding the man Henderson from India for all time?
  Mr. MONTAGU: I have seen only a newspaper report of the trial, from which it appears that the mill coolie's death was due to cholera. Mr. Henderson was convicted of having twenty days previously voluntarily caused hurt by kicking the man, who, it was stated in evidence, had engaged in a drunken quarrel with a native woman in the mill. The Secretary of State is not prepared to take action in the case.
  Mr. O'GRADY: Is the value of this man's life £7?

  Hyderabad (Compulsory Vaccination).
  Mr. O'GRADYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the action of the Governor of Bombay in insisting upon the application of compulsory vaccination to the municipal district of Hyderabad, although this has been objected to by the inhabitants at largely attended public meetings; whether he is aware that Sir

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  A. Godley in July, 1909, declared, on behalf of Lord Morley, that vaccination is not to be made compulsory in any municipality except upon the application of the municipal body, and that compulsion, when applied, has public opinion behind it; and whether, having regard to the effect that this Order has had upon public opinion in the district, representations will be made to the Governor of Bombay to allow the Conscience Clause to operate in the matter of vaccination?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The Secretary of State has seen a statement in the papers that the Hyderabad municipality has applied to the Bombay Government for the extension of compulsory vaccination to the municipal district, and that a public meeting was held to oppose the extension. The Bombay Government are in a position to judge of the real state of public opinion and of the requirements of the case, but the Secretary of State will send to India my hon. Friend's question and my answer.

  BRITISH ARMY.

    HOME ESTABLISHMENT.
    Colonel BURNasked the Secretary of State for War what is the number of men in Cavalry and Infantry regiments wanting to complete the Home establishment, the number of undismissed recruits at the present time, and the percentage of reservists required to complete the war establishment of the Cavalry on mobilisation?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Tennant): On the 1st May last the Cavalry of the Line and Infantry of the Line at home were 123 men and 6,761 men respectively under establishment. The figures for undismissed recruits are not available at the War Office. As regards the last part of the question it is not considered expedient to publish information concerning mobilisation arrangements.
    Colonel BURN: Is it not possible for the hon. Gentleman to find out how many undismissed recruits there are on a certain date?
    Mr. TENNANT:It would be an arduous labour. It is always a shifting figure.
    Colonel BURN: Is there any reason why the House should not know?

    HUDDERSFIELD TERRITORIAL BATTALIONS.
    Mr. WEIGALLasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that there is no open range available to the Huddersfield and Milnsbridge Territorial battalions on which musketry practice can be carried out; and whether any steps are being taken to provide range accommodation?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am aware that at present there is no open range available. Steps, however, have been taken to acquire land at Deer Hill to provide a range, but the proceedings for compulsory purchase have taken a long time to complete. Possession of the land will be taken this month, and the construction of the range will be taken in hand at once.

    PROMOTION OF JUNIOR MAJOR (CAVALRY).
    Major M'CALMONTasked whether the junior major of a Cavalry regiment has been recently promoted to command his regiment, thereby superseding three of his own regimental seniors; whether it has been hitherto customary to promote officers under such circumstances into regiments other than their own; and whether this custom has now been abandoned?
    Mr. TENNANT: The reply to the first and second parts of the question is in the affirmative, and to the third in the negative.
    Major M'CALMONT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that promotions of this kind give rise to a great deal of dissatisfaction, and in the opinion of the majority of regimental officers are very bad for discipline?
    Mr. TENNANT: That is a matter for the Selection Board.

  AIRCRAFT.

    FATAL ACCIDENT (LIEUTENANT HARRISON).
    Captain FABERasked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the Report of the public safety of accidents investigation committee of the Royal Aero Club on the fatal accident to Lieutenant Rogers Harrison on 28th April when flying a Cody biplane, which Report states that the fabric with which the aeroplane was covered was weak; that the aeroplane had structurally deteriorated since it was built in 1911; and that its condition at the time of flight was precarious; whether the responsibility for allowing an

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    aeroplane to be used in this condition rests on the officer commanding the Military Wing, and, if not, on whom does it rest; if he will state what other aeroplanes are in a similar condition, in view of the recent purchase of second-hand machines; and whether, looking at a similar accident to Lieutenant Arthur under similar conditions, he will say what steps, if any, he is taking to prevent the continuation of this loss of life through neglect of duty?
    Mr. TENNANT: I would ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman to refer to my reply to a question put by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Wirral Division on Wednesday, 4th June, on the subject, and to a full statement which I made during the Debate on Army Estimates on Thursday, 5th June.
    Captain FABER: Did the Secretary of State ever say who was responsible for the state of these aeroplanes when they went up, and is therefore responsible for the deaths of these men?
    Mr. TENNANT: I do not know.

    Brine (Mineral Rights Duty).
    Mr. PRETYMANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will specify the test case now sub judice which raises the question whether brine is subject to Mineral Rights Duty?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): This question arises in relation to several undertakings from which it is proposed to select, by arrangement with the Salt Union, one or more representative cases on which to secure the decision of the Courts.
    Mr. PRETYMAN: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect giving an answer more than twelve months ago to the effect that this question of Mineral Rights Duty on brine was then sub judice? What steps have been taken in the twelve months to bring that issue to the test?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The information I have is the information I have conveyed now. Arrangements have been made to secure the decision of the Courts upon the question.
    Mr. PRETYMAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman name the case which was sub judice? Is there any case?
    Mr LLOYD GEORGE: Yes, certainly. I will give the name of the case, but I cannot give it now.

    Reversion Duty.
    Mr. PRETYMANasked whether the Commissioners of Inland Revenue claim to charge Reversion Duty upon the owner of a freehold reversion when he purchases the immediate lessee's interest, and whether they claim to charge him the duty again at the determination of the underleases; whether the Commissioners of Inland Revenue claim Reversion Duty from the owner of the freehold reversion when the immediate lessee purchases the freehold reversion; and whether they claim to charge the duty again upon the immediate lessee when the underleases expire?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Subject to the exemptions and allowances prescribed by Statute, the Commissioners claim duty from the owner of the freehold reversion on the determination of the head lease in each of the cases to which reference is made.
    Mr. PRETYMAN: Then Reversion Duty is charged twice on the same property?

    Land Valuation (Ireland).
    Mr. NEWMANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, having regard to the fact that the information for making Finance Act valuations was already in the General Valuation Office in Dublin, why, in the case of any provisional valuations so far made in Ireland, Form IV. has first been issued and the information so obtained used both for the Finance Act and for rating valuations; (2) whether he will now state under what authority the Treasury are directing the permanent rating valuers of the General Valuation Office, Ireland, to make valuations under the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910; whether any official document is in existence defining the general scope of their duties; and what legal or other remedy is open to these permanent rating valuers to test the validity of the Treasury to employ them to make valuations under the Finance Act; (3) whether, in view of the fact that an increase of salary of 25 per cent. was granted to the Commissioner of Valuation (Ireland) when the duty of making valuations under the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, was imposed on him, he will say why the salaries of the permanent rating valuers have not

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    been equally raised in view of the fact that the like duty of Finance Act valuations has been imposed on them; and (4) whether, in view of the fact that the Finance Act valuations made in Ireland by the permanent rating valuers are largely used for work under the old Valuation Acts, and as any figures on which rating valuations are based must be stated in open Court or an appeal to Quarter Sessions, he will say if any secrecy attaches to the information given on the Increment Value Duty files or on Form IV. when issued; and whether Assessment Committees in Great Britain are allowed access to any information given on Increment Value Duty files or on Form IV.?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The issue of Form IV. is confined in Ireland to urban districts, in which areas the Valuation Office has no information as to how property is held. The information given on this Form was not used for rating valuations, nor is any confidential information on Increment Value files so used. Assessment Committees in Great Britain are not allowed access to any information given on Increment Value Duty particulars or on Form IV. The Commissioner of Valuation, who has the whole duty of carrying out the Finance Act Valuations in Ireland, receives £300 a year for doing this work. The permanent Rating Valuers, some of whom are employed for a couple of months in the year on this work, and draw subsistence allowance during that time, get a very substantial increase in their pay and prospects in the year 1910, chiefly owing to the fact that they might be called on to do some of this Finance Act work. The duties of these valuers are not confined to the making of valuations under the Irish Valuation Acts. The relatively small amount of work they have so far performed under the Finance Act does not necessitate their working extra time, nor has it in any way interfered with their vacation.

    Crofters Holdings (Sutherlandshire).
    Mr. MORTONasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he can do anything to induce the Scottish Board of Agriculture to consider the applications for increase of holdings by the crofters at Shinness, Lairg, Sutherland, and other places in the county of Sutherland, which were sent in more than a year back?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): Inquiry has been made
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    in the district of Shinness, Lairg, Sutherlandshire, and while, so far, the Board have not been able to find land for the applicants, they have the matter under consideration.
    Mr. MORTONIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Sutherlandshire alone 380,000 acres were marked by the Royal Commission on Deer Forests as available for small holdings?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of any figures.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that complaints come every day from Ross-shire?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I do not know of any case.
    Mr. MORTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to do anything to put the Act, of 1911 into force for the benefit of the people and to stop the emigration and depopulation that is now going on?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The Act is certainly being put rigorously into force. It does not follow that because there is a large margin of possible land in a county that land is suitable for the desires of a particular applicant, because applicants, may desire a particular neighbourhood which does not happen to be available at the moment.
    Mr. MORTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman know that the Royal Commission, said it was suitable for that purpose?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: That is not really a reply to my last answer. It may not be suitable for the purpose of these particular applicants.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the propriety of proposing some amending legislation in order that voluntary arrangements shall be placed in the same position as compulsory agreements with regard to compensation?

    Scottish Board of Agriculture.
    Mr. JAMES HOGGEasked the Secretary for Scotland what proportion of the annual sum of £206,000 at the disposal of the Scottish Board of Agriculture was spent between 1st April, 1912, and 31st March, 1913; and whether he can give the details of how the money was applied?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I would refer my hon. Friend to my reply on the 3rd

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    June. I have not yet received the account from the Board of Agriculture.

    Agricultural Labourers (Scotland).
    Mr. JAMES HOGGEasked whether, owing to the continued emigration to the Colonies, farmers in many parts of Lowland Scotland have experienced difficulty in securing their full complement of farm hands; and whether, as a result of the scarcity of men, wages in different districts of Scotland have risen at the recent Whit Sunday term from £2 to £6 per annum?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The reply to the first of the question is in the affirmative. The Board of Agriculture's report for June states that wages of ploughmen in certain districts of Scotland rose from £2 to £4 per annum at the recent Whit Sunday term.
    Mr. HOGGE: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the fact that this is due to the increased and increasing emigration?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I do not know that it is not a good thing in itself.
    Mr. HOGGE: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is a good thing in itself that agricultural labourers in Scotland often leave the country in order to earn a livelihood?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I did not say so.
    Mr. J. HOGGEasked what are the rates of wages, including all perquisites and the cash value of housing accommodation, paid to various grades of ploughmen in the different areas of Lowland Scotland?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The information desired by my hon. Friend is not available, and I fear that with the present pressure of work upon the Board of Agriculture I could not ask them to undertake the extensive inquiry which would be involved. The Royal Commission is inquiring into the question of the housing of ploughmen.
    Mr. HOGGE: How is it that there is this enormous pressure of work on the Board of Agriculture, and that it takes over ten months to move between one letter being received and another application? What are they doing?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: If my hon. Friend had read the Report of the Board of Agriculture he would not have asked such a question.
    Mr. HOGGE: Has the right hon. Gentleman read the Report himself?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Certainly; I have read every word of it.

    Small Landowners Act (Scotland).
    Mr. JAMES HOGGEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether the great majority of applicants for small holdings, many of whom applied twelve and fourteen months ago, have not yet received any definite answer to their applications; and whether he is aware that the delay in coming to a decision in individual cases is causing a feeling of uneasiness as to the ultimate success of the Act among those whom it was designed to assist?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The Report of the Board of Agriculture clearly points out the reasons why progress in obtaining land was inevitably slow at the beginning of the working of the Act, and that undoubtedly has created a feeling of impatience among applicants with whose cases it has not yet been possible to deal. I am in communication with the Treasury as to an increase of staff for dealing with the applications and securing suitable land.
    Mr. HOGGE: Are we to understand that the present staff of the Board of Agriculture, which was nominated in order to deal with the operation of the Act, is to be considered sufficient to deal with the enormous crop of applications which are still waiting to be dealt with at the Board of Agriculture?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: If my hon. Friend had done me the honour to listen to my answer he would have seen that I was asking the Treasury for an increase of staff, which is surely an admission that the present staff is not sufficient.
    Mr. MORTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman think the people of Scotland have been treated fairly?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Yes, I think they have.
    Mr. MORTON: We will raise it on the Estimates.
    Mr. JAMES HOGGEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether, in view of

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    his statement that the successful establishment of small holdings will form the best advertisement of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act, the Board of Agriculture for Scotland have prepared a definite scheme for the establishment of land banks and co-operation, both of which have been such a valuable adjunct to the success of the progressive agricultural movement in Ireland, Germany, Italy, Holland, India, and Egypt?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The Board of Agriculture are doing their best to encourage schemes of the nature referred to by my hon. Friend, of which they appreciate the value. The Development Commissioners have made a Grant to assist co-operation, and I am informed that there are ninety-six co-operative societies affiliated to the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society.
    Mr. HOGGE: May I ask whether the scheme for co-operation is nearing completion?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Yes, Sir, the matter is also being considered by another society—the Scottish Smallholders' Association.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he can state the number of applications received for small holdings in Scotland in each month from 1st April, 1912, to 31st May, 1913; and the total number of applications received during that period from the crofting and the non-crofting counties, respectively?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: As the answer will contain a large number of figures I will circulate it with the Votes. The tables are made out in quarterly periods, but I will, in addition, give the figures for the period from 31st March to 31st May. The total number for the crofting counties is 6,006 and for non-crofting counties 824.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    MATERNITY BENEFIT.
    Mr. BUTLER LLOYDasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the agent of an approved society is within his rights in withholding maternity benefits, under the National Insurance Act, for two months when the application is in perfect order; and, if he is within his rights, whether he will take steps to amend the Act so as to remove this grievance?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): An insured person duly qualified for maternity benefit, and making proper application for it, should certainly receive it without delay. If the hon. Member will inform me of any particular case in which delay has occurred I will make inquiries as to its cause.
    Mr. BUTLER LLOYD: May I send particulars of the case?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I specially asked the hon. Member to do so.

    AMENDING BILL.
    Lord NINIAN CRICHTON-STUARTasked whether the National Insurance Act Amendment Bill will contain any proposals for death benefits?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The answer is in the negative.
    Lord NINIAN CRICHTON-STUARTasked whether it is proposed to introduce into the Amending Bill to the National Insurance Act any provision for an increase in the allowance for administration expenses, seeing that there is discontent amongst industrial insurance agents at being compelled to work the Act and distribute the benefits for a mere nominal allowance by the management committees of the approved societies formed by their respective assurance companies and collecting societies?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The emuneration paid to agents for such work as they do for the National Insurance Act in addition to their normal work is a matter between themselves and the societies employing them. With regard to the amounts allowed for administration expenses I would refer the Noble Lord to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Salisbury yesterday.
    Mr. WEIGALLasked the Prime Minister when the National Insurance Amendment Bill will be introduced?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): As I stated yesterday, we hope to introduce this Bill in a few days.

    UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT.
    Viscount WOLMERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has received applications from the permanent employés in county asylums for exemption from Part II. of the National Insurance Act; and whether he is aware that insomuch as so many of them are permanently

    1417
    employed, it is impossible for them to receive any benefit for the contributions they have to pay under Part II. of the National Insurance Act, and that they have already obtained exemption from Part I. of the Act?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. J. M. Robertson): The only powers of exemption from the provisions of Part II. of the National Insurance Act conferred on the Board of Trade are contained in Section 107 (4), which provides that, if the Board are satisfied that any class of workmen are, having regard to their claim to pension or to the other terms of their service, in as permanent a position as that of persons serving in an established capacity in the permanent service of the Crown, the Board may exempt that class of persons from the provisions of Part II. of the Act. Up to the present Orders of Exemption have been granted by the Board under this Section to thirty-one asylum authorities in respect of classes of employés whose conditions of service complied with the provisions of the Section.
    Viscount WOLMER: Will the right hon. Gentleman be kind enough to let, me see those?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: Certainly.

    DISTRICT COMMITTEES.
    Mr. THOMAS RICHARDSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the Denbighshire Insurance Committee has postponed the formation of district committees until the permanent insurance committee has been set up; and whether, in view of the desirability of having district committees established as early as possible, he will make representations to the Denbighshire Insurance Committee on the matter?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The permanent insurance committee will be constituted not later than the 15th proximo, and a scheme for the formation of district committees will be considered by the Welsh Commissioners as soon as possible after that date.

    FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.
    Mr. PRETYMANasked what is the total number of members of registered societies over fifty years of age, who are compelled to pay the full contribution under the National Insurance Act, but who are to receive reduced benefits when ill;
    1418
    and how many such members are there who, through some kind of affliction, are prevented from receiving any benefit under the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I regret that I am not in a position to furnish the hon. Member with the figures for which he asks. These figures are not comprised in any Return made by approved societies to the Insurance Commissioners, and could not be arrived at without calling upon over 23,000 societies and branches to prepare a special Return.
    Mr. PRETYMANasked how many friendly society members have been compelled to receive reduced benefits for sickness or accident through their having ceased to pay the full contribution?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: If the hon. Member refers to benefits under the Insurance Act, arrears do not accrue in respect of employed contributors during the first year of the Act's operation, and have not therefore resulted in any such reduction of benefits as he suggests. If he refers to private insurance I have no information.
    Mr. PRETYMANasked how many members of friendly societies have become voluntary contributors to State insurance and who pay increased contributions according to scale; and how many of these are under fifty years of age and how many over fifty, distinguishing males and females?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The statistics in the possession of the Insurance Commissioners distinguish between voluntary contributors entering insurance at ages under forty-five and at the age of forty-five or over, except aliens and married women special voluntary contributors. The numbers in these categories are 12,500 men and 3,700 women, and 2,300 men and 1,700 women respectively. The Commissioners have no information as to the numbers of these persons who were members of friendly societies prior to their entry into insurance.

    SANATORIUM BENEFIT.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked if the Secretary to the Treasury can explain the delay in providing the accessories prescribed over three weeks ago by Dr. Barcroft for Mr. Thomas Abell, 82, Andover Road, Holloway, N., an insured person suffering from consumption, but not a hopeless case; is he aware that repeated applications have been made to

    1419
    the insurance committee for the county of London by letter and telephone with no practical result, while the patient, whose tuberculin treatment was temporarily suspended to his great prejudice when medical benefit under the Act commenced, is growing worse; and will he ask that steps may be taken to terminate a delay which causes much distress and is having a serious effect on Mr. Abell's prospects of recovery?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The insured person referred to in the question has been receiving sanatorium benefit since March last, and arrangements have now been made for him to receive additional nourishment suitable to his case. The supply of such nourishment is necessarily subject to the approval of the insurance committee, but there appears to have been no delay in the matter prejudicial to the patient's health.

    Scottish Prisons (Clerk).
    Mr. FREDERICK WHYTEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he can give the reasons for the revival of the post of clerk in Scottish prisons; and whether he can state the essential differences between English and Scottish prison administration which make it impossible for him to place Scottish store warders in at least as favourable a position as their English colleagues?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: In reply to both parts of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answers which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow on 3rd June.

    Lunacy Administration (Scotland).
    Mr. WHYTEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he will publish an explanatory statement showing, in a form more intelligible to the man in the street than the phraseology of Parliamentary Bills, the changes in lunacy administration in Scotland which will be effected by the Mental Deficiency and Lunacy (Scotland) Bill; and whether he can state the probable number of mental defectives for whom provision must be made during the first full year of the operation of the measure?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: If I am right in supposing my hon. Friend to refer to Part V. of the Bill, I think the respective
    1420
    Clauses in that part are so drawn as to make their intention sufficiently clear. The greater number of them have been taken from Lord Pentland's Bill of 1911, and are, therefore, familiar to those interested in lunacy administration. If my hon. Friend is in doubt as to any particular Clause or Clauses I shall be glad to communicate with him on the subject. I regret that it is impossible for me to state with any confidence the number of defectives for whom provision will have to be made.
    Mr. WHYTE: May I ask whether the figures given by the Home Secretary include the number in Scotland?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I am not aware of that.

    Land Court, Scotland (Banffshire Case).
    Captain WARINGasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that an applicant for the resumption of his holding in Gamrie parish, Banffshire, is suffering hardship owing to his inability to get his case dealt with by the Land Court; that he is unable to get entry to his farm; that his cattle have to be boarded out and his implements are lying about; whether he is aware that it has been stated that the Land Court will not deal with the case for the reason that insufficient notice has been given to the tenant in possession to quit the holding; and whether, in view of the fact that the tenant in question was given notice a year before Whit Sunday, he will state what length of notice it is necessary to give in order to satisfy the officials of the Land Court of its reasonableness?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I have no information in regard to the first part of my hon. Friend's question. The case is sub judice in the Land Court; and, in the circumstances, it would not be proper for me to enter into any discussion of the merits.

    Loans to Fishermen.
    Mr. MUNROasked the Secretary for Scotland when the Report of the Committee appointed to consider inter alia the question of loans to fishermen will be issued?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I have made inquiry and am informed that the Committee are at work on the drafting of the Report.

    Inshore Fisheries (England).
    Captain WARINGasked the President of the Board of Agriculture when the Committee appointed to inquire into the condition of inshore fisheries in England is likely to report; and whether he can give any assurance that all the evidence collected by this Committee will be placed at the disposal of the Interdepartmental Committee inquiring into the question of the territorial limits in relation to fisheries?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Runciman): It is not possible yet to say how soon the Committee will be in a position to report. From the varying nature of the circumstances existing on different parts of the coast, I conceive that their inquiries cannot be brought to a conclusion for some time to come. I understand that the Committee propose to publish full minutes of all the formal evidence taken by them, and their Report, including these minutes, will, of course, be available for the use of the Interdepartmental Committee.

    Royal Botanic Society.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that the area occupied by the Royal Botanic Society in Regent's Park is nearly as large as that occupied by the Zoological Gardens; what area of the Botanic Society's premises is occupied by lawns, buildings, and scientific cultivation, respectively; and whether any conditions were inserted in the lease as to the objects to which the site was to be devoted and as to the granting of facilities of access to members of the public?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The area occupied by the Royal Botanic Society, Regent's Park, is little more than half that used by the Zoological Gardens. I am not able to say what area of the Botanic Society's premises is occupied by lawns, buildings, and scientific cultivation, respectively. The lessees are under a covenant which I quoted in answer to a similar question on 28th May last.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the programme of events of the Royal Botanic Society for the months of May and June contains seven dog shows, and four evening fêtes with Fellows' dinners, and that there are only two events which can be called of a botanic or scientific nature?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am not aware of the engagements the Royal Botanic Society have entered upon for the use of the ground, but none of them are contrary to the covenant into which they entered when they took the lease.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any infants in arms have been elected members of the society, and, if so, what provision has been made for them at the Fellows' dinners?

    Regent's Park.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture on whose initiative various leases in Regent's Park have been renewed or brought up for renewal before the old leases expired; with what persons negotiatings are pending for the renewal of old leases; and on what, grounds the renewal of these leases is regarded as imperative before 1st July, or as in any other way necessary before the lapse of the existing leases?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The leases have been renewed or brought up for renewal on the initiative of the persons who were in occupation, and desired to have a continued occupation, of the premises. Negotiations are pending with Mrs. H. N. Salomon, who occupies St. Katharine's Lodge, and the Marquess of Bute in respect of St. John's Lodge, and it will be in the interest of the Land Revenues that the leases should be renewed before the lapse of the existing leases.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that in the boroughs, of Marylebone and St. Pancras, bordering the park, there is a dearth of playing fields for children; and whether he will undertake that there will be no further enlargement of the portions of Regent's Park reserved for the exclusive use of the wealthier classes?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am not aware whether or not there is a dearth of playing fields for the boroughs of Marylebone and St. Pancras. There never has been and cannot now be, any enlargement by the Commissioners of Woods of the portions of Regent's Park reserved for the exclusive use of the wealthier classes. On the contrary, land that was reserved has been given up by those Commissioners to be thrown open for public use on several

    1423
    occasions when opportunity occurred, and it was found practicable to do so without seriously affecting the revenue.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Are any facilities given for the poorer classes using the grounds which are said to be devoted to the purposes of the Royal Botanic Society?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I cannot reply to that without notice. I have not gone through the programme of fêtes which has been referred to by my hon. Friend.

    Worn-out Horses (Export).
    Mr. LONGasked the President of the Board of Agriculture if his attention has been called to the conditions still prevailing in the trade in decrepit horses consigned to Antwerp and other foreign ports; and what steps he proposes to take to ensure that the Diseases of Animals Act shall be strictly carried out and that the examination of the horses should be more carefully conducted?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The conditions under which horses are exported to foreign countries are kept constantly under review by the Board and their officers. All complaints are carefully investigated, and the information of the Board is that the provisions of the Act are strictly enforced, and that the horses are thoroughly examined before shipment. If the right hon. Gentleman can supply me with evidence to the contrary, I will inquire into it.
    Mr. KILBRIDE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether decrepit horses are, after a short time, returned to this country, and whether they come back in the shape of sausages or tinned meat?
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the local authorities at these Eastern ports have a vested interest in the continuance of this objectionable traffic, and that, therefore, it more than ever requires the supervision of his Department?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The inspectors of the Board of Agriculture inspect the horses which are sent abroad, and also the vessels in which they travel, quite irrespective of local interests, which tend to complicate the matter.
    Sir W. BYLES: May I be allowed to supply the right hon. Gentleman with the evidence of eye-witnesses?

    Fumes from Copper Works.
    Viscount WOLMERasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he has received complaints from farmers as to the damage done to crops by the fumes from copper works; and whether he proposes to take any steps by legislation or otherwise in the matter?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The answer to both parts of the question is in the negative.

    Railway Rates.
    Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the Prime Minister whether the Government propose in the present Session to introduce a one-clause Bill dealing with the longstanding grievance of owners' risk rates or otherwise providing some quid pro quo to farmers and traders for the extensive benefits conferred upon the railway companies at their expense by the Railways Act of last Session?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The suggestion made by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, was that if he found it possible to deal with the question of owners' risks by general agreement, he would endeavour to proceed with such a Bill this Session. He is not yet in a position to make a statement on the question.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to suggest that there is danger of this Bill being so contentious that the Government are not prepared to introduce it this Session?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I cannot say. I hope not.

    Government Contracts.
    Mr. SANDYSasked the Prime Minister if he will give a complete list of all firms and companies, together with addresses of the same, with whom the Government has entered into contracts of over the value of £50,000 since 8th April, 1908, when the right hon. Gentleman became Prime Minister?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I know of no sufficient reason to grant such a return.
    Mr. SANDYS: In view of the unprecedented interest taken at the present time in Government contracts, cannot the right hon. Gentleman reconsider his decision?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir, I can see no reason for gratifying roving curiosity.
    Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: Having regard to this question and the suggestion, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government of which he is a Member and during his own Premiership gave a contract for the building of a "Dreadnought" to an armaments company of which one of the directors was a Member of this House sitting on the opposite side, and who before the contract was given made stirring speeches about German invasion and "Dreadnoughts"?
    Mr. MOORE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, under the provisions of a Bill for which the hon. and learned Member voted, he secured a professorship worth £700 a year in the National University of Ireland?

    Bee Disease Bill.
    Captain WARINGasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the importance to rural districts in Scotland of the Bee Disease Bill, he will grant early facilities for its passage through this House?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The Government hope to take the Second Reading of the Bill to-morrow. I can make no promise as to the further stages of the Bill.

    Land Legislation.
    Mr. WEIGALLasked the Prime Minister whether the Government propose to introduce legislation to give effect to any or all of the recommendations contained in the Report of the Departmental Committee an breaking up of large estates and grievances of tenant farmers, seeing that this Report has been in the hands of the Government since January, 1912?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Not during this Session.

    House of Commons (Committee on Procedure).
    Lord ROBERT CECILasked when it is proposed to move for the promised Committee on Procedure?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The Motion will be placed on the Paper immediately.

    Mr. MUNROasked when the Scottish Estimates will be taken?
    The PRIME MINISTER: At an early date—I hope, next week.

    Tuberculosis Dispensaries (London).
    Mr. ASTORasked the President of the Local Government Board how many whole-time tuberculosis officers on the staff of tuberculosis dispensaries have been appointed in London; and the names of the boroughs where they have been appointed?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): I understand that up to the present eighteen whole-time tuberculosis officers have been appointed on the staff of tuberculosis dispensaries in London. The boroughs in which these officers have been appointed are Battersea, Bermondsey, Camberwell, Deptford, Fulham, Hampstead, Lambeth, Paddington, Poplar, Marylebone, Shoreditch, Stepney, Wandsworth, and Woolwich.

    Poor Law Unions (Manchester).
    Sir FREDERICK CAWLEYasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he has sanctioned an inquiry into the question of amalgamating the Poor Law Unions of Manchester, South Manchester, and Prestwich; whether he is aware that the Manchester corporation promoted a Bill in 1911 when Part IV., which provided for this amalgamation, was, after a very full hearing, struck out of the Bill by a Committee of the House of Lords; and whether any fresh circumstances have arisen during the last two years which make a new inquiry necessary?
    Mr. BURNS: I am aware of what took place in 1911, but it does not seem that the decision of the House of Lords Committee on Part IV. of the Manchester Bill of that year ought to preclude the Local Government Board from directing an inquiry upon the application which has been duly made to them and which they are called upon to determine.
    Sir F. CAWLEY: What is the approximate cost?
    Mr. BURNS: Not very large. I shall be happy to show the hon. Member the figures.

    Housing Conditions (South Wales).
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Report of Mr. Williams, the inspector of the Local

    1427
    Government Board who investigated in South Wales the condition of the houses inhabited by those in receipt of outdoor relief, and which was made in consequence of communications addressed to the Board by members of the late Poor Law Commission after they had visited the district?
    Mr. BURNS: If the hon. Member would like to read the Report I will let him see it, or send him a copy, but I should deprecate its publication after a period of six years, during which a good deal has been done to remove the conditions described. So far as it relates to housing, the Report is mainly concerned with Merthyr Tydvil and Swansea. In both these places considerable improvements have been made in the last few years. Loans amounting to upwards of £110,000 have been sanctioned for the erection of houses, under Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890. Some 520 houses have been erected by the local authorities, and further building is in prospect. There has also been considerable activity in the removal of in sanitary conditions and the enforcement of repairs and improvements. In addition to the action of the authorities, private enterprise has, I understand, erected about 4,000 houses in the past six years.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Are we to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's apologia that this Report is of a peculiarly damning character?
    Mr. BURNS: This is not an apologia. It is an answer to a definite question. It is most satisfactory as a record of improvement as indicated by the fact that in the six years infant mortality has diminished 36 per cent, and the general death rate by 28 per cent.

    Life-Jackets for Children.
    Mr. COOPERasked the President of the Board of Trade why it is stated in the instructions issued to surveyors of the Marine Department (No. 1,531, April, 1913), in reference to children's life-jackets, that it may be impossible for shipowners to comply with the rules which require a sufficient proportion of life-jackets to be of a size suitable for children; in view of the admission in the same circular that two types of life-jackets suitable for children have so far been approved, will he explain why, if these two types have been approved, the Board of Trade should not specify that an approved type must be
    1428
    adopted; and whether he will issue amended instructions to surveyors that in all cases shipowners shall be required to carry out the rule ensuring a sufficient supply of children's life-jackets for all children carried?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): As stated in the circular, the instructions are of a preliminary character only, and they will be followed by further instructions in due course. The statement in the instructions to which the hon. Member refers was made because there was good reason for thinking that at that time (April 2nd) shipowners might not be able to obtain at once sufficient supplies of this new form of appliance. There is no intention of departing from the rule.

    Frozen Meat Ships (Fires).
    Sir HARRY SAMUELasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that many fires have recently occurred on ships engaged in the frozen meat trade involving risks of loss of life; and, if so, if he is aware that the risk of fire is added to by the use of highly inflammable materials for the insulation of the refrigerated holds as compared with the risks when the insulator is composed of fire-proof materials; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. BUXTON: From the reports of shipping casualties received by the Board of Trade, it appears that there have been recent cases of fire on vessels engaged in carrying frozen meat, but apparently in none of these cases was there serious danger to life. As regards the question of the material used for insulation, the information before me at present does not lead me to think that any action on the part of the Board of Trade is required.

    Railway Rates (Ireland).
    Mr. WARDLEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that certain Irish railway companies have given notice of their intention to increase by 4 per cent. the rates for the carriage of merchandise on and from the 1st of July next; and whether, in view of the low rates of pay of both the clerical and labour staff on Irish railways (as disclosed in the Return—Railway Companies, Staff and Wages, recently issued by his Department) he proposes to subject such increased rates to the same limitations as regards the necessity of providing that the increase is

    1429
    made for the purpose of meeting a rise in the cost of working the said railways due to improved conditions of their labour and clerical staff, as are imposed upon the railways in Great Britain by the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1913?
    Mr. BUXTON: I understand that certain of the Irish railway companies have given notice of their intention to increase some of their rates. As regards the latter part of the question, my hon. Friend will remember that the Irish railways were originally included in the Railway and Canal Bill of last Session, but at the instance of one of his colleagues, and with the assent of the House, the Irish railways were excluded from the operation of the Act. The Irish railways, therefore, must, if challenged, justify their increases under the Act of 1894, and will not have the benefit of the Act of 1913.
    Mr. WARDLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the rates in Ireland already are in excess of the maximum?
    Mr. BUXTON: I believe not in excess of their own maximum.
    Mr. WARDLE: Higher than the maximum here?
    Mr. BUXTON: It is under their Acts.
    Sir JOHN LONSDALE: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to make any representation to the Irish railway companies of the opinions so frequently expressed in this House with regard to the increase in rates which they propose?
    Mr. BUXTON: It will come, first, in the ordinary course before the Railway and Canal Commissioners.
    Sir J. LONSDALE: How does the right hon. Gentleman suppose that a poor tradesman or a shipper in Ireland can go even before the Railway and Canal Commissioners?
    Mr. BUXTON: There was a Bill last Session which unfortunately I could not carry. That is the existing state of things, and I cannot interfere with it.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    ROSYTH DOCKYARD (WAGES).
    Mr. JOHN WARDasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any knowledge of the importation of labour to Rosyth from the Hebrides and the North of Scotland; what are the statements now made to workmen by his officers
    1430
    in Labour Exchanges as to the rates of wages paid to navvies on these Government works; why his Department continue to use their influence to secure a supply of cheap labour for these works; and will he produce the official notice now posted in Labour Exchanges relating to the wages paid to navvies on this Government contract?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: There is no foundation for the suggestion that the Board of Trade have, at any time, used their influence to secure a supply of cheap labour for these works. I am informed that workmen have been brought to Rosyth from the Hebrides and the North of Scotland by representatives of the contractors, but that this has taken place independently and without the assistance of the Labour Exchanges. Applicants at Labour Exchanges, for employment at Rosyth, are informed that the minimum wage paid is 5½d. an hour, and they are sometimes told that a higher rate may be earned by good workmen. I understand that very few Labour Exchanges exhibit any notice with regard to vacancies at Rosyth, but I am sending to my hon. Friend copy of a notice which has been exhibited at a few London Exchanges containing reference to the demand for navvies in Scotland.

    SALVAGE OF LAUNCH (PLYMOUTH).
    Mr. ASTORasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the tug "Boar-hound," on 26th December last, took in tow the launch of the King's harbour master, Plymouth Sound, at considerable risk owing to the high sea running, and saved the launch from going ashore; whether the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have refused to make any payment on account of salvage; and, if so, whether he will state the reason for this decision?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): The King's harbour master's launch and the "Boarhound," the latter towing a lifeboat, went out to ships in distress on 26th December. At one stage of the operations the "Boarhound" asked the launch's help to assist to drift the lifeboat on to the "Ottawa." At a later stage the "Boarhound" took the launch in tow, a service which would probably have not been required had it not been for the want of judgment shown by the "Boarhound" in slipping the lifeboat to attempt to salve

    1431
    the "Ottawa." As regards the safety of the launch, there were two Government tugs near, besides which she might have grappled a water-logged vessel, past which she would have drifted. There is no legal liability, and, in view of all the circumstances, I am not prepared to recommend any Grant to the tug.
    Mr. ASTOR: If the Government does not make a fair payment for salvage in this case, is it not likely that it may have a bad effect in future?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not admit that there was any liability or that the circumstances in this case justify our making any Grant. The whole of the circumstances have been gone into very carefully.

    MERCHANT VESSELS (GUNS).
    Mr. COOPERasked if there is any rule to the effect that in all cases where guns are carried by merchant vessels the captain or the chief officer must be an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve, and, if so, whether this rule is effective; and what arrangements are made to ensure that those in charge are conversant with the handling and firing of the guns?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Churchill): The House will perhaps allow me to take the opportunity of clearing up a misconception which appears to be prevalent. Merchant vessels carrying guns may belong to one or other of two totally different classes. The first class is that of the armed merchant cruisers, which on the outbreak of war would be commissioned under the White Ensign and would then be indistinguishable in status and control from men-of-war. In this class belong the "Mauretania" and "Lusitania." The second class consists of merchant vessels, which would (unless specially taken up by the Admiralty for any purpose) remain merchant vessels in war, without any change of status, but have been equipped by their owners, with Admiralty assistance, with a defensive armament in order to exercise their right of beating off attack. I presume that it is to this latter class of vessel that the hon. Member's question refers. There is no rule that the master or chief officer must belong to the Royal Naval Reserve, and it will be clear from what I have said that no such rule is necessary. The Blue Ensign would only be flown if the vessel has received an Admiralty warrant. Before lending the guns, the Admiralty
    1432
    satisfies itself that the handling and firing of them will be carried out by men who have become conversant with these operations through drill.
    Mr. JOHN WARD: Can no ship be chartered for this purpose as an auxiliary to the Navy which was manned exclusively by lascars and Chinamen?
    Mr. COOPER: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise the international danger which might underly the placing of guns on merchant vessels unless the Department ensure that under no circumstances shall they be used except under justifiable conditions?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir. We have given a great deal of consideration to this matter, and we realise very clearly the danger which might be apprehended in this and other directions.
    Colonel YATE: What is the drill for the men who handle these guns?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: It is not very convenient to go into the matter at Question Time, and I am not sure that there is any great advantage in pursuing this discussion day after day. If there are questions on the matter which ought to be cleared up, perhaps when the Vote comes on in July that may be a good opportunity, and I may perhaps make a further statement, if there is a general desire for it in the House. The whole experiment was not undertaken without very good reason, and it is developing slowly, effectively, steadily, and in a satisfactory manner.

    CONTRACT-BUILT SHIPS.
    Mr. KINGasked in what yards the ships are to be built the orders for the building of which have been announced?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: It is intended to build the ships by contract. The particular yards in which they will be constructed will depend upon the tenders received.
    Mr. KINGasked whether the First Lord of the Admiralty intends to submit a Supplementary Estimate during the present financial year in order to provide for the accelerated shipbuilding programme which has been announced?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: It is probable that a Supplementary Estimate will be required, but its amount will depend not only upon the progress made with the three antedated ships, but upon the earning powers

    1433
    of the contractors over the whole area of new construction. It is not possible to make any forecast at present.

    Royal Irish Constabulary.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether there is under the control of he Treasury any fund other than the Irish Constabulary Force Fund, made up of deductions from pay and pension, of which no annual statement of accounts is rendered to the subscribers; and if he will say why the Treasury allows concealment of the accounts of this fund which it does not allow in the case of any other fund under its control?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: In the case of other analogous funds Parliament has directed the publication of annual accounts, but in the case of the Constabulary Force Fund it has not done so. Statements of the income and expenditure of the reward branch are published annually for the information of the force, but it has not been thought necessary to publish an account of the benefit branch.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether a member of the Irish Constabulary who marries without leave is entitled to draw pay during his service and pension on retirement; and, if so, will he say under what Act and Section the compulsory subscriptions paid by such a man to the Irish Constabulary Force Fund are on his death withheld from his widow and children?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): The answer to the first paragraph of the question is in the affirmative. Widows and children of constables who marry without leave are deprived of benefit from the Constabulary Force Fund under the Lord Lieutenant's Regulations made in pursuance of Section 9 of the Act 29 and 30 Vic., Cap. 103, which have the force of a Statute.
    Mr. GINNELLasked whether the Chief Secretary himself has looked into the case of Constable Michael Ronaghan, of county Donegal; whether he will give a reference to the Statute and Section relied upon by those who advised that the difficulty of doing justice in that case was a legal difficulty; and when Constable Ronaghan may expect a result of the investigation of his case?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I have looked into this case myself and have also taken the opinion of the Irish Law Officers with
    1434
    regard to it. The constable was informed at the time when his offence of having married without leave was being dealt with that he must either leave the force or continue on the status of a single man. According to the advice which I have received he is excluded by Statute from the privileges allowed to married men as regards lodging allowance and pension or gratuity to widow or children. The principal Sections bearing on the case are Section 2 and Section 4 Sub-section (6) of the Constabulary and Police (Ireland) Act,1883.
    Mr. GINNELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman not do anything in this very hard case?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The hard case is that the constable married without leave. I am very sorry he should have done it, but Regulations exist dealing with such cases.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland the total number of subscribers to the Irish Constabulary Force Fund from 20th May, 1836, to the present time; the total amount of their contributions; the number of widows to whom payments from the fund have been made in that time, with the amount; the number of children to whom payments from the fund have been made in that time, with the amount; and the amount of the balance, plus the total interest on the fund, spent otherwise or now available?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Inspector-General informs me that there are no books or statistics in his office from which the details asked for in the question could be furnished. The balance of the benefit branch of the fund in the hands of the National Debt Commissioners on 5th instant was, Local Loans Stock £154,000, and Consols £219,648 10s. 9d.
    Mr. GINNELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman account for the fact that this fund which has always been under Government control cannot be explained at this particular point?
    Mr. BIRRELL: No, Sir. The books were only removed to the Inspector-General's Department comparatively recently. Although I dare say in some of the books the materials for answering this question may be found, they are not available to me.
    Mr. GINNELLasked, in view of the dissatisfaction of subscribers to the Irish

    1435
    Constabulary Force Fund with the administration of that fund and their specific complaints, whether, in addition to the actuarial investigation of the fund which those complaints have rendered necessary and which is now in progress, an impartial committee in whom the subscribers will have confidence will be appointed to investigate all the matters affecting the fund which do not fall within the strict province of an actuary?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I would ask the hon. Member to await the actuarial Report. Until it is received it is impossible to say whether any further inquiries will be necessary.
    Mr. GINNELLasked who the actuary is who is now investigating the Irish Constabulary Force Fund; whether he will receive evidence from the organisation formed by subscribers to promote the winding up and distribution of that fund; and when and in what way it is proposed to test and deal with the claims and allegations of those subscribers?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The actuary investigating the Irish Constabulary Force Fund is actuary to the National Debt Commissioners. His investigation is purely actuarial and no purpose would be served by receiving evidence from an organisation of subscribers. The last part of the hon. Member's question should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary.
    Mr. GINNELL: Will the Chief Secretary answer if it is addressed to him?
    Mr. BIRRELL:I will.

    Kingstown Harbour.
    Mr. HORNERasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that the net deficit of £5,300 on the working of Kingstown Harbour for the last year for which figures are available arose from the fact that masters of vessels were allowed to pay an annual composition under the Act 32 Geo. III., c. 35, instead of dues in accordance with the published Schedule; is he aware that this practice still prevails; is he aware that the Act 32 Geo. III., c. 35, by its 38th Section, empowered the corporation for improving the Port of Dublin to allow masters of vessels carrying passengers only to sail to and from the harbour for one year on payment of a sum equivalent to the dues chargeable for six
    1436
    voyages, and that Section 3 of the Act of 6 and 7 Will. IV., c. 117, conferred the same power on the Commissioners of Kingstown Harbour, but that the latter Act, so far as it relates to dues to be charged by the Commissioners of Kingstown Harbour, was repealed by Section of the Act of 1 and 2 Vic., c. 36, which Act provided by Section 2 that the Commissioners of Kingstown Harbour should charge the same rates and dues as are charged in the Port of Dublin, and that that Act 32 Geo. III., c. 35, was repealed by the Dublin Port Act, 1869, and consequently the right to compound no longer exists; and, in these circumstances, will he state what justification there is for not charging all vessels entering the harbour dues in accordance with the published Schedule, and thereby prevent any deficit in the working of the harbour?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I would refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave to hon. Members for Dublin County (North and South) on the 29th February, 1912, and the 18th June last, respectively.

    Elementary School Teachers (Pensions).
    Mr. ASTORasked the President to the Board of Education whether, in the event of further funds being available for increasing the scale of pensions to school teachers, regard will be had to the claims of school teachers who have already retired and are in receipt of pensions on the present scale?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): A similar question was addressed to me yesterday by the hon. Member for Oldham, and I am sending the hon. Member a copy of my reply.

    Games for Children (Birmingham).
    Mr. EDMUND HARVEYasked whether the attention of the President of the Board of Education has been called to the arrangements made by the Birmingham City Council to provide and promote organised games for children of school age in parks and small recreation grounds within that city; and whether, in view of the results obtained by a small expenditure of money, he will take steps to encourage other local authorities to follow this example?
    Mr. PEASE: I am aware of what is being done at Birmingham in the way described in the question. The recent Report of the

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    Departmental Committee upon School Playgrounds, which has been presented to Parliament, deals with this subject in paragraphs 19 and 31, and makes certain recommendations which are in the direction desired by the hon. Member.

    Home Office Contract (Fair-Wages Clause).
    Mr. JOHN WARDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the action of Messrs. Pethick, Dix, and Company, contractors for the sewerage works at Matlock, who, since the National Insurance Act, have deducted 2½d. per week from the wages of their workmen and called it for tools; and whether, in view of the Truck Acts, he will say what action, if any, he proposes to take in the matter?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I am making inquiries into the matter, and will inform my hon. Friend of the result in due course.

    Metropolitan Police (Days of Rest).
    Colonel BURNasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make good to the police constables the days of rest of which they have been deprived lately by being placed on duty when disturbances are anticipated owing to suffragette meetings?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): Such loss of rest days is, in the case of the Metropolitan police, invariably made good.

    Sir Victor Horsley.
    Lord ROBERT CECILasked the Home Secretary whether he has laid a complaint before the Royal College of Surgeons about Sir Victor Horsley; if so, what is the nature of the complaint; and whether he has refused to give to Sir Victor Horsley any information as to its nature?
    Mr. McKENNA: Sir Victor Horsley made certain public statements reflecting very seriously upon the professional conduct and skill of two medical officers in the prison service. In justice to those officers, I considered it my duty to bring to the notice of the Royal College of Surgeons the statements made by him and the facts of the case as already stated by me in substance in this House. Having laid this full statement before them, I left the matter in their hands. In reply to Sir Victor
    1438
    Horsley's requests for information, I have referred him to the Royal College of Surgeons. The communication of the contents of my letter is a matter entirely in their discretion.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he does not think, before making a complaint, or at the time of making a complaint, against a gentleman in the position of Sir Victor Horsley, it would have been better and fairer to have sent a copy of the complaint to the gentleman in question?
    Mr. KING:Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the same rule would apply to Sir Victor Horsley's own conduct?
    Mr. McKENNA: Yes, Sir; I think if the rule were a good one it would apply, no matter what the position of the person may be. In this particular case nothing was communicated to the Royal College of Surgeons except what was made public, either by Sir Victor Horsley or by me in this House. I thought it my duty to bring his public statement to the notice of the Royal College of Surgeons.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Have not the Royal College of Surgeons jurisdiction to consider, judge, and inflict penalties on any member of that body who is guilty of conduct which they regard as unprofessional?
    Mr. McKENNA: The whole of this complaint is within the knowledge of the accused person. I have communicated to the Royal College of Surgeons the attacks made by Sir Victor Horsley on prison officials.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Will the right hon. Gentleman now send a copy of the communication he made to the Royal College of Surgeons to Sir Victor Horsley?
    Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir; I adhere to the view I took originally, that it is a matter within the discretion of the Royal College of Surgeons. I have not marked my letter private, and they are perfectly at liberty to send my letter to Sir Victor Horsley.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what objection he has to conveying to Sir Victor Horsley his letter, which must be of great importance to him?
    Mr. McKENNA: I, personally, have not the slightest objection, but I wrote my letter to the Royal College of Surgeons, and it is for them to communicate with Sir Victor Horsley.

    Old Age Pensions.
    Mr. DANIEL BOYLEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, why the old age pension of Francis Craig, Ballinabull, Crossmolina, county Mayo, has been reduced from 5s. to 3s. per week; and, if the reduction has been made on the question of means, will he say how the calculation has been made?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The pension was reduced on a question raised as to the pensioner's means. The estimate of his means was formed from a consideration of the stock and crops on the pensioner's farm, which comprised six acres of good, well-tilled land, and carried two cows, four calves, three sheep, sixteen pigs and thirty-seven fowl.
    Mr. DANIEL BOYLEasked the Chief Secretary whether he will explain why the old age pension claim of Mary Mulloy, Crossmolina, county Mayo, has been disallowed on appeal by the Local Government Board; will he indicate what evidence, in the absence of documentary proof of birth or baptism or inability to be traced in the Census records, will an applicant be required to produce to satisfy the Local Government Board; and will statutory declarations by two old age pensioners proved to be themselves over eighty years, and who have known the applicant all her life, be accepted as satisfactory proof of age?
    Mr. BIRRELL: Mary Mulloy's claim was disallowed for want of sufficient evidence of age. Each case is dealt with on its merits, and the Local Government Board cannot bind themselves as to what evidence would be accepted as sufficient in the absence of baptismal certificates or other documentary proofs of age. They are most willing to accept any trustworthy evidence which would warrant them in holding that a person had attained the statutory age. Uncorroborated expressions of opinion of old age pensioners would not in every case be conclusive evidence of age. All would depend upon the means of knowledge possessed by the deponents. People who say they have known somebody all their lives often, on examination, have to admit a much shorter acquaintance.
    Mr. AUGUSTINE ROCHEasked whether Peter M'Donald, 74, James Street, Dundalk, has been refused an old age pension; whether he has made a most careful search for his age both in the parish register and in the Census records, but without success; whether he produces a marriage certificate showing he was married forty-nine years ago, and also an affidavit which states that he was born more than seventy years ago; and whether, under these circumstances, where no age can be found, the Board will reconsider the case?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The facts are as stated in the question. The Dundalk Pension Committee disallowed M'Donald's claim on the ground of insufficient evidence of age, and their decision was confirmed by the Local Government Board, who have no power to reconsider the case.

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Prime Minister when he intends to introduce the Irish Land Purchase Bill; and whether it is his intention to carry it through all its stages in the House of Commons during the present Session?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I must refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave yesterday on this subject. I cannot yet give a date for the introduction of the Bill.
    Mr. DANIEL BOYLEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if the offer of the Congested Districts Board for the Saunders Knox-Gore estate, Ballycastle, county Mayo, has yet been accepted; if not, are negotiations still in progress between the Board and the owner; and can he state when the Board expect the sale to be completed?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The offer of the Congested Districts Board for the purchase of this property has not yet been accepted, and negotiations are still pending. The Board cannot say when it is likely that the sale of the property will be completed.
    Mr. DANIEL BOYLEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland what progress has been made by the Congested Districts Board towards the purchase of the estate of Mrs. Perry Knox Gore, in the parish of Attymass, near Ballina, county Mayo; is he aware that a relatively large tract of grazing land on this estate has really been given to a bailiff, thus appreciably

    1441
    lessening the land available for the small congested holdings on the estate being improved when the purchase is completed; and will he state if the Congested Districts Board may refuse to recognise a tenancy of this character as bonâ fide?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board have recently issued an offer for the purchase of this estate, which has not so far been accepted. The Board have no information regarding the alleged letting of any of the grazing land, for which they have made an offer on the supposition that it is untenanted.
    Mr. SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether, seeing that the Estates Commissioners have exercised the powers conferred on them by Clause 15 of the Land Act of 1903 and declared Cornelius Sheehan, of Ballyvourney, county Cork, a sub-tenant on the estate of Sir George Colthurst, should be deemed a tenant of a parcel of land and entitled to purchase, he can explain the delay in vesting the holding in him; whether he is aware that this man has been several times, since the estate was sold, processed for rent by Good from whom he held as sub-tenant; whether, since the Estates Commissioners made the order referred to, Good has really any rights as a landlord; whether the purchase price in this case was agreed to about two years ago and a purchase agreement actually signed by Sheehan; and why, therefore, have the Commissioners not put into operation Subsection (2) of Clause 15 of the Act of 1903 as they are compulsorily obliged to do?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners declared, under Section 15 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, that Sheehan should be deemed a tenant for the purposes of sale under that Act of the parcel of land in his occupation as sub-tenant. Pending the sale of the lands under that Act, and in the absence of a consent by the middle tenant, the Commissioners are of opinion that the relationship between the middle tenant and the sub-tenant continues, and that the former is entitled to recover the rent due to him by the sub-tenant. So far the middle tenant in this case has not signified his consent to the sale to Sheehan of the portion of his holding which is sub-let to Sheehan, and having regard to recent judicial decisions, the Commissioners will not vest in Sheehan any portion of the holding in the absence of such a consent. If the parties fail to come to terms the Commissioners will dismiss
    1442
    the procedings for sale under the Land Purchase Acts of the holding, including the portion in the occupation of Sheehan as sub-tenant.
    Mr. NEWMANasked the acreage of demesne and untenanted land acquired recently by the Estates Commissioners from the estate of Messrs. Higginbotham, and others, near Borrisokane, the amount of public money that was advanced to purchase the lands in question, the number of individuals among whom it is proposed to distribute them; whether any Grants, and, if so, to what amount, are to be made to the successful applicants to equip and stock their holdings when allotted; and whether, owing to local disapproval of several nominees to parcels of the land, the town of Borrisokane has had to be occupied by a force of police to protect the Estates Commissioners in their work of division and allotment?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have acquired over 800 acres of untenanted land on this estate, the purchase money being £7,915. The lands have been divided in forty allotments, and the allottees have been put in possession, with the exception of a few cases, one of which is an allotment of some 22 acres; to the Borrisokane Rural District Council for the purposes of pasturage by the village tenants. The Commissioners have sanctioned advances for improvements repayable by land purchase annuities amounting to £677, and propose to make Grants for the purchase of stock to the evicted tenants to whom portion of the lands has been allotted. The Estates Commissioners' inspector attended on the lands to give possession to the allottees, and, after he had given possession to the majority of them, there was some local opposition manifested to some of the remaining allotments. In four cases where possession has not been given undertakings to purchase have not been signed by the allottees. The police authorities inform me that no extra police were brought into Borrisokane on the occasion.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  BILL PRESENTED.
    PUBLIC TRUSTEE (SCOTLAND) BILL.
    "To provide for the appointment of a Public Trustee for Scotland, to amend the law of trusts and of judicial factors in Scotland; and for other purposes connected therewith." Presented by Mr. DUNDAS WHITE; supported by Colonel Greig, Mr. Munro-Ferguson, Mr. Barnes, Captain Gilmour, Mr. Wilkie, Mr. Norton, and Mr. Watt; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, 1st July, and to be printed. [Bill 202.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. BONAR LAW: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister has any statement to make about business?
The PRIME MINISTER: To-morrow, after the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, if time permits, we hope to take the Second Reading of the two Post Office Bills, the Money Committee of Appellate Jurisdiction, the Report of the Soudan Loan Guarantee, and the Bee Disease Bill. On Friday, we shall take the Report of the Army Votes and of the Office of Works Votes, Committee of Ways and Means, and, if time permits, some other Supply, which will be arranged in the usual way.
Ordered, "That the Proceedings on the Government of Ireland Bill, if under discussion at Eleven o'clock this night, be not interrupted under the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
Order read for resuming adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [9th June], "That the Bill be now read a second time."—[The Prime Minister.]
Which Amendment was to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day three months."—[Mr. Balfour.]
Question again proposed. Debate resumed.
Sir EDWARD CARSON: I must confess that I rise upon this occasion to take part once more in the discussion of this Home
1464
Rule question, with considerable reluctance. All I can hope for myself is that it may be the last time that I shall ever trouble the House in discussing the matter. I rise with reluctance for this reason, that while I and those who think with me in Ireland are engaged in matters which to us are of the most serious consequence, everybody knows that the present proceedings, as a contribution to any settlement of the Home Rule question, are nothing less than sham and hypocrisy. Indeed, the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond) said very graphically a short time ago that this was only an "automatic process." So far as I and my friends from Ireland are concerned, we decline to be the automata. I cannot help thinking that it is well to look at the reality of the present situation, because we have now before us the first concrete example of the working of the Parliament Act, under which the Constitution is suspended in conspiracy with the Irish Nationalist Members for the purpose of passing this very Bill. In his statement yesterday the Prime Minister himself demonstrated the hopeless position in which this House has placed itself by its own legislation. What is that position?
Last year, for want of time, half the Bill which you are going to force upon us remained undiscussed, and a thousand Amendments which we put forward, and which you told us yesterday you are only longing to accept, were closured and thrown into the waste-paper basket. This year, if you could for a moment claim that your procedure was a reality—which I am bound to say you honestly confess it is not—you would at least have allowed us to employ our time in going through some portions of the Bill which you yourselves by your Closure and your "kangaroo" prevented us from entering upon. Let me illustrate what I mean for a moment. You are setting up a Constitution which you say ought to satisfy the industrial part of the population in the North of Ireland, a Constitution which puts them in the power of the smallholders and agricultural labourers in the South and West. Last year we never had one single day to discuss what were the proper constituencies which were to govern the country in which you are setting up this Bill. That was a scandal. Just imagine asking people in this country to consent to and be satisfied with a Bill brought in by the Government to redistribute seats in this country, and telling the House of Commons,

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"We are sorry, we cannot give you a day to discuss it; you must take it as we drafted it in Downing Street or elsewhere." Take another matter. We pressed all last Session for the Report of the Finance Committee, which you set up. Nothing that we could do would get it from you.
The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith)dissented.
Sir E. CARSON: Nothing that we could do would get the evidence, which was the all important part. Now we have the evidence. You gave it to us when the Session was over. When the Bill was passed all your scruples about keeping the evidence secret had vanished. And what does the evidence show? It shows that the Report throws over the whole of the evidence, and goes in the teeth of every man in Ireland who knew anything about the financial subject. I say that that demonstrates the folly—indeed, I may go further—the wickedness of your procedure, which leaves this question in abeyance, never discussed and never settled, and calmly tells us that we are to come down here and spend our time while we carry out the automatic process, as the hon. and learned Member for Waterford called it, at the bidding of a Government bound hand and foot to their supporters below the Gangway. Does anybody suppose for a moment that the Bill of last year was as good a Bill as you could make it? Does anybody assert that? The right hon. Gentleman yesterday quoted one or two passages from the Second Reading Debate in the House of Lords, one from a Noble Lord and the other from the Archbishop of York. Let me quote three passages from Radical Peers, Home Rulers, supporters of the Home Rule question. I think the right hon. Gentleman might well take them to heart, and consider whether he ought to go on asking us to go through this farce—whether he ought not to set up the ordinary procedure and let us discuss this Bill in the ordinary way. The first is Lord Weardale, who will be remembered in this House as an extreme Home Ruler and an extreme Radical. He said:—
"It would be a great mistake if the Government, in obedience to a somewhat eager section of their supporters, were to hold the Parliament Act as a sword of Damocles over the head of the Conservative party."
Lord Macdonnell said:—
"I agree with my Noble Friend, Lord Dunraven, that there is a great deal in the Bill which needs amendment."
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Lord Dunraven himself said:—
"The Bill is a makeshift; it proceeds on no definite principle; it makes for friction and not for settlement. It is not fair to the Irish people; it does not give the Irish Parliament a hundred to one chance, strive as they may."
4.0 P.M.
That is the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman claimed yesterday he was right in pressing on under the Parliament Act. True it is that he said, "We have a new procedure under which we will take away all your grievances about it; we are going to set up a new procedure—procedure by suggestion. "What does suggestion mean? It means this—and I ask the House of Commons to mark it if suggestions are put forward which the Government think are improvements to the Bill, aye, even if they are thought by them to be vital to the Bill, and although they may pass this House, and although that suggestion or those suggestions—a case having been made out—may be passed, they at the same time have announced to the House that, however grave or however vital these Amendments are, the House of Commons has no power whatsoever of inserting them. Was there ever a Legislature which by its own act had reduced itself to a state of such absolute incompetence? The truth is that this whole proceeding which we are now asked to go through is but make-believe. It is carried on with a view to deluding the electors into the idea that we are legislating, when, as a matter of fact, we are only masquerading and marking time. So far as I am concerned—and I speak on behalf of my colleagues from Ireland—we are bound to contrast this farce with the stern reality of what we know is happening in Ireland. There, at all events, men are in deadly earnest. They value being citizens of the United Kingdom, and these means which you are adopting to drive them out are making them more bitter and determined every day. They have had flung at their heads a Bill half-discussed, and upon every section of which the word "betrayal" is imprinted. They are preparing, and rightly preparing, to resist in every way they can that Bill being made effective as against themselves; and they know well, just as well as you do, and just as well as I do, that this procedure which we are engaged in to-day, and which is set up by the Parliament Act, is merely humbug and pretence with a view to passing over the time until it may be made a weapon for their subjection.
We Unionists from Ireland will refuse to help you to play out this pantomime. You

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can play it out without our interference, and we shall watch with deep interest the progress of your suggestions, which can be all the more efficient as they will be untrammelled by any interference on our part. Our duty upon this question is not here. Our duty is to help our own people to organise, and also to ask those people of Great Britain who would never be a party to your wretched, miserable, and scandalous betrayal, to organise for our assistance. The Prime Minister, in what he was pleased yesterday to call his impartial review of the situation, came to the conclusion that the Government stands to-day where it did upon the Third Reading, both in this House and in the country. It is very easy to make an impartial review when you are yourself the counsel who makes it and the judge who decides upon its impartiality. If the right hon. Gentleman says that the Government stands where it did, I tell him that Ulster stands where it did. As the Prime Minister indulged in a little of the art of the statistician, perhaps I may be allowed to ask one or two queries as to whether he really believes that he has investigated the thesis that the recent elections have made no difference. I am afraid I am sceptical myself about statistics. In the Law Courts we have three classes of witnesses—as the right hon. Gentleman knows. We have got the liar, we have got liars with an expletive, and we have got statisticians.
The PRIME MINISTER: Experts.
Sir E. CARSON: Well, they are experts. I do not myself much believe in these figures that you give, particularly in the manner in which they are put together to suit a particular view of the right hon. Gentleman. The Prime Minister proceeded to quote some anonymous contributor to the "Times" as to the fact that Home Rule never played any part in the Newmarket election. I shall quote an authority whom he dare not resist, because it is that of an hon. Gentleman below the Gangway—I refer to the hon. Member for Meath—who, at the time of the New-market election, sending his apology to the Annual Convention of the United Irish League of Great Britain in Ireland, said this:—
"Home Rule workers detained in Newmarket election fighting important Tories from Ireland, send greetings: another victory in sight."
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The right hon. Gentleman, not knowing, of course, that one of his supporters had made that statement, preferred to take up some anonymous contribution from a newspaper which probably was written by some Radical reporter. Then I come to Altrincham. I notice that the right hon Gentleman was not quite so confident about Altrincham. He did think there might be something there which he had not had time to look into since he came back from inspecting the defences of the country. If he had had time to look at a paper which is one of his best supporters, the "Manchester Guardian," I think he would have found as a proposition, summarised shortly, that they put forward in reference to that election that, "Every vote for the Tory is a vote for anarchy and rebellion in Ulster." That was the main purport of it, and the hon. Gentleman, who was a candidate of the Unionist party there, boldly took up the challenge, and Altrincham, I am afraid, must go down with the stigma upon its character that, according to the "Manchester Guardian," it is "in favour of anarchy and rebellion in Ulster." It really comes well from the right hon. Gentleman to chide us as to whether Home Rule was present to the minds of the electors at these various by-elections or not! Was not it as much present to their minds as it was to the electors at the last General Election. Why, then they even had it not in their addresses. Above all things, they had not the Bill.
Always recollect that upon the two previous occasions in the history of this controversy it was after the Bill was produced in concrete form, and was before the electors, that the electors saw how monstrous it would be, and absolutely discarded it! When the right hon. Gentleman said that those electors did not care about our resistance to Home Rule does he find much evidence of enthusiasm in favour of Home Rule? One would expect, at least, that in the great constitutional change, and with what he himself called yesterday the grave and serious situation in Ulster, that before you broke up the Constitution under which we live and under which this has been avowed hitherto, you would find some enthusiasm; but what is the case of the right hon. Gentleman? That even under these grave circumstances the best way he could put it is that the electors have taken no interest whatsoever in Home Rule. I have asked the right hon. Gentleman this question on

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more occasions than one, and I have never got an answer. May I repeat it in the hope that I may get an answer from somebody who follows in the Debate: "Will you refer me to any speech of any responsible Minister at the last election in which he discussed the question of Ulster and the question of coercing Ulster if she refused to be driven out of the United Kingdom?"
The case of Ulster never was stronger than it is to-day. Not only is it a strong case, because of the brotherhood and fellowship which joins each and all of us there together, but strong because that even in the threat of armed resistance, if it should ever be necessary—which God forbid!—we have now the open declaration of our leaders, of the Leader of the Opposition, of the ex-Leader of the Opposition, that we have behind us in that armed resistance, under present and existing circumstances, the whole force of the whole Conservative and Unionist party. That is not put upon any idle grounds or upon any petty political party reasons. Anybody who listened to the speech of my right hon. Friend, the former Leader of the Opposition, yesterday will have found in it a deep constitutional thought, which goes to the very principles of the right of government as involving taxation, when he said that what you are attempting to do is to continue as regards Ulster—because they will not accept the Bill—that is why he singles out Ulster—you are going to continue the right to tax for Imperial and for other purposes, and you are going to take away from them the share of representation to which they are entitled as an integral part of the United Kingdom. The Solicitor-General purported to make some answer to that argument. He said, forsooth, that my right hon. Friend was always arguing dilemmas—that what he said was, "You say you are taking away Members in the case of Ireland, but you are not taking away any in the case of Scotland." Do you think that was the argument? It was not. What he did say was that you dare not propose in the case of Scotland, the very thing which he said was his argument in regard to Ireland, that you were going to continue your taxation and that you were going to reduce her representation.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir John Simon): He said one thing more. He said that if there was Home Rule in Scot-
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land, and that the Scotch representation was not reduced, that that would mean a monstrous injustice to England.
Sir E. CARSON: Does anyone doubt that? The hon. and learned Gentleman thinks that is a terrible thing to say. You are to give to Ireland the management of her own affairs so that no one in England is to have the least power to interfere, but they are to be welcome to come over here and to disturb the whole balance over here and to interfere in every detail of every local matter that affects this country. That is one of the monstrous absurdities of the Irish Bill in its present form, and one of those matters which, I think, you would be very slow to submit to the electors of this country. The Prime Minister knows perfectly well that so long as we are in the position of having behind us in all the steps that we may have taken, and are taking in Ulster, the majority in England as we have at present, and I believe a majority in Great Britain—at all events you are afraid to put that to the test—he knows perfectly well that while we have the active co-operation and sympathy of certainly one-half of the population of Great Britain, that he is in as helpless and hopeless a position as regards this Bill as ever was a Minister in regard to any Bill in the House of Commons. For my own part, I have no fear; I have the most absolute confidence; and I believe there is no man strong enough, and no Government strong enough, certainly not this discredited Government, to put in force a single Clause in this Bill against Ulster.
The right hon. Gentleman played a good deal yesterday with the absurdity of having a General Election. He says, "What difference would it make? Look at those Ulster people, they will not accept it even if we were again returned to power." Does he really think it would make no difference? All I can say is, I prefer to fight out this battle with the whole Unionist party behind me, and the whole of the Unionist party in the country behind me, than fighting it out, as we may have to fight it out eventually, alone in Ireland. Does the Prime Minister really think that it makes no difference? There is a great deal of questioning of us over this: "Will you," the Prime Minister says, "undertake if we go to a General Election to refrain from further opposition in Ireland?" Why is this question ever

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asked. If there is a General Election and it goes in our favour, I ask, will you undertake to refuse to support the Nationalist party below the Gangway in their application for Home Rule for Ireland? We hear talk a great deal about a General Election settling these matters one way or the other. We have had two upon the subject, and each time you were beaten, but each time, I will not say you absolutely refuse to acquiesce, but you did refuse to acquiesce until you found you were not in a position to go on without the aid of the Nationalist party. But after all the great strength of Ulster's position is that we have an unanswerable case as regards the claims we put forward. What are they, in a word?
The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, yesterday made an amusing speech full of fiction, and amongst other things he said this: "The claim of Ulster was a claim to govern the rest of Ireland." I say that is absolutely false, and I should like to ask any Gentleman in this House now, has Ulster been governing Ireland for the last six years? All Ulster asks—the claim has been put forward a hundred time in a few words—is that they should be treated as any other individuals in the United Kingdom, that they should have the same rights and the same privileges, neither more nor less, and they leave the ascendancy, not to any party or to any faction or any religion or any section in Ireland; but they are willing that a Parliament composed of all parts of the United Kingdom should be the arbitors as between them, and to that arbitration they are willing to submit. And after all is there not something very vital and deep down in the lives and hearts and consciences of those men that you are attacking which you never think of? You talk of their claim—even I have been led into talking of their claim—it has always been argued as if they were claiming something. It is said: "Why should Ulster's claim be conceded, and that of three-fourths of Ireland rejected?" We claim nothing; we ask to be left as we are. That is what we have inherited. It is under that system of government that the North of Ireland has prospered and progressed, just as great cities and great provinces in Great Britain have progressed. We claim nothing but to be left alone. On the other hand, what is the claim of hon. Members below the Gangway? Is it a claim for local government?
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Not at all. That is the falsest catchword that has ever been put forward, either in this House or in constituencies. If it was a claim for local government, you know well the matter would be settled very easily and on entirely different lines. No; it is the whole difference between the claim of local government and the claim of nationality, and it is a claim of nationality on the part of hon. Members below the Gangway, because they think it will give them a perpetual ascendancy. Yes, Sir, they are very anxious to claim this nationality, but they will only take it upon two conditions. One is that you supplement their income by £2,000,000 a year, and the other is that you give them free play with your soldiers, to whom they would not contribute, to put down all those who disagree with them in the North of Ireland.
You may have a right to change our allegiance to a Government. I doubt it. The Prime Minister yesterday said that no Legislature in the world would tolerate a portion of a country like Ireland preventing Home Rule or something of that kind being granted to the rest, and I interjected a question which I have often put before, "Where is your precedent, either in your own country or in that of any other country, in which men, who are satisfied and content to live under a particular form of government, have been compelled and driven out by those with whom they had equal rights and to whom they have every right in their loyalty to look to protection?" And then the right hon. Gentleman says, and this I think was also mentioned by the Solicitor-General—it certainly was by some of the other speakers—"We warn the Tory party to consider what will happen if his Bill does not become law. They had better look out for the terrible things that will happen in the South and West of Ireland." What a notion of statesmanship? The right hon. Gentleman raises the question, and he puts these two alternatives: if you do pass the Bill we may have civil war in the North of Ireland, and if you do not pass the Bill we may have civil war in the South and West of Ireland. Sir, I think if it were not for the exigencies of the political situation, the right hon. Gentleman is far too keen a statesman and much too far-seeing not to have first considered that question before it brought about the storm that arises, and with which he himself is faced whichever way he turns.
I desire to say a few words in reference to a speech made by the hon. Member for

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Cork (Mr. William O'Brien). His speech was the speech of a man who wants to bring about peace. I frankly admit it. Yes, Sir, that has been—I have no doubt conscientiously—his aim for some time. He knows as well as I do how little he has succeeded, and he knows perfectly well the penalties that have been put upon himself because he has tried. I will say this: that if ever you are going to bring about a united Ireland, if ever you are going to bring the Ulster portion of the community into line with the rest of Ireland, you will never do it by any means except those of persuasion. You must show and explain to them what is your case for turning them out of the United Kingdom, and you must show them, in addition, which you never profess to show them, what is the advantage they are going to gain when they are turned out. It is all very well to say that you are making a concession to the sentiment of two-thirds of Ireland. Yes, Sir, but in your Bill you are legislating against the sentiment of one-third of Ireland, and that not the least important part of the population. When the hon. Member for Cork tells me that these men, by fair treatment, might be induced to come into this Home Rule settlement, I think the Nationalists of Ireland will have to try different methods from what they have tried for the last twenty years.
What has there been in the conduct of the Nationalist party for the last twenty years to give them confidence? It is unnecessary to go over the history of those years, but even now, since this Bill came in, mark the way in which, not in this House, but throughout the country, responsible Ministers talk of Ulster when they want to persuade them that they will be well treated if they throw in their lot with the rest of Ireland. I notice that the Secretary for Scotland talked of me as "the blustering braggadocio of Sir Edward Carson." The Under-Secretary for the Home Office talks of "the virulent volubility of ascendancy." Much he knows about it. The Secretary for the Colonies, one of the most cultured and aristocratic individuals in the House, talks of "the mouthings of the Orange Members"; and the Minister for Agriculture, who seems better in keeping cattle out of this country than the Irish Government are in keeping arms out of Ireland, talks about "the fire-eaters of Ulster." In contrast with those Gentlemen, whom I would suggest to the Prime Minister he ought not so easily to let loose upon the
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country, the Prime Minister comes down and talks of "the grave and serious situation in Ulster." Sir, I think we may pass by these bleatings of a discredited Government. They leave us absolutely unmoved, and I only say that it is not by this kind of abuse that you will ever persuade me or anybody connected with this movement. What more have the Nationalists done to bring about this reconciliation which I have no doubt the hon. Member for Cork sincerely desires. They have started a Black List, a boycotting list of every trader and manufacturer in Belfast who has dared to support the Union and the present Constitution, and every man throughout the country in the South and West who has had the good or the bad fortune to be on any board of a public character, if ever he has dared to go to a Unionist meeting, he has been the next day turned off with ignominy of the most scandalous character. Even men who are not in any public positions, if they have dared to express that they are Unionists, have been brought up before those who have far more authority in Ireland than the Chief Secretary.
The truth of the matter is you are doing in this case what you never would do as regards your remotest Colonies. You make no attempt except to please hon. Members below the Gangway. Does anybody doubt that if the real question was one of local government, you could have settled it without any of this acrimony at all? You are often appealing to Canada. Do you think that in framing your Constitution for Canada you would put Quebec under Ontario, or Ontario under Quebec? The thing would be ludicrous, and it would not be stood for a moment by either of these two provinces, and yet I venture to think there are not so many differences between them as there are between the provinces in Ireland. Ulster is not going to be treated in a way that no free community has ever been treated before. You may laugh at us, you may jeer at us, but we will go on, and eventually we will defeat you. For my own part, with all my heart, I will continue to support these men in the North of Ireland, and I will take full responsibility for every resistance that they are able to organise. And why? Do you think it is from any self-seeking on my part? Do you think it is a matter of self-seeking on the part of any of the men concerned in this movement. Not at all. It is only because we think that your attempted betrayal is one of the most dastardly acts that has ever disgraced the pages of history. You may be able—I know you

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will be able, if you are allowed to do it, but you will not—to put us down by sheer force. You can seize arms, but you cannot destroy spirit or determination. You may send your troops there, and you may prevail upon them to fire, and even if you have not got troops at the moment, you may call in the Concert of Europe. But I ask, what then? What remains? Have you then settled the Irish question? Have you then, with these men handing down from father to son the burning sense of the injustice of their betrayal, done anything to conciliate them and bring about a better state of feeling in Ireland? No, Sir, you are crying peace when there is no peace. You know it, and you will fail.
Mr. JOHN REDMOND: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has made this afternoon what he always makes, an able and vigorous speech. I have heard every speech that he has made upon this question, and if I may be allowed respectfully to criticise the speech which he has just delivered, I would be inclined to say that this is the most violent speech which he has yet delivered in the House of Commons. I thought I noticed an absence from his speech of that grave sense of responsibility which characterised the last speech which he made in this House, a speech which impressed hon. Members in every part of the House. The responsibility of the right hon. Gentleman is a heavy one. He speaks in this House, not for half of the representatives of Ulster, but for very nearly half, and he speaks and claims to speak, and to a large extent, no doubt, he does speak, for a large number of Unionists in Ireland. That is a heavy responsibility, and he advocates a policy of the gravest possible character. He says that he will counsel resistance, armed resistance, to an Act of the Imperial Parliament. He says further—but he did not say it quite so distinctly to-day as he has said it outside, and I will quote his words a little later—that he will advocate armed resistance to an Act of the Imperial Parliament, even if both parties in this country united to pass that Bill. That is a responsibility which I think is a very heavy one, and ought to impose upon him a gravity of speech and epithet. The right hon. Gentleman made one assertion grossly offensive as well as grossly unfair to the Irish Nationalist party. He impugned our motives. Yes, he impugned our motives in a way most offensive and most hurtful to us. I am sorry for it, be-
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cause, after all, we are brother Irishmen, and I can say for myself, and I think I can say for most if not all of my colleagues, that in a bitter controversy with him we have never impugned his motives. He declared that our motive was to establish an ascendancy in Ireland.
Sir E. CARSON: Did not the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) say yesterday that was our motive?
Mr. J. REDMOND: I am not going to be drawn into recriminations of that kind. If I understood the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, his argument was that the Unionists of Ireland had in the past maintained an ascendancy in Ireland, and that our object was to put an end to that ascendancy. That is strictly true, but when anybody says—
Mr. C. CRAIG: May I interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman? It will be in the recollection of the House that the whole argument of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—Allow me to go on.
Mr. J. REDMOND: Allow me to go on.
Mr. C. CRAIG: The whole argument of the hon. Member was that what we were fighting for now was the retention of that ascendancy.
Mr. J. REDMOND: The right hon. and learned Gentleman was heard through the whole course of a long speech without one single interruption, and I think the House generally knows me well enough to be aware of the fact that I am not going to intentionally irritate the feelings of anybody, and I do claim as my right that I should be allowed peacefully and without interruption to reply to the right hon. Gentleman. I say that anybody to make an accusation against us such as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has made, that our object is to establish an ascendancy, is guilty of a gross insult to his own fellow-countrymen. We have suffered too much in the past in Ireland ever to tolerate, if it rests with us, any ascendancy of any class or creed. I confess that I sympathised with the opening remarks of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He said that he rose to speak with some reluctance. I had hoped that it would have been possible for me to have refrained from taking any part whatever in this discussion, and I confess that I am

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oppressed by the feeling that it is impossible for me to say anything fresh or new upon the subject at this stage. This great Debate has gone on, not for this year or last year or the year before; this great Debate has gone on for thirty years. Since 1886 every phase of this question has been argued and reargued in Parliament, in the Press, and on the platform, and, so far from it being true that it is the intention or the desire of anybody to rush Home Rule into law without due consideration and behind the backs of the people, I assert that there has been ever since the days of Catholic Emancipation no great constitutional issue of this kind which has been so thoroughly discussed on the platform, in the Press, and in Parliament. Every argument for and against Home Rule has been so reiterated that I confess I feel it an impossible task to say anything new or fresh.
Lord Curzon, in the House of Lords, stated that this subject is almost thread-bare, and that every argument is stale and hardly admits of reiteration. My feeling is that so far as this House of Commons is concerned, after the 57½ days spent last Session in discussing this measure—a longer time—by the way, than has been spent on the discussion of any constitutional measure in this House for over a century—there is no need and no desire for a long Debate. My feeling is that there is only one question for the House of Commons now to decide: Has it changed its mind since last year? If it has not changed its mind, if it still stands by the decision which it came to after 57½ days of discussion and by a majority of 110, then its function now is little more than to reaffirm its decision. That is what I meant when I used the phrase "an automatic process." It is not an automatic process if the House of Commons has changed its mind. It is not an automatic process if the Opposition has changed its mind to the extent of making suggestions which can be considered for the acceptance of this Bill in the end, but, if neither of these things has occurred, then manifestly the only practical and real question is: Has the House of Commons changed its mind, unless indeed the Parliament Act, which was an Act passed by a majority of the House of Lords as well as of the House of Commons, is to be torn up and thrown into the wastepaper-basket? Under these circumstances, the House will be glad, I am sure, to hear that my contribution to
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this discussion will be brief, and I confess that I would not have spoken at all were it not that I feared that my silence might be misrepresented as meaning some weakening in our demand or some wavering in our complete confidence that this Bill will pass into law next year, and will be the opening of a new era of Irish content and of Imperial unity.
I would like to note one remarkable change which has come over the discussion of this question. That change is to be found in what Lord Curzon, in his speech in the House of Lords, called the great difference between the circumstances and the atmosphere in which this Bill is being discussed now and the previous occasions in 1886 and 1893. And there is no evidence of that change so striking as the character of that discussion which took place in the House of Lords. In 1886 and 1893 the attitude of Unionist statesmen was simply one of absolute non possumus to the whole attitude of the extension of anything like national self-government to Ireland. Their decision was that under no conceivable circumstances, under no possible scheme that the wit of man could devise, would they tolerate the idea of an Irish Legislature for the management of Irish affairs. I ask the House to note what has become of that attitude. Why there was scarcely a responsible man in the House of Lords who opposed the passage of this Bill who did not admit that the present system of government in Ireland was impossible, and that this great problem of Irish self-government must be dealt with. And yet, although that was their attitude, they proposed no alternative whatever to this Bill. Their opposition was not to Home Rule, but to the particular kind of Home Rule which is contained in this Bill. In 1886 and 1893 the Unionist party was justified in their refusal to propose any alternative, because they said there was no problem. They cannot say that now. After the declarations in the House of Lords in the recent Debate, by admission of Unionist statesmen, there is a problem, a grave and an urgent problem, and yet they propose no alternative. Their only course is to attempt to destroy the Bill which is at present before the House. Take Lord Grey. Lord Grey has just come back from close intercourse with some of the greatest of the self-governing Dominions of the Empire. His testimony is valuable because at one time he was an uncompromising opponent of Home Rule and one

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of the men responsible largely for the defeat of Mr. Gladstone's Bill. He has come back from his intercourse with the self-governing Colonies a convinced Home Ruler, and he declared, in his speech, the present position to be intolerable, and he gave this grave warning to the Unionist party, to which I beg them to listen. He said—that for them as a party to continue one day longer than is absolutely necessary in their present hopeless position is from the Unionist party point of view crass stupidity. He said that in Canada and the other great self-governing Dominions you will find an almost universal sympathy with the Irish movement in favour of Home Rule, and he used these remarkable words:—
"We are, I think, justified in assuming that a wise and well-considered measure of conferring upon Irishmen powers of managing their own local and domestic affairs, which would have been in 1886 nothing less than an agrarian outrage, has now become a safe and moral policy. I go further and say it is not only a desirable but is a necessary policy."
He opposed this Bill it is true, and he explained that he did so because this Bill did not carry out his particular ideal of a settlement, which he thought ought to be modelled on the system of provincial Parliaments in existence in Canada. But while opposing the Bill he said:—
"Although I take it for granted that this Bill will be rejected, I think it would be a serious political misfortune if we were to allow the impression to be created out-of-doors that those of your Lordships who are opposed to this Bill have no alternative policy."
And the answer of the House of Lords to that was simply the rejection of the Bill and no alternative policy whatever. He goes on further and says:—
"While I hope the House may decide that this Bill cannot be accepted, I also hope a clear and positive message may issue from Unionist leaders in this House which will convince the people of Ireland that the Unionist party as a whole are prepared to assist in some other form of settlement."
5.0 P.M.
What message has the Unionist party, either in the House of Lords or in this House, sent to the people of Ireland? Absolutely none. Although they admit through these statements that the problem has changed since 1886 and 1893, and that now there is an urgent problem demanding attention, they offer absolutely no alternative to this Bill. That was the keynote of almost all the important speeches which were made against this Bill in the House of Lords. Again, the Archbishop of York declared himself a Home Ruler. He said:—
"Few of us can deny there is a real and urgent Irish problem, or believe that we are likely to advance
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towards it by merely reiterating that we will not have Home Rule."
And then he used these remarkable words, which were quoted last night and which I take the liberty to quote again:—
"Few can deny that there is a really urgent Irish question. Some recognition must be found for the persistent and sustained desire of the Irish people to have some liberty to manage their own affairs in their own way. I agree that some measure of Home Rule is necessary, not only to meet the needs of Ireland but to meet the needs of the Imperial Parliament."
And, lastly—I must not weary the House with further quotations—let me refer to a speech made by Lord Curzon, whom one would regard as a type of the uncompromising Unionist on the question of Home Rule for Ireland. In this speech he fully admitted the gravity and urgency of the problem, and he argued that it was as much in the interests of the Conservative party as of the Liberals themselves to solve the Irish question. These were his words—
"to clear the decks of all the troubled questions of Irish administration, finance, land, and education, and free the House of Commons from congestion."
Lord Curzon also opposed this Bill, but he made it perfectly clear that he viewed with equanimity, and regarded indeed as inevitable, the prospect of a new Constitution for Ireland, and he said he hoped it would be brought into existence much in the same way as the Union Parliament was brought into existence in South Africa—by conference. But he seemed to have forgotten that the conference and the Union Parliament only became possible in South Africa after Home Rule had been given to the Transvaal. The point which I desire to make on these quotations, I think, is clear enough. I want to show the extraordinary difference which, on the statements of these Unionist statesmen themselves, has come over what Lord Curzon called "the circumstances and atmosphere surrounding the question" now and in 1886 and 1893. Then there was no problem of Irish self-Government in any shape or form. To-day there is a problem, an urgent problem, which must be solved in the interests not only of Ireland but of England and of the Empire. We are told in the House of Lords by these great Unionist statesmen that it cannot be ignored; that the settlement is inevitable. They object to this Bill, but they propose absolutely no alternative whatever. I respectfully say that that is not statesmanship. It is a reckless and dangerous trifling with an admittedly urgent problem upon whose settlement depends the peace,

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the loyalty, the happiness, and, in a sense, it may be said the very life of the whole people. The Unionist party rejected the Bills in 1886 and 1893, but they proposed no alternative, because they denied the existence of the problem. To-day they admit the problem and they still reject the Bill, without making any alternative proposal whatever. The late Leader of the Opposition, in his speech yesterday, enumerated four alternatives, as he called them. But he did not put them forward as alternatives, because each one of them in turn he denounced and said he would not have, so that he is in the position of the rest. Having admitted the problem he makes no proposal for an alternative whatever. The sole policy put before the Irish people to-day as the alternative for this Bill is that they are to be thrown back into the inferno of disappointed hopes, despair and madness of heart. That is not statesmanship, it is criminal folly.
Let me for a moment deal more closely with the position of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Trinity College. His attitude and that of his friends is, and as far as I know always has been, perfectly simple, logical, and consistent. The men for whom he speaks are a majority—not such a very overwhelming majority—but a majority in four counties in Ireland. I say they are not such a very overwhelming majority, because it is a fact that there is no county in Ulster that does not return a Nationalist Member or a Home Ruler to this House. There comes to this House from every Ulster county—
Mr. CHARLES CRAIG: What about Antrim?
Mr. J. REDMOND: Belfast is in Antrim. I will not comment on that interruption.
Mr. CHARLES CRAIG: But the hon. and learned Gentleman has made a misstatement.
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should allow the hon. and learned Gentleman to make his speech, and he will have an opportunity of reply.
Mr. CHARLES CRAIG: But he has made a misstatement.
Mr. SPEAKER: If every misstatement were corrected as we go along the Debate would be endless.
Mr. J. REDMOND: I hope that that does not specially apply to me. In
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this instance it is not a misstatement, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast is elected by a constituency in the county of Antrim, and the hon. Gentleman who has recently been returned for Derry represents a constituency in the county of Londonderry; therefore there is not a single county in Ulster that does not return a Nationalist Member. Consequently, I make the statement that the majority in these four counties for which the hon. Members speak is not such an overwhelming majority as people might think. But still they have a majority in those four counties. Mark their position. They will not have Home Rule on any terms, under any name, under any conditions, under any scheme whatever. These four counties are to be allowed to coerce and overbear the opinions and wishes of the rest of Ireland, and, as I stated a moment ago, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Trinity College, in a famous speech in Belfast, made this declaration, that if both parties in this House united to pass a Home Rule Bill—he did not say this Home Rule Bill—then those for whom he speaks in these four counties would not have it at all, but would resist. In this he has been clearly consistent. The speech to which I have just alluded was made some little time ago. But the other day the right hon. Gentleman repeated the same declaration. Here is what he says on 22nd April this year on the question of a conference or a compromise:—
"I have never believed any compromise on Home Rule possible, and, personally, I should never be a party to any negotiations which would have as their basis the handing over of the Unionists of Ireland to an Irish Parliament and an Executive responsible to it."
On 16th May of this year he said:—
"We do not care for political parties except so far as they support the Union. If ever the time comes—"
and these are very remarkable words—
"when the people of Ulster think it better to compromise for any reason, I must stand aside because I never could, under any circumstances, be a party to compromise."
The right hon. and learned Gentleman therefore—and it is to his credit—does not rely on the false, hollow and ridiculous cry about the mandate of the constituencies. A General Election does not count with him. One General Election or a dozen General Elections would not alter the situation for him. If all political parties as the result of a General Election in Great Britain united in favour of Home Rule, and if, as I believe is the case at this moment, practically the whole of the

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British Empire is in favour of Home Rule, he would remain absolutely unshaken and in the name of loyalty would resist by force of arms the will of Parliament, of people, and of the Empire. I was genuinely surprised to read two or three days ago in the "Times" a declaration, the first of the kind made by him, of the same character from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division. He had been arguing that the Government should dissolve on this question of Home Rule, and he said:—
"It must not be thought I am suggesting that, whatever the result of an election may be, the people of Ulster and the Unionists of Ireland will assent to Home Rule. They will never do this, and any Government which determines deliberately to force on Ireland a measure in any way similar to the present one, must face this fact and even be prepared to deal with it."
I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division, should follow the example of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College, and give up this wholly ridiculous plea about mandates from General Elections. Let me in a few words clearly I hope, although briefly, put before the House again what is our present position on this question which is called, and improperly called the Ulster question. We do not believe that the extreme attitude of the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his Friends represents the settled, sober opinion of the mass of the Unionists in the North of Ireland. We are willing to go any length—practically any length to conciliate any honest apprehensions that they may entertain, and I may be allowed to say for myself—and I am sure I speak for every one of my colleagues in this matter—that there is no sacrifice that I am not prepared personally to make most cheerfully to soften their opposition and if possible to bring them in to join hands in working Home Rule for the benefit of Ireland.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman told us the other day in Ireland that his friends were drilling. He said someone had asked him or might ask him "What for?" And he gave the answer. He said they were drilling for defence. They are perfectly entitled to drill for defence, and I say if they are attacked under Home Rule, if any single civil or religious right of theirs is attacked or menaced in any way whatever they have a right to resist, and certainly they would have my full sympathy in any resistance they might make. But I have sufficient faith in the sanity—I will not put it on any higher
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ground than that—I have sufficient faith in the sanity of my fellow-countrymen to know that they never will be attacked and that this drilling for defence will never be brought to anything more than drilling. I believe—and nothing I have heard in these Debates has shaken my belief—that very soon indeed after this Act is passed all Ireland will be united, and that you will find that what happened in Canada and in South Africa will take place in Ireland. The memories of ancient wrongs will become obliterated and obscured. Men whose fathers had hated one another, and had fought one another, perhaps, will come together and will agree to bury the memories of the past. More than that, what happened in South Africa may happen, and I believe will happen, in Ireland—that not merely men whose fathers fought, but men who they themselves fought as the two contending parties in South Africa fought, will come together as Botha and those who opposed him in the field have come together in South Africa, in a united effort to advance the interests of their country. But, Sir, while that is my opinion and my strong and confident belief, at the same time I know—no one knows better—the incalculable value of union of this kind when we are starting the machine, when we are putting into operation the great machinery which is to work out in the good government of Ireland. Therefore, to the very last moment, I will use words of conciliation and of friendship to my fellow countrymen in the North of Ireland. Our professions have been received, I am sorry to say, with contumely, sometimes with insult. I have been myself accused of being a hypocrite when I have advocated safeguards and have held out the hand of good fellowship.
Mr. T. M. HEALY: What did you offer them? [An HON. MEMBER: "Shut up!"]
Mr. J. REDMOND: I do not care in the least for these insults and this contumely. No irritation by harsh or insulting words will affect my conduct in the smallest degree, and no shrieking by the right hon. Gentleman about "No compromise," will prevent me from reiterating my declaration, and I make that declaration in the name of all my colleagues, and, I believe, in the name of the overwhelming mass of the Irish people, that Irish Unionists can have for the asking any reasonable safeguards consistent with a free Irish Parliament and an Executive responsible to it.

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But, Sir, I must be quite honest. There is another side to this question. Twenty-eight counties will not permit themselves to be intimidated by four, and in the last resort the cry of hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway, "We will not have Home Rule," will be met by the answering cry from the rest of Ireland, "We will, we must and we shall have an Irish Parliament, and for an Ireland one and indivisible." Bear in mind—this is the last point upon which I will weary the House—the record and antecedents of the men who are opposing this Bill so violently. The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of our antecedents. May I, not as bitterly or as violently as he did, allude to the antecedents of himself and his Friends with reference to the government of Ireland? I say that they and the men whose lineal political descendants they are, are the men who have opposed in the past every single reform for the benefit of Ireland. They opposed emancipation, they opposed the ballot, they opposed the franchise, they opposed the abolition of the State establishment of the Church. They opposed for generation after generation every amelioration in the land system, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) declared had the worst defects of every bad land system in the world. They are, in fact, the same men of whom John Bright said:—
"These Ulstermen have stood in the way of improvement in the franchise, in the Church, and in the land question. They have purchased Protestant ascendancy, and the price paid for it has been the ruin and degradation of their country."
They say the Union is a success, and Unionists boast to-day of the extension of local government to Ireland, and of the Land Act of 1903. I was really amused at hearing the right hon. and learned Gentleman's references to possible extensions of local government in Ireland in the future. What is his record upon that question? Why, Sir, in 1898, when the Local Government Act, of which they boast now, and to which they point as a proof of the success of the Union, was being passed into law, what did the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University say? On 28th April, 1898, he said:—
"We are now engaged on the consideration of a measure only second in importance to Home Rule and they considered that the proposals of Her Majesty's Government would lead to social revolution in Ireland. He could not conceive on what ground Her Majesty's Government thought that they were acting with any degree of fairness or justice to those with whom those now present sympathised in Ireland when they introduced this measure, which was not only democratic,
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but more democratic than anything in England or in Scotland. The fact was that the Unionists of Ireland had been betrayed by their Unionist Government."
This is the right hon. Gentleman who is the Leader of the men who point to this very Act as a proof of the success of the Union, and he is the very man who stands up here this afternoon and darkly hints that, while he does not like this Bill, he would not be unwilling to see further extensions of local government in Ireland. Let me read three or four words more from that speech:—
"He Was told that the Unionists of Ireland ought to be proud to know that they had in the House of Commons a majority of 140. What had that majority done? They had done absolutely nothing so far as legislation was concerned. He had been in the House of Commons for many years, and he could honestly say that during the three years the Government of all the talents had been in power he had never heard towards the Unionists of Ireland one word of sympathy from Her Majesty's Government. Was this a state of things to be allowed to exist?"
[An HON MEMBER: "That was a Tory Government."] My hon. Friend reminds me that that was a Tory Government. Of course it was a Tory Government, and a very short time after that speech the right hon. Gentleman got office in that Tory Government. What about the Land Act of 1903, which has also been pointed to as proof of the success of the Union, and which is now regarded apparently by the right hon. and learned Gentleman as something of which he ought to be proud?
Sir E. CARSON: I never suggested that.
Mr. J. REDMOND: I may be allowed, perhaps, by way of parenthesis, as I am alluding to the Act of 1903, to add my humble voice to what was said yesterday with regard to the loss of Mr. George Wyndham. Mr. Wyndham was a man with whom we had quarrels in connection with the government of Ireland, but my own personal view of him was that deep down in his heart he was a real friend of Ireland and had deep sympathies with Ireland and Ireland's aspirations. He undoubtedly did a great work for Ireland in connection with the Land Act of 1903, and I may be allowed, without impropriety, to add my few words of sympathy to what was said yesterday about his untimely death. But what about the Act of 1903? What was the record of the right hon. and learned Gentleman? In May, 1903, the right hon. Gentleman went down to Oxford and made a speech. Here is what he said:—
"He wished Mr. Wyndham was there to explain to them the great benefits that Ireland was going to

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receive, or, at all events, thought it was going to receive, from the passage of the Irish Land Bill. He knew something of Irish legislation; he had lived through it for forty years—indeed, he might say that for several years he lived by it. He only desired to say this, that, as regards the Irish Land Bill, he would give it the minimum of his support."
There is the Gentleman the Leader of the party that points to this Act as proof of the success of the Union, and who has no alternative whatever for the future of Ireland. Therefore, I repeat the statement that those men who are now opposing this reform have equally opposed every reform in the past that was carried for the welfare and advancement of the interests of the Irish people. Let me say just this one further word with reference to them and those they represent. All through the pages of Irish history they have been unsafe guides and false prophets. I say to the House of Commons that they are unsafe guides and false prophets to-day. The defeat of this Bill—I speak not about its rejection here, of course; that is impossible—[Laughter]—its passage here by a clear majority of British votes, apart from the Irish votes, is regarded as a matter of laughter, rightly and logically regarded as a matter of laughter, by the men who say they will go to war whatever British opinion is upon this subject—the defeat and destruction of this Bill is absolutely unthinkable. It is no exaggeration to say that its passage into law next year is eagerly awaited by the entire Empire and by the whole of the English-speaking world. I point not only to the declaration of Lord Grey, I do not point for the moment to the unanimous resolutions passed by practically all the self-governing Parliaments in the Empire—five in succession in recent years passed by the great Dominion Parliament of Canada—I point not to these things, but let me allude to the fact that this year we have been honoured in this country by visits from some of the most distinguished statesmen of the various self-governing Colonies, Ministers of various States in Australia, Prime Ministers, and other distinguished statesmen, and Members, indeed, of both parties in those States have been in London. I have innumerable declarations from them here. Let me read one which is typical, and I read it because the man who made the speech is a remarkable and important man—I mean Sir Joseph Ward, the late Prime Minister of New Zealand, one of the greatest Imperialists of the day, and a man
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who was primarily and personally responsible for the policy which presented a "Dreadnought" to the British Navy. Here is what he said the other day in London:—
"I have lived in British self-governing countries all my life, and, as long as I can remember, the great majority of the public men, and especially can it be said of the leading public men, have been sincere and earnest supporters of Home Rule for Ireland. It mattered not whether they were Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen or Colonials born, or whatever their creed, with rare exceptions they have been supporters of Home Rule. In support of this statement let me remind you of those Prime Ministers with whom I attended the two last Imperial Conferences. They were all, by honest conviction, supporters of, and believers in, Home Rule for Ireland. Nor can this be wondered at. They lived in countries where Home Rule existed; where the people had a right to govern themselves; where, under the widest freedom, the feelings of loyalty to the Sovereign and British Empire have not only never weakened, but have grown stronger and stronger as the years have rolled by. As one who wants to see conditions existing within the Empire that make for unity and strength, I would do much to see Ireland and her sons and daughters across the seas pacified! It is necessary in the interests of Ireland; in the interests of the Oversea Dominions; in the interests of the Empire, aye, in the interest of the whole civilised world."
If you pass away from your Empire to the English-speaking world, what do you find? I have received unanimous resolutions passed by both Houses of the State Parliaments of well over one-half the States of America in favour, not merely of the principle of Home Rule, but in favour of this Bill, and these resolutions were not proposed by Irishmen or Irish politicians. They were proposed, in almost every case, by the most distinguished American statesmen in the Parliament, and were supported by the members of both parties and carried unanimously. If you want to know what was in these resolutions, let me give you the key note. Everyone of them struck the same note. They said they welcomed this as an act of justice, but they specially welcomed it because, in their opinion, the passage of this Bill would make for the removal of the barrier which to-day, undoubtedly, exists between England and the really friendly relations with the great Republic of America. In addition to these resolutions I have received communications from leading statesmen in all parts of America. Let me give one typical case. Here is what Colonel Roosevelt wrote to me:—
"I feel that the enactment into law of this measure backed by a majority of British Members and accepted by Irish Nationalists, bids fair to establish goodwill amongst the English speaking people. This has been prevented, more than by any other one thing, by this unhappy feud between Ireland and England, a feud that has raged for centuries, and the settlement of which, I most earnestly hope and believe, will be a powerful contribution to the peace of the world based on international justice and goodwill. I earnestly feel that the measure is as much in the interest of Great Britain as it is of Ireland."

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I repeat, therefore, that the destruction of this Bill would be a shock to the public opinion of the whole Empire, and it would grieve and disappoint the friendly public opinion of America. It would outrage the feelings of the people of Ireland, and would shatter the fairest prospect that has ever opened before them of a future of peace, contentment, and loyalty. Ireland to-day is crimeless beyond all record. Ireland to-day is full of hope and expectation. Beware how you dash that hope to the ground. Rebellion is threatened. Rebellion is justified in high quarters. The rebellion of a portion of the population of four counties, because they disapprove of the Act of the Imperial Parliament before any wrong has been done, and before any oppression has been attempted, would be a crime and a calamity. Rebellion by over three-fourths of the people of a country distracted, tortured, and betrayed, deprived of the rights of freemen, and condemned to a barren policy of coercion, would be too horrible a thing to contemplate; and it is because this is so that I rejoice with all my heart to believe and to know that this Bill is safe, and that the future of Ireland is assured.
Mr. C. G. HAMILTON: I trust the House will show me the consideration which I understand it always shows to a new Member on rising to speak for the first time. My reason for intervening so soon after coming into this House is that last week the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister the following question:—
"Is the right hon. Gentleman of opinion that by-elections form no guide to the opinion of the country?"
The Prime Minister replied:—
"I am talking about the Government of Ireland Bill, to which, so far as I know—I speak after looking at these things from a distance—no attention has been given at recent by-elections."
I feel that I owe it as a duty to the electors of the Division which elected me, and further, that I owe it as a duty to Unionists throughout this country, and more especially in Ulster, to point out that the by-election at Altrincham was fought, so far as the Unionist candidate was concerned, with the Home Rule Bill as the chief thing before us. When I was asked to contest the Division, I realised that this by-election came just at the time when the Home Rule Bill was almost due to come before this House again under the Parliament Act, and I was not afraid to ask for the verdict of that Division on the
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Home Rule Bill and on the Church Bill in Wales. I was consulted early in the by-election by the leaders of the party in the Division as to whom I would like to assist me by addressing the last meeting before the poll, and at my personal request the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) addressed that meeting for one hour on the subject of Home Rule for Ireland. I do not think I should be doing my duty to the right hon. Gentleman who so helped me in that election if I did not make this point quite clear. It has been said that this and the other by-elections have been fought largely, or entirely, on the Insurance Act. I do not know whether the Prime Minister has any cutting from a newspaper with regard to Altrincham such as he quoted with regard to Newmarket yesterday, but in case he intends to quote that, might I point out that I did not even refer to the Insurance Act in my election address. So much for what the Unionist candidate did and said. But much more important, I think, is what the Government speakers said, and perhaps even still more important, what the Liberal and Radical Press wrote during that election. The "Observer," a paper of some importance on our side, after the election said they did not think I had been fighting with the Liberal candidate as my opponent. I had been fighting with my opponent as the "Manchester Guardian." I think the "Manchester Guardian" is acknowledged to be the leading Liberal paper in this country. From the 22nd of the month up to the polling day, which was the 28th, every day the "Manchester Guardian" had a leading article on the subject of Home Rule for Ireland, in which they called me a good many very hard names. The first article was headed "Revolutionism at Altrincham," and I was accused of asking for English votes on the strength of the fact, or in spite of the fact, that I backed a scheme for breaking the law, shaking the Throne, and smashing the Empire, unless our party in Ireland was let have its way against other Irishmen. The next day the same paper described certain explanations which I made on reading about this revolutionism, in which I insisted that what I had said was that Ulster would actively resist in the last resort if Home Rule were forced on her people, as lame excuses for disorder; and they described Ulster men and myself as Ulsterettes nearly as bad as women suffragettes. On the following day the same journal referred to my remarks about

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Home Rule as anarchism, treason, rebellion, and mutiny, and in a third article they said:—
"The Ulsterettes look to Altrincham to bless it along with the rest of the rebel movement which Mr. Hamilton blesses and calls right. Will Altrincham do so, or will it say that there is no place for anarchism in the British Empire?"
The day before the poll this same paper wrote as follows:—
"The thoughtful voter has, by circumstances which are only partly Mr. Hamilton's fault, been brought to a crisis at which he must either vote for Mr. Hamilton to the Empire's hurt or against Mr. Hamilton for the Empire's safety. Lawlessness and disloyalty, the cankers of Empire, have taken one side in this contest and made it their own. It is for every voter who values the strength of the law, and the stability of the Empire, to place himself, at whatever sacrifice of personal inclination, on the other."
I do not think I am a rebel. I do not think I said anything revolutionary. All I did was to support the Unionist policy, and the Ulster Members' policy, during that election. On the actual day of the poll the same paper wrote an article, and was kind enough to say that I had behaved, in their opinion, very well in not having, during that by-election, referred to a certain Committee of this House which is sitting to inquire into certain business, and it concluded the article by saying:—
"Mr. Hamilton's great failure is nothing of that kind, but his wilful or reckless blunder of committing himself, as the chief issue, to a policy which makes every vote given to him to-day a vote of encouragement to the use of criminal disorder as a weapon of political, social, or industrial agitation everywhere in the Empire."
I hope the Prime Minister will realise that the "Manchester Guardian," which really fought this election against me, at any rate made it, I think, quite clear in its leading articles during the last ten days of the election, on the day before the poll and on the polling day, that they appreciated that Home Rule for Ireland was the question alone, with the question of the Church of England in Wales. On the Monday before the poll the Lord Advocate said:—
"He was there that night representing His Majesty's Government to give them the absolute assurance that if they could point out anything in the Home Rule Bill which was unjust or would inflict any hardship upon any man, woman or child in Antrim, Armagh, Down, or Derry, that provision would be struck out."
I do not know whether under the Parliament Act it is quite possible to strike out such provisions in this Home Rule Bill. If it is, I did not know it. I thought it would be necessary to bring in some form of alteration which would be passed, and, if approved by the other House, would then become law. Here is a definite statement by a Member of the Government
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that anything which would cause hardship would be struck out. The same right hon. Gentleman, speaking on the same night, said to the electors in my Division:—
"It would be a great discouragement and disappointment to the Prime Minister and his colleagues if the electors of Altrincham failed to support them at this critical stage, though, he must add, as a very humble Member of Mr. Asquith's Administration, that whatever the electors of that Division chose to do on Wednesday next, the Government would go on and complete their task."
The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War, speaking about the same time, said:—
"That the Government did not mean to go back, but forward. If anyone supposed that the result of the Altrincham by-election, in which a great many plural voters took part, was a sign that people thought the Government were going too fast, he said that the Government did not believe it, and would have none of it."
I venture to submit that, although there may be a few plural voters in that Division, there were plural voters at the last election. May I also remind the House that in that Division there are over 20,000 electors, while in the Bolton Division there are the same number of electors, and yet the Bolton Division returns two Members to the Government side of the House, while the Altrincham Division only returns one representative? In conclusion, may I appeal to the Prime Minister to consider whether he could not repudiate what has been said by the Secretary for War and the Lord Advocate? I would ask him clearly this question: Are the electors of this country, whether at this by-election or elsewhere, to count for nothing in this matter? Surely, in spite of the attack made upon me as an Ulsterette and revolutionary, the electors did pronounce a very clear verdict, and surely the old principle of "Government of the people by the people for the people" has not altogether been thrown over by this Government. The understanding in the country as to the provisions of the Parliament Act is that the Prime Minister's own word can be relied upon, and that no Bill will be forced through if the opinion of this House and the country is not stable in its support of the Government of the day. I venture to think that recent by-elections show at least which way the wind is blowing, and I claim that these elections should have some influence on the Prime Minister's reply when we ask him to submit this great constitutional change to the verdict of the country before forcing it, at the risk of civil war, on the Unionists of the United Kingdom. I hope I may say that, even if after a General

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Election the Members who represent Ulster refuse to submit to Home Rule, surely still the Prime Minister might try a General Election to see if the country is behind him, seeing that recent by-elections indicate that it is not. Nor do I wish to exaggerate in any way the importance of this by-election. I trust the words I have said may convince the Prime Minister that from his distant point of view, when he watched this by-election, he was not able to perceive what undoubtedly is the truth, and if he had been nearer he would have seen clearly that the first issue was the firmest and most uncompromising opposition to Home Rule for Ireland.
Mr. O'GRADY: Following the usual custom of the House, I have to offer my compliments to the previous speaker upon the interesting speech he has made in addressing the House for the first time. During the course of the contest in the Altrincham Division the Insurance Act played a prominent part—almost as prominent, if not quite, as the question of Home Rule. I accept the statement of the hon. Member that the question of Home Rule was prominently before the electors. I rise for the purpose of offering a few remarks on behalf of the party with which I am associated, because we cannot allow this occasion to pass by without stating our solid and strong conviction that this Bill ought to be carried into law. I might remind the House that the British majority in this House in favour of Home Rule includes the forty Labour Members, representing a very large section of the democracy of this country who have never wavered in their adherence to Home Rule, and when you consider that it is an organised party, whether for industrial contests or political contests, I think I am safe in saying that an expression of opinion coming from these benches on behalf of men and women of that character ought to count for much in the counsels of this House. I was astonished at the statements which have been made on the question of Ulster, and I am more astonished still to find that they are mere statements, and that there has not been a tittle of evidence given by any speaker in this House or outside to prove that the fears of Ulster are well founded in regard to the points which have been put. I noticed that the former Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Balfour) in his speech yesterday still contented himself with making statements and expressing fears. What do they amount to? So far as I have been able to
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gather from that speech and previous speeches, the fears are that the Protestants in the North-East corner of Ireland Will suffer in their civil and religious rights and liberties because of the establishment in Dublin of a Parliament with a Catholic majority.
I wish to try to discover whether there is any foundation for fears of that kind. I can speak, for instance, for the Catholic workmen in the other provinces, and I am certain I can speak also for the Catholic workmen of Ulster, when I say that we would even agree to delay Home Rule if there was the slightest foundation for fears of that character. I feel that the Catholic priesthood in Ireland would be the first to denounce on the part of any of their congregations the mere suggestion that things of that character would take place. When we remember that 90 per cent. of the Irish priests come from the working class and the small farmer class in Ireland, and that they are filled with broad democratic sympathies, I feel sure that they would do nothing, particularly in this matter of difference in religious beliefs, to encourage persecution. I think that statement ought to be taken and well considered. The point I wish to state is this: I do think that the Protestants ought to give the Government of Ireland credit for some common sense. Obviously, if a Parliament was established in Dublin with a Catholic majority, and if it could be proved that religious persecution was entering into their minds, that would make the Catholics of this country clamour for the repeal of Home Rule, and they are not going to risk things of that kind. What is the other fear which the people of Ulster have? So far as I can gather it is a fear founded on no evidence at all, namely, that the effect of a Parliament in Dublin would be to restrict their civil rights. I wonder whether they think that the Catholics of Ireland, and Catholic workmen in particular, would stand that kind of thing from any Parliament in Dublin, and whether it would not affect Catholics as well as Protestants? I know that there would be a combination of forces in Ireland—Radical, Labour and Socialist, Catholic and Protestant—which would give very short shrift indeed to a Government who attempted to restrict the civil rights of any section of the population.
I am more concerned as to whether the Ulster workman has any fear that his economic position will be in any way

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worsened because there happens to be a Parliament in Dublin. I wish to know if he does really think that he will be worse off as a workman under a Home Rule Government than he is now under the Government at Westminster. Does he not think that the wish in a Parliament in Dublin to diminish and, if possible, to abolish sweating would be no less sincere than in this Parliament?
6.0 P.M.
Although I was not born in Belfast, I went there for the first time fifteen years' ago, and I think I know more about the lower deeps in Belfast than some hon. Members do. I spent fifteen years attempting to organise the men engaged in the sweated workshops of Belfast, the whole of which exist in the poverty stricken districts of the city. I wish to know if these workmen, and also the women and children in the linen mills of Belfast, are still sweated, or whether in the general run of trades in that city the workers are going to be any worse off with a Parliament in Dublin than they are at the present moment. If they have got that idea in their minds, I have to say that the trade union movement in the North, East, South, and West of Ireland will take care that there is no laxity on the part of the Parliament in Dublin in matters of that kind. If it is contended that the workmen of Belfast think that as a result of Home Rule their volume of trade would be in any way diminished, and that therefore there would be a risk of greater unemployment than they have now, I may say that the most eminent authorities upon this question of self-government, particularly with regard to Ireland, over and over again have shown that as a result of Home Rule you would get capital attracted to Ireland. I believe that, and I think that if I had time I would prove it, but it is fairly clear that the government of the country would be much better than it is at the present moment, and the people, having self-government, would work as they never worked before to make the best of their own country and develop its economical resources and do all they could to create industry in Ireland, and I suggest that, as a result of that, you would attract capital, and, as a result of Home Rule and the Parliament in Dublin, the volume of trade would not be diminished and the risks of unemployment would not be greater than they are at the present moment. I come
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now to the threat of rebellion. I do not think that hon. Members from Ulster have ever given an answer to the statement in the speech of the Prime Minister, made in Dublin, that the whole of these threats are based on mere assumption. The assumption is that when there is a Parliament established in Dublin certain things are going to take place—the restriction of civil rights, religious persecution, and all manner of things of that kind. It is not fair to assume that. There has never yet been any evidence of it, and the threat of a rebellion before any wrong has been committed seems to me to be an astonishing attitude to take up. I quite agree with the Leader of the Nationalist party that they are entitled to defend themselves against actions of this kind. Take the case of the business man of Ulster. Is he going to take risk upon assumptions of that kind? I give the business man in Ulster credit for ordinary common sense, and I believe that he is going to take no risks upon assumptions of that kind by going into rebellion.
Mr. RONALD M'NEILL: Wait and see
Mr. O'GRADY: We have got to do that, but you want to do things beforehand. I do hope that hon. Members will try to see the point put by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald), in one of these Debates on a previous occasion, that when you have got a Parliament established in Dublin you are not going to have the same political cleavage as you have between Irishmen in this House. May I suggest that there will be four parties in an Irish Parliament. There will be a Labour party, a Radical party, a Conservative party if you like, and there will be a party representing the views of the hon. Member for Cork in regard to the land question and other economic issues. I suggest to you that if that be so, it will be impossible for a Parliament of that kind to do anything but justice to the business men of Ulster, and to Belfast in particular, and there can be no fear of any grave economic wrong or fiscal wrong being perpetrated by a Parliament of that character, with regard to to the general business of Ireland. We are the only white race under the British flag that has been denied the right of self-government. I feel that keenly, and I cannot for the life of me understand, provided that the fears are removed—and I have tried to prove that there is no foundation for there fears—why the Ulster

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Workman and the working classes of Ulster will object to Home Rule at all. How have hon. Members from Ulster got together these great bodies of workmen to protest against Home Rule? They are not protesting against Home Rule at all. They are inveigled together to join a combination on the assumption that their Protestant faith is going to be persecuted with all the vigour that a Government might foolishly enact, and I complain against hon. Members when it is a known fact that during the last ten years in particular the growth of the Labour movement, particularly in the town of Belfast, has done more to bring Catholic and Protestant workmen together to vote upon the pure economic issue in political concerns than any other movement that has yet taken place, that they should come along and seek to rend this movement by dividing these men into Catholic and Protestant bodies. A very grave responsibility rests upon them for doing that, and I say further, that when the Protestant workman in Ulster begins to discover this kind of thing short shrift will be given to hon. Members if they endeavour to propagate ideas of this character in the future. I may refer now to the Imperial point of view. As I have said, we are the only white race under the British flag that has been denied the right of self-government. Have hon. Members opposed to this Bill ever considered why the British Empire is so strong and so unified as it is, particularly in view of the fact that it is scattered all over the world? I believe that it is because the British Empire, as no Empire that ever existed ever was, is based upon a foundation of self-governing States, and that it could not exist without that basis. The position which hon. Members take up is that under no consideration will they have Home Rule.
Mr. MOORE: Hear, hear.
Mr. O'GRADY: I think that the hon. Member himself will admit that there is no reason in that position. They have taken up that position although the majority of the people of Ireland say, "We want Home Rule," and the people of this country have said emphatically that they should have Home Rule. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] Let hon. Members make a comparison of the constituencies which they represent, in point of numbers, and the constituencies which we represent. Nearly all of us come from the large industrial centres in this country, and there is no
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equivocation, qualification, or reservation about the attitude of the Labour movement in this country and the workmen generally upon this question of Home Rule. I cannot help remarking that when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University pledged the Tory party in this House and outside with its organisaton, and I presume its funds, to back up this kind of rebellion which is to take place in Ireland, he was talking without any warrant. I venture to say, that if that statement is made before Tory workmen up and down the length and breadth of this country they will repudiate it; and upon that point I may say that we have got the Tory workman inside our trade unions and that we know him and respect him, so that the right hon. Gentleman has no warrant to say that. Despite what is said by hon. Members who say that they represent Ulster—though it is only a portion of it, and the Catholics in Ulster in point of numbers almost equal the Protestants—to the effect that they are not going to have Home Rule, though we also hear them talking on the other hand about the Imperial Parliament and the British flag, almost every self-governing Dominion overseas, as the hon. and learned Member for Waterford has declared, has passed a resolution strongly in favour of Home Rule for Ireland. Are they not to count? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If this case was submitted with all its surrounding facts, to a council of the eminent statesmen from the Overseas Dominions to adjudicate upon, there would be absolutely no doubt as to what their decision would be. Hon. Members from the North-East corner of Ulster say that they would not accept even that. The former Leader of the Opposition stated yesterday that if Ulster was 2,000 miles away instead of being so near, we should separate Ulster from the rest of Ireland.
Sir J. LONSDALE: You would have more sympathy for them then.
Mr. O'GRADY: If Ireland, including Ulster, was 2,000 miles away, there never would have been any Act of Union to start with, and there is no doubt that they would have had the full self-government which has been enjoyed by Canada.
Mr. MOORE: You would not have 103 Members in this House.
Mr. O'GRADY:We would not have had the betrayal and the corruption which are involved. I hope that I have not said

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anything to wound the feelings of those of my countrymen—for I may call them so though I was born in England—who represent a portion of the Ulster people. I am going to plead that even at this late hour fair consideration should be given to this Bill. I think that they will agree with me that it is at least an attempt to settle a deep-seated wrong, an attempt to grapple with a situation that has puzzled this House, and that has made government almost impossible—on occasions even in this country—and that has taxed the minds of the best and most brilliant men we have had amongst us for the last fifty or sixty years; and when we come to consider that the overwhelming portion of the people in Ireland and the Irish people outside Ireland, the great Irish population of America and Australia, are all looking to this House to settle this question, at least they should give it some consideration. For my part, I do recommend this Bill to the serious consideration of the House, in the hope that, if possible, the majority will be increased on this occasion as compared with what it was on the last.
Lord CHARLES BERESFORD: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has dealt with a very difficult question, and a question that often excites great heat, in a very calm manner, and in a manner which I hope to follow. Although I believe that we differ both in religion and politics, we are both Irishmen, and Irishmen never forget that, although sometimes they are overheated in their arguments. There is not very much to argue with regard to the Home Rule Bill, but there are one or two points that I do not think have been dwelt upon with sufficient force in the arguments that have been brought before the House. The Government Bench and hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, and in all parts of the House, regard it as certain that if this Home Rule Bill is forced into law civil war will result. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] Hon. Gentlemen do not agree with me. I think that civil war is certain, and I think that it would be a terrible tragedy. But there is another tragedy which, in my opinion, would be far more serious and terrible to this country if that civil war was brought about, and that is the question of its becoming a religious war. Only one Member has mentioned this question of a religious war—I refer to the hon. Member for Central Sheffield. I am of opinion that so surely as the Government employ British
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troops to force the Home Rule Bill upon Ulster—and they would be bound to do it if they intend to carry Home Rule—so surely as they shoot down Protestants who will be opposed to them, so surely will they wake up in this country a power which is absolutely overwhelming, though at present is latent, the power of Protestantism. I always say that everybody's religion should be a man's own business, and that we should not interfere with it. But I do believe that if you wake up this most serious power it would be terrible in its violence and virulence and unfairness, once you got a religious war in the country. That is my firm belief and I think it my duty to state it in this House, although on every occasion that I have spoken here. I have tried to leave the religious question out of these discussions.
The Government will not agree with me, I dare say, but they ought to know my view. I repeat that if you insist upon forcing this Bill upon my fellow countrymen in the North of Ireland, you will deliberately provoke this religious question with your eyes open. [An HON. MEMBER: "Your side are doing that."] The hon. Gentleman says my side is doing it. Certainly, he cannot accuse me of doing it. I have never done anything of the kind. I appeal to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway if I have not always kept clear of this religious question in public. But I do bring it up now, because I am certain that if the Government make this Bill law, they will wake up in this country a power, which is very strong though latent at present. Are the Government certain that they will get the officers—I say nothing about the men—to go over to Ireland to shoot down these people whose only crime is that they sing the National Anthem with the Union Jack in their hands? The hon. Member who has just sat down said that the Protestants need not be afraid of persecution, but if they went to the South and West of Ireland singing the National Anthem and carrying the Union Jack, it would soon be seen whether they would be persecuted. Why were those little children attacked? It was because they were carrying the Union Jack. It irritated the Nationalists, and that is why they were attacked, as the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well. It is certain that if the Government endeavour to send troops to Ireland it will be the smash up of the British Army. I am perfectly certain that the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as possible that he will never be

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able to enforce this Home Rule Bill, unless troops are sent. Ulstermen will come from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; indeed, from all parts of the world. I have been in all these countries, and I have had letters from them. I do not deny that some Nationalists would come also. As soon as Home Rule starts they will come. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond) in his sepech referred to Lord Grey who, he said, was in favour of Home Rule. [Hon. MEMBERS: "No."] I will read Lord Grey's letter:—
"Bet my Canadian experience also causes me to realise that the present Home Rule Bill, if persisted in, must lead to bloodshed and civil war."
Then the Noble Lord goes on to say:—
"To ask Ulstermen to consent to the handing over of the administration of their local affairs to Dublin, and to the reduction of their representation at Westminster below the measure of their equal rights, is to ask them to consent to indignities which no free men should be asked to consider, much less to accept. I confess my sympathies are heart and soul with the Ulstermen in their resistance to the Bill, and I will unhesitatingly support them in their endeavour to prevent it from becoming law."
I will ask any Member of the House of Commons, who heard the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, if it did not convey the impression that Lord Grey was entirely in favour of the Home Rule Bill? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] I thought he was until I read this letter. [An HON. MEMBER: "He said Lord Grey was not."]
Mr. DILLON: The hon. and learned Member for Waterford quoted a speech made in the House of Lords by Lord Grey.
Lord C. BERESFORD: The hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) will support me when I say, as I do now that Lord Grey is directly opposed to the Home Rule Bill. The speech of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford certainly led to the inference that Lord Grey was in favour of Home Rule. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] I would like to put another question to the House. I am an Ulster man, born and bred. My boyhood was spent in Ulster, and I have spent my life in the British service. The breath of my life has been discipline—to obey orders or to give orders. I will say this, however, that if the Government send troops over to Ireland I shall offer my services to my countrymen, even at my age, and poor though my services may be. But is not that deplorable? I say, and I honestly think, that it is deplorable that a man who has worked the whole of his life in the British service, who has been loyal to the Union
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Jack, should have to stand up in the House of Commons and say that he is prepared, knowing his responsibility, to go and be one of the first to be shot down if troops are sent to Ireland. That is not swagger. [An HON. MEMBER: "You will not get the chance."] That is what I intend to do if you send troops to Ireland. I may be wrong, but so sincerely do I feel on this question that I should carry out my determination if the Government force this law upon Ulster and send troops over to Ireland, and they could do it in no other way. I suppose it might be called a rebellion.
A rebellion is wrong, and mutiny is wrong; but a bad law makes rebellion and bad discipline makes mutiny. Some speeches have been made about the decision of the majority, but I will not pursue that point, which was clearly argued by my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London. Whatever may be the majority, you cannot make wrong right by a majority. The House is perfectly aware that the Ulstermen will fight, no matter what the majority may be in this House. You ought to have known that before you produced this Bill. It was perfectly easy to know it, because it was declared by Ulstermen, who followed up their declaration by preparations. If you make Home Rule by British cannon and British bayonets, you are certain to have bloodshed. Ulstermen believe that Home Rule is against their rights and against their liberties. They may be wrong, but that is their earnest, honest, and sincere belief. What would you hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House do if you laboured under that belief? Would you talk all those platitudes about majorities? Would you not fight if your liberties were interfered with?
The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): They would wait until they were.
Lord C. BERESFORD: Another experiment in "Wait and see." No; we will not have Home Rule, and the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that he will not be able to force Home Rule upon us without troops. A great deal has been said about alternative suggestions. We are asked, "What have you got as an alternative?". I have some alternatives. The alternative to hauling the Union Jack down is to keep it at the mast head. That is what we intend to do. The alternative to Home Rule and separation is that Ireland should continue under the same Government, the same Parliament, and

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the same Executive as England, Scotland, and Wales. What is good enough for them we think good enough for us. Another alternative, perhaps the best of all, at any rate one of the best, is to go on with land purchase, the one thing that has done more to pacify Ireland and to put an end to what was the curse of my country, Protestant domination in past days. What do you want to do? You want to put us under a Catholic Government. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Protestant domination in days past drove my fellow - countrymen out of Ireland by hundreds of thousands to America, New Zealand, and Australia, and they will never get over that hatred of the English race which is bred and born in them, and so far as those Irishmen are concerned, they will never be satisfied until Ireland is a separate nation altogether. The hon. Member knows that perfectly well.
Mr. DILLON: I do not know it, and I do not believe it.
Lord C. BERESFORD: That is very different from what I believe. If I had been a Catholic in the old days, I would have been a rebel, and I would never have any of your sham conciliations. I do not understand them.
Mr. DILLON: My father and grandfather were both rebels.
Lord C. BERESFORD: You ought to have been one too. If I had been in your place I would have been a rebel, for they were brutally treated. I tell you what I think and honestly think. I would have been a rebel. My argument now is: You may say you are not going to do it, but as sure as you have Home Rule Ireland will be under Catholic domination. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] All I say is the whole Irish question is the land and nothing but the land. The best thing done by Ireland was done by the right hon. Gentleman the late Member for Dover (Mr. Wyndham), who in all time will be remembered as the man who did more for Ireland than all the Governments, by settling the land question. What is the result of settling the land question? The Prime Minister, in his speech said, "if you do not coerce Ulster, you will have to coerce the other three provinces in Ireland." I do not agree with him, and I will tell you why. The result of settling the land question and the benefit derived, in the last twelve years particularly, is that in the last twenty years the Joint
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Stock Banks have improved by £23,000,000, the Post Office Savings Bank by £8,000,000, Irish Investments by £14,000,000, and trade by £27,000,000. That is a total of £72,000,000 that my country has improved in twenty years. That is the result of the Union on this poor down trodden country, which we hear of from the benches below the Gangway. I put most of that improvement down to land purchase, where you made the occupier the owner, where the people had credit and where they improved themselves and their country with that astounding result. "Oh," says the Prime Minister, "if you do not coerce Ulster, you must coerce the other three provinces." Do you think the other three provinces are going to rebel and run the chance of losing all that trade and improvement. Not a bit of it. You will have war, civil and religious war, if you have Home Rule, but nothing of the sort if you do not have Home Rule.
The right hon. Gentleman himself (Mr. Birrell), when he came in, as he has often been reminded, said that Ireland was composed of people that were absolutely happy, prosperous, and contented. Why was that, and how was it brought about? It was simply because of land purchase and nothing else. Why did the right hon. Gentleman stop it? Why does he not go on with it? It is all very well saying that the price of stock went up, but what is the price of stock compared with making a whole nation comfortable and happy! Let him go on with the improvement which has resulted in those astounding figures. The hon. Member below the Gangway opposite spoke of safeguards. I wonder he had the temerity to speak of them, because mostly those hon. Members there go into screams of laughter when they hear of them, as they know they are not worth the paper they are written on.
Mr. O'GRADY: I did not speak of safeguards at all. I think there is no necessity for safeguards.
Lord C. BERESFORD: The Government know they cannot pass this Bill. Why do they not go out now, instead of waiting till the last moment, which they will do, when they will then betray their Irish allies on exactly the same lines on which they are now betraying, or trying to betray, the loyalists of Ulster?
Mr. LOUGH: We have had a most interesting speech from the Noble Lord (Lord C. Beresford), and very appropriately he took as his subject the Union

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Jack. He has been in its service for fifty years, and he could not have selected a theme with greater appropriateness. The Noble Lord said that at present in some parts of Ireland you could not, or the people did not, sing the National Anthem or wave the Union Jack. The answer I give to that is the object and aim of this Bill, and one which I firmly believe it will secure, is that in every part of Ireland the Union Jack will be as popular as any Other emblem, and all the people will unite in singing the National Anthem or anything else that indicates sympathy with the general aspirations of the Empire. All we on this side, in spite of the speeches we have heard from the other side yesterday and to-day, regard this as a red-letter day in the annals of Liberalism. This is the day on which we are putting into force, at any rate, the early stages for carrying into effect the great Parliament Act which we believe to be the guardian of our rights and liberties, I might say, as Liberals. For many a long year all the high hopes of this party have been defeated, often without argument and without reason, by action taken in another place. Let no one suppose that that action was confined to great measures such as this. It was not. They often dashed the hopes of the Irish people, as they might now if the Parliament Act had not been passed, and the hopes of the people of this country. Now, in spite of what they do, if we here are able to maintain our case in argument and propose a reasonable measure of which the country approves, and I think I will be able to show both those points have been fulfilled with regard to this Bill, then it cannot be destroyed in another place.
We are living under the new order of things, and we rejoice that it should be so. We can only smile at the appeals Made by the Noble Lord, and just before his speech we had one from the new Member for Altrincham (Mr. Hamilton). I am sure the House will agree that that hon. Member in his speech gives promise that he will take an interesting part in our future Debates. Both he and the Noble Lord appealed in a most innocent way to have a General Election. I trust the Prime Minister will lend no countenance to such an appeal. We have our views as well. You cannot put the Parliament Act into effect if you continue having General Elections. We have had three General Elections in about two and a half years, and they always result the same way. They returned on each occasion a
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great majority on this side of the House. The very day after we were elected hon. Gentlemen opposite would begin again saying, "You are not acting in accordance with the opinions of the country." For an appeal of that kind there may be an excuse for the new Member for Altrincham, but I wonder that an old and hardened politician like the Noble Lord could make such an appeal without blushing. I trust nobody on the Government side will be disheartened by any trifling circumstances that may be taking place in any part of the world. The party is in excellent spirits, and is advancing to battle in this great fight in three definite wings, the Liberal party, the Labour party, and the Irish Nationalist party. All three are united at the back of the Prime Minister, and we will render him continual support in bringing this great measure and the other measures to which his Government is committed, to a successful issue by means of the Parliament Act. So I say we are very proud of what is going on at present. The machinations of the enemy in another place have been defeated, and I trust that the Bill will be safely steered into port.
Nothing really excites us in the present Debate but this question: What has taken place since we had this great Bill before us last year? Is there any evidence from any quarter that the Bill commands less support in this country or in Ireland than it did then? I think no one will say honestly that there is one spark of evidence that should shake the Prime Minister in his resolution to pass the Bill into law. The hon. Member for Altrincham said that he did not mention the Insurance Act in his address. An hon. Friend of mine behind me was down in the Division during the election, and I would venture to ask the hon. Member whether he did not mention the Insurance Act in nearly every speech he made throughout the constituency. The fact is notorious. So far as the Government may be suffering a little, and they are only suffering very little and temporarily, they are only suffering because of their good deeds. When we put through a great revolution like the Insurance Act affecting all the people who have to pay contributions, there are sure to be slight adjustments that pinch a little here and there, and when those pinches have been felt, people may cry out for the moment, but as time passes, all that will be swept away, and it will be seen that the Insurance Act, which is causing a little

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temporary stress at the moment, will redound to the credit of the Government. Any temporary failure at elections is, I believe, all due to that. At any rate one thing is certain; that the great cause of Home Rule is just as popular through every part of the United Kingdom as ever it was. We Liberals all say that. There is no question about Home Rule. It is safe and it is making better progress in the minds of the people every day. If the House wants assurance to that effect, let them consider the bad speeches made from the opposite side. Take the first speech. I came down with some expectation to hear the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City (Mr. Balfour) yesterday. He made, I think, the worst speech on Ireland he has ever made. He has made many most excellent speeches on Ireland, and carried through several excellent laws, but yesterday he fell far below his standard. He took only one point. He thought it would be best to do so. When people have a bad case they do that, and it fails them generally. He said people in Ulster will, after the Bill is passed, be taxed by this House here in which their representation will be reduced to less than half. That was his case. He said, who would stand it, and is it any wonder that Ulster would revolt. He said that if this thing were attempted in some other State we would all be appealed to to go to the assistance of that oppressed community. The whole thing arises from the right hon. Gentleman not understanding the Bill. If he knew the Financial Clauses he would see that that could not happen. The moment the Bill comes into operation, in the matter of finance a new era will open for Ireland, and an end will be put to the sad oppression of 112 years. No doubt this House will maintain the right to tax Ireland, but another authority will be set up. Every item of taxation levied in Ireland by this House will have to be put down to the credit of Ireland, and Ireland will be in a position to ask this House to account for every penny realised by Imperial taxation or by the taxation of the Parliament in Dublin.
Mr. BONAR LAW: That is not in the Bill.
Mr. LOUGH: With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, that is the Bill. An authority is to be set up which is to appraise how much every Imperial tax, as well as every Irish tax, produces, and
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accounts are to be kept. If there is over-taxation, the moment equilibrium is established between the payment of Ireland and the expenditure of Ireland there is to be a concession of extended rights with regard to taxation. If the right hon. Gentleman will read the Bill somewhat carefully and, instead of going in for so much rhetoric, study the principles of the Bill, he will find that I have given a fair account of it. Apart from the question of defeating the Bill, I think the testimony to the soundness of the principle underlying the measure given in the great debate in another place was one of the most remarkable justifications of the policy of Home Rule that we have ever had in this country. I am almost tempted to put the Noble Lord opposite (Lord C. Beresford) right in regard to Earl Grey's position by quoting Earl Grey's words. Earl Grey is a little like the Noble Lord himself, in that everything he says at one time does not absolutely agree with what he says at another. Earl Grey published in the "Times" yesterday morning a letter which the Noble Lord opposite reads and comes to the conclusion that he is going to be shot down in Ulster. I, on the other hand, read the statement of Earl Grey in the House of Lords debate, and the two things do not agree at all. This is what Earl Grey said:—
"The Unionist Party are prepared to assist in some other form of settlement which may be more safely relied on to promote the well-being of Ireland… I am in favour of such a measure of Home Rule as will give the people of Ireland power to manage their own domestic affairs."
Now the Noble Lord looks a little pale. That is what Earl Grey said in his better moments. His other statement is a little different. It wants interpretation. Earl Grey pledged himself to give to the Irish people such a measure of Home Rule as would give them complete control over their own domestic affairs. I maintain that this Bill goes no farther. That is its avowed policy. And it was not Earl Grey alone who said that. The Archbishop of York confessed himself in favour of the principle of Home Rule. His objections were founded mainly on finance. If these aspects of the Bill, the financial provisions and the proposals with regard to the Customs House, were fairly considered, if the party opposite would stick to the excellent principles stated by the Archbishop of York and Earl Grey, they would discuss this question of finance; they would say, "Smooth out this question; explain it to us," and it would be

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done. They would ask, "What about this Custom House? Is there anything terrifying in it?" We would show them that if you had a complete Customs House you would know, for instance, what quantities of arms were imported into Ireland, how much food unfit for human consumption was brought into the country just for the want of these Customs facilities, which exist in every port in Scotland, and in every other part of the civilised world. The principles put forward by various Members of the House of Lords were excellent, and when just as far as the Bill, while the small matters to which they took exception could be easily adjusted if they showed the spirit of adjustment.
The right hon. Member for Dublin University (Sir E. Carson), opened the Debate this afternoon in what I must also say was generally rather a bad speech. The points were so bad that I could not help taking them down. He said, "Take this point. We could not discuss it in the whole of the fifty-five days." On that, I say that he could have discussed anything he wished. He had only to ask it and we would have discussed it for a day or two days. But he did not ask it, and now he tries to make a fundamental point of it. What was this point? He said that the rural constituencies in the South and West, with a population of small peasant proprietors, might exercise great influence in Ireland. I suppose he meant that they might destroy the industries of Belfast. But who established these peasant proprietors? Who arranged these electoral constituencies? They are not fresh constituencies. It was done by this House. If there is any fault at all it is simply another example of the misgovernment of Ireland by this House. Take his second point. He said, "We had a great deal of trouble to get the Prime Minister to publish the evidence of the Committee on Finance, but at last they published it." Then in a tone of tragedy the right hon. Gentleman said, "We found the evidence quite different from the Report." But what has the Prime Minister done with that Report? He has thrown it aside. The Bill is not based on the Report. Therefore there was not the slightest ground for complaint in this matter. On the contrary, the very words of the right hon. Gentleman show that there was justification for the action taken by the Prime Minister, although, as far as I am personally concerned, I would have published anything I was asked for. Then there
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was the right hon. Gentleman's point about suggestions. He asked what stage there was for them. Now is the time for suggestions, and Gentlemen opposite are beginning to feel it. They feel that this policy of blank resistance will not do. It will not satisfy the constituencies. It will be treated with contempt by the Empire. Even the Noble Lord opposite said that he would make some suggestions, although I must say they did not come to very much.
Lord C. BERESFORD: Land.
Mr. LOUGH: That is only one thing.
Lord C. BERESFORD: It is the whole thing.
Mr. LOUGH: A nation cannot live by land alone. Has the Noble Lord any charge to make against Nationalists or Liberal Members of not supporting that land policy to which he attributes so much success? Who enabled Mr. Wyndham, whose death I deplore as much as any man in this House, to pass his great measure? Does the House believe that if the Liberals then in opposition had treated the then Government as the present Government is being treated by the present Opposition, that great Bill would have been passed into law? No. It was unfortunate for the Noble Lord that he mentioned that subject. I would appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite to be guided by the splendid and patriotic example set by the Liberals in 1903 of treating the Irish question from a non-party point of view.
Lord C. BERESFORD: It was not the Liberals; it was the Nationalists.
Mr. LOUGH: The Liberals helped. I was there all the time, so that I know. The present Foreign Secretary, Lord Morley, and others, made most excellent speeches—in fact, the whole Front Bench supported the policy. The truth is, so far as we are in any danger of drifting into difficulties in Ulster—of course, there will be no fighting, but as an Ulster man I would deplore that anything should be done to create hostility between Ulster and this country, to which it is so much attached; but if anything is tending in that direction, it is because hon. Members opposite, encouraged by their leaders, will not follow the example set by the Liberals from 1895 to 1905 of treating the Irish question from a non-party point of view. Do hon. Gentlemen opposite suppose that everyone on this side approved of all the details of the land purchase policy, or of

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the Grant of £800,000 a year given under the County Government Act, largely to the landlords? Great objection was taken to it, but the Liberals said that the question was serious and ought to be treated seriously, and they supported the Government all through. I say now, and I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition gives me the opportunity of saying it in his presence, that if this policy is pursued of using all the resources of the Conservative party to stimulate opposition and armed resistence—those are the words that have been used in this Debate—the right hon. Gentleman opposite will incur a heavy responsibility indeed.
7.0 P.M.
I was speaking of the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University for an opportunity to make suggestions, and that brings me to a point which I think requires great attention in the present Debate. I believe that every Member opposite, certainly those above the Gangway, were much interested in the profound appeal made yesterday by the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. W. O'Brien) that Members should approach this question from a non-party point of view and endeavour to arrive at some adjustment with the minority in Ireland. In my humble way I have been trying to bring about some progress in the same direction. No man is so much entitled to press this point upon the House as the hon. Member for Cork City. It was he who brought together feeling in Ireland to such an extent that Mr. Wyndham was able to pass his great Land Act. Therefore, in making an appeal of this kind, he has the prestige of great success. But although the hon. Member makes these appeals for peace, he does not always carry an olive-branch in his mouth. For instance, he was very hard on the Government, and very hard on hon. Gentlemen behind—the Members of the other parties in Ireland. He was even hard—and this was worst of all—on those who support the Government. He criticised three parties in the House, but what criticism, did he offer to hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway opposite? There was not a word of criticism for them. I want, however, not to take any small point in this matter. I just want to take the spirit of his appeal. He said something should be done, some offer should be made to settle this question. Who is to make the offer? I say, so far as my right hon. Friend the Prime
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Minister could make an offer, he has made it over and over again, and he repeated yesterday the offer he has made. It is the same with my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland. The Government have constantly said that within the principle of the Bill—and I think they would be willing to accept as their statement of the principle of the Bill the words used by Earl Grey in the other House—any proposal made by the other side of the House would meet with the greatest sympathy. What took place yesterday afternoon? What was said by hon. Gentlemen who represent the Nationalist party in regard to this matter? Some exception has been taken to the very interesting, eloquent, and amusing speech made by the hon. Gentleman who represents the Scotland Division of Liverpool. What is the good of taking notice of every little superlative that an Irishman may use? Let us try to understand their minds. I did not find much wrong with the speech.
At any rate, we had a calm, deliberate speech on the point from the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) last night. He used a most excellent expression with regard to it. He said something in justification of what the hon. Member for the Scotland Division had said earlier, that there had been ascendancy too long in Ireland. He said, "We want no 'top dog' under Home Rule" That is a good expression. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Waterford in his excellent speech this afternoon, which I am sure the House listened to with great interest, went further. I think he used a stronger expression of a desire to meet the Ulster minority than ever I have heard from him before, although I say it is perfectly consistent with the tone he has adopted from the commencement. What more does the hon. Member for Cork City want from the Government, or the followers of the Government, or the hon. Gentlemen who sit behind him? I say he ought to be perfectly satisfied with what they have said. It is not for the Government to make an offer. Anything of the kind would be laughed at here. The tone has been pitched so high by hon. Members opposite and hon. Members on the Front Opposition Bench that the Government would only expose themselves to humiliation if they made any definite offer. We have heard the hon. Member opposite, and we remember that during the House of Lords debates it was said they would be glad to have the Councils Bill. When

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the Councils Bill was before us, what did they say? They would not have it at any price. If the Government, or the hon. Member for Waterford made any offer at the present stage, I believe they would only be treated with contempt by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I am not one who can properly make an offer, but I second the earnest appeal that has been made by the hon. Member for Cork City.
This is a matter which ought to be settled by adjustment. There cannot be adjustment if the principle is not accepted by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and if their responsible leaders will not ask for something that would satisfy them and enable them to close up the long contest. In the next place, a very remarkable result this afternoon followed the speech of the hon. Member for Cork City. I notice, after all the strong language, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University used, he came down to this: He came down to deal with the speech of the hon. Member for Cork City. He took a general exception to us doing this or that. His words were—so I understood him—"We are quite prepared to accept a system of local government." We have heard of a system of local government that hon. Gentlemen opposite are willing to accept. I remember the right hon. Gentleman referred to it once before in a speech. He said: If once the Protestants of Ulster are persuaded to come in it is no small Home Rule Bill we will want, but a big Home Rule Bill. They would not, he said, ask for a petty Bill; they would ask for full powers such as had been obtained in the other Dominions. Why, then, cannot he come here and say what adjustment in the Irish House of Commons or the House of Lords will satisfy Ulster? I say the responsibility rests with hon. Gentlemen opposite. The Government, and especially the Prime Minister, has been holding out his hand to them all through these long Debates. They have been met fairly by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford. If we are to arrive at a peaceful solution of this difficulty, on which alone I believe the peace, prosperity, and future development of Ireland depends, hon. Members opposite must take a very different tone to that taken throughout these Debates.
Mr. RONALD M'NEILL: There is one point which has emerged in the several speeches which have been made in support of this Bill in this Debate which appears
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to me to reveal a fundamental misunderstanding as to the attitude which we on this side of the House take up. It appeared strongly in the speech of the hon. Member for Waterford, in that of the hon. Member for Leeds, and also in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. These supporters of the Bill have urged that the threatened resistance of Ulster, and what they call the irreconcilable attitude of the Unionist party towards this Bill, is crying out before we are hurt. They said time after time, wait and see whether, in point of fact, when the Parliament is established in Dublin it attacks your civil liberty, your economic rights, your religious privileges, and so forth. We time after time in the Debates of last Session pointed out innumerable ways in which we believe that this legislation might inure to the disadvantage of the people of Ulster in all these respects. But deeper than that, and behind all that, lies this fact. The hon. Member for Leeds says: "Wait till you are attacked." The establishment of a Parliament in Dublin is in itself an attack. The establishment of a Parliament in Dublin is itself, independently of what it may do, the taking away from the people of Ulster rights which they at the present time possess. It is, to begin with, the transference of their allegiance. It is the degradation of their position from being part and parcel of the United Kingdom, or at any rate in the fullest sense, part and parcel of the United Kingdom, to being a province. It is that degradation of their position which they resent and which they will not allow to be perpetrated if they can help it; altogether independent of what may or may not be done in the way of specific legislation to their disadvantage by this Parliament after it is established.
I should like to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down upon the admirable way in which he has thrown himself into the fun of the entertainment in which we are engaged, an entertainment which my right hon. Friend, the Member for Dublin University, this afternoon so well described as a pantomime, this entertainment which has been provided for the House and for the country by the Prime Minister. We are all invited to suppose that we are engaged in the practical work of legislation. I hope in the very few observations I shall offer to do my best to support that illusion. The stage manager who usually sits here

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below the Gangway, has told us himself, and someone else has mentioned to-day, that we were to be engaged in an automatic process; in other words the hon. Member, like Snug the joiner, blurted out the truth and so spoiled the illusion before the Play began. Surely it would be impossible for any Person more accurately to describe the proceedings in which we are engaged, than to say that it is an automatic process. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford, by voting for the Budget in the first instance, and by other previous transactions, puts his penny in the slot. Then the Prime Minister, when the time comes pulls the lever, and the prize-packet emerges labelled, "As supplied to the House of Commons." So we are invited to continue the play. Under such conditions as that, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and others who have succeeded so admirably in keeping up the illusion. For my part, I think any attempt to enter upon examination or discussion of the merits or demerits of this actual proposal, which forms the programme of the performance, certainly requires a genius for comedy to which I can lay no claim. Therefore I shall only direct myself to one or two surrounding circumstances. The first of those surrounding circumstances is concerned with the actual working of the automatic machine which the Prime Minister has set up. I expect that the results which this machine is turning out are not very different from what the Prime Minister both hoped and expected when he devised it. They are wholly different from what he told us they would be! The Prime Minister in devising this machine took out his patent, but the patent was on a false specification. The specification, to begin with, set forth for us that all important legislation which was to pass through this machine would have the advantage of securing for itself deliberation, revision, and delay. These are the words the Prime Minister used:—
"The delay of three Sessions, when the suspensory veto of the House of Lords interposed, precludes the possibility of convertly or arbitrarily smuggling into law measures which are condemned by popular opinion, and will at the same time secure an ample opportunity for reconsideration and revision to hasty or slovenly legislation."
I want to know in the fulfilment of that promise where is the opportunity which we are to have for reconsideration and for revision? So far as reconsideration is concerned, I quite agree we are to be
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allowed any amount of reconsideration, always subject to this proviso, that our reconsideration leads to the old conclusion which is agreeable to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Waterford. It rather reminds me of the story of the man who asked his friend to name a drink. He replied: "I think I can take a little champagne." The friend who made the offer replied: "Think again, but think beer." In exactly the same way we are told that we may think any amount of reconsideration, but we have to again think the Bill. If we do not think the Bill, we are not allowed to think at all. As for the revision, what is meant by revision in the specification of the Prime Minister? Revision in this instance means revision which shall confirm the verbal inspiration of the authorised version. Real revision which may lead to amendment is called mutilation by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Then there was another advantage which was held out to us in the specification of the machine in these words used by the Prime Minister. He said:—
"Lastly, and this is as certain as the daylight, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the new House of Commons could, and would, reverse legislation which had been shown by the General Election to be opposed to the will of the mass of the people."
Is that really a course which the Prime Minister deliberately recommends to this House and to the country as a proper procedure under the Parliament Act as the machinery which he has set up? Does the Prime Minister really hold that it would be a wholesome constitutional process, instead of finding out for certain beforehand that his legislative proposals have the support of the electorate of this country, to bring in a Bill like this, which is exciting in Ireland exultation on the one hand and deep resentment on the other, and to force that Bill through, and then expect his political opponents by reversing the process to turn exultation into anger, as we have been told to-night would be the result, and anger into exultation, and thus to inflame both passions in the people at a time when public opinion is sufficiently inflammable? Is that really a course which the Prime Minister thinks ought to become the future model for legislative action in this country? I quite agree that in such procedure as that which the Prime Minister invites, he may throw very considerable difficulty on to the lap of his political opponents. It may be an extremely astute party move, but is it statesmanship? Is it worthy of one of the Leaders

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of the nation? Is it even consistent with the elementary duty of a responsible adviser of the Crown? I have no hesitation in saying it is neither one nor the other, but nevertheless it is the course, if language means anything, which the Prime Minister has deliberately indicated to the country as that which he recommends in the case of a Bill which is not endorsed by the opinion of the country at a subsequent General Election. I cannot imagine why the Prime Minister propounds such a doctrine as that unless he anticipates that there may be a case to which it would apply. Did the Prime Minister find it impossible even to conceive the possibility of measures carried under this Parliament Act being disapproved by the nation at the next General Election? It is perfectly true he gave us quite another assurance which I think was referred to in the course of the Debate, and which it is not very easy to reconcile with that which I have just commented upon, because the Prime Minister said that—
"unless Bills carried under the Parliament Act were backed by stable and consistent public opinion in the constituencies through three Sessions, it will be impossible to carry them into law."
I wonder if the Prime Minister, when he used these words, had any clear, definite meaning in his own mind at all? By what means can stable and consistent public opinion make itself known or felt except by by-elections? Does the Prime Minister propose—I need hardly ask the question after the amazing speech he made yesterday—but I was going to ask, Does the Prime Minister mean for a moment that he has got for this particular Bill and for his policy any such general, consistent, and stable authority in the recent by-elections? I must say I think the passage in the Prime Minister's speech dealing with the by-elections yesterday was the most amazing example of sophistry to which the House could have listened, and I am not going to attempt to follow him in the exercise of higher mathematics, but I will mention one fact that blows all his calculations out of the water. The Prime Minister, when giving these elaborate calculations, informed the House that the by-elections since the Bill was brought in showed a majority of 15,000 in favour of Home Rule. He was most careful not to tell the House that these same elections at the General Election showed a majority of over 30,000 for Home Rule, and that, consequently, the net result, so far as actual numbers is concerned, is that the
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by-elections have shown a decrease of exactly 50 per cent. in support of this policy of Home Rule. I am perfectly well aware that hon. Gentlemen opposite hug the idea that it was not this particular proposal of the Government, but one of the other principal measures of the Government which the country so utterly detested.
With absolute callousness to the feelings of the unfortunate Chancellor of the Exchequer they attribute all their misfortunes to the Insurance Act. Well, I think, it would not be at all difficult to prove out of their own mouths that that is a very false, or at any rate a very partial account of the matter. But supposing it to be true, supposing it is true that the by-elections have been fought and won, so far as they have been won by this side, and that the great difficulty for the Government in every election is to be attributed to the Insurance Act, does that help Home Rule? Why did not Liberal candidates when they went down to the constituencies say, "Oh do not pay so much attention to this Insurance Act; whether it is good or bad we can tinker at that later on, but for goodness sake remember the glorious Home Rule Bill. Remember this measure which is going to put an end for us for ever to all the troubles of the Irish question, which is going to bring peace and contentment to Ireland, and which is going to relieve from oppression the tender and long-suffering lambs led by the hon. Member for West Belfast and some of his friends." Why did they not say that; or, did they say that? If such appeals as that were not made, or were made to deaf cars, in either case it seems to me perfectly idle for hon. and right hon. Gentlemen now to say that these elections have shown that positive support, that stable and consistent support, for this particular measure which the Prime Minister postulated in July. In point of fact such an appeal as I have mentioned was made at the last two by-elections. Take the election at Newmarket first. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dublin University has spoken to-day of the telegram which was sent to Dublin by an hon. Member who usually sits below the Gangway. Now the Prime Minister made great play yesterday of the fact that the rural voters in Cambridgeshire could not be got to take sufficient interest in the Home Rule question, and that they were the despair of two ladies who came from Ulster, and his words were greeted with

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laughter and cheers. My right hon. Friend to-day pointed out the telegram which was sent by the hon. Member for Meath and which was:—
"Home Rule workers detained Newmarket, fighting imported Tories from Ireland, send greetings; another victory is in sight."
The hon. Member is, I am sure, far too honest a man to have sent a telegram like that prepared in advance to claim a victory which he saw in sight for Home Rule unless he knew that that had been, if not the only issue, at all events a very prominent issue, in a contest in which he himself was engaged, and as I myself was one of the imported Tories from Ireland, whom the hon. Member honoured by staying away from the meeting in Dublin, to fight, I am sure if he will not quarrel with me for claiming for the Union a victory which we had not only in sight, but in hand.
At Altrincham the case was still stronger. There there were Liberal Members deliberately making the first issue in that fight, not merely the general question of Home Rule, but the specific question as to whether Ulster would be morally justified in resisting, if necessary, by force of arms, the establishment of Home Rule under this Bill. Not only that, but a Member of the Government went down there to emphasise this issue. The Lord Advocate, a bird of ill omen to his party, and a sure harbinger of disaster, went down to impress upon the electors of that Division, that it would be "a great discouragement and disappointment to the Prime Minister and his colleagues if Altrincham failed to support them at this critical stage." Why this critical stage? The critical stage, of course, was because we were in the middle of that period during which the Prime Minister declared he must have the stable and consistent support. Lest there should be any doubt as to what his meaning was, the Lord Advocate told them this:—
"He was there that night as the representative of His Majesty's Government, and he gave them an absolute assurance that if they could point out anything in the Home Rule Bill that was unjust or would inflict any hardship on any man, woman or child, in Antrim or Armagh, Down or Derry, that provision would be struck out."
The electors of Altrincham attached precisely the same value that we do to the absolute assurance of the Lord Advocate, but I am quite certain that his insincerity, to use a very mild term, could not have been so patent to them as it is to us, because, as the Lord Advocate very
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well knew himself, you could not strike any provision out of this Bill without destroying the automatic process over which the hon. Member for Waterford keeps guard. In the face of facts such as these, it passes my comprehension how any man who retains the smallest regard for straightforward dealing, can get up in this House and pretend in the face of the country that this measure has that stable and consistent support which the Prime Minister requires. We, at all events, have the satisfaction of knowing that the latest great constituency in England to be consulted upon this question has pronounced not only a most emphatic condemnation of this Bill, but an equally emphatic approval of the attitude of Ulster. Now, so far as the attitude of Ulster is concerned, I need hardly say that since we last discussed this proposal last Session, the attitude of Ulster has undergone no change whatever, unless it be to harden somewhat the intensity of their opposition. Surely it is reasonable for us to ask, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University has asked, how the Government propose to deal with this opposition. I wish to acknowledge that the Chief Secretary has, so far as I am aware, from first to last, treated this matter of the attitude of Ulster with a gravity and seriousness which is gratifying to us, and which we are glad to acknowledge. Since we last discussed this matter the right hon. Gentleman has himself used words which are very significant. Speaking at Newcastle, on the 8th February last, the Chief Secretary for Ireland said:—
"He recognised that there were tens of thousands of Protestants in the East of Ulster who had the utmost aversion to being subject to an Irish parliament and Executive. He admitted that this aversion had got to be conquered in some way or another, and that justice had to be done to those people."
I am perfectly certain the right hon. Gentleman used those words with sincerity and intended to carry them out, but I would like to ask him, how does he propose to conquer the aversion of those people to being subject to a Parliament and Executive in Ireland? How does he propose to do justice to those people because that is one of the things which he says must be done. Is he going to adopt the advice of the Lord Advocate, and conquer their aversion by shooting them and hanging them? Is that how he is going to conquer their aversion? If the right hon. Gentleman tries that, all I can say is that the only result he will find will be that those who ultimately survive his

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butchery will be more unconquerable than ever. I am not vain enough to imagine that so illustrious a personage as the Chief Secretary for Ireland is going to attach the slightest value to any words from so insignificant an individual as myself, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman—and I think I know the Protestants probably as intimately as any Member of this House knows any section of his fellow countrymen—that neither the bullying methods of the Lord Advocate, nor all the volumes that the Chief Secretary can produce—[Cheers.]—I have no objection to adopting what is suggested by the cheers of hon. Members opposite, and I will say that not all the books which the Chief Secretary can throw, or all the volumes he may produce of fascinating obiter dicta will have the smallest result in conquering the aversion of these people. How does the right hon. Gentleman propose to do justice to those people and conquer their aversion? In the debates we had last Session upon this matter a great deal was said about two Irelands or the two nations we have in Ireland. This notion of two Irelands was ridiculed by the right hon. Gentleman and by many hon. Members below the Gangway. I remember the hon. Member for Galway was good enough to single me out as an example of one whom he would find it difficult to place as between the two Irelands. I gladly acknowledge that in a great many matters all Irishmen are at one. I was exceedingly sorry to hear something that fell from the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), when he quoted from a very old letter written years and years ago by Lord Wolseley, in which he spoke of the people of the North of Ireland as regarding their fellow countrymen of the South with hatred and contempt.
Mr. DILLON: Why did I quote it? Simply because it was quoted by the "Irish Times," with full approval, within the last two years.
Mr. R. M'NEILL: I disagreed with it then, and I profoundly disagree with it now, and considering that the hon. Member for East Mayo quoted last night a speech made recently in Belfast by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University, I think, at all events, it would have tended more to that spirit of conciliation which he professes to desire, if he had gone on to quote from my right hon. Friend's speech in Belfast, rather than from a twenty-year-old letter written by Lord Wolseley. My right hon. Friend
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said in that speech that we had no sort of animosity or feeling against any individual Irishman, and that he was, as far as that was concerned, entirely animated by good will towards them all. That is a point of view which I take up, and I ask hon. Members below the Gangway to believe me when I say that I am as sincerely and passionately attached to Ireland as the hon. Member for Galway or any one of his Friends. I share their love for Ireland's soil, for her scenery, her people, her history, her poetry, and her romance. I am as touched as any one of them by the wistfulness of those "old unhappy far-off things, and battles long ago," which imparts a tint of tender colouring to her story. In all these respects Irishmen are at one but if an irreconcilable antagonism in regard to matters of citizenship, of allegiance, and of Government constitutes two Irelands; if our unalterable conviction that the policy of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford is making for the destruction of all that we believe to be prosperous and progressive and enlightened and of happy augury for our country in future, constitutes two Irelands; if the deep and age-long conflict between the rival ideas of authority and liberty as the basis of religious belief constitutes two Irelands, then indeed two Irelands there most assuredly are. For myself I would only say that if I opposed this Bill on no other ground, I should oppose it to the utmost of my poor ability because I believe it will bring to England not what some hon. Gentlemen opposite fondly and, I have no doubt, sincerely believe, a relief from political difficulties, but rather an increased intensity of embarrassment, and it will bring to Ireland not peace, but, a sword, and a sword that will be red before it returns to, the scabbard.
Mr. D. C. HOGG: I am loth to intervene in this Debate, but I am tempted to do so by the remarks which have fallen from the last speaker, in which he referred to the Lord Advocate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."] I had the pleasure of having the Lord Advocate in Londonderry at the last contested election in Ireland, and I attribute a great deal of the success of that election to the speech which the right hon. Gentleman then made. The election took place in a small constituency, where the people had been in the habit of following the lead of the Duke of Abercorn, who was intensely popular in that district, and who was held in great respect; but in spite of all that I was successful,

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and we turned a minority into a majority in our favour. I never canvassed one of the electors. I issued my address straight and clear, declaring that I was a Liberal, and that I was in favour of Home Rule for Ireland. I left my address to speak for itself. I think we have never had a contest in Ireland where there was less canvassing, and we never had the finish up of a contest in Londonderry which was more satisfactory as regards the conduct of the public, which was a very grateful thing to me as the successful candidate. Hon. Members have spoken of religious persecution, but I see no reason for it at all. There has been some talk of boycotting, but I have lived for sixty years in Ireland, and I have gone through the lanes and visited the houses of the people in the city I represent when policemen dare not do it. I have been among the people and dwelt among the Catholics in times of excitement, and I have visited them as a magistrate to try and calm them and induce them to obey the law. If the law we are discussing is passed, I think it will be the duty of the leaders of society in Ireland, who are better educated, to try and induce those who are not so well educated to obey the law, except when it comes to any infringement upon their consciences, and if ever that comes about in my time, I shall be on their side.
Major MORRISON-BELL: The House has just listened, and I am sure with great pleasure, to a speech from the hon. Member who represents Londonderry. He fought and won an election at a very important time to the Government, and I am quite certain that his personality which endeared him to Londonderry will have the same mark on the House itself. He represents, I believe, the majority in the representation of Ulster in this House, and, as that fact has been alluded to by the Prime Minister, I should like to examine the figures on which the right hon. Gentleman based his case. The Prime Minister relied on two different sets of figures. He told the House that since the Bill was introduced, the representation of Ulster had been transformed, and that Ulster now sent a majority to this House in favour of Home Rule. He also informed the House that the Home Rule Bill had been passed by successive majorities which averaged something over 100. I believe it is a fact that the Coalition can now command seventeen votes from Ulster against sixteen for the Union, but the
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Prime Minister neglected to inform the House that the representation of Ulster in this House on which he is relying, does not in the least correspond with the support that he has in Ulster itself. Is he aware that there are rather over 2,000 more electors represented by every Unionist Member than are represented by those who support the policy of separation, which probably means that on the average there is 11,000 more population represented by every Member who supports the Union in this House than that which is represented by the seventeen Members who support the right hon. Gentleman on the Home Rule Bill. You have constituencies of 19,000 like that of East Belfast against constituencies of 1,700 like that of Newry. Therefore, though hon. Members can make the small pettifogging point that they have a majority from Ulster in the Division Lobby, they have in the country very little support indeed in comparison.
The Prime Minister and the Government are relying on the majority they have for the Bill in the House of Commons, but that is not going to carry them through the difficulty into which they are inevitably going to get when they try to put this Bill into operation, for the support they can get in the Lobby is in no degree comparable to the support they will get in the country outside. That will be their difficulty. If they had the moral support of the country, if they had the country behind them, they could afford to laugh at threats of resistance, but there is danger to the Liberal party in carrying this Bill because they lack that support, though apparently they think they are able to point to it in this House. The Prime Minister has referred to the support that this Bill has received, and he has said that if you knock out the Irish Members there is still a majority in Great Britain for Home Rule. I suppose it will be accepted by this House that the question of Home Rule is as important to England as it is to Ireland. The separation of the United Kingdom is just as big a question to England as it is to Ireland, and you cannot deny, because your own Government return proves it, that on this question the vote of every elector in Ireland is worth twice the vote of every elector in England. Ireland is not more interested in this question than England. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), who tried to persuade this House that Canada supports this measure, asked, "What has it got to do

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With England, anyhow?" There is one very good reason I can give. England has got to pay for it. England has got to finance this reckless experiment, besides taking many other great risks. Therefore, it is just as important a question to England as it is to Ireland, and I say that the voice of England in the Lobbies should have the same power as the voice of Ireland. The hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) yesterday said:—
"We go for equality."
And again, later on, he said:—
"There must be equality in Ireland, and no top dog."
Would he assent to equality here as between England and Ireland in the Division Lobby, or must he to pass this Bill have the privileged position which hon. Members from Ireland claim in the Division Lobby at the present time? There is no argument against putting England and Ireland on an equality on this question, except one which the Irish Members sometimes use, but which I hope no English Member will use, for the credit of his sense of humour. They quote the Act of Union to keep these seats when that is the only possibility of smashing the Act of Union. It takes an Irishman to use that argument. I shall not do the Liberal party any injustice if I say that they claim in the country that they have a mandate for the Home Rule Bill. They say, and I do not deny it, that the country gave them a majority for the Parliament Act, and they say that as they got support for the Parliament Act they are entitled to pass Home Rule and to drive Ulster out of the Union. There is in this House what is called a consequential Amendment. When we have passed one Amendment a consequential Amendment arises out of it, and the argument of the Liberal party is that the Home Rule measures is a consequential Amendment on the Parliament Act. I say that the Liberal pjarty make the greatest mistake they have ever made if they think that goes down in the country, whatever it does in this House. The Home Rule Bill was not the issue before the country at the last election. The election was won on a mixture of issues: "Peers versus the People," and "The Food Taxes." That is no mandate for the Home Rule Bill. That is the chief mistake they make. They think that they can pass this Bill on such a very flimsy pretext against the opposition of Ulster, backed up very rightly by the whole of the Unionist party. When the Prime Minister goes to Ulster and tries to drive Ulster out from the protection of
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this Parliament, he will have to give a better warrant than to say that he has got a mandate merely consequential on the support he received for the Parliament Act. The hon. Member for East Mayo said that Canada is in favour of this policy. Canada has frequently, but not latterly, passed a Home Rule Resolution through the House of Commons at Ottawa. It was generally done on the motion of the Honourable John Costigan. I would ask the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, who sends a weekly letter to Canada on what is going on here, if he can get a Home Rule Resolution passed through the House of Commons at Ottawa to-day or even introduced? I challenge the hon. Member to try and put through the present Parliament in Ottawa a Resolution in favour of Home Rule for Ireland.
Mr. DEVLIN: Will you agree to Home Rule if we get it passed?
Major MORRISON-BELL: I will agree to this. I will be only too willing if he can get a Home Rule Resolution passed through the Ottawa House of Commons to-day, or within the next three months—well, I will give him this year—to allow the hon. Member to order the best dinner he can for the whole of his party at my expense. He knows perfectly well that they will not touch a Home Rule Resolution. It would never go through. If the hon. Member thinks so, let him try and persuade his friends to put it through. It would have a very great effect on this House. There is not the least doubt that the case had never been put before Canada until last year. It has hitherto always gone by default. I was in Canada last year with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division (Mr. Long).
Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: And so was I.
Mr. DEVLIN: And I.
8.0 P.M.
Major MORRISON-BELL: Yes, I had the honour of crossing on the same boat with the hon. Gentleman. Gentlemen came up to my right hon. Friend, and said, "Do you mean to say that this Home Rule Bill sets up a Post Office and a Customs House in Ireland? It is incredible. We do not believe it." They never had the case put before them before my right hon. Friend explained it, and he did not do it because he wanted to do so, but because they insisted on it. They would hear about nothing else. It was

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incredible to these men that we in the British House of Commons were proposing to set up a new Post Office and Customs House in Ireland, and when in my humble way, tried to put it before them that we were doing it with every Irish vote counting twice to every English vote, they at once said, "Why do not you take the democratic view and put everybody on an equality," because, as hon. Members know, out there, there is equality between the provinces. I take leave to say that a great deal of this question is a Parliamentary one. The fact that the Nationalist Members have this great block of votes, not only counts in the Lobby but has a moral effect on the Liberal party. It has a double effect. It blesses him who gives, and him who receives. It not only counts, but it forces the Liberal party, because we all know they are never so keen about Home Rule when they have an independent majority. When there is of necessity that large block of Irish votes it reacts on the Liberal party in more than one way. I do not feel that this question can ever be settled on the lines proposed while England is so handicapped as against Ireland. The first thing to be done is to put on an equality the English and the Irish votes in this House, then the matter can be fought out on its merits, and it will not have to be decided by a very clever Parliamentary manœuvre. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench opposite to give this question his earnest consideration. Why on this Home Rule question should the Irish vote count twice as much as the English vote? How, too, on earth can you justify the Irish vote counting twice as much as the English vote on the question of despoiling the Welsh Church? Even if such a disparity be right in regard to the Home Rule question it certainly cannot be right in regard to the Welsh Church question. Yet these two questions hang together. If Home Rule is defeated the Welsh Bill must go. If the Welsh Bill is defeated Home Rule goes. That is the policy of the party opposite. It is a clever policy but it has a danger that that party must face. I invite hon. Members from Ireland who are to tour the country next week to explain to English audiences if they can why their vote is to count twice as much as the votes of Englishmen in the Lobby of his House. I believe the country is getting more interested in the question of the value of votes
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than in the details of the Bill, and when once the electorate begins to realise that the Irish vote has twice the value of the English vote in the Lobby of the House of Commons the supporters of the Government will be getting very near their end. Many questions in the country do not go down because they are too complicated, but here we have a very simple issue, and if once the electorate realises the true state of affairs the Liberals will have great difficulty in explaining to English audiences why the Irish vote has the greater value.
Mr. DEVLIN: Is the hon. and gallant Member in order in discussing the Plural Voting Bill?
Major MORRISON-BELL: I am discussing the effect of the Irish vote in the Lobby of the House of Commons, and I have never been backward in declaring that everybody should be on an equality in this House. I should have no difficulty in supporting the Plural Voting Bill if, first, everybody were put on an equality. That ought to be done, and we ought to have a General Election. All I ask for is strict equality and nothing more, and let the best policy win. But until we get equality in voting power, I think Ulster will be perfectly right in fighting against this Bill. I can only repeat that I think the right solution of this problem is first to put everybody on an equality and then to have an election on this question of Home Rule.
Sir WILFRID LAWSON: I remember that many years ago, in the course of a Home Rule Debate of this House, one of the speakers said he had two very good reasons for knowing a great deal about Ireland. The first was that he had never been there, and the second was that he once met a commercial traveller who told him a great deal about it. I do not know whether my qualifications for making a few remarks this evening are greater or less than that speaker's. But I should like, in the few words with which I will trouble the House, to give a few of my reasons for supporting the measure we are now discussing. What is the present position in respect to it? Last Session we spent a considerable amount of time in discussing this Home Rule Bill in its different stages, on the First Reading and the Second Reading. I think we spent forty days and forty nights, too, in the wilderness of Committee, while also discussing it on the Report stage. As a humble private Member, whose business here is generally to exer-

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cise his feet rather than his brains, I think that that sort of thing is getting too dangerously near to what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London might describe as an intolerable strain. It seems that we are beginning the whole process over again. It reminds me of a man I have heard of who read a verse in the Pralms which says, "We bring our years to an end as a tale that is told." He said that could not be a correct statement because a tale that is told never comes to an end; it is always told over and over again.
Of course, I know that this is a great constitutional question which requires all the care and attention which parliament—which is generally supposed to be a deliberative body, although I am not sure it would not more properly be called a deliberate assembly—it requires all the care and attention that Parliament can give it. But the question of the government of Ireland has been discussed in this House for the last thirty years, and I hope I will not be considered unduly precipitate if I say it is about time that we came to a settlement. What is the settlement that is proposed in this Bill? It seems to me that nothing can be more simple, more reasonable, more equitable, or more in accordance with the dictates of self-interest and common sense. I know that some people contend that the question has changed since the days when it was formerly before this House. So it has. It has changed in respect to its details, in view of what has happened through the passage of the Land Act in Ireland, and so forth; but however you look at it, whether you look at it with a modern eye or through green spectacles, or in any other way, the principle remains the same. It was Napoleon who said, "You can do anything with bayonets except sit upon them." And so it is with nationalities. You can do anything with them except extinguish them. An advocate of temperance was once asked why he was so strenuous in his support of it. He said he had seven reasons for it, and when invited to explain, he said he had a wife and six children.
If I were asked why I give my humble support to this measure I would reply that I have eighty odd good reasons sitting in a solid, good-looking phalanx on the benches opposite—I notice they do not all sit there at the present moment. Why are these Gentlemen here? They do not come here as the Members of another place were once described by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for
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Ireland, when he stated that the Members of the Upper Chamber represented no one but themselves, and that they enjoyed the perfect confidence of their constituents. It is quite different with the party opposite. They come here in a different way. They come here representing large and important constituencies in Ireland. They have the force of public opinion in that country behind them. They know what they want. What is it they do want? It is nothing more than the simple elementary right or liberty and self-government; a right which is, or ought to be, the very corner stone of the greatness of this country and of this Empire, on which its true stability and power for good depends, and which the Irish are as much entitled as any other of His Majesty's subjects to enjoy. Who are we that we should resist in any way that demand? We were told at one time—and I am happy to think that those times are gone—that Irishmen are not as other men. I know we had a saying in my part of the, world that there are good and bad of all sorts and worse of Irish. But I am glad to think that the days have gone when it could be said, as a great statesman now dead once said, "You do not give self-government to the Hottentots." We have come now to look at this question with a more humane, a more generous, and a more modern eye. We cannot say that again. What have we done? By the exercise of a wise, far-seeing and beneficent act of legislation we have extended self-government to South Africa. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London said at the time that that was an insane experiment, just as those who oppose Home Rule to-day say it is an insane experiment. But it has not proved so in South Africa. On the contrary, it has proved itself to be nothing but an added strength and glory to this Empire. Like causes should produce like effects in the Island of the sister nation of Ireland.
Why is it that this Bill is being opposed? I come here and I hear right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite trotting out day by day and night by night the old misgivings, the old fears and the old bogeys about this question which have been their stock-in-trade for years. They have a perfect aviary of scare-crows, or, to put it better, I might call it a stable full of nightmares, which they trot out to make our blood run cold. They have been very useful animals in their day for hon. Gentlemen opposite, but, if it is not an unparliamentary expression, I should say

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that at the present moment they are "crocks," and the sooner they are taken out of training and put to grass the better it will be, although I have no doubt that hon. Gentlemen opposite will go on using them to the end of the chapter. What are they? We have heard of them over and over again. There is the old bogey that there would be religious intolerance under Home Rule. Surely one ought to have got rid of that idea by this time of day! I think some hon. Gentlemen opposite have done so already. I think the hon. Member for the Honiton Division (Major Morrison-Bell) has done so to a large extent from what he said to-night. The hon. Member for Chertsey (Mr. Macmaster), too, said in the course of our Debates in Committee upon this Bill that he, for one, was heartily sick of the talk about the two religions in Ireland. He said that in the course of his experience at the Bar he always found he got just as good law from Catholics as he did from Protestants. If you get as good administration of law from Catholics as from Protestants, you ought to be able to get as good legislation from Catholics as from Protestants. I have never observed in the case of hon. Members of this House, Irish Members, whether they are Catholics or Protestants, a propensity for flying at one another's throats here, but very much the contrary. Even if it were so over here or in Ireland, I wonder who else has an equal right to do that than themselves? I do not believe that they believe, although it sometimes seems to be the case in Ireland, that there are what might be called sermons in stones. If they think that the only way—
"To prove their doctrines orthodox"
is by—
"Apostolic blows and knocks,"
all I can say is so much the worse, not only for their politics, but for their religion. Personally, I am prepared to trust the Irish people to the full to exercise their newly acquired powers sanely, wisely, fairly, and well as responsible citizens, and not as children. Therefore, I dismiss all this; talk of religious intolerance as being, in Lord Morley's phrase—
"a phantom got up for the benefit of the eccentric religionist."
Then we have all this continued talk about the possibility of civil war in Ireland. It is one thing for anyone like myself to get up and offer a few remarks in this House, being perfectly sure, as I am, that scarcely anybody inside or out of it pays the
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slightest attention to or cares for what I say, but it is quite another thing when prominent statesmen, as I have heard them do, talk of civil war in Ireland as if it were almost an accomplished fact. I think they are incurring a very grave responsibility, a responsibility which I, for one, should be very sorry to share with them. However that may be, you cannot argue with a prophet, even if he is a statesman. You can only disbelieve him. I say let us brush aside these unworthy suspicions; let us judge the Irish as we ourselves would wish to be judged, and not always look upon them and think of them as likely to be actuated by the worst of motives, but rather by the best. I have never looked upon the Irish people, in the famous phrase of Mr. Gladstone, as—
"having a double dose of original sin."
But when I think of the steadfastness with which the Nationalist party, through good and evil report, have followed a noble ideal through years of toil and misfortune, I think they have certainly been endowed with a double dose of original patience. Perhaps the House will forgive me if I end with a personal allusion. I happen, Sir, to be the son of one—
Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: One of the best friends Ireland ever had.
Sir WILFRID LAWSON: One of the first English Members of Parliament, now a dwindling band, who, when days were dark and friends were few, gave his vote for Home Rule when it was first brought forward in this House. From my point of view I am proud of that. Partly I suppose because of it and partly because I have always been convinced of its inherent justice, I have from time to time, as opportunity offered, tried to give to this cause my humble support, and now, when the daylight is dawning, it gives me unbounded pleasure and satisfaction to be able to give my vote for a measure in the justice, the wisdom and the safety of which both for Ireland and Great Britain I believe with all my heart.
Sir JOHN SPEAR: The hon. Baronet has used as an argument in favour of Home Rule the success of self-government in South Africa. There is no analogy whatever between the two cases. The people of South Africa never had representation in this House. The Irish have had representation, and we have gone on in partnership—a partnership which I, for one, hope will never be dissolved. Further,

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self-government in South Africa was a consolidating principle, but the proposal for Home Rule for Ireland is a disintegrating principle. Therefore, there is no logical argument to support Home Rule in what has occurred in South Africa. I notice that the hon. Baronet spoke of his having been a Home Ruler from the commencement, and with his thorough sincerity of purpose he takes credit to himself for having taken up that position. I have been, in my very humble capacity, an opponent of Home Rule since 1886. I was a Member of the Liberal party at that time, and I was convinced that Home Rule would be injurious to us, and what has happened since has confirmed me in that opinion. Our Irish friends were as sanguine then that if Home Rule was granted it would be a good thing for Ireland, but if Home Rule had been granted in 1886 we should have had no land purchase scheme, which has been a regenerating power in Ireland, neither should we have had old age pensions for Ireland; and therefore, as one who does not yield to my hon. Friend opposite in appreciation of the Irish people, and in a desire to promote the welfare of Ireland, I say it would have been disastrous to Ireland if Home Rule had been granted in 1886. Those great reforms which have since been passed, and have been made possible by the help and co-operation of Nationalist Members, could never have been passed, because Ireland under Home Rule would not have had the financial credit to enable her to initiate a great scheme of land purchase, such as was carried into effect by the co-operation and the financial credit of the United Kingdom. I shall vote against the Bill simply because I am of opinion that Ireland will progress more completely and more thoroughly under a united Parliament at Westminster than could possibly be the case under a Home Rule Parliament in Dublin.
Last autumn, being very anxious to study the Irish question on the spot, I visited Ireland, and I was delighted to see the signs of prosperity all over the country The effect of land purchase is apparent at every turn, and one objection I have against this Bill is that I fail to see how land purchase can be completed except under a united Parliament. But in addition to the great and good effect of land purchase, there was the provision of some 40,000 cottages. Here again, as far as I can see, that could not have been done by a Home Rule Parliament, and alto-
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gether the increased deposits in the savings bank and the joint stock banks pointed to a very great advance of prosperity in Ireland; and it would be disastrous if a step was taken, such as is proposed under the Home Rule Bill, to put a stop to that great progress which we wish to see carried on. We are proud of Ireland in connection with this country. We want to go on in partnership. Ireland should share in the prosperity and in the responsibility of this great Empire. Surely with a united Parliament at Westminster, any grievance which may be manifested from time to time can easily be redressed. An hon. Member said yesterday that Unionists had done nothing for Ireland. He had forgotten the right hon. Gentleman's (Mr. Balfour) action in the distressed districts, and he has forgotten also that the Unionists gave Ireland the management of their own local affairs, just as is the case in England and in Scotland. It was the Unionist party who initiated local government in this country, and what is good enough for England and Scotland is good enough for Ireland. Not only was I impressed with the industry and the good farming of Ireland, for as an agriculturist I took a great deal of trouble to see how the small holders were managing their holdings, and how agriculture generally was developing in Ireland—I was delighted to see the great improvements they were making in their stocks, and every sign of great prosperity on every hand. Let us hesitate before we take a step which may hinder that development.
But I spent some time at Belfast. I was there at the signing of the Covenant, and I saw the people at different places surrounding Belfast, and I am bound to say I never saw a calmer, more respectful and determined class of men than I saw in Belfast, and I am satisfied, from co-operating with them, that they will never submit to a Home Rule Parliament in Dublin. I honestly believe that under a Home Rule Parliament their religious and civil liberties would be menaced, if not destroyed. You may say that precautions are taken to prevent that. The precautions which are taken cannot be operative. Hon. Members who allude to what has been done for Canada and South Africa, know very well that if the Imperial Parliament attempted to interfere in any local matters in either of those countries, if we attempted to interfere in any question of securing religious liberty, either in Canada

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or in South Africa, the Governments of those countries would tell us to mind our own business. The very fact that precautions are put into the Bill shows that, in the minds of the promoters of the Bill, there is danger of religious intolerance. I know hon. Members question that, and I do not wish to stir up any religious animosity, but in a country where such a scandal as the McCann case occurred recently, even under the United Government at Westminster, it is necessary that precautions should be taken that these things shall not occur under a Home Rule Government. Having regard to opinion in Ireland on the land question and on religious matters, it is most important that justice to Roman Catholic and Protestant alike shall be secured by the legislative power of a United Parliament in Westminster. Some hon. Members seem to think Ulster men are guilty of bluff. I attended their religious services, and saw them in almost every capacity, and I am bound to say that nothing will induce these men to give away what they hold to be their birthright, and to be ejected from the just Government of the United Parliament at Westminster, and put under a Parliament in Dublin, which they, at any rate, suspect and abhor. Hon. Members seem to take great exception to the question of civil war being mentioned. Well, after all, those who honestly believe that there will be civil war if Home Rule is passed, think it is far better to speak out to-day than when it will be too late.
On the merits of the question, we have had the opinion of Lord Grey quoted in favour of self-government for Ireland, but I would point out that he abhors this Bill. I venture to say there is not any prospect of this Bill being a complete satisfaction of Irish national feeling. I admit that if the Bill was likely to cause contentment throughout Ireland, I should hesitate about voting against it. But there is no prospect in my judgment of any such result. The Bill is not what the Irish Nationalist Members have been asking for. It is true that to-day they show a spirit that they will make the best of it, and I am sure they will honestly try to carry out their part of the bargain. But surely the financial conditions of the Bill are so absurd, so far as I can see, that if Ireland is going to carry on any development of all she must become bankrupt, and that is a prospect which
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none of us wish to contemplate. I venture to say that Ireland could not have had land purchase and old age pensions if Home Rule had been given in 1886. There are more reforms to be carried out which can only be accomplished by the joint co-operation of the Parliament at Westminster. With respect to the English aspect of the affair, we have to find £2,000,000 a year for Ireland. I yield to no man in being a supporter of the policy of granting British funds to be used for the development of Ireland, that is to say, when the United Parliament sees that these funds are used in a just and fair manner; but if Ireland gets Home Rule, they ought to pay their own costs. While they will have £2,000,000 a year under this Bill, Ireland will be exonerated from paying any contribution for the upkeep of the Army and Navy, and I say that the position of Ireland does not justify the placing on the people of England and Scotland of the whole burden of the maintenance of the Army and Navy. Therefore, I think from that point of view the proposals of the Bill are unjust to Englishmen. Nothing can defend the proposal that while Ireland shall manage her own affairs, forty-two Irish Members shall come here to interfere with the government of England. Surely that is most inconsistent and something that cannot be tolerated on the principle of representation and responsibility going hand in hand! I cannot help thinking that that is a consideration which should carry weight and induce Englishmen to vote against the Bill. As to the questions of the tariff and the Post Office, the Bill is most unsatisfactory.
I want to see Irish agriculturists drawing closer together in co-operation with British agriculturists, but it seems to me that under Home Rule there would be a temptation to put obstacles in the way of closer co-operation between this country and Ireland. Altogether, I cannot help thinking that the Bill will be a failure. It will be unjust to England, and it will disappoint Irishmen. I have met very few men myself in Ireland who are in favour of Home Rule. I went North, East, South, and West, and took a great deal of trouble to sound people generally, and I found that the anxiety for Home Rule had arisen largely on the land question. Now that the land question has been partly settled and is going to be completed in the Parliament at Westminster, the feeling in favour of Home Rule has been much reduced, and many men who have supported it hitherto would prefer that it should not be enacted.
Mr. CONDON: Why not test Queen's County?
Sir J. SPEAR: I cannot speak as to any particular constituency, but the general feeling was that the Nationalist organisation really tended to intimidate the Irish people to support the played-out principle of Home Rule. I found that those who had secured their little holdings of land were strongly opposed to Home Rule in any shape or form, because they realised that if the Irish Government is to succeed at all, there will have to be increased taxation, and therefore they object from that point of view. In 1886 I opposed Home Rule because I believed it would be bad for Ireland. I venture to say that if Home Rule had been passed then, all those great reforms could not have been passed for Ireland. That shows that the Unionists were right in 1886. If still further reforms are to be carried out, they can only be accomplished by the financial and legislative partnership of England, Scotland, and Ireland in this House of Commons. I know it has been stated that the opposition of Irish Members has retarded certain legislation here. Some claim that it has hindered the progress of our work in this House, and that under Home Rule we shall have greater liberty to transact business here. I disagree with that entirely, because it will be found that if the Irish Parliament pass any measure which the Imperial Parliament may deem it necessary to veto, there will at once be the repassing of that measure, and our control will be entirely inoperative. There will be no way whatever of imposing our control except at the point of the bayonet, which is too terrible to think of. On the other hand, if a measure of that kind is vetoed, forty-two Members in this House will hold the balance between parties, and we shall have contests with the Irish Members as acute as any in days gone by; so that from the point of view of the relief of business in this House, I believe that the Home Rule Bill is a sham, and that it will not result in anything of the kind, but, on the contrary, will result in estrangement of feeling between the two countries. We are proud of Irishmen. They have fought our battles on sea and land, and, to the credit of the British Empire, it is the remembrance of and gratitude for these deeds that have caused the Unionist party to promote those great ameliorative reforms which are regenerating Ireland, and which we are prepared to carry on
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with the aid of Irishmen, and with Ireland as part of the British Empire. The present system has been brought about by unconstitutional methods. The first election of 1910 was fought on the Budget, and the majority of Members came back against the Budget. The Irishmen were against the Budget.
Mr. DEVLIN: They were not.
Sir J. SPEAR: They agreed to support the Budget on the understanding that the Veto of the House of Lords should be destroyed and that Home Rule might pass without reference to the people. We claim that so great a constitutional change ought not to be made until the people of this country have had clearly put before them what is proposed. That was not the case at the last two elections, when the Liberals generally burked the question of Home Rule. In the interests of a peaceable settlement of this question I hope that even yet the Government will take the opinion of the country upon it. We know the automatic machinery which is humiliating to a free Assembly by which this Bill is to be passed into law. There is a day of reckoning coming, and when the British electors get the opportunity they will show what they think of the action of the Government on this question. Newmarket and Altrincham have spoken plainly—[HON. MEMBERS: "Derry."]—and if the people of this country are consulted there will be a judgment passed upon the party opposite from which they will not readily recover.
Mr. DEVLIN: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has lately visited Ireland, and we were all interested to learn that as a result of the information which he gathered in that country, everybody there is opposed to Home Rule.
Sir J. SPEAR: The hon. Member would not wish to misrepresent me. I did not say that everybody was opposed to Home Rule. Nothing of the kind. I pointed out that a great change had taken place and that a large number who were in favour of Home Rule before the land question was settled are against Home Rule.
Mr. DEVLIN: I should have been very glad if the hon. Member, to whose absence from the Debates I have no doubt is due largely the series of inaccuracies which run through his speech, had told us precisely where he gathered his experience. He said he had visited every part of Ireland. Did he visit Derry?
Sir J. SPEAR: I was in Belfast.
Mr. DEVLIN: If he was in Belfast he would have found that so far from there being a change in feeling against Home Rule, there was a change of feeling for Home Rule, because for fifteen years Belfast sent a united representation of four Members to this House against Home Rule, and during the last seven years it has sent a Member to this House with increasing majorities in favour of Home Rule, and only within the last three months I challenged the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Walton Division of Liverpool (Mr. F. E. Smith), who went to Belfast and assailed me, and who stated that when my Constituents would get the opportunity they would reverse the verdict which they gave at the General Election, and I made him this offer that I was prepared to resign my seat and fight it over again in Belfast upon this one and only issue of Home Rule, and that I would promise that when they appealed from the bullet to the ballot they would get the real genuine well-ordered judgment of the people of Belfast in an increased majority for Home Rule. I have heard this sort of declaration, that we have just listened to, not once, but twenty times. A Unionist from England goes over as one of Cook's tourists to Ireland and he comes back to this House and goes on English platforms telling the people of England and the Members of this House that Ireland has changed in regard to Home Rule. It is a mere convention, a mere political commonplace, that three provinces in Ireland unitedly return to this Parliament with an enduring and passionate conviction every Member to this House from these provinces in favour of Home Rule. If there is no weakening, but a strengthening of the Home Rule sentiment in Derry, if there is no weakening but a strengthening of the Home Rule idea in Belfast, perhaps it was in Queen's County that he found it. Why did not he and his party take advantage of the opportunity that was afforded by the recent vacancy in Queen's County to test the real and genuine feeling of our people? It was only the other day, at a time when Belfast was panting for the opportunity to rise in arms, because the Government was proposing this measure of Home Rule for Ireland that they were actually returning to the Imperial Parliament a Member to represent Derry opinion and to give in Ulster a majority in favour of Home Rule.
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I and my colleagues are rebels, traitors, and anarchists, and up in arms against the Constitution, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Walton, who assailed me in Belfast, was afraid to meet me at the polls, is a constitutionalist. He is a great British statesman. He hopes some day to have office. No doubt he will be a Law Officer of the Crown. Why does he appeal to anarchy and rebellion and to civil war when the opportunity is given him to test public feeling in the ballet box? And as I have challenged him before I challenge him again, and I say that if he comes to Belfast he will find, and I think I will prove to the House before I sit down, that all this talk about civil war is humbug, sham, and hypocrisy, organised by lawyers in England who, if they had not been so successful at the English Bar, would have been ranked among the foremost stage managers of the London stage. Let us get back to fundamental principles. After all, it is not a matter of much consequence one way or the other whether an hon. Gentleman from England takes a trip to Ireland and has a conversation with two or three people here and there. This House of Commons has to decide this great constitutional issue in a constitutional fashion. Three-fourths of the people of Ireland for thirty years, since the franchise was enacted, have sent to this Parliament three-fourths of its representatives to demand the right of the people to manage their own affairs. Is there any other nation under the British flag, speaking the British language, which by the voice of three-fourths of its people demanded a great constitutional change, which would not have had that change conceded to it. It is only to Ireland that it is denied. We will come to the reason in a moment. Ireland makes a constitutional demand through three-fourths of its representatives. The united representation of three provinces and a majority of the other province demand it, and only two or three counties stand aloof and in hostility to this claim for national self-government.
But we are told that Ireland has no right to decide this issue, that this is not an Irish matter but a matter that appeals to the people of the United Kingdom, and that they must be ultimately the final arbiters in its adjustment. But they will not accept the judgment of the English people. We have had two General Elections in which Home Rule was a most vital issue. Not only Liberal statesmen and the Members of the Government, but the

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Leaders of the Opposition and all their party, declared over and over again that one of the reasons why the Parliament Bill should not be passed was because, if it were passed, most assuredly the Home Rule Bill would be carried for Ireland; and, on that principle, Home Rule was placed before the English people twice, and they returned the Liberal party to power. The Liberal party are pledged to carry Home Rule. In this House we had a majority of 110 in the last Division in favour of Home Rule—a British majority. As my hon. Friend the Member for Waterford stated to-day, they picked out the whole of the Irish Members from this Parliament, and declined to recognise their vote in determining this issue, but only the votes of British Members, English, Scotch, and Welsh, and still we have a majority. We have the claim of an almost united Ireland, we have the great majority of the English people, and the moral sanction and support of every English-speaking country in the world. One of the hon. Members who spoke here to-day questioned the statement of one of my colleagues that Canada was in favour of Home Rule for Ireland. Why, the richest of our resources to carry on this movement in Ireland come from Canada. We have the support of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister, and every leading statesman of Canada; and the Secretary of State was one of the principal speakers at a great Home Rule meeting which I had the honour to attend eight or nine years ago.
9.0 P.M.
The Home Rule sentiment has grown and developed in all the passing years. The dollars which you so much despise have been largely Canadian dollars, coming from the Canadian people, not of Irish birth, not of Irish extraction alone, but Canadians of all grades and all classes that have sprung from all races. Go to Australia, again. I say that the most generous support that has been given to this movement which we have carried on in Ireland has come from Australia. From New Zealand, where there are only one-ninth of the population either of Irish or Irish descent, the largest and most munificent of all contributions to the Home Rule fund came last year. No matter what you may say about American dollars, or any other dollars, the real test of the people's sincerity for a cause is not only that they vote for it but that they pay for it. How many of the Ulster legions who are to go
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out when this Bill passes, and use their rifles against their fellow countrymen or against the British Army, have given the first test of real sentiment by subscribing to the Unionist fund? You have got, I believe, two dollars from some mill girl. I understand that those two dollars are framed in all the Orange Lodges in Ulster. We quite recognise that in a poor country like Ireland, with the whole forces of landlordism, wealth, and privilege organised against us, we have to appeal not only to our own countrymen, but to the loyalty and generosity of our race to maintain this magnificent and unparalleled fight of a nation for its liberty. Last year, in the city of Belfast, from the Nationalists of that city, the toilers and workers in that great industrial community, £1,200 were subscribed to the Home Rule fund. Twelve hundred pounds from peaceful, honest citizens, toiling and labouring, loving their liberty and anxious to secure it, and prepared to secure it by the operation of constitutional adjustment. Here are the warriors who are going out to fight, who say that they are going to die, with 2s. to fill the commissariat! Why it will not pay for the crêpe for the undertakers' hats! Is there any real seriousness in this thing? I say there is not, and I am at least the most competent to state in this Debate that there is no reality in it, because I am the only Ulster Member and the only Belfast Member who has spoken in this Debate. The only two Ulster Members who have spoken up to now are both Home Rulers. Derry has spoken, and has cried "No surrender," and Belfast says, "Hear, hear." Surely if these people intend to fight, they will be prepared to pay! They will not pay for the posters announcing where the drill is to take place. The whole thing, as I have stated, is a sham and a fraud.
Mr. R. M'NEILL: What do you know about it?
Mr. DEVLIN: What do I know about it? The hon. Gentleman has spent his time in England; I have spent all my time in Ireland. I am a Member for Belfast; he is a Member for Kent. If the hon. Member wants to know what they are thinking about in Belfast, let him go and find out in Kent. It used to be the grand old Tory and Unionist doctrine that a Kent man could govern Ireland better than a Belfast man, and now it would appear that a Kent man knows more

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about Belfast than a Belfast man. We have heard a great deal also lately about the Covenant. We are told that everyone who signs that Covenant has made up his mind like the Noble Lord (Lord C. Beresford). The Noble Lord is going to die on dry land. I always knew that would be his end. Now that there is a prospect of war with Germany, he finds it much more comfortable to be in Parliament than in the Navy. He told us to-day that he was going over to Ireland, and that he would put himself in the front line of battle. I understood that this army was to be led by lawyers, and not by ex-Navy men. But the lawyers seem to have resigned, and the Navy men are about to take their place. But they do not intend to fight. We have had this question tested lately, and in the Courts of law. There were no less than two actions tried in the Dublin Courts recently. One of them was an action taken by the secretary of the Expelled Workers' Committee in Belfast against a local Tory paper, and one of the witnesses examined for that Tory paper was Mr. George Clark, of the firm of Workman and Clark. He was drilling his men in the works, and the only result of the drilling was that something like 2,000 Protestant and Catholic working men who believe in progressive principles were hunted from their employment and denied the primeval right of earning their living in their own way. When Mr. Clark was examined counsel said to him, "You were drilling your men," and he said "Yes." He was asked was he drilling them to rebel against the authority of the law. He said "No." He was then asked, "What were you drilling them for; did they intend to fight?" and he said, "Not at all." Again, the other day another action was tried, and I would like to read some extracts to the House, because these are the real men, and this is the element that is to constitute the most inspiring part of the civil warriors, the men who signed the Covenant. One of the leaders was in Court, and three of the rank and file were examined. To one of them counsel said:
"Don't you know you were pledged to fight, and was it your intention to bolt as soon as you had signed? [the covenant].—It was not, my Lord.
Did you know at all what you were signing or the meaning of it?—I may not have taken it piecemeal.
When this Bill became law, and the King had signed it, and it was thereby law, you pledged yourself not to recognise its authority?—I did, my Lord.
And, if necessary, to take up arms against the enforcement of it?—I did not see any mention about arms.
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Were you not one of those armed men who were to march to Cork to cut the throats of the Catholics?—I did not believe there would be any lighting, and that is why I signed the covenant.
You were to resist and refuse to recognise its authority? [of this Act of Parliament].—I never thought of any possibility of armed resistance, my Lord."
That was the opinion of one of the witnesses and of one of the principals in this action, and two others gave precisely the same evidence. I would not trouble the House at all in this matter but for the fact that that is the only thing they have to depend upon. They have no argument. In a democratic Assembly of this character or in any democratic Assembly in the world there is no answer to the unchanging demand of a people, constitutionally expressed year by year and generation after generation, in favour of a great essential constitutional change. There is no answer to it on the grounds of justice, because not one of them have ever denied that Ireland is entitled to it, by the wrongs that have been done us, by the evils that have been perpetrated, by the curses which this foreign and alien and ignorant system has imposed upon us. Not one of you have defended it. The Noble Lord (Lord C. Beresford), in his speech, even rebuked one of my hon. Friends for not being a rebel. He said, "If I were you I would be a rebel, the Government of Ireland was such." The Noble Lord cheers that sentiment. He said he would be a rebel. A rebel against what—a rebel against the laws which this Act of Union as imposed upon Ireland during the last century? You talk about your Land Purchase Act of a few years ago and your Local Government Act. You passed a Local Government Act in order to subsidise the landlord. That was why the Tory party passed it. You passed a Land Purchase Act in 1903 because you thought it was the best settlement that could be made for the landlord. No doubt you changed your method, but it was not for love of the people that you carried those beneficent measures. It was to serve your class, and then you come here and you Pour benedictions on yourselves.
Let it be remembered, if land purchase is a good thing for Ireland, we have paid dearly for it. They only consented to land purchase when they were able to extract splendid terms for themselves. Again, when the Local Government Act was passed there was a measure of county justice, but it was accompanied by another large subsidy to the landlords, removing from them the obligation to pay half the

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poor rates in Ireland, which they formerly had to pay. They have never made a single concession to liberty for which they have not made Ireland pay a dear price. I am, not going to come here and join in these hypocritical tributes which are paid here to the Tory party for what they have done, because everything they have done during the last fifteen or twenty years has been done at the great price to Ireland, and has only followed after a long and weary fight against the forces of coercion which they brought to bear on it. For the principles incorporated in the Land Act of 1903, they sent hundreds of Irishmen to prison. "The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland" was the platform of our movement, and for preaching that policy they put their coercion Act into operation, and they sent the most trusted of our local and national leaders to prison. They suppressed the right of free speech; they denied the right of public meeting, and they inflicted every constitutional wrong they could upon our people prior to the passing of that Act.
Conciliation always following coercion has been the policy of the Tory party as long as I can remember. One would imagine, too, this was only a religious question, and no doubt they have largely made it a, religious question. The Noble Lord (Lord C. Beresford) in his speech to-night said he deprecated the introduction of religion into these topics. So do we—more than they do by far. You will now travel from Donegal to Cork, and from Galway to Dublin, and you will never hear an insulting word uttered either on platform, or in pulpit, or in the Press on Irish Protestants. I do not think there is a country in the world so free from theological controversy. The Catholic Church in Ireland pursues its course amongst its own people. It does not interfere in the slightest degree with the course of others. There is not a Unionist pulpit in Ulster that does not reek with unmanly and calumnious denunciations of the Church to which we belong. They have made this a religious question, and why? They are appealing to the sentiment of the great English Protestant nation, whom they think are as low as themselves, and whom they think can only view great national and constitutional questions from the narrow standpoint of the pedantic theologian or the selfish bigot. The English people are able to form a conclusion for themselves. I say that the people who deprecate the introduction of religion into
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this Home Rule question, they and they alone are responsible for it. What has been the government of Ireland in relation to Ulster for the last thirty years? England has not governed Ireland. No British party has governed Ireland. Ireland has been governed by the loyal minority, and that is why the minority are loyal.
"The good old rule,
.…the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."
That was the gospel of the Tory party. They have had place; they have had power; they have had patronage; they have directed the fortunes of the great Imperial and Conservative party. They say that they will not be governed by Ireland. No; and they will not be governed by England. They will only be governed by a section of the English people in whom they believe. If you read their speeches you will find that they have uttered infinitely more violent diatribes against the government of Ireland by the present Government than they have uttered against us. What they want is not English administration, but Tory administration. Their idea is not that, they should be governed by England, but that they should be governed by a perpetual Tory administration. That is the secret of their opposition; that is the platform on which they stand. I say that as long as you perpetuate that system, you foster religious rancour, you develop racial hatreds, you create profound distrust of your system, and you stifle national enterprise in Ireland. If one hundred years of English rule has brought about this condition of things, surely Ireland should have a chance to adjust her affairs and to advance her fortunes on different lines. We could not make as bad a hand of it as this system of government has done during the last century. I remember when the Home Rule question came again strongly to the front in Belfast, and there were these appeals to religious passion. People were coming together, but it was not the work of the wealthy and privileged classes who wanted the union that they might rob the people; it was the union of the masses of the people in the City of Belfast. In that great city we are told people live on milk and honey, and are clothed in purple and fine linen. We hear of its greatness; let the House listen to the other side. There was a meeting of the Presbyterian General Assembly the other day in Belfast. Most of the time was occupied in denouncing Irish Catholics and in assailing the

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Home Rule cause; but there was sufficient humanity, sufficient love of the people, sufficient of the Christian spirit, even in that assembly poisoned by party malice, for one of these clergy to give utterance to this view, which I would commend to those who tell us that Belfast has grown rich, great, and prosperous under the Act of Union. Here is the other side, and a more squalid story has never been told by minister or layman. After describing the condition of the sweated workers of Belfast, the Rev. John Gale said:—
"If you doubt my word on these things, if you would investigate for yourselves, leave this vast assembly and step out into the streets. If you are a thoughtful man, with an observant eye and kindly heart, you will be shocked by the sight of the puny children, ill-fed, ill-clothed, with pallid cheek, and big, wistful eyes. What does it mean? Is this the way a great country raises its future citizens? Go through Belfast and see the little street traders running amongst drunken men and women. This is the problem of child life. If you get into conversation with one of these children and accompany him to the den where he lives, you will find a hovel in a back street, a breeding ground for disease. Talk with the parents, and you will find the problem of poverty and the possibility of being out of work for months. It was possible to get out of work at any week-end, although a man might be a workman of good character, steady habits, and undoubted industry. That was the great industrial problem of Belfast, whose ramifications bewildered everybody. Was it any wonder that there was a ground swell of unrest and discontent?"
Another minister from another part of Ireland, the Rev. J. E. Hamilton, said:—
"The revelations embodied in that Blue Book [on the conditions of Labour] came as a painful surprise even to some of the firms involved.… They found from the Report that a great proportion of the workers were earning by hard work less than a penny per hour, and the worst of it was that they had to work long hours in order to gather together a miserable pittance winch would keep soul and body together; and that the little children had to be kept from enjoying their play and their sleep in order to increase the family budget, with the result that they suffered mentally and physically. They had it stated in the Report that when these conditions were brought before a great many of the manufacturing firms of Belfast, they, as a body, were anxious that the out-workers should receive a living wage, and they passed a resolution that they would raise no objection to the extension of the Trades Board Act to these industries, provided it was also applied to other centres in the United Kingdom where they had competitors."
But because I used language infinitely milder than that, because I dared by questions and otherwise in this House, to do precisely the thing which these ministers and those for whom they speak so much desire, I was held up, as I am held up in this House, as an enemy of Belfast. You are no friend of that city if you speak for the toilers and the workers. It cannot be said that their opposition to me is because I am a Nationalist, for they have had here representing Belfast an Orangeman who was
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a worker and a toiler, and they drove him not only out of the representation of one of the Divisions in Parliament, but out of public life altogether. The question is not so much religious as economic. The war of thirty years carried on as a religious war in connection with the Home Rule movement, and all the forces that were brought into operation against the Bills of 1886 and 1893, were organised by the landlords, who used the religious cry that they might set North-man against South-man, in the hope that they would extract, rents from tenants who were unable to pay. When the land question was about to be settled, and when men and women sought a higher life, and a fairer share of the goods which thèir labour, toil and blood secured, up again comes the banner of religious hatred and rancour, and the economic question is forgotten. The privileged classes can defend and help themselves in this House. I say to all sorts of men, in Parliament and out of Parliament, that there is something bigger and greater than the mere religious platitudes and party rancour which we hear here. The whole thing is to defend and perpetuate an indefensible system. I say that the moment Home Rule is granted you will have a complete transformation in Ireland. The old party divisions will disappear. New parties will spring up. The men who to-day gather on these benches will be divided. The men who are there above the Gangway will, perhaps, be amongst some of my colleagues, and other men will take their place. Belfast will not, when it gets fifteen representatives in the Irish Parliament, be content any longer to be represented by solicitors and distillers. Belfast, that great industrial community, with 95 per cent. of its population industrialists and labourers, will demand its share in that representation. While the civil war, the mock civil war is going on, while the stage army is holding its review, these men will go on with the work of selecting their own representatives to the Irish Parliament. These will go there to exercise power. Genuine grit, with a true civic spirit, a lofty sense of duty, and a keen knowledge of life will make them in the Assembly where they will stand the most welcome of its Members.
Captain TRYON: I will begin by expressing the hope that if ever Home Rule should come into force the Home Rule Government and party will not be animated by the same spirit as that which

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characterised the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down. Hon. Members below the Gangway on this side apparently were highly delighted with the speech. Personally I can only say that I am glad that neither I nor anybody with whom I am connected is likely to have to live under the Government of the hon. Member who has just addressed the House. But I desire to reply to two points, one raised by the Solicitor-General. He said that Ulster had no right to impose her veto upon Home Rule. He reinforced that argument by saying that in no other part of the Empire would such a veto for one instant be tolerated. I believe as a rule Unionists regard the South African Union as parallel to the case of the Union here, and consider, just as the people of South Africa have one common Parliament for the whole of South Africa, we here should have one Parliament for these Islands. That is not the attitude taken by the Liberal party. Their attitude is that because they gave self-government to South Africa, so, they say, we are going to give self-government to Ireland. If that is their contention what becomes of the argument of the Solicitor-General? Before the Parliament of South Africa was set up, each separate part of South Africa was allowed to decide for itself whether or not it would become a part of that Union. The case of the people of Natal is in some ways parallel to the case of the people of Ulster. They were allowed to vote, and on their vote depended whether they had one common Parliament for South Africa or whether they remained outside. If the argument of the Solicitor-General is a sound one, if this case of Natal is sound, I hold that the people of Ulster have a right to decide their own fate, apart from the wishes of the rest of the country. I need hardly say that both in the case of Canada and in the case of Australia the Solicitor-General was also wrong, because the people of British Columbia had to give their consent before they formed part of the Union in Canada. In the case of Australia every State gave its consent before the Commonwealth became an actual fact.
The point, however, I would wish to raise now is another one. It is based upon the fact which has come to the knowledge of us all since this Bill last passed the House of Commons. I allude to the fact that we now have the scheme carried a little further. We are now able to see a little further down the road upon which we are asked to embark. We now have an out-
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line of the Home Rule for Scotland Bill. Speaking as an English Member, I venture to say that this Irish Home Rule Bill ought not to be proceeded with, because it will get the Constitution into an inextricable tangle before the case of England can possibly be considered. I am not arguing for federation; but I say this: if the Government succeed in passing Home Rule, if they go on with this scheme, then under their policy federation becomes an absolute necessity, because you cannot deny to England, in the long run, what you granted to others. Before, however, we come to a Bill that gives England Home Rule we shall be tied up by the arrangements of the present Bill. For instance, there have already developed absurdities as between the Constitution of Scotland and the Constitution of Ireland. Ireland, I understand, is to have two Houses, and Scotland is to have one. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] The hon. Member who cheers only one is giving two to Ireland under this Bill. Scotland is to be allowed to deal with her land legislation, apparently because she is known to have a large Radical majority at the present time. Ireland is not, I understand, to deal with its land legislation, and so on. In short, my point is this: that we are committing ourselves to a series of experiments in the case of each country, and that we shall be tied up in this tangle before we come to deal with the case of England. I do not advocate federation, but I say if you do have it you must deal with the case as a whole. It is perfectly ridiculous to deal with the case of Ireland alone, and to deal with the problem piecemeal. It is all the more important because a mistake copied from the American Constitution has been embodied in the present Bill. In the American Constitution the central Government only reserves such powers as were nominated: all other powers were delegated to the several States.
In the case of the American Constitution the question of slavery was apparently forgotten altogether when that Constitution was formed. The result was that when slavery became a very acute question, just before the Civil War, the central Power had not under the Constitution a legal right to deal with it. In the same way, anything which may have been forgotten under this Bill will have been hidden away, and put into the powers of the Irish Parliament, and not reserved to the central

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authority. We say, as we have urged before, that it should be the other way about, and that the subjects which are given to the local authority should be mentioned, and everything which is not mentioned should be reserved to the central power. We emphasise it as being all the more important at the present time, because by this Bill, suppose—and I do not believe for a moment that the Liberal party will succeed—but suppose they do succeed with it, we are in this Bill laying the foundation of a constitution for the whole of the United Kingdom. The absurd thing is that you are laying the foundation for the whole before you have settled the design of more than one single part of your federal system. These two points are points which I believe have not been raised from our side during this Debate. They are simply that the Scottish Home Rule Bill, which has been voted for by the Liberal party, and which has passed its Second Reading, has added to the absurdities which were already evident in the present Home Rule Bill; and my second point is that we should deal with this Federal case if you insist upon dealing with it at all, not by beginning with one isolated portion of the country, but by bringing in simultaneously a concerted scheme for the whole of the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Mr. HAMAR GREENWOOD: I only rise because of the remarks made by the hon. Member for the Honiton Division. He questioned what, I thought was an undoubted fact, namely, that the people of Canada are in the great majority behind not only Home Rule generally, but behind this Bill in particular. Secondly, he also doubted as to whether the Government had the moral support of the people of this country, and the people of the Overseas Empire. I must confess myself I have great respect for the hon. and gallant Member in reference to the equalisation of our franchise of which question he is an undoubted master, and I will go as far as he will in that matter; but when he, as a casual visitor to Canada, comes back and tells this House of Commons that the people of Canada are not in complete and persistent sympathy with the Nationalist Members below the Gangway, I am bound to confess I think he is not talking in accordance with fact. He was in Canada last year and had the pleasure of accompanying the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division (Mr. Walter Long),
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who also made a statement which is paralysing in its inaccuracy, namely, that he never met any Home Rulers in Canada at all. Let me say, first of all, we have had the Parliament of Canada on five successive occasions unanimously supporting Home Rule. We have further this outstanding fact, that since this Bill was introduced and carried through all its stages in this House, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand has toured Canada trying to persuade these Home Rule people that Home Rule for Ireland is a curse, although it is a blessing for the Overseas Dominions. That was his point, and I am speaking as a Canadian upon this phase of the question, because it was not touched on in the Debate before.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand, great personality as he is in our public life, and certainly great English gentleman as he is, was unable to get up on his platform in support of his anti-Home Rule campaign a single Cabinet Minister of the present Borden Government, or a single Cabinet Minister of the nine provincial Cabinets. Not one public man in Canada would speak by him, with him, or in support of him in his anti-Home Rule campaign. It happened that at that time also the hon. Member for Clare (Mr. William Redmond) was visiting Canada, and he was able to get up on his platform, not one, but many Cabinet Ministers, and especially the Minister of Justice in the present Borden Cabinet, Mr. Doherty, who is not only a keen Home Ruler and a prominent Member of the Dominion Conservative Cabinet, but is also now and has been for many years president of the United Irish League of Quebec and Montreal—[A Laugh]—and he was also one of the four colleagues of Mr. Borden who came over to this country last summer and offered—and they endeavoured to carry through their offer—three "Dreadnoughts" towards the Imperial Fleet. If such a man is to be mocked at, as he is mocked at to-night, I am bound to confess myself it is a question which our kinsmen may ask themselves sooner or later, "What is the advantage of being connected with the Home Country, which mocks at the views of Canadian statesmen?" [HON. MEMBERS: "Who mocked at him?"] You mocked at him. You laugh at the idea—at a Canadian Cabinet Minister, and the Minister of Justice as well, because he is president of the United Irish League in

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Montreal, and the suggestion is that that is inconsistent with loyalty to Imperialism and to the best interests of the Empire. [HON. MEMBER: "No, no."] My contention is that in a question like Home Rule the issue is not merely a parochial matter—and Ireland, from the Imperial point of view, with her population of something like 4,000,000, is only a great parish—but the matter must be considered in the light of the Empire to-day. Not only in Canada, but in New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia, there is not now one single public man in office, or out of office, or who hopes to get into office, who is not in sympathy with us, and who would not refuse to give his support to anti-Home Rule in this House or in the country. The Opposition cannot claim any one single public man or any one single judge on their side, and the judges in our Overseas Dominions are appointed for life, and never hesitate to express their views in language fluent and free, which is so characteristic of the overseas citizens. These oversea kinsmen have tried Home Rule; they believe in it as the first step towards a united Empire. They are behind the hon. and learned Member for Waterford and his Friends, and they are behind the Government upon this question at any rate. It is one question in which every Colonial takes a keen interest, and there is more than that in it. Not only is our Overseas Empire, which represents 16,000,000 of white people in Australia and in Canada, which are growing much more rapidly than the adjoining Kingdom of Ireland with us, but I think that fact is of as much importance, from the point of view of moral support, as the Ulster people are in their very strong and undoubtedly sincere opposition upon this question. I go further.
There are in the United States somewhere between twelve and twenty millions of Irishmen, and I am one of those who believe that it is essential to the success of this country and Empire that we should be on good terms with the people of the United States. At this moment Irish power is so great and the Irish grievance is felt so keenly, that up to the present the Government of the United States have been unable to officially recognise the attempt to celebrate 100 years of peace between the United States and the British Empire. Everybody has in their mind the fact that the late President of the United States absolutely declined, prior to the last election, to agree to the clear and unmistak-
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able conditions of the Panama Canal treaty. Anyone who knows the New World knows that the grievance of Irishmen abroad is the same as the grievance of Irishmen at home. It is long standing, it is persistent, it can be easily remedied by the granting of Home Rule to the people of Ireland, which I do not believe for a moment, as one who lived amongst Catholics in the majority as they are in some parts of Canada, means religious intolerance. But I do know it means this. It will wipe out a great barrier towards international amity between us and our kinsmen in the United States, and it will make one long stride towards the federation of this Empire, which is, from every point of view, more important and more insistent than the inflated though sincere demand made by hon. Members representing the North-East corner of Ulster.
Mr. BONAR LAW: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down began his speech with a statement with which I do not disagree, that a temporary visit of a few months to Canada does not authorise anyone to speak with absolute authority as to the feeling of Canada. But I will go a little further, and suggest to the hon. Gentleman that even the fact that he was born and lived in Canada does not justify him in making statements which everyone who has the smallest acquaintance with that country knows are absolutely wide of the mark.
Mr. H. GREENWOOD: Which statement?
Mr. BONAR LAW: If the hon. Member had said that a majority of the people of Canada are in favour of Home Rule I would not have contradicted him, because I do not know, but when he says that the whole of Canada was in favour of Home Rule, then I myself, who have been in Canada, who was born in Canada, and who is constantly meeting Canadians, can tell him that his statement is utterly at variance with the facts. Look at the other statements which the hon. Member made. He said that no Members of Mr. Borden's Cabinet had taken part in anti-Home Rule demonstrations. That, I believe, is true, and I hope it is true. I had the pleasure of meeting those Canadian statesmen when they were here, and there is not one of them who is not wise enough to recognise that just as we have no right to interfere in their domestic affairs, so the last thing they have a right to do is to interfere in our domestic affairs. Then the hon.

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Member told us that the Canadian Parliament has passed resolutions in favour of Home Rule. I would ask him to recall when was the last resolution passed. I defy him or anyone to obtain from the Canadian Parliament to-day any expression of opinion on this subject. And more than that, when he says that the Canadians approve of this Home Rule because they like their own, does anyone know better than the hon. Member what nonsense it is. Let him propose to the Canadians that one of the provincial Parliaments should be given a separate Customs House and a separate Post Office, and see then what the Canadians think of his scheme.
I listened a short time ago to a speech which I thought was more important than that of the hon. Member, and that was the speech of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Devlin). There were two things which struck me in that speech. The first was his contention that this anti-Home Rule feeling in Ulster is the feeling of a class. There is not anyone who knows anything about Ulster, and who will say what he believes, who will deny that the peculiarity of the opposition to Home Rule to-day, as compared with the opposition to previous Bills, is that the movement comes now from below, and that it is the democracy far more than the upper classes who are opposed to it. Does anyone pretend that the very fact to which he called attention that many of these people in Belfast are poor, and that under ordinary circumstances they would be attracted by the very same policy which attracts the same class in our cities, the policy represented by the Socialists—does anyone pretend that in spite of the condition of these people so soon as the Home Rule question arises all other considerations will be forgotten, and all class distinctions disappear; and does that not itself prove that there is a vital feeling at the bottom of this hostility which no ordinary circumstances can for the moment mitigate? The other point, in the speech of the hon. Member which seemed to me striking was the contrast between the tone of his speech and that of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford, as he has often done before, asked us to believe that all he wants is to trust his fellow countrymen with whom he disagrees as fairly as men could possibly be treated. I ask anyone who listened to the speech of the hon. Member for West
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Belfast, who realised that he was keeping himself under restraint all the time, and in spite of that restraint, listened to the way in which he spoke of all his fellow countrymen who disagree with him—I ask any hon. Gentleman opposite, would he consent to be subject to a government of which the hon. Member for Belfast would be a Member?
We are discussing this Bill to-day under conditions which are not only new in our Parliamentary history, but which have never been heard of in any legislative assembly in the world. We can, it is true, discuss this Bill, and we can debate it, but after we have debated it, whatever may be the result of our discussion, we cannot alter one single line of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman told us that that is all put right by the suggestions stage. Of all the provisions of the Parliament Act it seems to me that this is not only the most absurd, but the most fatuous. What did the Prime Minister tell us yesterday? He said the suggestion stage would be useful if we accepted his conclusion, and if we looked upon this as a Bill which had been not only approved by this House but by the country, and which must inevitably pass. Yes, if we accept that condition, perhaps it would, but we do not accept that condition. It is evident, not only from what the right hon. Gentleman said but from the facts of the case, that under the circumstances for us to make suggestions would be to admit that we had given up the fight against the principle of the Bill. Under those circumstances, we cannot make suggestions. Consider also the futility of it from their own point of view. The suggestions can have no effect unless they are accepted by the House of Lords. That means only that they can be useful if there is a compromise, but what is the use, of that? If there is a compromise, there is no need for the Parliament Act, and the Bill can go through without suggestions or anything else. Under those circumstances I, for one, think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Trinity College and his colleagues from Ulster were perfectly right in saying that they declined to take part in this automatic process. They have not given up the fight, but they have deliberately and wisely determined to make their appeal not through the House of Commons, but direct to the people of this country, and that appeal will not be made in vain.
Under such conditions, it is hardly worth while dealing with the Bill itself,

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and I shall not take up much time in regard to it. But there is one point of view I should like to put before the House. If there is anything which would reconcile the people of the United Kingdom to Home Rule, it would be the belief that they would in that way get rid of the Irish question, that the long quarrel between the two countries would be brought to an end, and that there would be a final settlement. I do not mean a final settlement in the sense that no changes would follow. That, of course, is inevitable in any case, but they do hope, and it is the only thing that would reconcile them, that they will get a settlement which in principle will be final and which will end the discussion. Is there anyone in this House who has studied the Bill at all, or who followed the discussions last year, who does not recognise that every Clause of the Bill is marked as a transitionary Clause? Is there anyone who doubts that it never could work in practice, that it is only a stage to some further development, and that the moment it was carried that moment the struggle would be renewed under a new form? That is true even from the point of view of England. This Bill is so unjust to England that if it were understood—and when it is understood—it is impossible that the people of England could accept it. You are giving Home Rule to Ireland, as you say, and in the very process of giving Home Rule to Ireland you are denying Home Rule to England. Is that tolerable? We have had experience of what it means. We have had the Members from Nationalist Ireland taking their full part in our Debates and taking their full share in determining British questions, and, more than that, occasionally, as now, absolutely controlling the British Government. That is a big price to pay for the Union, but the Union is worth the price, and we do not grudge paying it. But does anyone suppose that England will continue to pay that price after the Union has disappeared and we have lost the sole justification for making it?
10.0 P.M.
Look at it from the point of view of Ireland. There is nothing in the Bill which can last. I will take only one or two big points. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister yesterday referred to safeguards. I do not think that there is anyone in the House who in his heart differs from the statement by the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien) that no one attaches any value to these safe-
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guards. But look at the position of the Bill and at the attitude of the Government. They say that we have preserved in this Parliament full power over Ireland, and that if the Irish Parliament does anything which we think unjust we can interfere and we can stop it. Over and over again we asked them, "How are you going to stop it" and "how are they?" What the Irish Government may do this Parliament may think unjust, but they would not think it unjust or they would not do it, and when we try to interfere what will happen? The Irish Parliament will back up the Irish Government. They will resign and no other Government will take their place. The moment you try to exercise this power that moment the Act fails, and one of two things must be done. This Parliament must give way or you must take away by force the Constitution which has been extracted from you. Look at the financial question. Of all the proposals of the Bill this seems to me the most mysterious. The ways of the Government are indeed strange. They appoint a Committee of financial experts to consider the question of the financial relations between the two countries, and they carry through a financial scheme which had in its essential features been condemned in advance by the very Committee they had set up. I do not know whether the Government are proud of these financial provisions. They are in reality a mass of complicated jugglery which does credit, perhaps, to the conjuring capacity of the Member of the Government who was responsible for them, but that they are proposals which would last in practice for a week, no one who has examined them for a moment can believe. My right hon. Friend the Member for the Strand Division (Mr. Long) yesterday challenged the Government to give any authority in Ireland, however small, which has expressed a word of approval of these provisions. I noticed that the Postmaster-General (Mr. Herbert Samuel), who was sitting down there, came up to the Solicitor-General evidently to coach him, but he did not think the coaching was good enough. At all events, when he came to speak he made no attempt to produce anyone who had a good word to say for these financial provisions. As Mr. Childers said in a letter to the "Times" to-day, you do not under this Bill in the financial provisions give Ireland the one thing, if it is going to be of any value, which

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should be given. You give her neither dignity, freedom, nor responsibility. In order to make Ireland friendly to England you make England collect all taxes, English or Irish, while the Irish Government spends the money. A curious way to make the Irish people love England! Then out of pure perverted ingenuity, you create an extraordinary body called the Exchequer Board. That body is to have far more power than any Prime minister in Ireland. It is to decide, not questions of fact, but questions of opinion, questions of opinion which will decide what the contribution of Ireland is to be, and that Board is to consist of three English representatives and two Irish representatives. What happens the moment the Irish Parliament disagrees with them? An injustice to Ireland! The English Parliament tyrannising by means of the English Board!
Take a point raised in another connection by my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour). You claim the right, and not only that, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that it would be the duty of this House to impose on Ireland as on the rest of the United Kingdom in future all taxation which is for Imperial purposes, and simultaneously with this power of taxation you reduce the Irish Members to half of what they think I presume they are entitled to. Is there any community in the world which would permanently stand an arrangement like that? It was because we attempted to tax the American Colonies without representation that we lost them. Is there any difference in principle between taxing them without representation and only giving them half the representation to which they are entitled? Why is it that hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway accept the Bill with such provisions? The hon. Member for Cork, in a speech delivered in Ireland during the Recess, which I read then, said that in his opinion the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond) would have been more honoured if he had said, "We do not like and will not keep the financial provisions. As soon as we get our Parliament we will alter them." That is his view, and it is not only the view of the hon. Member for Cork, who does not work with the other hon. Members of the Nationalist party. The same view is expressed by supporters of the hon. Member
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for Waterford, though he himself has not yet used words of that kind. This is what was said by Professor Kettle, a supporter of the hon. Gentleman, who used to be a Member of this house:—
"The Bill was a transition Bill. If it were the final word in the devolution of Irish affairs from Westminster to Dublin, then it would be a disastrous Bill. It is not the end but the beginning."
And that is why the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway have accepted it. They have accepted it because they know that once you give them their own Parliament, and still more if you give them Irish Members here so as to impress their claims upon you, they can extract any terms they please. The Prime Minister himself has admitted it. He says that the ground on which he gives Home Rule is that the Irish people constitutionally ask for it. But if they ask for it by their own Parliament, will that not be asking for it constitutionally? If that is the ground on which he gives it, how can he ever refuse any demand which is made by an Irish Parliament? That Bill is not, as it pretends, a Bill for the government of Ireland, and as such it could not last for a year. It is not that at all. It is a Bill to give the Nationalist Members from Ireland a lever which, when they have got it, will enable them to make any arrangements they please for the government of Ireland.
I wish to consider the conditions under which it is proposed to carry this Bill. I do not think there is any one in the House who will disagree with me when I say that, whether it is good or bad, it is hardly possible to imagine any subject which is more important or which any Government should be careful not to deal with until they find they have the authority of the country behind them. I think I am right in saying that in any country where there is a written Constitution this is precisely one of the changes which cannot be made by a bare majority, and which can only be made after it is proved that there is an overwhelming feeling in favour of it. I do not think there is a man on that bench who can honestly say that there is even a bare majority in favour of this Bill. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman says that they have a mandate for Home Rule. Strange to say, in the very same speech in which he made that statement, he proved unintentionally, but with absolutely convincing force that there was no such mandate. I am not going into the old controversy, I think we have proved to demonstration that, at the last election, what the Government did was to try and get a

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majority which would carry Home Rule by concealing from the electors the fact that they intended to carry it. That has been proved to demonstration at all events, and I am not going to try and prove it again. But since hon. Gentlemen are so interested in the subject, I will recall to their minds one fact which is important and which is not irrelevant. The Prime Minister, as one of the reasons for granting Home Rule, said that the Irish representatives for eight consecutive General Elections had expressed their desire for this change. The right hon. Gentleman is half as good himself—not for eight but for four General Elections, the last four General Elections in which he has taken a part, and in which he has given election addresses there is this curious fact, that in not one of his election addresses did the right hon. Gentleman ever mention Home Rule. The right hon. Gentleman has proved to demonstration there was no mandate, for in that interesting acrobatic feat about by-election statistics, of which we were the witnesses yesterday, he dealt with North-West Manchester, and the effect of what he said was this: That it was well known Sir George Kemp, the Liberal candidate, was opposed to Home Rule.
The PRIME MINISTER: No.
Mr. BONAR LAW: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. He did say so.
The PRIME MINISTER: I never said that.
Mr. BONAR LAW: The right hon. Gentleman contradicts it sitting, not standing.
The PRIME MINISTER: What I said was that Sir George Kemp was known not to be an ardent Home Ruler. That is very different to saying that he was opposed to Home Rule. [HON. MEMBERS: "Read, read."]
Mr. BONAR LAW: I am quite willing to take the new version.
The PRIME MINISTER: It is not a new version. It is what I have said.
Mr. BONAR LAW: That is a subtlety, but I will accept the right hon. Gentleman's version.
The PRIME MINISTER: It is what I actually said and think.
Mr. BONAR LAW: Very well, it is what the right hon. Gentleman actually said. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say I never suggested he was saying something which he did not think. I was only speaking from recollection.
The PRIME MINISTER: The right hon. Gentleman attributed words to me which I never used.
Mr. BONAR LAW: The right hon. Gentleman says that what he said was that Sir George Kemp was known not to be an ardent supporter of Home Rule. What does that mean? I will put this to the House, and anyone who is acquainted with political party warfare will appreciate it. The Liberal party in Manchester accepted as their candidate a man who was not in favour of Home Rule. That man was the official candidate of the Liberal party at headquarters, and not merely that, but a most important and capable Minister, at least I think he is and he also thinks he is—the First Lord of the Admiralty—went down specially to support this supporter of the right hon. Gentleman. I put it to anyone in this House if the Liberal party had regarded it as an issue, and if they had wished the country to regard it as an issue, would they have accepted as their candidate a man who was not an ardent supporter of Home Rule? [Hon. MEMBERS: "The Cecils."]
I said I was not going into the general question of the mandate. But there is another aspect I would like to put before the House. Supposing it were true, which I utterly deny, that there was mandate of any kind for Home Rule at the last election, would that carry us very far? Home Rule, after all, is a phrase which may mean anything or almost nothing, and surely, before any Government which professes to be carrying out the will of the people undertakes a great change like this, it is bound to put its policy in such a way that the people of this country know, not as a formula but as a reality, what it is is going to be carried by the Government. We have had experience of that before. [An HON.MEMBER: "The Education Act."] Do two blacks make a white? Before 1892 Mr. Gladstone advocated Home Rule as the policy of his party, but he refused to give any particulars as to what his Home Rule Bill was. What happened? He won a majority for Home Rule in the abstract, but after Home Rule had been put in the concrete, and the Bill was rejected by the

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House of Lords, although Mr. Gladstone wished to test the feeling of the country upon it, the Cabinet, of which the right hon. Gentleman was a Member, refused to allow it because they knew that the verdict of the country would be against it. In confirmation of this, I have something still stronger, at any rate, I think it is stronger. What was the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman himself at that time? Over and over again, not once, but many times—I have the quotations here if he doubts what I say—he said that Mr. Gladstone was wrong in not giving the particulars before the election. He said that if he did not he would lose the moral authority which the election gave him. I put it to the Prime Minister that all the convictions of a lifetime should not make shipwreck on party expediency. If that was his view then, if it was wrong for Mr. Gladstone, is it right for him? I say that for any Prime Minister to carry through such a proposal upon such conditions would be intolerable, but for a Prime Minister with the record on the subject of the right hon. Gentleman to do it is as outrage. Now I come to another aspect of this Parliament Act. I ask the House to consider it in the light of what was said about it at the time it was carried through this House. We were told then that the object of that Bill was to make sure that the will, not of the Cabinet, not of a temporary majority of this House, but that the will of the people of this country should prevail. What the Government are doing is to use the Parliament Act to make sure that the will of the people of this country shall not prevail. The right hon. Gentleman gave an example of his talents yesterday—talents which I think we all admire, for there is no one who has greater respect for the ability and dexterity of the right hon. Gentleman than I have. I do not think it was ever so severely tested as when he attempted yesterday to prove that the by-elections since the introduction of the Home Rule Bill indicated rather a growing enthusiasm for it than otherwise.
The PRIME MINISTER: indicated dissent.
Mr. BONAR LAW: Well, that is an exaggeration. I will put it quite accurately, that they gave no indication of any loss of confidence of the country in the Government. I ask the House to consider the facts of these by-elections as they are,
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and not in the light of the impartial survey which was made of them by the Prime Minister yesterday. What are the facts? In Great Britain, since the Home Rule Bill was introduced, there have been twenty-two by-elections. At the time of the General Election those twenty-two seats were held by seven Unionists and fifteen supporters of the Government. We had not quite one-third of them. They are held now by twelve Unionists and eleven supporters of the Government, and we have more than one-half of them. If any hon. Gentleman wishes to realise the significance of that let him make a sum in simple proportion. If the Government have lost five out of fifteen seats, what would their proportion be in this House if the General Election told the same tale? But the right hon. Gentleman had some qualifications, and I shall examine the qualifications. He pointed out, in the first place, that in two of these lost seats there had been a three-cornered contest, and that both the Progressive candidates were presumably in favour of Home Rule.
The PRIME MINISTER: Not presumably—avowedly.
Mr. BONAR LAW: Well, the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken. The Labour candidate for Midlothian distinctly said that Home Rule was not, as far as he was concerned, an issue at that election. But take it as the right hon. Gentleman wishes.
Mr. PRINGLE: He mentioned it in his election address.
Mr. BONAR LAW: You get at the real result by taking the total votes polled in all the constituencies for the two parties on the two occasions. I shall take exactly the figures which were given by the right lion: Gentleman yesterday, but I shall make an addition to them which he carefully left out. It is quite true that at the by-elections the number of votes given for the Unionist candidates was 105,000, and for the coalition 120,000—a majority for the Government of 14,000. The figures which the right hon. Gentleman left out were what the poll was at the General Election. Perhaps they will interest him if he has not seen them. At the General Election the figures polled for the Unionist candidates were 93,000, and for the coalition 122,000. That is to say, the Unionist poll has increased by 12,000, and the coalition poll has decreased by 2,600, and half the majority has gone.
The PRIME MINISTERdissented.
Mr. BONAR LAW: I beg pardon. The figures have been given me, and I have been checked them, and they are correct.
The PRIME MINISTER: Our poll was 121,000 at the by-elections.
Mr. BONAR LAW: No, the figures at the by-elections were 120,308, and at the General Election 122,924. Therefore, the figures I have given are absolutely accurate. Put it another way. The Unionist poll has increased 13 per cent., and coalition poll has diminished by 2 per cent. Make another calculation in arithmetic, and you will find the result will be that if there is the same turnover, or anything like it, at the General Election, there will be an overwhelming Unionist majority in spite of the excessive representation of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman made another qualification. He said that at some of the elections there was no official candidate supporting the Government. That is true, and what is the lesson to be drawn from it? Does anyone suppose they would not have run a candidate if they thought he had any chance? The fact that they did not run a candidate proves that not only have they lost the confidence of the country, but that they know they have lost the confidence of the country. Then the right hon. Gentleman made one other qualification. He said these by-elections do not prove anything about Home Rule. They were not fought on Home Rule. Whose fault is that? If a great revolution like this is to be carried, do you mean to say that you have the right to carry it by the apathy of electors who are not interested enough to vote? What really does this qualification of the right hon. Gentleman mean? He cannot deny that, whatever else it may mean, they have lost confidence in the Government. This is the curious contention: "We," he says in effect, "are discredited." Well, that is true. Nobody doubts that. "We are discredited, the country does not like us, but there is no proof that they do not like our Bill, although they do not like us." The right hon. Gentleman gave a distinct pledge that unless his Bills under the Parliament Act received the consistent support, not only of this House but of the constituencies, they ought not to be carried forward. I say that, with one exception in his or in my political life at the close of the last Unionist Government, there has never,
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I believe, been a time when the by-elections were going so overwhelmingly against the Government. [Indications of dissent.] Well, that is a fact, and no amount of acrobatic agility on the part of the right hon. Gentleman can alter it. Under these circumstances to attempt to carry through a Bill when all the evidence available is that the country is not in favour of it is something which neither this nor any other Government has a right to do. My right hon. Friend yesterday referred to a question which he said had often been put on behalf of the Conservative party. The question is this: Do you intend to impose this Bill upon Ulster by force, and, if so, do you intend to employ that force before you have received the sanction of the people of this country? That is a relevant question, and the Prime Minister has never answered it. I hope the Chief Secretary who is to follow me will answer it now, and if he does not, hope he will tell us why he does not. What is the position? Do the Government really contend that this is a Bill which they have a right to carry unless they are sure that they have the support of the people of this country? Unless they maintain that, why do They not put it to the test of having an election before it becomes law? Why not? Under the Parliament Act they would lose nothing by it, assuming that they still had the confidence of the people of the country. They would not even be delayed.
Mr. D. MASON: Would you accept the result?
Mr. BONAR LAW: What has that got to do with it? I am speaking of the duty of the Government which is irrespective of the attitude of the Opposition. Why do they not do it? I can think of no reason except that they fear, perhaps they know, that the people of the country are against them. I can think of no other reason, but there is one possibility. We all know that, at the time of the Budget, a bargain was made between the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond). This is not a matter of dispute. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford has been franker in this matter than the Gentlemen who sit on the benches opposite. He has told us that there was a bargain. Does he deny it? [An Hon. MEMBER: "When?"] I quoted it before in this House in the presence of the right hon. Gentleman. I quoted the exact words. The suggestions

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is that part of the bargain was that the Government undertook to carry this Bill into law without an appeal to the electors. If there is such, a bargain, the country ought to know it.
Mr. J. REDMOND: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that I ever stated that?
Mr. BONAR LAW: No. I say that he said that there was a bargain. Does he deny it?
Mr. J. REDMOND: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will quote my words.
Mr. BONAR LAW: I have quoted them before in the presence of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and he did not deny them. In those circumstances I do not think that I am bound always to quote them. Does the hon. and learned Member deny that there was a bargain?
Mr. J. REDMOND: I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman means by a "bargain." In the sense in which he is using the word there was no bargain.
Mr BONAR LAW: The interruption of the hon. and learned Member is quite satisfactory to me.
The PRIME MINISTER: I wish to say, speaking for myself and the Government, that there never was any bargain of any sort or kind.
An HON. MEMBER: Remember the 11th of October.
Mr. BONAR LAW: There seems to be some difference of opinion between the two parties. Some day, when they are not united so closely as they are now, perhaps we shall have some interesting revelations.
The PRIME MINISTERindicated dissent.
Mr. BONAR LAW: I would like the Government to tell what they mean to do. [An HON. MEMBER: "Wait and see."] Some hon. Gentleman has used a phrase with which I am familiar. The right hon. Gentleman at one period was very prominent with the phrase which has just been repeated, which, I think, is not foreign to his temperament—"wait and see. "If that is the attitude in which they are dealing with this great question, in my opinion
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nothing could be more dangerous, because it is not a subject on which any Government has a right to take up such a position. The attitude of the Chief Secretary is even more difficult to understand. He is responsible for this Bill, which, apparently, he means to enforce as any other Act of Parliament would be enforced, but he has said over and over again, I think, in this House, and certainly in the country, that the Government never will use British troops to coerce Ulster. Indeed, the curious frame of mind of the right hon. Gentleman was illustrated by a very strange statement on the Third Reading Debate on this Bill. I thought of the words of the Duke of Devonshire on that occasion, in which he said that Ulster would be justified in resisting. What does the right hon. Gentleman say!
What did the right hon. Gentleman say? He said, "I associate myself with every word of it." Remember that those very words were described by Lord Morley at the time they were uttered as" the high-water mark of frenzy and of Unionist fanaticism." And the right hon. Gentleman adopts every word of it. What does he really mean to do. If they intend to impose this upon Ulster by force, then they ought to have made up their mind by this time. They ought to know and be able to tell us what they mean to do. It is difficult to get at what their intentions are, but so far as one can judge, if they have any policy it is this—it is to carry this Bill into law and then to have a General Election before it is actually enforced. There are indications that that is their intention. The First Lord of the Admiralty has made speeches which I think can have no other meaning. If that is the intention of the Government, I do ask them, not for the sake of party advantage, seriously to reconsider it. I cannot imagine any policy which would be more un-statesmanlike or more criminal. I think I may say, and certainly more dishonourable. Just think what it means. The moment the Home Rule Bill becomes law, the people of Ulster will in self-protection organise themselves to resist this measure, and, whether the Government wish it or not, there will be almost inevitably a collision which will result in bloodshed. That is one side of the question. Suppose the election takes place and is against the Government, and we have to reverse what they have done, then inevitably there will be infinitely greater difficulty in governing Ireland, and there will be danger of

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bloodshed once more from another quarter. Is that a statesmanlike policy? Look at it from another point of view. If the Government really believe that they have a mandate which justifies them in doing this, and if they are prepared, as my right hon. Friend said yesterday, ruthlessly to go on, then I can understand that. But if there is any doubt that there must be an election, can anything be more dishonest than to take such a course. They say that the Parliament Act is to enable the will of the people to be carried out. On that hypothesis they are taking steps to make it difficult and almost impossible that the decision, that the will of the people, shall be carried out as the result of the election. Whatever else the Government do, I hope their drifting will not take that form. I of course realise, as everyone does, that the real crux of this question is the resistance of Ulster. After the speeches which were delivered yesterday and to-day by my right hon. Friends, I will say very little on that subject. I would only like to put this point again to hon. Gentlemen: You are carrying this Bill in the name of self-government. Can you imagine anything more atrocious than in the name of self-government to compel a great homogeneous community to leave a Parliament and a system with which they are satisfied and to submit to another government which they loath and detest? That is done, remember, in the name of self-government. It really all turns on this: Is that mandate such as I have described. The Solicitor-General said yesterday that there is always a minority. Has he ever been in Belfast? Hon. Members below the Gangway know the conditions. It is no good the hon. Member for Waterford saying it is only those four counties. What does that matter? Those four counties contain more than a million people—those four counties around Belfast—and the feeling against this Bill is overwhelming in those four counties. The population is larger than the whole white population in South Africa. It is larger by far, I believe. The men who signed the Ulster Covenant were more numerous than the men who signed the Solemn League and Covenant in Scotland. Does anyone say that by any principle of justice, if you are giving self-government, those people are not as much entitled to it against the rest of Ireland as Ireland is entitled to it as against the rest of the United Kingdom. It did seem to me yesterday as I watched the faces of hon. Gentlemen opposite as they listened to the
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impressive speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for the City (Mr. Balfour) that for the first time they were beginning to realise the danger of the rock. It seemed so to me. I am not going to discuss the matter. I am going to ask them to consider facts. If the facts are as the hon. and learned Member for Waterford says, and if my right hon. Friend the Member for Dublin University (Sir E. Carson) does not represent the Unionists of the North-East of Ulster, and if they will accept this Bill, then there will be no trouble. Suppose he is wrong, and suppose my right hon. Friend does represent them, and I have some means of judging, and in my opinion if he fails to represent them it is because he is not so determined as they are. Suppose the hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong, and that he does fairly represent them, what is your position? If you are prepared to sec the thing to an end, then you are justified in going on now. If you are prepared to go down to your constituencies and say, "You gave us a mandate to force this upon Ulster by the sword and we have done it," then you have the right to go on, but you have no right to drift. But, unless you are prepared to do that, you have no right, whatever your Government may do, to take a course which in my belief will inevitably lead to bloodshed, and which your constituencies will be the first to deplore. My right hon. Friend said yesterday that what was wanted in Newmarket was that the people did not understand Home Rule because their imagination did not enable them to realise what the conditions would be. In my opinion, statesmanship is just imagination. I think so. It is just the faculty which enables you to picture to yourselves what the condition will be when certain facts have arrived. That is what I am trying to do. Are you trying to do that?
I quite admit that so long as you believe, or the people of this country believe, that Ulster will, with a little repining, accept this Bill, that you might possibly carry it; but I am as sure of this as of anything in this world, that if through your action blood is spilled in this quarrel, your constituents will be the first to hold you to a account for what you have done, and will not your own consciences hold you responsible? It is all very well to get rid of a difficulty to carry a Bill which does not concern you. But, after all, what do these people in Ulster want? They ask only that their allegiance

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should not be changed. They ask only that they should have, as they have always had, the protection of this House and the full privilege which that brings with it. That is all they ask. Is there anyone of you who would give up that right? I see some Members from Scottish constituencies. If there was a proposal to transfer, let us say, Glasgow to the government of these Gentlemen, what would happen then? Would you tell them about safeguards? Yet I am within the mark in saying that Glasgow would not regard such a prospect with half the horror with which it is regarded by Ulster. That is all I wish to say on that subject. There is only one other thing that I wish to say before I sit down. The Prime Minister is not very good at answering questions; he is very good at putting them. He put to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dublin University this question: Would you cease your opposition if the General Election went against you? I would like to put this other point to the Prime Minister. What is your view? Would it make no difference to you, whatever Ulster may do, that you had the sanction of the people behind you? Would not your moral position be enormously strengthened. Even more than that. By what you are doing, by carrying this Bill under such conditions, you are, whether we like it not, putting the whole Unionist party at the back of the Unionists of Ulster. That does not necessarily follow. I can quite imagine conditions in which they would take one view and we would take another. But you are compelling the whole party to take the same view. You are compelling us, if you attempt to carry this by force, to resist you just as Ulster will resist. Does that make no difference? I think it makes all the difference. I think it makes this difference: If Ulster chooses to resist, after the will of the people of this country has been declared, I admit that that will be rebellion. But rebellion is often justified, and that might be.
The PRIME MINISTER: Would it be?
Mr. BONAR LAW: That is not my business. I will remind the right hon. Gentleman that both the Duke of Devonshire and the Duke of Argyll thought it would. But that, I say, is not my business. If it is done after the expression of the will of the people of this country, it will be rebellion. But if you do it under these condi-
1572
tions, I say deliberately that I believe in that case you would not be a Government at all; you would be a self-constituted revolutionary committee. That really is my view. It does not cease to be an act of revolution because it is done under Parliamentary auspices; not in the least. I say it is my real belief that in that case you would not be a constitutional Government, and resistance to you would not be rebellion. It would be meeting revolution by counter-revolution. I do pray the right hon. Gentleman not to make any mistake. I am perfectly sure that in what I have said now I have the support of the whole of the Unionist party. Do not think you can carry the Act under such conditions. I said that the right hon. Gentleman put to me another question. He said, "Supposing you win the next election, what will you do? What will your policy be?" I think that is asking more than he has a right to ask. I think it is for the Government to lay down a policy, and so long as the Opposition says that the policy you propose is unjust they are justified in simply opposing it. That is my view. But I am not afraid to meet the question so far as I can. As I understand the position to-day, our alternative is the continuance of the Union. I do not think that is a bad alternative. Remember this problem, which the right hon Gentleman speaks of as so very deadly, could not have seemed so deadly always. When you came into office in 1906 you had a majority with which you could have carried a Home Rule Bill according to your ideas. You never thought of doing so. [Hon. MEMBERS: "Why?"] It cannot have been so very deadly or you would have dealt with it then.
The best defence of the Union that one can imagine was given yesterday in speeches by two hon. Members below the Gangway—by the hon. Member for Scotland Division (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), and the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien). What did those speeches tell us? The speech of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division was full of the bigotry and intolerance of the Unionists of the North of Ireland. The speech of the hon. Member for Cork contained nothing but evidence, and burning evidence, of the bigotry and intolerance of the Nationalist majority. Under these circumstances, seeing the difficulty, seeing that there is this great gulf quite evident between these two sections in Ireland, would it not seem to

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every reasonable human being—and not unfairly—that the majority holding these, views should not be allowed to trample upon or even rule the minority; still less should the minority be allowed to rule the majority. Surely it is not unreasonable that both should be subject to the British Parliament, in which both are represented, and from which both are certain of receiving justice. It is all very well for the hon. and learned Member for Waterford to tell us how warm his heart is towards the Unionists of the rest of Ireland. They do not accept that view. Anyone who has had any acquaintance with what has been done, and what has been said in Ireland, and, indeed anyone who has listened to the speech of the hon. Member for West Belfast will understand this attitude of the dominant faction of the Nationalist party. They will treat the minority perfectly well—if the minority are subservient! Their attitude is precisely the attitude of the followers of Mahomet, "the Koran or the Sword; be my brother, or I will slay thee"! That is all the toleration that Unionists in Ireland have any right to expect. I have said before—and I am quite ready to repeat it now—that so long as a large section of the Irish people is dissatisfied with your plan, and refuse to work under it, that does present a problem which any British statesman would do his best to solve, if he could. I do not deny that. I say further, that if it were possible that anything on the lines of the speech of the hon. Member for Cork City were taken, if he could succeed in pursuading the rest of Ireland in favour of any course, if he could come to us and say, "What we propose is not utterly detested by one-third of the people of Ireland, but that there is a general consent," we should all rejoice and welcome any settlement which was arrived at by such means. But it is nothing to the point to say there is a problem. What you have got to say is, we have found a solution for that problem. If you could bring to us a Bill which is both just and possible—and your Bill is neither, for in my honest belief a Bill which includes Ulster without the consent of Ulster, never by any possibility can be carried into law by any Government—if you bring in a Bill which is just and possible we will welcome it, but we are not going to try to solve one difficulty by creating a greater difficulty. And still less are we going to do, what the Foreign Secretary said in another connection he would never do, make new friends by betraying old friends.
Mr. BIRRELL: Mr. Speaker, I rise as is my only right to do, but it is a very real one, to intervene in this Debate at this time, because I have been for, I think, nearly seven years the occupant of the post of Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Living as I have done during that time immersed in Irish affairs, I do not feel particularly inclined, even were I the man to do it, to follow the right hon. Gentleman in all his political prophecies, or to seek to analyse the somewhat dangerous doctrines he has advanced in his speech; and least of all am I going to say anything about by-elections, and the like. As I understand the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, he has been tapping his political barometer, and he is rather satisfied with its movement. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has also been tapping his, and he is in no way cast down at the result. He points out what, to a plain man, seems to have something in it, that the Government have lost four seats and they have gained one, and that their loss of two of them was in three-cornered contests. But I say at once I have not got a barometer in my house, and consequently I have never tapped it. One thing I am tolerably persuaded of is there is nobody in this House who is in a position to make any confident declaration as to what would happen at any General Election, of the time and opportunity of which he knows nothing, and therefore I think I may be well content to leave these matters out, although it may be I am only exhibiting my incapacity in declining to deal with them. The one thing and the only thing that interests me is the position of Ireland. What is our policy, and what is your policy towards a country which I have learned to love? That to me is the only thing which seems to have any interest. I am, of course, a party man, or else I suppose I should not be here, but I do not clang my chains very loudly, and sometimes I am rather glad to forget that I have got them on.
11.0 P.M.
I say that this matter of Ireland, having regard to its history, its present Parliamentary representation, its present position, the feeling of the country, and to what is going on there, is, if ever there was one, a question which we on both sides of the House might very properly be called upon

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to consider without direct party reference or party recrimination. What is going to be its future? Along what path do you imagine it is going to progress? The right hon. Gentleman in the closing remarks of his speech, which seemed to me to be conceived in a some-what different vein from the rest, said something which seemed to me perhaps to exhibit a little of that imagination which he so rightly says is the very essence of statesmanship. I myself can make very little out of those observations except this, that if the whole of Ireland, under the guidance of the hon. Member for Cork, could come forward with an agreed measure, the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends would not oppose it. I can imagine that. I heard with amazement the right hon. Gentleman say that the attitude and feeling of the Nationalists in Ireland, and of all those who, whether they belong to the Nationalist Parliamentary party or not, hold dearly to national sentiment, towards their brethren and fellow Irishmen was, "Be my brother or I will slay thee" That is a libel upon the character of Irishmen, and no such feeling exists North, South, East or West in Ireland itself. The one desire of the Irish people is, if it were possible, that they should be able as Irishmen acting together to raise the character of their nation higher than it has ever been before.
Although people may call me a sentimentalist for saying it, I say a new Ireland has sprung up since the late Leader of the Oppoposition was Chief Secretary for Ireland. Wherever you go you see evidences of a new life, and you see a thousand evidences of the fair beginning of a time.[An Hon. MEMBER: "Under the Union."] There is a great movement in Ireland, a movement which you see wherever you may go. In Roscommon and in Mayo you see springing up in what was once a dreary landscape hundreds and hundreds of cheerful homesteads, and you see the occupants of those houses busily occupied tilling their own fields. If you go into the bookshops in Dublin you will find them crowded with books on history, on archaeology, on the Irish language, on Irish literature, and the Irish drama, books of original research, putting forward new views with new learning, and books of imagination as well as books of learning. If you go even into the Courts
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of Trinity, so ably represented by the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) you will find among the younger members of that famous foundation a new spirit. You will find it there, and you will find it equally vocal and vehement in the crowded classes of the new universities of Dublin and of Belfast where, I am happy to say, at this moment during this term, over 150 Roman Catholic students are sitting side by side leading the same collegiate life and learning to love and to be proud of their alma mater. Yes, and that in Belfast! You will find these things going on all around you—a great movement—and now, this is my point; Whither is that movement tending? What is its direction? What is its main force? What is the inspiration which carries it irresistibly along? It is a national movement. It is full of Irish sentiment and of Irish feeling, and I say that I am as certain as I am standing here that it is a movement which will carry with it inevitably in its irresistible course an Irish Parliament and an Irish Executive responsible to that Parliament. You may say that movement does not exist, or you may say that it is moving in another direction, but I say that its tendency, its goal, its terminus ad quem, is what I have described, and I defy anybody with real knowledge and with real sympathy and with a real power of imagination such as that which the right hon. Gentleman justly desiderates on the part of himself and his Friends to deny that this new Irish movement is full of national sentiment, national pride, and national feeling, and will demand as time goes on more and more, year after year, an Irish Parliament to represent those feelings, and an Irish Executive to raise the Irish people to the dignity of those who are fit to carry out their own decrees as the government of their own country.
This is the moment which the right hon. Gentleman chooses to flout the national sentiment, and on the part of himself, and I admit of all his colleagues sitting around him, to say to the Irish people, "Give up all this nonsense of yours about Home Rule. We have heard it until we are sick of it. Generation after generation you have sent up men making the same demands. We have refused them again and again. We shall go on refusing them. We have no room for them in our Constitution, and there is no place for those feelings within the ambit of the

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British Empire." I say that it is a thousand pities that any such declaration should now be made. It was a pity to adopt that policy—that bankrupt policy, I was almost going to call it—that policy which has nothing for the Trish people except to say, "Go on as you are going and subsidies shall be yours. There is no Irish problem that British money and Irish money, too, cannot solve, and so it shall be solved, but you must give up all this nonsense. Our hands are full of subsidies, but our mouth sneers at your aspirations and our tongue libels your character."
The right hon. Gentleman the late Leader of the Opposition in the speech he delivered yesterday, made an appeal—a solemn appeal, to which I instantly paid attention, to what he called our consciences. The right hon. Gentleman assumed, I presume, that we had consciences. I certainly am very conscious of having one—a very sensitive one, one as sensitive as that of any Ulster Member in this House. Although I paid close attention to that appeal it did not appear to me to be an appeal to conscience at all. It seemed to me, I will not say a threat, although some of its language was minatory enough—I will not call it a threat, for it was made in perfect good faith—but they were words of warning, exciting and intended to excite our fears and our alarm as to what our policy might lead to in the immediate future. But as an appeal to conscience —that final arbiter between nations and between individuals of right and wrong—it did not seem to make much appeal to conscience. However, the right hon. Gentleman said—and many of his Friends have been good enough to make the same remark—that among my many expressions, among the thousand and one indiscretions I have uttered. I have never used slighting or indifferent language as to what has been called the gravity of the Ulster case. He also implied—having been Chief Secretary for Ireland himself—that I probably had some reason to know something about what was going on in that province. He was perfectly right. I never have, I never could use slighting, scornful, or indifferent language about the situation in Ulster, and I think I know pretty well all that there is to be known about the proceedings within that province. I sometimes think that I probably know a little more than even the right hon. and learned Gentleman the
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Member for Trinity College. I hope I do not know more than has actually happened, though sometimes I entertain a doubt about that. Ireland under the Union is Ireland under a microscope. Everything is made the subject-matter of a report, from incipient rebellion to the cinematograph. Even as to the lectures of emissaries of my right hon. Friend the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture, I am told whether they are or are not well attended. It would be surprising if I did not know a great deal at all events of what is going on in the province of Ulster, or at all events in some portion of it. It is not a nice system, this espionage, and I sometimes rub my eyes as I read reports of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his Friends have been saying in different places, when I suppose they thought they were not overheard.
Sir E. CARSON: If the right hon. Gentleman refers to me, what he says is a falsehood.
Mr. BIRRELL: What does the right hon. and learned Gentleman suppose I mean? I said I had received reports of language used, but I did not say it was bad langauge.
Sir E. CARSON: The right hon. Gentleman implied that I had said things when I thought they would not be reported to him.
Mr. BIRRELL: The right hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. If that is his idea it is an idea which never entered my mind. [An MEMBER "You said it."] What I said was that I had reports of things said by the right hon and learned Gentleman at times and in places when he might very reasonably expect—[Interruption]. Well, Mr. Speaker, I have no desire to say anything the right hon. Gentleman can by any possibility consider offensive. It never occurred to me that he would suppose that I would suggest that he would say anything anywhere that he would be afraid, indeed, that he would not be pleased to say aloud in this House. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I was referring to the system of espionage which, I confess, I think can only be justified by the past history of Ireland for the last, perhaps, two or three hundred years. But I do not need any police reports or private reports from other persons to convince me that there are to be found in the four counties of Ulster, and in the great city of Belfast, a very large number

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of persons, to estimate whose numbers is beyond my power, who view with the intensest dislike and abhorrence, if you choose to use the word, the very notion of setting up in Dublin an Irish Parliament, even although they themselves would be entitled to send their representatives there, and an Irish Executive responsible to it. I could not doubt anything of the sort. It would be impossible for any sane man to do so. Everybody knows how foolish anybody would be who pretends to shut his eyes to the fact that at the bottom of this mischief is violent religious bigotry. I do not think there is much use in exposing it, or in revealing its horrible features or the ravages it makes in the milk of human kindness. I do not think there is much to be gained by that. Religious bigotry can only be fought, and I rejoice to think it is being fought at this moment in Belfast itself, by other weapons. Through those weapons, and those weapons alone, can we look forward to the time—it must of necessity be a distant time, not only in Ireland, but even in this most superior country—when people will be able to look one another in the face and say that they are destitute of religious bigotry. There are people in Belfast who are destitute of religious bigotry. There are leaders of the Ulster party who are free from it, and I am glad to name the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, who is as free from religious bigotry as any man can possibly be. I recognise that, and always have done, and say so with pleasure. But the pulse of the machine, the thing that makes hatred, the thing that leads to violence, is religious bigotry. This religious bigotry will not be cured either by cursing or by blessing, but only by the spirit of real religion, of knowledge, and of sympathy. The distinctions, some of which are very vital, between the Church of Rome and the Presbyterians and the Episcopal bodies in Ireland—what is the good of pretending that they are not of grave importance? I am as good a Protestant as any man in the House, and I should not like to say I was free from prejudice on the subject of the Roman Church. I have my own views about ecclesiastics of all kinds. I have had curious experiences in the whole of my official life, first at the Board of Education and afterwards in Ireland. I have been in close personal contact, I will not say collision, with Cardinals of the Church of
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Rome and Archbishops of Canterbury, and I commend them all generally to God.
I wish the House to perceive that I do recognise the grave and serious state of things in Belfast and indeed I should be the first of a long series of Chief Secretaries if I did not admit that to the full, because I cannot remember a time, and my reading of history does not tell me of a time, when the situation in Belfast, aye, and in the environments of Belfast, spreading out into these four counties was not always—not every day in the year, but on many days, in the year—a grave and a serious question. There are inflammable and dangerous materials. They are heaped up. They are at present in a specially inflammable condition. I do not deny that for a moment, but when hon. Gentlemen tell me that unless we withdraw this Bill, unless we make it perfectly plain to the Nationalist party in Ireland and to the great movement to which I have already referred, which contains amongst its members many persons who are not members of the Irish Nationalist party or always very friendly towards them, that we are for ever to shut down Home Rule and all that Home Rule means unless it is made plain that neither hon. Gentlemen opposite nor we ourselves will in future have anything more to do with it—because a Home Rule Bill in any shape or form which carries with it an Irish Parliament and an Irish Executive, without which it is worth nothing, for all the rest is leather and prunella, leads straight up to civil war—that the cannon will boom through the streets of Belfast and that hundreds and thousands of our Protestant fellow subjects, the men to whom we ought to be devoted and whose interest we ought to have at heart will be ruthlessly shot down by British rifles—when we are told these things, grave as the situation may be. I am lost in amazement.
I really cannot quite understand, and no one has given me any clue to it—although it really is, according to them, and in a certain sense according to me, the key of the situation—exactly how these things are going to begin. Who is going to fire the first shot? The hon. Gentleman referred to a statement made by the Duke of Devonshire. When my attention was called to it I remembered that I had read it before, although I was not aware of what Lord Morley had said. But we literary men are accustomed to

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differ on points of style. I certainly understood that passage to mean that the men of Ulster would be right to fight as soon as they found themselves oppressed in their religion and Protestantism. It was, I think, an expression of this opinion on the part of the Duke to which I gave my adherence. We are all potential rebels. I made that remark before, and I repeat it again. There are things which no man of our blood and breeding would ever put up with, and the men of Ulster, I am sure, would never be behind, but would be in the forefront of opposition to any such oppression or tyranny. But surely Ulster may be asked to wait for its revolution. I confess I am shocked at the ease with which some people refer to the most appalling thing that ever happens in this world—a civil war. Talk about imagination! I frankly admit that I cannot imagine any more appalling thing than a civil war. Our own great civil war occurred in 1641, and a far greater civil war was the civil war in my boyhood, the American Civil War, which lost a million of lives and broke ten million of hearts—I cannot imagine that either of these was ever used as a threat in connection with political action or in a political assembly. The people found themselves in it because they could not help it. They did not flourish it about to threaten their opponents.
I repeat that I do not believe that it was ever used against a legislative proposal, and I am astonished at the great freedom, with which this threat has been brought to induce us on this side of the House to abandon the policy we have preached and taught during all our lives, certainly all our political lives. The authors of the Parliament Act ought not to be accused of intermittent zeal after having done all that in them lay, and of taking a violent step in order to remove a perpetual barrier to Home Rule legislation. Therefore, on that part of the ease I only say that I cannot bring myself to believe that when it conies to the point the people of Ulster will, however much they may oppose these proposals and however much they may hate these proposals, ever themselves be the first to fire upon British troops or police or anybody else. I cannot understand, and I do not believe, that the occasion will ever arise. The right hon. Gentleman and his Friends have themselves admitted that, so far as Ulster is concerned, so fierce is their determination and so uncontrollable is their hatred of
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what is proposed, that no General Election or utterance by the country or demagogic approval of this proposal will have any effect on the state of their minds. That also, I confess, I cannot believe.
I quite agree as to the gravity of the case, and that we ought to be ready to consider and, if possible, to acquiesce in any proposal to settle this. A great many compliments have been paid—I do not quarrel with them—to the speech of the hon. Member for Cork. He says, "Why not settle this?" and the right hon. Gentleman, at the conclusion of his speech to which I have already referred, indicated that something of the sort might be brought about; only his notion of a compromise is a rather curious one. But how can you at this moment build upon a compromise when we meet with these violent assurances with regard to civil war? The hon. Member for Cork is full—and I do not blame him—of the successful part he played in the land conference previous to the land legislation of 1903. It is rather ludicrous for me to talk to the hon. Member for Cork about Irish land legislation and Irish laws, because he knows all these things far better than I could possibly know them at first hand, but surely it is common knowledge that there never could have been any Land Purchase Bill of 1903 had it not been for the previous Gladstone legislation which secured to the Irish tenant fair rent and fixity of tenure. It was fair rent and fixity of tenure that led the way up to land purchase. When you had got your fair rents fixed and your tenant had got his fixity of tenure, and your Tory party in its wisdom had conferred upon the Irish people local self-government, it was easy enough, provided your terms were sufficiently good to induce tenants to leave off paying rents, and to pay instead a purchase annuity of 25 percent. less. Nor was it a difficult matter to persuade Irish landlords who had already lost the great hold upon the country which they had at one time enjoyed, to take so many years purchase plus 12 per cent. by way of a free gift on the purchase money, which went straight into their pockets. I applaud that Bill. I am not saying one single word against it, and I am very glad indeed to remember, now in this melancholy hour, that when Mr. Wyndham was in this House and I was speaking in that noble and animated presence of his, that although I was smarting at the

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time under imputations against myself on this land purchase question, which I at all events knew to be unjust and felt to be unkind, I never for a single moment allowed myself to speak of him otherwise than as a man who had done a great deal for Ireland and whose name for ever would be associated with the great charter of peace.
I am glad to think now that I did that I had much cause to admire him, and in some ways to envy him. I envied him many things, but nothing so much as his Chancellor of the Exchequer. If I had had the same good fortune I would not have been exposed to imputations which I think have been most cruelly made against me as if I had frustrated a policy to which I am heart and soul devoted. But what is the good of the right hon. Gentleman using Land Purchase as if it were akin to Home Rule, having regard to the feelings of all the gentlemen on those benches. At the same time I do not want to discourage anybody. I am always for compromise if it can be done consistently with the principles of this Bill which are to be found in the first five Clauses—
"Give me but these clauses bound.
Take all the rest, the world goes round".
Let that be the basis of conference and agreement, and I should then be willing to sit in conference with the hon. Member for Cork, who is, I hope, a friend of mine, and I can assure him that my breast entertains no sort of animosity against him, and never has done. I am willing to meet him and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, all of them. I have sat on conferences before now, and it is very interesting. I quite agree with the hon. Member who said that we should settle this by agreement, and that it is our bounden duty if can. But, somehow, this thing will have to be settled, and will be settled. This Bill, criticised as it has been, and I dare say as it ought to be—for a man would have to be both vain and profane to pretend that any work of his hand was perfect—is open no doubt to many objections, some of which time will reveal. But for the time being it holds the field, and the Liberal party, associated with all those who are hearty Home Rulers, will bate neither heart nor hope, but steer right on.
Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
The House divided: Ayes, 368; Noes, 270.

Division No.104.]

AYES.

[11.37 p.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

Bryce, J. Annan

Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

Acland, Francis Dyke

Buckmaster, Stanley O.

Devlin, Joseph

Adamson, William

Burke, E. Haviland-

Dickinson, W. H.

Addison, Dr. Christopher

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Dillon, John

Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Donelan, Captain A.

Agnew, Sir George William

Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

Doris, william

Alden, Percy

Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)

Duffy William J

Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

Byres, Sir William Pollard

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

Carr-Gomrn, H. W.

Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

Arnold, Sydney

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.)

Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

Cawley, H. T. (Lancs., Heywood)

Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

Chancellor, Henry George

Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

Baker, H. T. (Accrington)

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Elverston, Sir Harold

Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Clancy, John Joseph

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

Clough, William

Essex, Sir Richard Walter

Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

Clynes, John R.

Esslemont, George Birnie

Barnes, Gerorge N.

Collins, G. P. (Greenock)

Falconer, J.

Barran, Sir J. (Hawick Burghs)

Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth)

Farrell, James Patrick

Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)

Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

Barton, William

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

Beale, Sir William Phipson

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Ffrench, Peter

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Cotton, William Francis

Field, William

Beck, Arthur Cecil

Cowan, W. H.

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward

Benn, W. W. (T. Hamelts, St. George)

Craig. Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Fitzgibbon, John

Bentham, G. J.

Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Bethell, Sir J. H.

Crean, Eugene

France, G. A.

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Crooks, William

Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson

Black, Arthur W.

Crumley, Patrick

Gelder, Sir W. A.

Boland, John Pius

Cullinan, J.

George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

Booth, Frederick Handel

Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

Gilhooly, James

Bowerman, C. W.

Davies, E. William (Eifion)

Gill, A. H.

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Ginnell, Laurence

Brace, William

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

Gladstone, W. G. C.

Brady, P. J.

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire)

Glanville, Harold James

Brocklehurst, W. B.

Dawes, James Arthur

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Brunner, John F. L.

Delany, William

Goldstone, Frank

Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)

MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

Macpherson, James Ian

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Greig, Colonel J. W.

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Reddy, M.

Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

M'Callum, Sir John M.

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Griffith, Ellis J.

M'Curdy, Charles Albert

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)

M'Kenna, John

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginaid

Rendall, Athelstan

Guiney, P.

M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)

Richards, Thomas

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

M'Laren, Hon. F.W.S. (Lincs., Spalding)

Richardson, Albion(Peckham)

Hackett, John

M'Micking, Major Gilbert

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Hall, Frederick (Yorks, Normanton)

Manfield, Harry

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Hancock, John George

Markham, Sir Arthur Basil

Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

Harcourt, Rt Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)

Marks, Sir George Croydon

Robertson, Sir G. S. (Bradford)

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Marshall, Arthur Harold

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Hardie, J. Keir

Martin, Joseph

Robinson, Sidney

Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Meagher, Michael

Roe, Sir Thomas

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Rowlands, James

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

Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix)

Rowntree, Arnold

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Menzles, Sir Walter

Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Middlebrook, William

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Hayden, John Patrick

Millar, James Duncan

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

Hayward, Evan

Molloy, M.

Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Hazleton, Richard

Molteno, Percy Alport

Scanlan, Thomas

Healy, Maurice (Cork)

Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred

Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.

Healy, Timothy Michael (Cork, N.E.)

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Helme, Sir Norval Watson

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

Seely, Rt. Hon. Colonel J. E. B.

Hemmerde, Edward George

Mooney, John J.

Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Morgan, George Hay

Sheehy, David

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

Morrell, Philip

Sherwell, Arthur James

Henry, Sir Charles

Morison, Hector

Shortt, Edward

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

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

Higham, John Sharp

Muldoon, John

Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

Hinds, John

Munro, R.

Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Murphy, Martin J.

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

Hodge, John

Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.

Snowden, Philip

Hogg, David C.

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Hogge, James Myles

Needham, Christopher T.

Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

Holmes, Daniel Turner

Neilson, Francis

Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.)

Holt, Richard Durning

Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

Hope, John Deans (Haddingdon)

Nolan, Joseph

Sutherland, John E.

Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich)

Norman, Sir Henry

Sutton, John E.

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Norton, Captain Cecil W.

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Hudson, Walter

Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Nuttall, Harry

Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Tennant, Harold John

Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

O'Brien, William (Cork)

Thomas, J. H.

John, Edward Thomas

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Johnson, W.

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Thorne, William (West Ham)

Jones, Rt.Hon.Sir D.Brynmor (Swansea)

O'Doherty, Philip

Toulmin, Sir George

Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

O'Donnell, Thomas

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

O'Dowd, John

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

Ogden, Fred

Verney, Sir Harry

Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

O'Grady, James

Wadsworth, J.

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Walsh, J. (Cork, South)

Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)

Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

Jowett, Frederick William

O'Malley, William

Walters, Sir John Tudor

Joyce, Michael

O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

Walton, Sir Joseph

Keating, Matthew

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Kellaway, Frederick George

O'Shee, James John

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

Kelly, Edward

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Wardle, George J.

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Outhwalte, R. L.

Waring, Walter

Kilbride, Denis

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

King, Joseph

Parker, James (Halifax)

Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

Lamb, Ernest Henry

Parry, Thomas H

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton)

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Watt, Henry A.

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Webb, H.

Lardner, James C. R.

Pearson, Hon. Weetman H.M.

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph (Rotherham)

White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)

Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton)

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

Leach, Charles

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Levy, Sir Maurice

Pointer, Joseph

Whitehouse, John Howard

Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert

Pollard, Sir George H.

Whittaker. Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

Logan, John William

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Wiles, Thomas

Lundon, Thomas

Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Lyell, Charles Henry

Priestley, Sir Arthur (Grantham)

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

Lynch, A. A.

Priestley, Sir W. E. (Bradford)

Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

Primrose, Hon. Neil James

Williamson, Sir Archibald

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

Pringle, William M. R.

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

McGhee, Richard

Radford, G. H.

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Maclean, Donald

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

Raphael, Sir Herbert H.

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

1586

1587

Winfrey, Richard

Young, William (Perth, East)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

Wing, Thomas

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

NOES.

Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R.

Doughty, Sir George

Lewisham, Viscount

Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

Du Cros, Arthur Philip

Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)

Amery, L. C. M. S.

Duke, Henry Edward

Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Anstruther-Gray, Major William

Faber, George Denison (Clapham)

Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey)

Archer-Shee, Major Martin

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

Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lieut.-Colonel A. R.

Ashley, Wilfrid W.

Falle, Bertram Godfray

Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

Astor, Waldorf

Fell, Arthur

Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee

Baird, J. L.

Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)

Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.)

Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (Hanover Sq.)

Baldwin, Stanley

Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich)

Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, London)

Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A.

MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

Mackinder, H. J.

Banner, John S. Harmood-

Fleming, Valentine

Macmaster, Donald

Baring, Maj. Hon, Guy V. (Winchester)

Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A.

Barlow, Montague (Salford, South)

Forster, Henry William

M'Mordie, Robert James

Barnston,Harry

Gardner, Ernest

M'NeIII, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's)

Barrie, H. T.

Gastrell, Major W. H.

Magnus, Sir Philip

Bathurst, Hon. A. B. (Glouc., E.)

Gibbs, G. A.

Malcolm, Ian

Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

Gilmour, Captain John

Mallaby-Deeley, Harry

Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks

Glazebrook, Captain Philip K.

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Goldman, C. S.

Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

Goldsmith, Frank

Middlemore, John Throgmorton

Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

Gordon, John (Londonderry, South)

Mildmay, Francis Bingham

Bennett-Goldney, Francis

Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Moore, William

Beresford, Lord C.

Grant, J. A.

Morrison-Bell, Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)

Bigland, Alfred

Greene, W. R.

Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)

Bird, Alfred

Gretton, John

Mount, William Arthur

Blair, Reginald

Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

Neville, Reginald J. N.

Boles, Lieut.-Colonel Dennis Fortescue

Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

Newman, John R. P.

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid)

Haddock, George Bahr

Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

Boyton, James

Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

Nield, Herbert

Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell

Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)

Norton-Griffiths, John

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Hall, Marshall (E. Toxteth)

O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)

Bull, Sir William James

Hambro, Angus Valdemar

Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Hamersley, Alfred St. George

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Burgoyne, A. H.

Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)

Paget, Almeric Hugh

Burn, Colonel C. R.

Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.)

Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

Butcher, John George

Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

Parkes, Ebenezer

Campbell, Duncan F. (Ayr. N.)

Harris, Henry Percy

Peel, Lieut-Colonel R. F.

Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. (Dublin Univ.)

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

Perkins, Walter

Campion, W. R.

Holmsley, Viscount

Peto, Basil Edward

Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

Pole-Carew, Sir R.

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

Pretyman, Ernest George

Cassel, Felix

Hewins, William Albert Samuel

Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

Cator, John

Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

Quilter, Sir William Eley C.

Cautley, H. S.

Hickman, Colonel Thomas E.

Randles, Sir John S.

Cave, George

Hills, John Waller

Ratcliff, R. F.

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Hill-Wood, Samuel

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

Hoare, Samuel John Gurney

Rawson, Colonel R. H.

Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

Rees, Sir J. D.

Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

Hope, Harry (Bute)

Remnant, James Farquharson

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r., E.)

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Chambers, J.

Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

Rolleston, Sir John

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Horne, E. (Surrey, Guildford)

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Horner, Andrew Long

Rothschild, Lionel de

Clive, Captain Percy Archer

Houston, Robert Paterson

Royds, Edmund

Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham

Hume-Williams, William Ellis

Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen)

Collings, Rt. Hon. J. (Birmingham)

Hunt, Rowland

Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)

Cooper, Richard Ashmole

Hunter, Sir Charles Rodk.

Salter, Arthur Clavell

Cory, Sir Clifford John

Ingleby, Holcombe

Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

Courthope, George Loyd

Jackson, Sir John

Sanders, Robert Arthur

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S)

Jessel, Captain H. M.

Sanderson, Lancelot

Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

Joynson-Hicks, William

Sandys, G. J.

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr

Sassoon, Sir Philip

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

Kerry, Earl of

Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

Craik, Sir Henry

Keswick, Henry

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninlan

Kinloch-Cooks, Sir Clement

Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'pool, Walton)

Cripps, Sir Charles Alfred

Knight, Captain E. A.

Smith, Harold (Warrington)

Croft, H. P.

Kyffin-Taylor, G.

Spear, Sir John Ward

Dalrymple, Viscount

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Stanier, Beville

Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

Larmor, Sir J.

Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk)

Denison-Pender, J. C.

Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

Denniss, E. R. B.

Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts, Mile End)

Starkey, John R.

Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott

Lee, Arthur H.

Staveley-Hill Henry

Dixon, C. H.

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

1588

1589

Stewart, Gershom

Valentia, Viscount

Winterton, Earl

Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

Walker, Colonel William Hall

Wolmer, Viscount

Swift, Rigby

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Ripon)

Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford)

Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford)

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Sykes, Sir Mark (Hull, Central)

Warde, Colonel C. E. (Kent, Mid)

Worthington-Evans, L.

Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

Weigell, Captain A. G.

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

Terrell, H. (Gloucester)

Weston, Colonel J. W.

Wright, Henry Fitzherbert

Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Yate, Colonel Charles Edward

Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.)

White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)

Yerburgh, Robert A.

Thynne, Lord Alexander

Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset, W.)

Younger, Sir George

Tobin, Alfred Aspinall

Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud

Touche, George Alexander

Wills, Sir Gilbert

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Lord

Tryon, Captain George Clement

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

Edmund Talbot and Mr. Pike Pease.

Bill read a second time; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next (16th June).—[The Prime Minister.]

POST OFFICE (LONDON) RAILWAY [CONSOLIDATED FUND, ETC.].
Committee to consider of authorising the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of such sums as may be required for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to enable the Postmaster-General to construct, for the purposes of the Post Office, certain underground Railways and other works in London, and for purposes in connection with such Railways and works; and of authorising the Treasury to borrow
1590
money by means of Exchequer Bonds or terminable annuities, such annuities to be paid out of moneys to be provided by Parliament and, if those moneys are insufficient, out of the Consolidated Fund (King's Recommendation signified), To-morrow.—[Mr. Herbert Samuel.]
The remaining Government Orders were read, and postponed.
It being after half-past Eleven of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned accordingly at Five minutes before Twelve o'clock.

NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
  PANEL DOCTORS.
  PANEL DOCTORS.
  DISABLED MEMBERS.
  DISABLED MEMBERS.
  FRIENDLY SOCIETY GRIEVANCES.
  FRIENDLY SOCIETY GRIEVANCES.
  ROSSCLARE SANATORIUM.
  ROSSCLARE SANATORIUM.
  Army Ordnance Department (Ireland).
  Army Ordnance Department (Ireland).
  Customs Officers.
  Customs Officers.
  Undeveloped Land Duty.
  Undeveloped Land Duty.
  Royal Irish Constabulary Force Fund.
  Royal Irish Constabulary Force Fund.
  Industrial Schools (Capitation Grants).
  Industrial Schools (Capitation Grants).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Oilgate National School, County Wexford.
  Oilgate National School, County Wexford.
  Army Meat Supply.
  Army Meat Supply.
  Cadets (County Territorial Force Associations).
  Cadets (County Territorial Force Associations).
  Training Civil Servants (India).
  Training Civil Servants (India).
  Indentured Labourers (Crown Colonies).
  Indentured Labourers (Crown Colonies).
  British Bee-Keepers' Association (Development Fund Grant).
  British Bee-Keepers' Association (Development Fund Grant).
  River Usk Foreshore (Crown Rights).
  River Usk Foreshore (Crown Rights).
  Worn-out Horses (Export to Holland).
  Worn-out Horses (Export to Holland).
  Brubster (Caithness) Board School.
  Brubster (Caithness) Board School.
  Higher Grade Schools, Scotland (Religious Instruction).
  Higher Grade Schools, Scotland (Religious Instruction).
  Small Landholders (Scotland).
  Small Landholders (Scotland).
  Small Holdings (Scotland).
  Small Holdings (Scotland).
  Factory Acts (Linen Trade, Dunfermline).
  Factory Acts (Linen Trade, Dunfermline).
  Age Limit (Local Government Board).
  Age Limit (Local Government Board).
  Putumayo District (Trial of Armando Normand).
  Putumayo District (Trial of Armando Normand).
  Royal Engineers (Post Office Reserve Section).
  Royal Engineers (Post Office Reserve Section).
  Steamship "Mount Temple" (Life-Saving Appliances).
  Steamship "Mount Temple" (Life-Saving Appliances).
  Board of Trade (Retiring Age).
  Board of Trade (Retiring Age).

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Report from, That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of a Petition for a Bill by

Watney, Combe, Reid and Company

ought to be dispensed with, and leave given to introduce the Bill.
And that the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Petition for additional Provision in the

Great Northern Railway Bill

ought to he dispensed with:
Read, and agreed to.

RHONDDA TRAMWAYS (RAILLESS TRAC- TION) BILL.
A petition of Messrs. Rees and Freres, of 5, Victoria Street, Westminster, parliamentary agents, praying for leave to present a Petition of the Llantrisant and Llantwit Fardre Rural District Council, praying to be heard by counsel against the Bill, although the time limited by Standing Order No. 93, for presenting such Petition has expired; read, and ordered to lie on the Table and Standing Order No. 93 to be considered To-morrow in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Petition.
HUDDERSFIELD CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Leave given to the Select Committee to continue sitting in the absence of the Lord Shute (V. Barrington).

ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL. [H.L.]
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL. [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.
EDUCATION BOARD PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LONDON No. 4) BILL. [H.L.]
EDUCATION BOARD PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (CARDIGAN, &c.) BILL. [H.L.]
Reported, without amendment, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL BILL, [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
CLEVELAND AND DURHAM COUNTY ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
Reported, without amendment.
NORTHERN COUNTIES ELECTRICITY SUPPLY BILL.
Reported, with an Amendment.
KENT ELECTRIC POWER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.
GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
RHONDDA TRAMWAYS (RAILLESS TRAC- TION) BILL.
Read 2a, and committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
DERBY CORPORATION BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.

IPSWICH DOCK BILL. [H.L.]
EBBW VALE WATER BILL. [H.L.]
MIDLAND RAILWAY (SUPERANNUATION FUND) BILL. [H.L.]
PORT TALBOT RAILWAY AND DOCKS BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

HERNE BAY GAS AND ELECTRICITY BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

GREENOCK PORT AND HARBOURS BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE EARL OF HARROWBY: My Lords, I beg to move the Third Reading of this Bill, and in doing so I cannot but express my regret that my noble friend Lord Lamington, who was Chairman of the Committee by whom this Bill was considered, is not present this afternoon as he is kept in Scotland with his Yeomanry training. I am more particularly sorry at the absence of Lord Lamington because I understand that Lord Balfour of Burleigh proposes to move the rejection of this Bill. Should your Lordships reject

549
the Bill it will be a very unusual course to take. I believe I am right in saying that no Bill coming from a Committee upstairs has been rejected by your Lord-skips' House for more than forty years, and I venture to think that the rejection of a Bill such as this is justified only when matters of great principle are involved.
This Bill occupied no less than thirteen days in Committee, and we recognised fully the extreme importance of our decision. We spent many anxious days upon it. In fact, Lord Lamington and I frequently walked to and from the Committee discussing the Bill, and my noble friend himself went to Greenock to see the state of the harbours and the docks. What I feel is that it is almost impossible to ask your Lordships to express any opinion upon this Bill. No doubt you have received, as I have, petitions both for and against the Bill which are absolutely waste paper. Your Lordships cannot be expected, without hearing one tittle of evidence, to express an Opinion and to override the decision of those Peers whom you appointed to thoroughly investigate the case submitted to them. I find myself this afternoon in a position of great difficulty, because I take it that my duty to the House is to state in as condensed a form as possible exactly what passed upstairs before the Committee.
As to the principle involved, to which I understand Lord Balfour of Burleigh objects, I cannot help thinking that he imagines that it goes behind the ruling that no prior charge can be put before debentures unless there is a majority of three-fourths of the debenture-holders in favour of that course being taken. But I am sure my co-railway directors who are present this afternoon will agree with me that this Trust is not on a par with a railway or an ordinary commercial undertaking. On the one hand you have a body of men who are working in the interests of shareholders; on the other you have a Trust working in the interests of the community. I should like, if the House will allow me, to read an extract from a decision of the Lord President of the Court of Session in Scotland in the special case presented by the Greenock Harbour Trustees for judgment in 1887. The Lord President said—
"The work and property of the Trust are revenue producing subjects, and it is quite obvious that in
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no event under those Acts of Parliament was it ever contemplated that a security should be created over the property and works of any efficacy."
That means that this Trust has only a charge upon the dues of the harbour; it has no charge on the land or on the harbour itself. Objection is taken to the pm-vision in this Bill because it is thought that it will frighten the Money Market or the investors of this country. If I as a business man thought for a minute that the result of the passing of this Bill would be to shake the confidence of investors, I should not be standing here moving the Third Reading to-day.
I will now give your Lordships a short sketch of the history of this Trust. Prior to 1880 I believe it was a paying concern, though I do not think it paid high dividends. After that date troubles began, from what cause I cannot clearly make out, but I think partly owing to depression of trade and partly owing to the enormous expenditure on the famous James Watt Dock. It was stated before us in evidence that the Harbour Trustees made a great mistake in spending, I believe, £600,000 on this James Watt Dock, but it came out in evidence that had it not been for this expenditure the harbour to-day would be in a very much worse position, and the then trustees, as far as we could make out, were perfectly justified in incurring this large expenditure. In 1888 the financial difficulties were such that some action had to be taken. The then capital was £1,533,000, but I want to impress on the House that this was not ordinary debenture Stock; it was practically a mortgage on the harbour dues. An Act of Parliament was promoted and the capital was converted into A and B debentures—namely, £398,215 3½ per cent. A debentures, and £1,102,687 4 per cent. B debentures. That went on for a few years, but they got into deeper water.
In 1905 an Official Receiver was at last appointed. The duty of the Official Receiver was to protect the interests of the B debenture-holders, and it came out in evidence that, very naturally, he practically starved the harbour. There was no capital expenditure. The due-payers were all crying out for new works and new undertakings, for the deepening of the docks, for cranes, and other things, but practically nothing was done, and the harbour went from bad to worse. Then

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we find that there was great friction on the Board. They were at loggerheads, all quarrelling with each other. Several large shipping firms had left, or were about to leave the harbour unless something could be done to meet their requirements. The position then was more or less intolerable, and the bondholders and the Harbour Trustees both admitted that something had to be done.
The outcome of that decision was that the Harbour Trustees and the bondholders each submitted a Bill to Parliament. I will deal first with the bondholders' Bill. They first suggested in their Bill that the docks should be bought right out by the Corporation of Greenock. The Corporation might have been perfectly willing to buy the docks right out, but they felt that Parliament would never consent to such a procedure unless there was absolute control. Parliament in the last few years had given out that all these undertakings should be managed by Trusts like the Port of London Trust or the Water Board, on which the various interests are represented. The bondholders' second proposal was that they should have the harbour absolutely in their own hands and they would spend what they thought would be necessary. We had a good deal of evidence on that point. We found that they could not raise money, and that if they had spent money on capital expenditure it would have had to come out of the income of the B debenture-holders. Their view and the view of the Harbour Trustees and of the Committee was that it was not a question of driblets of expenditure. We were all agreed that if the harbour was to be put on a proper footing it meant a large outlay to modernise the harbour.
We would not accept the bondholders' Bill, and we then dealt with the Harbour Trustees Bill. This Bill your Lordships have now before you in its amended form. It proposes that the Corporation of Greenock should find £100,000 for developing the harbour, and that they should split the B debentures into two parts and sandwich in their £100,000 between the two. The two parts would consist of one-third 4 per cent. B Preferred and two-thirds B Deferred debentures. The House will naturally ask what income the B debenture-holders at present receive. Taking an average of the last ten years, they only received £1 7s. 9d. per cent. Under the Bill the B Preferred debenture-holders
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will receive £1 6s. 8d., only a little less than the income they receive to-day; but in addition to that they get the B Deferred debentures, which I am told and believe will be worth something in the near future. It is idle to suppose that if the Harbour Trustees are going to spend £100,000 on the docks it will not be remunerative and will not bring in a good income. There can be no question that the port and harbours, when trade is good, will be able to pay something on the B Deferred. At any rate the stock will be worth something.
There is another point which in justice to the Corporation and the Trust I would impress upon the House. It is perfectly possible for the Barbour Trustees to raise £90,000 of A Stock at a discount. Instead of getting £90,000 they would get about £55,000; but at any rate it is possible for them, if this Bill is rejected, to raise £90,000 of A Debenture Stock which will cost the B debenture-holders no less than 5s. 8d. The position would then be that they would only get £1 2s. 1d. as against this guaranteed amount of £1 6s. 8d. Supposing your Lordships reject this Bill, what is the alternative? I plead that this is an exceptional case. On the one hand you have the bondholders, who are objecting to this; on the other hand you have the Harbour Trustees and the Corporation, with 70,000 people absolutely dependent for the prosperity of the harbour upon getting increased capital. I cannot think that the House will reject this Bill and keep back the natural progress of the important centre of Greenock. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Harrowby.)
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I quite agree that any one who takes the course which I have indicated incurs a considerable responsibility, and I admit that the proposal to reject a Bill of this kind at this stage is one which the House should not lightly adopt. The noble Earl who moved the Third Reading told your Lordships that no Bill of the kind had been rejected for forty years, and he said that it should not be done except in respect of some point of public policy of great importance. I agree. But I think in this case there is a point of public policy of very great importance indeed, and I submit that if your Lordships pass this Bill exactly as it now stands you will be making a precedent which has never

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been made before in the history of Private Bill legislation. It is not a question of a period of years; I venture to say, and I believe I shall prove without fear of contradiction, that this interposition of another interest of £100,000 before debenture-holders of this kind has never been done in the course of Private Bill legislation by Parliament without the consent of a proportion—I think it is three-fourths—of the debenture-holders.
I am not going to express any opinion on this Bill as regards the Harbour of Greenock. The noble Earl, who was on the Committee; has given a very lucid account of the circumstances which were put before the Committee. I do not think he has made any statement which it is necessary for me to traverse, but I shall venture to add one or two points to the history which he gave your Lordships. As I have said, it has been the invariable rule of Parliament that no alteration should be made in the position of debenture-holders except with the consent of three-fourths of the body. This Bill, as introduced, sought power to allow the harbour people to borrow £100,000 and to change the position of the B Debenture Stock, putting this £100,000 before four-fifths of it and behind only one-fifth. That was subsequently changed to two-thirds and one-third. But that does not alter the fact that if the House agrees to it you will be for the first time in the history of Private Bill legislation doing this particular thing. I am very averse to criticising the action of the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees, because I know very fully, perhaps as fully as anybody else can know, the great difficulty of the cases that are sometimes put before him. In this case, owing to the fact of there being competing Bills, the noble Earl thought it right to send them to the Committee; but I venture to suggest that it would have been at least wise if a caveat had been put in and the attention of the Committee had been specially called to the fact that if this Bill was passed in anything like its present form it would create a new precedent.
Very briefly I should like to supplement the history which Lord Harrowby has given to the House. As I have said, I have searched through the precedents and can find no analogous case. I have nothing to add to the history which the noble Earl has given as to the promotion
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of this Bill, but I think it would have been just as well if the noble Earl had quoted some of the Committee's dicta in rejecting the one Bill and passing the other. It is clear to me that the Committee were not quite happy in their decision, because in rejecting the bondholders' Bill they said—
"The Committee are of opinion that it is not expedient that the Bill should proceed: but in view of the Greenock Port and Harbours Bill they are convinced that the constitution of the trustees should is altered, and are impressed by the grievances of the bondholders. This statement may facilitate parties to come to an agreement."
I understand that negotiations, as they are called, were opened between the parties, but no settlement was arrived at. The parties did not take the wise hint which the Committee gave them, but stood to their pound of flesh.
As I understand, in passing the Bill now before your Lordships' House the Committee stated that they thought that the interests of the bondholders were not sufficiently safeguarded under the terms of the Bill, and asked the promoters for suggestions for safeguarding them. Then came the question of giving two-thirds and one-third instead of three-fourths and one-fourth priority in respect of the new loan. But, even though that is done, you are now asked to interpose between the Preferred B Debenture Stock and the Deferred B Debenture Stock a sum of £100,000 authorised to be borrowed under Clause 143 of the Bill; and in addition to that there is to be set aside out of revenue a sum not exceeding £1,000 a year after a period of five years for a reserve fund to amount to a total not exceeding £10,000. It seems to me idle to pretend that the position of the debenture-holders is not prejudiced by action of that kind.
With regard to the practice of this House, through a friend I have had very careful search made over a considerable number of years, and I think I may state without fear of contradiction that there has never been a single case in any degree analogous to this case where the consent in writing of three-fourths of the bondholders affected was not obtained and recited in the Preambles. The noble Earl quoted the case that had been tried by the President of the Court of Session in regard to this very undertaking. But in the following year a Bill was promoted to give effect to the-decision, and notwithstanding the fact that there had been a decision of

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the Court, in that year, 1888, the then Chairman of Committees of your Lordships' House took so strong a view about it that he demanded and secured that in respect of the Bill for that year as between the trustees and the bondholders of that day proof should be required that the Bill had been consented to by three-fourths in value of the bondholders, and the fact that such consent was obtained is recited in the Preamble of the Act of 1888.
In 1895 another Bill was promoted by the Greenock Harbour Trustees to postpone for ten years—namely, until 1905—the right conferred on the bondholders by the Act of 1888 of appointing a judicial factor; and although the Bill of 1895 did not affect the bondholders' rights and interests in any other respect than the postponement of their right of appointment of a judicial factor, even that was considered sufficient to necessitate adherence to the practice, and the then Lord Chairman required the consent in writing of three-fourths of the bondholders to the postponement of their said rights, and the fact that such consent was obtained is recited in the Preamble of that Act. It cannot be said that the promoters of this Bill were in any way ignorant of what I claim is the universal practice of Parliament. I know that there are cases where the Lord Chairman has allowed Bills affecting the rights of debenture stock-holders to proceed without this consent of three-fourths of them in writing being obtained before the Bill became law; but the ultimate obtaining of such consent after the Bill became law was secured by the insertion of a clause in the Bill providing that the powers of interference with the rights of debenture-holders should only be exercised after the promoters had obtained the consent of three-fourths of the debenture stock-holders either at a special meeting or in writing. There is no such provision in this Bill, and I have yet to learn that it is contemplated or will be assented to by the promoters of the Bill. If precedents are wanted for that course, I can give them in the case of the Mersey Railway Act, 1900, and the Cork Black-rock and Passage Railway Act, 1901. So much for what I claim as the universal practice of Parliament.
If I understood him rightly, the noble Earl, in moving the Third Reading of the Bill, said that this is the best thing that can be done for the debenture-holders, and that they would be very foolish not to consent to
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it. The same sort of argument is put forward in the statement issued by the Trustees of the Port and Harbours of Greenock in support of the Third Reading of the Bill. In their statement they say—
"The priority of £100,000 over the Deferred B Stock is justified by the fact that, under their existing statutory powers (which the Bill repeals), the Trustees mar raise £58,000 by issue of the balance of the A Stock. It is conceded that on the basis of market value this could only he done by issue of about £90,000 of A Stock,"
and so on. The trustees go on to say—
"The proposal, therefore, of the Bill for borrowing the £100,000 and placing it in priority to a portion of the B Stock is a much more favourable financial proposition than would be the issue of the balance of the A Stock."
If that is so, why not get the consent of the debenture-holders? If the proposals in the Bill are more favourable to the debenture-holders than the proposals as they now stand, I do not suppose that the debenture-holders would be so foolish as to be blind to their own interests in the future and not give their consent.
I am not speaking for the bondholders or for any particular body. As a matter of fact I have had a considerable number of communications from those interested in finance, from legal gentlemen in Scotland who represent the bondholders who are scattered about all over Scotland and in some parts of England. I am not going into the question of whether or not this is in the interests of the bondholders so much as to warn your Lordships that if this step is taken the House will be making a precedent. Supposing the Bill is passed and this £100,000 is put in this year and it should prove insufficient having regard to the state of Greenock harbour as described by the noble Earl? You will have made a precedent, and next year, or it may be the year afterwards, you may have a demand for the raising of another £100,000, and the property of the B debenture-holders will eventually be taken away altogether.
But the point I really want to make to the House is that it is a serious matter to create a precedent whereby any public body can come to Parliament and relieve itself of its obligations to its debtors, Where is this to stop? Any corporation. finding it hard to pay 4 per cent. may say in future it will only pay 3½ per cent. Bondholders are an isolated body, and it takes a great deal of difficulty and involves large expense to organise them for opposi-

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tion. A corporation, whether a public body or a trading body, can use its funds for promoting a Bill in Parliament; and if you allow this sort of thing to go on it seems to me that You are putting an obligation upon bondholders to look after their interests whereas up to the present time they have been able to rely on the practice to Parliament to protect them. This is not a small matter. I venture to say that if you do this you may shake the confidence in this class of loan, and if you do that you will raise the interest to all the borrowers who want to get loans of this kind.
This is not a matter domestic to Greenock. I agree that the prosperity of the harbour is a matter of the highest importance to Greenock and to the 70,000 people about whom the noble Earl spoke; but if the improvement of the harbour of Greenock is of this interest to Greenock, then I say it is a matter which is domestic to Greenock, and Greenock ought to raise the money and improve the property on proper terms. If the bondholders have made a bad investment, I do not expect the Greenock Corporation to come to their rescue and do for them more than natural laws would do. But it is a very different thing for Parliament to allow a body to interfere between itself and its own debtors and artificially depreciate the security upon which the loan has been obtained. I know too well the difficulties, and I. shall wait until I hear what the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees has to say before I actually make up my mind to ask the House to go to a Division. I could not, however, propose an Amendment to the Bill. The only way in which the question could be raised was by giving the Notice which I have given, and it was simply to raise the general question and to let the House know what was being done that I took a course which I quite admit is rather a hold one anal one which requires justification, which I have endeavoured to give it.
Amendment moved—
To leave out ("now") and add at the end of the Motion ("this day six months").—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
LORD INVERCLYDE: My Lords, I venture to address the House in support of Lord Balfour of Burleigh's Amendment. Probably there is no one more interested than myself in the prosperity of Greenock and the whole of the Clyde, for the business which I represent is the largest ratepayer in Greenock. At the same time, in sup-
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porting Lord Balfour's Amendment I prefer to put away from my mind the fact that we are dealing with a Bill concerning Greenock, because the question is not a local one but one of public importance. The noble Earl who moved the Third Reading of the Bill stated that the trustees of the port and harbour of Greenock were in a different position front a railway company. I quite admit that the harbour of Greenock is in a unique position, but as far as this question is concerned of getting the consent of three-fourths of the bondholders I think the noble Earl's point is a distinction without a difference. The public have not much opportunity of knowing what provisions may be inserted in Private Bills which come before Parliament, and therefore it is our duty to very carefully safeguard their interests so that nothing should be introduced into Private Bills which should create a precedent for all time. I look upon the clause in this Bill which authorises the raising of another loan of £100,000 to the disadvantage of the existing bondholders as a serious precedent to establish.
But whether this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament or not, I think it right that your Lordships should know that it is not a final settlement as to the future of the harbours and docks of the Clyde. For smile time past considerable attention has been drawn to the question of the control of the Clyde. I do not think it is generally known that there are seven different authorities which have a say in that control. Take, for instance, a steamer coming to the Thames. She pays one set of dues which cover everything. But if a steamer goes to the Clyde she has not only to pay harbour dues but Clyde lighthouse dues in addition; while the steamer going to the Thames, having paid dues to the general lighthouse fund, is free from that further imposition. I venture to take the opportunity of this Bill coming before your Lordships to draw the attention of His Majesty's Government to this question in order that the Department concerned should have the matter brought before them and should consider whether the control of the Clyde should not be the subject of an inquiry so that an Act of Parliament might be passed bringing all these seven different bodies under one control. I find that it is impossible to get any of these bodies to act singly, because the settlement of their respective claims

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is a very difficult question. I believe it can only be done by His Majesty's Government taking action, and therefore I trust that, whatever happens to this Bill, something may evolve which will bring the Clyde under one control.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I do not think your Lordships would desire that I should go in any detail into the facts of this case, more particularly as they have been fully gone into by the noble Earl who moved the Third Reading and by Lord Balfour of Burleigh. I say at once that I do not think there is anything in their recital of the facts with which I should have any quarrel. Your Lordships have also, of course, had the usual statements circulated to you by the two parties. I have not myself received one from Lord Balfour's supporters, but I have received the promoters' statement, and having read a great part of the 700 pages of the proceedings before the Committee upstairs I think it is an exceptionally fair description of the position in which the Bill now stands.
Your Lordships will have noticed that Lord Inverclyde almost entirely, and Lord Balfour to a very large extent, argued this question as apart from a Greenock question. They were entirely within their rights, of course, in doing so; but I would remind your Lordships that this is a Greenock question and a very important Greenock question, and I hope you will not allow the public difficulties and considerations which undoubtedly exist to hide from you the fact that this must be considered in its relation to Greenock and to the harbour of Greenock, with which the prosperity of the town is very largely bound up. Greenock harbour is a public undertaking not carried on primarily for profit but carried on for the benefit of the public of Greenock, and as such we must regard it in deciding anything to be done in reference to this harbour. That something must be done I think any one who reads the evidence which was given before the Committee will readily see.
The position of the port of Greenock is this. It is practically bankrupt, and has been so since the Act of 1887. There are £630,000 of arrears of interest due to the debenture-holders. These B debenture-holders who have been entitled to a maximum of 4 per cent. dividend have received, the noble Earl said an average
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of £1 7s. 9d. in the last ten years, but I believe that as a matter of fact the average for the whole period since the Act of 1887 is £1 10 s. The port is starved, and the credit of the port is gone. Obviously, therefore, something must be done to carry on this public undertaking. It is impossible for us to fold our arms and say, as we could say if this were an ordinary industrial company, "Let it go bankrupt; what does it matter?" This is a public undertaking and must be carried on, and in that light I feel that it demands special consideration from your Lordships.
What was the position at the beginning of this session? Two schemes were introduced as Orders and brought to Parliament as Bills, and they were both absolutely unprecedented. I agree with the noble Lord that this Bill is unprecedented. The other Bill which was submitted to the Committee upstairs was equally unprecedented. That was the reason why I thought it my duty to let this question as well as the rest of the Bill go to the Committee. The noble Lord said he was sorry that I did not utter a caveat to the Committee that this Bill was unprecedented. I wonder what reply I should have got if the noble Lord himself had been Chairman of the Committee and I had tried in any way to influence his decision. But apart from that, it was quite unnecessary. Proceedings could not have been going on for a quarter of an hour in the Committee room upstairs without the Committee at once realising that both Bills were unprecedented; that in view of the special condition of affairs in Greenock Parliament was asked to do something unprecedented, and the Committee were invited to choose between the two schemes.
The bondholders at present have a representation on the Harbour Trust of six out of twenty-one. They proposed that in future they should have a representation of six out of eight; that thirteen of the present members should be done away with, and only two retained. Therefore you will realise that their Bill proposed to put the bondholders into complete control of the harbour, which they have not got now and to which they are not entitled, because they are not in the ordinary position of debenture-holders—that is to say, the debenture-holders in the case of Greenock have no power to come down and seize the undertaking if their interest is not paid. What happened was this.

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The Bill was heard for six or seven days, and the Committee were obviously so impressed that it would not do that they threw it out at the end of the promoters' case. That disposes of one of the two alternatives that were suggested to the Committee. The Committee were satisfied that to carry on this public undertaking something must be done. Thereupon the Committee entered upon the hearing of this Bill, and the Bill was considerably amended in Committee in the direction of giving the bondholders better terms, though I admit at once that they are not satisfied now and were not satisfied before.
There seem to be two alternatives before your Lordships. It is, of course, a practicable step to throw out this Bill and to say that nothing is to be done at any rate this year. What would be the result of that The result would only be that the present state of stagnation—and it is proved up to the hilt that the present is a state of stagnation—would continue and go from had to worse. It seems to me that the only possible solution of this question is that the harbour should be put upon its legs by everybody making some sacrifice, and that is what this Bill really does. One would think from the statements that have been made that the debenture-holders are being asked to make a sacrifice and that everybody else, at any rate if they are not receiving a profit, are to be left more or less where they are. That is not so. The Corporation have hitherto had the right of appointing the Chairman of the Harbour Trust. Under the scheme of the Bill they will lose that right. They lose four representatives in all, and they will be called upon to guarantee the interest on £100.000 coming after one-third of the existing B Debenture debt. They are asked, therefore, to take some risk. The traders lose one of their representatives and they are to pay increased rates. Lastly, the debenture-holders are to lose their arrears of interest. But I think they will gain the practical certainty—this, of course, is only an opinion, but it seems to me from the figures that it will be so—of the continuance of the amount of interest which they have hitherto obtained. They secure also the possibility of a betterment of their position in the fact that if the £100,000, to be spent on the highest engineering advice, results in earning more than 5 per cent.—and your Lordships' experience will suggest to You that it is more
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than possible, judging from similar cases, that this may happen—the extra benefit will go to the Deferred B debenture-holders.
It might be argued ad nauseam as to which of these three classes gets the better of the Bill and winch makes the greater and which makes the smaller sacrifices. That is practically what has been discussed by the Committee upstairs for thirteen days. The keynote of the matter is that this harbour must be carried on. If the Bill is rejected you can look forward to nothing better than the present state of stagnation containing, and there is no earthly reason to my mind why it should not go from bad to worse. I have had no communication, any more than any of us have, from His Majesty's Government, and I do not know whether there are any plans in the minds of the Government for dealing with the Clyde such as those to which Lord Inverclyde referred, which might perhaps embrace a consideration of the state of affairs in this harbour of Greenock. But failing that, I feel that there is no remedy before your Lordships in the existing state of affairs which gives me any alternative but to advise your Lordships to pass the Third Reading of this Bill. The Bill is unprecedented, I know, and I do not pretend that I like the Bill or what we are doing. But in the exceptional circumstances of the case I feel that there is nothing else practical that, we can do than to pass the Third Reading, and hope that the result of this Bill may be to put this harbour on its legs and restore its prosperity to a state which it certainly has not enjoyed for a great many years, and which has been unquestionably to the great disadvantage of the town of Greenock.
The noble Lord who moved the rejection of the Bill stated that he had followed the only course which was open to him in putting down this Amendment. I am sure he knows far better than I do that. it would have been quite open to him to move to any clause an amendment which he thought would improve the Bill, and I confess I would have been very pleased indeed if he had seen his way to give us the benefit of his assistance in that direction. But as he has not thought fit to do so I am forced to the conclusion that no amount of further consideration would very Much improve this scheme as it is before us, and for that reason I think your Lordships would do well to let the Bill pass and go down to another place.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE): My Lords, it is, perhaps, desirable that I should say a word on this Bill and on the situation generally on behalf of His Majesty's Government. I have no personal knowledge of the subject beyond such as I have derived from hearing the speeches which have been made and from reading the two statements for and against which have been circulated to your Lordships. But it appears to me that there are three main considerations which ought to weigh with us in coining to a decision upon the action which we ought to take. In the first place I am sure it is the wish of the House generally, as it certainly is of His Majesty's Government, where possible to support the conclusions of Committees of this House upstairs who have had full opportunity of observing all the arguments both for and against a particular measure; and also it is our desire, where we are able to do it, to support the view which the Lord Chairman takes in a matter of this kind. That is one consideration. The second consideration is one which was touched upon by the noble Earl the Lord Chairman—namely, that it is necessary to think deeply of the local interests involved in this Bill, interests which would be compromised by its rejection. It is impossible, therefore, altogether to follow the lead of Lord Balfour of Burleigh and to treat this as a purely Parliamentary matter and as a simple question of precedent. It is necessary also to think of what would actually happen at Greenock if this Bill failed to become law.
In the third place, I confess I was impressed by a statement in the case for the promoters of the Bill to which Lord Balfour alluded but only to pass it by. It is there stated that as the Bill now stands the interests of the B bondholders are not, in fact, seriously compromised, because under the existing powers of the Trust it would be possible for the trustees to go into the market and raise a sum, I think, of £58,000—a sum considerably short of what is required for harbour development, and also open to the objection that it would cost in the present state of the market a sum of £90,000 to raise. Therefore the position of the B bondholders would be that in that case the £90,000, being part of the A Stock, would stand in front of their security,
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whereas the £100,000 of the Bill would stand after the Preferred portion of the split stock and in front only of the larger Deferred portion. On that the noble Lord opposite merely said that he could not conceive that the bondholders could be so unwise, if the facts were as stated, as not to do something which it is apparently in their interests to do; and there, no doubt, we are bound to leave it. We cannot penetrate into the minds of these bondholders. But this consideration, which I cannot help thinking must have weighed somewhat with the Committee in the conclusion at which they arrived and which was described with such admirable clearness by the noble Earl, Lord Harrowby, is in no way dealt with in the case for the opposition to the Bill. On these various grounds I find myself in agreement with the Lord Chairman that we have no alternative but to agree to the Third Reading of the Bill.
Although I quite concur that we ought to he exceedingly careful in establishing precedents in our Private Bill legislation—and upon that my noble friend the Lord Chairman has spoken firmly and clearly—yet it must be remembered that if this Bill, or Act if it becomes an Act, is to be used in future as a precedent for dealing in a similar fashion with the property of debenture-holders, those who desire to quote this Act in aid will have to show that the circumstances of the Bill then in question are precisely similar, or at any rate closely analogous, to those of the present measure; and I think it would be found in at least nineteen cases out of twenty in which there was a question of thus interfering with the property of debenture-holders, that no such analogy could be traced. Therefore I am less frightened than the noble Lord opposite at the nature of the precedent which seems likely to be established if this Bill is turned into an Act.
One word as to what fell from Lord Inverclyde. It is quite true that the navigation of the Clyde river is in a somewhat confused, one might almost say anarchical, condition owing to the fact of there being no less than seven authorities concerned in its conduct. The Board of Trade certainly would have no objection whatever to the institution of a regular inquiry on the subject parallel to that which was held not very long ago in relation to the Humber, but it would, of course, be necessary for them to consult.

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all the seven different authorities and know their views. A great number of interests are involved, and the promotion of a Bill for the purpose would no doubt be a complicated and a difficult matter. I do not think, therefore, that your Lordships will be of opinion that it would be at all necessary, or even in any sense advisable, to defer the question of this Greenock business until the whole matter of the Clyde can be settled; and there is no reason why if this Bill is passed there should be any interference or difficulty in regard to the conclusions at which such a Commission of Inquiry might arrive. But I should like to repeat once more that the Board of Trade are fully cognisant of the difficulties in relation to Clyde navigation and would be far from sorry to see such an inquiry instituted.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, it is not without diffidence that I add a few words to this discussion. I feel very strongly how difficult it is for your Lordships within the space of an hour to pass in review the proceedings of one of your own Committees which has been laboriously dealing with a question of this kind week after week upstairs. I came to the house this afternoon with an absolutely open mind. I had received, as I suppose most of your Lordships had received, a document containing the most plausible reasons for supporting the Third Reading of the Bill, and another document containing what appeared to be equally plausible reasons in support of the Amendment which has been moved by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh. In these circumstances one can only look at the matter in the broadest possible way.
It is, I think, conceded by those who support the Bill that in some respects it contains provisions of a very unusual character. In the statement against the Bill we are given no less than seven particulars in respect of which the holders of these B debentures are prejudicially affected by the measure which we are discussing, and it is also pointed out with great force, and the assertion has not been disputed, that these provisions have been given a place in the Bill without the previous consent of the persons whom they most affect. My noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh is in these circumstances justified in calling your Lordships' attention to what he regards as a new, and to some extent a dangerous, departure, and I think
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my noble friend the Lord Chairman, in the speech to which we listened a moment ago, realised as completely as did Lord Balfour that there was a certain amount of danger in the course which we are asked to pursue.
On the other hand it does seem to me that we have been given this evening reasons why these objections need not be pressed too far. In the first place I think your Lordships will be impressed by what has been said as to the urgent need of this measure in the interests of the port of Greenock. We were, if I remember aright, cautioned against allowing local interests to weigh too much when we were dealing with a matter which might have effects of much more than a local description. Now I rather doubt whether it is quite fair to regard the question of the port of Greenock as a purely local matter. I need not dwell on the importance of the Clyde but it does seem to me that it would be something more than a local misfortune if anything were to happen to affect seriously the prospects of that most important port. I was also impressed by what has been said—it was said with great force by the noble Marquess who leads the House—as to the extent to which these holders of B debentures are really prejudiced by the provisions of the Bill. It is quite clear that their investment has not been a very lucrative one. The Lord Chairman told us that these debentures had paid something like an average of 30 s. per cent. during recent years. In these circumstances the sacrifice which the debenture-holders are asked to make is, perhaps, not a very serious one; and it must be borne in mind that they are not the only parties who will have to make sacrifices if this Bill is to become law.
Our position, then, seems to me to be this. We cannot really re-hear the whole of the case which has been tried by our Committee, and I venture to think, if we are in any doubt, that the doubt should be given in favour of the Committee. I am strengthened in that because while we generally desire to support our own Committees it has been my experience—and my experience is becoming a rather long one in this House—that the house generally endeavours to support not only the Committee but also the view taken by the Lord Chairman when he is good enough to give us his advice. In these circumstances if my noble friend Lord Balfour

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goes to a Division I shall feel constrained to vote against his Amendment.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, I do not rise for the purpose of continuing this debate. I think your Lordships have gone into the matter at considerable length, and I individually should be prepared to support what the Leaders and the Lord Chairman have proposed. But I rise to ask a question of the Lord Chairman. It is admitted that the procedure which it is here proposed to approve is without precedent. I have not seen the Bill, but I would ask the Lord Chairman whether, this being confessedly a new departure, it would not be possible to insert in the Preamble some words which would show that this departure is approved of in the case of Greenock on account of the exceptional circumstances of Greenock. Possibly hereafter a similar claim may be made and then in that case it would be competent to the counsel, or whoever the persons were who were dealing with that Bill, to refer to this measure and point out that it was only under the very exceptional circumstances of Greenock that this was done.
LORD JOICEY: My Lords, before the Lord Chairman answers the question just put to him I should like to express my thanks to Lord Balfour of Burleigh for bringing this matter forward. Like himself, I am very averse to going against the decision of a Committee, but there are cases where a Committee deals with a special principle which applies generally to any legislation that may take place on similar questions in your Lordships' House. That being so it is absolutely necessary that attention should be called to the special departure in this case. I look upon this question as a very important one. At present ill this country many millions of money have been raised on the security of debentures. These millions of money earn a smaller interest on that account, the reason of that being that the security is, of the very first quality. If you begin to alter that or give the impression that it is possible for Parliament to interfere and to alter the security on the application of a conservancy or a municipality, we cannot tell to what lengths that may b carried. I hope that the appeal which has just been made by Lord Camperdown may make some impression upon the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees, so that it may be made perfectly clear that what is done
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in this case is not to form a precedent in connection with general legislation. In these days it is very necessary that we should be most careful in dealing with these securities. I am afraid there is a feeling abroad that securities may be altered at any time if it should be in the interests of the community that they should be altered. After all, is it in the interests of the community? Is it wise to give the community an idea that by applying to Parliament they may get rid of their legal obligations and be able to push aside the security given in order to borrow on better terms? I hope that before the House agrees to pass a principle of this kind it will recognise how necessary it is that there should be some protection given in the matter so that what is done now should not form a general precedent.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HALDANE): My Lords, the speech of the noble Lord who has just sat down makes me wish, before your Lordships come to a decision in regard to this Bill, to say a few words upon the nature of the question which we have to decide. There is an impression in the minds of many of your Lordships that this is a question simply of interfering with the contract of the creditors. If that were so I should share the apprehensions of the noble Lord who has just sat down. Anything more mischievous in the way of placing obstacles against the raising of capital and in shaking the lender's sense of security could not be conceived.
This is not a Bill designed primarily, or I think really at all, to interfere with creditors' rights. It is true that incidentally the rights of part of the B debenture-holders will be interfered with. But why? When you look at the Bill you see that it is really a Bill for liquidation for purposes of reconstruction, to borrow a phrase from the Companies Acts. Creditors' rights are interfered with when there is liquidation, but public undertakings like this cannot be liquidated under the provisions of the general Companies Acts. They depend upon Statutes. The result is that machinery which would be perfectly simple if you were working under the provisions of the ordinary Companies Acts becomes liable to misinterpretation when you come to the machinery of a special Statute. This Bill, as the Lord Chairman has stated, contains a large number of provisions in addition to the one in question. It sets

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out in the Preamble that the interest due on the B Debenture Stock is in arrear, and it is plain from an examination of the Bill that unless there is a large expenditure on the harbour and unless improvements are effected the trade which conies to Greenock harbour will fall off and the interests of the debenture stock-holders be still further imperilled.
The constitution of this body is a peculiar one. It is a public Trust, and the trustees have raised their money by the issue of Debenture Stock which is a charge on the revenues; and when the revenues fall and when improvements are needed which require an alteration of the constitution of the corporation, instead of being able to proceed, as they would if this were a Joint Stock company, by liquidation and reconstruction, they have to take another course. If this had been a case under the Companies Acts your Lordships would have had no apprehension about the interference with the rights of existing creditors. An examination of this Bill shows that it is really a Bill for reconstruction, not necessarily liquidation because there is no such thing as liquidation in the case of a. public statutory company of this kind; and it is incidentally that the rights of creditors are affected, as they would incidentally be affected by liquidation under the Companies Acts. Therefore we have to look at the substance and not the form; and looking at the substance it may well be that in the interests of the Deferred B debenture-holders themselves this is the very best thing that could be done. I only rose to suggest to your Lordships that in considering this Bill we must be careful to look at substance and not at form; and looking at it from that point of view I feel myself in complete sympathy with the attitude which the Lord Chairman has adopted.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: In reply to the question put to me by Lord Camperdown, I confess that the idea had occurred to me whether we could not suggest something in the Preamble which would make it clear that this is an exceptional case. We have done our best during the past twenty-four hours to think of some suitable drafting for this purpose, but have utterly failed in our endeavour. To put in "Whereas exceptional circumstances demand," or something of that kind, would be quite meaningless. Exceptional circumstances exist in every case
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where a Private Bill is brought forward. Therefore I hope the noble Earl will not press his suggestion. There has not been a single speech in this debate in which the word "exceptional" has not been used over and over again, and Hansard will remain as a complete record of the feeling of your Lordships in this matter.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, after the discussion which has taken place I do not think it would be expedient for me to ask the House to go to a Division, but I hope your Lordships will not think that I frivolously or carelessly troubled you with this discussion, because it appeared to me that the matter was of such importance that it ought not to be passed in silence. I suggest to the Lord Chairman the insertion in the Preamble of these words: "Whereas we have grave doubts whether this thing ought to be done, we are going to do it." That is the nearest description of the actual state of the facts. I beg to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn: Then the original Motion agreed to: Bill read 3a accordingly, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

LAND DRAINAGE PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
BISHOP'S WALTHAM WATER BILL.
LEITH HARBOUR AND DOCKS BILL. [H.L.]
ARUNDELL ESTATE (CLOSING OF ARUN- DELL STREET AND PANTON SQUARE) BILL. [H.L.]
CONYNGHAM HEIRLOOMS BILL. [H.L.]
Committee to meet on Tuesday next.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PRO- VISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 62.)

LOCAL GOVERNNIENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 2) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before Six o'clock, till Tomorrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.