Sitting of 24 November 1920

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Dumbarton Burgh and County Tramways Order Confirmation Bill [Lords,]
Read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.
Greenock Port and Harbours Order Confirmation Bill [Lords,]
Read a Second time; and ordered to be considered To-morrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS.
  Mr. RONALD McNEILL: On a point of Order. On Monday I gave notice of a question to the Prime Minister. It appeared yesterday in the list of notices, but does not appear on to-day's Paper. May I be informed why it does not appear?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I will make enquiries.

  INDIA.

    INCITEMENT TO DISAFFECTION.
    Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India whether, considering that the Government of India in the official exposition of their policy of tolerance of agitation in India, published in the Press of the 6th instant, state that the appeal to the illiterate has already resulted in one deplorable crime, and that the reckless activity of the leaders of agitation who wander from city to city stirring up excitement among the masses by inflammatory speeches and by the reiteration of false statements, despite constant contradiction, may at any time result in serious outbreaks of disorder, he will now
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    suggest to the Government of India the advisability of putting an immediate stop to the policy of non-intervention pursued by them towards the appeals to ignorance and fanaticism hitherto made by Mr. Ghandi and his confederates without restraint; and if he can state what steps are now to be taken to protect the Indian community at large from incitements to disaffection and rebellion?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): I have nothing to add to the replies which I gave in the House last Wednesday on the same matter.
    Colonel YATE: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of my question—What steps have been taken to protect the Indian community from incitement to disaffection and rebellion?
    Mr. MONTAGU: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will refer to the answer I gave last week, I recited a list of steps which have been taken. I believe the number of prosecutions now is 16.
    Mr. R. GWYNNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that last week he did not make any statement as to what has been done to restrain Mr. Ghandi?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I did last week state that, as far as I was aware, the only restraint of Mr. Ghandi was the Seditious Meetings Act.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that sufficient to restrain him, and, in view of the continued sedition which Mr. Ghandi is preaching, will he ask for a special Report on the subject?
    Mr. MONTAGU: As I stated last week, I do not propose to interfere with the discretion of the Government of India. We are all agreed as to the danger and the mischief of Mr. Ghandi's campaign, but the matter of enforcing order in India is a matter for the local Government and the Government of India. I really must decline to dictate from here what steps are to be taken.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask for a special Report on the subject? He has asked for special Reports on other subjects.
    Mr. MONTAGU: I have already asked for a Report, and I have given the House the information I have received, namely, the resolution of the Government of India and an account of the number of prosecutions.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with those steps?

    DYER FUND (SUBSCRIPTIONS).
    Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India whether he will call the attention of the Government of India to the fact that Rule 22 of the Government Servants' Conduct Rules, referred to by the Government of India in the instructions issued by them forbidding officials in India to subscribe to the Dyer Fund, refers only to political movements in India, and that, as the Dyer Fund was simply a private subscription, this rule does not apply; whether he can state in what year these rules were compiled, and whether they are compatible with the altered conditions of service now that the Reforms Act has come into force; and, if not, whether he proposes to have them altered?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I am satisfied that the Government of India acted in this matter within the rules. Although these rules are constantly being revised, I am not of opinion that they require revision in this respect. I feel sure that the Government of India acted in the interests of the service itself in the decision to which they came, and in forming his judgment on this matter I would ask the hon. and gallant Member to consider not only the particular case to which he refers but his feelings on the matter if the fund had been intended to commemorate actions or to honour individuals of whose conduct he disapproved.

    ELECTIONS.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for India what has been the result so far of the elections recently held in Bombay and other electorates?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The election results in the various provinces will not be complete until dates ranging from the 3rd to the 15th December. Considering that 10 separate Councils are concerned I think it would merely cause confusion if I were to obtain piecemeal results of individual electorates, but I will, of course, supply
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    my hon. Friend with full information as soon as it is available.

    BURMA (GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT).
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India Act of 1919 is to be applied to Burma; and, if so, upon what date, and upon what conditions, if any, differing from those relating to India proper?
    Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India by what authority he has decided to bring Burma within the provisions of the Government of India Act, 1919, from which, as passed in Parliament, Burma was expressly excluded; and whether the Government propose to bring in a Bill to legalise this procedure?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The whole question is still under consideration, and no final decision has been arrived at.
    Colonel YATE: Does the Government propose to bring in a Bill to legalise this procedure?
    Mr. MONTAGU: We have not yet decided on the policy, so that I cannot definitely say whether a Bill will be necessary, but I promise the hon. and gallant Gentleman in the House that no action will be taken without submitting the decision to a vote of both Houses of Parliament.
    Colonel YATE: On what authority was the statement officially published in the papers that the procedure has been adopted?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I cannot be responsible for statements published in the papers.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the peaceful conditions long obtaining in Burma will not be a reason for delaying necessary constitutional reforms?
    Mr. MONTAGU: My experience is that peaceful conditions accelerate and un-peaceful conditions retard reform.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will that be the case with Burma?

    OUTRAGES.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Secretary of State for India whether he can give any information as to the at-

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    tempt of the Zakka Khel recently to carry off two officers of the British Army; and whether any of them have been captured or punished?
    Mr. MONTAGU: Two British soldiers were kidnapped last month from Peshawar by a gang of Zakka Khel. They were detained in the Bazar Valley and were reported to be receiving good treatment. I have not received news of the release of these men, but I am making further inquiry.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will the right hon. Gentleman add further inquiries as to whether the culprits have been found?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The hon. Member knows—I think he has been there—that we are dealing with tribal territory, and punishment is difficult, but I have made inquiries into that.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Secretary of State for India whether he has any further information in reference to the recent murder of an English officer at Kohat, and the attempt of the tribesmen to carry away his wife?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The only information that I have received beyond that already published in the Press is that the tribesmen implicated were a gang of about thirty men belonging probably to the Zakka Khel and Kambar Khel Afridis. The condition of the lady who was wounded is satisfactory.
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I must ask the same supplementary question, whether any information has been obtained in regard to the Zakka Khel themselves, and what steps are being taken with regard to these two outrages by the same tribe, one in capturing British soldiers and the other in murdering a British officer?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I have anticipated the hon. Member by making inquiry on that very point.

    PUNJAB DISTURBANCES (AMNESTY).
    Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Secretary of State for India if any communications passed between himself and the Viceroy after the date of the amnesty and the release of the prisoners regarding the pardoning of the 27 men who were
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    convicted in connection with the Punjab rebellion of 1919, and subsequently released under the amnesty; and, if so, whether he will state what those communications were, who it was that desired that those men should be specially pardoned to permit them to stand for election to the new councils, and what reason was adduced to warrant the Government of India Act, by which Parliament imposed this disability on convicted persons, being set at nought at the first opportunity?
    Mr. MONTAGU: No, Sir. I find that I sent no communications on this subject to the Viceroy except that I communicated to him a question and answer asked in this House. As regards the second part of the question, the Government of India announced in a communique to the Press on the 18th September that they had always contemplated, in the case of persons not found guilty of personal participation in serious deeds of violence, action which would remove the electoral disability. They have informed me that their action was taken after consultation with the local government. As regards the last part, I would refer the hon. Member to Rule V (2), as approved by Parliament.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Did not the right hon. Gentleman state, in answer to a question from me, that these men were not being pardoned in order to enable them to take part in the elections?
    Mr. MONTAGU: No, I do not think so. I think I stated that they were not pardoned, but I will refresh my memory.

    RUPEE EXCHANGE.
    Mr. CLOUGHasked the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware of the serious effect on British trade of the wholesale cancellation of Indian contracts due to the fall in the rupee; whether the Government of India undertook to stabilise the rupee at 2s.; whether he is now investigating the commercial crisis which has arisen; and what steps he proposes to take to remedy the situation?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I am aware of the serious effect on the United Kingdom export trade of the recent fall in the rupee exchange. As regards the second part of the question no such undertaking

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    has been given, but as stated in the announcement issued on 2nd February last the objective of Indian currency policy is the stabilisation of the rupee exchange at 2s. gold, the rate recommended by the Majority Report of the Indian Currency Committee of 1919. With a view to the support of exchange, drafts on London have been sold by the Government of India to the extent of £50,000,000 since this policy was announced, but the effect of these sales has been obscured for various reasons, in particular on account of the stagnation of the export and unusual strength of the import trade of India in recent months.

    COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE.
    Captain R. TERRELLasked the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the situation in that country, the India Office will, in reconsidering its attitude, permit the introduction of compulsory military service for all Europeans in India, as desired by Europeans themselves?
    Mr. MONTAGU: An auxiliary force for India has recently been constituted on a voluntary basis. I do not propose to take any steps towards the introduction of compulsory military service until it has been seen what success attends the voluntary organisation. I have asked for a report on the progress of the force.
    Colonel YATE: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to get that Report?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I have asked for it by telegram. I hope in the course of a few days.

    STORES DEPOT (PENSIONS).
    Mr. GILBERTasked the Secretary of State for India what is the number of the staff employed at the India Stores Depôt, Belvedere Road, S.E.; whether he is aware that the staff employed there are on different conditions, one pensionable and one unpensionable, which is a cause of dissatisfaction, as men are discharged after many years' service without any pension at all; and if he will consider the possibility of putting all employés at this depot on the same conditions of a pension according to their years of service?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The total staff at the India Store Depôt is 250. It consists of
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    clerical and technical officers on the one hand and "industrial" employés (foremen, artificers, and labourers) on the other. The former group is pensionable, the latter at present unpensionable, but eligible on retirement after fifteen years' service for a compassionate allowances or gratuity at their option. The staff at the India Store Depot has now passed under the control of the High Commissioner for India, who is, I understand, considering the question of giving the industrial staff a pensionable status.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    PAY (OFFICERS AND MEN).
    Commander Viscount CURZONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what steps the Admiralty are taking, or have taken, to see that the officers and men of the Royal Navy are in a position to meet the rise in the cost of living since the present scale of pay was fixed?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Colonel Sir J. Craig): I regret that I cannot at present supplement the assurance given to the hon. Member for Devonport on the 21st ultimo, to the effect that the question of the adequacy of the emoluments of officers and men of the Royal Navy will not be lost sight of.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Baronet aware that married men in the lower ranks of the Navy are very hard hit indeed at present, and will the Admiralty consider some relief for them before there is any dissatisfaction?
    Sir J. CRAIG: Yes. As I have just said, the whole matter is under careful review.
    Viscount CURZON: Will the hon. Baronet bear in mind that the latest published index figures of the cost of living show another increase, and thereby more hardship for married men?
    Sir J. CRAIG: The Noble Lord is doubtless aware, as against that, that the new arrangement in the service with regard to the married allowance is already on a sliding scale which goes up and down according to the index figure.

    SEAMEN RATINGS (ATLANTIC FLEET).
    Viscount GURZONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether a serious reduction of the number of seamen ratings borne in fully commissioned ships of the Atlantic Fleet has just taken place; whether he can indicate the extent of the reduction; whether it represents a decrease in complement or whether an additional number of boys are to be borne in lieu; and whether he can give an assurance that the fighting efficiency and complete preparedness for war of all the ships concerned is not thereby to be interfered with?
    Sir J. CRAIG: A temporary reduction has recently been authorised in the number of seamen ratings borne in fully commissioned ships of the Atlantic Fleet; the extent of that reduction cannot be stated in detail as it differs in each class of ship. The chief reason for this step is the necessity of resuming in greater volume than at present the specialised training of seamen ratings in shore establishments which was interrupted during the War, and the reduction has been made in order to pass larger numbers through the gunnery and torpedo schools to qualify for non-substantive ratings. The Board of Admiralty consider that whatever slight loss of efficiency is involved can safely be accepted as a temporary measure in the interests of increased efficiency in the future. The ratings withdrawn for training are, of course, immediately available if required, and the arrangements do not represent any permanent decrease in complement. Preparedness for war is not affected.
    Viscount CURZON: Has the decrease in the number of seamen ratings been made up by an increase in the number of boys?
    Sir J. CRAIG: I will answer that presently.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can say if there is any shortage of seamen and other naval ratings; if so, what steps are being taken to meet that shortage; whether any cruisers, and, if so, how many, have been withdrawn from foreign stations on this account; whether boys are being taken on to make up the complements of sea-going ships; whether the flying squadron of the Atlantic Fleet is no longer in being; whether any
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    reduction, and, if so, what has been made in any battle cruiser squadrons; and will he say what change, if any, has been made by way of reductions in the seamen complements of battleships and cruisers in the Atlantic Fleet?
    Sir J. CRAIG: There is a temporary shortage in the seamen branch, partly due to the fact that the measures taken to reduce personnel to peace requirements operated more rapidly than was expected, and partly to special claims on our manning resources which could not be foreseen. The shortage is being made up by authorising the entry of youths and special service seamen, and by allowing men who have taken their discharge to re-enter. In consequence of the shortage of seamen the number of cruisers on foreign stations will temporarily be two less than was intended. The number of boys sent to sea-going ships is regulated as heretofore by the numbers requiring sea-going training before being rated ordinary seamen. There is no flying squadron in the Atlantic Fleet. The attached air-craft carrier is now paid off and undergoing alterations necessitated by recent experiments; she will be re-commissioned on completion in order to rejoin the Atlantic Fleet on the expiration of the forthcoming leave period. H.M.S. "Renown" has been paid off for refit on her return from Australasia. H.M.S. "Repulse," which has just completed large alterations, will complete and re-commission shortly for the battle cruiser squadron. A temporary reduction in the seaman complements of the Atlantic Fleet ships has been made in order to pass larger numbers through the gunnery and torpedo schools to qualify for non-substantive ratings and make up the aftermath of the War. The reductions do not represent any permanent decrease in complements.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman prepared to say that the recruiting of seamen is up to the usual standard?
    Sir J. CRAIG: That raises another point. I have given a very long answer to the question asked.

    ENGINE ROOM ARTIFICERS (CABINS).
    Mr. R. YOUNGasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether in small ships cabins have been provided and

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    marked chief engine room artificer; whether such cabins are now so marked; and, if not, by whose authority has the marking been removed?
    Sir J. CRAIG: It is not the practice to provide cabins for chief engine room artificers. In one class of small vessel, not built to Admiralty designs, such cabins were so marked, but the Board of Admiralty decided that such cabins should not be allocated to chief engine room artificers.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Are we to understand from that that these cabins are not now being used and are not being given to these men?
    Sir J. CRAIG: No. These small ships have four cabins, three of which are occupied as state rooms, and the fourth is kept for the surgeon in case he has to come on board.

    PENSIONS.
    Major Sir B. FALLEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he can give the date and effect of any Order in Council or regulation which differentiates the position of the pensioned officer and the lower deck pensioner when called up for service; and if he can give any reason why the men who completed time for pension after the outbreak of War were specially favoured as against their officers by the decision of the War Cabinet Committee in September, 1917?
    Sir J. CRAIG: As I informed my hon. and gallant Friend on the 17th instant, the authority for payment of full pay and pension to pensioned Naval ratings called up for service is Section 16 of the Naval Volunteers Act, 1853. The authority for the remuneration of retired officers similarly called up for service is an Order in Council dated the 5th March, 1910, under which they are entitled to the full pay of their rank and a bonus of 25 per cent. thereon in lieu of counting such further service for increase of retired pay. As my hon. and gallant Friend is aware, the conditions of service of officers and men have always differed widely. In particular, officers during periods of unemployment, have been liable to half pay, whereas men were never so. Until 1870, when retired pay scales were introduced, all officers during unemployment were left on half pay whether it was intended to
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    employ them further or not. There has never been any Act or Order in Council under which an officer can draw half or retired pay concurrently with his full pay during employment. As regards the second part of the question the effect of the decision of the War Cabinet Committee in September, 1917, was to place men who completed time for pension, as from the date of completing time, in precisely the same position as pensioner ratings called up. Similarly, as the result of a proposal by the Officers' Pay Committee in 1919, all officers who reached the age for compulsory retirement during the War have been given the option of being treated, as from the date of reaching that age, precisely as retired officers called up whenever they deem it to their advantage to receive the bonus of 25 per cent. on their full pay in lieu of counting the further service for increase of retired pay.

    SCHOOLMASTERS.
    Viscountess ASTORasked the Secretary to the Admiralty (1) if it is the intention of the Admiralty to adjust the pay of the schoolmaster branch, Royal Navy, in accordance with the pay of civilian teachers, and if the Admiralty is aware that for the first 18 years a schoolmaster, Royal Navy, is paid practically on the provisional minimum scale for teachers in elementary schools, although the instruction given in many naval schools is of a secondary and technical school nature;
    (2) Whether, in view of the present high cost of living and the financial straits of many schoolmasters, Royal Navy, he will recommend that, as warrant officers, all naval schoolmasters shall receive the pay and promotion of the mechanical branch of warrant officers?
    Sir J. CRAIG: The whole of this matter is now under consideration.

    "INSECT" CLASS (CABINS).
    Mr. R. YOUNGasked the Secretary to the Admiralty how many cabins are provided in His Majesty's ships of the "Insect" class; by whom were they occupied on commissioning; whether they are all occupied now; and, if so, by whom?
    Sir J. CRAIG: His Majesty's ships of the "Insect" class are provided with

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    four cabins. On commissioning the cabins were occupied by the commanding officer, lieutenant, sub-lieutenant, and surgeon-lieutenant, when one was borne. In a few instances, the fourth cabin was occupied by the chief engine room artificer. Three cabins are regularly occupied in all vessels of this class. The fourth cabin is reserved for the use of a surgeon-lieutenant when it is necessary for such an officer to be carried.
    Mr. YOUNG: Is the fourth cabin sometimes used as a storeroom, instead of being occupied?
    Sir J. CRAIG: I dare say that that is so.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it not a fact that surgeons are not carried on these ships as a rule, and if there is no surgeon using them will the hon. and gallant Gentleman consider allowing the chief E.R.A. and the engineering officer to use them?
    Sir J. CRAIG: That is a matter which has been before the Board, and the Board have decided not.

  RUSSIA.

    GENERAL WRANGEL.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether His Majesty's ships and transports embarked only wounded men and women and children from the Crimea, or whether any of Baron Wrangel's soldiers were embarked; and, if soldiers were embarked, where have they been landed, and will they be permitted to proceed to any other fighting front against the Russian Government?
    Sir J. CRAIG: With the exception of 150 Russian children who were at the time in the charge of the British Red Cross Hospital, only British nationals were evacuated in British ships. None of General Wrangel's soldiers were embarked in British ships.

    FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS.
    Sir F. HALLasked the Prime Minister (1) if the Government adhere to their pronouncement of March, 1918, on the financial obligations of Russia, that those obligations continue
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    and will be regarded as binding upon the new State or group of States by which Russia is or will be represented; and if the satisfaction of such obligations will be recognised as a first claim on Russia's financial resources in any agreement which may be entered into to promote intertrading between Great Britain and Russia;
    (2) If the conclusion of an agreement with Russia as to the renewal of trading relations would be affected in the event of the Soviet Government making an attack upon Poland, despite the peace treaty recently entered into; whether the Government will ask for satisfactory guarantees that the integrity of Polish territories as now determined shall be respected before a final decision is come to as to an understanding on trading questions; and whether he will undertake that the agreement already entered into shall be discussed fully and freely in the House of Commons before the same is ratified?
    Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the replies which I gave yesterday, and remind him that, if the House so desire, there will be an opportunity of debating these questions.
    Sir S. HOARE: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to circulate the correspondence that has taken place between the Government and the Bolshevik Government before any Debate takes place?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I did not know there was any correspondence relating to this subject that has not been circulated.
    Sir F. HALL: May I ask for an explicit "Yes" or "No" to the first part of the question?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: What my hon. Friend wishes is that the Government should state now the conditions upon which we should come to any understanding with Russia, and that is not quite so easy.
    Sir F. HALL: Are we to understand that the Government adhere to the pronouncement made by the chief delegate in March, 1918, on this subject?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer "Yes" or "No" can be given to that readily. It is "Yes."
    Sir S. HOARE: Will the right hon. Gentleman look into the matter, and if he finds, as I think he will find, that there is some correspondence which has not been published, have it published before the Debate takes place?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes.

  IRELAND.

    IMPORTATION OF ARMS.
    Captain TERRELLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state what steps are being taken by the Admiralty to prevent the importation into Ireland by sea of military arms and equipments for the Irish revolutionaries?
    Sir J. CRAIG: This subject has received, and is receiving, the closest attention. My hon. and gallant Friend will realise, however, that it is not in the public interest to give any details in regard to the matter.
    Mr. E. KELLY: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman giving this matter his personal attention, which will be very valuable in view of his experience?

    MURDER OF CONSTABLES, BALLYBRACK.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland how many farms, farm buildings, out-houses, and dwelling-houses were burned in the neighbourhood of Ballybrack, near Killarney, following on the shooting of Constables Woods and Turner; whether the inhabitants were given an opportunity of removing their personal effects before the houses were fired; whether any persons have been arrested in connection with the shootings; and whether the farms and buildings were supposed to have been burned in connection with any fighting or in pursuit of suspected persons?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood):I am informed that while the police were engaged in searching in Ballybrack district for persons suspected of complicity in the recent murders of Constables Turner and Woods they were fired upon, and in the course of the fighting dwelling-houses, three outhouses and a quantity of hay, straw and peat were burned. The three house in question
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    had been vacated by the occupants on the arrival of the police. One person was arrested, and is still in custody. I protest against the word "shooting" in this question. The two constables were unarmed and were brutally murdered by a number of assassins, who fired into the bodies of their victims while in their last agonies.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: When I put this question down one constable was still alive, and I would certainly have put the word "murder" had I known he had died. I have always used the word "murder" in such cases, and I object to the right hon. Gentleman's insinuation.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: English fair play!

    "WEEKLY SUMMARY."
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether No. 12 of the official "Weekly Summary" sent out to police and military barracks in Ireland contains statements of the decisions taken by the Cork and Lisburn branches of the so-called Anti-Sinn Fein Society stating that if any member of His Majesty's Forces be murdered two members of the Sinn Fein party in the County of Cork will be killed, and in the event of a member of the Sinn Fein party not being available three sympathisers will be killed; that in the event of a member of His Majesty's Forces being wounded, or an attempt made to wound him, one member of the Sinn Fein party will be killed, or if not available two sympathisers will be killed; and who was responsible for publishing this in an official publication?
    In putting this question, might I ask for a little courtesy from the right hon. Gentleman?
    Mr. SPEAKER: Those who ask for courtesy should show some.
    Mr. MOSLEYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether a "Weekly Summary" is circulated to the police and auxilliary police stationed in Ireland with the authority of any Government officials; who is the editor of this publication, who are the contractors, and whether it has any printer's imprint; whether it is printed at the public cost; and, if so, under what Vote the expense will appear?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I will answer these questions together. I would refer to the reply given to questions on this subject asked by the hon. Members for the Spennymoor Division of Durham (Mr. Galbraith) and for Edinburgh East (Mr. Hogge) on Monday last.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: May I ask whether this statement is correct? May I have an answer, Yes or No? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]
    Mr. DEVLIN: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to continue this publication, paid for by the Government, every copy of which is an incitement to assassinate civilians in Ireland?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I deny that monstrous allegation. I do intend to continue this "Summary."
    Mr. HOGGE: In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman said this was published for the purpose of this force, and in view of the recent exhibition of feeling, will the right hon. Gentleman himself take a little trouble to see that anything which provokes further murders or reprisals is excluded from it?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I will see what I can do to give some personal supervision to this paper, but I cannot promise to read the proofs of this paper. I am convinced it serves a useful purpose to a sorely tried force.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: Will the right hon. Gentleman have copies of this paper put regularly in the library of this House, so that hon. Members can judge for themselves?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I answered that question yesterday.
    Mr. DEVLIN: What is the necessity for this paper being published at the public expense? Why should the Black and Tans have a special organ of their own to incite them to greater misdeeds?
    Mr. MacVEAGH: Is it a fact that this paper, which is issued by the Government at Dublin Castle, a fortnight ago called upon Black and Tans to "produce an appropriate hell in Ireland," and does the right hon. Gentleman think that a proper publication to be issued under Government orders?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of that.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: It is a fact.

    MURDERED OFFICERS, FUNERAL.
    Sir J. BUTCHER(by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether arrangements can be made whereby Members of the House of Commons may be enabled to take part in the funeral of the officers murdered in Dublin on Sunday last, and to show their profound respect and sympathy for those officers and their bereaved relatives?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The War Office are in communication with the relatives of the murdered officers as to the arrangements for the funeral which have not yet been completed. It is probable that it will take place on Friday morning, and facilities will be given to Members of both Houses who desire to be present to enable them to attend.

  EX-SERVICE MEN.

    EMPLOYMENT.
    Mr. RAPERasked the Minister of Labour if he will consider sending a strongly worded appeal to all commercial firms and companies employing 25 clerks and over, requesting them to increase their office staffs by the addition of one ex-service man for each 25 clerks already employed?
    The MINISTER of LABOUR (Dr. Macnamara): My hon. and gallant Friend was so good as to make the suggestion contained in his question to me some days ago, and I at once took care that it should receive the consideration now being given to it.
    Mr. RICHARDSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider making regulations to compel private employers to reinstate ex-service men in their old employment rather than simply give it to women and temporary civil servants?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Broadly, the employers throughout the country have behaved very patriotically. They have absorbed over 5,000,000 men. It is as regards something like 250,000 that my hon. Friend is concerned. I do not think that I could at this moment suggest compulsion—so many have done so well I hope that employment may be found for these men.
    Sir HARRY BRITTAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that unmarried women who are dependent on their earnings will not be dismissed?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Great care is taken with regard to that.

    WOOLWICH ARSENAL.
    Mr. LYLEasked the Minister of Labour how many ex-service men recently discharged from Woolwich Arsenal have come on the books of the employment exchanges; how many are there still; and what special steps he is taking to find them employment?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I am informed that no ex-service men have recently been discharged from Woolwich Arsenal except a small number who have been discharged for misconduct. Only three ex-service men employed at the Arsenal have registered at the Woolwich Employment Exchange during the past month. Every effort is made to find suitable employment for them. Additional work has recently been secured for the Ordnance Factories at Woolwich, which it is hoped may render it unnecessary to discharge workers from the factories during the next two or three months, although some of the other departments at Woolwich are running short of work. Every effort, however, is being made to absorb redundant workers in the factories, and the whole question of employment in connection with Woolwich Arsenal is engaging the attention of the Cabinet Committee on Unemployment I should add that the road work recently started in the Woolwich district is employing 130 men, and a considerably larger number will be employed in the near future.

    TRAMWAYS, GATESHEAD.
    Mr. GALBRAITHasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that at the Gateshead Employment Exchange 615 ex-service men are registered, of whom 214 have never had any work since they were discharged from the forces, while some 381 have had temporary employment; whether there are about 30 girls employed on the Gateshead tramways who could easily be replaced by ex-service men who can only follow light employment; whether the tramway company is still engaging girls in preference to men; and what steps he proposes taking to remedy the situation?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have asked for a report on the matter to which my hon. Friend refers, and will communicate with him as soon as I receive it.

    KING'S NATIONAL ROLL OF HONOUR.
    Captain LOSEBYasked the Minister of Labour the number of local authorities that have qualified to have their names inscribed on the King's Roll by virtue of giving an undertaking that 5 per cent. of their total number of employés should be disabled ex-service men?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: In England and Wales there are 57 county boroughs on the Roll and 25 not on the Roll; 155 town councils on the Roll and 120 not on the Roll; 16 county councils on the Roll and 47 not on the Roll; 85 boards of guardians on the Roll, 561 not on the Roll; 291 urban district councils on the Roll, 508 not on the Roll; 75 rural district councils on the Roll, 574 not on the Roll. In Scotland, 41 town councils are on the Roll, 162 are not on the Roll; 5 county councils on the Roll, 28 not on the Roll; 2 county district committees on the Roll, 97 not on the Roll.
    Of course, as regards smaller local authorities, boards of guardians, rural district councils, and parish councils in Scotland, the total number of employés in each case is probably small. I can well understand that in these cases it is not always easy to qualify, but, undoubtedly, the comment does not apply to the larger municipal bodies. It may be that many of these not on the Roll are already employing enough disabled men to qualify them for admission to the Roll. I hope that they will meet me by requesting the entry of their name upon the Roll, because of the great force of example which is thus set in their own localities.
    Captain LOSEBY: Has a special appeal been made to local authorities to have their names on the King's Roll, and, speaking generally, is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with the result?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: There have been several appeals. One has very recently been made, and, although I do not want to seem ungrateful or ungracious for what has been done, I am not satisfied. Many may be qualified who are not on the Roll. I hope they will take this hint. I am not

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    satisfied generally with the fact that many have not their names on the Roll.
    Sir S. HOARE: Has the right hon. Gentleman the figures for the metropolitan boroughs and can he circulate the names of the larger local authorities that have not joined the Roll?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As to London if the hon. and gallant Member will put down a question I will obtain the information. The circulation of the names I will think about. Perhaps this will be enough for them.
    Mr. LINDSAY: Have the public authorities in Ireland been applied to, to have their names on the Roll?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not think the King's Roll counts for very much in Ireland, I am sorry to say.
    Mr. LINDSAY: Has any application been made to any firms in Ireland to have their names on the Roll? My information is that application is not made to them.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: That may be. Perhaps the hon. Member will put down a question on the subject.
    Mr. RAFFAN: As so few county councils are responding, and so few are on the Roll, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of communicating with the County Councils' Association?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I was under the impression that that was one of the many things we have done. If it has not been done it will be done.
    Mr. BILLING: Can the right hon. Gentleman supply the local authorities with a list of all these men and the work for which they are suitable, and thus give the authorities an opportunity of selecting their men?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not think the local authorities have a list of men unemployed in their areas, though many such lists have been prepared.
    Mr. BILLING: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to supply every member of this House with a list of all the men in his constituency who are trying to find work under this scheme, so that hon. Members may take some action?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have supplied information more than once, and am very much obliged for the very good work achieved by very many hon. Members.
    Mr. R. McLAREN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in many cases local authorities employing ex-service men look upon it as spectacular rather than as very practical?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I believe it to be a fact that a great many of those not on the Roll are already qualified, but I respectfully urge upon them the necessity of getting upon the Roll and setting an example to other people.
    Mr. A. DAVIES (Clitheroe): Is this delinquency on the part of the local authorities going to be attributed to the responsibility of the trade unions?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not asking the trade unions to go on the Roll. I do not quite see the point of the question.

    MENTAL CASES.
    Mr. RAPERasked the Minister of Health whether there are any discharged sailors or soldiers suffering from loss of memory or other nervous disability in pauper lunatic asylums and/or Poor Law institutions?
    The MINISTER of HEALTH (Dr-Addison): I am afraid I have not the information for which my hon. Friend asks.
    Mr. RAPER: Will the right hon. Gentleman obtain the information?
    Dr. ADDISON: I have inquired into the matter, and I will do what I can to get it.
    Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: Is it not a fact that the Secretary of State for War gave the House the figures in answer to a question?
    Colonel C. LOWTHER: Is it not possible to provide for proper institutions instead of sending to pauper lunatic asylums men who have lost their memory?
    Dr. ADDISON: These are all Poor Law institutions.
    Mr. WATERSON: Are not Poor Law institutions the result of the present system?
    Mr. BILLING: Would it not be possible to call on all poor-law institutions who have got any of these men to give a return?
    Dr. ADDISON: Yes, we are doing that, but it is very wide and we must give them something definite to go upon.
    Lieut.-Colonel FREEMANTLE: Are not these cases dealt with in Clause 10 of the Ministry of Health Bill?
    Colonel LOWTHER: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire into the matter, because it is serious?
    Dr. ADDISON: I am making inquiries.

    BUILDING TRADE (DILUTION).
    Sir WILLIAM DAVISONasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that there are over 60,000 fewer skilled men now employed in the building trade than before the War, and approximately 150,000 fewer skilled men than five years before the War, while the amount of building to be done is at least five times greater; whether he is also aware that negotiations between the Government and the building trades unions to allow of the employment of 50,000 ex-service men have now been proceeding for more than a year, but that no agreement has yet been reached, and therefore 50,000 ex-service men who should long ago have been in good employment are still unemployed, and are thereby materially increasing the prevailing distress due to unemployment; and whether he will assure the House that in the event of the building trades unions failing to accept the Government's terms by the end of the current month the Government will themselves take steps to secure employment for at least 50,000 ex-service men in the building of houses under some of the various schemes which are now being hung up or delayed from lack of labour?
    Mr. RENDALLasked the Minister of Labour whether the Gloucester division of the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers have informed him by letter that there are a large number of ex-service men in Gloucestershire desirous of taking part in the building of houses, making of new roads, etc., and that the National Federation are prepared to provide skilled ex-service bricklayers, carpenters, etc., to instruct unskilled men in the
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    work; and what action he proposes to take in order that this offer shall be taken advantage of?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have been asked to answer these questions. I have received the letter referred to in Question 28. The negotiations between the Government and the building trades for increasing the supply of labour by the admission of ex-service men for work on the national housing programme are proceeding, and every effort is being made to expedite a solution. So long as there is a hops of agreement upon a national basis, it is better, I think, not to complicate the position by sectional or local arrangements. This last sentence, relating to the prospect of settlement applies also to the point put to me by my hon. Friend in the question now under answer.
    Sir W. DAVISON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these negotiations have now been going on since July, 1919, and when I raised this question on more than one occasion I was asked not to press it as the negotiations had reached a critical stage, and does the right hon. Gentleman not think after sixteen months it is high time that the negotiations were concluded so that these men should get into employment? May I press for the assurance asked for in the question that if the negotiations are not completed by the end of the current month the Government will themselves take steps to get these men into the building industry?
    Mr. A. DAVIES (Clitheroe): Can the right hon. Gentleman say if there is any reason other than the opposition of his own supporters why the Government should not build houses themselves and employ these men direct?
    Mr. BILLING: Is it not the fact that no building can be undertaken without some skilled men to lead the work; and is it not the fact that the skilled men have refused to lead the unemployed ex-soldiers? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"]
    Dr. MACNAMARA: It is true negotiations have been conducted, certainly since July, 1919. I am very interested to hear the proposal of my hon. Friend (Mr. Davies) that we should proceed forthwith to build houses. For the moment I would rather not give a decision while the national settlement is pending. I agree

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    at once, and I imagine everybody will agree, that it is desirable to settle this thing one way or the other.
    Mr. J. E. DAVISON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Prime Minister himself advocated the policy of the State building of houses in the year 1913, and does he not think that now is the opportunity afforded him of carrying it into practical operation?
    Mr. BILLING: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman will take advantage of the offer now made from the Labour Benches and call on the men representing the building trade to volunteer to produce the necessary men the Government want to train ex-service officers and men?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I said I was very interested in the suggestion, but I do not want to complicate the negotiations which I hope will be brought to a conclusion at an early date one way or the other, by undertaking to accept any offer. After all we are trying to find an arrangement with the trade unions. My hon. Friend (Mr. Davies) speaks for the trade unions, but I do not think he could say at this moment that his proposal would not be opposed by them. I am rather afraid it might. In any case I do not want to enter into the subject further at this moment.
    Mr. A. HOPKINSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to warn any ex-service men who propose to enter the building industry that it is the considered policy of the Ministry of Health to limit people engaged in the industry in a way that no other industry is limited, or, in other words, it is the policy of the Ministry of Health to prevent men in the building industry selling their labour at the highest price?

    TISBURY BOARD OF GUARDIANS (CLERK).
    Captain LOSEBYasked the Minister of Health if he will state what steps, if any, does he intend taking with regard to the recent appointment of a non-ex-service man as clerk to the Tisbury Board of Guardians, the Tisbury Board of Guardians having given the appointment to a man who already holds several public appointments, notwithstanding the strong representations made by a large majority of the local public, including
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    practically all the ex-service men in the locality, who wished that the appointment in question should be given to a properly qualified ex-service man?
    Dr. ADDISON: I have again urged upon the Guardians the claims of ex-service men in connection with the vacant appointment, and I will send my hon. and gallant Friend a copy of the letter which I addressed to the Guardians on the subject.

  BAKING INDUSTRY (WOMEN).
  Captain ELLIOTasked the Minister of Labour whether the scheme dealing with the employment of women in the baking industry will require some three months' deliberation before it can possibly come into effect; and whether, in view of the fact that the women recently dismissed can be absorbed without displacing any male labour, he can see his way to press for the temporary reinstatement of these women till the permanent and considered scheme comes into effect?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: As my hon. and gallant Friend is aware, the Scottish Union of Bakers and Confectioners objected to the continued employment, since the War, of women in bakehouses. They wanted to revert to what they held to be pre-War practice. They threatened to strike, whereupon certain firms dismissed a number of women. The Scottish Bakers' Joint Industrial Council is now considering the general question of the employment of women in bakehouses, but I understand there is a difference between the two sides of the Council as to what exactly the pre-War practice was. A scheme dealing with the employment of women in the trade was prepared by the Joint Industrial Council, was considered by the employers and the trade union, and was, I understand, again discussed at a meeting of the Council on the 18th November, without, however, a decision being arrived at. The local officer of the Ministry of Labour is in touch with the parties, and I shall be happy to give any assistance in my power to bring about an early settlement of the matter.
  Captain ELLIOT: Would it not be possible at least to make sure that women who have been employed in the trade before the War are not dismissed until this scheme has been considered?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I am afraid numbers have been already dismissed.
  Captain ELLIOT: If there are any pre-War women workers who are still employed, will the right hon. Gentleman use his good offices to see that they are not dismissed?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I find it a most excellent plan to leave these matters, as far as I can, to the Joint Industrial Council, which is doing admirable service. I am in close touch with the matter.
  Sir J. D. REES: On what authority does the Minister of Labour intervene in these matters?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: In the public interest.
  Sir J. D. REES: Is it competent for the right hon. Gentleman to decide what is the public interest without reference to anyone?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: If I meet trouble half way it is in order that we may not go the whole journey.

  UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT, 1920.
  Sir CYRIL COBBasked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the circumstances which have resulted in the recent rapid increase in unemployment in the country, he will consider the advisability of widening the application of Clauses 7 and 44 of the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1920, in order to place those persons who had recently been thrown out of employment at the date when the first contribution was due under the Act in the same position with regard to benefit as they would have been if they had been in employment at that date?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: As the Unemployment Insurance Act is on a contributory basis, I am afraid I cannot hold out any hope of H, modification of the condition which is imposed by the Act itself, that a minimum of four contributions must be paid in order to qualify an applicant for benefit. The provisions of Section 44, under which benefit may be claimed for eight weeks as soon as four contributions have been paid under the Act, is already very favourable to persons entering insur-
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  ance for the first time, and persons previously insured will, I imagine, in most cases have already paid the qualifying number of contributions. As regards the special case of ex-members of His Majesty's Forces, my hon. Friend is no doubt aware that ex-service men and women and merchant seamen are entitled to out-of-work donation under the fresh extension, which will be in operation to 31st March next.
  Mr. PEMBERTON BILLING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a considerable amount of unemployment and the necessary payment of doles is attributable to the lack of dilution in certain trades where there is a shortage of labour? How long do the Government propose to pay unemployment doles to trade unions which refuse to absorb available labour?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: That does not apply to this, and, if it did, I have another question to answer on the matter.
  Mr. R. GRAHAMasked the Minister of Labour what trades have completed their arrangements to contract cut of the Unemployment Insurance Act; and whether he will state the amounts of the contributions of the employés and of the employers, the amounts of the benefits provided, and the estimated costs of the administration of these adopted schemes?
  Mr. MACNAMARA: I assume that my hon. Friend is referring to special schemes under Section 18 of the Act. Such schemes are under consideration in several cases, but the proposals have not as yet in any case reached the stage of adoption by the industry with a view to approval by the Ministry of Labour. Of course, my hon. Friend is aware that it was recognised that industries would not be able to have their special schemes ready by the date of the coming into operation of the Act. Provision is therefore made under Section 18 of the Act to enable an easy transition to be made to a special scheme for any industry, where such special scheme comes into force on or before the 4th July, 1921.

  MENTAL DEFICIENTS.
  Mr. R. RICHARDSONasked the Minister of Health by what authority those extra commissioners, whose

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  function was restricted on their appointment to looking after mental deficients are now exercising powers in regard to patients committed under the Lunacy Act?
  Dr. ADDISON: This question appears to be based on a misapprehension. Under Section 65 of the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, the powers and duties of the Commissioners in Lunacy were transferred to the Board of Control, and the Act-imposed no such restriction as the hon. Member suggests with regard to the functions of those members of the Board who were not previously Commissioners in Lunacy.

  HOUSING.

    PRIVATE BUILDERS (SUBSIDY).
    Major O'NEILLasked the Minister of Health whether he anticipates that the whole of the money allocated for the Payment of grants to private builders under the Housing (Additional Powers) Act, 1919, will be required by reason of the proposed extension of the time within which those grants are payable?
    Dr. ADDISON: If certificates are granted by local authorities during the proposed period at the same rate as in the past three months, and the houses for which certificates are issued are completed, there is little doubt that the grants would approximate to The maximum authorised.
    Mr. W. THORNE: May I ask if these grants to private builders have been the means of reducing rents in different parts of the country?
    Dr. ADDISON: I cannot say, but they have undoubtedly provided more houses.

    SUSIDISED HOUSES.
    Mr. LEONARD LYLEasked the Minister of Health whether he has issued instructions that all houses to whose erection State assistance has contributed shall be offered to British subjects; and, if not, whether he will take steps to convey this recommendation to all the local authorities concerned?
    Dr. ADDISON: The selection of tenants for their houses is left to the discretion of the local authorities, but I have issued suggestions in the matter,
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    and I think that local authorities generally are giving the first preference amongst the applicants to ex-service men with families.
    Mr. LYLE: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it is most unsatisfactory that ex-service men and women should be without houses while in many cases most undesirable aliens should have houses?
    Dr. ADDISON: I think it is undesirable.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Park Lane, especially.

    BUILDING COSTS.
    Mr. ROBINSON GRAHAMasked the Minister of Health the actual cost or the estimated cost, approved by the Ministry of Health, of the building of a brick house of any specified standard type according to the established methods by ordinary contract, by direct labour, and by guilds; and the actual cost-or the estimated cost, approved by the Ministry of Health, of the same type of house built from concrete blocks, and of the same type of house built by the Standard Housing Company by massed production, and from blocks of slate?
    Dr. ADDISON: The comparison asked for is not practicable, as the cost of building varies between wide limits in different localities, and even on different sites in the same locality. On some sites a concrete house can be built cheaper than a brick house; on others the converse is the case. Very little information is available as to the actual cost of the particular type of house constructed by the firm mentioned. It is hoped that new methods of construction will help to reduce building costs, and there are many individual instances where low costs are claimed, so far no marked reduction has been established as 'compared with brick houses under corresponding conditions.

    BRICK SLABS.
    Mr. R. GRAHAMasked the Minister of Health whether the brick works of the country are adapted for the making of bricks in slabs of about five feet by two feet and two inches thick, and, if not, whether they could be so adapted: whether the adaptation, if necessary, would be costly or otherwise; and

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    whether from such slabs houses could be built on the principle of massed production?
    Dr. ADDISON: I am advised that existing kilns are not suitable for the manufacture of brick slabs of the dimensions stated, and that it would be necessary to build new kilns, which would be very costly.

  LUNACY ACTS.
  Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the possible risk to the security of integrity of the official documents upon which any person is committed to an asylum, he will take steps to ensure by regulation or otherwise that henceforth the originals of such documents shall, immediately upon their delivery to the manager of the asylum, be forwarded by him to the board of control for safe keeping; that the said board supply to him by return copies of these documents certified as true copies by two of the Commissioners, which copies shall serve, instead of the originals, as the authority for his detention of the patient, this regulation being rendered necessary by recent admitted instances of such documents having been tampered with; and will he say where, in the case of the extinction of a licence, such documents have been preserved up to the present?
  Dr. ADDISON: The custody of the documents to which the hon. Member refers is governed by the provisions of the Lunacy Act, 1890. If the hon. Member will give me any information that is at his disposal as to any alleged tampering with documents, I will make immediate inquiries into the matter.

  PALESTINE (MANDATE).
  Sir P. MAGNUSasked the Prime Minister if he can now state when the full terms of the mandate for Palestine will be published?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): It is hoped shortly to complete the draft mandate for submission to the Council of the League of Nations, but I am not yet in a position to state the exact date. Meanwhile the question of publication cannot arise.
  Sir J. D. REES: Will the mandate be prepared by the British Government, by the Foreign Office?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: It is being prepared by His Majesty's Government.
  Sir J. D. REES: Will the League of Nations have anything to say to these terms; can they disregard them after they are decided by the Government?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I should like notice of that.
  Sir P. MAGNUS: Will the mandate be submitted to this House?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: That is rather a matter for the Leader of the House.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will this mandate as well be submitted to this House for discussion?
  Mr. MacVEAGH: Can the hon. Gentleman at the same time say whether this mandate will make Palestine a place fit for Jews to live in?

  BOUNDARIES EXTENSION (LEEDS AND BRADFORD).
  Mr. BARRANDasked the Minister of Health the amount in the pound of the rates and the indebtedness per head of the population in Leeds and Bradford and in each of the districts comprised in the extension schemes of those cities?
  Dr. ADDISON: I am having this information collected, and will send it to my hon. Friend as soon as possible.
  Mr. BARRAND: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these extension schemes will simply have the effect of enabling Leeds and Bradford to transfer a large portion of their debts to the surrounding districts, and will he not in these circumstances withhold his sanction to such an unfair arrangement?
  Dr. ADDISON: All matters of that kind will have to be taken account of.
  Mr. LUNN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the conference he had with the local authorities last week regarding economy was absolutely futile and that these authorities are determined to fight for their existence, whatever the cost, and will he see his way clear to abandon these inquiries and so save this extravagance?
  Dr. ADDISON: I cannot forego exercising my statutory duties because somebody will persist in being extravagant.
  Mr. BARRANDasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the proposed extension schemes of Leeds and Bradford will necessitate extensive readjustments of local finance; and whether, in view of the abnormal local financial conditions now prevailing, due largely to conditions arising from the late War and resulting in very high rates, he will treat this state of affairs as a special reason for withholding his consent to an inquiry at the present time?
  Dr. ADDISON: I am aware that financial adjustments will be necessary if legislative effect is given to the proposed extension schemes of Leeds and Bradford Provision for such adjustments is contained in the Local Government Act, 1888, and the Local Government (Adjustments) Act, 1913. As regards the second part of the question, I am taking steps which I trust will lead to a substantial reduction of the expense in connection with any necessary local inquiries.
  Mr. BARRAND: Does the right hon. Gentleman not consider that the dangerously high level of local rates at the present time constitutes a special reason why nothing should be done by his Department that will have the effect of imposing a further and unnecessary burden on the ratepayers of these districts?
  Dr. ADDISON: I quite agree, but I must point out that the action is not with my Department. The action is on the initiative of these important municipalities, and in respect of those which it is proposed to absorb. I have no option in the matter; it is not my affair, but theirs.
  Mr. BARRAND: Has the right hon. Gentleman not the option, if he sees a special reason, and is not the effect on the rates a special reason in the existing circumstances of the country?
  Dr. ADDISON: I cannot possibly find that without stultifying the whole Act of Parliament.
  Mr. BARRAND: May I ask—
  Mr. SPEAKER: Order, order.

  RELIEVING OFFICERS, HEXHAM (BONUS).
  Mr. DOYLEasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the Hexham board of guardians have refused to grant to their relieving officers a bonus in accordance with the awards issued by the Civil Service Arbitration Board and the Whitley Council, and have also refused to submit the question to arbitration; whether these officers, who hold whole-time appointments, are being paid a salary as low as £116, £125, £152, and £183 per annum; and, if so, what action he is prepared to take in the matter?
  Dr. ADDISON: I have twice urged the guardians to submit this question to arbitration, and I am afraid there is no other action which I can take.

  FILM PRODUCTION (LIGHTS).
  Viscount CURZONasked the Minister of Health whether the Actors' Association recently drew his attention to the extreme power of lights used in film production work and to the resulting danger to eyesight there from; and what action he has taken in the matter?
  Dr. ADDISON: My attention has been drawn to the representations made by the Actors' Association in the matter and I have asked the Committee on the question of the Causes and Prevention of Blindness which is now sitting to consider the matter and report.
  Viscount CURZON: May I ask whether, if the Committee report to the effect that there is danger to eyesight, his Department will take action?
  Dr. ADDISON: I had better see what they report first.

  EAST RIDING INSURANCE COMMITTEE.
  Sir J. BUTCHERasked the Minister of Health whether, early in August last, he received a communication from the East Riding of Yorkshire county council requesting that any balance standing to the credit of the East Riding Insurance Committee for sanatorium benefit should be paid over to the county council, in view of the fact that the council

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  have by agreement undertaken to provide treatment for all persons in the East Riding, whether insured or uninsured; what answer has been sent to the county council; and whether he will instruct the East Riding Insurance Committee to pay over this balance to the East Riding council without delay?
  Dr. ADDISON: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. I will send my hon. and learned Friend a copy of the answer which has been sent to the county council.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Can my right hon. Friend say whether he has in his answer instructed the insurance committee to pay over this balance?
  Dr. ADDISON: It is not quite so simple as that. Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend will read my answer and then put another question.

  OLD AGE PENSIONS.
  Mr. HAYDN JONESasked the Minister of Health whether the Old Age Pensions Branch of the Ministry of Health is about to be removed from Wellington House to Wandsworth; and whether such removal will cause serious inconvenience to a large body of inquirers comprising old age pensioners and others?
  Dr. ADDISON: It has been decided that the Old Age Pensions Branch can most advantageously be moved from Wellington House to other premises in the occupation of the Ministry, and it is hoped that no serious inconvenience will result.

  LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

    GERMANY.
    Captain R. TERRELLasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to an announcement, at the League of Nations' meeting at Geneva, by one of the representatives of this country, in favour of the immediate admission of Germany; whether this represents the view of the British Government; and whether he can state the opinion on the subject of the French Government?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The attitude of Great Britain will be determined after hearing the advice of its representatives at Geneva, who will consult with the French and other Allied Governments. A certain latitude must be allowed to delegates to the League of Nations to express their individual opinions, but the vote of Great Britain will be cast by the principal delegate.
    Mr. HOGGE: Are we to understand from that that the right hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. G. Barnes) had no instructions from the Government?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: No, he had not. Delegates to the League of Nations must, I think, have a certain amount of latitude. As a matter of fact, I have read the official report of my right hon. Friend's speech, and what he said was that he desired Germany to be admitted as soon as possible.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether they have the same latitude in the vote as in speech?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I have already answered that. There can only be one vote of the British delegation, and that vote will be given by the chief delegate.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will the Government consider submitting the names of our delegates to this House, as was suggested earlier in the discussion?
    Mr. BILLING: May I ask whether in the future, before committing this country on big financial points, the Government might consider the advisability of consulting this House?
    Mr. HOGGE: Is the chief delegate for Britain instructed by the Government as to how he is to vote?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I answered that. In the answer I have already given I said the decision of the British delegate would be given after the Government had had consultation with him.
    Sir H. BRITTAIN: Who is our chief delegate?
    Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: May I ask whether the League of Nations has any meaning at all until Germany and every country has been admitted to it?
    Colonel C. LOWTHER: Would it not be absurd to admit Germany to the League of Nations before the amount of the reparation has been decided? Would it not be the same thing as forgiving the criminal before passing sentence?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: If we were to wait until Germany had paid the amount which my hon. Friend expects, she would never be admitted to the League.

  GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE.
  Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Prime Minister when it is proposed to have the Debate on Government expenditure?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope to be able to give a date shortly.

  LOCAL RATES (SELECT COMMITTEE).
  Lieut-Colonel Sir A. WARRENasked the Lord Privy Seal when the Select Committee to consider in what way effectual control on the expenditure of rates in the case of Bills introduced into the House can be exercised will be appointed?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The Select Committee referred to is being formed as quickly as possible.

  RAILWAY AGREEMENTS (GOVERNMENT LIABILITY)
  Colonel MILDMAY(by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Transport whether it is a fact that any railway companies, and, in such case which companies, have made claim upon the Government involving a payment by the taxpayer of an additional sum of £400,000,000 over and above the sum paid to them during the War, the contention of the Government being that a total payment of but £120,000,000 is due in this connection?
  The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Sir Eric Geddes): As is well known by the House, the amount of expenditure involved in the 1914 Guarantee of the net revenue of the railway companies is now approximately £300,000,000 per annum.
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  The outstanding liabilities under the other Government Agreements is under enquiry by Lord Colwyn's Committee, but no final claim has been put forward, and no admission of Government liability made. I am unable to recognise either of the sums mentioned by my right hon. and gallant Friend.
  Mr. W. THORNE: May I ask whether any of the trade unions are responsible for this?
  Sir F. BANBURY: Yes.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS (REMISSION OF DEBTS).
Committee to consider of authorising the remission of certain debts in pursuance of any Act of the present Session relating to local loans—(King's Recommendation signified)—To-morrow.—[Lord, Edmund Talbot.]
SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

  STANDING COMMITTEE A.
  Sir SAMUEL ROBERTS reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee A: Sir Allan Smith.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  IRELAND.

    MURDERS AND REPRISALS.
    Mr. ASQUITH: I beg to move,
    "That this House condemns the outrages committed against the Forces of the Crown and civilians in Ireland, and expresses its deep abhorrence of the brutal assassination of His Majesty's officers and other British subjects in Dublin on Sunday last; it deplores and condemns the action of the Executive in attempting to repress crime by methods of terrorism and reprisals which involve the lives and property of the innocent and are contrary to civilised usage; and it declares the urgency of taking immediate steps to bring about the pacification which is demanded in the interests of Ireland and the Empire."
    It might have been advantageous in some way if the suggestion made on Monday—and which, as I understand it, was expected to be adopted—had been adopted, that the discussion of this matter should be postponed for a few days. I quite recognise, and indeed assert, that it was desirable that there should be as speedy and as full a discussion as possible; and I shall endeavour in the few remarks I am going to make, confronted as we are by perhaps as tragic a situation in Ireland as ever presented itself even in the history of that country, to speak with justice and certainly without passion. The Motion which I am submitting to the House in its opening words condemns the long series of outrages which have been committed against the officers of the Executive in Ireland, and it gives emphatic expression to the abhorrence of this House, and indeed of the whole country, to the brutal and cold blooded murders in Dublin on Sunday last. That feeling, I am certain, is notably general, but universal. The expression of it in the Motion might be thought to be unnecessary, or at any rate superfluous, were it not that those who condemn, as I condemn, the policy of so-called reprisals, are often represented as indifferent or even silent as to the blackness of the crimes of which the military and the constabulary have been victims, and as to the gravity and frequency of the provocations to which they have been exposed.
    I have never, so far as I am concerned, spoken on the subject either in this House
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    or outside of it without denouncing with such energy of language as I can command crimes of this kind. I have said, and I repeat it, that in the vast majority of cases, so far as my knowledge goes, they are without extenuation or excuse. The assassinations which took place at the beginning of the week in Dublin it is difficult to speak of with restraint. They were callous and cold-blooded murders committed against gallant officers who were at the time incapable of self-defence, and in more than one case, I think, in the presence of their wives. They can only be the work of men who are lost to all sense both of humanity and honour. These officers died in the strictest and fullest sense of the word martyrs to public duty. I will add that it would be not only a relief but a satisfaction to all of us to know that the criminals have been got hold of, and will suffer the extreme penalty of the law.
    The very gravity of such crimes as this, and I regret to say that I think it is a mistake to assert that they are on the decrease, for since Sunday morning, in addition to the twelve, or it may be thirteen, men, women and children, who lost their lives in the afternoon at Croke Park, I see reported no less than fifteen cases of killing on one side or the other in various parts of Ireland. I say the very gravity makes it more necessary than ever that the Executive should be able to encounter them with a clear front and clean hands.
    It is all-important, as the Chief Secretary is constantly telling us, and I entirely agree, it is all-important that the Executive should stamp out murders and terrorism, but in the performance of that task the means are almost, if not quite, as important as the end. The practice of what are called reprisals was in its early days of two or three months ago, defended by official authority, or if not defended, at any rate apologised for, on the ground that when officers of the Crown are hit they are entitled to hit back and that allowance, large and generous allowance, must be made for excesses committed in hot blood by men, who, it may be, have been ambushed and have seen their comrades killed before their eyes.
    If that were the whole case, there would be very little to be said by way of criticism, or even comment; but it was very soon discovered that that hypothesis

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    would not cover more than a very small part of the ground. Evidence began to accumulate, and has gone on accumulating in increasing volume ever since, that the forces of the Crown in various parts of the country, step by step, came to be engaged in systematic raids upon towns and villages, and in the deliberate destruction of creameries, factories, shops, dwelling-houses, farms, and farm produce, without any kind of discrimination, and without any regard to the presumed innocence or guilt of the owners or occupiers or even the local community to which they belong. At last, when the evidence of which I have spoken had grown both in volume, and in apparent authenticity, some of us brought forward a Motion in this House on 20th October, asking for an impartial and dispassionate inquiry into the facts. The House saw fit to reject that Motion by an overwhelming majority. What was the case put forward by the Chief Secretary? It was that these stories, if not all at any rate the bulk of them came from what he was pleased to describe as tainted sources, and that up to that date—I remember his words—there was not a tittle of evidence that the Officers of the Crown, either military or constabulary, had been concerned in any of these attacks on creameries and factories, and so on. Will he maintain that position to-day?
    4.0 P.M.
    We have evidence, not from Sinn Fein sources, or that or anybody connected with that movement, but of a vast body absolutely independent, impartial, representing the great organs of the Press not only of this country but of America, France, and other parts of the civilised world—we have the evidence of men who, without any prepossessions or prejudices, were sent there—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—by the great and responsible organs of the Press in countries like France and America. We have the evidence of these men who have been on the spot, and who are thoroughly qualified by experience, as well as by honesty and judgment, not to distort the facts. We have that body of evidence which nobody can pretend has in any sense been inspired or dictated by the authority of the Sinn Fein movement.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Were they eye-witnesses of those events?
    Mr. ASQUITH: Some of them were eye-witnesses, and many of them have been on the scene within a few hours after the event. Whatever the hon. Member opposite may think, I am sure that I am speaking the opinion of a large number of unbiased people when I say that there is a large body of evidence on this subject which in any other country would be accepted, not only as presumptive but conclusive. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] Then why did you refuse an inquiry into Ireland? Many of us were skeptical and anxious to disbelieve that the forces of the Crown did such things and had misused their authority and been guilty of these acts. An inquiry was refused, and since that time the body of testimony has grown both in volume and authority. Having regard to the other statement made by the Chief Secretary in the course of the Debate on the 20th of October that there was not a title of evidence that officers of the Crown, either police or military, had been engaged in the destruction and devastation of these creameries and factories, I should like very much to know whether the right hon. Gentleman maintains that position to-day.
    I have seen it stated on responsible authority that as far back as the 6th of October there was in Dublin Castle an official police report showing that in one of these cases, and a very bad case too, the outrage and destruction had been committed by uniformed men. The right hon. Gentleman said these things had ceased, but they are still going on. I read only this morning of the destruction of another of these creameries by an organised attack on the part of the police or the military. The important point I want to bring before the House is that these are not isolated acts of individuals who have got out of hand, and as the popular phrase goes, have run amok. The evidence, to my mind, I regret to say, has convinced me, and it is overwhelming that there has been organisation, lorries going out on forays of revenge, loaded with armed men, equipped with munitions, petrol, and bombs. Is that going to be denied, and, if so, upon what authority? That is a fact which has got to be explained and accounted for. Let me press that a stage further. If the Executive disapproves of these things, why does it not prevent them, and if it cannot prevent them why

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    does it not punish them? I trust the Chief Secretary will tell us how many persons, either in the police force or in the military—these things have been going on for more than two or three months—have been made amenable, before what tribunals have they been brought, in how many cases has guilt or innocence been proved, and where guilt has been proved what punishment has been meted out? That is a very simple question which admits of a categorical answer.
    We have, had brought to our knowledge within the last few days the existence of an extraordinary journalistic adventure at Dublin Castle called the "Weekly Supplement," which, I understand, the Chief Secretary admits to be an official document compiled by the authorities and printed, published, and circulated at the expense of the British taxpayer. I have only seen one copy of this publication, and it is one of the most extraordinary documents I have ever read. It was quite a recent issue towards the end of October, and its consecutive number is No. 12. It contained a number of the most inflammatory extracts you could possibly take from most extreme organs of one section of opinion in this country. Amongst other things, by way of stimulating the soldiers and police in Ireland in the discharge of their duty, it cited, not with disapproval, a proclamation issued in the stress of the American Civil War by perhaps one of the most bloodthirsty of the Federal generals who was raiding Kentucky, which announces to the population of that State, the rebel State, as it was called, his intention, if any of his men or adherents are shot, of seizing bankers, citizens, and miscellaneous members of the community without any regard to their innocence or guilt and shooting them at sight. Why was that published? Why is that document, of which every American is heartily ashamed, dug up, resuscitated and brought to life at a time when passions are inflamed in Ireland? Why was it sent out and published at the public expense by official imprimatur? It is impossible for the right hon. Gentleman, in view of facts of this description, to disclaim responsibility for what has been done.
    To my mind the real seriousness of this matter, from a large and public
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    point of view, is that you cannot expect the Irish people, always distrustful of an Executive in the appointment of which they have little or no voice, to overcome that traditional distrust and to replace it by anything in the nature of wholehearted confidence if the Executive at a time of crisis like this deliberately pursues methods which confound the innocent and the guilty. But there is a more serious consideration still, which I commend to the judgment both of the Government and the House. The effect of this misguided and perverted policy has been to a degree which it is almost impossible to over-estimate, that poison the atmosphere. The opinion of moderate Nationalists, who hate crime and who have no sympathy even with extreme aspirations—still less with anarchic and terrorist methods, have been driven, and are being driven, day by day, and more and more, to an attitude if not of sympathy, at any rate of supine indifference. Let me read to the House a passage from a letter or article written by one of the most distinguished living Irishmen, a man of distinctly moderate Nationalist opinion. He is a writer of real genius and not a mere dreamer, but a man who has taken a very active part in one of the most hopeful and fruitful of all Irish industrial movements, the movement for co-operation. I refer to Mr. George Russell, known by the initials A. E. What does Mr. Russell say? Speaking of the state of things in Ireland and the recent policy of the Government, he says:
    "I doubt whether now any exposition of the Irish question will have the slightest effect in bringing about an Irish settlement. So far as I can see the British Government is determined to make Ireland a desert by wrecking its towns and industries, rather than allow the Irish nation to control its own affairs. And I do not see any power in the world which is going to lift a finger to prevent this wreckage. The British Government has the power to do it, and so far as I can judge by the action of its agents here it has the will to do it."
    [An HON. MEMBER: "Piffle!"] The point I am making is that the policy you are now pursuing has alienated the friendship and sympathy of moderate Nationalist opinion in Ireland, and has driven the Nationalists, against their will, into an attitude not only of despondency but of despair. The longer this competition between the forces of anarchy on the one side and the forces of the Crown and the Executive upon the other—the longer this

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    competition of outrage and terrorism lasts, the more difficult will anything in the nature of peace become. The spectacle is, indeed, one of the most tragic ever presented. In my judgment there is only one way of escape. The first step to be taken—the initiative lies with His Majesty's Government—is not merely by vague phrases to express a tepid disapproval, but to drop and discontinue once for all, this policy of reprisals. I may be unduly optimistic, but I think it is still possible that we may find a more excellent way. I am of the opinion, which I have often expressed consistently and uniformly inside and outside this House, that the vast majority of the Irish people, the overwhelming majority, have no real sympathy with terrorism or assassination, just as I am perfectly certain that the vast majority both of the military forces of the Crown and the Constabulary have no sympathy with these campaigns or forays of reprisals. It is not a question, let me repeat—I have said it here before—of compounding with assassination and violence. That is a most superficial view of the situation. It is a question of getting into touch with real Irish opinion at present over-awed, driven, at any rate, into silence and indifference, and, if I may use the expression, of semi-mutinous callousness. It is a question of getting into touch with that real Irish opinion which lies beneath the surface, and which unquestionably in these late years has advanced considerably in its demands and its aspirations.
    Believe me, it would be a profound mistake that that Irish opinion, the real opinion of the great bulk of the Irish people—it would be a profound mistake and a misreading of the facts, to suppose it is in favour either of anarchy or of separation. It is necessary to get into touch with that opinion as soon as and as quickly as possible, and as intimately as you can. As this terrible tragedy unfolds itself with an ever-deepening grimness week by week, and almost day by day, it is an easy and it is a tempting task to inflame passion, to embitter resentment. It is even easier to indicate, perhaps to exaggerate, the barriers that block the way to peace. But is there any of us in his heart of hearts, is there any man on these Benches who does not realise that by overcoming these barriers, by opening out that road, that by that way only can you remove this reproach to
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    our statesmanship and this danger to our Empire? Every consideration of policy and of honour recommends that to us as our supreme duty, which, if we see and realise the signs of the times, we are bound, amidst all discouragements—and I agree they are many and pofound—to prosecute by our traditions, by our interests, and, still more, by our national conscience.
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood): I want, first, to say to the House that all those wounded officers whose murder was attempted on Sunday last are progressing favourably. I want, secondly, to say to the House that the monstrous allegation made yesterday—I have no doubt based on some newspaper report—that a boy of 10 was bayonetted in Dublin is untrue.
    In the Resolution moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), I am glad to welcome the sentence which condemns the outrages against the forces of the Crown and civilians in Ireland. That condemnation has not been so conspicuous in some of the speeches in this House as I should have liked to see, and I am convinced that, unless emphasis is put upon the murder of the Forces of the Crown, and of the civilians who support them, every speech made is an encouragement to assassination. That is not only my opinion; it is the opinion of the soldiers and of the police speaking through their senior officers. I hope, therefore, that, whatever criticisms may be urged against the Government for its policy or for the faults of the Government, emphasis will always be put upon this provocation, the cessation of which means that Ireland automatically becomes peaceful. From the speech of the right hon. Gentleman one would think that policemen and soldiers were going about Ireland in motor cars burning and slaying. In two-thirds, or nearly three-fourths of Ireland, there is as great peace as there is in the county of Kent.
    An HON. MEMBER: Because there are no troops there.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: There are troops in every county in Ireland The point is—and it bears out what the right hon. Gentleman has just said—that the vest majority of the people of Ireland are not in favour of murder. They want

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    peace. They are getting peace, and they are getting peace because the Forces of the Crown are breaking the terror which prevents them from becoming articulate. I resent the suggestion that all the Irish people are at war with the Forces of the Crown. That is not true. The majority are on the best of terms with the soldiers and police, but, there is a minority of extremists that murder, that assassinate, that burn, that steal uniforms and commit outrages, and inspire questions in this House—
    Mr. DEVLIN: Whom do they inspire to ask questions?
    Mr. MILLS: You have got your Secret Service—give the names.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Do not be offensive.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: The right hon. Gentleman is speaking to us here under the shadow of a great conspiracy based on Ireland to smash the British Empire. At this moment we are meeting under the gloom of the massacre in Ireland of unarmed and largely non-combatant British officers on Sunday last. This massacre marks one of the most horrible tragedies in the history of Ireland or of the world. What is the right hon. Gentleman's solution for this conspiracy of assassination—this daily murder of our brave men in Ireland? He has no solution, and there can be no solution in dealing with assassination except to arrest and punish the assassins.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: And their children, and their wives?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: Every Member of this House knows that the consequential outrages that follow from a state of civil war such as exists in Ireland are not outrages for which this Government or any Government has responsibility. The responsibility is on the shoulders of those who, by a method of murder, are attempting to set up an independent Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about "tainted sources." Yes, there are tainted sources, and I will give some of them.
    Mr. HOGGE: The Government.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: The murder gang in Ireland issues when it can—because all its issues are illegal—a docu-
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    ment known as the "Irish Republican Bulletin." The murder gang sends that bulletin to persons in England and to newspapers in England, and some of them publish it. What amazes me is that the London Liberal Federation has actually used that "Irish Republican Bulletin" to base on it charges of so-called reprisals, and circulated it among the Liberals of London without any comment except "Display this prominently wherever you can." And the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Asquith) is President of that Federation!
    Mr. DEVLIN: And you are the Editor of the "Summary."
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: My point is that that murder gang's publication should not be the foundation for any literature for any Member of this House or any member of the public, and the charges of reprisals should not be published or taken seriously unless the preceding circumstances and the facts of every case are printed also, so that anyone who reads can understand the circumstances of all the cases. I will deal with some of the cases mentioned in the hideous and monstrous falsehoods contained in this list of reprisals issued by the murder gang themselves. They have their representative in the Lobby of this House, and he may be in the Gallery now listening to this Debate.
    Mr. DEVLIN: He will be shocked if he hears you.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I consider it a loathsome alliance for men whose hands are red with the blood of our gallant soldiers and policemen to come into the Lobby of this House, and be allowed to circulate their hideous documents of falsehoods
    Mr. W. THORNE: Let us have their names.
    Mr. SEXTON: Why not put them out?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I know who they are.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman entitled to allege the presence in the Lobby of an agent of a murder gang when that person must be there by the authority of Mr. Speaker, or by the act of some Member, and not to give his proof?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is quite mistaken. The Lobby is open and the Gallery of the House is open to anybody. There is no limit. No admission order is required.
    Mr. THORNE: If the hon. Gentleman knows any particular Member in this House or any person in the Gallery is associated with the crime of murder, why not name them?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am making no imputation against Members of this House.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: You are.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Have the courage to stand by your charge.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am trying to bring vividly before this House some of the realities of the Irish situation. [An HON. MEMBER: "From your imagination."] I repeat that an organ, prohibited by law, which is used as the basis of propaganda and news paper reports, and in which His Majesty's Government is condemned out of the mouths of those responsible for the murder campaign in Ireland, is not a document or propaganda that ought to be tolerated here. I say it is a tainted source. The right hon. Gentleman referred to Mr. Russell as an authority on the state of Ireland. In Ireland Mr. Russell is looked upon as an extreme Sinn Feiner.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: He is not.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am giving the Irish Government's view of that gentleman. I do not therefore look upon his opinion as worth the weight attributed to it by the right hon Gentleman. I do not look upon the opinions of certain American correspondents who, enjoying the hospitality of the murder gang itself in Ireland, traversed that country and sent their newspaper matter to America to weaken the Anglo-American friendship that happily exists, and to do their best to condemn the British Empire. I could name newspapers that are printing the most poisonous falsehoods conceivable. But the last election in America, I think, was a decisive response to those who tried to make the Irish question predominant in American politics rather than the question of Anglo-American friendship. Far be it from me to con-
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    demn any newspaper in this country or in Ireland for expressing views that I think are both false and unfair. But in some newspapers there is no denying the fact that there is a vendetta waged against the Government on the ground of reprisals, and until quite recently, with little comment indeed to the scores of murders that preceded them. One of my chief complaints against the right hon. Member for Paisley is this: that before he raised this question of reprisals in the House, or before anybody did so, or before Motions for Adjournment were put down to consider the situation in Ireland, there were nearly 100 policemen murdered and 146 wounded, there were something like 20 military killed and 64 wounded, and all that was forgotten or, if not forgotten, was not considered of sufficient substance on which to raise Debates in this House.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: We raised it last year.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: Yet when 19 houses and a shirt factory were destroyed at Balbriggan—
    Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: And two men murdered.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I agree, two men murdered, following the brutal murder of a district inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Then this question of Irish reprisals became a question for certain newspapers, and it now forms the basis of a campaign in the country. I welcome this and every Debate in order to make it clear to the House and the country, as far as I can, the real facts of the Irish situation. Let us take the question of reprisals on creameries. First let us see the matter in proportion. The total number of creameries in Ireland is 710. The total number alleged to be damaged or destroyed is 41. The total number alleged to be totally destroyed is 10. The number damaged and unable to work without repairs and renewals (a good deal of which has already been accomplished) is 16. The number slightly damaged, 8; and the number damaged, but able to resume work at once, 7.
    Mr. KELLY: Give them time. They have only had three months yet.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: The suggestion that these creameries are destroyed in an

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    in discriminate way by the uniformed forces of the Crown is simply untrue.
    Mr. DEVLIN: Systematic.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: Systematically destroyed is simply untrue.
    Mr. DEVLIN: And deliberately. It does not make it untrue because you say so.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: It is simply untrue. The creamery in Ireland is one of the most beneficent institutions in that country. It is the rendezvous from eight till eleven every morning every day in the week except Sundays during the summer time and three days in the week in winter time, very often of from 200 to 300 farmers and their sons in the locality. These creameries are sometimes the rendezvous of the Republican Army, from which orders to the local brigade are issued. One in particular has been actually an ambush for the destruction of the police. Many of them have been suspected by the police of having been the very centre of the plots now waged against them.
    The right hon. Gentleman rather twitted me—very courteously in the House of Commons, and not with that robustuous ardour which became the convivial meeting at the National Liberal Club on Friday last—he rather twitted me with this, namely, that in a previous Debate in this House in October I said I had not a tittle of evidence of any creamery having been destroyed by the uniformed forces of the Crown. He said there were documents in Dublin Castle which showed that someone had said that certain of these creameries had been destroyed by uniformed forces of the Crown. I do not complain of that. I had not seen these documents when I spoke. Since that speech I have gone into the question, and undoubtedly—I will admit it here at once—some creameries have been destroyed by the forces of the Crown. In some cases they were justified in the destruction. In the cases that were justified there will be no compensation paid by the House of Commons if I have my way. In those cases where the destruction was not justified they will have my most sympathetic consideration on the question of compensation. I do not think I can go further than that. I think it is a per
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    fectly fair statement. Let me come to the case of the creamery destroyed at Bally-macelligott, County Kerry. Here, happily, we can check the evidence printed in a paper that gives a certain qualified support to the right hon. Gentleman. That evidence can be checked by officers of the Auxiliary Division who were in the attack, and it happened, also, that a very gallant officer from my own office was present, in addition to two journalists and two photographers.
    Let me give the story. It gives an idea of the facts of these creamery cases. They are not always innocent institutions, allied with gaily caparisoned dairy maids, spreading beneficient light and humour in the neighbourhood. They are sometimes the headquarters of the assassins, and I would advise the champions of creameries to go through their lists of managers and assistant managers, for I can assure the House that if there is one creamery in Ireland which is the rendezvous of the Irish Republican Army, or one manager who is a member of that Army, that manager and that creamery are in peril. No premises in Ireland that are the centre of this murder gang, or from which our forces are fired at, are safe in Ireland to-day, and I think that is a reasonable position. At Ballymacelligott, in Kerry, a number of policemen were fired at on the morning of the 12th November from the creamery. They attacked the creamery, wounded one or two men, and killed one or two men. On the afternoon of the same day along comes this party of journalists and photographers, escorted by Auxiliary Division men, to the total number of 16. As they came near the creamery, which was within 20 yards of the road I am told, dozens of rifle shots rang out. There was an ambush. The trench part of the ambuscade is still there. These men got out of their cars, attacked the attackers, killed several, wounded several, and captured several others. They were fired at from the creamery, they were fired at from the manager's house of the creamery.
    That is not the end of the story. Those who formed the ambush got reinforcements and came back, and towards five o'clock in the evening the police retired to Castle Island for reinforcements. They came back next morning, and went into the creamery.

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    They found a number of spent cartridges in it, they knew they had been fired at from it, and I say, as an act of war, they were justified in burning a portion of it down. It was within 20 yards of a road along which policemen had to patrol frequently every day. It was the centre of an ambush. More than that, I have looked up the record of the manager of this creamery. He was a rebel in 1916, and under the premiership of the right hon. Gentleman was sent to gaol for nearly a year. He is the organiser of all raids in that neighbourhood.
    Mr. RAFFAN: Have you arrested him?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: Yes, of course we have arrested him, and scores of others in the same neighbourhood. These Auxiliary Division men went to the manager's house, knowing his record and knowing they had been fired at from the house; but they found a wounded Sinn Feiner inside, and naturally, being chivalrous British soldiers, they did not touch the house, but left it over the head of the wounded Sinn Feiner. These are the men called "wilful murderers" at the National Liberal Club by the right hon. Gentleman. [An HON. MEMBER: "Disgraceful!"] I say they were entitled to do what they did. There was no indiscriminate firing or burning. It was done deliberately to prevent a future ambush at the same spot. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Why not prevent reprisals, or why not punish those who make them? I am doing my best, and have done from the start, to prevent reprisals, and I have succeeded. In Dublin on Sunday last 14 of your kinsmen were murdered in cold blood, and there has not been a pane of glass broken in that place, not a pane of glass!
    Mr. MacVEAGH: You murdered 10 civilians, and fired from an aeroplane.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: In that great capital city of the sister Kingdom you have thousands of troops, over 1,000 of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, 500 or 600 Royal Irish Constabulary, 500 of what are commonly called "Black and Tans," but who are ex-service men, and the cream of the ex-service men, and four or five hundred Auxiliary Division men—every one an ex-officer, and most of them having decorations for valour. That is a mixed force. The Auxiliary Division found one
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    of its members with his arms trussed up behind him, tied together, who had been brutally murdered, and drowned in the river Liffey. There was no reprisal! How many of us could have stood the strain as well? Who is there to punish in Dublin? He wants punishment for reprisals, but who is to be punished? There is. no case in the history of our Empire, with all its stress and struggle, in which discipline has been so sternly maintained under such frightful provocation. It is when you get a murder in the far West of Ireland, from which a correspondent can send the news that suits his paper—[HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] Yes, that is the usual case on which a reprisal charge is founded.
    Here, in the capital city of Dublin, within a few hours of us, with the largest body of troops and police in any part of Ireland, we have had a test of discipline of which I should have thought every Member of this House would have been proud. I say we are stopping these reprisals, such as they have been. And what are they? I am going to read the House just one case, giving first the provocation, and secondly an example of the discipline and command of the officers over the British soldiers and police. It is only one of many cases, for these frightful tragedies have evoked a heroism, a spirit of sacrifice and of courage, which I think reflects the greatest credit on the race to which we all belong, and with Irishmen themselves, who are the principal sufferers in these matters, you find a heroism and a sacrifice that I do not think the House always appreciates. Here is an official statement about Lieutenant Hambleton, of the Northampton Regiment. I will read it as I have it:
    "The men all crowded round and some of them shouted, 'Thank God, he is still alive.' Mr. Hambleton was unconscious and was lying on his back, with his feet towards Templemore, lying parallel to the road. I could see that his right arm was nearly blown off, but it was too dark to see any wounds. I noticed that the grass was trampled down round the body as if he had been rolling about. He was covered in blood. The district inspector and sergeants cut the clothing away from his arm, and started to bind him up. The wound was just above the elbow and the forearm was hanging by sinews only. We had a lamp to see by. Five or six of the men collapsed and fell down crying. Some of them said, 'This is the best officer we have ever had and we are not going to have him killed for nothing.' Others were muttering among

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    themselves. I collected the 16 men who had come in the three-ton lorry. After explaining how they started back the officer continued, 'As I got near the police barracks in Nenagh, four policemen shouted out something which I did not hear and a few seconds later several men started firing from the back of the lorry and everyone was shouting "Rapid fire." I climbed round into the back of the lorry as it was going and shouted "Cease fire." The men were absolutely mad and took no notice of me, except to shout "Rapid fire." None of them molested me. I then stopped the lorry and as they were still firing I fired two shots over their heads with my revolver, at the same time shouting to them to "cease fire" or I would shoot them. The firing then stopped. On arrival at the barracks I got another party of four men to carry the body over to the hospital, which is in barracks. The doctor followed them. All the men in barracks rushed up to know if he was dead. They were all crying and were so upset they had difficulty in carrying him. By this time his jacket had been cut open by the doctor and the wounds were visible. They were all blackened. He had been murdered at very close range. Then the men became mad.'"
    Realise what had happened. That officer was one of the most popular officers in the battalion. His men loved him. They would have shot and killed and have burned the town of Nenagh to the ground, and there are many men who would say they would have been justified. I do not. That officer held them with his revolver, and brought them into the barracks, and nothing was done beyond the breaking of a few windows.
    Mr. DEVLIN: Nonsense!
    Sir H. GREENWOD: Yes, nothing was done but the breaking of a few windows. I admit afterwards a creamery was burned. I am giving the case on the day. I am dealing with the struggle, and the successful struggle, that British officers bad in keeping discipline under inhuman circumstances. That is my answer to the right hon. Gentleman's statement that we are not trying to prevent reprisals. There is not one single authenticated case of anything called a reprisal taking place under an officer. Let us be clear on that point. The Commander-in-Chief and myself have issued the most drastic instructions.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: The case of Granard?
    5.0 P.M.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: Granard was not done under officers. It is in very great doubt yet as to who did it. When you have Sinn Feiners stealing
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    uniforms, and when the supposedly popular cry—I think it is not—the supposedly popular cry against the Government is "Reprisals," it pays Sinn Feiners to burn a house or a creamery. It is the one thing the Opposition press against the Government. I say there is no policy of reprisal. We are preventing reprisals, and we have punished—I regret the necessity for it profoundly—a number of policemen and soldiers who have forgotten themselves. I cannot give the number offhand, but if the right hon. Gentleman or his Friends will put down a question I shall be pleased to answer it. That is a catastrophe.
    My criticism of the right hon. Gentleman is this: As the ex-Prime Minister of this country, what he says carries with it an effect that I do not think he himself realises. Therefore anything that he says in this House or in the country which does not emphasise our united condemnation of assassination is quoted in Sinn Fein and extreme newspapers in Ireland as an encouragement to the assassins. He has not done anything yet to assist the police or the soldiers in their difficulties. None of his words—and no one is more powerful in eloquence of condemnation or compliment than he is if he wishes—none of his words have helped them. After all, they are the servants of this House. No one in our history, in my opinion, has had greater opportunities to heal this sore of Ireland than the right hon. Gentleman had in his day. I must say that, in the period during which he was Prime Minister, the Royal Irish Constabulary shrank in numbers.
    Mr. DEVLIN: So did crime.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I always think that the rebellion of 1916 was the greatest crime in modern history. The Royal Irish Constabulary shrank in numbers. Their Secret Service disappeared. They were armed with an old-fashioned carbine dated 1895. Not one in four had a revolver. They had not any motor cars, nor any of those modern appliances that make police work effective in a country like the Western part of Ireland, where it is most needed.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: They did not need them.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: More than that, the force was disheartened. It was under-

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    paid and poorly pensioned. When I went to Ireland, my first duty was to revive the morale of that force, to re-arm it, to re-house it—
    Mr. DEVLIN: Good old Cromwell!
    Sir H. GREENWOOD:—and to recruit it. I have been successful in every sphere.
    Mr. E. KELLY: A second St. Patrick!
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: It may be a laughing matter for hon. Gentlemen opposite; it is assassination for the constables whom I am discussing. I never see anything to laugh at in the condition of Ireland. Because the Royal Irish Constabulary, who helped to save this country during the rebellion of 1916, have been reinforced in numbers, re-armed, given motor transport, supplied with revolvers, supplied with Mills bombs, wireless apparatus, and all the appliances of modern police work, they are becoming every day more effective. It is true that more are being murdered. That is because we are asserting the authority of the Crown. One of the methods adopted for heartening this force was to issue the "Weekly Summary." In remote parts of Ireland they never could see a newspaper, except the paper that condemned them, made light of them, humiliated them. I took it upon myself to issue this "Weekly Summary." It costs £15 or £20 a week, and when my Vote comes up, the House will have an opportunity of deciding upon it. I cannot read every paragraph in the papers, because my mind and what energy I have is not directed to creameries, or haystacks, or the "Weekly Summary," but to the protection of the lives of the 41,000 soldiers and 12,000 policemen who represent the forces of the Crown.
    Mr. KELLY: What about the people of Ireland?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: Yes, in the interests of the people of Ireland. I do not want to delay the House, but I should like to go into certain other matters in order to bring before the House and the country the real issue—not the debating issue, not the propaganda issue, but the real issue—namely, the organisation of this conspiracy in Ireland, subsidised by foreign money, which has as its object the smashing of the British Empire. Recently we captured some of the intimate
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    dispatches of a man who calls himself the Commander-in-Chief, and another who calls himself the Chief of the Staff of the Irish Republican Army. We found from these dispatches that over £7,500 had been spent in wages in organising the headquarters staff of the Irish Republican Army between 10th July and 30th September last. That is the centre of the murder gang; that is where the money comes from to pay for assassination.
    If I might use the hideous language of a police report, some of that money is used in paying "£100 a skull" for policemen or soldiers. The Sinn Fein movement, in its Irish Republican Army stage, is spreading to this country. It has its own areas, its own commandants, its own soldiers in this country. We have discovered transfer forms which transfer volunteers from Ireland to Scotland, from Ireland to Wales, from Ireland to England, and track is kept of them. A sum of £3,500 was spent recently in Scotland, principally in Glasgow, for buying arms for assassins in Ireland, and for paying the wages of those men. We have discovered specific instructions issued to brigades for the manufacture of certain high explosives to be used in bombs and for destructive work. I have here—and I shall give quotations from them, though I cannot read them in detail—two plans which we have discovered for the destruction of certain power houses in Manchester and for the destruction of docks in Liverpool. Here is a memorandum "re Stuart Street Power House, Manchester":
    "This place is worked by three shifts. …. The best day for an operation would be Sunday. … as there is a minimum number of men working in the station. This place is undoubtedly of great importance, not only in connection with the tramways, but also with the coal mines in the vicinity. I attach herewith a sketch plan showing the lay-out of the place. The principal points to be attacked are 10 turbines in the engine room, 10 balancers, the switchboard and the large marine-type engine."
    Then follow the most meticulous details of how they are to go to work. Later on the plan of operations is given as follows:
    "An officer would be appointed to take charge of 30 men who would be used as a guard to prevent anyone leaving or signalling from the building.
    Engine Room.—Two men with sledges, paraffin oil and waste, will make their way to each turbine. Ten men will make their

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    way to the balancers in front of the switchboard. Each man will have a sledge. Some men will have to bring in oil and waste. This will be prepared beforehand in petrol tins, so that it will not be difficult for the men to carry. Pour men will make for the switchboard with 47-lb. hammers. …"
    Other men will do something else, and so on. It is a very carefully prepared plan for the smashing of that power house. I am going to issue the whole of these documents to the Press this evening, and the House will, therefore, excuse me from reading them in further detail. I should like, however, to read a paragraph or two of the Liverpool plan:
    "…. It will of course be impossible to make a clean sweep of the whole line of docks. If men and material are available a large amount of work can be done, but the amount to be done must be regulated by these conditions. I submit a scheme for dealing with 21 points. This scheme involves the use of 800 lbs. of 'g'"—that is to say, gelignite—"23 engineers, 75 rank and file and about 20 others, 98 revolvers."
    Then follows a most careful plan, with maps and arrangements for tackling the different dock gates, the number of men with sledge hammers, explosives and revolvers. I consider this to be much more important than the destruction of a creamery.
    Mr. DEVLIN: I believe that was written in Dublin Castle.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: After the experience of Sunday, how anyone can suggest that the Irish Republican Army is incapable of tackling Manchester and Liverpool docks or power houses, passes my understanding. I claim that we are succeeding in our Irish policy. I regret the bloodshed. There will be more. No one regrets it more than I do.
    Mr. DEVLIN: Do not look at me.
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am now going to read some extracts from other documents captured in the same place, from two senior officers of the Irish Republican Army:
    "I enclose you a copy of a letter which I have sent to the Battalion Commandant, the Local Company Captain and a couple of other volunteer officers. I may say, as a foreword to this, that most of these officers agree with my view point, and feel they have not sufficient arms or ammunition to make any stand. … You will see that the possibilities for a fight for more than ten minutes do not exist. I take it that if we once strike we will be struck back in
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    a much more damaging fashion, and owing to lack of arms and ammunition we will not be able to retort. The result will be the vanishing of the volunteer force as a threat to the enemy, and the enemy will ride roughshod over the district. … The moment we rush matters we will show our weakness, and the end will be disaster. Most of the officers realise this, as do also the rank and file, but they have not the moral courage to make their opinions known, fearing to be dubbed cowards. … It must be evident to you and others that the enemy have discovered a very effective moans of retaliating, and eventually disrupting the movement from stem to stern. … I feel strongly on this matter, and cannot agree to be responsible in any way for a policy that will lead to disaster. Under these circumstances, if my views are not acceptable, please accept my resignation, and I will arrange to have a statement of accounts and all funds on hand transferred within a few weeks from now. …"
    This is a letter from one of the leading members of the murder gang in the southern part of Ireland. It goes on:
    "Strike at the leading figures on the enemy side everywhere, but especially in England itself. …. I hold that it is the directing minds of the English Government that should be struck at, and those that direct operations for them in this country. …."
    Let me read from another letter of a leading member of this gang:
    "Discussing the question with a great many different people of different position, I can notice a great falling off and loss of confidence, as if a kind of terror was slowly creeping in, and I fear if it continues it will gain strength, and any kind of settlement, such as Dominion Home Rule, will be accepted with readiness, and our hopes of a republic lost. …. There is a lot of disorganisation already setting in in some places. I hope it is not true, for if anything happens to disrupt the volunteers, all is lost."
    I am doing my best to disrupt the volunteers. Here is an extract from another letter from another member of the murder gang:
    "The result of an unprovoked attack on the enemy forces will lead to reprisals—the burning of creameries and probably of private houses—and the introduction of a reign of terror and militarism in the districts. Under these conditions the whole organisation will be disrupted, and the end may be that many people will become definitely hostile to the volunteers. What has happened elsewhere will probably happen here. In Ballaghadereen, in Dungarvan, Arklow and many other places, the boycott of the police has had to be withdrawn, and the position in those places, especially in Arklow, is much worse than before anything occurred. The same truth applies to great areas in the counties of Limerick, Cork, Clare and the West of Ireland. If you are

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    determined on introducing similar conditions here, then go ahead, but for my part it shall not be said that I had any part in such work, playing as it will into the hands of our enemies."
    That is the Members of this House, remember—
    "You cannot beat the reinforcements that will follow. The end will be no ammunition, no organisation, a reign of terror from the enemy side, ill-feeling on the part of the people who are bound to be victimised, and, with the multiplication of these things, chaos and defeat for the entire country."
    This shows that we are succeeding in Ireland. I will read another quotation from another of the assassins:
    "As far as I can learn there seems to be a certain mix-up about the order sent from Headquarters. In some places the order is that the Black-and-Tans are to be attacked. In your case it is stated that there is to be attacks on military patrols. I can tell you that in many battalion areas in this county and outside it these orders cannot and will not be obeyed."
    Here is another. I have a limited respect for this officer of the Irish Republican Army, who says:
    "I was in Easter week in a good stand-up fight against the enemy, but I am certainly not in agreement with these ambushes. To be quite candid, it looks too much like murder to my mind."
    Then his glimmering sense of justice is reinforced by this statement:
    "And more important, the enemy have taken steps to counter it effectively. I believe that if you carry out this contemplated action, and if it is carried out generally elsewhere, it will play directly into the hands of the enemy, and this is not my opinion alone, but that of most other thoughtful Irishmen."
    I could read any number of quotations of that kind from men engaged in this murder business who are sick of it themselves, and who know that their country is sick of it, who believe it is failing, as it is doomed to fail; for you cannot defeat the British Empire by an army of assassins in Ireland, however large. My own view is that there will be more bloodshed, there will be tragical murders of servants of this House, and no one knows on whom the blow may fall next, but I want the House, whatever its attacks may be on me—and it is perfectly entitled to attack me—to show every consideration, by word and by resolution in the country and in this House, for these policemen, soldiers, Civil Servants, judges, resident magistrates, and court-martial officers who obey the behests and orders of this House of Commons. They are fighting a
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    battle against assassins and not against the Irish people Many of them are Irishmen. Most of the Royal Irish Constabulary are Roman Catholics and Irishmen themselves—I think the flower of that race. We will win, for I myself cannot imagine the people of this Imperial country submitting or giving in one jot to the demands of assassins in Ireland. But we can win the more quickly if the great Roman Catholic Church in Ireland will help us more than it has done. I never myself say one word against that or any other denomination. To me all are the same. But over three-fourths of Ireland the Roman Catholic hierarchy have spiritual and ecclesiastical control. I regret to say that more than twelve Royal Irish Constables have been murdered either going into or leaving church. One was murdered leaving a Protestant church in Lisburn. The way to the house of God in Ireland is no longer sanctuary. It may be a death trap. It has been a death-trap. My appeal to the hierarchy would be to come out and condemn this murder business—
    Mr. DEVLIN: They have done so!
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: With the same zeal with which they fought conscription. Some of them have come out. Some of the most courageous men in Ireland today are Roman Catholic prelates and priests. They are always present to bring the last consolation of religion, whether it be to dying Sinn Feiners or dying policemen or dying soldiers; but as a hierarchy they have not taken the stand in this matter that I say they did take when they united to oppose conscription in Ireland in the middle of our greatest difficulty. Here is one way in which they can help. I should like them to make an appeal from every pulpit to those members of their congregation who carry arms to surrender them to the priests. That would be one way of showing that they were on the side of peace and not on the side of the arms of war. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Asquith) talked about public opinion. In many parts of Ireland public opinion is being freed from the terror of the gunmen and is becoming articulate; but what is the use of talking about public opinion if there is a Sinn Feiner gunman on the street or round the corner? You cannot help public opinion in a country that is controlled by assassins, and in certain counties in the West of Ireland parts of

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    them are still controlled by assassins. It is the duty of this Government to break that terror and make it possible for public opinion to become articulate. We are doing it. We should be traitors, to my mind, to ourselves and to Ireland, if we hesitated for a moment in our stern plan of stamping out this campaign of assassination in Ireland.
    I would ask the Press and this House and the country to try to realise the difficulties of the servants of the Crown in Ireland and to refuse to have any connection with any body of Irishmen that does not stand up and condemn these outrages. Up to the present not one of the Sinn Fein leaders has condemned a single murder of a policeman or soldier—not one. I was glad to see in the resolution of the Labour party passed the other day that they emphasised that fact. I agree with it. Why do they not condemn these murders? Because those who are called the intellectual leaders of Sinn Fein are leaders in name only.
    The controllers of the Sinn Fein movement are the organisers of the assassination of last Sunday. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who are they?"] We know their names. They are on the run. Three of them were shot dead in Dublin Castle yesterday. It is because the intellectual leaders of the Sinn Fein movement dare not speak, for fear of assassination, that we are trying to put down assassination, and we need the help of this House and the country in doing it. There is one thing I can hardly speak of with patience, and that is when hon. Members of the House, or newspapers outside, talk about the Irish policy of His Majesty's Government evoking the condemnation of the civilised world. I want to know what other country would be as patient, and I want to know what other soldiery or police would submit to the stern discipline to which they now submit to under such provocation. There is no country which has the record this Empire has in dealing with crime such as we have in Ireland.
    I am pressed every day to ask the House to pass a law to enable the police or military to shoot on arrest everyone found with arms in his hands. I do not want to do that if I can possibly avoid it, but I know no other country which would arrest and try people, as
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    we are trying them in Ireland, who are found with arms in their hands at the very moment their victim is going through the agony of his last breath. We are succeeding. The Sinn Fein Court has disappeared, except in back rooms, where it is held for the purpose of propaganda, especially in the American Press. The boycott is broken, and its ugly sister, intimidation, is going. The hunger strike is done. That was one of the pernicious legacies which was handed on to the Government. Whatever else I have done in Ireland, I have been a party to the smashing of the hunger strike. That trick of the criminal to evade justice is gone. We have had no hunger striking for some months past. The Irish Republican Army is being broken up, as I have quoted evidence to show. The right hon. Gentleman talks about a clear front. I wish he would not break the front of this House and this country in facing this question of assassination. There is only one question left. Who is for Ireland and the Empire, or who is for the assassin?
    Mr. CLYNES: I do not think there are many hon. Members who share the view of the Chief Secretary that Irish history began when he assumed office. It is a pleasure, I am sure, to every Member of the House to have heard from him that everything is to be done to put an end to reprisals as a policy. That announcement may be accepted in contrast with previous denials on the part of spokesmen of the Government that as a policy it was not being tried at all. The defence of the Chief Secretary rests on two grounds. He says in effect that rebels in Ireland are in a weak and shattered condition as a result of the policy which he has pursued, and the moment that statement is forgotten, the House is reminded how strong and how terrible are the forces in Ireland which he has arrayed against him. Irish history did not begin with the advent of the right hon. Gentleman to office nor with the rebellion of 1916. The complete loosening of any fabric of respect for the law which existed in Ireland began in 1913 and proceeded until 1914. Small wonder that later on the success which attended arming and drilling and effective military preparation should be imitated and even improved upon by those who were determined to

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    show no respect for the law in that country.
    Members of this House who have for many years listened to Irish debates and taken part in them, and have read of those which took place not merely for a few years or a generation past, but for a century, cannot look upon this problem as one which has suddenly arisen and which now will be settled and disposed of by the same method which so far has failed in every other period of Irish history, the method of applying force. I do not care to pursue the line of argument so commonly used by the Chief Secretary in the course of his speech of saying, for instance, that after all only a few creameries have been destroyed, because look at the total number of creameries. There are some 700 creameries, and only a miserable dozen or so have been razed to the ground. If we took the side imputed to us by the Chief Secretary, the side of sympathising in any sense with those who are committing these abhorrent crimes in Ireland, these murders, we would say, "There are 12,000 policemen in Ireland, and only some dozen or so, or at most some hundred have been assassinated." That is not the way to look at these questions. I gather from the Chief Secretary that his case is that the creameries have been the resort of the rebels, the combatant forces of the illegal army. They are located; they are known under their names. Indeed, he has got their documents, but he does not proceed to arrest them. I am putting the case as I understood it—in spite of the limitless resources which he has in men, gunnery, money, military and police, and machinery of every kind. In spite of the absence of limits to his resources of arresting, trying, and punishing, he does not do that. He burns down creameries, or, at any rate, he excuses the burning down of creameries which he says has occurred because they were the resort of the rebels, and those who were about to violate the law.
    On behalf of those for whom I can speak on this side, I want to protest in the strongest terms against the Chief Secretary's assumption that we and those who act with us on this question are slow in the condemnation of those who are committing these crimes and atrocities in Ireland. Repeatedly, in speech and resolution, in our party meetings in the
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    country, on platforms, in conference and debate of every kind we have, since these crimes began in Ireland, we have denounced them in the strongest manner, and to allege that we hold these crimes in less abhorrence than do members of the Government, is to impute to those of us on this side of the House something which is absolutely undeserved. This is not a question of different degrees of abhorrence of crime. It is a question of policy, and it is because we see the failure of the Government policy, so far as there has been a policy, not merely by this Government, but by every Government responsible for law in Ireland, that we must denounce the policy now pursued as certain to fail once more in this pitiful trail of Irish history. In denouncing the Government, in asking them to reverse their policy, and withdraw these forces that are futile for good, we suggest an alternative. We ought not to be, therefore, denounced as even inferentially or by any kind of reserve being in the least in sympathy with those who are the victims of the policy which the Government are pursuing.
    I recollect that in August of this year we had the same sort of speech from the right hon. Gentleman that we have had this afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman then showed us by his accumulated facts how completely he was hemming in and destroying those who were committing murders and were guilty of other breaches of the law in Ireland, and he asked that his hand should be strengthened, and further powers were given by a very large majority of this House. Is it not clear to us all now that with those further powers the position in Ireland is twice as bad, indeed ten times as bad as it was when he asked for these increased powers in August? And the further you proceed by this method, the more you fail, and I want on that account to ask not merely the Chief Secretary but the Prime Minister, who approves of the statements which the Chief Secretary has made, that the vast majority of the Irish people have no sympathy with murder, why then cannot you trust the vast majority of the Irish people to deal with this problem, to put an end to crime and assassination in Ireland? If it be that the vast majority of the Irish people are in a state of terror, as is alleged, because of these crimes, why not meet the demand of the vast majority, and throw upon the

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    Irish people as a whole the responsibility of putting an end to crime, and making a new page in Irish history.
    The choice between us is that of trusting the Irish people to solve their own affairs, and to become responsible for the use of the instrument of the law in Ireland, and to produce for law there as elsewhere the same reverence and respect which can only be induced and bred when they are responsible for the law in Ireland and its general application. I ask them how is it that the vast majority of people cannot be trusted, and the Government falls back on the plan which in all tradition and history has so far failed, the plan of applying superior brute force to those who were provoked to use brute force in the first instance. The vast majority of the people of Ireland are deeply disgusted with the methods of the Government. I have no doubt that the vast majority of the people are also deeply disgusted with the conduct of the criminals, but I doubt whether their disgust is greater than the disgust entailed by the policy of the Government, and nothing is being done to produce in Ireland that respect for law upon which alone law can be maintained.
    There is evidence that in this country the reverence which we had for law is being diminished. There are many forces at work indicating that the Government's formal sanction of illegalities and lawlessness is likely further to undermine the pillars which maintain the law in this country, and Members of this House of all kinds should feel that the surest way of maintaining respect for the law is by making the law rest upon the goodwill of the people themselves. Where so many of his predecessors have failed, I urge upon the right hon. Gentleman not to entertain the delusion that he, by these methods, can succeed. I judge that he is wholly satisfied with the results of his policy. I rather think that if he reads his speech to-morrow he will find that that very phrase was used by himself in the course of his remarks. Neither he nor any other person, however full of physical courage, can succeed by these methods. It is true that these methods, if pursued with the utmost ruthlessness, can succeed to the point of putting down crime. But you have done nothing then in relation to the Irish problem. You can put down crime now in a day by changing your
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    policy, not with shootings, burning down creameries, murdering innocent people, as clearly the law has murdered innocent people, and not with the destruction of property. You can put an end to this painful Irish situation by throwing responsibility for Irish government upon the vast majority of the Irish people who, it is admitted, have no sympathy with the criminals.
    If there be a dispute as to the facts as to what line of policy the Government have pursued, let us have some answer to the question put earlier in this discussion by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Asquith). There is a great deal of dispute about facts. If all the right or nearly all the right is on the side of the law and those who are responsible for it, if it be that we are not correct in our criticism of the Government, why do the Government even yet persist in refusing that effective and impartial inquiry which we have so long demanded? If we cannot be agreed as to rights, let us at any rate have agreement as to facts where the facts are revealed. It will not do for the Chief Secretary to ask us to rely upon the documents which daily he reads to us, supplied to him, of course, by those who personally are incriminated. What other sort of reports does he expect? He wires to Dublin Castle; the agents of the Government at Dublin Castle obtain the information, I presume, as directly as they can, from the persons who are impugned in these various charges. The House of Commons surely ought not so completely to forfeit its right to impartial information and to the facts of the case as to trust to these official recitals daily given to us. We press, then, the necessity for some process of independent inquiry.
    In this pitiful Irish business we have had in the past few months an array of phrases to clothe the gospel of force, but the strength of the right hon. Gentleman's phrases and the collection of his forces will not be enough. When he and we are gone, if this line of treatment of Ireland is continued, the problem will remain for others to handle in a more accentuated form. That is why no idea of party capital or of mere debating gain should enter into the minds of those who have read something of Irish history and know something of the causes of Irish crime. What would the Chief Secretary have said if throughout the last century Canada had been treated as Ireland has been treated?

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    What could we expect to see in Canada now if the Canadians within the Empire were being treated as the vast majority of Irishmen are being treated? There is no difference in nature between the one and the other, and it is not true that there is any extra dose of original sin in the case of the Irishman. Unhappily for Ireland she is geographically too near this country and for that she is made to suffer. Her national rights are denied, a recurring system of coercion, absolutely futile and achieving nothing, is adopted, leaving the country in a still more angry and embittered frame of mind than ever. Force, and fine phrases to justify that force, are not Government. They will not raise the credit of the kingdom in any part of the world.
    I marvel at the light-hearted way in which the Chief Secretary reproved the journalists of this and other countries. What purpose can these men have to serve other than that of going to Ireland and reporting the facts that they see? Is there any journalist representing a newspaper on the side of the Government who could materially dispute, or who has attempted to disprove, any of these statements made by representatives of papers which happen to be opposed to the Government? The fact that these crimes have taken place, that civilians have been killed, that property has been destroyed and burned, has attracted to Ireland correspondents from various parts of the world, and, without wishing to do any damage to our reputation or the level of our credit, these men have told the truth. Some of them, unhappily, have had to risk their lives in doing so. If it is true, as is alleged that these journalists have exaggerated, that they have some partisan and unworthy motive, and want to undermine our position in America or elsewhere, again I ask, why is it that this so-called strong case for truth on the part of the Government is not put to the test of impartial and effective inquiry? When the Chief Secretary had finished his speech I was amazed to find that he had left the matter where he did. Surely the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) did, in temperate and forceful terms, raise great issues and picture facts which have not been disturbed. My right hon. Friend made an appeal It has fallen upon deaf ears.
    I am not going to detain the House by labouring the case as we see it, but before
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    the Chief Secretary leaves I would like him to hear what in our view is the position which has been created. This method of Government, for which not he alone is responsible, but for which he now is more personally responsible than anyone else, has reduced government in Ireland to a mere affair of competition in murder, of two sides each in turn destroying life and property in the pursuit of what they conceive to be their just and proper purposes. That is the problem which this method of mismanagement has produced for us, and it will be solved only when the vast majority of the Irish people, who revere the law when it is made there as it is made in other countries, are held responsible for Irish law and for future Irish government.
    Mr. MOSLEY: The Chief Secretary has this afternoon adopted one of his most appealing rôoles in this House. He appeared before us as the saviour and protector of those troops whom his policy in Ireland has placed in a peculiarly precarious and terrible position. He seemed to be sublimely oblivious of one of the strongest charges levelled against his administration, namely, that the gross inefficiency of that administration has been largely responsible for the death of many of these gallant men. Take as one instance the dastardly and terrible outrage on Sunday last, which resulted in the death of fourteen officers of the Crown. Those officers were sleeping all over Dublin, in hotels and in lodgings, and not one of them appears to have been in possession of a revolver with which to defend himself. To place men in such a position, to allow them to sleep in the heart of a hostile city alone and unprotected, is courting disaster and the death of these gallant men. In face of that record, the right hon. Gentleman has no right to come here and charge any hon. Member with making attacks on the soldiers. To take another point it was elicited by question and answer that about ninety successful attacks had been made upon police and troops travelling in Ireland in open lorries; that is, before the elementary precaution was taken by the Government of protecting lorries with armoured shields that would resist bullets.
    The right hon. Gentleman, whenever assailed on the subject of his tactical disposition in Ireland, hides behind the gallant officers in command. I am sure he will not consciously adopt that atti-

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    tude, but will be prepared to state in this House, firstly, why these officers were allowed to be exposed in Dublin in a manner which resulted in their murder;and, secondly, why these open lorries, carrying troops and police, have been despatched over the roads of Ireland. One of the most potent charges against the Government is that the inefficiency of the administration has resulted in the slaughter of many hundreds of our gallant officers and soldiers. Again, in the matter of reprisals, a subject which has been raised so eloquently by the right hon. Member for Paisley, it is the custom of the Chief Secretary to shelter himself behind the soldiers. No one, and least of all myself, would attack the soldiers. It is the Government whom we impugn in this matter. The Chief Secretary said this afternoon that he disapproved and regretted reprisals, but it is an ominous fact that the latter part of his speech was devoted almost entirely to justifying the system, and all the letters he read were intended to prove that the system of reprisals was succeeding. What a farce in the light of that speech to say that the Government disapproves the system of reprisals! The Chief Secretary claimed in a boastful manner that after Sunday last he had issued strong orders, which were successful in preventing any action by way of reprisals on the part of the troops. Does not that again prove that when he wants to stop reprisals he can do so? I wish only that he had taken those steps before, and thus saved the name of the country from the reproaches under which it now labours.
    6.0 P.M.
    In the early days of this controversy certain speeches were made by spokesmen of the Government which slurred over entirely the difference between the right of a man to hit back and to defend himself against cowardly and dastardly attacks, and the right of men to revenge themselves for the sins of the guilty upon the heads of the innocent population of Ireland. It was those speeches of Ministers, the Carnarvon speech and others, which conveyed an absolute licence to the police and troops in Ireland to do what they liked. It is those speeches alone, and not the soldiers, that are responsible for the state of affairs in Ireland. In the light of those speeches no one can blame the soldiers or the police, or a very small
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    section of them, for being guilty of these things. I do not want to see these men punished. It is not their fault. If you afford superior Government authority, the small minority that exists in any body of men, the black sheep who are to be found in all corporate bodies, of course take advantage of the licence afforded to them, and under the stress of great provocation commit the sins for which the Government of this country must assume responsibility. There is overwhelming evidence, from the former speeches of Ministers, from the evidence produced in this House and from the speech of the Chief Secretary this evening, that this policy of reprisals is a deliberate policy carried out by the Government with a deliberate purpose. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is not true!" "You cannot prove a word of it!"] The position of certain hon. Members appears to be, not to take part in a reasoned argument, but rather to serve the purpose of that intolerant organisation in this House which howls down any hon. Member whose views are not acceptable to the Treasury Bench. Hon. Gentlemen will have their opportunity in the course of the Debate of refuting any arguments which I now advance. I take the attitude that the Government and the Government alone are responsible for and have instigated these reprisals from the very commencement. Another point I wish to urge is that this policy of reprisals is entirely and absolutely ineffective in achieving the purpose which we all have at heart, namely, the bringing of these murderers to justice. The right hon. Gentleman himself told us that these murderers, these gunmen, never slept more than one night running in the same place. He says they are on the run, they sleep in the hills and in the bogs and creep down into the village to affect an assassination and then travel away under cover of night to some other part of the country. In the light of that position, which the right hon. Gentleman himself has described, what earthly purpose can be served by burning down houses and destroying the property of other people on the day after an outrage has occurred. The only effect it can conceivably have is to give these murderers the one thing they want, propaganda against this country all over the world. A village is partially burned, and houses and

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    creameries, by the forces of the Crown, but what do the murder gang care, they are men with no fixed habitation and it does not affect them or their relations. The news of the reprisals is wired off to America and fresh funds are subscribed to their cause, and fresh encouragement is derived from foreign sources. It is obvious to any reasonable man that this policy of reprisals is not even intended to hit the murderer himself and I ask then what is the object?
    Lieut.-Colonel CROFT rose—
    Mr. MOSLEY: The hon. and gallant Gentleman speaks far oftener than I do in this House.
    Mr. DEVLIN: But he does not say anything.
    Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: You have made a disgraceful insinuation against British soldiers.
    Mr. MOSLEY: I have no doubt when I conclude that the National Party will be prepared with one of its devastating replies. I have made no insinuation against the soldiers. My insinuation is against the Government, who are conniving at and recognising this policy of reprisals. I am not prepared to blame any soldier for anything that has taken place. I was addressing myself to the argument, what is the object of this policy of reprisal? It can only have one object. I was happy to hear the right hon. Gentleman admit that the vast mass of the population of Ireland generally is in no way concerned with these outrages. It is under the intimidation of a small gang of desperate men. It is so afraid of these men that it is unable, and dare not, betray the murderers when murder is committed. Is it not the object of the system of reprisals to render the population more frightened of the Government of this country than they are of the murder gang of Sinn Fein so that they may be forced to surrender the murderers? On logical grounds that, I submit, is the only conceivable object of this campaign. So we have launched a competition, a pretty competition, with the murder gang of Sinn Fein to render the population of Ireland more terrified of us than they are of the murderers in their midst. The Government propose that this system, this competition, shall be continued until
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    that happy day when moderate opinion arises in Ireland and is prepared to accept the present Bill. Can any hon. Member of this House contemplate with equanimity Government competition with crime of this nature until that auspicious day when Irish opinion has been won to moderation?
    I suggest we cannot continue in our present policy. That, at any rate, is impossible. One alternative remains. There is agreement with the vast mass of the Irish people compatible with the safety of this country and the aspirations of Irish nationality. I believe that was possible last summer for reasons that I will not now go into, but I am quite confident it is not possible at present. I submit, then, that the duty of this House and of this country is to discover some means whereby we may put an end to the present situation and, at the same time, secure the proper strategical safety of our own country. I submit that government in Ireland and the administration of our government has so hopelessly broken down that we must adopt some change or continue in a policy of despair. The only conceivable expedient which is now left to this country, as a result of our present policy, is the evacuation of the interior of Ireland and the holding of the ports on the coast. That, at any rate, provides this country with strategical safety and would save the lives of our troops and police who are exposed to this terror, this murder that walks by night.
    Captain S. WILSON: Will the police go to the coast, too?
    Mr. MOSLEY: My suggestion may be a counsel of despair, but I have yet to hear anything better from Government spokesmen. I have listened long and anxiously during the course of recent Debates for some hope to be held out from the Government Benches of any approaching pacification of Ireland and termination of the present condition. I submit that the present policy of the Government is calculated by its competition in terror merely to exacerbate the situation, and to perpetuate and increase the horror which to-day exists.
    The Government has set in motion, forces and passions in order to achieve a temporary purpose, and fulfill a hazardous expedient, which may yet overwhelm, not

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    only the creators, but the very stability and security of our country. In the opinion of many soldiers, as well as civilians, these specious excuses for lynch law, connoting as they do, the connivance of superior authority at the surrender of discipline, have gone far to undermine military discipline, which has successfully withstood the onslaught of five years war. Further, the Carnarvon speech, and its successors, with their deliberate obscuring of every true issue obliterated the narrow, but very sacred, line which divides justice from indiscriminate revenge. They tore into shreds the elaborate growth of the centuries, that sense of justice which separates man from the animal, in that it enables him to discriminate between the guilty and the innocent in exacting his retribution. As a consequence, we see to-day the Government of civilisation in Ireland, armed with all its resources, apparently devoid of its responsibilities, charging wildly like a wounded bull in the arena against the first mortal object that crosses its infuriated vision, whether innocent or guilty of the injuries that afflict it.
    The substitution of frightfulness for efficiency has evoked against itself a frenzy of retaliation from the hitherto unscathed murder gangs of Sinn Fein, which achieved its culmination in the massacre of Sunday last. The lesson is that a great nation cannot successfully compete in terrorism with assassins who work by night. Let us recognise that we have lost in the catastrophic competition, and must start again on a new basis, to rebuild the efficiency of our civil administration, and restore our discipline. No Empire, no Government, has been long sustained except by the power of moral force, together with the impartial justice and beneficence of its ride. Our Empire stands alone, from the Imperial ruins of history, in its recognition of an obedience to this fundamental law. It is because I am a passionate believer in the destiny, and in the yet unfulfilled mission of British Empire, that I am unwilling to sacrifice the inviolate tradition of the ages even to satisfy the transient purpose of this gambler's expedient, which the Government offers us as their only solution of this terrible question.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Pearls before swine.
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is an expression which the hon. Member cannot possibly be permitted to use of his colleagues in this House, and I must ask him to withdraw it.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: I regret I forgot myself, and I apologies at once as fully as possible for referring to any hon. Member as swine. I withdraw the expression.
    Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: We have listened to an interesting speech which I am sure was delivered with great sincerity, a sincerity which moved men from the extreme back benches opposite to those on this side. The hon. Member (Mr. Mosley) concluded his speech by telling us that he was a passionate believer in the future of the British Empire, and, apparently, in order to reinforce that opinion he has suggested that we should retire before the assassins and murderers to the ports in Ireland, and leave the people there to the justice of the Irish Republican Army. I venture to think that the people of this country are not in the mood at present to consider any such question as that. When he asks me to refute his arguments, may I say without offence that his speech had more of assertion than argument in it. I am not one of those who can be accused of too frequently defending His Majesty's Government—Heaven forbid!—but on this occasion I must say that when the hon. and gallant Gentleman from start to finish of his speech accuses the Government of being engaged in reprisals, I think it is only right that he should have brought forward some jot or title of evidence in support of his contention, a thing which, I think the House will agree with me, he entirely failed to do. I regret I was moved to rise to my feet while he was speaking, and of course he has every right to insist that he should not give way, but it was to ask him if he really seriously suggested to this House that British soldiers and police who have made these reprisals upon houses and upon creameries did not deliberately seek out the houses which they knew had contained the inspirers and the organisers of murder. The hon. and gallant Gentleman should not loosely state in this House that they took no care to see whether they were innocent or guilty. It is my privilege to know a very large number of these gallant gentlemen in Ireland who are undertaking this frightful

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    task on behalf of all of us here. Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman suggest that there is a single soldier—I care not who he is—who would burn down a house unless he believed that the house contained those men who were guilty of these foul assassinations? That is the suggestion that he made, and I regret that he made it, and I hope possibly it was made under the stress of debate.
    Mr. MOSLEY: All these men believe they are the houses of Sinn Feiners. My point was that a private soldier is not the proper judge of who should be executed.
    Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: The hon. and gallant Gentleman's words were that it could not be contended that there was any attempt to burn down the houses of those who were guilty, and if he will consult the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow he will see that he made that sweeping assertion. He described these men as black sheep and sinners, these men with whom he has served, whom he has seen in the field, whose character is known. I imagine that any soldier of any other country, if he were discussing the weakness of the British soldier, would say possibly that the one weakness of the British soldier in face of an enemy is his extraordinary power of forgiveness too soon, and yet the hon. and gallant Member described them as black sheep, and men who had committed sins. He said there are always in every army and every nation some black sheep, and he said these men who had taken part in these reprisals, having seen their comrades murdered, were black sheep and had committed sins. I want to suggest that this Motion is in fact, however much hon. Members may try to deny it, a vote of censure against all ranks of the Army and the Royal Irish Constabulary in Ireland. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Then why are these words used, that they are guilty of methods "contrary to civilised usage"? If you say you are not aiming at the soldiers and the Royal Irish Constabulary, but at the Government, then I say you must produce your proof that the Government have actually given orders for any one of these things to happen, and we have not had a shred of evidence of that up to the present moment.
    I want to say a word or two with regard to the position of these men, for,
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    after all, as the Chief Secretary has told us, these men who are carrying this burden in Ireland are the faithful servants of this House. I cannot help thinking sometimes that all of us have been a little guilty of failing to understand the kind of life these men are leading whom we send out there to uphold law and order. There are very few who will deny the fact that in these areas where terrorism goes on our soldiers and police are suffering from a state of affairs far worse than any war. I say that deliberately. Take, for instance, little scattered units of the British Army. I met the other day a most gallant boy, who had won the D.S.O. and Bar, the Military Cross, the Croix de Guerre, and the Legion of Honour in the War. He was only a boy, but he was in command of an area of 30 square miles in Ireland, and he came to see me when he was home on a few days' leave. In his detachment there are four other officers and himself, and in the week preceding his leave three of the five officers had been foully murdered. Just let us conceive for a moment what is the position of men like that. Some of these officers have to be crowded into barracks, and in other places they are absolutely alone, and there is no one to talk to, except their soldier servants, who may be with them, or the guards in their house. The guards themselves are practically separated from the rest of the people in the area, and unable to find any community of interest or of friendship with anyone around. If they go out to their grocers or bakers to buy the wants which the grocers and bakers dare not send to their cottages or barracks, they are liable to be shot on entering or leaving the shops, and, as we have heard to-day, there are even numerous cases of the Royal Irish Constabulary, Roman Catholics, who have gone to attend Mass, and who, as they are coming out of the church, have been shot actually in the porch. Such a case occurred three days ago.
    Imagine the position of these soldiers and police in these terror-stricken areas. It is not war. In war you know where you are and you have a clearly defined frontier, and you are in your trenches. [An HON. MEMBER: "What is your remedy?"] My remedy is to back these men up, and not to abuse them with this spleen and venom. These men cannot walk down the street without fearing, if

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    they hear a footstep behind them, that they are going to be assassinated. These being the facts, I say we are not helping these gallant men by introducing a Resolution of this description in the House to-day, and I would even go so far as to ask whether that Resolution could not be withdrawn, even at this late hour, in order that this House should not be misunderstood. It is a serious thing in Ireland at the present moment, when men are suffering, as the loyal servants of the Crown are suffering, that even ten men in this House should vote for a Resolution which, whatever may be the definition put upon it by hon. Members who support it, should and must be regarded as a vote of censure against those who are upholding law and order in Ireland.
    Mr. HOGGE: A vote of censure on the Government.
    Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: I say there has not been a shred of evidence to show that a single one of these actions has been done by the order of the Government, and nobody, I think, will accuse me of going far out of my way to defend the Government, but on this occasion I believe honestly that an unfair and base less charge has been made against the Government. I do not think it will be a good political step. Indeed, I have no doubt it will have a boomerang effect. Anybody who heard the ex-Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) speak in this House this afternoon must have seen he had no heart in this Motion at all, and I venture to think he has been driven to it by those who are around him. The least we can do in this House to-day is to offer our boundless thanks to these men who, for practically two years now, have been carrying this burden for us. We ought to give them our immense and heartfelt gratitude in a situation the like of which probably has never been known in modern history in times of peace. I think we ought to tell them, also, that we realise the conditions under which they are serving, that we shall never forget what they have undergone, and that we will see to it that when casualties are inflicted we will give the same generous treatment to them as to have given to those who were our defenders in time of war, and that their widows also will be treated in the same way. It is a few days after this appalling crime, which, I think,
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    staggered the whole of civilisation, of Sunday last that this Motion is brought forward in this House. The day was asked for, and even yesterday it was asked that it might be postponed for one week. I suggest that if the hon. Members think it wrong for the Motion to be introduced this week, it will be no more right next week. The fact remains that for some reason or other this was considered to be a good party stunt. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] I am not speaking of the Labour party, but of the so-called Liberal party. This map which has been adopted has not only been sent to London, but has even gone down to the South of England. It is a map wherein are depicted the spots in Ireland where reprisals have taken place, and there is not one single indication of where a murder took place in any of these maps, and people are invited to put them up in windows and other places.
    I venture to think that in reality you are not hurting the Government by introducing this Resolution, but you are bruising the hearts of over 100,000 women in this country whose splendid sons and brothers are serving your interests in Ireland at the present moment, and this reflection upon them is one which I venture to think will be felt in thousands of cottages throughout the length and breadth of this country. Of everybody who is taking this so-called anti-reprisals line, I would ask: When did the young British soldier become a sort of ghoul or savage who could not be restrained? When did the young British officer assume that role Day after day that is the suggestion which is flung out in speeches from the Benches here. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is not true!"] It is true. I have sat here day after day and have heard these intolerable insults against the serving men of the British Army and the Royal Irish Constabulary, and I can only say this, that those who bring these charges do so because, I believe, they do not know the character of these men, which is precisely the same as the character of the average soldier who fought in the War. I should like to add that I believe that in all the long history of the ages the character of the British soldier in war has never been equalled. In fact, I thought it was generally admitted, and yet suddenly we find the scene changed and all these young lads, to whom you could not pay too great a tribute a few months ago, have to-day become

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    savages guilty of every kind of murder and frightfulness.
    What are the facts? Many of them have fought this lone fight now for over two years. They are separated in little villages. They are separated in little garrisons in different parts of Ireland. They have to send their lorries, some of them 30 miles, every time they require their rations. The hon. Gentleman sneers at His Majesty's Government on account of the lorries. I agree that something might have been done sooner. He lays stress on the word "open" lorries, but he surely would not suggest that the lorries should be closed. It takes a long time to turn out thousands of armoured lorries, but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will hasten their despatch. These men have been suffering all kinds of intimidation and boycotting, terrorism and assassinations in many cases for practically two years. We have to realise that the law has broken down, and if we do realise that, I think we have to go back a little further in history to discover who is responsible. But the law has broken down, and these men if they see that such a situation has arisen that their own lives, and the lives of their comrades, are every day imperilled, unless they can demonstrate, as they believe, against those who are guilty of inspiring murders, I say it is very difficult, human nature being what it is, to condemn them. Even those who criticise the Government, if they were in a little village somewhere in the West of Ireland, and suddenly saw, perhaps, three out of ten of the section of police to which they were attached done to death, their bodies absolutely shattered by expanding bullets, we could not wonder if they went and burned down the house of a man whom they thought responsible for the crime. I admit it is regrettable.
    I want to suggest that this House should take a greater responsibility in dealing with this question. I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman who moved this Resolution would have been the last person in this House to move a Resolution of this description. Everybody who has studied the history of Mr. Gladstone, that great patriot. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Yes, that great patriot, the leader of the Liberal party in days gone by. Mr. Gladstone, whose noble thoughts carried him some-
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    times to distant theatres of the world, when he saw assassination in Bulgaria or Armenia was ready to plunge this country into war in order to prevent those murders going on. The mantle has descended on the right hon. Member for Paisley, and I say that people in this country must be astonished that for two whole long years the right hon. Member for Paisley has kept silent. It is true that now he never makes a speech without introducing a short preamble with regard to his horror of murders, but for two long years these murders have been going on. Men who were serving this country faithfully have met horrible deaths. Blood has been flowing, and it is not until the milk begins to flow from the creameries that the right hon. Gentleman suddenly finds that his intervention is necessary, and that it is right for him to get up on the public platform and declaim. As has been truly said, there is a sense of proportion in these things.
    Was there not a beginning of this movement in Ireland? Was there not a start of this? I do not want to go back so far as 1906, when Mr. Birrell stated that Ireland had never been more peaceful, never more free from crime, never so happy, and never so prosperous. But I want to remind the House that when the right hon. Member for Paisley was in power the Irish Republican movement started, and the leaders of that movement in Ireland were ready to get up and announce themselves as leaders of the Irish Republic. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister of that day did not carry out the law of the land and arrest those men for high treason, and have them tried. [An HON. MEMBER: "What did Carson say?"] I will tell you what he said. He said: "If in days to come you drive us out of our heritage, we are prepared to fight in order to stand under the Union flag." But at the time of which I speak we were in the middle of a great War, and the Rebellion had taken place at that fatal Easter time in Dublin, and the right hon. Member for Paisley allowed men to declare themselves as the leaders of the Irish Republic. I say from that moment he was condoning high treason. From that moment he brought government in this country into contempt, and I say that until we once more get back to realities and try men in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales on

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    equality when guilty of high treason, we are not going to get peace in Ireland.
    I want to say one or two words with regard to the possible remedies. First of all, I think we ought to shoulder the burden in this House. The British soldiers and police in Ireland are suffering. They have terrible responsibilities, and they have been driven to exasperation. I think it is time that all of us should see what we can do in order once more to seize firmly the hand of the law, and to see that the law is carried out in Ireland. I agree with what the hon. and gallant Gentleman said about officers being unarmed. I should like to know if there is really anything in it that they are not allowed to carry revolvers.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Denis Henry)indicated dissent.
    Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: I am very glad to hear it, but I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will inquire into the matter and see that it never shall be permitted, knowing how things are in Ireland, that any officer or man shall be in such a position as to be segregated and unarmed. Secondly, everyone realises how disastrous it would be to have martial law for Ireland, as is sometimes broadly suggested, but we know that many counties are free from crime, and that there are counties where crime is absolutely rampant, and the Murder Gangs as they are called—it is hardly the words to use, because on some occasions in different parts of Ireland they have employed 200 or 300 men—but wherever the murder policy is rife, surely the time has come when we must prescribe that area as a civil war area, put that area under the command of a competent military authority, and let him have the responsibility, as in war, of dealing with the murderers' property, if by so doing you are going to save life in the long run.
    The next proposition I make is that we should protect our men, that we should not spare expense in arming far more lorries, and sending them to Ireland. Most of the units who are drawing their rations from great distances have only two lorries—some have only one—and if one lorry breaks down, their only remaining lorry has to travel this long tract
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    on the road alone. I suggest that, unless accompanied by an armoured car, the men in that lorry cannot successfully resist 100 rifles. Not long ago I had described to me an attack on two lorries. The first they knew of the ambush was when the first lorry suddenly came under the fire of 100 rifles. There were eight men on the lorry and two on the box. One man on the box was shot dead and five out of the eight were hit by the very first volley. It is an impossible situation. They may be saved if a second lorry or armoured car is following, and we ought to spare no expense to see that our troops are properly protected in that manner.
    My last suggestion is this. I do not think really it can be contended that reprisals are only making things worse. I do not think the hon. Gentleman really listened to the Chief Secretary's extraordinary evidence from captured correspondence, that the soldiers by hitting back have at any rate put a certain amount of fear in the enemies of law and order in Ireland, those whom we call the Murder Gang. Is it not our bounden duty ourselves to take this matter in hand? It has always seemed to me from the very first that, rather than allow what must in the long run be bad for the discipline of the Army and police, but which is human nature, and we cannot stop, that we in this country should let it be perfectly well known throughout the length and breadth of Ireland that if a murder occurs in one particular place, let us say Bandon, or Kerry, or Tipperary, wherever you may have a murder, immediately the two best known, accessible leaders of the Irish Republican Army, which is a rebel force, should be seized, brought to trial for high treason and condemned to death, but the death sentence should be suspended so long as that neighbourhood was free from crime thereafter. I believe that is the only way of bringing this thing to a speedy conclusion. So long as it was clearly understood that if a murder took place in a certain area, then the two most responsible leaders you could find would be taken as hostages, tried, and immediately executed if another murder took place, I believe you would bring this thing to a stop at once.
    I put it to the Labour party, and even to the Wee Liberal party, whether they would not assent to a policy like that? [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] They will not

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    assent to a policy like that, and yet they come down and say that they are against reprisals. All I can say is, then, that they associate themselves entirely with a policy of lawlessness and murder in Ireland, because they have no other solution to bring before us. Their only solution is that we should retire. An hon. Gentleman says, "March to the sea," and then only hold your forts, and leave these people in Ireland to cut each other's throats. This is not practical politics. I ask the hon. Gentlemen, if they are really opposed to reprisals, as they would have us believe on the platform and in the Press, is there not something better than that? Should we not get back to the position in which we were before the right hon. Member for Paisley condoned high treason, and should seize men, try them for high treason, wherever a murder takes place, and make it perfectly clear that the whole country is behind the Government in seeing that law and order, whatever they cost, however strenuous the measures to save life in the long run, and suffering among people, should be enforced?
    Mr. DEVLIN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just sat down has made a series of most important suggestions to the Government. I expect the position of Chief Secretary for Ireland will soon be vacant, because the right hon. Gentleman who now occupies that position has reached about the limit of the term of office for Chief Secretaries. Therefore, the hon. and gallant Gentleman who is so prolific in new ideas would be, I think, a splendid candidate, and no doubt successful, as the successor of the present occupant of the office. We hear a great deal in this country about economy. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman were Chief Secretary he would put our economy notions into operation, because, according to his own programme, if he became Chief Secretary he would carry a Bill in this House to set up his own laws, he would appoint himself his own policeman, and, finally, would be his? own executioner. All these things, according to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, could be done in his own person, if he once occupied the position of Chief Secretary for Ireland.
    Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: I did not say so.
    Mr. DEVLIN: It was rather unfortunate that so skilful a rhetorician should
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    not be much more skilful than he is in the conduct of his own National party. He is on the right side. I rejoiced to hear him make his speech, because even the National party is now dead, and he is the only survivor. I believe he also was the stepfather of Tariff Reform, which is also dead. The party of the hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot even bring to the front a potential anti-dumping Bill. He has been rather unfortunate in introducing the matter of who was responsible for the present condition of things in Ireland. He told us that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), when saddled with the responsibility for the Government, allowed treason to run mad in Ireland, and took no action in trying to bring to justice those who were guilty of high treason. He told us that high treason started in 1916. I am afraid he has got somewhat mixed up in his dates. I will tell him when high treason commenced, and, if I mistake not, he was just as eloquent in his advocacy of high treason at that time as he is powerful now in his condemnation of it. I will tell the House when high treason started. It was when the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Duncairn (Sir E. Carson) made a speech in which he said:
    "I am not sorry for the armed drilling of those who are opposed to me in Ireland."
    That refers to the volunteers—
    "I have certainly no right to complain of it. I started it myself. I was told at the time that I was looking for revolution two-and-a-half or three years ahead. I was very glad. I did not mind that. We are quite ready, and we mean to go on and be ready."
    The right hon. and learned Gentleman was looking for revolution three years ahead, but his revolutionaries are now in the seats of the mighty. They sit upon that Front Bench opposite. They are administering justice as judges, resident magistrates, and Crown prosecutors in Ireland to-day. But the lessons he taught and the doctrines he preached have fructified in these hideous evils that the House of Commons is to-day discussing. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Therefore when any hon. and gallant Gentleman rises in the House and talks about high treason, and tells the House the cause and root of it, I say: There is the root of it! There is where treason started! That is a spirit which has permeated Ireland,

    535
    and I care not what extreme course Sinn Feiners take in Ireland, they are justified by the speeches not only of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson), but of all those Members of the Government who aided and abetted him in first starting the policy of revolution in hostility to the policy of constitutionalism that we preached from these benches and which was put into operation.
    If there is one thing that sickens me with this House, and I am pretty well sick of it, it is the arrant hypocrisy of its Members. If a policeman is shot your eyes turn up in holy horror. Yet I heard everyone cheer with ringing, resonant cheers, when this speech was made:
    "I place on record my view that this Government—"
    that is the Government now denounced by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and one in which the leading Members were the present Prime Minister, the Secretary for War, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench (Major-General Sealy), with a number of other hon. and gallant and un-gallant Members. Here is the speech:
    "I place on record my view that this Government, even if it had the wickedness, which I have a difficulty in believing, is wholly lacking in the nerve to give an order to the British army to use coercion in Ulster. Supposing the Government gave such an order, the consequences can only he described in the words of Mr. Bonar Law when he said, 'If they did so, it would not be a matter of argument, but the population of London would lynch you on the lamp-posts."
    Mr. J. JONES: Malone one got six months for less! [HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]
    Mr. DEVLIN: Why do not you cheer that sentiment? You cheered it then. There is not the slightest possibility of anyone connected with the National party getting six months for anything. Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman make any sacrifices of that kind? Hon. Members remain now dumb and silent. I watched them to-day when the right hon. Gentleman was making his speech—if I may say so, one of the most dishonest speeches I ever listened to. If we are to have a Minister coming and asking us to have a grand inquest of the nation, and if we are to be called upon to judge on these considerations presented to us, then we ought to be told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
    536
    truth. This speech of the Chief Secretary has been made up of a series of some truths, some half-truths, and many statements that were not truths at all. The right hon. Gentleman was reciting this hideous story, this saturnalia of blood in Ireland, and you were all deeply moved. Yet from the lips of your leaders—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—the right hon. and learned Gentleman and other Leaders in the House, came the inspiration which had been responsible for all these evils so eloquently depicted from that Table to-day. The hon. Gentleman for the St. Augustine's Division (Mr. Ronald McNeill) has been very silent through all these controversies, and so also have his Ulster colleagues who sit around him. I would imagine that he would have told us something about the horrors of Lisburn, Dromore, and Banbridge. Here, in peaceful little towns, where the people are engaged in their ordinary everyday avocation, offending nobody, not engaged even as members of a single political organisation, they are confronted with savagery and wanton crime unexampled. Parents driven from their houses because of their religion, hunted like deer from their homes. Little children sent out. People taken from their own hearths, and to-day in these towns, in those operations of which I speak, houses have disappeared in wreck and ruin as a monument of your hatred of crime in Ireland.
    Mr. RONALD McNEILL: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned my name, but I think my hon. Friend is aware that in my own small way I did my best to alleviate suffering in my own district.
    Mr. DEVLIN: I know the district in which my hon. Friend lives. Undoubtedly he himself has been a peaceful influence in what has occurred. I am talking about his party. I suppose it is because he represents an English constituency that he has the large heart he has. But what about his colleagues? Hundreds and thousands worth of property destroyed; the homes of people burned down, and other things which I have ventured to recite. There was no word of these in the speech of the Chief Secretary—not one solitary word. When a policeman is killed, when soldiers are killed, the House is horrified. Why is the whole story not told? Finally, 7,000 Catholics in the City of Belfast, who again have done no man any wrong, engaged in the difficult and

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    hard pursuits of the shipyards, travelling miles to their work from early morning till evening, in the City of Belfast I say, these men are driven from their employment because they belong to another religion.
    Colonel C. LOWTHER: No. The hon. Gentleman is wrong.
    Mr. DEVLIN: Yes, it is. I know the contention of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. I suppose it is because they are Sinn Feiners. Was it the Sinn Feiners that were driven from Queen's Island ten or fifteen years ago, when the same merciful operations were carried on against those there at that time? It is often said: "Oh, if only we had the moderate Nationalists!" Yet at that time I was regarded as anti-Christ. You are very fond of the moderate Nationalists now. You had them here once. You destroyed them. It was not because they were Sinn Feiners. I hate to repeat it over and over again—
    Colonel LOWTHER: Do not do it.
    7.0 P.M.
    Mr. DEVLIN: If the hon. Gentleman does not want to hear what I have to say he can go outside. I know your intellect cannot understand it; but for that I am not responsible. These men sent me to Parliament. My opponent at that election was Mr. De Valera. They would not have voted for me against him if they had been Sinn Feiners. I have heard the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister say that they had nothing against Sinn Feiners; that they were only against what they called "the murder gang." But if you are a Sinn Feiner you are entitled to your views, just as are hon. Members of this House, and it is perfectly legitimate to express those views. Even Sinn Feiners are entitled to work so long as they did not interfere with the rights of other men; but these men were driven out because they were Catholics. If we hear on the one hand from the Government of the persecution of policemen and the murders of soldiers, we are entitled also to ask that the whole story should be told. Not only, however, is there not one solitary word produced on the opposite beaches, but the Chief Secretary, who should hold impartially the balance of equality between conflicting parties in Ulster, has never said a single word in denunciation of crimes just as wanton and wicked as anything he has
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    described at that box. The fact of the matter is, and I want to say this frankly, that the whole cause of the trouble in Ireland is that you have no business there at all, neither yourselves, nor your Government, your military, nor your police. That is the whole story. You have just fought a great war for the rights of small nationalities. You preach under your fourteen points that no nation has a right to control another nation by military force. You could have Ireland a friend and an inspiring source of strength if you tried the right way; but, in order to solve this problem, you have never tried the right way, but always the wrong way. You have tried terrorism, the military, special Courts of Law, and the whole of your machinery is not constructed to win Ireland, but to crush her. I believe your policy to-day is intended—I do not say deliberately, but that will be the ultimate of it—to devastate and destroy Ireland.
    An English friend of mine told me that he was travelling over with a Black and Tan, and he was told that the soldiers were going to draw a cordon round Ireland and shoot every man, woman and child who showed the slightest opposition. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh. oh!"] He was not an Irishman, but an Englishman, and he was not a Member of Parliament. I believe the great bulk of Englishmen tell the truth unless they are returned to this House as Coalition Members. That is what this gentleman told me, and the reason I believe it is because I know it to be true. The Chief Secretary for Ireland has employed a novelist on the staff of his Weekly Summary, and he is now producing a series of romances which are issued in Ireland as penny shockers. That is how I regard all the documents which the right hon. Gentleman read to-day, and I do not believe one of them.
    A few moments ago, during the Chief Secretary's absence, I was asking him when he stands up to harrow our feelings to picture this hideous position in Ireland, I would like him to tell not partly the truth, but all the truth, and tell us not one incident, but all the incidents. During the whole of his speech to-day and his previous speeches, he has never once attempted to protest against the infamous persecution to which my constituents are being subjected to, because the great body of the

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    Catholics of North-East Ulster are suffering from as cruel a tyranny as was ever imposed upon a minority. If you want the House of Commons to have any belief in your bonâ fides, come along and tell us things as they are, and leave your literary romances to some other time. Instead of reading these things to the House of Commons you should submit them to men cool enough to understand how many of them are true. I was laughed at because I recited what a "Black and Tan" told an Englishman, namely, that they were going to devastate the country, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Weekly Summary contained a statement a couple of weeks ago that they intended to turn Ireland into "an appropriate hell"? That was a ghoulish description of the new Jerusalem you are going to create in Ireland, and in order to see that your literary theories and prognostications are carried into operation, you let loose forces in Ireland that destroy life, ruin property, burn down dwellings, and oppress and terrorise the population in the silent places of agricultural Ireland.
    To here the right hon. Gentleman one would think that the only occupation of the people of Ireland is that of murdering policemen and soldiers. That is why we want an impartial judicial tribunal in order that this country will be able to see whether the stories told by independent and impartial British, American and French newspaper representatives are true, or whether the truth is told in the statements which the right hon. Gentleman recites to this House every day. Here is a statement which was signed by 16 Protestants bishops in this country:
    "We, the undersigned, while condemning murder and outrage by whomsoever committed, deplore the disastrous state of affairs in Ireland at this time. We believe that force breeds force and reprisals suggest reprisals, but that the fires of brotherly love and goodwill, by God's spirit, lead to amity and peace. We ask, therefore, that military terrorism may cease and a truce be arranged on both sides, so that, in an atmosphere of peace, negotiations for a settlement may be carried on."
    Does the right hon. Gentleman say that these Protestant bishops got their information from a tainted source? The right hon. Gentleman says that these things do not exist, but the bishops of England say they do. The bishops of this
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    country, some of them most distinguished writers and public thinkers, have made these declarations, and whom are we to believe? The best way to test the matter is to set up a tribunal, a judicial tribunal if you like, consisting of the highest judges of this land. Let them inquire and take evidence, and then we will be perfectly satisfied with whatever judgment they declare between the statements we make to the House and the statements you make. Until the Government accepts that challenge, which we offer them now and which we will repeat, they must stand convicted of being guilty of retailing lies to this House and on the platform as to what is going on in Ireland. We are told that there is in Ireland a state of war. I have nothing to do with either party in this war, and I stand for the non-combatants, for the innocent men and women, and for the little children whom you have shocked and horrified. The right hon. Gentleman did not tell the House that I sent him a telegram from a merchant in Nenagh whose £18,000 worth of property was destroyed, and the owner of this property said to me: "Is this the reward I am getting for sending four of my sons to the front?"
    The right hon. Gentleman ought to tell the House the story of the young lieutenant in the Munster Fusiliers who was at home convalescent and was shot by a "Black and Tan" in his own home, and whose letter you have, or perhaps it is in the archives of Dublin Castle. You did not tell us these things. You do not tell the other side to this House, and these are some of the things you ought to have told this House. The right hon. Gentleman condemned the murder of the officers in Dublin the other day, and everybody condemns them. The only difference between the right hon. Gentleman and my self is that he condemns some murders, and I condemn all murders. To me all these things are hideous and revolting to human nature. I hate the Government because I believe they are responsible for them. I believe that for every life lost and for every drop of the blood which has been shed the policy of this Government is responsible.
    When the right hon. Gentleman shocked the House with a recital of the murder of these gallant officers he did not tell us that an army, a large uniformed force went to a football match in a great public

    541
    park in Dublin, for what? To catch the murderers. Does anyone visualise what might have been the tragedy that would have occurred under certain circumstances? I understand that there is not a word of truth in the statement that anybody fired shots from the crowd on the football field.
    I think it has been stated that revolvers were found in the possession of some of those who were seized, but if that is so how is it that not a single arrest was made? No, the revolvers were all lying round the football field, or they were not there at all. But whether there were revolvers there or not, or whether the assassins were at the football match or not, a more wicked transaction I have never known than that of letting these men loose upon a large mass of men, women, and children at a football match. I never could understand it. I have watched a football match, and I know people get very excited, and here at a gathering of excited men you march in your army, and they proceed to search 3,000 people, and ten men, women, and children are killed. You did not catch a single assassin on that' football field, and yet you proceeded to do a deed so foul that if the assassins had been there not ten but possibly 1,000 people might have lost their lives. That is almost as heroic as the posturing and posing of the right hon. Gentleman. This is my country, however, and not his, and I care nothing for his picturesque postures or poses, nor for his dramatic performances in the football field. What I care about is the danger to innocent lives, and to the thousands of men and women, upon whom there was not the slightest stain of criminality, who were subjected to a performance that might have meant a massacre on the one side and the destruction of the valued lives of soldiers, about whom he sheds so many tears at the Table of this House, on the other. Why did the right hon. Gentleman not tell that story to the House of Commons?
    Let me come to the case of Tralee. A representative of the Press—and may I point out in passing that I do not get my information from the "Sinn Fein Bulletin," I do not get a copy of that production, they do not honour me with it. I like accuracy, and therefore I go to the British papers to get proof. Every question I have asked in this House, and I can say the same for my colleagues on
    542
    these Benches, has been based upon information which we found in the most reputable journals in this country. In fact, the most harrowing details that I have ventured to congregate in the form of a question have been found in the classic columns of the "Morning Post." Surely that is accurate enough for the right hon. Gentleman, whatever the other Members of the Coalition Government may think about it, because it is on his side in this controversy! Therefore, I do not think he can question it. Tralee is described as being
    "like a town with the plague. Not a shop is open, and people remain behind closed doors and shuttered windows from morning to nightfall. An hour before darkness sets in women and children leave their homos and go anywhere they can for the night. About 280 women and children sleep in the workhouse every night. The men who remain in the town are in constant dread during the long hours of the night. When morning dawns efforts are made to secure food some way or other, but the slightest sound on the streets, even in broad daylight, has the effect of making people run indoors again. It is quite incorrect to say that the shops were open for a couple of hours. That is not so. No merchant dares open his door even for a few moments lest the Black and Tans should come on him unexpectedly and burn down the shop. In the house where I was staying they had a little flour, which was used for baking bread, but the majority of the people are not as well off as we were. They try to get food on the quiet, but do not always succeed. When a police lorry appears on the streets shots are fired at street corners by its occupants, adding to the general terror. It is simply awful to witness the plight of the women and children. They are absolutely terrified. The armed police are practically always on the streets."
    The position in the town is summed up as follows:
    "There is no goods traffic coming in. There is no money coming in, and no wages paid. There was not a bit of fresh meat killed in the town since Saturlay week. The whole thing is certainly a new development of the frightfulness policy. It is a deliberate attempt to starve a whole town.
    Of course, none of these things occur. The English papers are all liars, but that was their description of it.
    Let me come to Templemore. I quite recognise that these details are somewhat dry, but I feel I ought to tell the story. We sat in patience listening to the long recital of the right hon. Gentleman, and if this House is to go away inflamed with passion in its indignation against Ireland because of things which all decent Irishmen regret and profoundly detest,

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    surely I am entitled to submit the other side of the question to its spirit of justice. This is in Templemore:
    "Events in this town last Friday night illustrated in a startling way the collapse of discipline that is inevitably following upon the rein which has been given to the British army serving in Ireland. When I arrived this morning I found that about a third of the population had fled"—
    One-third of the population. This is not in Armenia, under the Turks, this is in Ireland, under the British Government. This is written by an Englishman himself:
    "From end to end the little place was shattered as though by a series of explosions. Two shops were mere heaps of smoking ruins. For a quarter of a mile the glass in every window not heavily shuttered was broken. Altogether more than a hundred buildings had been treated in this way. Piles of plate-glass fragments littered the roadway outside the town's big drapery establishment. And in the centre of the square, the skeleton of the burnt-out City Hall told how this was the second time within four months that Templemore has had to endure the fury of the Crown Forces in Tipperary."
    I come to Longford. I got a letter describing the whole situation in Longford from the Bishop there, which I sent to the Prime Minister and which he read. It was about as horrible a story of wanton wickedness against innocent people as I ever heard of. Here are the fruits of it:
    Claims have been made by the following: Mrs. Pettit, £80,000; Kiernan's Hotel, £65,000; Peter Heslin, £50,000; Misses O'Flanagan, £20,000; Patrick O'Hara, £15,000; Michael Kelly, £12,000. Court house and Market House, £12,000—
    You see, they had such a respect for law that they even burnt down the Court House. The Government have abolished the tribunals, and the Black and Tans are burning the Court Houses—
    Joseph Tierney, £10,000: Claims for more than £1,000 are for goods, including dry goods.
    Let me read this, of last Saturday:
    The acquittal by a Dublin Court-martial of the two men, James O'Neill and Patrick Blake, had a tragic sequel.
    Here were two ex-soldiers, and they were tried for being Sinn Feiners, or some crime of that sort—[AN HON MEMBER: "Murder!"]—for murder in Limerick. They were brought before one of your own military tribunals. Those tribunals are sacrosanct; according to the right hon. Gentleman they are infallible in their
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    judgments and they cannot err, even by accident. Their decisions are pontifical, and nobody in this House dare question them. They acquitted these men of murder. What happened?
    "The two men travelled by train to Limerick junction. They then left in a motor car for Limerick, some relatives having met and accompanied them towards home. Blake, with others, was in one car and O'Neill in another. About half-way the motors were held up by a party of armed and disguised men. The occupants were challenged, and a question having been put as to whether a man named Blake was travelling, Michael Blake, a brother of the acquitted prisoner, it is stated, answered in the affirmative and was shot dead. The dead body of James O'Neill was found in a field by the roadside near Pallas. Michael Blake was a demobilised soldier. His remains were conveyed to Limerick and left at the infirmary."
    Let the House listen to this, which was also in an English paper:
    "There was another raiding expedition of the same sort the next night in the direction of Ballinamore and Fenagh. Here a parochial hall was burned, but I am without precise information. On their return towards Mohill the raiders went through the district of Aughavas, three miles east of Cloone. I followed their trail yesterday. They called at the farmhouse of John Owens at Augharan, between two and three o'clock in the morning. The people in the house heard shouting outside of "Up Lloyd George." The door was opened, and inquiry made for the two eldest sons. They were out, but the two younger boys, aged 16 and 14, were seized. Between two rooms of the house is a half wall, which does not reach quite to the roof. Over this was flung a halter, and John Francis Owens, a lad of 16 years, was made to stand on a chair and the halter put round his neck. The chair was kicked away and the boy left half-strangled. He pleaded that he was only 16, and was told, "You are old enough to ambush a policeman." The boy of 14 was tied in the same way, but fell in a faint in a tub of pig-wash when the chair was removed. His brother was then again intimidated in the same way, and then dragged outside with the halter still round his neck, and beaten with the buckle-end of a Volunteer belt, found in the house. In the meantime, when the raiders had told Mr. and Mrs. Owens and their little girl to clear out of the house as it was to be burned. They went out and stood in the yard in their nightclothes while the thatch of their house was lit from inside and outside, and while their furniture, clothing and money were consumed in the flames. Fire was set to a haggardful of ricks of straw and hay. The barn, byre and outhouses were burned, but Mr. Owens managed to get out in time a horse, donkey, and some cattle. About 40 fowls were suffocated in the barn, and their charred bodies were removed next day in shovelsful. When I visited the house yesterday nothing

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    was standing of the cottage or barn but the outside walls. All the crops had been reduced to ashes."
    As I have said, these are only some few of the incidents which were never mentioned in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. May I venture respectfully to suggest to him that he should publish a full record of all the doings of these servants of his, of which he boasts so much, in the next copy of the "Weekly Summary"? It is arrant hypocrisy, simply because men are soldiers, to endeavour to palliate these crimes. It may be a popular thing to do, and I can understand why men do it. I do not myself think that the soldiers like it. I do not think the Black and Tans like it. I believe, in my heart, that the Royal Irish Constabulary hate so loathsome a task. In the city of Dublin the Dublin Metropolitan Police have been disarmed for twelve months, and there has not been a single policeman shot since. We know what is going on in Ireland—the policemen are nervous, broken down, and angry— many of them justifiably angry. They are let loose, they do not know where they are; while the soldiers come over to a strange land, having read the blood-curdling stories told by the right hon. Gentleman and the Prime Minister of the horrors they had to face. Most of them are young boys. I was in a newspaper office in Belfast one day, and some of these young soldiers of sixteen were there, buying papers. I got in conversation with them and said, "What are you doing over here? They replied, "We are over here to defend Sir Edward Carson." They really did not know what they were sent over for, and I believe, on my soul, that these young fellows, with all the fine, vigorous and martial inspiration of their hearts, believe that this is a dirty job upon which they have been sent. Therefore, I am not prepared to throw stones at them. My indictment is an indictment of this Government. They have tried every method that human ingenuity and a lack of humanity has inspired in dealing with the Irish question, but they have never once tried the right one.
    When the present Government came into power Ireland was a perfectly peaceful country. When the Act of 1914 was put upon the Statute Book, Ireland was the most crimeless country in the world. Go back to the records of the visits of the Judges in Ireland to
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    the various Courts of Assize, and you will see that 80 per cent. of them received white gloves, symbolic of the freedom of those counties from crime. There was hope in the Irish heart. You talk about the Act of 1914. I was present at a great meeting in O'Connell Street just before the War, when a demand was made by something like 60,000 people that this Act should be put on the Statute Book. Amongst the speakers at that great gathering of Nationalists—for we were all Constitutionalists then—was Mr. Pearce, who was shot after the rebellion, a noble and inspiring figure, who bravely fought and died for the things he felt. Mr. John MacNeill was another of the speakers— all Constitutionalists, every one of them—and I forget the names of a good many of them. They were not Separatists then; they were not even Republicans. They may have had such ideas in their minds, but they said, "We are willing to accept this measure as a compromise and an agreement between two great nations." How has your trickery and the dodgery of political parties all ended? On these Benches there once sat eighty Constitutionalists. We had to receive the same abuse, we were faced with the same hostility and calumny that Sinn Fein is meeting to-day.
    I heard the present Lord Chancellor of England say on these Benches that he would rather be governed by the Sultan of Turkey than by John Redmond—John Redmond who lost his power and his life when he stood by you in the direst moments of your Imperial fortunes. He cast in his lot with you. You turned him down; you left him to die of a broken heart, and the youth of Ireland finding that no success could be found along those lines, finding that Ireland for 40 years had always been in opposition, left you and, thank God, when they left this House they left with an incorruptible record which is an unpurchasable asset of their nation, because not one of them ever accepted a place of honour or emolument from the British' Government. They went down the victims of your rule and of your ignorance. They disappeared because you would not listen to the golden voice of Mr. Gladstone 30 years ago—because you would not listen to the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), and because yon would not even listen to the present Prime Minister who was associated with both in endeavouring to solve this problem. You turned a deaf

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    ear to them and you have got precisely what you deserve. We at any rate have no responsibility for it. The time will come when all this will end; but it will not be ended by methods of this kind. When I was a child I was frightened, and the thing that was shouted at me in common with all Irish children, in order to frighten us was the word "Cromwell." It was a name which in Ireland was associated always with the terrible massacres of Drogheda. For 30 years we fought our cause until these bitter memories had disappeared, we fought it in the hope that in your comradeship from an enfranchised democracy there would be evolved a more human spirit and a greater chance for liberty.
    But the constitutional movement was broken and what are we offered? Shall I say a second promise? The right hon. Gentleman may kill the Sinn Fein movement. That is one of the reasons why I am not a Sinn Feiner. Frankly I never believed in this war of force. I believed it was always in your power to smash it. A nation of 45,000,000, with all its military power, its scientific military machine, and its wealth, why it was fantastical to think that liberty could be won in that way. If I had thought it might be I would have stood out with equal valour in defence of the principles I was fighting for. But I did not think it possible. I warn you to beware how your name goes down to the children in generations to come. Remember now you have an opportunity, amidst all the evils and difficulties of to-day, of making the Irish people remember you with pride instead of your name being a memory of terror to the children of the future. You can do it. The lines on which you can do it have been laid down. I have been so unsuccessful myself in my own suggestions that I hesitate to offer any more. In the Labour Congress held in Dublin only 10 days ago however, they pointed out the lines upon which it was possible and even certain—for they speak largely for Ireland—to find a solution that will end this horrible condition of affairs and bring a newer and much better spirit and temper into the relationships between the two countries. We are asking you to withdraw your military and to let a Constituent Assembly be called to draft a constitution and to arrange adequate safeguards, which, I believe, they would leave
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    to Ulster to determine for itself. We ask for no control over your Army or Navy. Why refuse our request? Why have you given us this Government, this administration, this hideous story of crime and reprisals? You stood as the triumphant power in the War. Do not let your peace be poisoned by war with a little nationality, with a little country which has a chance now, if only freed from all these horrors, of becoming within itself a potential power for internal glory and prosperity and your friend and ally if you will let her be so.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: The speech to which we have just listened was so full of eloquence that I think the House is very much inclined to overlook the irrelevance of a large part of it. After such a speech anything from myself is likely to fall very flat. Indeed, I had no idea of taking part in this Debate, and I should not have done so had not the hon. Member (Mr. Devlin) in his remarks more or less challenged me by hurling a reproach at the Members on this Bench, and at myself in particular, for having taken no part in these discussions, which have been rather frequent of late. Speaking for-myself alone, I may say the reason why I have taken no part is a very simple one, and it is that it did not appear to me that anything I could say would materially add to the information before the House. We have heard from the hon. Member, and from the hon. Gentleman sitting beside him (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), speech after speech on very nearly the same topic, covering almost always the same ground, and we have, in my opinion, had to those speeches very effective answers from the Government. I have, therefore, seen no reason why those who sit on these Benches, merely because it is true we have a particular acquaintance with Ireland, should, on that account, intervene in these discussions.
    I only propose now to deal, in a very few words, with two short points raised by the hon. Member. I do so because they have been so often repeated in this House that if we continue to allow them to go unanswered they may in time be believed by those who put them forward and still more be believed by a good many who hear them. The first point my hon. Friend made was when he was referring to the speech of the hon. Member for Bournemouth (Lieut.-Colonel Croft),

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    who had dealt with the campaign at present going on in Ireland and had recommended a certain course for the Government. The hon. Member for the Falls Division then made this common debating point—"Where did this high treason begin?" Of course he, with his inimitable eloquence, suggested that the source of treason in Ireland was to be found in the action of my right hon. Friend the Member for Duncairn (Sir E. Carson). That has been continually stated. Let me take this opportunity of saying that the analogy so often suggested is one which we at all events have entirely repudiated from first to last. This is not the opportunity, and I am not the person to take it, for going into a detailed defence of the action of my right hon. Friend in the past. But there is one outstanding distinction between his action in the past and what we see to-day which I am perfectly certain appeals to the people of this country, however it may appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite. This has been the distinguishing mark of the action of my right hon. Friend in the past—whatever hon. Members may think of it in detail, and in regard to its methods—that it was in intention and purpose an action and a movement of loyalty to the British Crown and the British Empire. The action that is going on in Ireland to-day is exactly the opposite, and is a movement, whatever its methods may be, in intention and in purpose not of loyalty, but of hostility to the British Empire and the British Crown, and that distinction we at all events are perfectly willing to take our stand upon, and we are confident of justification in the long run from the British people.
    The other point which the hon. Member brought up again is the accusation of intolerance and persecution against his co-religionists in Belfast. While he was making that point I insisted, as I insist again, that that hostility is the result—I deplore it very greatly— not of any religious difference between people working together in Belfast, but is due to political differences. My hon. Friend tried to make the point that on some occasions before the rise of Sinn Fein to its present position similar action had been taken. I agree, but on both occasions it was hostility to the political opinion and not to the religious opinion of those against whom it was taken. I
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    quite agree with my hon. Friend that it is a very deplorable state of intolerance. I quite agree it is wrong that people working together in the same shipyard, or in the same works, should not work to gether even although they hold different religious or political opinions. There is, however, this to be said that they have just as good a right to refuse to work alongside other men whose political opinions they detest as have the right hon. and hon. Members of the Labour party to say that they and their friends will not work in the same shop as people whose industrial opinions they dislike. I am quite aware that my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas) has tried to draw—I think very unsuccessfully—a line of distinction between the two. Still I hold that if a man in a yard is entitled to declare he will not work alongside somebody who does not agree with him or does not belong to his union, that deplorable as it may be is just as bad, neither worse or better, than for people in Belfast to say, "We will not work alongside other men not because we disagree with them industrially but because we disagree with their political opinions." I deplore such action in both cases. These are the only points with which I care to deal to-day. I only rose to do so because I was challenged. I should like, in conclusion—as my hon. Friend made a rambling speech dealing with the larger aspects of the matters now under revision in Ireland—to give one illustration of his methods. He was replying to what appeared to be an extremely powerful speech by the Chief Secretary, in which he showed, from documents in possession of the Government, the terrible cases with which they have to deal in Ireland. How does my hon. Friend deal with it? First of all he relies entirely upon newspaper reports. It is characteristic of his rhetorical methods that he should have said, "I am always fond of accuracy so I go to British newspapers for it." He succeeded, of course, in raising the laugh which he intended to do by his witty observation, but the intention was to prove that the newspaper articles on which he was relying were sufficient to do away with the Government case. He considers that that is dealing with the Government documents.
    Mr. DEVLIN: I said there was not a word of truth in them.
    Mr. McNEILL: That is exactly what I am going to point out. The hon. Member, having relied entirely upon newspaper articles—and some of us, especially those who have been journalists, know how much reliance may sometimes be placed on newspaper articles—says with regard to the documents produced by the Government which have actually been taken from persons arrested in connection with this campaign of crime—he disposes of them by saying, "I do not believe a word of it." I think he also said, when the right hon. Gentleman referred to the revolvers taken on the football field in Dublin, "I do not believe in the revolvers either." That is a very easy and cheap way of disposing of evidence, but it is characteristic of my hon. Friend, and I am certain that he is far too able a man to try to dispose of documentary proof in that way if he had a strong case to rely on himself. Anybody who can look to the case he made and to his failure to deal with the Government case, and can escape from the glamour of the undoubted eloquence of my hon. Friend, will not, I think, have any hesitation in corning to the conclusion that he has totally failed to upset the case of the Chief Secretary, and that the House will have no hesitation either in giving support to the Government.
    Mr. HOGGE: Most of us who have listened to the hon. Member for the Falls Division and the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down will appreciate their point of view and understand exactly where both of them are in this matter. I do not rise to pursue either of those speeches, but to say that I am disappointed that in the Debate, so far as it has gone, so little attention has been paid to the third portion of the Resolution. The Resolution is divided into three portions. With the first of those portions presumably everybody in the House agrees, namely, the condemnation of the assassinations both of officers and civilians. The second portion of the Resolution deals with reprisals, and on that portion there is a difference of opinion. Hon. Gentlemen opposite believe that reprisals are necessary to the pacification of Ireland, and say so quite frankly. On that point one would like to get replies to these questions. Is the policy of the Government an approval of those reprisals or a condemnation? It has been suggested, and some speakers have even said, that the
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    Government itself is responsible for the reprisals. I should be very unwilling, and a great many Members of the House would be very unwilling, to believe that the Government were deliberately provoking reprisals. At any rate this is true—we have chapter and verse for it from day to day in the Parliamentary Papers—that the Government are condoning reprisals and have offered from time to time excuses for what many of us believe are excesses.
    The second question I would like to put is this: is there to be no limit to the policy; are we all to stand absolutely still and wait until you have exhausted the policy of reprisals, and have overcome the disorder in Ireland? That is a pertinent question, and I hope my right hon. and learned Friend opposite will take the question for a specific answer. Are we to wait until reprisals have turned disorder in Ireland into order before any further step is taken, because if that is so, what promise would there be in the future of Ireland? You would, it is true, have overcome the disorder, but you would have a people with the memory of their treatment—the memories are full enough now of the treatment they have received for a century—more emphasised than ever. I am sure the Prime Minister himself must be opposed to reprisals. Though I was not in the House at the time, I remember speaking with the Prime Minister on platforms in this country, and the present Prime Minister, talking in this House in December, 1900, when we were nearly at the end of the Boer War, was dealing with the question of reprisals there, and he made several speeches. I will only read one short extract of one speech to show what was in his mind:
    "I ask you, is there any justice in punishing one man for the offence of another? General Botha, General Delarey, and General De Wet, and some of their neighbours living, it may be, 200 miles from the spot, swoop suddenly down and cut the railway. You do not punish De Wet because you cannot catch him, but you burn the farms, possibly occupied by women and children, of all those people who have had nothing to do with the raid, and the cutting of the railway."
    Here is the sentence that matters:
    "I do not think it is calculated to impress the inhabitants of those two States with a clear sense of the even-handed justice they are likely to have at our hands."

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    Those were the words of the present Prime Minister when speaking on reprisals in this House in December of 1909. In his mind at that time, as I hope and believe is in his mind now, he had the idea that it was wrong and futile to reach agreement through reprisals, and here I come to the one suggestion which I think may contribute a little to the constructive side of this Debate. I have quoted a South African precedent, but there is a more recent precedent, and a precedent which the Government themselves have carried into effect. It is within the recollection of everybody in this House that we had rebellion in Egypt. There were the same kind of stories in Egypt about the murder of British soldiers as we unfortunately had on Sunday of this week. There was a nationalist demand in Egypt for a separate national existence. There we had reproduced in Egypt the conditions which obtain in Ireland, but the Government did not put up a non possumus attitude towards that situation. They sent one of their own colleagues, Lord Milner, out to Egypt to discuss with those who were in favour of the national independence of Egypt, and those of us who have had the privilege and opportunity of talking with some of the members of that Commission who are now home know from what they say of the extreme difficulty in the initial stages of getting into touch with national opinion in Egypt. Patience and time were all that were required to secure success, and now we have a Report which not only meets the wishes of those in Egypt who desire to have their national aspirations put in some concrete form, but also secures all that is essential to this country from the point of view of danger. What I want to know is this—why cannot the Government have some kind of truce. The words "the truce of God" have been used in the Debate. I do not like to use those words, but I can see no end to this unless you are going to wait until the Government have pressed their hand so heavily on Ireland that you have a subdued and subjugated people.
    Mr. PENNEFATHER: Pressed their hands on the murder gang.
    Mr. HOGGE: My hon. Friend is introducing a couple of words which I hold should be kept out of this Debate. If
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    my hon. Friend wants to know our views with regard to the murder gang, we should be as pleased as he, and as anxious as he, and would take as many steps as he and his friends to see that any criminals belonging to the murder gang who have killed either officers or civilians are tracked down and dealt even-handed justice. I do not think you are going to get a solution of this problem by talking about murder gangs and gunmen in Ireland.
    Mr. PENNEFATHER: I wish to correct an inaccuracy. My hon. Friend referred to the Government as having a heavy hand on Ireland, and my point was that the Government has not got a heavy hand on Ireland as Ireland, but is simply exercising a heavy hand on the murder gang, and I think there is a great distinction between the two.
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. HOGGE: That is a point greatly in dispute and is an example of the meticulous kind of mind that addresses itself to a big problem of this sort. Why should my hon. Friend worry about such a distinction? The conscience of this country and the conscience of the House of Commons are against what is happening in Ireland, whoever is responsible. By the forms of Parliamentary procedure, this becomes a Vote of Censure, but the purposes of this Debate is to see if there is a way out, and it is not going to help us to introduce the question of murder gangs. So I am suggesting the precedents of South Africa and of Egypt. There is something else that can be done. From what has been said by Ministers, I gather that the Republican Army is a unit in Ireland that can be recognised. We were told to-day, for instance, by the Chief Secretary that the headquarters of the Republican Army were in creameries. Presumably, therefore, there is a Republican Army which is known. There is also the British Army which is known, and there are the police. The officers at the head of the British Army in Ireland are responsible officers, and the men at the head of the police are responsible police officers. Cannot those officers be brought into touch with the leaders of the Republican Army? The House will remember that, when we were trying to find our way out of the South African difficulty, Lord Rosebery, who was then actively engaged

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    in politics, suggested that, if some British officer could meet some of the Boer generals at a wayside inn somewhere in either of the two little republics that we were fighting, they would probably find a settlement that statesmen could not arrive at. I believe that what we want in Ireland to-day is a wayside inn. We want to get the immediate leaders of the Republican Army and of our own Army there to declare a truce, and in the interval of that truce to get together and put down in some form or other exactly what would satisfy them, or exactly what they would require— in other words, to negotiate. If the matter were negotiated in that way, surely it is not beyond the ability of statesmanship in this country, out of those preliminary talks with the people who actually matter, to reach some kind of settlement.
    The Government, of course, have only, so far as I know, one reply, and that is that they will suppress the Republican Army, and will offer to Ireland as a solution their present Home Rule Bill. That is all they have tangible for dealing with this amazing situation. I believe the situation is far too serious to wait and see whether the Home Rule Bill will even operate. I respectfully suggest that hon. Members of this House, instead of bringing forward examples of reprisals on the one side or the other, instead of making suggestions how the military should be better protected, and so on, should throw into this discussion any ideas that they have of any kind that will put an end to the horror of murders on both sides, that will enable us to penetrate this smokescreen of murder, and get up against the realities and facts of the situation. The people in Ireland, however much they are opposed to each other now, must live together, and the longer they are separated by the tragedy of murders, assassinations, and reprisals, the longer this House and the longer this nation is going to be kept from addressing itself to other great subjects of dominant interest. I appeal to the House to view the Debate in that way. That is the spirit in which this Resolution was put down; that is the idea that we hope to elaborate in this Debate. It is in everyone's mind at the moment that to get away from the murders and on to the facts that will bring about a solution is the thing that
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    really matters. What I have said about South Africa, what I have said about Egypt, and what I have suggested in the way of a truce, are, at any rate, three schemes which it is worth while to try—very much more worth while than pursuing the present system of reprisals.
    Mr. PENNEFATHER: The hon. Member who has just sat down charged me with having such a meticulous mind that I could not see the whole of the problem with which he was dealing. I do not think that my mind is so very meticulous, but I do confess to having a love for accuracy, and I do not think it is accurate to say that the British Government is pressing upon Ireland as a whole with a heavy hand. A great part of Ireland is peaceable. It is only in certain parts of Ireland that the problems which we are discussing arise, and it is only in those districts where outrages are committed against the police and the military that the Government of this country—very properly, in my opinion—presses with a heavy hand in order that the terrorism may be removed. The hon. Member for Falls (Mr. Devlin)—I am sorry that he is not in his place—made a speech which has been properly described as very eloquent. Like other speeches made by him and his colleagues, it filled me with a certain amount of bewilderment. The hon. Member for Falls said, and I have no doubt that he was saying it in all sincerity, that he did not propose to come forward as the champion of either the police or the military or those who fought against them, but that, as I understood him, he desired to be impartial as between these contending parties. He said that he spoke from the stand point of a representative of the civil population of Ireland. In that case, why does he, and why did some of his colleagues the other day, take it upon themselves to resent so bitterly the suggestion that certain documents had been captured from the Sinn Fein leaders, and go so far as to characterise those documents as having been concocted in Dublin Castle, and as being lies? Why should the hon. Member for Falls and the other Nationalist Members who, as I fully believe, are not in sympathy with Sinn Fein, take it upon themselves to become, I will not say the champions, but the defenders of the Sinn Fein leaders?

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    Why should they say, for example, the other day, when I asked a question about the spread of typhoid and glanders by the Sinn Fein leaders, and when documents were read out which had been captured by the military or police from those very Sinn Fein leaders—why should these hon. Gentlemen, who are Members of the Nationalist party and who are not in sympathy with Sinn Fein, at once say that those documents were concoctions? Again, to-day, the Chief Secretary read out some very important documents, and the hon. Member for Falls at once, without inquiry, denounced them as lies. I think it is very extraordinary that these Gentlemen who, as I really believe, are averse from Sinn Fein, should take up the position of defenders of the Sinn Fein leaders, and of disputers of the authenticity of these documents.
    I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley is not here, because, I was also puzzled by a remark which he made this afternoon. He was referring to the outrages which had been committed in Ireland upon the military and the police, and he added, "the vast majority of which were without excuse." I cannot understand why he should have used those qualifying words, "the vast majority." I cannot suppose that the right hon. Gentleman intended to imply that there were a certain number of murders of police and military which were justified, but I think it will be seen that those words lead to some ambiguity, which, I am sure, he did not intend. Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say what I think most of us believe, namely, that large and generous allowances must be made for the soldiers and police in Ireland, who are in a very difficult and dangerous position. That is exactly the point which has been made by the Chief Secretary, and by others, but it seems to me that it is being lost sight of by those hon. Members who are such very severe critics of the soldiers and police. It seems to me that there are some hon. Members in this House who, whenever they want to examine the action of the soldiers and police, examine them with a microscope, but who, whenever their attention is directed to the crimes which are committed against the soldiers and police, seem to look at those crimes through the wrong end of a telescope. Surely, in a case of this kind,
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    we ought to try and look, both upon the provocation and upon such reprisals as take place, through fair eyes, without endeavouring to blink the position on the one side or the other. No doubt there have been reprisals, and I, for one, am not going to support them. I do not approve of illegal reprisals of any sort; I think they are bad for the discipline of the forces of the Crown. On the other hand, I do believe that there is such a thing as human nature, and that men may be placed in such a position that, as the Chief Secretary read out to-day, they go practically mad. When the officers of those men do, as we are told, and as I believe they did, all that they can within reasonable limits to curb those men and bring them back to discipline, I do not think that much more can be said in condemnation of it.
    It has been said that it was popular to take up the side of the soldiers and police, and perhaps that may be true. I believe that the great mass of people in this country do realise—at all events I realise—that those soldiers and police in Ireland are very largely recruited from the ex-service men to whom we owe so much for the winning of the War. We have only to take up any paper, belonging to any political party, to be reminded, and properly reminded, day after day of ail that we owe to those ex-service men. Yes, but when they enlist in the Army and go to Ireland, when they join the police force, they are gibed at as Black and Tans. Some hon. Members of this House seem to have "Black and Tan" on the brain. You hear them gibe repeatedly at those ex-service men, and suggest, some of them—it is a terrible thing—that those ex-service men, those British soldiers who are now in Ireland in the police or in the military forces, are really inhuman brutes. What else can be the meaning of the suggestions that we have heard frequently lately that they shot a woman with a child at her breast, who was pregnant and was about to become a mother?
    Mr. J. JONES: She was shot.
    Mr. PENNEFATHER: I agree, she was shot. But is there any hon. Member who has the temerity to say that these British soldiers or policemen deliberately shot at that woman, or knew that she had a child at her breast, or that she was pregnant?
    Mr. JONES: You ought to be at the Adelphi.
    Mr. PENNEFATHER: I do not know what the hon. Member means by that, but if he means any reflection upon these men who are charged with this inhuman conduct—
    Mr. JONES: No, I do not.
    Mr. PENNEFATHER: I think he ought to be somewhere else.
    Mr. JONES: Hear, hear!
    Mr. PENNEFATHER: Charges are continually being made, not in words, but by suggestion, that our soldiers and policemen in Ireland are deliberately guilty of the most inhuman crimes.
    Mr. JONES: No, we charge the Government, not the soldiers.
    Mr. PENNEFATHER: I am not referring to the hon. Member. Perhaps he will allow me to proceed without interruption. It was only yesterday suggested that a boy of ten had been bayonetted by British soldiers in Ireland. That has turned out to be another of those mare's nests into which so many of my hon. Friends fall at times when they rely upon information they receive from Ireland. It was suggested again about this woman who was sitting on a wall that the soldiers fired at her. That we know is absolutely untrue. These regrettable incidents hap pened and they are bound to happen. When a conflict is going on the innocent neutral is very often the person who suffers. We had an illustration of this, unfortunately, in this House last Monday, when there was something in the nature of a fracas, and when, among the Members who were taking part in it, a perfectly innocent Member, I believe, was the only one who received a severe blow in the face. It always happens when there are conflicts that innocent people suffer.
    But in order to realise the provocation under which our soldiers and the police in Ireland suffer it is necessary that we should sometimes try to put ourselves in their place and realise what happens. Take these ambushes of which we have heard so much lately. What takes place? Some soldiers, we will say in a military motor-car, are going along a quiet country road. There is nothing to indicate that they are in any danger. There are a few peaceful civilians working in a field. There is nothing to alarm them. Suddenly something stirs, a shot rings out,
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    a soldier falls dead, more shots ring out, the whole party on the lorry, as has happened in some cases, are killed or wounded, and when perhaps only one remains they are surrounded by seventy or a hundred armed men who disarm them, take their uniforms, rifles and cartridges, and leave them there: some dead, some wounded, some disabled, and all humiliated. That has happened in greater or less degree to the military and the police, and as it has happened since 30th June last 139 times is it surprising that when these men, going along on their lorry, see something unexpected they should jump to the conclusion, in the state of nervous tension in which they are, that this is the prelude to an attack upon their lives, and that in self-defence and as a precautionary measure they should shoot hurriedly at something that appears to them at first sight dangerous and yet may only turn out to be a woman with a child at her breast, a helpless and innocent party. Will anyone dare to say the men do not regret that as much as any hon. Member in this House? It is enough that these men in Ireland, who are the servants of the House, should be risking their lives in doing their duty without hon. Members blackening their reputation. I hope this is the last we have heard of these contemptible suggestions that British men in the service of the Crown and in their duty to this House are guilty intentionally of inhuman and discreditable conduct.
    The suggestion has been pressed forward that there should be an impartial, possibly a judicial, tribunal to investigate these charges. That has been made more than once, but no tribunal, be it judicial or otherwise, can arrive at a conclusion without taking evidence. It would be under present conditions impossible to get impartial evidence. Take the attitude of the hon. Member (Mr. Devlin). When something was produced before him he simply said, "I do not believe it." He shut his eyes. He was prepared to give evidence on the other side, and I am sure the hon. Member is an excellent specimen of the better class of people in the disturbed districts of Ireland. What evidence could be got in those disturbed districts? There would, of course, be the evidence of the police themselves. Their evidence would probably be in favour of the Government case. In any case the Government can

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    get the evidence of the police and of the soldiers without the slightest difficulty. There is no need to set up any tribunal to get that evidence. Upon whom else could the tribunal depend? They could go to people who are, let us say, disguised Sinn Feiners. By that I mean not people who are openly and actively engaged in Sinn Fein propaganda. It is incredible that any tribunal would go to those people for evidence. They would have to go to people who were supposed to be impartial. Those people might or might not be disguised Sinn Feiners, but in any case, even if they were not, even if they were people who had strong leanings against Sinn Fein, what evidence would those people dare to give? They would know perfectly well that if they gave evidence which would exculpate the police and the soldiery and put the blame on the Sinn Feiners their lives and their property would be in danger. How can you expect people in conditions like that to give true evidence? I am not suggesting that the Irish people, of whom I am one, are bigger liars than other people, but I believe any man, when his life is in danger if he gives certain evidence, is pretty well bound either to hold his tongue to withhold some evidence he could give or to colour the evidence which he is forced to give.
    Let me give as an example in proof of that what happened the other day in connection with a British journalist who was in Ireland, a gentleman of high position in the journalistic world, who, I have no doubt, is in normal circumstances as truthful as any of us. Here is the account taken from the paper which sent him to Ireland to report. This gentleman, it is said, was accosted by some of the police and they asked his name and what paper he represented, and the account says:
    "Mr. Martin deciding to lie boldly mentioned the name of a Coalition newspaper."
    Why did he lie boldly? Because he thought his life was in danger. That is exactly my point.
    Mr. J. JONES: What paper did that gentleman represent?
    Mr. PENNEFATHER: I do not see that this has much bearing on the case, but here is my newspaper cutting—
    "Mr. Martin's account of the threat by members of the Royal Irish Constabulary to
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    do for him was told in a message published in the 'Daily News.'"
    And it goes on to say that Mr. Martin's account is confirmed by Mr. Macgregor in a message published in the "Evening News." I am not bringing any charge against this gentleman, who, I believe, is as truthful and honest as any of us, but the point I am endeavouring to make is, what is the use of setting up an impartial tribunal to consider evidence which people dare not give for fear of their lives? I submit that an impartial inquiry of this kind is in the circumstances absolutely impossible. I also submit that such an impartial inquiry as is suggested could only have the effect of crippling the forces in Ireland which are opposed to Sinn Fein and are endeavouring to remove the terrorism which deprives a large number of respectable people of the freedom to which they are entitled, which prevents them telling the truth, and prevents them expressing their sympathy, as I believe they would like to do, with the constables and troops and His Majesty's Government.
    Mr. F. ROBERTS: The last speaker seems, like one or two who preceded him, to think that we who support the Motion on the Paper are unduly critical of the position in which the military unfortunately find themselves to-day. I would like to dissociate myself entirely from the suggestion which seems to have animated these expressions of opinion, and I may point to the fact that we do not associate ourselves with the charges which are sometimes made in other directions relative to the military at the present moment. We have no desire to enter into any spleen or abuse so far as the military are concerned. Neither do we agree that they are deserving of the epithets in which some people indulge, or should be regarded as savages or murderers. Rather do we desire to associate ourselves to the fullest possible extent with what has been said to-day as to all the unhappy episodes of the last week-end. We condemn outrage and abhor assassination, and the Labour party has never condoned them, but has denounced in emphatic terms the callous and brutal assassinations of British citizens, whether they are civil or military. There is no moral justification for resorting to such distressing outrages as those which we have unfortunately witnessed during the past few days, but while we express this,

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    the party for which I have the honour to speak views with growing alarm end deepening disapproval the reprisals which seem to be becoming more acceptable as the days go by and which are the latest phase of military domination in Ireland.
    Such practices are utterly at variance with the deep moral spirit of the British people. Outrages are an evil which are employed in a good cause, and that good cause is the freedom of Ireland. Reprisals are an equal evil, which seem to be employed in an unworthy cause, and that unworthy cause is the forcible subjection of the Irish people. But it does not seem to be possible, except on the highest moral grounds, to judge of outrages or reprisals apart from the main question of the Irish demand for full freedom. These reprisals and outrages are incidents horrible and unhappy to the fullest possible extent, but they are closely related to the refusal of the British Government to deal generously with the demand of the overwhelming number of the Irish people for the right to determine their own affairs in their own particular way. May we just for a moment look to the sequence of events which has led to the present state of affairs? First, there has been a denial of the rights of Ireland and a continued refusal by the British Parliament to recognise the nationality of the Irish and to remove those restrictions on the national freedom which have been imposed and maintained during a long period against the passive or active resistance of the bulk of the Irish people. In the second place, there have been coercion and military repressions, and the repeated efforts of the present Government forcibly to maintain resistance against Ireland and bring out the state of dependence upon and subordination to the Parliament of this country. Then there have been the outrages, to which such frequent allusion has been made, and then we get this period of reprisals, which have also been referred to in every speech. The sequence of events which have to be dealt with at the present moment is the result of the four factors which I have mentioned, and we have a vicious circle. Every new outrage brings fresh reprisals, and every fresh reprisal brings further outrages. We are now in the middle of this vicious circle of reprehensible acts committeed by either side,
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    which are made the excuse for lawlessness by the other side. I am not suggesting that this may be the view of the present Government. Neither do I suggest that it may be the view of the revolutionary troops who are at present in Ireland, but it must be maintained that these are two very essential facts which we have got to keep in mind.
    But there is one particular reason why I have ventured to intervene in the Debate. That is because of outrages which have been connected with the destruction of great printing works in Ireland. I am associated with that great profession on this side of the Channel. I have raised this question before in the House at various times, and the answers given have been far from satisfactory. We have been twitted with the statement that we are not able to bring concrete cases in support of our allegations, nor to submit tangible evidence to support our claim that the Government should make strenuous efforts towards securing a more peaceful state of affairs in Ireland. I am therefore constrained to restate some of the particulars which we desire to have cleared up, and to secure a promise of justice for the victims of these outrages. So far as the attacks on printing offices are concerned, it cannot be said that the trouble has occurred recently. In June last we first raised the question. In that month, at the "Weekly-Observer" printing works, Newcastle West, an outrage was committed, of which no satisfactory explanation has yet been given. I will come to more recent events. I have been supplied with information from officials of my trade union in Ireland, and they make definite statements that armed forces of the Crown— they do not say uniformed men— were responsible for an outrage committed on the premises of the "Galway Express," when a large quantity of machinery was dismantled or entirely broken up and a number of workmen were thrown out of employment. What steps have been taken in connection with these accusations? Have any attempts been made to prove their accuracy or otherwise, and, if so, when was the inquiry held? Is it not a fact that, after the outrage at these works, the proprietors of the newspaper published a single-sheet edition, calling upon the people in the town to maintain an attitude of restraint and to keep as cool as they could, whatever provocation they had to undergo?

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    Can the Government state whether, in connection with this outrage, an English military officer, who is said to have witnessed the murder of John Mulloy by, it is alleged, a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary, offered to give evidence, and that he stated further that the policeman was undoubtedly the aggressor in this case. Have any steps been taken to procure the evidence of that military officer, and has any inquiry been conducted into the outrage? I come next to the outrage when two Irish members of the Typographical Association were arrested in Galway by the authorities, were detained in custody for some days, and were released without any charge being made against them. Can the right hon. Gentleman state whether any compensation was applied for, and, if so, whether it has been refused? The men were released after imprisonment for two or three days, and I think the evidence submitted shows that the arrests were entirely unwarranted. The men were following their purely technical work in the production of a newspaper, and we have a right to demand that a full explanation shall be given and some reparation made to them. Next we come to the town of At-lone, where an attempt was made on 17th October to burn down printing works. The statement is repeated by those who send us the information that armed forces of the Crown were responsible for the outrage. I ask the Chief Secretary whether any attempts were being made to ensure sufficient protection for the property. I was assured by the right hon. Gentleman that every effort was being made by his Department to secure protection for all property which was likely to be attacked. There seems little warrant for that statement, for another attempt was made on the Athlone printing works on 3rd November, and again the statement is made that armed forces of the Crown were responsible. Despite the assurance given by the right hon. Gentleman, the destruction of the works was complete.
    The Chief Secretary told us that inquiries of this kind were made extremely difficult by the unwillingness of the local people to assist the police in their investigations. In view of the letter I have before me I dispute the statement that the local people in Athlone place any obstacles in the way of the
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    authorities. I can substantiate that statement by a further letter from the official of the Athlone branch of my trade union. He is prepared to state that so far as the employés of the firm were concerned, in spite of the fact that curfew was in operation, they went to the works and attempted to stem the fire. With the removal of the curfew practically the whole of the staff were rendering assistance in trying to stop the entire destruction of the works. Our main desire is not to indulge in a complete recital of all the little things which have been happening, but rather, in the spirit of the Motion on the Paper, to assist, as far as we can, to bring an end to this period of disorder and outrage. We feel, however, that we are entitled, in representing certain sections of the industrial workers in Ireland, people who are not associated in any way with the disorder or with the political elements which it is said are responsible for all that is happening—we are entitled to ask that some larger measure of protection shall be given to people who are peacefully following their occupation. If, as a result of the outrages, they are thrown out of employment will any consideration be given to the question of compensation? These are people who have been entirely guiltless of any offence, so far as they are personally concerned. It has been shown that these works have been entirely and wilfully destroyed by some force or another. I think the Government under those circumstances should provide full maintenance for those out of employment and innocent of any offence or crime. The Minister of Labour is said to be responsible for this matter, and I hope incidentally that he may see fit to reconsider the decision which he has come to that these people are not entitled to any assistance outside the ordinary channels which at present apply to this particular class of work.
    May I ask whether any specific steps have been taken to trace those responsible for the outrages so far as printing trade works are concerned? If so, what result has followed the inquiries, and will protection be given to this industry in the future? I would like to pursue the subject by asking whether it has been laid down as part of the policy of the Government to try and stop the spread of information by permitting the breaking up

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    of some of the printing presses which may not be favourable to the point of view which the Government desires to put. If that is the policy and if men are to be rendered incapable of following their ordinary and peaceful occupations, then I believe such methods will assuredly and deservedly fail now as they failed in the dark ages of the past. The stupidity of permitting the destruction of these works should be at once apparent to all concerned. We have no reason to doubt the law-abiding characteristics of the citizens either of Gal way or of Athlone, or of the pressmen concerned in the production of these journals. It may be that they have been critical of the Government, and rightly so, but I do not think it can be claimed that they have in the least degree abused the freedom of the great profession with which they are associated, and neither have they misused the great power which they have at hand so far as the Press of Ireland is concerned. On the other hand, I think it can be distinctly and rightly claimed that they have been a restraining influence in trying to prevent disorders and to keep the people cool, calm, and collected. The failure of the Government machinery to act on the request made to protect these particular works has resulted in hundreds of innocent people being unnecessarily and unduly punished.
    For the time being I think we shall have to agree that it looks as if Sinn Fein and the Irish Administration appear to have lost sight altogether of the fundamental issues involved, and seem to be more concerned in giving effect to a policy which demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. What we want first of all is to try and make an effort to bring about a truce which can be honourably observed. There is every likelihood of outrages and reprisals continuing until one side or other, or both, is satisfied of the destructive results of the policy of frightfulness which they are continuing. This truce can be accepted and maintained if the right spirit is brought into operation. It is not now merely a question of describing this vicious circle of reprisals and outrages. The Labour party are more concerned to cut and destroy that vicious circle and to bring to an end both outrages and reprisals as the first step towards finding a peaceful solution of all Irish problems. A fight
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    to a finish will not bring us any nearer a settlement which is urgent. It seems to me to be of little use for the Chief Secretary to constantly reiterate that the Government have the murder gang by the throat. The events of Dublin of last week show that they have neither murder by Sinn Feiners by the throat nor indiscriminate shootings by their own forces under their control. Outrages go on seemingly unchecked and reprisals continue almost uncontrolled. Civil control has almost entirely broken down, and military discipline has apparently deteriorated now to an extremely dangerous degree. We want to ask that the Prime Minister shall act promptly in this connection. We want him to get into touch if he will with some of the accredited leaders who can act for the Irish people The present condition and unhappy state of affairs docs not permit of delay. We of the Labour party feel that the Government should be prepared to take a bold line in existing circumstances. Is there any objection to the Government inviting, say, Mr. Arthur Griffith and his associates, to come to a conference for the purpose of trying to find a solution of the problem which is now confronting both sides. That would probably find a way to the truce which people are asking for at present. Until that truce has been reached it will be quite impossible to proceed to a permanent settlement of the Irish problem.
    So far as the Labour party are concerned, we stand by the conclusions which have animated us in the representations which have been made on this question and in being associated with the Motion before the House. In the first place, we would reiterate the demand for the withdrawal of all the armed forces which are at present in Ireland. We would place the responsibility for maintaining order in each locality in Ireland, as in Great Britain outside the Metropolitan area, on all the local authorities themselves. We would ask that provision should be made for the immediate election by proportional representation of entirely open constituent assembly. We feel that in the acceptance of these proposals which have been put forward by the Labour party, and in the terms of the Motion, there may be found a way leading to a settlement of this unfortunate and unhappy business. We ask you to withdraw the troops because that seems to be the most essential and com-

    569
    monsense step to take. The Irish people must be given liberty, and with that liberty they will more readily recognise their responsibilities. Democratic principles must be once more restored, and fully recognised so far as the Irish people are concerned. Without those things being done, there seems nothing to hope for but a continuance of the present state of anarchy and disorder which must inevitably become worse as the days go by. Under the conditions which we are asking we see the opportunity for the abandonment of tyranny and the exercise of full freedom in its place. We wish to see an end to violence on both sides. We want to see the Government facing this question boldly, and putting an end to the state of frenzy to which the country has been plunged, trusting Irish democracy to rise again to the heights which it once occupied in the history of the world, and in that way bringing back an era of peace, prosperity, and contentment which moderate-minded people in Ireland are asking for to day and which is securing the full support of equally moderate-minded people on this side.
    Lieut.-Colonel WILLEY: There are two points I should like to make in this Debate. The Chief Secretary laid emphasis on the important effect of events in Ireland on American public opinion, and perhaps, as one who through long residence in the States has had the opportunity of close association, particularly among the democratic party in the States, who are familiar with the articulate expression of opinion such as is represented in the Press on this side of American opinion, it might not be out of place to lay emphasis on the present position of feeling in the more active political circles in America on the Irish question as it appeals to the rank and file there to-day. There is little doubt that opinion to-day is a good deal different from what it was twelve months ago. Probably it will be admitted by all who are familial' with the States that there is a more ready realisation that the British Government has got to the point when it is oblige I to deal in a strong manner with the situation in Ireland. I was very much impressed, talking in recent weeks with men who a year ago were ready to condemn the British Government, mainly for its delay in handling the situation and in coming to some solution, having within a year changed ground in a very remark-
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    able manner and realised that the trend of events in Ireland left no alternative to the Government but to take a strong line.
    9.0 P.M.
    I would like to take the opportunity of this Debate of appealing to the Government to attempt in a more deliberate manner than has been followed up to the present to represent to the American public, through the American Press, the true state of affairs in Ireland. It would seem that that could be done by a more effective invitation to the leading newspapers in the States to send over here impartial reporters, who would be given the opportunity of seeing the situation as it is, and of being able, with that advantage, to present a true picture to the American public, who would in that way be less inclined to accept without question malicious misrepresentations, so wilfully false, so incredibly misleading, that any Englishman who finds himself in the States must regret that there is not more done in the way of presenting a picture, first, of the difficulties under which government in Ireland is carried out, and then of truly recording the process by which outrages against the established order are dealt with in Ireland. I feel sure that public opinion at the present moment, particularly in the Eastern States, and more particularly in Massachusetts, which has a larger Irish population than any other State of the Union, would find assistance, encouragement, and support in some such line being taken by the Government if possible to present this through the Press.
    The other point which I want to make is the impression which one receives from the critics of the Government disagreeing with the unflinching attitude taken by the Chief Secretary in laying down that the Government policy will be one of proceeding along the lines which are being followed at the present moment against the actions of this gang of assassins. Unquestionably that policy will receive strong encouragement among all the English elements in the States. The public there will admire the action of the Government, and Anglo-American relations will undoubtedly be improved. As one of many who, from familiarity with American conditions, would give a great deal to see Anglo-American relations improved, I feel that this is the surest way in which the respect which the American will and always does feel for strong gov-

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    ernment can most effectively be assisted, and the opinion from that will grow in the States that Americans should mind their own business and that the administration of Ireland is a matter purely of domestic policy and not one which should enter into the sphere of domestic politics in the States. If one example by analogy might be of service at this moment in encouraging the Government in the line they are taking, it would perhaps not be improper to reflect that the last presidential election has given to the American public the opportunity of endorsing the line of strong government. Governor Coolidge, of Massachusetts, who was returned as Vice-President in the last election, was relatively unknown until an unfortunate strike occurred in the Boston, Massachusetts, police force. There was a great deal of disorder, looting, and rioting, but instantly he took strong action, two people were shot, all the strikers were dismissed, and none of them were taken back. The effect of it was that the American people admired strong action. Undoubtedly that contributed a great deal to the weight of President Harding's election. Vice-President Coolidge succeeded in carrying some States which had never been carried by the Republican Party since the Civil War. If you want evidence of strong feeling throughout a great democracy, there is that instance of the election of President Harding at the last election as a result of the support, he received from Vice-President Coolidge. One was impressed by the appeal made by the Chief Secretary for Ireland to the Roman Catholic Church as to the line they should take in this situation. There is no question about it, that the Roman Catholic Church has made a very difficult situation in regard to public opinion on this question in the States, and if a definite line were taken by the Roman Catholic Church tremendous influence would undoubtedly result in the actual situation in Ireland, and that influence would be felt throughout the United States.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I have been very struck by the speech of the hon. and gallant Member to which we have just listened, and, so far as I can gather, he is advocating the same methods which are being used in Ireland in this country in case of need. He told us that the Vice-President-Elect, Mr.
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    Coolidge, in Massachusetts carried the election very largely because he shot strikers, dismissed them and altogether used the iron heel in the State where there was trouble.
    Lieut.-Colonel WILLEY: My desire was to make it clear that the Commonwealth forces were used properly to restore order.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I gathered so much, and I rather think that a number of people in this country, who ought to know better, are supporting methods, which are irregular and indiscriminate, of frightfulness in Ireland, because they think that these auxiliary police and so on, who have been armed in Ireland and made callous by the burning of towns, villages, and so forth, may become extremely useful in this country. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who said that?"] Nobody said that, but a good many people who ought to know better are looking rather with a lenient eye on what is going on in Ireland to-day, because they think this British edition of a White Guard would become useful in this country under certain circumstances. I think they are making a very great mistake. I have at times in this country, especially at the time of the General Election, despaired of constitutional government, but I have, at any rate, since I have been in this House, done my very best to work the constitutional machine; in fact, in one Session in this House I actually spoke more columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT—
    Commander BELLAIRS: And asked more questions.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY:—and, as the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone reminds me, I have asked more questions than other hon. Members. So that I do not think I can be accused of not using the constitutional machine. [An HON. MEMBER: "Wearing it out!"] I have tried to use it honestly, and I look with the greatest horror on the idea of frightfulness being used to crush opinion. I am afraid that the temptation to use these forces may be very great in certain eventualities in this country, and that the people of this country, once they are aroused, are going to be very, very dangerous to their oppressors, as has been shown in the past. I want to put it to hon. Members who stand

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    for property in this House—[An HON. MEMBER: "Who are they?"]—I do not wish to be provocative at all. I do not want to offend any hon. Member's feelings, but imagine a Labour Government in power in this country. The Lord Chancellor in another place said he himself could not guarantee that such a Government would not come into power within 20 years. Imagine that Government bringing in very drastic legislation for the confiscation of property, and imagine some form of passive resistance or intense constitutional political agitation in this country. It would be perfectly easy to recruit a specialised army from the many ex-service men who have been embittered by their experiences since demobilisation, who would introduce into this country the same methods of terrorism which we complain of being used as an active Government policy for Ireland.
    For that reason, and no other, I would ask hon. Members, before they condemn us, as they do, for criticising the Government policy in Ireland, to recollect that once you start unconstitutional action, once you start methods of terrorism to carry out your political theories, you are starting a circle which may come right round and catch you. I commend that view of this problem to hon. Members opposite. The speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Bradford (Lieut.-Colonel Willey), I think, rather confirms me in that opinion. There is very great danger in these methods of force, and a very mighty Empire that rested on a greater military machine than ours found that out not very long ago. I want, as I say, to hurt no one's feelings in this matter, and I do not think that hon. Members can accuse me, after one or two speeches I have made on this subject, in any way of condoning the murder of the servants of the Crown in Ireland. The Chief Secretary very unfairly, in answer to a question of mine to-day, accused me of describing the murder of police as shooting. A few days ago, when I gave notice of the Question, one of the policemen had not died. If I had known he had died, I should certainly have described it as murder, as I have in every other question. As hon. Members know, I have condemned the murder of servants of the Crown strongly in this House and outside. I have never disguised it, but where
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    I differ from hon. Members opposite is in this—I equally condemn murder by servants of the Crown, and there have been cases of murder by servants of the Crown, and the Chief Secretary has admitted it at that box, but he had to be reminded on each occasion on which he spoke, once by myself on the last occasion, and on this occasion by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). I criticise murder from whatever source it comes.
    We have all been shocked—the whole country has been shocked—by the terrible disaster that took place in Dublin on Sunday, in the murder of officers, who were killed in some cases in the presence of their wives. No words are strong enough to express our abhorrence. We are rightly shocked, but Irish people a few days previously were equally shocked by an almost similar state of affairs in the City of Cork. Let me describe what happened. On 17th November a sergeant of the Royal Irish Constabulary, James O'Donoghue, was foully murdered in the street by three men who, I believe, came up in the usual way in civilian clothes, and shot him. That night—and my authority is the Special Correspondent of the "Times" newspaper—three men were murdered in the presence of their wives and children by uniformed men, who the relatives stated positively, were servants of the Crown, and who described themselves, in at least one case, as being military when they knocked at the doors for the purpose of breaking into these men's dwelling-houses. They murdered three and wounded two others. Do hon. Members condemn that?
    This was in the middle page of the "Times," and most hon. Members read the "Times." Was there any condemnation of any sort of that? I Tabled a question on it, but I did not see any question put by hon. Members opposite. I do not think there were any protests of any sort. We condemn murder, but do they condemn that kind of murder? Is there any difference between the murder of an Irishman in Cork, in the presence of his wife and children, and the murder of an English officer in Dublin in the presence of his wife? This is stated by a responsible English newspaper. If it is not true, why is not that journal prosecuted? Do not hon. Members think that when the "Times" newspaper

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    quotes a case of this sort, in which uniformed officers of the Crown are charged with committing the crime that that will not be reported in all the anti-English journals in the United States and throughout the world? Why, then, are these stories not scotched, and if the stories are untrue why is not the paper prosecuted? Or is it true? If so, why is an inquiry into it shirked? I want to know the truth of these matters.
    That is one case. There are many others, but I do not want to harrow the feelings of the House. There was the case of a man seventy years old, dragged from his house, and shot. It is declared emphatically by the relations of that man that it was done by uniformed men. I want to describe how these things happen. A number of these men who are our servants in Ireland are quite young men. I make no attack upon them as ex-soldiers or as policemen; they are like the rest of us, only human, and as hon. Members have said—and I quite agree— in many cases they are subject to terrible and maddening provocation. Into this atmosphere what has the Government done? They produce the "Weekly Summary" to which reference has been made. I want to refer to one particular passage in "Weekly Summary," No. 12. I put a question about it to-day. The Chief Secretary refused to answer and referred me to an unsatisfactory answer of a week ago. I wanted to know whether it is the fact that in this "Weekly Summary," No. 12, there was reported a resolution of a so-called anti-Sinn Fein society, the Lismore branch. I do not know what that society is. I am informed that it is a spectre, and that there is no such society or branch at all. It is, however, supposed to have had a meeting and passed a resolution in which it was said that for every member of the forces of the Crown murdered two Sinn Feiners would be killed, or if they could not be found, then in their place three sympathisers of Sinn Fein, and that this would apply to clergy and laity alike whatever their denomination; also if any attempt was made to kill any servants of the Crown a Sinn Feiner would be killed, or else if one was not available two sympathisers would be killed. That resolution published in the "Weekly Summary" was sent to every barracks in Ireland, and these young recruits would read it—these
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    young men living in this super-heated atmosphere. Hon. Members may laugh, but I call that incitement to murder. Hon. Members may laugh, but I have never been called upon to defend incitement to murder before my constituents.
    Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: Am I to be charged, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, with being liable because of a remark I never made, and the suggestion made that I may be called upon to defend incitement to murder before my constituents. As a matter of fact I made no comment at all, but only happened to be sitting next to a hon. Member who happened to laugh at the remarks of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, which, I think, is a very forgivable offence.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley): If the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) would address his- remarks to me, these incidents would not happen.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: It may be that I made a remark that was laughable, but I do not think the subject is at all laughable. If this quotation in the "Weekly Summary" is not a forgery, and that is not suggested, then I say it is incitement to murder, and the Members of the Government responsible for that journal are guilty of incitement to murder. If, as a result of that, these men in Cork whom I have described—and that is only one of many unfortunate cases— were murdered, then the Government are accessories before the fact. There is no getting away from that.
    This matter is getting worse and worse. It ought to be brought home. I understood the discussion this afternoon was to be with reference to the threatened stoppage on the greater part of the Irish system. We all know, and the Government know, that the Irish railwaymen refused to carry munitions and soldiers, and in view of the terrorism, I really think if we can excuse the acts of the men, however illegal, on the ground of human nature, then on the same ground the Irish railwaymen are to be pitied and sympathised with. They are being dismissed, the number at the present time, I believe, being something like 5,000. The whole of the railways in the

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    South-west of Ireland are threatened with stoppage. That will produce terrible effects. These effects have been produced over great areas of Russia by the breakdown of the transport system there, and it will be so in Ireland. The Government, it is said, are going to stop motor traffic, because, it is said, motor cars are used for the murder of policemen. I quite agree, but is it the considered policy of this Government— and does this Parliament endorse it— that the innocent should be punished along with the guilty? That is a doctrine that I, with great respect, submit was made obsolete nearly 2,000 years ago. To revive it now is to stultify all the pretentions of our so-called civilisation, all the progress we have made in government and in human relations. Something of the kind was tried in the reign of Queen Elizabeth by Lord-Deputy Chichester. I am trying to show that this sort of thing was tried before and failed.
    Three hundred years ago this policy of trying to break down the people by starvation was tried and failed. Lord-Deputy Chichester then said:
    "I have often said and written, it is famine that must consume the Irish, as our swords and other endeavours work not that speedy effect which is expected. Hunger would be better because a speedier weapon to employ against them than the sword."
    That policy was tried by Lord Deputy Chichester in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the Irish problem is still with us, and it will remain with us even if we wipe out every man, woman, and child in Ireland. Hon. Members opposite think that if they can terrorise and exterminate the activist party in Ireland they can solve the problem, but that will not settle it. Perhaps with modern methods of chemical warfare they could destroy everyone in the South of Ireland. Even then the problem would remain, because there are more Irishmen in foreign countries than there are in Ireland. We on this side of the House feel strongly about the present negation of government and justice which is going on in Ireland. The Chief Secretary quoted the case of one of the creameries which had been destroyed, and the hon. Member for the Falls Division (Mr. Devlin) was twitted with not having documented his speech. Hon. Members have heard what the Chief Secretary said
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    about the Ballymacelligott creamery. The right hon. Gentleman declared that the troops were fired on and ambushed. I hold in my hand a letter from Father Trant, the parish priest of Ballymacelligott, written from the Presbytery, Ballymacelligott, and dated 15th November. I ask hon. Members to listen to this letter and compare it with the statement made by the Chief Secretary, compiled from his officers' reports:
    "Thanks very much for your kind letter of sympathy. I was away all day and have only a moment before post leaves to send you a hurried line. On Friday about 11 o'clock seven or eight lorries drew up at the creamery. The manager, Mr. Byrne, and staff were at work as usual. Two or three farmers were there on business. All ran away through fear of arrest or worse. The police opened fire killing one of the staff and a farmer, and wounding severely the engine-driver, who is not expected to recover. Another boy had his arm shattered. Mr. Byrne escaped the volleys, but when captured would apparently have been shot had the lieutenant in charge of the military not intervened."
    I am informed that Father Trant is a clergyman of the greatest integrity, and no one would think of doubting his bona fides. In his letter he goes on to say:
    "About 4 p.m., five cars with armed police, accompanied by a journalist and photographers, arrived from C. Island. The police opened fire on young men who were on the road some distance away, and on others who ran from the manager's house, where they were visiting those wounded previously. It appears that some of these young men were armed, and returned fire to cover their retreat. On neither occasion was there an ambush or anything of the kind. The doctor in attendance on the wounded and five of those standing by were taken prisoners. Next morning, Saturday, about half the creamery was burned, but most of the machinery escaped injury."
    This account by Father Trant entirely differs from the account which has been given to us by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. The account given by the right hon. Gentleman of this incident was heard by the House, and Father Trant, who, I believe, is a gentleman of the highest character, gives an entirely different account. [An HON. MEMBER: "Was Father Trant there at the time?"]
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) has made a long speech, but it has been greatly lengthened by hon. Members' interruptions. I think it would be better to allow the hon. and gallant Member to state his case.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Father Trant has written that letter, and he does not state whether he was there or not. He is on the spot and, at any rate, it is not a tainted source. I can document all the statements I have made to-night. I have sworn affidavits— they may be forgeries, but I shall take them as evidence until they are disproved. I have a sworn affidavit from a poor woman who has had her house burned down. I have sent the right hon. Gentleman a number of these cases for investigation, and they are as good statements of evidence as we can get, and I maintain that they justify our case for an inquiry. The Chief Secretary stood for a by-election at Sunderland, and he won a very great victory, but he did not win it on coercion. I have here statement after statement made by him at the election declaring that he was in favour of bringing friendship and goodwill to Ireland, and the restoration of peace. He was continually heckled in regard to his policy towards Ireland, and all he said was that he was in favour of friendship, brotherhood and peace to that unhappy island. His speech to-night has given the lie to those declarations.
    Hon. Members opposite approve of this policy of frightfulness, and they accuse us of besmirching the honour of the military. We hear in this House the harrowing details of the massacre of the Armenians, but we do not hear one word of the assassination of the Turkish police in Armenia. We hear nothing from hon. Members about the reprisals and outrages in Ireland which our own forces commit. It may be possible for the Chief Secretary to comfort the House of Commons with a speech like that which he has delivered to-day, but it is not easy for him to comfort public opinion outside and throughout the world. I want now to read what the Prime Minister said in December, 1900, at the time of the Boer War, a case which was on all fours with the position in Ireland to-day. Here are his words:
    "What justice was there in punishing one man for offences committed by others over whom he had no control? The 'clearing of the country' was an even more serious matter than the burning of farms. He wondered how long humanity would stand this attack on women and children. If the War was prolonged, and operations of this character continued, we should not only suffer the shame of these transactions,
    580
    but might have to face the intervention of armed humanity. The British army had been engaged in denuding the country of cattle and sheep and the houses of food supplies, and in burning farms. He had made no charges against the British troops who were carrying out orders. But he did blame the statesmen at home, who made it absolutely necessary that the troops should engage in the work which they loathed. He had seen letters from British officers, who said they were disgusted with the work imposed upon them."
    I have seen letters from British officers stating how disgusted they are with the work which has been imposed upon them in Ireland. One of these officers were murdered on Sunday morning, and that is the tragedy of the whole thing. If that was right when the Prime Minister said it in 1900 about South Africa, it is even more right to-day about Ireland. After all, we were at war in South Africa; we are not at war in Ireland. I am sorry to have to say it, but I am afraid that there is a counter-murder campaign, to meet the campaign of murder by the Sinn Feiners, encouraged by speeches of the Government and condoned by the Government which was not even attempted in the awful days of the reprisals in South Africa. We destroyed property there, and we interned men and women. In Ireland, to-day, we are not deliberately killing women, but our criminal carelessness is having children killed. Three children were killed at the football ground. We are making war on women and children by driving them out of their houses in terror at night, and we are murdering men by the direct encouragement of this "Weekly Bulletin" which the Chief Secretary defends, and which is being sent to these poor young soldiers and the policemen in their barracks in this awful atmosphere. We are all trying for remedies on this occasion. May I make a suggestion? Is it not possible to get an armistice? I see that Mr. De Valera, speaking in the United States, I think the day before yesterday, declared that if the British troops could be withdrawn there would be peace within twenty-four hours. I do not suggest withdrawing them from Ireland, but cannot they be withdrawn to certain centres where they would be safe and the people round about would be safe? Cannot we come to some understanding with the leaders of Sinn Fein for a week's armistice, at any rate, and stop the reprisals and the murders, and consider a basis for peace? I do not believe we

    581
    shall ever satisfy the Irish people unless we deal with them on terms of equality. At present, we are trying to deal with them on terms of conqueror and conquered. We have tried that for 800 years, and failed Cannot we try the other policy, and see if we can succeed?
    Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: I beg to move to leave out from the word "last" ["on Sunday last"] to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words:
    "and thanks the military and police and the other servants of the Crown for the courage and devotion with which they are fulfilling their duty in Ireland in circumstances of unexampled difficulty; and expresses its approval of the steps which are being taken by His Majesty's Government to restore peace in Ireland."
    One would gather from the speeches generally delivered to-day that the Debate has been overshadowed by the occurrence last Sunday in Dublin. One would have thought that the atmosphere created by that terrific tragedy would have suggested to those who had been officers in His Majesty's service the necessity of speaking respectfully, at least, of the dead who tried to do their duty. It is strange, however, during the whole of the Debates relating to Ireland, excepting in one case, that the most vindictive speeches with regard to the honour and chivalry of our soldiers have been made by an hon. and gallant Member who was himself an officer. I do not know whether anything happened during the time that the hon. and gallant Member for Hull bore the Commission of the King which caused him to take up this attitude of determined hostility and unfairness towards his former comrades. I hope that nothing of the kind occurred; but it does certainly seem strange to me, coming back again to our British public life, to find the worst said of men who are trying to perform their duty—perhaps not always understanding what the policy of this House may be, but trying to the best of their ability to give expression to that policy, and to carry out the orders that are given to them, and I should have thought that an officer would have left it to others to criticise his former comrades. It is unfair. The suggestion, for instance, in the last remarks of the hon. and gallant Member that our troops and our auxiliaries who recently were troops in the Great War are carrying on a war against women and children is so utterly at variance with the known character of the British officer and soldier that it is im-
    582
    possible to conceive that there can be the slightest truth in it. Therefore I say—and I am going to take up a most definite attitude on this subject— that it is necessary for this House not merely to reject this Motion but to give some definite expression of its approval or otherwise of the conduct of our soldiers and our officers and others who are representing law and order in Ireland at the present moment, so as to enable them to have continued confidence.
    The Resolution that has been proposed is a composite one drafted by three parties in this House, and naturally each party had to be conciliated. There is no doubt that the first four or five lines are those of the Labour Party—condemn-action of the horrible massacre of our officers in Dublin last Sunday. In my Amendment I intend, with the permission of the House, to allow the Labour portion of the Resolution to remain in. The other part is, in my opinion, purely political. A great deal of this discussion has not really been with the intention of assisting in the solution of the Irish difficulty so much as with the idea of abusing, first of all their political opponents, and in some cases of deliberately attacking the agents who are carrying out the policy of those political opponents. There is no doubt that the idea that we should discuss this subject without too much heat and too much passion on either side—
    Mr. J. JONES: And without too much "officer," too.
    Lieut.-Colonel WARD:—should not be forgotten. It is a sort of personal thing to me, and I hope that even my hon. Friends above the Gangway will forgive me if I speak strongly on this subject. It is not so long ago that I found myself in a situation perhaps something similar to that which some of the isolated officers in Ireland may find themselves to-day, when they are bound to take action according as they see the immediate circumstances. It is quite simple, after the period has gone by and you can weigh up and balance the pros and cons of the situation, to say which way you ought to have acted. It is all very well. I could have done that afterwards; but I had to decide at the moment. Unless these officers, generally, can feel certain that they have the confidence of the Executive, whose servants they are; if they think for one moment that there is any kind of

    583
    hesitancy on the part of the Executive in giving them their confidence in carrying out their onerous and irksome duty; if they think they cannot rely on the Government to give them regular and genuine support in the acts which they perform in carrying out the Government's policy, it will absolutely destroy moral and discipline, and bring an element of uncertainty into the whole force. In fact, no decent officer will act under such circumstances. That is why I regret this Motion to-day. It looks really as though there are men in this country holding important positions, men who have been Ministers of the Crown and have even held the premier position, who are prepared, if occasion arises, to use mere party tactics for the purpose of undermining that confidence which is the first element of order. I am speaking to-night with a sense, not merely of responsibility for the situation as it exists in this country to-day, but by reason of having been in a very similar position to those officers, whom some of you are condemning to-night. It makes one feel much more kindly if he has been through the mill himself. I have been, and I know the difficulties. But in spite of that the situation is such at the present time that if this Government—and I say this most emphatically—if the present Administration were doing nothing but suppressing the people in Ireland, or were out attempting to suppress any kind of opinion in Ireland, if they were making no effort whatever to put forward proposals to deal with the situation under more favourable conditions, then I would hesitate whether I should not even now support the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman above the gangway. Everybody knows well, however, that the Government, as far as it is possible to do so, is using the unique position which it holds to curb the violence of the extremists whom they have on their own side as well as on the other side, so that some measure of self-government may be passed during this Session which it is hoped will at least bring peace to one end of the island, and we trust that, if it secures that, the force of example will be such that it will eventually secure peace at the other end. That is why I am going to do my very best to oppose the Resolution that has been proposed by the right hon. Member for Paisley.
    584
    I may say I regret the accusations that have been made, and that is one of the things I stood up for to-night—the accusations that have been made against the ordinary British soldier. I have seen the soldier under many peculiar conditions. It is impossible for an English soldier or a British soldier, in whichever way you describe him, to perform the atrocities that has been alleged against him by some hon. Members in this Debate. It is utterly impossible, and therefore, as one who has seen the British soldier under the most terrific conditions, when it is almost impossible to calculate what you are doing, I say that for anybody to allege that he has driven his bayonet into a pregnant woman, or has deliberately driven his bayonet two or three times into the body of a boy of ten years of age, is a deliberate libel. Of all the heroic figures the world has ever seen I think the most heroic, the most chivalrous, the most honourable is the ordinary British Tommy, and any such suggestions as those I have heard from day to day do those who make them no good, for the simple reason that there is no mother of these boys that you are charging with these offences who will ever admit the truth of them even for a minute. If you were their friends you would know it to be a lie. You know it as a matter of fact, and these false accusations against the British soldier from day to day are not doing the slightest benefit to those who make them. It is neither good propaganda nor common sense from their own point of view, and it only alienates the friends and relatives of these boys to suggest that they would be guilty of any such atrocities. That is one of the reasons why I am delighted to have this opportunity of addressing the House on the Resolution now before it. It is a remarkable fact that the right hon. Gentleman who moved this Resolution has not himself escaped from similar charges. I remember well, when a young man, some colliers being shot at Featherstone at a time when the right hon. Gentleman who moved this Resolution was Home Secretary, and I also remember hearing on Labour platforms all over the country the right hon. Gentleman himself described as the "Butcher of Featherstone."
    Mr. J. JONES: You did it yourself.
    Lieut.-Colonel WARD: Therefore for him in the slightest degree to lend his influence to accusation against British soldiers to-day is, I will not say unworthy of him, but I certainly think it rather ungracious to the men who stood by him at that time, and who to-day are defending the honour and interests of the country. We are told that the proper policy is to withdraw the Army, and if that is done the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull says there will be immediate peace. Will there? It is almost like saying that if in the great Campaign we had removed the whole of the troops helter skelter back to some place over the sea we would have had peace in Europe. I think we would have had the whole of Europe overrun by the enemy and we would have had a peace that was worse than war; indeed, most likely the same conditions would have been prevailing to-day. In this case the allegation underlying the whole of the speeches to-day is a suggestion that the Government is suppressing some great popular movement in Ireland, that it is really suppressing some overwhelming majority of Irish opinion. Nearly the whole of the speeches delivered on both sides of the House have suggested that what we are dealing with is a hopeless and unreasonable minority. That is the suggestion made from beginning to end m all the speeches that have so far been delivered. Hence the accusation that we are using our Army for the purpose of suppressing the popular opinion of Ireland is entirely untrue. We cannot possibly withdraw the Army.
    The place the Army fills in human society, and will always fill in human society, is a very important one. Hon. Members above the Gangway may not think so now, but there may come a time when they will be on the other side of the House. If it is wrong to use the Army or force now to maintain the authority of the Constitution, it will be equally wrong then. If they are honest in their proposals or in their principles, they are going to make most drastic inroads on the interests of great classes of the community, and if they really carry out their principles logically, as they pretend they are going to do now in propagating them, it is a moral certainty that they will create hostility nearly as vindictive as one sees in Ireland to-day. Is not the Army to be used to maintain their authority and the
    586
    laws passed by their Administration? Most certainly. If it is not, then you may just as well have never passed the laws. That is the situation you have to face today. The Army, after all, has to receive the kicks. The laws passed by this House and its regulations are so much waste-paper unless behind it all is the potential element of force, to insist upon your decrees. It does not matter whether one side of the House is in power or another—the same principle applies. Hon. Members forget, or perhaps they have not as much confidence as I have, that sooner or later they must be in power. Perhaps they think they never will be in power, but I honestly believe that they will, and therefore it is absolutely stupid of them to take up the peculiar position they do today. The law for the time being must be enforced. Civilisation is, after all, only a thin veneer. Once you take away the restraints of order and law and leave anyone to do just as they like, it is a moral certainty that you are back to the jungle again. Therefore, the only instrument by which the Executive and this House, and through this House the people of the country, can impose its will is by using force when it is impossible to reason with opponents. That is the situation that we have arrived at to-day, and therefore I move this Amendment.
    Captain Sir B. STANIER: I beg to second the Amendment.
    10.0 P.M.
    Sir D. MACLEAN: The speech of my hon. and gallant Friend who has just moved the amendment is one to which in most parts I listened with very great regret. Whilst acknowledging that he was moved by sincerity of motive, I most profoundly, and indeed, indignantly repudiate the suggestion which he made that the Liberal party on this side of the House, and in particular my right hon. Friend who moved this Motion, were actuated by feelings of hostility and animosity towards the soldiers of the Crown in Ireland. [An HON. MEMBER: "Are you not?"] Well, if that is the opinion of hon. Members with regard to myself and other Members on this side of the House, I do not propose to argue it other than to say in a simple way it is not true.
    Mr. J. JONES: It is a damned lie, and they know it.
    Sir D. MACLEAN: That is the sort of thing which was levelled against the Prime Minister when he was on this side of the House below the Gangway standing up for unpopular causes. That is the kind of charge which was levelled against him. I am not ashamed, with my detestation of the crimes committed in Ireland on the Forces of the Crown, and with my admiration for the servants of the Crown in discharging a most difficult task, to follow the example set many years ago by standing by an unpopular cause, no matter what aspersions may be cast upon it. There was a suggestion made that this was a party move. [HON. MEMBERS: "Agreed!"] There is no party advantage in it, as I know well—not the slightest; quite the contrary. Charges of that kind are greeted with resounding cheers from Members on the other side and other parts of the House. In the history of this House such cheers have always met men standing up for progressive forces and for unpopular ideas which sooner or later must achieve their reward. [Interruption.] Cheers and sneers of that sort greeted Bright and Cobden and others who have stood for what they thought to be the cause of righteousness and justice. They are familiar sounds within these walls, and I suppose they always will be as long as there is conflict between right and wrong. I am glad that the Debate has, at any rate, cleared up one thing. We now know that reprisals are the policy of His Majesty's Government. [Interruption.] In the policy to restore order, reprisals are a predominant part. On the 20th October, in this House, the Chief Secretary stated, with regard to creameries, that there was not a tittle of evidence of the participation of the forces of the Crown in their destruction. We know to-day, from what he has told the House, that it is practically a case of war on the creameries— [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—wherever, in his opinion or that of his officers, men meet who are hostile to the Government, and engage in what he thinks are operations dangerous to the safety of the country. I think that that is a fair way of putting it. What is the policy of His Majesty's Government with regard to that? The right hon. Gentleman said that all of these creameries must regard themselves as in peril. They are liable at any moment to be burned down, gutted, destroyed. Those
    588
    creameries are not the sole personal property of the managers whom my right hon. Friend described as among those who have been arrested; they are the con-joint property of the countryside. Because there are some individuals, in a small minority, in that countryside—for it is admitted that even in these disturbed areas, the great majority of the people are hostile to murders on both sides—reprisals which are to be levied on that district include the destruction of property which is vital to the industrial continuance of the people of that district. That is the declared policy of His Majesty's Government to-day, and I shall be very much surprised if the Prime Minister, should he speak, will deny that. I say, in the words of the Resolution, that such action, which is typical of the policy, is an endeavour to repress crime by methods of terrorism involving the lives and property of the innocent, and is contrary to civilised usage. That is the charge which we make, and which is completely substantiated, not by arguments from this side, but by the expressed official admission of the Chief Secretary. The Chief Secretary asked why, in face of this great provocation, these cold-blooded murders, these unjustifiable crimes, is it that the people of this country are so patient? I will give him my answer. I say that the people of this country are so patient with regard to these matters because they know in their heart of hearts that the policy which the Government is pursuing by way of reprisal is not the way to cure the evil. That opinion is supported by men of all classes and of all religious denominations. I propose to read, if the House will allow me, a brief extract from a letter issued by the Archbishop of York last week to his own clergy in his own diocese. This is what he says:
    "The accounts of these organised reprisals, however exaggerated, must fill every thoughtful citizen with very real and disquieting anxiety. No words can be too severe to condemn the dastardly murders of policemen and soldiers; but not even great provocation could justify those who represent the cause of law and order in indulging in the sacking of villages and the indiscriminate destruction of life and property. It seems to me to be a matter in which the essential principles of right and wrong are involved, and I ought not to keep silent."
    He concludes by saying:
    "It is a matter which concerns the honour of the British nation."

    589
    He does not stand by any means alone. Men of all shades of religious thought are of that opinion too. The people of this country know that experience has taught that reprisals which involve the punishment or the suffering of the innocent for the guilty never yet brought about peace between conflicting nations, and never yet healed a wrong. You cannot get wrong right by doing wrong; it is impossible. They know also what has been taught by history and experience with regard to our Dominions beyond the seas. My right hon. Friend comes from Canada. If I mistake not, an ancestor of his was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for taking part in a rising against the forces of the Crown?
    Sir H. GREENWOOD: He was not an assassin.
    Sir D. MACLEAN: No, he was an innocent man suffering for some of the guilty, and that is what is happening in Ireland to-day. That is at the root of the whole difficulty. Of course this Amendment will be carried, and the Resolution will be defeated. What else do you expect? What appeal can be made to this majority on behalf of the justice and right of an unpopular cause? The great majority will vote for the Amendment and a small minority will vote for the Resolution, but in the days to come history will show that victory lay in the end with the minority in this as in other unpopular but righteous causes.
    Major-General SEELY: I intervene for a few minutes because all the speakers from these Benches have said that the Resolution represents an unpopular, but a righteous cause. I regret to associate myself entirely from that view. I am afraid I must say my right hon. Friend (Mr. Asquith), with whom I have been associated for so long and for whom I have so much respect, is in himself entirely wrong in proposing this Resolution, and I say so for this reason. The Resolution seeks to condemn the Chief Secretary on one of two grounds, either that he himself, with the Government, is engaged in a policy of reprisals and really means to break the Irish terror by a policy of terrorism, or in the alternative that the soldiers and the police, whom he must control, for his policy must be followed by the Commander-in-Chief, have got so out of hand that they have com-
    590
    mitted these gross acts of pillage and wrong, and even of murder. For five minutes let us consider what is the justification for these two views. The Chief Secretary stands up in his place and for the second time, for he said it on the first occasion, says: "I condemn the policy of reprisals. The first time a reprisal took place I paraded the police when I could find them and told them that if they went on in this way they would be punished. From then till now I have condemned it and I will continue to condemn it." I cannot, as a Member of the House, do other than accept his statement. I cannot, as an independent Member of the House, say other than that the right hon. Gentleman opposite must really be speaking the truth when he says that, with the emphasis with which we are familiar but with an emphasis that is very real and genuine, he really means what he says when he says that reprisals are fatal to the discipline of the forces for which he is responsible, that if it went on he would be the first to suffer in reputation and he would never recover from it, and that he is determined to put it down. We cannot say he is not speaking the truth there. What I think is in the mind of many of my hon. Friends on this side is that it is all very well for him to say that, but that in fact from the evidence which we have got from various newspaper correspondents and from other sources, we have to assume that in spite of his efforts there is a kind of reign of terror in Ireland and that the soldiers and police are committing acts of which we ought to be ashamed.
    On that—and this is the principal reason for my having risen—I have this to say. I have no more knowledge of these affairs than any other Member of the House, though I have a long interest in Ireland, but I claim to know a good deal about the British soldier. Out of the 20 years I have spent in this House six years have actually been in command of British and Colonial troops, and I think I understand them and I know what they are saying now because they have told me. It is to me inconceivable—I know it cannot be true—that these same men who did the things they did during the struggles we have passed through could be guilty of the kind of outrages which we have been told they have committed. I look back—and it is worth considering—to the tremendous strain

    591
    that was put upon what you may call the honour and the civilisation of our own soldiers during the late War. The people I served have refused always to take a cruel view of their enemy. They would not call the German the Hun; they called him Fritz when they captured him—and the people I was with captured a great many. They would give him cigarettes and be kind to him though just before they had been engaged in a desperate conflict in which the man on their right hand and the man on their left had been killed. Now comes the point. I remember very well one critical day when a very, very brave man, one of the bravest men I ever knew, after a very successful attack, but a very desperate one, was killed by a prisoner who had already surrendered. I remember the bitter rage of the men with whom I was then; I remember the difficulty I had in preventing them from absolutely seeing red because a prisoner had killed one of their comrades, and yet the killing of a man by another whom he has taken prisoner is as nothing in criminality compared with the dastardly crime of shooting a man in the back or shooting him down in the sight of his wife.
    When we remember the extra ordinary forbearance that was shown by our own soldiers during the War in circumstances of the greatest difficulty, and when we think of the much greater strain to which they have been put in Ireland during these, not days or weeks, but months, and indeed years, then I say that we ought not to take any action in this House which would seem to say that the same qualities of forbearance and gentlemanly behaviour which they showed in the face of frightful difficulties during the War have been lost by them in this critical time, and it is just because I am persuaded that any vote that one would give now in favour of a Resolution that would condemn, in the words of the Resolution, acts contrary to civilisation will be taken by them who have such a hard time, harder than ever we had in the War with the risk for every man as he walks from place to place of being shot in the back, as a censure on them, that I think we ought not to pass this Resolution. I say this with absolutely no party bias. It is just because some of the men I commanded in the War are in Ireland now and they write to me and tell me those
    592
    things. It is just because this Resolution, which I am sure was put forward with the best intentions no doubt of maintaining the honour of this country will be taken by them to be an aspersion on their honour that I oppose it. I go further, especially after the solemn statement of the Chief Secretary that he himself, speaking for the Government is opposed to reprisals and will punish anybody concerned in them, and say that the only people we have left to condemn are the soldiers and police. The dilemma is either that the Chief Secretary is telling the House a lie or the people we condemn by this Resolution are the soldiers and the police themselves. In this dilemma I, who hate to be against a minority—I think it was the Prime Minister himself who said that I gravitate naturally to the "No" Lobby—I hate to be on the popular side and cannot bear to dissociate myself from what my right hon. Friend calls the small minority—it is just because in this dilemma we may seem to do an unfair thing, that I would beg all hon. Gentlemen who may often be associated with me, not to vote for what possibly will be believed to be a vote of censure on brave men who serve our cause in Ireland.
    Mr. E. KELLY: Those of us who have sat long in this House cannot but be struck by the contrast between the speeches of the hon. and gallant Member for Stoke (Lieut.-Colonel J. Ward). We remember the last great speech he delivered in 1914. The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down was then the Secretary for War. We remember how the speech of the gallant Member for Stoke thrilled us, and how he stood forth as one of the great pillars of democracy. Those were the days when the Curragh revolt was threatened, and the then Secretary of State for War was in trouble with General Gough. Look at the contrast to-day. The hon. Member for Stoke has been taken up by the War Office. It has taken him to its bosom, and made a colonel of him; it has assimilated him. The forces of democracy and progress have lost John Ward, but they have gained General Gough. General Gough to-day stands for a fair settlement for Ireland. He is with us to-day, and I for one am very glad of the exchange. The hon. Member for Stoke falsified our position. He accused us of a condemnation of British officers and soldiers. We never did such a thing. What we do

    593
    condemn is the mutiny of British soldiers, that the Government should stand over the mutiny of British soldiers and should condone such mutiny after it has happened, and that by their speeches here Ministers should lead those poor and unfortunate men to believe that such acts will again be condoned in future.
    This House has a duty to perform. It has a duty to remain impartial as between various causes. I am afraid that any cause like the Irish cause, which ought to be considered with impartiality, has a very poor chance of such treatment in such a House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] As an Irishman, I have sat through this Debate, and I have asked myself where Ireland and the average Irishman come in? The Chief Secretary has been eloquent and powerful and full of threats as to what he is going to do with the gunmen. He was sent over by this House to govern Ireland, to bring us prosperity, to enable us to live in peace, to give us an instrument of Government under which we could all live and work out our own salvation. We are to have an endless vista of military and police raids followed by endless reprisals. The right hon. Gentleman ended with a fine peroration as to whether it was to be Ireland against the Empire or Ireland with the Empire. At present, the position seems to be one of Ireland being crushed to death against the Empire like the clutch of a bear. The majority in Ireland are anxious for a settlement, and we have a right to ask the Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary what are they going to do for the majority. They have not told us. They have given as that wretched Bill which is under consideration in another place. Can the Prime Minister or the Chief Secretary point to a single resolution of a public body welcoming that Bill, or to a single vote of an Irish Member at any time in favour of the Bill. Why, even the Ulster Unionist Ministers did not vote for it. The Prime Minister is familiar with the discipline of Government and I ask him what would have happened in 1914, or under any Government except this Coalition Government, had one of the Ministers of the day refused to vote for a measure of prime importance brought in and promoted by the Government of the day? No Irish public man has spoken in favour of the Government of Ireland Bill. When that Bill is about to
    594
    pass into law the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Duncairn gives it a very tardy and very half-hearted benediction. Is that all? I am reminded of the Government of Ireland Act, and I say that nothing was more contemptible than the words of the Prime Minister when he excused himself for having supported that Act. He came down, and speaking for the Treasury Bench said in effect, "I supported the Home Rule Act which is on the Statute Book, but I did so with my tongue in my cheek because I knew that it would never become law. I was dishonest in my support of it because I knew it would never become law, and I openly confess I was dishonest."
    Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: When did he say that?
    Mr. KELLY: I do not say he used those words, but I said that in effect those were his words. We have a Bill which three-fourths of the people of Ireland refuse to work. Let us go back to the days of the Union. There is an analogy which I think is not irrelevant. In 1800 force, assisted by bribery and corruption, deprived Ireland of an independent Parliament. Force can do a lot. Force can wipe out an independent Legislature and can wipe out national institutions which are actually in existence, but it cannot impose upon a people and make them work institutions which they are unwilling to work. Members of this House must be driven to ask themselves again and again, what has caused the change in Ireland since 1914? I quite admit that a lot of the change is caused by a pile of misrepresentation on both sides. Apparently the present theory is that we have a double and a treble dose of original sin, that all Irishmen are in league with gunmen, and that as long as that is so no overtures must be made by the Ministry or by anybody else. I do not think Irishmen themselves are free from the faults of misrepresentation, and I would ask the Chief Secretary to consider this point: How long is the present state of affairs in Ireland going to last? We know that by physical force and by the armed forces of the Crown the Chief Secretary can maintain the present state of things in Ireland, but he has not yet explained to us what is going to happen after that. Nobody has explained that to us, and that is our trouble. The Prime

    595
    Minister and the Chief Secretary again and again come to that box and express the greatest sympathy with the police and the greatest admiration for the police force. They would be doing better by this force if they came to that Box and introduced a proper instrument of Irish Government. If they introduced a measure which could be passed and worked with the approval of the Irish people, the assassinations would immediately cease, the hostility to the police and to the armed forces of the Crown would immediately disappear, and they would be doing a far greater benefit and service to those forces than by coming forward to that box and merely expressing sympathy with them and admiration for them as they do.
    Force is no permanent remedy. You may maintain your clutch on Ireland for 18 months, or two years, or three years, by means of martial law and by means of all the Courts and all the panoply of oppression and repression which is to-day in existence, but what is it all going to end in? Have you no message of peace for the Irish people? Can you hold out to us no prospect of better days when all this comes to an end? I would put this to the right hon. Gentleman: Is he fair to his administrators, to the men who are carrying out his work in Ireland to-day, if his only message to them is to oppress, arrest, try, kill if necessary? Should we not have a message of peace to counterbalance that? Should he not hold out to us some indication, when peace is restored, as no doubt he can restore peace, that we Irishmen should have some chance of setting up in our own country an instrument of government which will bring us prosperity, and which can be operated by ourselves for ourselves?
    I do not wish to say anything offensive to the right hon. Gentleman, but to put the present position in a nutshell, we are subjected to force, repression, danger, commercial and industrial loss. We are very much disappointed in the right hon. Gentleman's speech to-day that he could hold out no hope that a better day was dawning. It is universally admitted, I think, in this House and out of it, that the Government of Ireland Bill, which is at present going through, is no remedy, and can never operate over three-fourths of
    596
    Ireland. How does it present itself to the average Irishman? It is a Bill which Ireland has never considered. The Committee which drafted it had not a single Irishman among its members. It was piloted through this House by a gentleman who was a stranger to Ireland until he became Chief Secretary for Ireland, and the Prime Minister, under whom he serves, is a stranger to Ireland. [HON. MEMBERS: "Divide."] After all, the last claim we Irishmen might have made upon this House and upon the Empire was that when a great constitutional measure was being drafted, a measure which we were told was to settle the Irish problem, Irishmen should have been consulted in the drafting of that measure, Irishmen should have been on the Committee that did draft that measure, and when that measure was being introduced and passed into law, it should have been supported by the majority of Irishmen and Irish opinion, and, if not so supported, it should have been withdrawn. [An HON. MEMBER: "They would not come here."] You would never get them here to support a Bill like that, anyhow.
    Mr. SEDDON: One thing stands out in this Debate, a thing of which I am proud, and that is the appreciation of the common Tommy, and the way the House is not prepared to see him run down. Those who have been making attacks on these men, who are suffering the torments of perdition every moment of their lives forget that these are the very men who a few years ago were being cheered as heroes, and the saviours of the Empire. We took pride then in the fact that the great citizen army came largely from the working classes. That army was the same as in Ireland. These reflections on the Army are reflections upon the workers of this country; on their sons who are doing something to carry out their duty under conditions which are not only difficult, but should call for the support of every man who believes in defending life and liberty. What is the position?
    A good many speeches have been made, and ringing through those speeches, I am sorry to say, there is a suspicion that this Motion—I am not referring to the Amendment—has been brought forward not to help Ireland, but that it is a political stunt pure and simple. A request was made yesterday for a postponement of this Debate. Why? If

    597
    those who spoke from the Opposition Benches believed what they said, that the soldiers and policemen are guilty of murder and arson, the sooner it is looked into the better for the cause they assume to represent. In this Debate we have, it seems, unfortunately forgotten that Ireland to-day is in the hands of a band of assassins, who are being tolerated and excused by a number of people for political reasons. The Government have been told to stop reprisals, and that that would stop the murders. If the Government took the advise to withdraw the troops from Ireland, you would leave a large number of people in that country even in a worse position than now. There are forces that could stop the murders. They do not belong to the Government. Let me give a typical case. In Kildare there was a strike in the racing stables that lasted ten weeks, and was a failure. The men belonged to the Irish Transport Workers' Union. The Sinn Fein element gave the impression, or circulated the rumour, that because of the defeat of the stable boys they would call a strike of those engaged in hunting, and prevent hunting in Ireland.
    Mr. DEVLIN: From a Labour man that is awful!
    Mr. SEDDON: I am trying to get at the cause of murder in Ireland. It is said powers could be used and are being used. The Transport Workers' leaders were called together. They were informed that if the Sinn Fein element stopped hunting in Ireland, the horses and all the establishments would be taken from that country and brought over here. What happened? The Transport Workers' Federation were able to continue the hunting against the threats of Sinn Fein. If we are going to have these reprisals stopped, we have to appeal as has been done to-day. Hon. Members seem to think that I have no interest in this, and that because Labour on the other side takes one view, I have no right to speak on this side. so far as the responsibility for these crimes goes, it rests upon that band of murderers, and they can only be restrained by agencies in Ireland. The Chief Secretary made an honest appeal to the House, and I want to support him. No one who knows Ireland can for a moment doubt the enormous authority
    598
    of the Church to which the great mass of people adhere. Surely in the name of common humanity, at a time when an attempt is being made to give Ireland a form of self-government, apart altogether from politics, the ministers of the Gospel ought to feel it their duty to say to those who are assassins, "Your work is not only devilish, but destructive to the aspirations of the race to which you belong." This Debate will cause amongst many of the soldiers disgust, if not despair. They are in Ireland standing for the authority of this country and this House. They are constantly in a form of danger, not only deadly, but most destructive of the qualities and moral of any human being. I, for one, profoundly regret that any words have been uttered which may be taken as words of condemnation to those who are defending the country at the present time.
    Mr. J. JONES: I am the only Irishman in this House representing an English constituency who has taken part in this Debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] I am about the only Irishman, with the exception of my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. O'Connor), who has not spoken in this Debate, and to that extent I hope I shall not be speechless. It seems to me most extraordinary that, whenever the Government find themselves in a hole—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—yes, absolutely in a hole, they have to fall back upon the political prostitutes of labour—[HON. MEMBERS:"Withdraw, with draw!"]—
    Mr. SEDDON: I think I avoided any offensive terms, and the hon. Member who has just sat down has uttered a term which I think is not in accordance with the dignity of this House. Speaking for myself, whatever he says makes no impression whatever.
    Mr. J. JONES: Mr. Speaker, I—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw!"] If I might—[HON. MEMBERS: "With draw!" and interruption.]
    Lord E. TALBOT (Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury)rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.
    Question put accordingly, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    The House divided: Ayes, 83; Noes, 303.

    Division No. 373.]

    AYES.

    [11.0 p.m.

    Acland, Rt. Hon. F. D.

    Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)

    Roberts, Frederick O. (W. Bromwich)

    Adamson, Rt. Hon. William

    Hartshorn, Vernon

    Robertson, John

    Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

    Hayday, Arthur

    Royce, William Stapleton

    Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)

    Hayward, Major Evan

    Sexton, James

    Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)

    Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)

    Shaw, Thomas (Preston)

    Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish

    Hirst, G. H.

    Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

    Bramsdon, Sir Thomas

    Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

    Sitch, Charles H.

    Briant, Frank

    Holmes, J. Stanley

    Smith, W. R. (Wellingborough)

    Bromfield, William

    Irving, Dan

    Spencer, George A.

    Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

    Johnstone, Joseph

    Swan, J. E.

    Cairns, John

    Kelly, Edward J. (Donegal, East)

    Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)

    Cape, Thomas

    Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander J. M.

    Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)

    Carter, W. (Nottingham, Mansfield)

    Kiley, James D.

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)

    Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.

    Lawson, John J.

    Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)

    Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)

    Lunn, William

    Tillett, Benjamin

    Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)

    Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (Midlothian)

    Tootill, Robert

    Devlin, Joseph

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)

    Donnelly, P.

    Mills, John Edmund

    Waterson, A. E.

    Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)

    Morgan, Major D. Watts

    Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)

    Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)

    Mosley, Oswald

    Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)

    Entwistle, Major C. F.

    Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)

    Finney, Samuel

    Myers, Thomas

    Wilson, W. Tyson (Westhoughton)

    Galbraith, Samuel

    Newbould, Alfred Ernest

    Wintringham, T.

    Glanville, Harold James

    O'Connor, Thomas P.

    Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)

    Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

    O'Grady, Captain James

    Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)

    Graham, R. (Nelson and Colne)

    Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

    Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

    Raffan, Peter Wilson

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Grundy, T. W.

    Rendall, Athelstan

    Mr. Hogge and Mr. Neil Maclean.

    Guest, J. (York, W.R., Hemsworth)

    Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

    NOES.

    Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.

    Brown, Captain D. C.

    Elliott, Lt.-Col. Sir G. (Islington, W.)

    Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. C.

    Bruton, Sir James

    Elveden, Viscount

    Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

    Buchanan, Lieut.-Colonel A. L. H.

    Eyres-Monsell, Commander B. M.

    Ainsworth, Captain Charles

    Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.

    Falcon, Captain Michael

    Allen, Lieut.-Colonel William James

    Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

    Falle, Major Sir Bertram G.

    Amery, Lieut.-Col. Leopold C. M. S.

    Burdett-Coutts, William

    Fell, Sir Arthur

    Armitage, Robert

    Burn, Col. C. R. (Devon, Torquay)

    Fildes, Henry

    Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.

    Burn, T. H. (Belfast, St. Anne's)

    Ford, Patrick Johnston

    Atkey, A. R.

    Butcher, Sir John George

    Foreman, Henry

    Bagley, Captain E. Ashton

    Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.

    Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot

    Baird, Sir John Lawrence

    Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

    Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

    Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

    Carter, R. A. D. (Man., Withington)

    Gange, E. Stanley

    Balfour, George (Hampstead)

    Casey, T. W.

    Ganzoni, Captain Francis John C.

    Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.

    Cautley, Henry S.

    George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd

    Barker, Major Robert H.

    Chadwick, Sir Robert

    Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham

    Barlow, Sir Montague

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

    Gilbert, James Daniel

    Barnett, Major R. W.

    Chillcot, Lieut.-Com. Harry W.

    Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John

    Barnston, Major Harry

    Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

    Glyn, Major Ralph

    Barrand, A. R.

    Churchman, Sir Arthur

    Goulding, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward A.

    Barrie, Charles Coupar

    Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H. Spender

    Grant, James A.

    Barton, Sir William (Oldham)

    Clough, Robert

    Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)

    Beauchamp, Sir Edward

    Coats, Sir Stuart

    Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)

    Beck, Sir C. (Essex, Saffron Walden)

    Cobb, Sir Cyril

    Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hack'y, N.)

    Beckett, Hon. Gervase

    Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips

    Greenwood, Colonel Sir Hamar

    Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)

    Collins, Sir G. P. (Greenock)

    Greenwood, William (Stockport)

    Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.

    Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale

    Greer, Harry

    Benn, Capt. Sir I. H., Bart.(Gr'nw'h)

    Conway, Sir W. Martin

    Gregory, Holman

    Bennett, Thomas Jewell

    Cory, Sir J. H. (Cardiff, South)

    Greig, Colonel James William

    Betterton, Henry B.

    Courthope, Major George L.

    Gretton, Colonel John

    Bigland, Alfred

    Cowan, Sir H. (Aberdeen and Kinc.)

    Gritten, W. G. Howard

    Birchall, Major J. Dearman

    Craig, Captain C. C (Antrim, South)

    Guest, Major O. (Leic, Loughboro')

    Bird, Sir A. (Wolverhampton, West)

    Craig, Colonel Sir J. (Down, Mid)

    Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.

    Blades, Capt. Sir George Rowland

    Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

    Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

    Blair, Reginald

    Croft, Lieut.-Colonel Henry Page

    Hambro, Captain Angus Valdemar

    Blake, Sir Francis Douglas

    Curzon, Commander Viscount

    Harmsworth, C. B.(Bedford, Luton)

    Blane, T. A.

    Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)

    Harris, Sir Henry Percy

    Borwick, Major G. O.

    Davidson, J. C. C.

    Henderson, Major V. L. (Tradeston)

    Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-

    Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)

    Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

    Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.

    Davies, Sir William H. (Bristol, S.)

    Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S)

    Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

    Denniss, Edmund R. B. (Oldham)

    Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)

    Brassey, Major H. L. C.

    Dewhurst, Lieut.-Commander Harry

    Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Breese, Major Charles E.

    Dixon, Captain Herbert

    Higham, Charles Frederick

    Briggs, Harold

    Donald, Thompson

    Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank

    Brittain, Sir Harry

    Du Pre, Colonel William Baring

    Hoare, Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. J. G.

    Britton, G. B.

    Edge, Captain William

    Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

    Broad, Thomas Tucker

    Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)

    Hood, Joseph

    Hope, Sir H. (Stirling & Cl'ckm'nn'n, W.)

    Molson, Major John Elsdale

    Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)

    Hope, James F. (Sheffield, Central)

    Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred M.

    Simm, M. T.

    Hope, J. D. (Berwick & Haddington)

    Montagu, Rt. Hon. E. S.

    Smith, Harold (Warrington)

    Hopkins, John W. W.

    Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.

    Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander

    Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)

    Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.

    Stanier, Captain Sir Beville

    Horne, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford)

    Moreing, Captain Algernon H.

    Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)

    Horne, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)

    Morrison, Hugh

    Stanton, Charles B.

    Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis

    Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

    Starkey, Captain John R.

    Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)

    Murchison, C. K.

    Steel, Major S. Strang

    Hurd, Percy A.

    Murray, John (Leeds, West)

    Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.

    Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.

    Murray, Major William (Dumfries)

    Stewart, Gershom

    Illingworth, Rt. Hon. A. H.

    Nall, Major Joseph

    Strauss, Edward Anthony

    Inskip, Thomas Walker H.

    Neal, Arthur

    Sturrock, J. Leng

    Jephcott, A. R.

    Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)

    Sugden, W. H.

    Jodrell, Neville Paul

    Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)

    Sutherland, Sir William

    Johnson, Sir Stanley

    Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

    Sykes, Colonel Sir A. J. (Knutsford)

    Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Nield, Sir Herbert

    Taylor, J.

    Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)

    Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.

    Thomas-Stanford, Charles

    Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Lianelly)

    Oman, Sir Charles William C.

    Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

    Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George

    O'Neill, Major Hon. Robert W. H.

    Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)

    Kidd, James

    Palmer, Major Godfrey Mark

    Thorpe, Captain John Henry

    King, Captain Henry Douglas

    Parker, James

    Tryon, Major George Clement

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    Parry. Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry

    Vickers, Douglas

    Knight, Major E. A. (Kidderminster)

    Peel, Col. Hon. S. (Uxbridge, Mddx.)

    Waddington, R.

    Lane-Fox, G. R.

    Pennefather, De Fonblanque

    Walters, Rt. Hon. Sir John Tudor

    Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)

    Perring, William George

    Ward-Jackson, Major C. L.

    Law, Rt. Hon. A. B. (Glasgow. C.)

    Philipps, Sir Owen C. (Chester, City)

    Ward, Col. J. (Stoke-upon-Trent)

    Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontypridd)

    Pickering, Lieut.-Colonel Emil W.

    Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)

    Lindsay, William Arthur

    Pinkham, Lieut.-Colonel Charles

    Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.

    Lloyd, George Butler

    Pollock, Sir Ernest M.

    Warren, Lieut.-Col. Sir Alfred H.

    Lloyd-Greame, Major Sir P.

    Pratt, John William

    Watson, Captain John Bertrand

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

    Prescott, Major W. H.

    Weston, Colonel John W.

    Lonsdale, James Rolston

    Pulley, Charles Thornton

    Wheler, Lieut.-Colonel C. H.

    Lorden, John William

    Purchase, H. G.

    White, Lieut.-Col. G. D. (Southport)

    Lort-Williams, J.

    Raper, A. Baldwin

    Whitla, Sir William

    Loseby, Captain C. E.

    Ratcliffe, Henry Butler

    Wild, Sir Ernest Edward

    Lyle, C. E. Leonard

    Raw, Lieutenant-Colonel N.

    Willey, Lieut.-Colonel F. V.

    Lyle-Samuel, Alexander

    Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)

    Williams, Lt.-Com. C. (Tavistock)

    M'Curdy, Rt. Hon. C. A.

    Reid, D. D.

    Williamson, Rt. Hon. Sir Archibald

    Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camlachie)

    Remer, J. R.

    Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud

    McLaren, Hon. H. D. (Leicester)

    Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)

    Wills, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Gilbert

    McLaren, Robert (Lanark, Northern)

    Rodger, A. K.

    Wilson, Capt. A. S. (Holderness)

    McMicking, Major Gilbert

    Rogers, Sir Hallewell

    Wilson, Daniel M. (Down, West)

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

    Roundell, Colonel R. F.

    Wilson, Lieut.-Col. M. J. (Richmond)

    McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)

    Rutherford, Colonel Sir J. (Darwen)

    Wilson-Fox, Henry

    Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.

    Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)

    Winterton, Major Earl

    Macquisten, F. A.

    Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

    Wise, Frederick

    Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Norwood)

    Wolmer, Viscount

    Manville, Edward

    Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)

    Worsfold, Dr. T. Cato

    Marks, Sir George Croydon

    Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D

    Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

    Marriott, John Arthur Ransome

    Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Yeo, Sir Alfred William

    Mason, Robert

    Scott, Leslie (Liverpool Exchange)

    Young, Lieut.-Com. E. H. (Norwich)

    Matthews, David

    Scott, Sir Samuel (St. Marylebone)

    Mildmay, Colonel Rt. Hon. F. B.

    Seddon, J. A.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Mitchell, William Lane

    Seely, Major-General Rt. Hon. John

    Lord E. Talbot and Captain Guest.

    Moles, Thomas

    Shaw, William T. (Forfar)

    Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

    Proposed words there added.
    Resolved,
    "That this House condemns the outrages committed against the Forces of the Crown and civilians in Ireland, and expresses its deep abhorrence of the brutal assassination of His Majesty's officers and other British subjects in Dublin on Sunday last; and thanks the military and police forces and the other servants of the Crown for the courage and devotion with which they are fulfilling their duty in Ireland in circumstances of unexampled difficulty; and expresses its approval of the steps which are being taken by His Majesty's Government to restore peace in Ireland."
    The remaining Government Orders were read, and postponed.

  MAIL SERVICE, STORNOWAY.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 19th October, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Dr. MURRAY: I am reluctant to keep the House after a very hard day, but the matter which I desire to bring before the Government concerns the economic life of the population of 30,000 people in the Island of Lewis, which is the third largest Island in the United Kingdom. At the hands of the present Government the people of Lewis have suffered a very serious grievance, which cannot be justified upon any sound ground. Sterna-way is, and has been for the last 50 or 60 years, the central of the largest fishing industry on the West Coast of Scotland;

  603
  and 40 years ago the Government were so mindful of the development of the economic life of this population, and so desirous of developing the fishing industry in those parts, that they instituted a daily steamer service between Stornoway and the Mainland. That service has been going on for close upon 40 years. If a daily service was found absolutely necessary by the Treasury in those days, surely now, when the population of the island has increased and the trade of the town and island has increased close upon tenfold, a daily mail service between Stornoway and the Mainland is more essential than ever before. I do not know that there is a constituency in the United Kingdom of which no part has a daily mail service except the unfortunate constituency which I represent. The service was reduced during the War from six days a week to three. People thought nothing of an inconvenience of that sort. They had more to think of during the War than simply inconvenience in travelling and postal facilities, although it produced very great hardship, and especially upon soldiers and sailors who came home on leave, but the wind was tempered even during the War to the shorn lamb, because Stornoway was a big naval base, and the Admiralty came to the rescue and made up to a certain extent for the niggardliness of the Treasury, and we had practically during the whole War a daily mail service every day of the week. At the very height of the War the Secretary for Scotland appointed a committee to look into this matter. Some of its members were well acquainted with the local circumstances, and they unanimously reported that not only should the pre-war service be maintained but that two steamers should be supplied. My right hon. Friend lacked his usual lucidity in his answer to me as to what the Report was, but the Transport Committee appointed by himself was considered of such urgency that he appointed it to go on during the War, using up petrol and even using Admiralty ships. They reported over a year ago that in addition to these two vessels the daily service should be resumed. After discussing the ideal system for that part of the world, they mention that among the immediate improvements necessary one of the first things was that the daily mail service to Storno-
  604
  way should be restored at once. I ask the Government to carry out the Report of their Committee. The Treasury talk about the cost. I understood from the right hon. Gentleman the other day that they could not tell the cost of the mail service. The service 30 years ago was paying its way, and it has been doing so all the time since. The traffic has increased enormously. Freights have gone up, travelling rates and postages all have gone up. I do not see why it should not pay now much better than it did 30 years ago. Even if there is a loss on the mail service on the west coast of Scotland, you should not penalise a community like Stornoway. I appeal to my right hon. Friend to speak with his own voice, and I hope that the Treasury will authorise him to do what he would like to do and restore this service forthwith in anticipation of the big winter herring fishery, which is coming on at once. Vast quantities of herring involving a capital of £500,000 will be renewed in the course of a few weeks and will require to be dealt with.
  The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): I never fail to admire the vigilance and devotion with which my hon. Friend attends to the interests of his constituents. I congratulate him and his constituency alike upon that fact. I quite appreciate the importance of the question which he raises. I fully realise the hardship that the people of Stornoway are suffering at the present time. I think there is a hardship, and I am sorry it cannot be removed. The facts are not in dispute. My hon. Friend has referred to some of them. Before the War for many years there was a six-day service of a mail steamer between Stornoway and the mainland. During the War the system was altered. The mail steamer ran three days a week. My hon. Friend truly said that the service was supplemented by an Admiralty boat, which ran on the other three days of the week. That system continued until the Armistice, and was then discontinued. The Rural Transport Committee, to which my hon. Friend referred, reported in 1919, and made numerous recommendations, one of which was that the six-day service to Stornoway should be restored.
  Dr. MURRAY: At once.
  Mr. MUNRO: That was one of the recommendations. A second was that an

  605
  additional steamer service should be provided to the outer islands. After discussion with the Treasury the second point was conceded. That service is now in operation. In regard to the first recommendation, the Treasury acceded to the view that that service should be resumed during the summer months. During the summer months the six days' service was accordingly resumed. The only point between us is whether during the winter months the six days' service shall be resumed. As regards the winter months, the Government regret that they have been precluded, on the ground of expense, from resuming that service. I have been in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General on the subject, and he does not consider that from the postal point of view there is any justification for a resumption now of that service. Apart from postal grounds, the matter has been very carefully examined. I had the honour of meeting last year an influential deputation from my hon. Friend's constituency, and I was very much impressed with the view they put before me. I made it my business to consider that view in consultation with the Treasury. The result of that consultation was that a slight extension was given beyond the date originally fixed, 30th September, and that concession, I think, was fully appreciated. The ground upon which it is impossible to resume the six days' service during the winter months is simply the ground of expense.
  Dr. MURRAY: It will pay itself.
  Mr. MUNRO: I doubt that. The maintenance of a six days' service during the winter months would entail the provision of an additional steamer, and would cost £7,000. That may seem a small sum, but having regard to the amount of the postal service, I am afraid it would not be justifiable in the public interest that the sum should be expended. The cost of a steamer service to-day is very different from what it was thirty years ago. It is found that, having regard to the extra cost of everything in connection with the service the cost has greatly in-
  606
  creased compared with pre-War days. Reference has been made to the herring fishing. It has been prosecuted at Stornoway for many years, and so far as the winter fishing is concerned the number of boats is 177. But they do not depend solely upon the steamer service. There are other means by which the fish are transferred from Stornoway to the mainland. I should like to meet my hon. Friend, but I much regret on the ground of expense I cannot do so in these days when economy is being pressed on the Government on all hands, especially from the opposite side of the House.
  Dr. MURRAY: Mesopotamia.
  Mr. MUNRO: I am told there is another items of business, and I do not want to stand in the way of the Chief Secretary.

  RAID FOR ARMS (DUBLIN).
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: May I ask the Chief Secretary whether this morning a raid was made upon the headquarters of the Transport Union in Dublin, and whether arrests were made of prominent trade unionists, and what is the charge preferred against them?
  Sir H. GREENWOOD: Liberty Hall was raided at 11.40 this morning by a military search party. Alderman O'Brien who was found on the premises accompanied the party during the search. A quantity of literature was seized, and bombs found behind fire-place. One revolver, ammunition of various types, rifle aiming rests, targets, etc., were also found. Thirty men were detained pending examination which will be completed as soon as possible and will doubtless result in release of large proportion. Alderman O'Brien and Mr. Tom Johnston have already been released. Further inquiry is being made as to Mr. Tom Farren.
  It being half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Order of the House of 19 th October.
  Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'clock.

INDIA.
  SEDITIOUS SPEECHES.
  SEDITIOUS SPEECHES.
  UNCOVENANTED SERVICES.
  UNCOVENANTED SERVICES.
  ARMS RULES, 1920.
  ARMS RULES, 1920.
  CIVIL SERVICE (MEMORIALS).
  CIVIL SERVICE (MEMORIALS).
  BURMA (PUBLICITY OFFICER).
  BURMA (PUBLICITY OFFICER).
NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  SPECIAL DIET, NORFOLK
  SPECIAL DIET, NORFOLK
  ARTIFICIAL LIMBS.
  ARTIFICIAL LIMBS.
  BRITISH WEST INDIAN REGIMENT (PENSIONS).
  BRITISH WEST INDIAN REGIMENT (PENSIONS).
  DISABILITY PENSIONS (TUBERCULOSIS).
  DISABILITY PENSIONS (TUBERCULOSIS).
  DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF MEDICAL SERVICES.
  DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF MEDICAL SERVICES.
  EALING COMMITTEE.
  EALING COMMITTEE.
  ADMINISTRATION (COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY).
  ADMINISTRATION (COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY).
  ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY (E. G. SOUTHGATE).
  ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY (E. G. SOUTHGATE).
EX-SERVICE MEN.
  SETTLEMENT OVERSEAS.
  SETTLEMENT OVERSEAS.
  DISABLED MEN (EMPLOYMENT).
  DISABLED MEN (EMPLOYMENT).
  TRAINING.
  TRAINING.
  WOOLWICH ARSENAL.
  WOOLWICH ARSENAL.
IRELAND.
  WOMEN SEARCHERS.
  WOMEN SEARCHERS.
  CREAMERIES (DESTRUCTION).
  CREAMERIES (DESTRUCTION).
  ATTACKS ON POLICE.
  ATTACKS ON POLICE.
  MURDER OF POLICE AND MILITARY.
  MURDER OF POLICE AND MILITARY.
  COURTS OF INQUIRY (DEATHS).
  COURTS OF INQUIRY (DEATHS).
  COURT-MARTIAL, WEXFORD.
  COURT-MARTIAL, WEXFORD.
  SINN FEIN POLICEMEN.
  SINN FEIN POLICEMEN.
  ARMY OFFICERS, DUBLIN.
  ARMY OFFICERS, DUBLIN.
  REPRISALS (POLICE AND MILITARY).
  REPRISALS (POLICE AND MILITARY).
  CROKE PARK, DUBLIN (CASUALTIES).
  CROKE PARK, DUBLIN (CASUALTIES).
BRITISH ARMY.
  OFFICER'S PENSION.
  OFFICER'S PENSION.
  SEPARATION AND PARENTS' ALLOWANCES.
  SEPARATION AND PARENTS' ALLOWANCES.
  CONNAUGHT RANGERS (INDIA).
  CONNAUGHT RANGERS (INDIA).
  19TH ROYAL HUSSARS (PRIVATE T. C. WILLIAMS).
  19TH ROYAL HUSSARS (PRIVATE T. C. WILLIAMS).
  INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS (GRATUITIES).
  INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS (GRATUITIES).
  CHINA.
  CHINA.
ROYAL AIR FORCE.
  NAVY AND ARMY AIRMEN.
  NAVY AND ARMY AIRMEN.
  IMPERIAL AERIAL SERVICE.
  IMPERIAL AERIAL SERVICE.
POST OFFICE.
  POSTMEN (PAY).
  POSTMEN (PAY).
  OVERTIME.
  OVERTIME.
  INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE RATES.
  INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE RATES.
  STAMPED ENVELOPES.
  STAMPED ENVELOPES.
  PARCELS, AUSTRIA.
  PARCELS, AUSTRIA.
  TEINDS BILL.
  TEINDS BILL.
RUSSIA.
  BATUM.
  BATUM.
  EMIR FEISAL.
  EMIR FEISAL.
  ARMENIA.
  ARMENIA.
TRADE AND COMMERCE.
  SCIENTIFIC GLASS INDUSTRY.
  SCIENTIFIC GLASS INDUSTRY.
  WIRE HOBNAILS AND BOOT STUDS.
  WIRE HOBNAILS AND BOOT STUDS.
  GERMAN TOYS.
  GERMAN TOYS.
  MERCHANDISE MARKS.
  MERCHANDISE MARKS.
  GOVERNMENT TIMBER.
  GOVERNMENT TIMBER.
  EXPORT CREDITS SYSTEM.
  EXPORT CREDITS SYSTEM.
HOUSING.
  EMPTY HOUSES, METROPOLITAN AREA.
  EMPTY HOUSES, METROPOLITAN AREA.
  POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS (EMPTY BEDS).
  POOR LAW INSTITUTIONS (EMPTY BEDS).
  SANATORIUM BENEFIT, EAST RIDING, YORKSHIRE.
  SANATORIUM BENEFIT, EAST RIDING, YORKSHIRE.
  MINISTRY OF HEALTH, PUBLICATIONS.
  MINISTRY OF HEALTH, PUBLICATIONS.
  LUNACY ACT, 1890.
  LUNACY ACT, 1890.
TRANSPORT.
  RAILWAY SERVANTS, PENSIONS.
  RAILWAY SERVANTS, PENSIONS.
  RAILWAYS, CAPITAL EXPENDITURE.
  RAILWAYS, CAPITAL EXPENDITURE.
  EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE, GLOUCESTER.
  EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE, GLOUCESTER.
  EXCESS PROFITS DUTY.
  EXCESS PROFITS DUTY.
  WAR LOAN (REDEMPTION).
  WAR LOAN (REDEMPTION).
  BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY.
  BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY.
  LAND SETTLEMENT, WALES.
  LAND SETTLEMENT, WALES.
  ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS (RELIGIOUS TEACHING).
  ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS (RELIGIOUS TEACHING).
  MEDICAL COLLEGES, LONDON (GRANTS).
  MEDICAL COLLEGES, LONDON (GRANTS).
  BOROUGH CORONERS (REMUNERATION).
  BOROUGH CORONERS (REMUNERATION).
  CENTRAL CONTROL BOARD (LIQUOR TRAFFIC).
  CENTRAL CONTROL BOARD (LIQUOR TRAFFIC).
  PRISON OFFICERS (PENSIONS).
  PRISON OFFICERS (PENSIONS).
  JUVENILE PRISONERS.
  JUVENILE PRISONERS.
  FIREARMS ACT, 1920.
  FIREARMS ACT, 1920.
  EMPLOYMENT (MEN, WOMEN AND BOYS).
  EMPLOYMENT (MEN, WOMEN AND BOYS).
  DOMESTIC SERVICE.
  DOMESTIC SERVICE.
  ELECTRICAL WORKERS (TRADE DISPUTE).
  ELECTRICAL WORKERS (TRADE DISPUTE).
  WAGES.
  WAGES.
  UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT.
  UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT.
  REFUSE BINGS, LANARKSHIRE.
  REFUSE BINGS, LANARKSHIRE.
  KING CHARLES STATUE, CHARING CROSS.
  KING CHARLES STATUE, CHARING CROSS.
  INDUSTRIAL TRAINING DEPARTMENT, BIRMINGHAM.
  INDUSTRIAL TRAINING DEPARTMENT, BIRMINGHAM.
  SECRET TRIALS.
  SECRET TRIALS.
  NYASSALAND (EXPORT DUTIES).
  NYASSALAND (EXPORT DUTIES).
  CROWN COLONIES (PEACE REGULATIONS).
  CROWN COLONIES (PEACE REGULATIONS).
  EAST AFRICAN COLONIES (CURRENCY).
  EAST AFRICAN COLONIES (CURRENCY).
Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
PAISLEY CORPORATION (INCHINNAN OPENING BRIDGE) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order) and passed.

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
Debate on the Amendment moved by the EARL OF DUNRAVEN to the Motion that the Bill be now read 2a—namely, to leave out all the words after "that" and insert "this House declines to proceed with a Bill which meets with no support from the great majority of the Irish people, and affords no prospect of any permanent settlement"—resumed (according to Order).
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: My Lords, I have taken part only twice in discussions in this House, and then on comparatively trivial and passing matters when I was still at the Foreign Office. I have therefore never before heard an Irish debate in this House. But I have heard many Irish debates, and I have never yet heard one which was so conspicuously free from Party spirit or any attempt to make Party capital as the debate which I heard last night in your Lordships' House. I could not help feeling as I listened that, so far as this House is concerned at any rate, the atmosphere and the opportunity for the settlement of the Irish question are such as have never been before. I wish we could feel that it was so elsewhere, and particularly in Ireland.
I am afraid that your Lordships may think it a little irrelevant for me to go so far back as I want to go for a moment into political history, but it is of the very essence of the Irish question that you cannot approach the events of any day in Ireland, or any Bill, without Irish history in your mind. If, so far as our recollection on this side of St. George's Channel is concerned, the roots of the Irish difficulty are not deeply set in history, they are in Ireland. I do not know whether it is confirmed in the two volumes recently published of Lord
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Beaconsfield's biography—I have not been able to verify it—but I have always heard that his last word on leaving office, indicating the great political difficulty which he saw ahead of this country, was "Ireland." That was forty years ago, in 1880. What has been the history since that warning was given? Some of your Lordships have been in active political life for the whole of those forty years. I have been in active political life for thirty-five years, since I was first elected to the House of Commons. During the whole of that period, with the exception of the years when we were actually engaged in war, the Irish question has been pre-eminent as a matter of controversy between Parties, as a pre-occupation of Governments, as a question which has exhausted the House of Commons, at times has strained our Constitution, and has been directly and indirectly prejudicial to the working of our political system. The amount of effort which both Parties have devoted to the Irish question in those forty years is more ham can be estimated. And at the end of it, what do we find? The state of things as it is in Ireland to-day. It is, and must be, a tragic reflection for those who have been in political life for the last forty years, to whatever Party they have belonged.
In that spirit I would approach the consideration of this Bill—in the spirit of reflection which comes from thinking of what has passed in those forty years and the result that we have to-day. It will lead me to no Party reflection. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, to whom I am grateful and, I should think, the whole House is grateful for the tone he set in the debate last night, said one bold, but, as I think, true thing. He bracketed the danger of the Irish question with the danger which we have just escaped in the Great War, and towards the end of his speech he coupled the sense of achievement that this generation might feel if they had settled the Irish question with the sense of achievement which they do feel in having passed through the struggle of the Great War successfully. That means that in the Irish question we are in the presence of a great danger, in face of which we must sink our Party feelings as much as we did during the War. It is easy for either of us to make Party capital out of the events of the last forty years. It is easy for Unionists to say that had there been no Home Rulers they would have settled the Irish question. It is

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equally easy for Home Rulers to say that but for the existence of Unionists they, in the course of the last forty years, would have settled the Irish question by Home Rule. It is easy for either Party to make Party capital, but it is as futile as it is easy. In what I have to say I shall try to make the reflections upon past mistakes as free from that spirit as possible.
The questions I put to myself are these—In these years of failure where have we gone wrong? What are the mistakes that we have made? What is the real cause of failure? The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack was very frank so far as Unionism was concerned. He said, indeed, that he was still a Unionist, but that he had come to the conclusion that the maintenance of the Union was impossible; and the majority of those who founded their policy upon the maintenance of the Union have now, I believe, abandoned that as a possible policy and are looking for a solution in some other way. The position, so far as they are concerned, is perfectly frank and very emphatic. Have we who have been Home Rulers got anything to learn by reflecting on the past? I think the mistake that we as Home Rulers have made from the beginning was that we did not sufficiently realise the absolute necessity of taking into consideration the feeling of Ulster. I believe that if, at the very beginning of the Home Rule departure in 1886, it had been laid down as an axiom that though Ireland was to be united there must be within that united Ireland autonomy for the Protestant counties of Ulster, we might have made more progress than we have. I am not sure that we should have done it, because we should have had to convince the Nationalist, that autonomy for the Protestant counties of Ulster was an essential condition of any progress in Home Rule, and I do not think Nationalist opinion at that time was prepared to admit that.
The result was that we introduced Home Rule Bills which had the support of Nationalist Ireland but were bitterly opposed by the Protestant representation of Ulster, and owing to that opposition they failed to get through Parliament in this country. Now the Government are doing just the other thing. They have got the support of the Protestant representatives of Ulster. They are bringing forward a Bill that will not founder on that rock, for it is now supported by the
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Protestant Members of Ulster. But it is a Bill which is rejected and refused not only by extreme but by moderate opinion in the rest of Ireland. Has that really any better chance of success than our previous Home Rule Bills had? Is it not likely to be true that, though our Home Rule Bills failed in Parliament here up to quite the very end, this Bill, though it may get through Parliament here, will fail in working in Ireland?
I come from that reflection to this. What has been the real cause of failure to settle the Irish question? I believe that the real cause has been the difference of opinion in Ireland itself, and that in which British Governments have been most to blame has not been the detail of their particular proposals, but in their failure to recognise (whether they have been Unionists or Home Rulers) that until those differences between the two parts of Ireland were composed there could be no real settlement of the Irish question. That I believe is the deepest cause of failure. I think that our method of trying to settle the question has been wrong, because our method has not tended to compose the differences. The Bills which we introduced as Home Rulers positively inflamed the differences between Ulster and the rest of Ireland. This Bill, to put it mildly, has not made the differences less. On the contrary, though our Bills made Ulster exceedingly bitter, this Bill, while conciliating Ulster, has brought out a difference of opinion, a cleavage, which does not follow exactly the same line as any previous cleavage in Ireland, because it has put the moderates—even some of those who were Unionists in Ireland—besides those who have always been Nationalists, in opposition to the Ulster position.
I believe that it would have been much better—I think it would be much better even now—if, instead of the British Government producing a large and detailed Bill, they had started by laying down the broad lines of the limits in which Ireland could have complete autonomy, stating the minimum which we in this country must reserve for the safety and security not merely of ourselves but really of Ireland too. And I see three things which are absolutely essential. Foreign affairs is one. As regards Foreign affairs, I would say nothing except that I would put Ireland precisely in the same position as the great self-governing Dominions are

517
now in, with the same right to be consulted, the same right about commercial treaties, but leaving, as now, one foreign policy in the hands of the Imperial Government.
The next thing is the Army. There can be but one Army in the modern sense of the word in these two Islands. It is impossible to have divided military authority. I should not contemplate the maintenance of any Imperial troops in Ireland after Home Rule was passed unless the Irish Government itself desired it, and I should see no danger in an Irish Government raising a local force for home defence. What is a local force for home defence is a detail which might be left to be defined later on. But when we come to the Navy I am perfectly certain, and the history of the late war shows it, that unless there be only one Navy and one naval authority neither Ireland nor Great Britain can be defended.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: That must be without qualification. I would explain on that why it is that I am a little reluctant to use the phrase Dominion Home Rule. As far as the Navy is concerned, unless I am mistaken, naval arrangements with the self-governing Dominions are not quite the same now as they were before the war. I think that some of the naval bases which were under Admiralty control before the war have now been handed over to the Governments of the self-governing Dominions. Therefore when you are talking about Dominion Home Rule from the point of view of the Navy you have to ask, "Do you mean pre-war Dominion Home Rule, or post-war Dominion Home Rule for your arrangements with regard to the Navy?" I have no complaint whatever regarding what the Government may have done respecting the self-governing Dominions thousands of miles away on the other side of the oceans, and I feel with regard to Dominion Home Rule that it is a thing which may vary from day to day. It is in fact what the self-governing. Dominions say it is. It may be one thing to-day, it may be another thing a year hence. With regard to Ireland we must from the beginning have no ambiguity, and, whatever may happen thousands of miles away on the other side of the oceans, we must be perfectly clear with regard to the question of the Navy with two Islands so closely together. Under modern condi-
518
tions of mines and submarines it is absolutely inconsistent, with the safety of either that there should be divided naval authority.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: I want to make that very clear, because nothing could be worse, when we are stating a minimum and trying to make in the eyes of Ireland our concession as large as possible, than that we should leave anything ambiguous and un explained which would cause us to seem to take back afterwards something that we were thought to have given. That is the negative part of the matter, and that, I think, must be done by the British Government. I think much the better course would have been to leave to Ireland itself what I call the positive part of the matter; to leave Ireland itself to say within those limits what form of Government it really desired. That means, of course, a Convention or a Constituent Assembly.
I admit that when I advocated that some weeks ago the state of Ireland was not what it is to-day. With all that has happened in the last few weeks I do not know that one could possibly, advocate that as a practical course at the moment, but if we are not actually on the eve of a settlement of the Irish question the time may conic when the Government, this House, and the House of Commons, may have to consider that method of procedure again. It is said that such an Assembly in Ireland would never agree. The Convention, from all we hear, very nearly did agree; it was the nearest approach to a real settlement by agreement—by Irish agreement—that we have ever reached.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: It failed but it failed not by much, and the fact that it did fail is not so much, I think, a reason for not trying it again, as the fact that it so nearly succeeded is an argument in favour of its being the most hopeful method.
My Lords, I feel that something more is needed from us to improve the chance of Irish agreement. I do not go the whole length that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack went yesterday about the, difference between the two parts of Ireland

519
being irreconcilable. It is true that the difference is very bitter, and I believe that we should do more than we have ever done hitherto to make those two parts of Ireland face their own difficulty instead of our trying to face it for them. Hitherto the Protestant part of Ulster has felt that if only it could defeat the Home Rule Bills the British Government would be left in the position of coercing the rest of Ireland. The Nationalists in their turn have not faced up to the. Ulster difficulty because they have thought either that the Ulster difficulty was not so serious as it was or else that it was the business of the British Government to get over the Ulster difficulty for them. I would have it clearly understood in Ireland that we will not go on indefinitely being manœuvred into the position either of coercing Nationalist Ireland or coercing Ulster. I believe the greatest lever we could bring to bear to induce a settlement between the two parts of Ireland would be to make it perfectly clear that they cannot rely on the British Government indefinitely continuing to govern Ireland or any part of Ireland by force.
This leads me to the statement I made some time ago, upon which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack adverted last night. I said that the British Government should make it plain that at the end of two years it would no longer make itself responsible for the management of Irish internal affairs. The noble and learned Lord said that at the end of that two years the South of Ireland would fly at the throat of the North. He spoke of that as a certainty. He said that the differences between them were age-long and were not to be composed in two years. I do not believe that would happen. I have always felt that the comparatively rich, strong, and compact Protestant part of Ulster was perfectly able to take care of itself, and that the last thing the rest of Ireland would do would be to attempt to coerce or attack it; and I believe that still.
If the differences between the two are so irreconcilable, what becomes of all the provisions in the present Bill, the potential provisions which contemplate the two parts coming together for a United Ireland? If those differences are so irreconcilable as the Lord Chancellor said, then all those provisions in the Bill contemplating the two parts coming together to make a
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United Ireland are so much paper. I do not believe the differences are irreconcilable provided both sides were convinced that the responsibility for the government of Ireland and the future of Ireland really rested with them, and provided they saw the necessity as well as the opportunity of coming to some agreement with each other.
But I have a further qualification to make about that statement with regard to the two years. I agree that in human affairs no Government and no individual can say with absolute certainty that at a specified day or at the end of a specified time he will do a certain thing. Circumstances may be too strong for him. I wrote that before anything was known about reprisals. I do not wish to bring into this debate a matter which, naturally, must raise controversy and heat. But when the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said that keeping the armed forces of the Crown in Ireland for another two years, as I proposed, exposed to murder would be so unthinkable that it would be better to withdraw them at once, I say frankly that with the present state of things in Ireland were I writing now I would never for a moment advocate that the armed forces of the Crown should necessarily be kept there for another two years or for any specified time.
We are moved with almost intolerable indignation at the murders which have taken place in Ireland. We are also moved with astonishment, almost with incredulity, also with great anxiety, about what we have heard as to the forces of the Crown getting out of hand in Ireland. I am not speaking of what appears in the newspapers so much as of what many of us hear that in military opinion the conditions under Which the Army is kept in Ireland to-day are such as are undermining and must undermine morale and discipline. I withdraw my statement about the two years in face of what is happening now unless the Government can assume direct, real, and effective control of what is being done in Ireland. I wish them to have all powers of punishing crime and preventing crime, but I wish those powers to be exercised with real direction and control which is consistent with efficiency and discipline. Unless that can be done then I will meet what the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said last night by saying I agree it would be better that the forces of the Crown should be withdrawn.

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I will say no more on that bitter subject, but I should not like it to be supposed for many reasons that I had advocated that the forces of the Crown should be retained in Behind under such conditions as are existing at the present time. I had contemplated, at the time I said that, that if the Government made a real offer which appealed to moderate opinion in Nationalist Ireland the outrages and murders would have ceased, and that for the two years that followed the armed forces of the Crown would have had a comparatively quiet and easy task. I do not say that the fact that the Government had not made such an offer is any palliation of the murders which had taken place before. Nor is the fact that they have not yet made such an offer any palliation of the murders which have taken place recently. On the contrary, if such an offer had been made it would have been the duty of the Government still to do their utmost to discover and punish those who had committed the murders which had already taken place. But I did contemplate, and I believe I was right in contemplating at the time I wrote that, that if the Government had come forward with such an offer as I have been indicating the duties and the position of the forces of the Crown in Ireland would for those two years not have been what the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack assumed they would be—that they would have been comparatively satisfactory and easy.
Now I come to the actual Bill. I have said what I think would be the best method of procedure. I have said that in the present deplorable state of Ireland I am not sure that a Constituent Assembly or a Convention is practicable at the moment. And therefore I do not urge my preference for that method of procedure as a reason for voting against the present Bill. And I have a personal explanation to make to your Lordships for which I must apologise, but which I fear is inevitable. I am engaged to-morrow to make a speech on a public matter of interest but not of party controversy—I think hardly controversial at all—at Liverpool. I fear that I am to be the chief speaker. The meeting was fixed months ago to suit my convenience, and it would be most unfair for me to cancel all that at the last moment, unless indeed my single vote in this House was of such public importance that I thought it right to put the people on the spot to such great inconvenience.
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I therefore cannot be present to vote to-morrow evening, and I make that explanation for two reasons. One is that I hope your Lordships will feel that, if I am not present to-morrow evening after having obtruded a speech of my own in the debate, my absence will not arise from any discourtesy or indifference to other speakers. On the contrary, it is a matter of great regret to me that I cannot be present. But as I cannot record my vote I feel that I must ask your Lordships to let me explain a little in detail what I feel as to how I should vote.
I could not have voted for Lord Willoughby de Broke's Motion: I am not sure I should not have voted against it. I could not have voted for it for precisely the same reasons for whirl;—as he explained so frankly and honourably last night, as far as he himself is concerned —though he might vote for Lord Dunraven's Motion, he could not vote for any Motion the direct object of which was, not to defeat Home Rule, but to produce an enlarged Rome Rule Bill. Therefore I should be reluctant to give any vote which would give the Government the impression that this House was so divided in its opinion about the Irish question that it was impossible for the Government to make progress with any solution of it. I am sure that would not represent the general impression of the House. But if the Bill was defeated by people going into the Lobby for entirely opposite reasons, that would be the conclusion which the Government might justly draw.
On the other hand, what I should like to do is to vote for a Motion which would make the Government feel that it was difficult, if not impossible, to get this Bill through the House as it stands, but that a larger and a better Bill would have an easy and successful passage. That is the way I should desire to use my vote. And if it be that a Motion is before the House which will give the Government time to consider more especially the financial part, which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack told us last night under certain conditions he would be prepared to consider, that is the Motion for which I should desire to vote.
Now, let me explain why I feel so strongly about the Bill as it stands. First of all, it scents to we to stereotype partition. I was very much struck by the word "finality" in the Duke of Abercorn's

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speech last night. What did he mean by "finality?" This Bill has in it no finality: it has some potentialities. What did the noble Duke mean by "finality"? Did he mean that this Bill put Ulster in a position in which she would be done with further solutions of the Irish question—a position which she would maintain definitely? If so, then the Bill is going to be used to stereotype partition. I am quite sure that in partition there is no finality.
The other point on which the Bill falls short is finance. On finance I go further, perhaps, than many noble Lords are prepared to go who think the provisions of the Bill inadequate on finance. I would take the long view with regard to Ireland. If you look back into history— not the last few years, but into history—the balance on finance with regard to Ireland is heavily against us. I believe, even as a mere matter of accountancy, it can be shown that Ireland in the years when she was poor, with her dwindling population was paying an undue share. I do not say that it was intentional on our part, but it was the fact of a poor country being linked up with a rich country that made her suffer financially. If you are going into indirect matters, such as the suppression of Irish trade, you go through a melancholy time when this country was growing in population and wealth and Ireland was diminishing in population and getting poorer, and the financial balance, if you take a real and just view of the whole of the transactions between the two Islands, is heavily against us.
To this day even moderate Irishmen believe that the reason why financial control is not given in this Bill is that we are still anxious that Ireland should not have her fair opportunities and fair scope. You have to get rid of that suspicion. In my opinion the best way of getting rid of it would be to treat Ireland as a self-governing Dominion, and to say frankly to her that we would take nothing from Ireland except what Ireland is prepared voluntarily to contribute. I know we shall be told by those who look at the last few years or at the present day that this is unheard of generosity, and entirely unjustifiable. If you take the long view of history I believe it is not generous; I believe it is not more than just. If you are to overcome all this old bitterness in Ireland, if, in the spirit of the conclusion
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of the speech of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, you are to seek for real reconciliation, I believe it will be not only financially just but essential to the spirit of the whole settlement that you should make a clean sweep of the financial question and say you will take what Ireland offers voluntarily, and that you will not make financial conditions, or anything short of absolute financial and fiscal freedom in Ireland a condition of the settlement. I would go as far as that.
The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack dropped a very significant sentence on finance last night. I do not expect him or the Government to consider so far-reaching a financial proposition as I have put forward, but he did discuss in his speech the question of fiscal autonomy for Ireland. I understood him to be discussing the question of Customs and Excise and fiscal autonomy. He made no promise but if I remember his words correctly he said that if peace were offered the Government would examine and reexamine most carefully this financial question. If only the Government would go a little further and, instead of saying that if peace were offered they would give fiscal freedom to Ireland, would put it the other way round and give fiscal freedom to Ireland in the hope that it would produce peace, something might be made of this Bill. They must go further than they have done. The mere fact that the Lord Chancellor went so far as he did last night raises in my mind the question as to whether there is not yet time for the Government to make one or two alterations in their Bill which might just make the whole difference with regard to its reception in Nationalist Ireland.
I come now to the more serious part of the Irish question. Really if anything can be done to make the difference between this Bill proving a settlement or being a failure, the issue at stake is enormous. The Lord Chancellor spoke last night of the distrust and dislike felt towards us in some parts of the world, and he said frankly that this distrust and dislike was due to misapprehension—what he said was indefensible misapprehension, but still misapprehension—in connection with our treatment of Ireland. It is true that Ireland is a domestic question; as far as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is concerned it is a purely domestic question. But it does differ from all other domestic questions, and it transcends them in

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importance as regards our international relations. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in replying to Lord Loreburn a few days ago, denied that we were unpopular in the world at all, and he said that he did not find it in the demeanour of Ambassadors and Ministers who came to see him. That is the last place in which you would expect to find it. You will not find it in the direct correspondence with other Governments, and if any foreign Government did raise the Irish question the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs would be perfectly entitled to reply that if the British Government within the boundaries of the United Kingdom was making mistakes, or was not acting satisfactorily, it was the business of the people of this country to correct those mistakes and that any other position was entirely inconsistent with our being a democracy.
But none the less it is quite title that though the Irish question is not, and I trust never will be, one with which the Foreign Office is officially concerned, it is as a matter of fact a greater obstacle as far as we are concerned to most important international good will and to that international public opinion on which good will depends than any of the questions which are dealt; with directly at the Foreign Office. The Irish race is a unit. Only a small proportion of it is in Ireland, and increasingly in the most important parts of the world as long as Ireland is irreconcilable that influence will be a sinister, malignant, and a detrimental one in our international affairs, and it will not only be in foreign countries but in. our self-governing Dominions as well.
It is quite true that at the present moment the self-governing Dominions as they read of these intolerable murders in Ireland, which make any dealing with the Irish question so difficult, are entirely in sympathy with anything the Government may do to punish criminals or any powers they may use provided they are used for the punishment of crime. But this question of murder is one which has been recurrent in Ireland and it is transitory. The abiding case of the Irish question is not in these things which are horrible symptoms of it. It lies much deeper, and more and more there has been growing in our self-governing Dominions in recent years a feeling of surprise, and they ask, Why cannot you do for Ireland something
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of the same sort of thing as is done for ourselves? On the settlement of the Irish question depends, I think, not merely a great deal in foreign relations but something in our relations with our self-governing Dominions.
Now how is this Bill going to work? It is accepted by Ulster, I am not sure that it is wanted by Ulster, but it is accepted by Ulster and Ulster will put it into operation. It is rejected by the rest of Ireland, and the rest of Ireland as far as we can see will not put it into operation. What will be the position? Ulster governing itself; Crown Colony government for the rest of Ireland as far as we are concerned—that is to say, governing the rest of Ireland by force. You cannot govern Ireland by force continually. You may put down a definite outbreak by force; that is the sort of thing you can do with the bayonet. But the saying attributed to Prince Bismarck remains true to-day, that you can do anything with the bayonet except sit upon it. What will happen if you have Crown Colony government for the rest of Ireland outside Ulster under this Bill? Will Ulster have a quiet time? There is a large minority in Ulster, and with the rest of Ireland seething with discontent the minority in Ulster is not likely to be very peaceable. I do not believe that either Ulster or the rest of Ireland can get a fair chance unless they both start together, and if you are to have Crown Colony government in the rest of Ireland while Ulster is working this Bill you will not only have trouble in Ulster but you will be playing into the hands of the extremists in Ulster and you will be playing into the hands of the extremists in the rest of Ireland.
I would, in conclusion, make an appeal to the Government. There are fears that if this Bill goes through as it is it will play into the hands of extremists in Ireland, and the state of things may get, I will not say worse, but will continue bad. There are also hopes that if it was a larger Bill improved in some particulars it might, instead of playing into the hands of the extremists, get the better of the extremists. Perhaps some people who know Ireland will tell me I do not know Ireland, and that any optimism of that kind is foolish. I do not base it on my own Opinion. I base it on the opinion of the Southern Unionists who do know Ireland and who live amongst the people

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in that part of Ireland; I take their view. They are the people who have most at stake, whose position is most precarious and most dangerous; they are the people—the Unionist minority in the South of Ireland—who cannot protect themselves, and they are the people who have most right to appeal to us to have their view considered. What is that view? As I understand it, it is that there is a vast moderate opinion in that part of Ireland which would assert itself if only there was a Bill which appealed to them. I do not believe you can get over the extremists in Ireland by force. I believe the only way in which you can overcome them is by bringing into action that moderate opinion which the Southern Unionists tell us does exist in Ireland. But you must arm that moderate opinion with the weapon of a settlement that really appeals to them. At present they are defenceless; they have nothing which enables them to assert themselves against the extremists, to bring over people to their own side. I believe the whole opportunity now is to make this Bill sufficiently large, sufficiently generous, or, as I would call it, just, to appeal to that moderate opinion, and in that way and that way alone I believe can you really overcome the extremists in Ireland who say they are irreconcilable.
I listened to the concluding appeal of the noble and learned Lord's speech from the Woolsack last night with profound feeling. His concluding words were very eloquent; they were inspired as I believe by sincere feeling; they spoke with hope and with sympathy of the Irish people. He spoke of them as a people "individual in its genius, tenacious in love or hate, captivating in its nobler moods," and his desire for reconciliation was intense. Nothing could have been better than the words he used. They moved me greatly as I heard them, and I am sure they must have moved others too. If only the Government would rise to something like the same height in their Bill and in their offer to Ireland as the Lord Chancellor did at the end of his speech! The words were worthy of a better Bill. Cannot we get a little encouragement from history? The Lord Chancellor said we had inherited a great Empire. So we have. This generation has inherited the. greatest Empire the world has ever known. That Empire has a history. It has not been without its reverses. It had one blow which at the tune was thought to be deadly—the loss
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of the American Colonies. What was the lesson of that loss? It came from not giving I in time and not giving enough. That was the warning.
Have we ever lost from giving too much? Of course, the Empire is a large term; you conic to native races in Africa to whom you can give no self-government, and there are degrees of fitness for self-government throughout the Empire. I am talking now of the Empire in the sense of its assembly of white communities. Have we ever lost by giving too much? I take the last instance of South Africa. One of the first things the Government of which I was a member did when it came into office was to grant complete self-governing Dominion rule to South Africa. We were blamed by many people at the time. It was thought to be too large; we were doing too much at once; the bitterness of the Boer War was too recent. We ourselves were confident that it was the right thing and the only thing to do, and that by being courageous, generous if you like to call it so, giving unqualifiedly, we were doing a thing that was safe. As we look back on it now the thing we did not only was safe, but it was done only just in time. If we had delayed, what would the effect have been? The time after all, considering the racial bitterness that there was in South Africa at the time when we gave self-government to them, was short. Before long we found ourselves involved in deadly peril, and when we were involved in that peril South Africa, owing solely to that grant of self-government, was not an anxiety to us but a help. I would say again, In all our history have we ever lost by giving too much? I would say to the Government, "I believe now you have an opportunity; it is not too late even yet. If you leave the Bill as it is I see nothing but the trouble in Ireland which I have described, and I see no prospect of reconciliation; but if you improve the Bill I do see a real prospect." In spite of what may appear to-day to some of us, I believe what Lord Dunraven said last night to be true—that there is an opportunity, and that there would be a response. I would not say to the Government, "Take warning from the history of the Empire," so much as I would say to them, "Take courage from the history of the Empire." It is not only from our failures that we need to take warning. We have had our successes, from which we may take courage; and I would say to the Government, "Do not

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throw away this opportunity, but make a greater effort to take advantage of it." In Irish history we have thrown away our opportunities before. Now, at this moment, the Government have the whole matter in their hands as no Government has yet had. If they like to introduce a larger Bill they can undoubtedly carry it through Parliament. They are in a position such as no other Government has ever had in the country. The need for taking advantage of the opportunity is greater than ever it wits, and my last word to the Government would be to implore them, while yet there is time, not to throw away the chance of giving to your Lordships. House an opportunity of passing a verdict upon a larger and a better Bill.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I feel very great. diffidence in following the magnificent speech to which you have just. listened. We may differ M. opinion as to the policy which the noble Viscount has put forward, but f do not think there will be the slightest difference of opinion in any part of the House that the loftiness of the tone, the broadness of tie outlook, and the statesmanlike character of the utterances to which we have just listened have never been surpassed, at any rate, in my time, in your Lordships' House. But we must, if I may say so to the noble Viscount, not be misled by the skill of his oratory into forgetting the essential elements of this problem. He related to your Lordships with the greatest frankness all the history of the successive failures to solve this Home Rule controversy, but does it not occur to him that it is a very wonderful thing that so many men of the highest ability—men whom he has been delighted to follow in past times—have tried their hands at solving the problem on these lines and failed. He admits that they failed. He admits that the policy they pursued was in essential principles a policy which did not succeed, and which looking back at he says ought not to have succeeded. The reason, of course, is that the essential conditions in Ireland are such that a solution on these lines is in the highest, degree difficult.
I was not quite sure, as I listened to the noble Viscount, how far he would have us go. At first he seemed to speak of limitations in the length of the concessions which he would be prepared to make, but as he warmed up towards the end of his speech there seemed to be no limit beyond
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which he would not be prepared to go, because he said, Have we ever made the mistake of giving too much? I would venture most respectfully to suggest to him that the reason why we have never solved the Irish problem, hitherto at any rate, upon these lines, is that the problem on these lines is insoluble. You cannot get rid of the fact that you have in Ireland two races, two religions, two sections of opinion, which stand up in sharp contrast to each other, with all the friction of history behind them, with no appearance of drawing together even now, as you may judge from the speech made last night by my noble friend the Duke of Abercorn, and which are not to be defined by the arbitrary lines of the six counties. When you have drawn your imaginary line and divided Ireland in two, you will have a Protestant minority in the South with a Catholic minority in the North. You will have the same difficulties on a smaller scale, but the same difficulties as you had before.
The other great difficulty, of course, is the geographical position of Ireland in respect of England. That, of course, the noble Viscount dealt with, and very effectively, but it makes an essential difference between the treatment of Ireland and the treatment, say, of South Africa. We cannot give to Ireland either positive or virtual independence. The thing is impossible. Our own safety forbids it. If this Bill ever becomes operative, what we must look to inevitably as the ultimate end of the Constitution of our country is something on Federal lines. There is no other issue. Once you grant self-government to Ireland you will have to grant self-government to Scotland and Wales. Therefore it is of the very essence of statesmanship riot to have conditions established in Ireland which would be wholly inapplicable to Scotland or Wales. You are bound absolutely geographically by those limits, past which you cannot go.
I will not, my Lords, dwell upon that aspect of the subject any longer, for many reasons, but for this among others—that I gather that the noble Viscount did not see his way to an immediate solution on the lines he suggested. He admitted that the condition of Ireland was such that the very able proposals which he put forward in his celebrated letter to The Times were no longer applicable. He did not think that the condition of order in Ireland made, it

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possible to look for a solution on the lines he suggested for the moment. Indeed, he thought that the assembly of a Convention was altogether out of the question as things stand. In those circumstances surely we must deal with the Bill which is before us. We must deal with the provisions of the Bill before us, and, though they are very attractive, not with the ultimate solutions to which the noble Viscount may look.
Looking at the Bill before us, what is the most striking feature of the debate to which we have listened hitherto Why that no one, so far as I have heard the debate, in his heart thoroughly approves of the provisions of this Bill. The speaker who came nearest to cordial approval was the Duke of Abercorn, and I think your Lordships will agree that one could perceive in his tone a certain hesitation. There were the ghosts of the old battles which we fought together for the Union. There was, perhaps, the thought of the three counties which the Ulster Party think it their duty—I do not question that they think it most convincingly—to abandon. Those considerations must make any Ulsterman at the present moment hesitate, and I am sure that the noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack does not thoroughly approve of the provisions of this Bill. Ito protests in a most striking passage his adherence to his old Unionist faith, and it is only because he is satisfied that the condition of Parties in this country is such that his old Unionist faith is impracticable, that he reluctantly assents to the provisions of this Bill. The other speakers disapproved and they did so for this reason. This Bill can only work, if it is worked at all, through the loyal cooperation of the people of Ireland. That of course was at the back of the noble Viscount's criticisms, and it was at the back really of every speech. This Bill can only work through the loyal co-operation of the people of Ireland, and that loyal co-operation, for the moment at any rate, is entirely lacking. Those of your Lordships who spoke were convinced of that.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Absent in the South.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My noble friend corrects me. May I remind your Lordships of the condition of things when last you had to consider a Govern
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ment Home Rule Bill? That was in 1912 and the years which succeeded it, ending in the Act of 1914. How different was the situation then. In one respect it was the same—that the House of Lords was averse from carrying Home Rule—but in all other respects how different it was! Those were the days of Mr. Redmond. Mr. Redmond led the majority of the Irish people. Mr. Redmond was a loyal subject of His Majesty. Mr. Redmond's policy was not a policy of separation. Mr. Redmond practically assented to the Bill of 1914. Be even assented, I think, practically to the separate treatment of Ulster. The only question which was left was what area was to be included in the separate treatment of Ulster.
What happened after that? I would say to your Lordships that it is impossible to ignore the history of Ireland since 1914. I know it is sometimes said in the newspapers that we are bound to pay no attention to it. I cannot think why. Why should we not pay attention to facts which have been brought before us so prominently as they have been since 1914? There was the rebellion of 1916, a most astonishing rebellion. Your Lordships will realise, I am sure, that at the time of that rebellion Home Rule was certain in Ireland. Mr. Redmond had successfully steered his ship into harbour and the fact of the cooperation of Ireland in the war, if it had taken place, would have made Home Rule perfectly certain. Yet the Irish did not co-operate. All the hopes—I do not think he had many—of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack as to the co-operation of Ireland can be tested by their attitude in 1916. What followed? They refused to fight England's battles. Not all of them; there were some splendid Irishmen of course, but as a community they refused to subject themselves to the same obligations to fight the common enemy that we all had to assume and all were proud to assume. That was not all. It was not merely that they would not fight for England. The faction in Ireland which controlled Ireland was in league with the enemy. That cannot be doubted. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and noble Lords. on the Treasury Bench will not doubt it.
We know it upon the authority of the Prime Minister, because he spoke of the conspiracy of 1918. He told us that—
"In 1918 there was an Army of over 150,000 men enlisted, who were engaged in a treasonable

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conspiracy, who were engaged in negotiations with the Germans, in correspondence with thorn, who had undertaken to attack Great Britain two months after the German offensive, This is the paradise in Ireland to which he wishes to bring us. Back—
"He" was Mr. Asquith I think, but I do not wish to say anything about Mr. Asquith—
"Give us back the good old days of 1918! That was the time we discovered documents in the pockets of the men who at that moment—"
Your Lordships will mark these words—
"and are now the leaders of the South and West of Ireland, documents showing that there was an arrangement between theta and the Germans to attack us at the moment of our greatest peril."
Are we not to pay attention to a fact of that kind, vouched to us by the Prime minister himself? What is true of the intrigues with Germany is probably true of intrigues with Bolshevist Russia. I cannot on that side quote anything so conclusive, bat your Lordships were present at a debate in this House last slimmer when my noble friend the Duke of Northumberland made a most striking speech in which he traced in detail the connection between the Irish Nationalists and the Bolshevists in Russia.
What other lessons have we been taught by Ireland since 1914? There are all the murders and outrages of the present day, culminating in an outrage so barbarous and so cruel that it has shocked the country from one end to the other. The relevance of these outrages is not in their extremity. That is not the point. There are scoundrels in every country. The point is that the people of Ireland, or a very large body of them, are accessories to the murders. They are either accessories before the fact or accessories after the fact. You cannot get them to show any public detestation of these outrages. Indeed, even the leaders of the Roman Catholic. Church in Ireland seem to hang back when called upon to denounce, as you would have thought they would have been ready to denounce these outrages. We must take note of these facts. These events have taken place since Home Rule—not the same Home Rule exactly as is contained in this Bill, but much on the lines of this Bill—was offered to the people of Ireland and practically assured to them.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: It was on the Statute Book.
THE MARQUESS OP SALISBURY: It was on the Statute Book, and they could have had it. But they repudiated it in this positive way. They showed by their conduct that they did not want Home Rule of that kind and would not have it. It is impossible to get away from those facts. I do not believe that any member of your Lordships' House thinks at this moment that the Irish are fit for self-government. Certainly the Government do not think so, because they have inserted in their Bill a clause to deal with the case where the South of Ireland would be unwilling to work the Bill. That is an extraordinary mark of want of confidence in their own proposals. They anticipate that half the members of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland may not be elected and willing to take the oath of allegiance. I am almost inclined to say that the Government hope that will be the case, because I am quite sure they do not want to put Home Rule into force in the South of Ireland at the present moment, and that is the only thing, if this Bill passes as it stands—the reluctance of half the members of Southern Ireland to be elected and take the oath—which will stand between the Government and putting the Bill into force in Southern Ireland.
The noble and learned Lord said that he had some confidence that Sinn Fein members of Parliament would not take the oath of allegiance. I have no such confidence. I believe it to be true that every solicitor in Ireland takes the oath of allegiance, and I am sure that every borough magistrate does. I am certain, for example, that the late Lord Mayor of Cork had taken the oath of allegiance. If the noble and learned Lord relies upon that, I ant afraid he relies upon very flimsy support. But the noble and learned Lord did not altogether rely upon that. He said that if the Southern Irish members come to the Dublin Parliament and qualify, and if they use their power in order to defeat the objects of the Bill, then we must reconquer Ireland. That is a pleasant prospect, is it not, when you are asked to pass the Second Reading of a Bill! What the noble and learned Lord expects is that the oath of allegiance may stand between hint and bringing his Bill into force, but if the oath of allegiance proves to be a broken reed and the Irish refuse to work the Bill, then we must reconquer Ireland. I do not think you Lordships will be content

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to accept a Bill which can only be justified at such a price as that.
I have tried to give your Lordships reasons why in my humble judgment the Irish are at this moment unfit for self-government, and I should have thought no one could doubt the conclusion. But let me consider for a moment what will happen if you try to put into force a Bill the working of which depends entirely upon the loyal co-operation of the people of Ireland, and you have not got that loyal co-operation. Look not at the general statements but at the actual provisions of the Bill. Take, for example, the position of the Judges. Under the Bill—I speak with great diffidence in the presence of the noble and learned Lord, because I may have misread the provisions, for it is a difficult Bill to read—I understand that the Judges are to be appointed, even after the Bill becomes operative, by the Imperial authorities. Let us assume that is so. If not, the case is made worse. Upon the Judges will depend a great deal. Upon the Judges will depend the protection of loyal subjects who are not in sympathy with the views of the majority of Irishmen. How will they enforce their decisions? They will enforce their decisions, as Judges always must, by the agents of the law—the police. Are the police to be in the hands of the Imperial authority? Not at all The police are to be in the hands of the National Government, so that the Judges will be in this position. If they find—as they will do, being men of honour appointed by the Imperial authority—judgments in favour of the loyal subjects of the Crown, and it is not the wish and intention of the Government authority in Ireland that the Judges' judgments should be carried out, the result will be that the police will not carry them out. The Judges will be absolutely powerless, because the police will be in the hands of an antagonistic authority.
Take again the control of the Ports. Under the Bill, Customs are to be in the hands of the Imperial authority. How are the Imperial officers to enforce the revenue laws unless they have control of the ports? It is clear that they must have control of the ports, and if so they must have troops to protect them and to enforce their decrees. Is that a system which would work? It would work perfectly if there were loyal co-operation between the local and the Imperial Govern-
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ment, but it will not work if there is antagonism between them. It is clear that it would be impossible to enforce the revenue laws unless there were control of the ports by the Imperial authority. The friction which would arise between the Imperial authorities in the port and the national police both in the port and outside can be better imagined than described.
And what is true of the revenue is true in a much more important matter—that is, the protection of the ports in time of war. If the ports must be protected by Imperial authority in time of war then they must be in the hands of the troops. Here again we have the difficulty that we may have—and judging from the history of Ireland since 1914 we probably should have—a hostile Ireland thwarting in every way the efforts of the Imperial authority in the ports and harbours, and indeed along the coasts of Ireland. The noble Viscount who has just sat down has told your Lordships how vital it is that the control of the sea should be in the hands of the Imperial authority, and the control of the sea, of course, involves control of the coasts from which ships are fed. Therefore it appears to me that this instance will convince any candid man of the hopelessness of governing Ireland on these lines so long as Ireland is disaffected.
I will take other examples very shortly. The Bill prohibits the Irish from raising armed forces. I understand that it is also prohibited to the Irish Parliaments to pass sectarian legislation. How are you to enforce this prohibition? Who is to enforce it? On what could the Government rely l I do not know. I speak with diffidence, because I do not know what the Government may be able to say in reply, but as far as I am concerned I see no means of preventing armed forces being raised in Ireland. The noble Viscount, I believe, said just now that he did not mind them having armed forces. I am sure that all of us would strongly object, to seeing possibly hostile armed forces raised in Ireland.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
THE MARQUESS or SALISBURY: Sectarian legislation in regard to education and marriages is prohibited. How are you going to enforce the prohibition? Is it not clear that you cannot do it without the loyal co-operation of the Irish? I

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do not know upon what the Government relies. I might mention that export bounties are prohibited, but how are you going to enforce that prohibition? People sometimes say, "There is the Lord Lieutenant who is an Imperial officer, who is tinder Imperial control, and he will be ordered to refuse his assent to Bills of which the Imperial Government disapprove." I do not know whether that is contended by the Government. The noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack delivered a magnificent speech last night which I greatly admired, lucid in all its particulars and very eloquent, but I think he barely touched upon the Lord Lieutenant, if at all. I did not expect him to touch upon everything, but I did mark that omission. What is the position of the Lord Lieutenant? The noble and learned Viscount who spoke last night said that the Lord Lieutenant would act upon the advice of his local Ministers. Poor man! He would have to act upon advice of three sets of Ministers, and they might be quite inconsistent. He has to act upon the advice of the Southern Ministers, upon the advice of the Northern Ministers, and upon the advice of the Imperial Ministers, and they might none of them agree.
It is said that there will be no overlapping, but I think your Lordships will recognise that there will be overlapping. There will be all sorts of cases between the South and the North where legislation which is proposed to be passed in the Northern Parliament will affect the South, and legislation proposed to be passed in the Southern parliament will affect the North. What is the poor Lord Lieutenant to do? The Southern Ministers will come to him and say, "You must give your assent to this Bill." The Northern Ministers will come to him and say, "If you do we shall resign"—and what is he to do? What answer is there in democratic government when Ministers who have the support of a majority in constituent. Parliaments, say they will resign? There is no answer.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: There is the example of the Dominion Parliaments.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The Dominion Parliaments are friendly Parliaments—that is the difference. What is the Lord Lieutenant to do? He cannot send for another Government because that other Government would not have the support of the majority of the particular House of Commons.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: I think the noble Marquess is under a misapprehension. In Canada, for instance, where there is a distribution of both executive and legislative powers, no Bill which is passed by a Provincial Parliament can become effective unless it is also assented to by the Governor-General. He does net normally interfere, it is true. The advice of the Provincial Minister determines the Lieutenant-Governor in giving his assent, but the Bill has to go to the Governor-General for assent, and sometimes on the advice of Dominion Ministers he has to disallow it. It is exactly the same situation.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The British Constitution is full of these anomalies, and we are quite familiar with them. If I had time I could remind your Lordships of any number which exist in this country, all of which have this in common—that if the particular authorities choose to use their power they can make the machine unworkable. The House of Commons was broken down in Mr. Parnell's time because the Irish chose to use their powers to the fullest extent. You cannot work any of these systems, therefore, unless there is cooperation and loyal feeling between the various constituent bodies and unless there is a system of give and take. Looking at the history of Ireland since 1914 can you say that there is likely to be anything of the kind if and when this Bill becomes law and is put into force in Ireland? If you rely upon the Lord Lieutenant to stand between you and disaster he cannot do it. He must give way. Otherwise it is quite within the power of the majority in the Irish Parliaments to make the machine unworkable. As in big things by the assistance of this power of resignation, and in small things by the power of the Executive to direct the police not to carry out laws of the Imperial Parliament of which they do not approve, so the power must pass into the hands of the local authority, and nothing we can do can stop it unless we adopt the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and re-conquer Ireland.
I have tried to indicate to your Lordships the reasons why it appears to me that such a Bill as this cannot 1,e brought into operation at this moment with any chance of success. Let me ask one further question, Who wants this Bill? I believe Ulster wants it, rather reluctantly; but nobody else wants it. Not a single speaker in

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your Lordships' House up to now has said that anybody really and cordially wants it, and it is quite certain that the Southern Irish have indicated that they do not want it In the course of his eloquent speech last night the noble and learned Lord quoted my right hon. friend Sir Edward Carson, and quoted him very effectively. The noble and learned Lord was directing himself to the argument that the decision of the representatives of Ulster must be accepted as decisive of their views, and he quoted these words of Sir Edward Carson in support —
"Where will you get a better method of self-determination than this? Do you think it would be a better self-determination to say to the Irish people, You go by the majority and set up something that the people of the North of Ireland loathe and detest, and then, if they do not accept it, go and shoot them down? Is that self-determination?"
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If that is true of the North of Ireland it is true of the South of Ireland; and I venture to ask the noble and learned Lord, if you go and set up something that the people of the South of Ireland loathe and detest, and then, if they do not accept it, go and shoot them down, is that self-determination? Of course, it is not self-determination; and this Bill which is put forward in the name of self-determination is not by any means a fulfilment of that great principle. That appears to me to be another important consideration.
We want to know two things. The first is whether Ireland is fit to have this Bill in operation? The second is, Does Ireland want the Bill at all? Those are the two questions which seem to me to lie at the very foundation of the controversy. Your Lordships may well ask after what I have said whether I intend to vote against the Second Reading. I do not. I am not prepared to resist the Second Reading of the Bill, and I will tell your Lordships why.
The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack reminded your Lordships of the position in which we are left by the fact that the Act of 1911 is upon the Statute Book, and though I did not agree with all his speech I did agree with that passage in it. When the Act of 1914 passed there was practically an agreement among all parties that Ulster should not be made subject to a Dublin Parliament. But the Act of 1914 does subject it to a Dublin Parliament, and it was only the accident of the war
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which prevented the amending Statute being passed under which she would have achieved separate treatment. But it did fail to pass, and Ulster is left, so far as the Act on the Statute Book is concerned, under a Dublin Parliament. And supposing—I think the noble and learned Lord said so, it is true—supposing the Turkish Treaty were ratified to-morrow, then forthwith—I do not know whether immediately or within a month or two- -the Dublin Parliament would be set up, he writ would be issued, and, contrary to what amounted to, I think, a pledge given by all parties to Ulster, she would be made subject to the Dublin Parliament. I am not prepared to face that alternative. I do not think we could do that, and therefore I cannot vote against the Second Reading of the Bill.
But your Lordships will realise that I am not an enthusiastic supporter of the Bill. And when we come to Committee it seems to me that your Lordships would be well advised to see that the two conditions which I have ventured to lay down as absolutely essential should be fulfilled, namely, that there should be some means of ensuring that the South of Ireland is fit to allow the Bill to come into operation; and, in the second place, that there should be some means of finding out whether the people in the South of Ireland want the Bill to come into operation at the present time. For those two conditions it seems to me we ought to provide.
It would be perfectly possible, of course, by an amendment to take care that the actual operation of the Bill should depend upon the consent of both Houses of Parliament—the consent, that is to say, not only of the House of Commons but of your Lordships' House as well. The Bill, as it stands, is to come into force upon the appointed day. The noble and learned Lord pointed out that there is a little margin allowed one way or the other, but only a little margin. On the appointed day, or a few months earlier or a few months later, the Bill as it stands must come into operation. He hopes, of course—I trust he will forgive me for saying so, for I cannot help thinking he hopes—that there will not be sufficient members taking the oath in the Southern Parliament to fulfil the conditions of Clause 70, and so the Government may be relieved of the difficulty of bringing the Act into force. But, as I have shown, I do not think we

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can be satisfied with Clause 70. The noble Viscount who has just silt down has shown your Lordships what his opinion is of governing Ireland as a Crown Colony. But there are other objections to Clause 70, besides those which he has enumerated. I may just instance the fact that the operation of Clause 70 depends upon the discretion of the Government. It may not be the discretion of this Government, it may be the discretion of some future Government—a Government; perhaps drawn from a political party with which this Government are as much out of sympathy as I am. Indeed, judging from the past record of their government of Ireland and what I must call the awful mess that they have made of it I am not prepared to trust; even this Government to decide when this Bill should come into operation.
Those are difficulties in the road of Clause 70. I say that we must take care that the discretion to decide the moment when the Irish are fit to take upon themselves these responsibilities must be vested, not in the Executive Government; but in the two Houses of Parliament. And I say on the other side that we must take some, special means of seeing whether the representatives of Southern Ireland are anxious that the Bill should operate as law. It is in that sense and by that spirit that I for one shall be guided when the Division is called upon this Amendment. I need not tell you, my Lords, that I am still a convinced Unionist. I believe that it is in the Union that the safety of Ireland really lies, and not only the safety of Ireland but the safety of the Empire which I love.
THE MARQUESS OP LONDONDERRY: Lords, it, will appear a paradox that one who has always vehemently and strenuously opposed Route Rule for Ireland, and who is more or less traditionally associated with the policy of the Union, should stand before your Lordships to advocate this Bill. I need hardly say that nothing but the gravest reasons could have altered a view in my mind which at one time I certainly thought was crystallised and unalterable. But I should be wrong indeed were I not at once to say that, whereas in former years I optimistically believed that a patient and indifferent administration of the Union would eventually achieve success in Ireland, I am now compelled to realise that patience seems gone, and that the adminis
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tration of the Government of Ireland freed front all those influences which occupy men's minds in political life seems to me now to be an idea Utopian in its character and unworkable in practice.
But I have no intention of standing here in a white sheet, and I feel there is no need for it. Not only have I no regrets for having felt myself in opposition to Home Rule Bills in the past, but if I had to decide over again I should take up exactly the same position. For whereas those other Bills for the better government of Ireland in my opinion have never really contained the possibilities of bringing peace and contentment to Ireland, I feel that this measure does contain the germs, however small they be, of bringing about that necessary eventuality. I shall endeavour to put before your Lordships briefly the reasons which have made me come to this conclusion. But I am convinced of this, that nothing but the wholehearted support and the loyal co-operation of every one will remove the black cloud which now hovers so menacingly over Ireland.
This is no time for recrimination, and I feel that the difficulties which have occurred in Ireland are due to the fact that Irishmen have always brooded over the past, that they have always considered wrongs of centuries ago and have not given a free rein to their imagination or endeavoured to look into the future to see what they could do as Irishmen to ameliorate the condition of their country. Here is a chance which throws on Irishmen themselves the responsibilities for which they have clamoured so long, and which their record in all countries of the world except Ireland shows they are capable of shouldering successfully.
I listened with the greatest respect and interest to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Grey. I felt myself fully in agreement with him on many points, and I can only say that at the close of his speech I was somewhat disappointed that he did not more definitely say what were the larger and fuller provisions which would achieve that difference which be said existed between the present Government and himself in regard to the question of Ireland. He went over the past, and with his usual fairness admitted at once what he believed had been the failures in regard to the successful prosecution of a policy for the benefit of Ireland. He said that the position of Ulster had never

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been considered as it should have been. I believe that is one of the reasons why this Bill may achieve success. One of the difficulties in the past and one of the drawbacks to former Home Rule Bills has been the fact that the position, the ideas, and the sympathies of Ulster have never been considered. Where we have erred in the past is that we have never attached sufficient weight to the sterilisation of effort in the whole of Ireland. For many generations we have seen men capable of discharging high offices in this country and in Ireland standing aloof for some reason or other and not taking that part in the government of their own country which their abilities fully justified. It is a misunderstanding on these two points which has really been the drawback to a settlement of the Irish question.
It is not my intention to weary your Lordships with my view of how the policy of the Union could have succeeded judged by the test of peace in Ireland. After the events of the closing years of the eighteenth century there was no other policy possible. The method of the inception of that policy, judged by modern standards, may seem difficult to defend, although I believe I could do so to your Lordships' satisfaction, and if I were to dilate on the harm done by the postponement of Catholic Emancipation, advocated so strenuously by Pitt and Castlereagh as a necessary corollary but opposed and unfortunately successfully opposed by George HI, I should be raking up the past and be doing exactly what I am asking your Lordships particularly not to do. I will only say this, that I agree entirely with the Lord Chancellor in his belief that the policy of the Union is by far the best policy, but that the twenty years of administration of that policy by one Party convinced of its eventual success, is something for which in the quick changes of political life it is imposible to hope.
The situation I am endeavouring to review is Ireland in 1920. At this moment we are bound to confess that public opinion has ceased to operate in Ireland. We see in Ireland a country in which terrorism has a strangle hold; a country in which human life is of no value—in a word, a country in which the situation is the antithesis of that which humanity and civilisation seek throughout the world to establish; and events described in the newspapers in the last few days show that am taking no exaggerated view. It
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may be said that if the concentrated public opinion of this country, shocked beyond measure by the situation across the Irish Channel, was directed solely to the reestablishment of the due observance of the law by the drastic method of overwhelming military intervention, you might, in fact you would, re-establish that due observance and respect; you might very possibly lay the foundations of future peace and prosperity. But I feel that if any other method is possible—and I look on this Bill as another method—we should arrive at a fruition of our hopes in a far shorter space of time than by this forcible means. Whether that is the best policy or not, you will find that public opinion is not concentrated on Ireland. You will find that men's minds, here at all events, are occupied with other things. You will find their minds are occupied with all those varied problems which are the necessary and obvious concomitants of the greatest upheaval which the world in the late war has ever seen. Ireland is one of those problems, but only one. To those whose information is only drawn from the newspapers it is by no means the most important of those problems, but to us who live in Ireland, who love Ireland, this problem transcends all others in importance. I venture to go further than that, and to say that on our successful solution of this problem depends not only the future happiness of Ireland but also the very existence of the British Empire. The gaze of the Empire is directed on Ireland while those nearer home are inclined to ignore her. The Empire wonders why, when the British race have been so successful in all other quarters of the world, they should have failed, or seemed to have failed, so signally in Ireland. That is why I am prepared to discard all shibboleths, to stand as an advocate of the policy contained in this Bill. My purpose is to find some system on which the greater number can more or less agree, and devote what time and energy I have to the successful promotion of that policy.
I draw two main distinctions between this Bill and other Bills for the better Government of Ireland. The first is that there is no ulterior motive in this Bill, and by that I mean there is no question of satisfying a turbulent section in the House of Commons. There is no element of a bargain for the purpose of gaining additional support for measures supported by one and opposed by, the other of the

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two great political Parties which have dominated political life in this country under different names for over two hundred ears. When I say this I am not referring to one particular Party or the other; I am speaking as an Irishman, and I have felt that one of the great drawbacks to prosperity and contentment in Ireland is the fact that Ireland has been the pawn in British Party politics, and that the Irish,. vote has always been a temptation to one Party or the other to use it for their own assistance regardless of what effect that might have in Ireland, I believe that this Bill is a genuine effort to understand the underlying motives of Irish agitation and to associate all Irishmen directly with the government of I heir country. It may be said that this opportunity of associating all Irishmen with the government of their country has always existed. I agree; but advantage has not always been taken of it, and instead of a loyal, prosperous, and united country we find instead in Ireland the darkest spot at the moment in the British Empire.
We have seen litany solutions put forward apart from the perseverance in the policy of the Union. Those solutions have ranged from what has been known as "gas and water" Home Rule to a full-blown Irish Republic, but none of these solutions has ever recognised the obvious and established fact which in my humble opinion governs the whole situation, and that is the existence in Ireland of two races, the cleavage roughly following the two professions of Faith. The fear of the ascendancy of the one over the other has always been uppermost in men's minds, and this everlasting anxiety, fostered sometimes genuinely and honestly by fanatics on both sides and sometimes for political motives, has been responsible for lamentable prejudices which lately have resulted in so much bloodshed.
I have always been one of those whose belief in the Union was increased and stimulated by the theory that actual unity in Ireland might be impossible, but that the fusion of the two races in the British House of Commons for the purposes of government held out by far the best chances of success. Now we propose to establish that fusion in a Council, and to separate the North from the South by the existence of a Parliament in each centre. That, my Lords, is the second distinction which I draw between
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this Bill and all others which have been brought forward for the same object.
Many hard words have been uttered with regard to the action of that section belonging to the portion of Ireland with which I have the honour to be associated in cutting themselves off from the South and West, and my one desire is that nothing that I shall say to-day shall add to the bitterness which has already been generated; and I should like to say this, that nothing will give me greater pleasure and satis faction in years to come, and. the sooner the better, than the knowledge that the proposals of the Government have been but a preliminary and a stepping-stone to a united Ireland where representatives from the North and from the South, by reason of the disappearance of all prejudices and the removal of suspicion by mutual experience, may meet in one assembly to work for the common good of Ireland. Let us never lose sight, in the establishment of separate Parliaments, of this happy eventuality, although some of us here at this moment may not live to see it. Lord Sligo, in a speech to which no one could have listened without recognising the genuine sorrow with which this Bill fills his mind, criticised a remark which was made by my noble friend the Duke of Abercorn, and Lord Grey made the same reference. In the noble Lord's speech he mentioned the word "finality." I would venture to suggest to Lord Grey and to Lord Sligo that the word "finality" was in the noble Duke's mind, and it certainly is in my mind, a desire that there should be an end to prejudice and an end to suspicion. When we view it from the Ulster point of view it is with a desire that there should be an end of those uncertainties, which have kept continually alive those anxieties in the minds of all the Unionists of Ulster, and have been the means of hampering the trade and prosperity of Ulster and of bringing about so many of those difficulties which have resulted in the suspicion to which I have already alluded.
I said that amongst the solutions we have heard of, a Republic has been put forward. If there is any humour at a time when a tragedy is being enacted in Ireland, the suggestion of a republican Ireland is almost laughable. There is no population in the world whose sympathies are less republican, and I venture to say that when this period of national

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insanity—I can call it nothing else—is past, there will be no population more loyal to the Crown than Irishmen, certainly of the North but also of the South. This is a view which may seem to some of your Lordships difficult to understand, but I cannot bring myself to believe that this present phase is the deliberate and well-considered action of the great majority of the people in Ireland. I see one more example of the influence which a determined band of assassins can exercise over a terror-stricken community. All these crimes and outrages can have been committed, and I believe have been committed, by a comparatively small number of people, and I feel that the moment this organisation is broken up you will find that the population of Ireland will be more than ever susceptible to influences which, in the event of this Bill passing into law and given a fair trial, will be in the direction of peace and contentment.
It is not easy, I know, to ask your Lordships to take a calm and dispassionate view of the situation and to realise that there are unmistakable signs that the force of this conspiracy is slowly ebbing. There is no one here who can have anything else but feelings of resentment and disgust against the perpetrators of these outrages. But, my Lords, do not let us lose our sense of proportion. Do not let us associate the whole of Ireland with this organised band of criminals. Let us rather realise that the events of the last few years have taught men unfortunately to place a far too low value on human life, and that whereas a great international menace in the shape of German aggression has been removed, we hope for all time, still the violent upheaval has necessarily brought with it unrest and discontent in all countries in the world, and this same unrest and discontent finds expression in Ireland in the disastrous occurrences of recent times.
I am particularly anxious that your Lordships should not lose sympathy with Ireland as a whole, because we need your sympathy more than ever now. It is the custom to say that Ireland took no part in the war. This is a misstatement of the grossest kind. The noble Marquess who has just addressed the House mentioned the fact that as a nation—I do not know that he used the word; he would have been wrong if he did, because I cannot admit that there is an Irish nationality—that Ireland as a country took
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no part in the war. The voluntary effort of Ireland compares very favourably with that of other parts of the United Kingdom; and the number of Irishmen engaged in the war, apart from the essentially Irish divisions—and I may here incidentally remark that those Irish divisions upheld the best traditions of Irish regiments—is a number that bears the closest inspection. Those are facts to be remembered and felt. Those are facts which we should dilate on, rather than brood continually over the past and over the difficulties with which Ireland has been assailed; and whereas the forces of evil in the shape of terrorism and murder have appeared to capture the population of the country, so I am convinced that a resolute band of men, imbued with the ideas of bringing to Ireland peace and contentment, can cause the population to follow the pathway in which they should go. I believe that if only on all sides support and enthusiasm will be given to this effort of the Government to assist Ireland, to see Ireland's point of view, to place those responsibilities on the shoulders of Ireland, success will crown our efforts.
I know it will be said that this country has done everything possible for Ireland. Lord. Grey spoke of the manner in which Ireland should be treated, and he said she should be treated with generosity. My Lords, Ireland has been treated with generosity, and it has been the custom in recent years to lavish money on Ireland, but I am bound to say that the reckless handling, if I may use the expression, for political purposes, of an unduly large number of Irish representatives in the House of Commons, had completely demoralised political life in Ireland before the war. That is where the Union has failed, and the recognition of failure in this direction, and the conviction that under the political system as it exists at the present moment we can nope for nothing different, is the reason that urges me to adopt this measure as a solution of an hitherto insoluble difficulty.
The noble Earl who has moved the rejection of this Bill pleads for what he calls Dominion Home Rule. I feel that his plea is based on an entirely mistaken notion, because it is quite impossible to reproduce between England and Ireland the same loose relations as to national defence, finance, and other matters which obtain between Great Britain and the Dominions. For purposes of defence and economics the

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British Isles are one, and to use the words of Carlyle "Separation is not on the ground plan of creation." Moreover, to grant Dominion Home Rule to Ireland means that you propose in reality to give to Ireland the same freedom and all the political and other rights which the Dominions to-day enjoy. What are these rights? The Dominions have the right to their own Army and their own Navy, if they choose to exercise that right, and in some cases they do. They have no liability whatever for any portion of the Imperial indebtedness or War Debt. Their remoteness justifies the conferring upon them, and indeed necessitates conferring upon them, much larger powers than either could or ought to be granted to Ireland. If for example, the United States went to war with Canada, or Japan went to war with Australia, and. succeeded in the warfare, the conquest of a Dominion would certainly have serious consequences which every one 01 us would deplore, but—
THE EARL or DUN RAVEN: May I interrupt the noble Marquess for one moment. He is altogether mistaken in thinking I moved the rejection of the Bill because I desire Dominion Home Rule or Dominion status. On the contrary I moved the rejection of a Bill the other (lay to give Dominion status.
THE MRARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: I was referring to his views on Dominion Home Rule, and I think it is important that your Lordships should realize exactly what Dominion Home Rule is. I agree that it is a rather loose phrase, but it is heard on all sides and the question is always asked, Why is not Dominion Home Rule granted to Ireland I am endeavouring with all respect to show why it cannot under any circumstances be conceded to Ireland. When the noble Earl rose I was saying that if foreign countries succeeded in a war against a Dominion it would have deplorable results, but the safety of Great Britain would not be endangered. But a conquered Ireland, or a hostile Ireland, would be fatal, and deadly menace to us in these islands. As the Prime Minister pointed out in his speech on the Third Reading of this Bill, every creek, every harbour, every port, could be utilised by a foreign foe for striking a blow at the heart of England from the direction in which she is most
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vulnerable. I do not need to labour this point to your Lordships. Naval and military writers of the greatest eminence have again and again emphasised how supremely important it is to the safety of Great Britain that she should have complete cent ml over the sea coast of all these islands. If there were no other reason, that alone would be more than sufficient, to condemn the proposal to give Ireland the status of and confer upon her the rights enjoyed by the Dominions.
But there is another and hardly less important aspect involved in Dominion Home Rule. It is idle to pretend that Dominion Home Rule does not mean complete fiscal independence. The noble Earl who moved the Motion for the rejection of this Bill speaks lightly of fiscal independence. He was himself a member of the Irish Convention. He will recollect, as I do, that the Nationalist demand upon this question was uncompromising, and it was the real root cause of division and failure of the Convention. The demand for complete fiscal control created a deadlock. I may remind your Lordships of the document contained in the official Convention, Report G.C.3, circulated by Lord Midleton to Southern Unionists. I quote from it one paragraph in which it was pointed out that the Nationalist repro sentatives circulated a memorandum which asserted—
"We regard Ireland as a nation, an economic entity."
Commenting upon that statement, Lord Midleton remarked in his memorandum—
"This claims the right to make treaties, it suggests the probability of divergence from Great Britain on fiscal questions at an early period, and asserts the necessity for Ireland being free to play her own hand."
That doctrine Lord Midleton challenged, and then asserted that the full amount realised by Customs should be retained by Great Britain as Imperial contribution, because Customs was an imperial matter.
I do not feel entitled to weary your Lordships with a dissertation on the control of Customs, although I believe some of your Lordships do not attach sufficient importance to this great question, and do not realise how closely it touches so many great questions of Irish trade. There is an immense volume of evidence to show the acute peril involved in changing this great fundamental principle, but I will only quote to your Lordships one or

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two opinions of public bodies condemning the proposal to interfere with commercial relations between England and Ireland. In 1912 the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, by special resolution, declared that "any attempt to interfere with commercial relations would be disastrous to the trade and commerce of the country." All the leading merchants in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught declared, "It would arrest the growing prosperity of Ireland which had been steadily increasing." Full Imperial control of Customs and Excise is imperative for five reasons which I venture to put forward—(l) Because it obviates any danger of tariff trouble between the two countries, which would be fatal to Irish industries; (2) because an absolute Free Trade arrangement between Great Britain and Ireland is impossible if two separate Customs Authorities exist; (3) because it removes any chance of tariff conflicts following commercial treaties between Ireland and foreign countries; (4) because any other arrangement than full Imperial control over Customs and Excise would prevent the inclusion of Ireland in a scheme of federation for the Kingdom; (5) because it ensures an adequate contribution from Ireland to the cost of the war. These details will no doubt be raised in Committee, and I do not propose to enter into them now.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I am afraid they cannot be.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: The noble Marquess corrects me. We cannot enter into fiscal details in your Lordships' House. I think I have said enough and have quoted certain authorities to show that the transference of Customs and Excise to an Irish authority really strikes at the whole root of the fiscal state of the United Kingdom. With regard to the federal aspect to which I have made allusion I feel this is a matter deserving of your Lordships' attention. This is not the occasion on which I should be entitled to make anything but the briefest reference to the possible result of the great changes which will be enacted if your Lordships give your assent to this Bill. But the overwhelming volume of business now being transacted in the Houses of Parliament must become an acute problem pressing for solution, and while I think that devolution on federal lines may be the ultimate solution, I know that at this moment people's minds
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have not envisaged this question. M only desire to-day in making this reference is to express the earnest hope that in the devolution which this Bill brings we should never lose sight of the possible federation of the British Isles and not endanger the chance of such a federation by giving away Imperial control over Customs and Excise which must be centrally held in any scheme of federation.
I would ask your Lordships whose intention it is to oppose the Bill, whether the Irish problem is to be left untreated until all Ireland agrees as to the treatment. The noble Marquess who has just sat down has told us that lie does not propose to vote against the Bill, but he did not enlighten us as to his views of what should be done at this moment. I think your Lordships will agree that something must be done. It is quite impossible to allow Ireland to sink into a morass without any hope of any kind being held out to her. Viscount Grey suggests that that hope should be a larger and a fuller measure of Home Rule. Our solution is the Bill which we venture to put before you. I feel that when the noble Marquess addresses us his policy should not be entirely destructive, that he should not tell us that Ireland is unfitted for self-government. He asked MC two question's, I think. He said, "Is Ireland fit to govern herself?" I will answer that question by asking another—When, in his opinion, will Ireland be fit to govern herself? I do not feel that any one can say that a country, which in the past has produced so many men of eminent distinction who have been successful in all parts of the world, a country that has produced so much and has given so much in so many ways, is at any time entirely unfit to govern herself. I believe if only you give Ireland this opportunity and assist Ireland by your sympathy and co-operation, and not by-your criticism or recrimination, you are taking the pathway to success, and that in that way we shall eventually prove that Great Britain is capable of bringing peace and happiness to Ireland as it has been capable of bringing peace and happiness to other quarters of the globe.
Certain noble Lords are opposed to this Bill not so much on its merits but because they are specially concerned for the interests of those who reside just outside the six counties but are part of the nine counties of geographical Ulster. I think I may say that if the Government proposal had

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Included the nine counties instead of the six we should have had no hostile criticism from them. I have deep sympathy with those noble Lords. I feel to the full the sentiment which operates in their minds, but it is no use being sentimental on a vital issue. I feel that this venture—and I use the word advisedly because there is no certainty of success—depends so much on the success which one Parliament, or the other, or both Parliaments, as I earnestly hope, will show from their capacity to govern the territory over which their jurisdiction is in force. In the six counties your population is chiefly homogeneous. It. is actuated by the same ideals; it springs front the same race, the majority profess the same Faith, and I am forced into the posit ion of being convinced by the logic of facts and figures that a Parliament to include the six counties holds out the possibilities and the hopes which I have endeavoured to put before your Lordships. We hope to fashion a. model Government. We hope to show what Ulstermen, left to their own resources in government, can bring about, and, moreover, I believe we are entitled to your Lordships' sympathy in this matter.
Why do you suppose the Ulsterman is evincing this passionate desire to set up a system in Ulster and in Ireland—a system to which he has been bitterly opposed for so long? The answer is simple. He feels that at least this is the end of a chapter of uncertainty; that, with the responsibility of government on his own shoulders, he need no longer be apprehensive of sudden changes, of sudden political moves, of forms of government being forced upon him by his political opponents, and lastly, of being placed—I use a phrase so often employed—under the domination of his political opponents. This eternal anxiety has brought about an infinity of harm; it has engendered disturbance; it has hampered industry and has materially interfered with that progress which a strong, healthy, industrial community cannot help otherwise, to achieve and has every right to expect. I feel that in this Bill lies the best chance of success. You cannot compel people to be friends by Act of Parliament, but you can set up a system which, by its beneficial working, can bring closer together the differing elements which now exist in Ireland. It is for this reason that I urge your Lordships to give every sort of assistance to
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this Bill a ml to endeavour by your co-operation awl help to bring peace and contentment to Ireland.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: My Lords, the noble Marquess who has just sat down has answered in a very admirable spirit and also in a hopeful spirit the severe strictures upon the Bill which were passed by my noble friend Lord Salisbury, who preceded him. I am not able to entertain the same anticipations regarding the effect of this Bill as are entertained by the noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, and I shall endeavour to show him why. This is the fourth Bill for giving self-government to -Ireland that has been presented to Parliament, and it is unique in this respect, that it is the only one of those Bills which has not received any substantial support in Ireland itself. All the other Bills were brought in to meet the Irish demand, and they did meet that demand, although they did not have the good fortune, except in the case of the last, to pass into law. But in this case we find a Bill which has no support whatever from the South and West of Ireland.
Those of your Lordships who listened to the debate last night and this afternoon will have noticed that the Irish Peers from the South-West of Ireland, I think without exception, expressed their disapproval of the Bill and their belief that it is not what is wanted. The only support which it received is that which came from the Peers from Ulster; and I noted that their chief spokesman among the independent Peers of the House, the Duke of Abercorn, yesterday said that he accepted the Bill only as an alternative to the Bill of 1914. I understand that, but it is very tepid praise. We know Ulster would not have accepted the Bill, or looked at it, unless under the fear that something still more distasteful should happen. I notice also a very significant fact—an important change of opinion in another place among members of the House of Commons who are staunch Conservatives, and who up to now have been opposed to any form of Home Rule. They gave their adhesion to the Bill in speeches which showed how strong were the motives which had obliged them to change their mind. I think it is not going too far to say that this is a Bill which does not please anybody, because it is the result of a compromise. It has all the aspect of being the result of a compromise in the Cabinet between those

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who do not want to move at all and those who want to go very much further, and it has the usual defect of compromises. It has all the faults of both courses and the merits of neither.
I will not attempt to examine the Bill in close detail, but only to enumerate some of the points which, if your Lordships will give attention to them, will I think appear to you, looking at the matter dispassionately, fatal to the success of the Bill. One of those points is that it divides into two countries under two Governments, meant to be permanently opposed to one another—because under each of them a new frame of government is to be set up—an island which is economically one. Every part of Ireland needs every other part of Ireland. There will be placed every possible obstacle to the progress of the country if you cut it up in this unnatural way. In the next place, it wounds and it exasperates the national sentiment of the people. There is such a thing as Irish patriotism. There is such a thing as Irish nationality. Surely none of us can have lived through the last thirty or forty years without feeling what a force the spirit of nationality can be. We have spell within the last few years to what passionate extreme the sentiment of nationality can run all over Europe. I do not, say that passionate nationality is not excessive in Ireland. I believe it is. I think it has gone much too far, but it is a fact which you cannot ignore, and it is quite enough to condemn this Bill in the eyes of those who cherish a. strong national sentiment for their own Island that it cuts that Island into two in a way which since the beginning of history it never has been divided.
It is a further defect in the Bill, which has been dwelt upon by some of your Lordships already, that it gives none of those special protections to the Unionist and Protestants of the South and West of Ireland which were always promised to them in preceding Bills, and I am not surprised that they resent that omission. It also fails to give one form of that protection which was always considered previously to be a necessary form. The creation of a Second Chamber to protect the minority in the North and the minority in the South was always understood to be one of the safeguards which a Home Rule Bill ought to contain. It is now omitted, and the reasons which were given by the
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noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack for its omission seem to me entirely insufficient. He said that it was a difficult problem, and that it had better be left to be solved by the Irish Council which it is proposed to set up. Is it not likely that the Irish Council, composed of two antagonistic bodies, will find it a great deal more difficult to set up a Second Chamber than the Government would have found to frame a Second Chamber for the Bill '? I may remind them that the Irish Convention which sat in 1917 framed a scheme for a Second Chamber, one which well deserved to be considered, and in which I think the Southern Unionists were disposed to acquiesce.
If there is to be any division at all of Ireland it ought not to be the division in this Bill. It ought to be a division which leaves the whole Province of Ulster apart. I must venture to traverse the statements made by the noble Marquess that the six counties would be homogeneous. That is very far from the fact. In the six counties there is, take them all in all, no very large majority, and in the two counties which are in question—the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh—there is, I believe, a small majority of Roman Catholics and presumably of Home Rulers. It is therefore quite a mistake to suppose that the division that is made is likely to ensure the satisfaction of the demand. It is much more probable that we shall have a great deal of friction and irritation along the frontier line between the six counties and the rest of Ireland. You may have raids from the one into the other. You may have conflict which will keep up party spirit and ill-feeling, and which will make the maintenance of order in Tyrone and Fermanagh even more difficult than the Government find the maintenance of order anywhere in Ireland at this moment.
I submit that it would have been a very great deal better, instead of cutting Ireland into two, to have had one Ireland, and to have given inside that one Ireland all possible and conceivable guarantees for which the men of Ulster could have asked. The offer has been repeatedly made to them to say what guarantees they will take, and I am perfectly certain that the Government would have had the support of the country and this House if it had framed a system of guarantees to carry out everything the Ulster people had asked for, and which they thought necessary for, their

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protection. We should then have had a far better promise for the future titan is given by the setting up of two independent Governments.
I cannot believe that there is any prospect of a real and permanent settlement in the Bill. If that is so, I may reasonably be asked what alternative I have to suggest. I will ask your Lordships' permission to state a few facts which are not as well known in England as they ought to be, but which seem to me to show why this Bill will be inadequate and why it is necessary to go much further if you are to secure peace and order in Ireland. It is the experience of everyone who is called upon to govern Ireland, as I was called to do fifteen years ago, that Ireland differs from England in this respect—that in England the people are with the law, in Ireland the people are against the law.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: That is the deplorable result of Irish history, and if noble Lords would occupy themselves in reading the history of Ireland from the Great. Rebellion of 1641 down they would understand how it has happened that Ireland is the only country in which the Union Jack flies or the English language is spoken in which the people are against the law. What is the deplorable result of this hostility of the people to the law? It is the cause of what is called the sympathy with crime. The Irish are no more a criminal people thaw any other. There is no natural sympathy with crime in the Irish mind any more than in the English mind or the Scottish mind. What is called the Irish sympathy with crime is this. It is a long-established habit and tradition never to give anyone who is being attacked by the (4averrinaint. If the Government want to find a criminal, to get evidence against a criminal or to get a jury to try a criminal, this rooted habit stand in the way—the habit of hostility to the Government as a foreign Government, an alien Government, a Government which has been oppressing the country for two centuries. That habit stands in the way of the respect of the people of Ireland for the law, and that is the great difficulty we have to overcome. You will never have a peaceful or contented Ireland until you have the people of Ireland on the side of the law in the same way as they are in England.
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The hideous outrages and crimes which have horrified us within the last few weeks and even within the last few days have never had their parallel in any previous period of Irish history. Even in the rebellion of 1798 there was nothing so awful as those murders in Dublin on Saturday night. Why are they tolerated? Why should they exist? Why do not the people of Ireland rush forward to give evidence and help the police in detecting these crimes? Because of that habit which has been formed of being always against the Government and being always unwilling to give any help to it in what is considered to be its course against the people of the country. That is a fatal and permanent evil.
In addition to that, I must say in vindication of the people of Ireland, that during the last few years in Ireland there has been a terrible system of terrorism by the secret societies. These secret societies have come down from the eighteenth century. They had been active from time to time during the nineteenth century. They were very active and terrible between 1879 and 1882. They had completely died down—that is to say, they were no longer active, there was no flame although the embers were still smouldering—until the beginning of the war. And the war lit up the minds of the people into what the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, properly called a state of temporary madness. In its original inception Sinn Fein was not a criminal association. It was hardly even a, revolutionary or a republican association. It has become so under the influence of the passions evoked by the war, which have been evoked in every part of Europe—the passion of violence accompanied by cruelty, which has never been known in European history for a hundred years. There has been a repercussion of that in Ireland also. Do not suppose, my Lords, that this terrorism is to be identified with Sinn Fein. I was very glad to hear, in the singularly temperate and instructive speech that was made last night by Lord Kilmain, unfortunately to a comparatively small house, the sharp distinction which he drew as an Irish landlord living in the South of Ireland between Sinn Fein and the murder gangs. These murder gangs are a comparatively small body, but they are quite sufficient to terrorise the neighbourhoods in which they live, and I have no doubt that the leaders of Sinn Fein itself stand in terror of them.

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During the terrible days of 1881 and 1882, after the murder of Mr. Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish, Mr. Parnell himself, who was then the leader of the Nationalist Party, went in terror of his life and was obliged to apply to Sir William Harcourt, then Home Secretary, for police protection. You must not for a moment suppose that these crimes are the deeds of the responsible leaders of Sinn Fein. I agree that they ought to denounce them. I am sorry they do not denounce them. I think it is deplorable that there have not been, not only from them but from the heads of the Church, far more emphatic denunciations of the crimes at which our blood runs cold than has yet come from them. But these are the causes.
There is another fact to be noticed about Ireland. The Irish people have never had any responsibility. The Government has always been imposed upon them from without. They have never had occasion to learn by experience how difficult a task government is, what powers it requires, how often it is obliged to do things that are unpopular and to refuse that which popular clamour demands. This has been a great misfortune to Ireland. All her leaders have been Opposition leaders who have never had the responsibility of government in their hands, and for that von must make great allowances.
Thirdly, there is this feeling of Irish nationality to which I have already referred, and I beg your Lordships to remember that it is one of the features of the case which makes this Bill unacceptable, which makes unacceptable everything which appears to come from outside and is not the work of the Irish people themselves. I am sorry to have to add another feature which is new in Ireland—the universal distrust and dislike with which the Government of Ireland is now regarded. I never remember anything like it in previous years. Even in the years between 1878 and 1885, when disorder was so bad, the days of the Duke of Marlborough, of Lord Cowper, and of Lord Spencer, there was never anything approaching the dislike and distrust which all classes in Ireland, Unionsits as well as Nationalists, feel towards the present Government. I do not venture to apportion the blame for it. I do not know how far it is their fault or the fault of what is dictated to them from England. At any rate there is the fact, and it is quite enough to pre-
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judice the people of Ireland against any Bill that is presented to them without their having a share in its framing.
The result of all this is that after two centuries British rule has failed in Ireland. All the world knows it, and all the world taunts us with it. As was said by my noble friend, Viscount Grey, in that singularly eloquent language of his, there is no part of the British Dominions where we have failed except Ireland, and it is the only place in which we have not succeeded in meeting the wishes of the people.
And the tragic part of it is that the English people mean well to Ireland. It is commonly supposed in other countries—I have found it in other parts of the world—that there is a bitter animosity between the English people and the Irish people. You know that nothing could be further from the truth. The English people mean well to the Irish people. They do not know all about them, but they know that they have suffered much and that they must be pardoned much. And I think they are anxious to go as far as they can possibly go, consistently with the safety of the United Kingdom, to meet the wishes of the Irish people and to be reconciled to them. That is largely because Ireland has come into the party game. It is our English party system that is very largely answerable for the troubles that have arisen in Ireland, and I would venture to say to your Lordships that if India had come into English party government, as Ireland has come, we should have lost India long ago. It has been the instability of British government that has been one of the greatest causes of our failure.
I have stated these facts in order to show, if I can, that the continuance of the present system is quite impossible. My noble friend, Lord Salisbury, who spoke with that earnestness and sincerity, as well as force, which always win respect for every opinion he expresses, stated in the clearest way all the objections that apply to giving Home Rule to a people at present in a state of disorder. But he added that we ought to wait until Ireland had ceased to be disaffected. How long shall we have to wait? It is because We have not satisfied the demands of Ireland that she is disaffected, and if we wait until Ireland is peaceable and quiet we shall be told then that there is no need for Home Rule, and the occasion will again be lost, as it has

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been lost before. It is more than thirty Years since the policy of "twenty years' resolute government" for Ireland was propounded, and during those thirty years we have got further than ever from resolute government. These are the reasons which lead me to believe that the present Bill will be useless.
The Lord Chancellor has admitted that the continuance of the present system is impossible, and I think everybody admits that. The noble Marquess who has just spoken has admitted that we must do something. If we are to do something let us try to do something that will be effective. Now, what does this Bill lead us to? The Lord Chancellor told us yesterday that if either of the two Parliaments in Northern and Southern Ireland do not work, if in Southern Ireland either there is not half the number of members elected or half the number of members elected failed to take the Oath, there would be Crown Colony government and we might have to attempt the reconquest of Ireland. That is the prospect which appears to the Lent Chancellor, speaking for the Government, to be a probable result of the present Bill. Is not that a sufficient condemnation? How can we possibly be asked to pass a Bill at the end of which, after another vista of trouble, there stands Crown government and all the evils which it we see accompany arbitrary government low? It is a counsel of despair. I do not think that any one will seriously contemplate leaving Ireland to herself. We cannot abandon Ireland, like a derelict ship on the ocean. We are responsible for Ireland; we cannot leave Ireland without giving her a Government under which she has some chance of prospering. And therefore I dismiss at once suggestion that we can wash our hands of responsibility for Ireland.
But, subject to that, we ought, I believe, to give the completest self-government that is possible, consistently with the safety of the United Kingdom. That means that we must retain foreign policy, that aye must retain the Army, that we must retain the Navy and the command of Irish ports. I agree that it is highly improbable that in any form Ireland would be hostile, or that our ports would be used against us, bat it is possible it might happen. And I am perfectly sure that the sentiment of the English nation would refuse to allow Ireland powers of that kind that could be used
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against her. Subject to those conditions the safest course to go as far as we possibly can. I admit all the objections that could be brought against giving Ireland the complete control of finance, including Customs and Excise. Those objections were stated very forcibly by the noble Earl, Lord Curzon, in a previous debate and they have been stated again to-night by the noble Marquess opposite. I see great force in he first three of them; I should not acquiesce in the last two, because I see no hope of fitting Ireland in any way into a scheme of United Kingdom federation. I look upon that as a lucre phantasm.
But I realise fully the objections to giving over the control of Customs, and personally I regret that it has to be done. I am a very late and reluctant convert to what is called fiscal autonomy for Ireland, because I do not think it is to the advantage either of Ireland or of England. But we have come to a position where we have to think of more important issues than even those of the convenience of fiscal arrangements between the two countries. There are things which have to be done, although we see their faults. And this enlarged measure of Home Rule—I will not call it Dominion Home Rule, because the term is rather vague and rather misleading—but this enlarged Home Rule, which includes fiscal autonomy, seems to be one of those things which we must now concede because Ireland will be satisfied with nothing less. The Irish people have long cherished the belief that they are unjustly dealt with financially by England, and they have long believed that if they were given the control of their own finance; they could develop Irish industries, and improve the material condition of their country, and make the most of its material resources in a way in which they are unable to do so long as Parliament controls their fortunes. They will not be satisfied till they get that chance. Whether or no you think that they will make much of it is another matter. But there, it is. It is their belief, and it is one of the things that we have to consider if we want this measure to work with satisfaction.
I was very much impressed, as I suppose we all were, by the forcible argument of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, as to the dangers of giving Home Rule to a country a large part of whose population

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is evidently disaffected. I realise all that. But let pie remind you not only of what has been said by so many Irish peers these two days but also of what one hears when one goes to Ireland. I happened to be in Ireland a few months ago, and my astonishment was great to find that Irish Unionists, strong Conservatives, strong Protestants, men who ten years ago had been opposed to Home Rule in any form, had now come to consider that Home Rule was inevitable, and that it ought to go to the extent of fiscal autonomy because that alone would give it a chance of success. If I were free to give their names they would carry weight as evidence to show that they think the time has come when a much larger Bill than this will have to be given to Ireland.
There are two methods by which we may proceed. The one is by enlarging and amending the Bill in such a way as to give all proper safeguards to Ulster and the full protection to Southern Unionists which they desire—full protection for them, full protection for Ulster, and fiscal autonomy. Those are the three points in which it seems to me this Bill must be transformed if it is to work. The other plan is, instead of proceeding with this Bill, to summon an Irish Assembly to draft a Constitution for the country which will represent the wishes of the people ascertained by full and free discussion. We should have to lay down the limits within which this Constitution should be framed. We should require them not to touch those reserved subjects, control of foreign policy and the Army and Navy, but subject to these we should leave it to them to draw up the form of government which they thought would be best for the country itself.
Your Lordships will remember that the National Convention which sat in Ireland in 1917 arrived at a far larger measure of agreement than Irishmen had ever reached before, and elicited a spirit of con-promise and conciliation among all its members which was unexpected. The noble Lord, Lord Oranmore and Browne, gave us au interesting illustration of that yesterday. It shows what can be done by bringing Irishmen together, getting them to work in a practical and constructive spirit. They have been accustomed hitherto only to criticise and oppose. Set them to construct, and tell them that if they can only agree we shall do our best to carry out their wishes. I believe that to
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be the most hopeful course that could be pursued.
It will be said that they will demand separation. Several of your Lordships have told us that they do not believe that the bulk of the Irish people desire separation. I am convinced of it. I am amply convinced that the great body of the Irish people, the majority which would be elicited upon any fair popular vote that could be taken, is in favour of the maintenance of the connection between Britain and Ireland. It is clearly to their interests to do so. It is above all things to the interest of the Roman Catholic Church. It is impossible to suppose that the Prelates of the Roman Catholic Church could possibly desire to find themselves under a Republic separated from England. I am confirmed in that opinion by what has fallen from several Roman Catholic Prelates within the last few weeks. The Archbishop of Tuam, the Bishop of Cork, and the Bishop of Ross have all spoken in that sense. I should like particularly to quote the opinion of the Bishop of Ross, because he is one of the wisest and most temperate of all the Irish Prelates. He is one whom I know very well, and your Lordships may take it that he spoke with perfect sincerity when he said that he believed that full satisfaction would be given to Irish demands by enlarging the Bill, and that the Irish people would acquiesce in that and endeavour to work it honestly and loyally.
Although I suggest the course of a Convention, and although I believe that in many ways it would be the most promising course, I do not venture to argue that it will be better than the improvement and enlargement of this Bill. It may be that your Lordships will think it better to delay proceeding with this Bill until the Government has had the opportunity of considering all that has been said here by Irish Peers and endeavouring to meet the views they have expressed. What I do earnestly wish and press, with such knowledge as a very long experience of Irish politics has given me, is that this Bill as it stands offers no prospect whatever of the fulfilment of those hopes in which the Lord Chancellor indulged yesterday. I am sure they are hopes which we all cherish, but it is only by going further than this Bill that you can have any prospect of their attainment.
Is it too much to hope that the debates in your Lordships' House, which are con-

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ducted in a calmer and are far less subject to Party influences than those conducted in another place, may lead the Government, to reconsider, improve, and amend this scheme which in its present form offers so little prospect of peaceful settlement? I earnestly hope that this may be the case. We all feel the extreme urgency of the position. We feel the extreme need for vindicating in the face of the world those professions of liberty and love of liberty which we are always making, and I trust that the wider views and the temperance of spirit which have so often in the last few years corrected the mistakes that have been made elsewhere and unproved the legislation which has been placed on the Statute-book, may have their effect here, and that the Government will consent to the appeal that has been made from so many quarters to reconsider their position and let this Bill pass in the form which gives it a fair prospect of success.
THE EARL OF DESART: My Lords, even if I desired to do so it would not be fitting for me, as a humble member of your Lordships' House, to enter upon a long history of Ireland and speculate on the causes which have brought it to its present deplorable condition, its we see it, at this moment. To me falls the humble task, and the more useful on, of limiting myself strictly to an examination of the provisions of the Bill, and considering whether they form any remedy now or in the future for time ills which the Government desire to meet and to cure—a desire in which every member of this House would support them if they thought the proposals before them would achieve that object.
We have heard to-night speeches of the greatest interest front; loaders of this House from different points of view as to cause and cure, and in listening to my noble friend Lord Londonderry I was reminded of the time when I had the honour of serving on the Irish Convention with him. I remember how broad-minded were his speeches, how eloquent his language and how in the early days of the Convention he led us to hope that we should work out some unanimous result. That hope was not fulfilled, but we got very near it at one time, and there did come out in that Assembly a sense of the comradeship of Irishmen and friendship between individuals. It was a remarkable feature that during the eight months we sat I do not think there was one disagreeable incident,
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one personal difference which produced the smallest friction.
But things have moved since then, and we meet tinder different circumstances to consider conditions so appalling as to appear almost hopeless. Now I was a Unionist, and I believe, with several other members of this House who have spoken, that could the Union have been worked successfully and could it have been made acceptable to the Irish people it would have afforded the beet prospect of security to England and prosperity and happiness to Ireland. But—it is useless to conceal it—it has, owing to causes which have been referred to, failed, and there is hardly anybody in this Horse who could really, I think, believe that any attempt to go back to lice Union is possibly in any shape or forum. You may desire it, but noticing else remains. Already the Home Rule Bill has been massed though not put into operation, and the old Unionist leaders are now supporting the Bill that is before us. Even the old stronghold of Ulster, for reasons which I admit are special to this particular Bill, has now accepted it, and ill accepting it recognised a breach of the Union of which for so many years they were the most determined defenders.
We all wish, somehow or another, to bring the better sections of Ireland into line, in some way, to co-operate in government and to endeavour to secure reasonable and orderly government in Ireland. That those elements exist those of us who live in Ireland well know, and our principal endeavour ought to be somehow or other to induce them to come into the open, to become vocal, and to assist in the common work in which we desire to be engaged. From that point of view I have to the best of my ability considered this Bill, and—I say it with regret—I can see no hope in its provisions for any result that can possibly lift front Ireland the terrible cloud that now hangs over it. The Bill contains in the first instance a provision which is unacceptable not only to the extreme section in Ireland, not only to the most bitter politicians, but I believe to nearly every section of the Unionists and to the most violent Sinn Feiner; their feeling is that whatever form of Government is applied to Ireland it shall be a Government for the whole of Iceland, and, whatever securities we shall be prepared to grant to certain sections, thy Ireland shall be one and undivided.

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Now the very centre of this Bill, the main proposition of this Bill, is two Parliaments, and that I ant afraid makes acceptance of it absolutely impossible in the South of Ireland. I do not believe that any proposal involving partition that was likely to be permanent could possibly succeed or be accepted in Southern Ireland. I personally am one of the strongest opponents of partition, and do not think under any circumstances that I could persuade myself to vote for any Partition Bill, but I go so far as to say that, if I could see in this Bill any machinery which I thought likely to produce union hereafter, my objections might be modified, and I believe the objections of others might be modified. But I cannot, if you take the whole provisions of this Bill, see any prospects of that result.. As far as the thing can be established on paper, this is as near permanent partition as anything you could imagine. Of course it may not so happen—I hope it will not happen—but I have not to regard what I hope and what I think. What I am regarding is my own knowledge of the people I have seen and spoken with, and what from my knowledge of Ireland is what other people think. Their view is that partition in this form is impossible and unacceptable, and I ant perfectly certain that in that way no foundation for settlement and no peace lie.
There is nothing new in this. It has been well known for months and months that the South of Ireland has rejected this Bill. They have proclaimed loudly to all the world that they would not have it. Sonic have gone so far as to regard it as an insult that such a Bill should be offered. In face of this the Bill has gone on; it has been introduced, it has, been passed through the House of Commons and is presented to us for acceptance in this form. Gladly would I accept any Bill in which I saw the prospect of settlement, but I have to look to what would be the consequences of imposing this Bill on Ireland at the present moment. I believe they would be evil and disastrous. It is known that apart from the question of partition, which to my mind is far the most important of all, there is also a desire for what is called fiscal autonomy. Whether it would in fact be necessary, if you advance in that direction, to go to the fullest extent I should not like to say, but that has been the demand—that some greater measure of financial control is necessary to make
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this Bill in any way palatable to Southern Ireland. When I ant told, as Loot Londonderry has told us with great force, the objections to Customs being assigned to Ireland I. nuts say at once that I agree with it, but, as Lord Bryce said, larger considerations must come in, and whether it is objectionable or not I can quote from the Prime Minister's action during the Convention to show it was not then regarded as impossible. It is true that the Convention, nominally at any rate, broke up, or rather failed to agree on a. question of Customs. The Prime Minister intervened to endeavour by his influence and by his eloquence to produce some settlement on the subject. That was impossible at the time, but the matter was adjourned and adjourned at the request of the Prime Minister in order that it might be reconsidered after the war. It was not turned down as an impossibility, but every one in Ireland knows that, and you cannot therefore go to them and say that the thing is impossible. It may be undesirable, but you cannot go to them and say that it is impracticable. Then there may be other powers which they would seek. I strongly object to the use of the word "Dominion" It has been a most unfortunate phrase. It has misled every one. It has misled some into claiming greater powers than can possibly be given, and it has frightened those who would otherwise have been willing to give wider powers.
We know what are the absolutely necessary limitations of any grant of self-government in Ireland, and I can hardly imagine that there is any difference in this House upon that point, but unless you can do something I am convinced myself that there would be only one fate, or possibly two forms of one fate, for this Bill. Both were referred to by the Lord Chancellor in his speech last night. One is actually provided for in Clause 70 of the Bill, and is, I believe, what would happen. Ulster, or rather the six counties, would form their Parliament and would, as I think has been suggested by others, find themselves at once in extremely rough water. They have probably within their borders a population who hold the most extreme of Nationalist views. They have, within their borders, been in conflict more than once. And they have added to those extreme Nationalist views a bitterness of religious feeling that I am thankful to say does not prevail to anything like the same

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extent in the South of Ireland. It might be, as has been suggested, that they would have to occupy the first years of their Parliamentary life, or at any rate the first year, in dealing with riots and revolts by coercion acts or otherwise, and it cannot be forgotten that the minority, desiring as it would to be united with the South, would in its resistance to the Government imposed upon it be assisted, and its agitation fomented, from every organised Nationalist Society in the South of Ireland.
Beside that if, as I think, Southern Ireland would not accept this Bill, you Mould have that part of the country governed by a Lord Lieutenant and I think three Privy Councillors. How long de you think that would last? How long would public opinion anywhere support it? How long could you sustain it? And where does it lead to? Is it to go on for ever, or how is it to be stopped? It will not be stopped by this Bill, because this Bill will be refused and not accepted. It can only be stopped by something farther being done, and, if that is so, why not try something further now and see if you cannot get some assent from Southern Ireland? There are plenty of decent men in the South of Ireland, if you can only make them vote. I was very pleased to hear what Lord Londonderry said about that, and about the part they played in the war. If you can move them in sufficiently large numbers I think this campaign of crime and murder would be stopped and in time disappear.
The alternative suggested by the Lord Chancellor is that the Parliament should meet awl declare a Republic, and force to take even more violent measures. That is an alternative which I, as a resident in the South of Ireland, cannot view with unconcern. What I dread, awl have always dreaded most, is that by force, by circumstances of that kind, you should so govern as to alienate almost, every friend you have in Ireland, and you have many, and to produce a state of mind in Which two-thirds of the population, many of whom wish to be with you now, will say "Whatever we have, anything is better than British rule." That I want to avert if I can.
I do not speak without some little knowledge of the feeling of the country that I know, because I have seen many people. l arm thankful to say that my own county has been very peaceful, and that
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there has been little serious crime. Where-ever I go people come and say "Oh, my Lord, cannot we get peace somehow." Then I have talked to them and asked them what they want, and your Lordships would be surprised at the lumber of people in all walks of life who said that this miserable Bill was an insult, and that they wanted sonic huger measure. When I inquired what that larger measure that they wanted was, "fiscal autonomy has been one thing, and" rather wider independent powers "another. When I have said "What about the Republic and separation?" they have said, "The Republic is all nonsense, we do not want that." That is always the answer. Then I have asked them about the Army and the Navy, and they have SCO lied even more, and said "Of course, you must have your Army and your Navy."
Your Lordships cannot be fully aware of the great movement of what is called moderate opinion in Ireland of late. It has been expressed in a great number of ways. It has been expressed in meetings of lieutenants and deputy-lieutenants, of chambers of commerce, of farmers, and of magistrates, and most of those men, many of them old Unionists, and nearly all of them men with substantial stakes in the country, and not revolutionists—they have not all been in complete agreement because some of them were more extreme than others, but the desire of all those movements was that the Government should be compelled to make some further offer.
I do not myself believe that the plan suggested by my noble friend, Lord Bryce, of an Assembly or Convention now would be of the smallest use. Anybody elected to anything now would be elected under the influence of terror, and what you would produce in any assembly now would be a reproduction of the Mountain in the French Revolution. I believe that if any offer of wider government had been held out earlier by the Prime Minister it would have met with a very large response. I believe it would meet with a response now, but I admit that the difficulties are now greater than they were. I took a little trouble to find out about these events in nay own county. I had asked a man, a substantial man whose business took him into all parts of Ireland, in association with every class of person from the most violent extremist to the most moderate Unionist, to tell me what he thought. After some

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weeks he said to me, "I cannot speak for the whole of the. West of Ireland, because I am not sure, but as to certain counties I can tell you that if there WPS any offer of that character you would find that the violence would practically disappear, and that the farmers and people would come forward to say what they thought." That is what I want to get at. If you can once rouse that opinion, it is my belief that you would be astonished at the number of people who desire earnestly to escape front this terrible net in which they are entangled, but who cannot do so until they can act together.
When I hear, as I have heard, Irishmen accused of cowardice because they do not speak or do certain things, I think a good many of us would hold our tongues if we lived in a lonely cottage by the roadside with our wives and families without any protection, without police, and knowing that there were desperate men, not necessarily in the neighbourhood, who could conic from a distance and shoot us down without interruption. I do not think any of us would be ready to talk. Whatever Bill you pass, whether this one or any other, it is obvious that you take a great risk. There cannot be any doubt about it. If you enlarge it in the directions I indicate I do not believe your risk would be greater, and you would have some chance of a result. In the present temper of South Ireland you have no chance of the Bill being accepted, and the consequence of a Parliament in Ulster, with its own difficulties, and an absolutely arbitrary Government in the South of Ireland, is a condition I cannot contemplate. It could not last, but, once started, I do not know how you would get out of it. I can see no future in that direction. We are told that if we give a Second Reading to the Bill it can be amended in Committee. I understand that in the two principal respects this cannot be done. That is as regards finance and partition. The real Amendment is that there should be no partition, which appears to me to be equivalent to the rejection of the Bill.
I hope, therefore, the Government may consider, as Lord Bryce has appealed to them to do—I do not want to dictate the extent—whether in sonic way they can enlarge the powers of this Bill so as to give it a chance of that acceptance which alone cart enable them to have any prospect of bringing peace to Ireland by producing
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the results for which it s introduced in Parliament. If it does not do that it does nothing. There is much that I should like to say, but nearly everything that can be said has been said, and I have no right at this hour to intrude longer on your Lordships' time. I have long hoped to see something that would bring out the good in Ireland and crush the bad. I think there are possibilities, shadowy, perhaps dangerous, in legislation, but my desire is that if we embark on that course, as I think we are right to embark, it should be legislation which mill be effective and will produce the results for which it is designed, and not throw Ireland into a chaos possibly even greater, and difficulties possibly even worse, than now afflict that unhappy country.
LORD ARM A GIIDAL: My Lords, I must apologise for rising at this late hour, but it is not my intention to address your Lordships at any length. I desire, however, to add something to that which has been already said by noble Lords from the Ulster point of view. I venture to think that my lifelong association with the North of Ireland, and the fact that for nearly twenty years I represented a division of my native county of Armagh in the House of Commohs, give me sonic title to speak on behalf of the Unionists of Ulster. I ant sure I am correctly representing their views when I say, in the first place, that this Bill was not introduced in response to any demand from them. It does not, in any sense, represent the real wishes of the people of Ulster. We would much rather not have any kind of Home Rule. Any disturbance of the Legislative Union between Ireland and Great Britain is hateful to us. It violates our deepest convictions. We are firmly convinced that upon the maintenance of the Union depend the peace and prosperity of Ireland and the security of the United Kingdom. Our opposition to Home Rule has been founded upon that belief and in this respect our convictions have undergone no change whatever.
But we recognise that there has been a change of opinion in Great Britain on this question. We are well aware of the fact that in the policy of resisting every form of Home Rule, we can no longer rely upon the support of a considerable section of the Unionist Party. Many who formerly shared our convictions that this entire policy is inconsistent with Imperial security,

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appear now to have collie to the conclusion that some form of Home Rule can be granted to Ireland without risk or danger. We believe they are wrong; but we cannot ignore facts; and, therefore, whilst we disclaim all responsibility for the present proposals of the Government, we do not offer any resistance to the measure either in Parliament or in Ireland. At the same time, my Lords, I feel bound to express the opinion that the time chosen by the Government for bringing these proposals before Parliament is singularly inopportune. Your Lordships will remember that less than two years ago His Majesty's Ministers declared that any attempt to settle the Irish question must be postponed until the general situation in Ireland showed improvement. It has never yet been explained to my satisfaction why, in the face of that declaration, the Government suddenly determined, last December, to introduce this Bill.
There had certainly been no improvement in the contrary of Ireland. On the contrary it had become worse. The great majority of the people in the South and West had definitely committed themselves to the policy of revolution which had been declared by Sinn Fein. I suppose the Government must have had some hope and expectation that their proposals would bring about a change for the better. But the events of the past twelve months have shown that they misjudged the situation.
It is not my purpose to refer in detail to the terrible list of murders and outrages, which has grown from month to month daring the present year, until it is now beyond question that never before in history has Ireland been in such it dangerous condition as that country is in to-day. I will only say that, in my opinion, the Government would have been better advised, if they had kept to the policy which they laid down in 1918. They have chosen, however, to bring in this Bill, and it becomes our duty to examine it and to pass judgment upon it. The first question I ask myself is this—Does it represent an honest attempt to pave the way to a settlement of the Irish question? My Lords, I believe not only that the Government desire to make this the basis of a settlement, but that they are convinced it is the only possible foundation that can be laid at the present time. The great obstacle in the way of a settlement has always been the demand for Irish
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independence. That is a claim which cannot possibly be conceded; and we shall never reach a settlement unless we can convince the Irish people that their dream of independence is an impossible one.
All the Home Rule Bills in the past have been framed on Separatist lines. They eneouraged and kept alive the dream of independence, which it is, above all things, necessary to dispel. Dominion Home Rule—which has been suggested as an alternative to this Bill, would being us nearer to complete independence, than any of the proposals which have preceded it. I can only express my astonishment that any statesman could be found to support it for one instant. If any of your Lordships are inclined to favour this proposal I would beg of you to consider the events of the last six years.
In 1914 the Home Rule Act was placed upon the Statute Book. That measure—so we were told at the time—would satisfy the aspirations of the Irish people, and settle this problem. But what followed The Rebellion in Dublin. Then we had the conspiracy of Sinn Fein to assist the enemies of the Empire. Next we had the declaration of an Irish Republic, and, finally, the campaign of assassination and outrage of this year—which is without parallel in the history of any civilised country. Under Dominion Home Rule the government M Ireland would be handed over to men who have either organised this criminal conspiracy or condoned its appalling crimes. They would be allowed to raise an Army and Navy, and be given full power to pursue their campaign of bitter hostility against England and the Empire.
My Lords, it is difficult to understand how any one in the position of Mr. Asquith can talk as lightly an he has done of being willing to take risks. It is not a question of taking risks. We should be faced with the certainty of disaster. Dominion Home Rule would bring in its train undoubtedly civil war in Ireland, and a new war of conquest on the part of Great Britain.
From the point of view of Ulster there is no possible alternative to the Government Bill. I am, of course, aware that some of your Lordships strongly object to the setting up of two Parliaments in Ireland. We are told it will be destructive of Irish unity. I do not see how it is possible to

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destroy what does not exist. Ireland has always been divided; and I think we must all admit that the events of the past few years have only accentuated the division.
We may deplore the fact; but it appears to me to be absolutely futile to propose a single Parliament for the whole of Ireland. If self-government is to be granted at all, there must be two Parliaments—one for the six counties and one for the rest of Ireland.
It has been suggested that only one Parliament should be set up, and that the six Ulster counties should be excluded front its operation, and remain in all respects a part of the United Kingdom. If that proposal had been made a year ago it might have satisfied the people of the six counties. But I am sure it would not satisfy us to-day.
We have been offered a Parliament of our own. We have not only definitely accepted the offer; but there has been a growing appreciation of the fact that the Northern Parliament will be a distinct advantage to us. We shall be able by its means to obtain reforms which we have hitherto been unable to secure. I will mention only one of these reforms—namely, education. Your Lordships may not be aware that there are twenty-five thousand children in Belfast alone who have no schools to which to go. We want to build more schools—and better schools—and to improve the standard of education generally throughout Ulster. Unless we get our own Parliament we shall probably have to wait for years before we can obtain these reforms. This Bill will also settle our position in the matter of local self-government. The uncertainty which has prevailed on this question has had a most prejudicial elect upon the commercial and industrial developments of the North of Ireland. If the six counties were simply excluded from the Irish Parliament and left under the Imperial Parliament that uncertainty would continue. We should be subjected to every kind of pressure—political and economic—to compel us to come under the Dublin Parliament, and we should be driven back to the position of 1914. We have pledged ourselves to work the Northern Parliament with the sole idea of making the Bill a success. It is too late now to propose changes which would destroy the whole structure of the Bill and necessitate the introduction of another measure, and for the reasons I
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have given I consider that we must stand by the Bill which is now before us.
The Amendment which has been moved by the noble Earl, Lord Dunraven, is evidently designed to wreck the Bill; and I feel bound to vote against it. I would ask your Lordships to consider for a moment what the consequences of rejecting the Government Bill would be. The Home Rule Act would be left on the Statute Book; and would have to be brought into operation when the last treaty of peace has been ratified. Is that a contingency that any one of your Lordships would regard with satisfaction? The statement that it does not meet the wishes of the majority of the Irish people, I submit, is really no argument at all. Is there any proposal which would command the support of the majority of the Irish people I There is only one and that is an independent Republic, which is obviously impossible. The fact is that not one of the many alternatives suggested by noble Lords would satisfy the majority of the Irish people. I am, therefore, unable to see any point in this argument because every one of the possible alternatives is open to the same objection.
The other statement in the Amendment, that the Government Bill does not, offer any prospect of a. permanent solution, is a mere expression of opinion. I think I am entitled to say on the other side that there is no other scheme which offers, in my opinion, the same good prospect of a permanent settlement as this one.
My Lords, in conclusion, I for one do not expect this Bill to bring about an immediate settlement of the Irish problem. The most that can be said for it is that it contains the germ of a hope of settlement and points the way which must be followed if that hope is to be fulfilled. The Bill imposes a great responsibility upon Ulster. The mission of the Northern Parliament appears to, be to give a practical demonstration to the rest of Ireland that it is possible to enjoy all the rights of local self-government while still maintaining the Union unimpaired. I am confident that Ulster will take up the task assigned to her with a full sense of responsibility and a determination to establish just and efficient government.
I can only express the hope that the people in Southern Ireland will profit by the example and will come to realise in time that national aspirations must be

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subordinated to the interests and security of the United Kingdom. When that day arrives, my Lords, we shall be in sight of a settlement of this question upon the basis of a United Ireland as a loyal member of a united Empire.
[The sitting was suspended at five minutes before eight o'clock and resumed at a quarter past nine.]
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: My Lords, those who have for thirty years at least been consistent advocates of the policy of self-government for Ireland are not likely to approach the consideration of a Bill designed to create any form of Home Rule for Ireland otherwise than in a favourable disposition. But I confess that if I were asked how I am going to vote to-morrow, I should be inclined to reply that that will depend largely upon the response given by His Majesty's Government to the appeals which have been made to them in the direction of a large extension in certain directions of the provisions of this Bill. I have in mind especially the appeal and the arguments of the noble Viscount whose presence and voice we have all welcomed in the House to-night—I mean Viscount Grey. His speech, we all thought, was of the most weighty character.
Before dwelling for a few minutes on the subject-matter of the Bill, I must claim the indulgence of the House while I make a request for the opportunity of submitting a personal statement and explanation. Indulgence in such a case, I think, is always accorded by the House. Unfortunately in this instance, although the statement is ostensibly of a personal character, it is also, as will be seen, quite relevant to the question before the House. On the last occasion when the subject of Ireland was discussed—namely, when a Motion was brought forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Loreburn—I received a direct challenge from the noble Earl, Lord Midleton, with reference to affairs during the time when I had the honour of filling the position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. As I had already spoken in the debate I could not reply at the moment, but I instantly said that I would take the first opportunity of doing so. The noble Earl contended that Ireland was in a peaceful state when the Government with which I was connected took office, and that when I left the country was in a state
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bordering on civil war. To that I reply with all possible emphasis, "It is not so." Perhaps the simplest way of proving that my declaration is true will be to state briefly certain facts which, if they have been to a large extent ignored and forgotten, stand on record and are full of significance. I am alluding to the voluntary enlistment in Ireland during the greater part of that period, and I can speak not only from records but from actual knowledge and observation.
It may interest the House if I quote a significant item or two regarding this matter. One of the approved insurance societies under the Act, which had not long been in existence, consisted of about 7,000 members. This number included men and women—young people and elderly people. It is easy to estimate roughly the proportion of men eligible for active service in this total of 7,000 individuals. I think your Lordships will agree that the number who enlisted, some 2,000, is somewhat remarkable, and there can be no doubt as to the accuracy of this as it is taken from the certificates and statements in the books of the society as to the demobilised men. I suppose we must add something for those who unhappily did not live to return.
Another example on the same point is Ennis and the surrounding district in the county of Clare, of which we have heard a good deal lately. In that case, out of a population of sonic 5,000, no fewer than 800 men between the ages of 18 and 45 enlisted. That, I think, is also a very remarkable case. I have here a pamphlet about Kilrush and the men who served in the Colours. I will give the main substance of the report, which is that out of a possible enlistment total of 591 no fewer than 414 joined the Colours. I think the House is indebted to the noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, who alluded to the manner in which so many Irishmen came forward at this period, and his cordial and generous utterance I feel sure will do good. As he only spoke in general terms I thought it permissible to give these details.
What was it that brought about the decline in this satisfactory flow of recruiting? There was one cause which I feel bound to allude to. One is very reluctant to appear to criticise anything that has to do with military administration, but as the Prime Minister himself alluded some time ago in terms of very

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decided regret regarding certain features of War Office administration in regard to Ireland I suppose I need not be altogether reticent on this subject, as it has a direct bearing on the question. An illustration will perhaps indicate what I have in mind. During the first part of the war there was in Dublin a Committee organised for the purpose of promoting recruiting, composed of various prominent men in Dublin, all civilians, I think. Up to the year 1915 the number that passed into service through that agency was 13,349, but in the year 1916—for what reason I do not know—the Committee were requested to leave the matter of recruiting mainly to the military authorities, and from that time the recruiting rapidly diminished. I should add that before that handing over of the work to the military authorities the Commander-in Chief of the forces in Ireland had congratulated the Committee on the work they were doing.
There was another reason which hindered recruiting after the first year of the war, and that was the postponement of the bringing into effective operation of the Home Rule Act of 1914. This gave a handle to the extremists of the Sinn Fein Party, a party which had certainly become very small in number. I can illustrate that again by mentioning that the chief organ of the Sinn Fein Party, called the Sinn Fein, had declined from a daily paper to a weekly. That was obviously significant. But after 1915 the Sinn Fein movement began to gain fresh force. Nevertheless it is absolutely certain that when the outbreak took place in Easter week of 1916, 90 per cent. of the population of Ireland were totally ignorant of any such design, and not only so, but when they heard of the rising and of the unhappy events connected with it they entirely disapproved of what had occurred, and even some of the leading Sinn Feiners were opposed to it. It was organised by young enthusiasts, but coupled with them—and this is not often mentioned—were the remnants of the strike element which took part in the serious strike which your Lordships will remember occurred some years previously. The strikers were defeated, but that defeat left very bitter memories on the part of the strikers, and they were largely responsible for the rising of 1916.
But any allusion to this change for the worse in Ireland would be incomplete without some reference to the earlier
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manifestations in the opposite direction—namely, manifestations of good will. I can name not a few. It is a matter of public knowledge that His Majesty King George was exceedingly pleased with the splendid reception accorded to him during his visit to Dublin in 1914. There is no need to abstain from alluding to that, because His Majesty expressed publicly his gratification, and I was myself the recipient of a telegram to that effect from His Majesty which I greatly prize. There was another event which was certainly significant, and which happened not long afterwards, and that was the visit of the British Prime Minister. I say the British Prime Minister, because that is the important point, rather than the name of the distinguished statesman who happened to occupy the office at that time, Mr. Asquith. A great meeting was held in the Dublin Mansion House, primarily for recruiting purposes but also to welcome the Prime Minister That meeting was attended by a vast assembly of people of various classes and creeds, and I have no doubt that the majority, at any rate, were Nationalists. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, who was present, occupied the chair. The Lord Lieutenant was also there as well as many other well-known people. Anybody with a knowledge of Ireland will recognise, I think, and none more so than the noble Marquess behind me, that the holding of such a meeting in the Mansion House of Dublin was something to be noted as significant.
THE EARL OF MAYO: All parties were at the meeting.
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: Does the noble Earl say that all attended?
THE EARL OF MAYO: Yes.
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: Quite so. That is the point I wish to emphasise. I am very glad that the noble Earl has laid stress upon it. I spoke of the majority being Nationalists. That fact probably is obvious and I do not further emphasise it. It was a most representative meeting. Among the speakers were Mr. Redmond and Mr. John Dillon, who had a great reception. The proceedings were closed by the singing of "God Save the King.I have reason to know that, because I happened to start the

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tune, which was heartily taken up. I cannot say how many years had passed since the National Anthem had been sung in that hall, but it was a long time. It was sung again some months later, on the occasion of a great demonstration of kindness and good will when the Lord Lieutenant and his wife retired from office.
With these facts in view surely we cannot maintain that the unhappy change for the worse in regard to the attitude of the majority of the Irish people towards Britain, has taken place without any cause or responsibility on the part of this country. I am not speaking of this Government, or any Government, but of the people of this country. They ought seriously to consider this point—namely the responsibility which we, as a country, must recognise in connection with this great change. A whole nation, a whole community, does not change its attitude and temper in five years without some real reason. I hope I have made good my promise that, though I commenced with a personal allusion, I would deal with a topic of direct interest bearing on the discussion.
I will quickly dispose of what remains to be said. As to the strictures of the noble Earl, Lord Midleton, I infer that when he spoke of an undesirable responsibility being handed on by that Administration to its successors, he had particularly in view, though he did not specify it, a story which I have seen quoted from time to time in the Press and elsewhere to the effect that during the period when I had the honour of being Viceroy of Ireland the Police Force in Ireland, and especially the Crimes Special Branch, or the Secret Service Department of the Royal Irish Constabulary, did not experience that official recognition and encouragement to which they were entitled and which they had previously enjoyed. To that remark I give the most unqualified contradiction, and in case my own declaration should be considered insufficient I can produce evidence the unimpeachable character of which cannot be questioned. I hold in my hand letters from those whose testimony is entirely such as to support my distinct denial. I will not trouble the House by reading those letters in full, but I will mention the names of those from whom they come. I have first a letter from Sir Neville Chamberlain, who was Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary during the whole of the period referred to. For that reason I beg leave to read a portion of his
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letter. It is dated November 18, 1920, and says—
"During the whole period of my command of the R.I.C. there was never any suggestion from any member of the Irish Government that the activity of the Crimes Special Branch should be curtailed or interfered with. On the contrary, every encouragement was given to it by the Government."
Then I have a letter from a distinguished member of this House, Lord MacDonnell, who held the very important position of Under-Secretary during the first part of that Viceroyalty. He gives his unqualified support in the same direction, and I am very grateful to him for it. The next letter is from Sir James Dougherty, who succeeded Lord MacDonnell as Under-Secretary, and who had previously been for many years Assistant Under-Secretary. All who have had dealings with Sir James Dougherty will say that he was an official who for efficiency and character could not be surpassed. Lastly I have the testimony of Mr. Birrell, formerly Chief Secretary, who is as much concerned in this matter as I am, especially as the Chief Secretary has the more immediate supervision of the Police. When I mentioned to him what I proposed to say to-night, and have now said, he gave his cordial concurrence and endorsement thereto. I shall only give one other quotation, and it is a statement from the Chairman of the Irish Prisons Board, who says—
"The number of prisoners committed for trial in 1914 was 32,052. The daily average in custody was 2,570. In 1915 the number committed was 19,399 compared with 32,000, and the daily average in custody was 1,566, this being the lowest on record."
I have even seen it stated that Mr. Birrell and I were in some sense responsible for the troubles which have afflicted Ireland since that time; in fact, it has been a current tale in certain quarters. If it has been current, all I can say is that it is counterfeit coin and a fraud, and I nail it to the counter here and now.
I have alluded incidentally to Lord Grey's speech. He impressed upon us the need of an extensive change in the Bill. I think a great many statements in this debate have been made which indirectly strengthen and support that appeal. It is a very common thing to hear about the disloyalty of a large proportion of the Irish people, and of the great need for the protection of Ulster and the Protestants generally. People get into the way of

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alluding to something as a matter of course, but after all is there any great necessity for the protection of these people from Roman Catholic intolerants? It is not necessary for a Parliament to be established in order that disabilities and molestations should be imposed upon the minority, but I have yet to learn that there are any serious complaints in the South of Ireland that the Protestant minority are interfered with in their business. We have heard of boycotting, but I think it is generally done purely on political grounds. My belief is, after some opportunities of observation, that so long as Protestants abstain from anything like attempting proselytising the Roman Catholics get on very well with them. We have the testimony of many a Protestant minister in the South of Ireland that they have been able to live in complete amity and friendship with the people.
When I speak of the alarm as to the danger to Protestants I cannot help alluding to a curious piece of information that I have just obtained, though it is perhaps absolutely irrelevant to the argument. This is to the effect that the patron saint, so to speak, of the Protestant element of Ulster, William of Orange, was after all not a true blue Orangeman. He obtained the blessing of the Pope before he started on his celebrated expedition. I have that on the authority of the eminent Professor of history, Dr. Sigerson, and the late Lord Acton quoted to the same effect. That being so, I venture to make a suggestion—namely, that as King William started as the Prince of Orange and was on one occasion blessed by the Pope, also as Orange is not a Protestant principality in the Netherlands but is in the south of France and is a papal principality, would it not be worth consideration as to whether the 12th of July Festival and Celebration might not be quietly discontinued. I am sure it would be a great convenience if that could be carried out.
Before concluding I wish to say I do think we must recall the hopeful indications which have been apparent in the recent records and in the debates here. I was very much struck by what was said by Lord Oranmore and Browne about his experience at the Convention. He stated that he was surprised to find how much reasonableness he found on the part of his fellow Ulster members to meet to some extent the propositions from the other
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side, so to speak, but that these gentlemen were delegates and therefore they had to refer each important point to their friends in the North. That is a very different thing, to referring a matter in writing to a body who have not been brought under the influence of the friendly discussion and so forth, and. that was art obstruction and a difficulty.
I also feel that the appeal to the Government is strengthened by the fact that a very deep feeling exists not in one direction only in Ireland at the present moment. We have all been horrified by the dreadful events of last Sunday in Dublin, and we were quite sure that a vast proportion of the people in Ireland share that feeling of deep and profound distress, but unfortunately concurrently with those events something else has happened—namely, the mysterious murder of a Catholic priest in Galway, the Rev. Mr. Griffin. I am not making any comment or suggestion in explanation, but there is an investigation to be held, and it is most urgently necessary now that such should be held and carried out most vigorously, because you may be very sure that every Irish Catholic feels that not only a dreadful murder has been committed but an act of sacrilege, and I suppose Catholics in this country will have the same view.
I think also that in connection with reprisals there have been lamentable events, and I suggest it would be a very helpful thing at this time if His Majesty's Government could utter some further expressions of regret, more than language of a mere passing sort, regarding the great sufferings which have been endured by admittedly innocent people in connection with those events. There is a too common custom to speak of the Irish in a tone which indicates that the whole population are to be held as having failed in their duty. It is desirable to have a very little personal association with any Irishman to find that that is entirely erroneous. I know of parents and relations of gallant young soldiers who have made the supreme sacrifice who have felt acutely this attitude on the part of many British persons whom they have occasion to meet for business purposes. It is assumed that because they are Irish they are under the same ban. Surely we ought not to forget the achievements of the Irish regiments, especially such as Gallipoli and the fate of the 10th Division there. We surely should remem-

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ber the spirit in which they enlisted, believing the long controversy would be ended, that the giving of Home Rule to Ireland which they understood was certain was in sight, and that the interests of the two countries were henceforward to be united. Thousands of them died believing that England had fulfilled or was going to fulfil her plighted word in this matter. Surely we should remember such testimony as that of Major William Redmond in the House of Commons who, before he returned to the Front to die, urged that we should keep faith with those who had trusted us. I am told that this Bill is a move in that direction, but I venture to suggest that there is good reason for begging the Government to consider what has been urged upon them, and to express a great hope for success in a large sense by extensive Amendments in their measure.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: My Lords, I am sorry to hear that I shall not find myself in the same Lobby as my noble friend, although in the brave old days of Home Rule we were often associated. But I am glad to hear that William III who has always been a great hero of mine, secured the blessing of the Pope; I only hope the British taxpayer of the lay had not to pay for it.
I hope that the. House of Lords will give a Second Reading to this Bill. It is almost a commonplace to say that the differences of England and Ireland are a very old and very enduring question of controversy The other day I came across something that Mr. Disraeli said when speaking on the 9th of August, 1843, on an Arms Bill for Ireland, Ireland being the same uncomfortable relation as we find it now. He said that he hoped the time would come when a Party framed on true principles would do justice to Ireland, not by satisfying agitators nor by adopting in despair the first quack remedy, but by really penetrating into the history. of this great mismanagement: It is because I think that this Bill, no doubt with a great many imperfections, is the first real attempt, with a chance of success which no other Home Rule Bill has ever had, to pierce and penetrate this great mystification of mismanagement, that I intend to vote for it.
The other night Lord Willoughby de Broke, who has been justly praised and recognised as apparently almost the only
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consistent member of the House of Lords, made the same excuse, I think, as I am going to make. He said that this was an Irish question. It was a question which was very much misunderstood, and was very much better understood by Irishmen than by Englishmen. "At the same time," he said, "I assert that this is an English question and I am going to speak on it, and make my Motion. I put my Amendment down at all events as an Englishman." He says that he is going to vote against the Bill as an Englishman. I hold the exactly opposite opinion. I propose to support it as an Englishman who is impressed by the wreckage of attempts to get on with Ireland which strews the history of Ireland in its relations with this country, impressed by the failure of our attempt to please or to reconcile or to understand or to manage Ireland, impressed by the conviction that we cannot go on as we are and that circumstances have reached the point where we have to move and to move in the direction which His Majesty's responsible advisers have adopted and have advised us to move.
The noble Marquess said just now in a very interesting speech, interesting as his speeches always are, from the natural source like Perier water—the noble Marquess, after various other strictures of the Bill, summarised those strictures by saying "Show me the man who likes this Bill, who will cordially vote for it." You see one here. I am prepared to vote for it, and I only hope we have a good many more. We are all Home Rulers now. Lord Grey, in the charming persuasive and weighty speech to which we listened just now, told us that he had only been Owe or twice here —due to circumstances which we all understand and. regret and we have all missed him—on non-controversial questions connected with foreign affairs, and what struck him was the calm atmosphere of the House. I agree that it is very different now. It is very different from 1893, when I had the honour of speaking in a great debate in this House and voting on Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. I remember how feeling was acute at that time. We were sitting on this side, the remnant of the Liberal Party, and I think 43 of us voted. The scarlet benches were so full that a great many on that side had to come and sit on this, and I remember that a very old friend of mine, after he had dined, did not find room on that side. He was determined to sit somewhere. It was just

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before the division. This particular friend of mine came in a manner which perhaps may have been interpreted that he had dined and thrust himself upon us in a way that we thought very impolite. However he was a very good pugilist, so on the whole we did not worry anything about it. But that shows the state of affairs in those days, when a man of very good manners had worked himself up into a state of political feeling which caused him to do a thing of that sort. It was still more so in 1887 when Mr. Gladstone first committed the Liberal Party to Home Rule. Lord Selborne, who had always been Mr. Gladstone's great supporter, said that Mr. Gladstone was morally insane.
Things are very different now. The difficulty now is that so many influential persons, not I admit persons responsible for the Government and administration either of this country or of Ireland, but persons who at any time may be put into that position, are all Home Rulers. But they all want their own brand of Home Rule. They all say, "Your brand is wrong. The people of Ireland don't like your brand. If you will try our brand it will be all right and we understand it well." We have Lord Grey of Fallodon, Mr. Asquith, Lord Loreburn, Lord Hugh Cecil, to cite only a few of the more prominent. But as far as I am concerned I very much prefer to consider and to speak of the Bill which is put before us by His Majesty's Government.
And here I should like to take an opportunity of entering my protest against the plans proposed, not in a Bill before Parliament but in letters to The Times by Lord Grey and by Mr. Asquith. Mr. Asquith's proposals, I hear, are to be adopted—I suppose at a great meeting—by the Independent Liberals, with whom I have always been proud to associate myself. I have been Liberal all my life; I become more Liberal as I grow older. But I am bound to say I will have nothing to do with the proposal made by Mr. Asquith which we know all about. And I will have nothing to do with the party chest either. Napoleon said that armies marched on their stomachs, and we also know that political parties can only proceed upon their chests.
Then I come to Lord Grey's speech and Lord Grey's modifications of the plan he proposed of leaving Ireland to itself after a couple of years' time to fight matters out like a lot of Kilkenny cats. It is
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quite true that Lord Grey to-night introduced some modifications of that. As far as I understood he said that if he had known as much as he did now he would have written differently. And one of his proposals, also, I dissent from. I believe the financial part of the Bill has been a good deal attacked, and I believe that much of that might be susceptible of amendment. But Lord Grey became so generous that everything was to be given away, and yet everything was to be provided by this unfortunate country. When I heard that he was in favour of such sweeping generosity as that what occurred to me was that what might be generosity to Ireland might be injustice to England. It is very true that in these days the taxpayer and the shoulders of the taxpayers are not very much regarded. The unfortunate taxpayer is out of fashion. To that extent I was quite unable to follow Lord Grey in his sweeping proposals, just as I find it impossible to follow him in the notion that, if things did not answer after two years, the people of Ireland were to be left to fight it out among themselves.
Whatever the faults of this Bill may be no one can contest that it has secured—not perhaps the "genial, possibly the reluctant, but at all events the efficient and the practical support of Ulster. What a tremendous thing that is to have secured I know the South are not pleased, and imperfections in the Bill were pointed out and argued, I thought, with very great ability and to my mind with a great deal of weight by Lord Dunraven, Lord Oranmor and Browne, and Lord Clanwilliam. But, even so, I think there is something in what The Times newspaper said. I do not know whether it was in the article to-day, but in two or three articles on the Irish question, which The Times has been writing lately, it is pointed out that, even if this Bill does not do all that we desire, there is such a thing as achieving through this Bill union by processes of evolution. After all, there are such things as amending Acts. People to-night have really talked as if, supposing this Act were found not to work in some material ways, there was nothing more to be done, and that we must sit down, fold our hands, and resign ourselves to dust and ashes. Even if there are mistakes in this Bill, even if it went through as it was, if no Amendments were put into it by your Lordships' House and if no Amend-

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ments were accepted by the House of Commons, I do not despair. You could have amending Bills.
One word about finance. I think that the finance of this Bill is on the "pokey" side. The Government would have done well to have given rather a better start in finance than it has. That point has been argued and made out by several speakers already in the course of the Debate. A distinguished Roman, when the situation of his country was almost as disagreeable as ours, declared that if the circumstances were sufficiently emergent and sufficiently extended, si res poscat, there was no length to which a wise man with due discretion should not go, and I think the Government night have stretched a point further in the direction of finance than they have.
I hear that an Amendment is going to be moved to-morrow, associated with the name of Lord Midleton, to adjourn this Debate for a certain time—I do not know how long, I was told a fortnight—and that the ostensible reason for the fortnight is for intelligences to operate and for the Government to consider the proposals of these intelligences with a view of improving the financial position of the Bill. We are also told that if that was done the Bill would go through. I have been in your Lordships' House as a spectator more than an actor for a great many years. I do not believe in Motions of that kind. I see in that kind of Motion a net spread with meshes small enough and large enough to catch all kinds of fish. In that Amendment I see not merely a dilatory Motion—dilatory was the word used by the Lord Chancellor—though It believe the supporters of it repudiate that word. They say it is not dilatory, that it is entirely an Amendment for deliberation. I am sure Lord Midleton takes that view, and many of your Lordships who will support the Amendment also take that view. But what I see in it, and what will really result if you pass an Amendment of that kind, is in effect the defeat of this Bill and of the Government at what I conceive to be one of the most critical moments this country has seen in the history of England and Ireland.
As far as I am concerned I shall vote against that Amendment. I hope we shall have more powerful speeches than I am able to make to divorce people who may quite easily and conscientiously think that
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there is something in this. I hope they will recognise that the times are too critical, that delays are dangerous, and that we must not have anything to do with an Amendment which will hang the whole thing up and give the worst possible impression. Lord Dunraven, I was glad to see, dealt with the very fair argument that the present regrettable state of Ireland makes it very inopportune and. very difficult to put forward a measure of this kind. He dealt with the objections which are made by a great many people to that contention. But what he told us was that Ireland is sick and tired and ashamed and horror-struck at what is going on, and if only Ireland could sec a measure that would give some sort of promise and hope of a better state of things there was a large body of moderate opinion in Ireland prepared to accept such a scheme.
People say, "Show me the moderate man in Ireland." I know it is very difficult to point the finger at such a man, but I think Lord Dunraven and many noble Lords from Ireland will confirm the view that these violences do not represent Ireland as a whole. They are the work of a certain extreme party, and it is said that if the moderate people are given a chalice they may get together. Whether that is so or not do not know. Lord Salisbury I know holds quite an opposite view, and I am bound to admit as a fair-minded man that both these arguments are not only permissible but extremely arguable. Still I say to the Government, "Holding the strong card of Ulster in your hands, and having the state of Ireland before your eyes, go on with your Bill." The Lord Chancellor had something to say about the tactical advantages of this Bill. He said that in the passing of this Bill we would acquire merit in the eyes of the whole world. Justification, I think he spoke of. Well, I hope this may be so. It is a most desirable thing, both for individuals and countries to justify themselves or to acquire merit in places where perhaps they have rather lost caste, but Lord Curzon the other night—not in this debate—told us that anything of this sort was not the least necessary, as we stood extremely well in the eyes of foreign countries. But Lord Grey, on the other hand, an ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, did not take that view, and said that although Ireland was outside international politics, he did find the domestic problem

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of Ireland was an obstacle in making international arrangements.
I do not think foreign nations concern themselves in our domestic affairs as much as we think they do, or as much as we like to think. In all the newspapers and review articles we are always meddling with other people's affairs, telling them what they ought to do, and what we would do if we were in their place. We really parade as examples for everybody else in domestic relations, but I do not think that we are accepted abroad just in that way. In my opinion this notion does not count for very much. We may recover some of that prestige by this Bill, but what we may say is that abroad we are looked upon as very great muddlers in the way we have shuffled in dealing with Ireland. However justification may be the desirable and tactical advantage of the Home Rule Bill at this moment; but what we have got to consider, and what makes me inclined to support this Bill, is the remarkable change which has taken place in public opinion both in Parliament and out of doors on Ireland, and on the relations of this country to Ireland. An extraordinary change on the part of men of influence in politics on both sides, considerations of statesmanship, which, after all, has suffered shipwreck over the last hundred years in relation to Ireland, the present state of affairs in Ireland, the present necessity to move—you may be afraid of going forward, but surely you are as much afraid of standing still—these to my mind are the dominant factors in this question, and it is on these dominant factors that I rest my vote. A good many years ago Professor Freeman, the historian of the Norman Conquest, wrote a letter to Viscount Bryce, whom I do not see in his place, in which he said—
"I myself have my notions about Ireland. If you cannot drown her let her go."
Well, I for one cannot drown her. That is clear. And I am not prepared to do the other thing without a greater effort and a new change in our relations with Ireland than have yet been achieved, but which is contained within the four corners of the Government Bill.
THE EARL OF MAYO: My Lords, I have listened with the greatest interest to the charming speech just made by my noble friend Lord Ribblesdale. I note that he admits that there has been mis-
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management in Ireland in the past—I agree with him—and that the efforts to reconcile Ireland have not been successful, but he is going to vote for this Bill. I ask myself whether the Bill is going to reconcile Ireland in any way whatsoever. I will deal with that later on. But I was pleased by what he said with regard to finance. He said that the finance was not satisfactory. I forget the exact expression.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: Pokey.
THE EARL OF MAYO: That is the very word. The Bill has not been generous enough in finance, and it would receive a much better reception in Ireland if it were more generous in that respect. During this debate, especially yesterday, we heard a good deal about Ulster. Ulster was there, first, last and all the time. I should like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that there are three provinces in Ireland called Munster, Connaught and Leinster, which comprise the largest part of Ireland. The Ulster of which we have been talking has only six counties. I should like to say something, and I will in the course of my speech, with regard to the effect of this Bill on those counties. The Lord Chancellor dealt very largely with Ulster and not very much with the rest of Ireland. He explained the Bill most lucidly and I congratulate him upon the way he did it. The Bill is very difficult to read and understand. I noticed that he strengthend his arguments by reading a letter from Sir Edward Carson—I do not know why his arguments should be strengthened in any way by a letter from Sir Edward Carson—who wrote that it was said that no one in Ireland wanted this Bill, but six counties in Ulster wanted it. They could not have the Union and so they accepted the Bill, one reason being that the 1914 Act was on the Statute Book. That bogey has been held before us over and over again. Nothing will make me believe that any Government could possibly put the 1914 Act into operation at present. They would not dare to do it. Any Government that attempted it would be howled down.
I should like to say something about the speech of the noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry. He made a very fine and statesmanlike speech as he always does, and he told us that Ulster, by adopting this Parliament, was setting an example to the rest of Ireland. I do not know whether

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he said it, but I shall say that you cannot compel people to be friends by an Act of Parliament. In relation to that he referred to the Council which was to be a fusion of both parties. When I come to the question of the Council I shall deal with that. I do not in the least think that it will be a fusion of both parties, and therefore I do not agree with the noble Marquess when he said that Ulster was going to set an example to the rest of Ireland. I do not think the rest of Ireland will take that example at all or in any way. Before dealing with this Bill I wish to recall some events that happened in Ireland. We all know of the horrible Rebellion which broke out in 1916. The Government were warned over and over again of what was going to take place in Ireland. My noble friend below me, Lord Midleton, had warned the Government over and over again. I remember speaking to a prominent statesman upon the subject, and I was quietly told to mind my own business. Those of us who come from Ireland have never been listened to when we have warned the Government of what was going to happen. They thought, I suppose, that it was for some political reason that we were warning the Government. During the years that I have had the honour of sitting in this House as a representative Peer I have time after time (and so have many others) warned the Government, and we have not been listened to. After the Rebellion to which I have referred, a Convention sat for a great many months. I admit that the Ulster members were delegates and could not act for themselves, but my recollection of the Convention, and of their attitude there, is that they would do nothing, and that they proposed nothing, but merely sat still. It. is very hard to come to any arrangements with delegates who take up that attitude. I do not complain; I only state facts.
That Convention came to an end, and the Prime Minister wrote and said that if the Convention did not succeed in coming to a pretty unanimous conclusion Home Rule would be imposed upon Ireland. I think I am right in saying that the word "imposed" was used by the Prime Minister. We have now the Ulster Members, who were the most tremendous Unionists in the past, creating this extraordinary situation. They have a Home Rule of their own. Yet they would like to remain under the Union. Your Lordships will recollect that
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in the House of Commons they voted on Lord Robert Cecil's Motion that Ulster should remain part of the Union. Nevertheless, they have accepted their own Parliament of the six counties. Circumstances, I admit, were against them. They took the best that they could get.
I should like to say a word regarding the way in which the Home Rule Bill was conducted in Committee stage in the House of Commons. This is not a comment by The Times but a statement in a report in that newspaper—
"The debate on the Home Rule Bill was conducted by indolent groups of members in a sea of empty benches. Before dinner General Seely was the sole occupant of the Front Opposition Bench, and one could not find any Labour members."
That is the way in which this Bill was pushed through the House of Commons. The Prime Minister, with the present House of Commons, can practically pass anything. In the Committee stage of the Bill Amendments were introduced in the House of Commons; they were not listened to because there was nobody in the House to listen to them. Our friends were there introducing these Amendments but they were not passed. The Members trooped in and voted against the Amendments with the Government, and that was the end of those Amendments. Our friends worked hard for those Amendments; that was the result, and that is how the Bill passed in another place.
I think we have a right in this House to criticise and say what we think about the Bill. The Bill authorises and forces partition upon Ireland in the most evil way. It is a partition which is resented all over Ireland. When Ulster talks about finality, does it mean that that finality is to consist of continual partition? That is what I want to know. The Lord Chancellor talked about finality and said that Ulster was looking for finality. Well, if that is the sort of finality, what hope is there for peace in Ireland? It is resented even in Ulster, because what about the counties of Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal in the far corner of Ireland? They are enitrely left out of Ulster. Can you imagine, noble Lords of England, a Parliament in the West Riding of Yorkshire and another Parliament in the rest of Yorkshire. Such a thing seems to me to be most impossible. This policy of partition is understandable from the purely English point of view. There is an old maxim, Divide et Impera, Divide and govern, and Ireland perhaps

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will be easier to get in order when there is a Parliament at Belfast which certainly will not be in touch with the rest of Ireland. If that is the policy I consider it is a very dangerous one and a very unfair one, but that may be in the minds of some who have thought the matter over.
There has not one word been said in favour of this Bill in the whole of the South and West of Ireland; not one public body has expressed any wish to have this Bill. There have been letters in the papers, but really in what those letters stated and went for they practically tore the vitals out of the Bill; the writers were not satisfied with the Bill. There have been small bodies of the so-called moderate party and peace party, but they all want more than the Bill which is before us. This Bill is imposed upon us, and I ask myself and I ask noble Lords in this House, Who is going to work the Bill in the South and West of Ireland and who will lift a finger to work it? The Republican Party certainly will not; the scattered Unionists will not, because they will not be able to.
We all know the state that Ireland is in at present. I have just come from that country. There is terror throughout the land, and terror breeds hatred. It is a dreadful thing to say, but I have never known my life such a sulky hatred throughout Ireland for British rule; there is that sort of sulky feeling that it is very hard not to notice. I ask your Lordships whether this is the moment to press this Bill on Ireland. I say, No.
I should like to say something of the Bill itself and to discuss its merits. This, I think, is the fourth Home Rule Bill that has been before your Lordships' House, and age cannot wither nor custom stale its infinite variety. This really is a variant of other Bills that have been before us. It is "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland." I am afraid that it will muddle up things a great deal worse than they are now. I speak only of the South and West, and that is the larger part of Ireland. Let me take first of all, Clause 2, which provides for the establishment of a council of forty, consisting of ten members from the Southern Parliament, ten members from the Northern Parliament, and ten other gentlemen who are chosen. The President is appointed by His Majesty. I should like to know why the whole of Ireland should only have ten members and the six Counties the same number? I do
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not think that makes very much for peace. There will be a Sinn Fein Parliament, I suppose, if there is a Parliament at all in the South, and if I was a member of a Sinn Fein Parliament in the South of Ireland I should say, "It is all very well, but you have exactly the same representation as we have, though you have only six Counties to represent and we are representing three Provinces."
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: Twenty-six counties.
THE EARL OF MAYO: I do not know why this has been put into the Bill, but I suppose it is on the ground that Ulster must not be coerced. I do not think it is commendable to the rest of Ireland. What is this Council to do? It is eventually to establish a Parliament for the whole of Ireland. There are words in this Bill which it is extraordinary to find in an Act of Parliament, I think—"for bringing about harmonious action between the Parliaments and Governments of Southern and Northern Ireland." Those are very broad and vague words. Does anyone suppose for a moment that the Northern members of the Council will meet the Sinn Fein members of the South and West? I do not think they ever will, and I do not think, therefore, that the Lord Lieutenant will call upon them to meet.
Clause 3 deals with the question of the establishment of Second Houses of Parliament for Northern and Southern Ireland. In this Second Chamber proposal lies the only chance of the minorities in Ireland being represented. I should like to say something about that and the pledge which the Government gave with regard to this question. Mr. Walter Long said this in Committee on May 18 of this year—
"The Government undertake between now and Report to place on the Paper a definite scheme for the constitution of the Second Chamber in both Southern and Northern Ireland."
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: Hear, hear.
THE EARL OF MAYO: He went on to say—
"It will be our endeavour in giving this undertaking to find a scheme really practicable and effective to secure the support of those who in all quarters in this House still think that there should be every precaution taken to avoid all oppression of minorities, which would mean that the result would be nothing but failure."

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That was a definite statement and a definite promise. And what are we given? We are given this Council which, it is very unlikely will sit at all, and if it sits it will most likely disagree in the most dreadful manner. I was very much struck when the Lord Chancellor—I think I am right, I stand corrected if I am wrong—spoke of the pitiable position of the Southern Unionists. What will become of these minorities in the South and West if there is no Second Chamber? The promise of the Government, I say, has not been kept. You will remember, my Lords, that the sons of these men went out to the war and fought and lost their lives. Are these the men you are going to leave to the tender mercies of a Sinn Fein Parliament? I do not think that is fair; I do not think that is right. One of the most important Amendments that I hope we shall introduce will be the formation of a Second Chamber both for the North and South of Ireland, because there are minorities in the North of Ireland that have to be protected in the same way as in the South of Ireland.
With regard to Clause 4, the two Parliaments in the North and South can establish by agreement, by an absolute majority of each Parliament, a single Parliament for Ireland consisting of His Majesty and one or two Houses. That question of the Second Chamber is left quite indefinite. If they do establish one Parliament the Council disappears and the Second Chamber may not come into existence at all, although there may be one Parliament for Ireland. As I said before, those minorities will go to the wall absolutely, and I rather think it looks as if the Government did not care very much whether the loyal people who lived in the South and West of Ireland did go to the wall. I do not wish to deal with the powers of this Parliament or even a second Parliament if it is set up. But it is very interesting to point out that by Clause 70, if less than one-half of the members of both Northern and Southern Parliaments have not been validly returned and have not taken the oath of allegiance the provision establishing these Parliaments falls through and a new form of Government is set up, which we are told is Crown Colony Government—a Committee of the Privy Council of Ireland and such persons as His Majesty may appoint for the purpose. That is the formation which is called a Legislative Assembly. I ask myself, supposing this Parliament in the South and West do not conform to this Act and are
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not validly elected and do not take the oath, what is the use of setting up another form of Government? Why on earth should you not fall back upon the present form of Government? I dare say it does not satisfy them, but it exists. What I want to know is this. The Order, that is to say the Order for the dissolution of these not properly elected or constituted Parliaments, may make modifications in this Act in its application to the part of Ireland affected. I want to know whether that Crown Colony Government can interfere with this Act and alter it. As I read the Bill it can. But, surely, it is for the Imperial Parliament to alter the Act, and not this Legislative Assembly. I see the noble Marquess (Lord Londonderry) here, and I hope he will ask a member of the Cabinet who is going to speak to explain exactly what are the powers, if there are, any, of this new Legislative Assembly.
What stands out in this Bill is the partition of my country fixed for ever. Ulster will never go into a single Parliament—never. They would be in a minority, and they said they never would, and I believe what they say. Minorities are not protected in any way whatsoever. That is not in the Bill; it is left to a Council, which may never function. And why? Because the whole of the rest of Ireland is to have the same number of representatives as six counties. I do not think any one would stand that. It is left to a single Parliament, which can never be brought into being, to form a Second Chamber thus the Second Chamber disappears entirely. And why? Because, of course, Ulster would have nothing to do with a single Parliament. This is a Bill which, so far as the West and South of Ireland is concerned, will set everybody by the ears.
By Clause 24 the Parliaments of Northern and Southern Ireland can impose a surtax, that is to say, an additional income tax or super-tax on all individuals resident or domiciled in Ireland in respect of their total income from all sources. "Resident or domiciled in Ireland" is a broad and comprehensive term. They can also grant relief from those taxes, also a surtax can be imposed, whether or not individuals are liable to income tax or super-tax. What would a Sinn Fein Parliament do, if it were set up in the South and West of Ireland? Sinn Fein would grant relief from this surtax to their supporters and

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friends, but those who have opposed them, and who are part of the loyal population in the South and West will surely feel the imposition of this tax, and feel it heavily. That is only human nature. If I were a Sinn Feiner in that Parliament I should say, "Here are a lot of gentry who have opposed Home Rule and that sort of thing in every possible way; let us get rid of them and tax them out of the country." That is quite possible; it is in the Bill, and it will most likely happen. It is not a pleasant lookout for us in Ireland, and there is no protection for minorities in this Bill, especially in the matter of taxation. And we shall have no representation either, unless there is a Second Chamber. We shall be taxed to the utmost limit.
The Lord Chancellor in his speech asked himself the following question, "What is to happen if Sinn Fein refuses to take part in this Bill?" Then we have Crown Colony government set up. As I have already said, I consider that this Legislative Assembly, or Crown Colony government, has power under this Bill to interfere with and alter this Act. The other question he asked was, Supposing that Sinn Fein should affect to become members of the Southern Parliament and take the oath, and take no notice of the oath or break it to declare a Republic?, and the answer was, "It will be brought under by the reconquest of Ireland. That is a very pleasant outlook for us; and a great deal of this is in the Bill. There are possibilities in the Bill for such a situation to arise. The noble Viscount, Lord Haldane, in a very able speech, talked about granting Ireland responsibility. For myself I think that the responsibility will take the form of Sinn Fein going as far as they can, even to declaring a Republic if they have the pluck to do so.
This is not a moment for granting responsible government to Ireland; when the country is in the state it is now. It is wrong to fix partition for ever on the country and to deny fiscal autonomy. I do not say she should have it at once but I say that it ought to come in the future; and we want more generous financial terms. The times are not propitious and the Government cannot throw off their responsibility for governing Ireland. They cannot say, "We have done this and that for Ireland; this is a most generous measure." That will not do; it will deceive no one. I shall vote for the
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Amendment as I think the Bill will in no way help us to bring peace to Ireland.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, I desire to establish if I can the proposition that there are really only two alternatives in schemes for the government of Ireland, and that this Bill is not one of them. In the first place, I still unrepentantly plead for the maintenance of the Union as the best scheme. The Parliament of the United K ngdom has done splendid work for Ireland, and is capable of doing a great deal more. I am, therefore, unrepentant, and unlike the Lord Chancellor, who yesterday performed a feat that has never been performed before, by declaring himself a Unionist in moving the Second Reading of a Home Rule Bill.
But no Unionist can neglect the handwriting on the wall. We must recognise the facts of the situation. Ever since we have been Unionists we have been able to base our opposition to Home Rule on what was known as the will of the predominant partner. We must recognise that the will of the predominant partner is not what it always was. I do not wish to rake up ancient history. I do not wish to try and apportion the blame for this weakness, this alteration in the opinion of the predominant partner. I have always taken it, from the vote given in your Lordships' House in the early days of July, 1914, when we voted for the Home Rule Amendment accepting the principle of the exclusion of Ulster, that you cannot vote for the exclusion of Ulster without implying that you accept something to exclude Ulster from. From that day I have always felt the ground was cut from under our feet as regards the maintenance of the Union. Although there may be disputes with regard to the day and time and method, the effect is undeniable. Our Unionist friends in the North of Ireland have been forced to accept the idea of a. Parliament, apart from the Imperial Parliament, which they have always opposed, and we in the South have been compelled to discuss our future in a system in which, as an Imperial asset, we have no belief, and involving the acceptance of a Parliament separate from the United Kingdom—an idea we have always opposed.
If our old political friends deny us a continuance of the Union, what is the

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alternative? There is no alternative between a real Government by a Parliament of the United Kingdom and a real Government by some other body. By a real Government I mean some complete form of self-government, without leading strings; and this Bill does not satisfy that formula. The position really is all-important. Look at the position for a moment through the eyes of people living in the South and West of Ireland. They have two alternatives before them. They have first of all the Republican alternative, for which the majority of them undoubtedly voted at the last General Election. Naturally I do not agree with that alternative, but it is there, and there is no denying it has certain attractions to the narrow-minded man who lives in Ireland and never goes out of it. But that being so, what is there in this Bill that is attractive as an alternative to the Republican policy? It is essential that you should attract public opinion to your proposals, unless there is to be, as I believe, a great disaster to the Empire as a whole.
Hitherto we have been able to neglect the majority in Ireland because we could quote against it the majority of the predominant partner, but now that you are abolishing the Union you must take account of the majority, whatever it happens to be, in the South and West of Ireland. I was sorry to think that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor was rather indifferent on that point yesterday. I listened very carefully to all he had to say, and it seemed to me his attitude was that either this Bill will be worked in Dublin or else the country will suffer the inconvenience of Crown Colony government, and so much the worse for them. From what I remember of Crown Colony government, it is not an inefficient thing, and therefore that threat does not imply quite as many terrors to people who have lived in Ireland under the present Government for many years past. But surely we all realise that Crown Colony government is impossible. Where is your organisation for it? It could not possibly be organised in a few days and in the offhand way suggested by the speeches of members of the Government. If this Bill does not work in Ireland you will have chaos and not Crown Colony government.
The most depressing thing about this Bill surely must be that not one single speaker has been able to point to any
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volume of opinion in the South and West of Ireland who will make any attempt to work this Bill. It is not the extremists who are not satisfied, but every one is dissatisfied with this Bill. The reason is clear. I honestly believe that you might be able to persuade a Parliament in Dublin even now that the Navy and Army and Foreign Affairs were proper matters to reserve to the Imperial Parliament, but that is the most you will ever do. All other leading strings must be abolished. They might lead us to the Boston tea ships again. These leading strings are most galling in this Bill in the realm of finance.
The noble Viscount, Lord Grey, if I may say so, was perfectly right when he referred to this question of finance as having a sentimental side in the eyes of the Irish people. There is no doubt that the belief is widely held on the other side of St. George's Channel that in financial matters in the widest sense—the Budget, commercial policy, and so forth—the Imperial Parliament, in all cases of rival interests between England and Ireland have, to put it mildly, legislated in the interests of the stronger neighbour and to the detriment of the weaker. That belief is not a modern belief. It existed before the Union and it exists still. In the past many of us have put up with that. We could not deny the facts o history, but we have neglected them, because we have been able to argue that it was one of the disadvantages of the Union and that the Union had far greater advantages to outweigh it. But in future we shall not have that staff upon which to lean, and I believe that the whole of the South and West of Ireland will be unanimous in objecting to the position to which I have referred. After all, remember that the British Government have enjoyed this predominance in our financial affairs because of the Union and for no other reason, and they cannot expect, in common fairness, to keep that predominance if they abolish the Union.
I would like to illustrate my point rather in detail from the finance clauses of the Bill. First of all, the really powerful authority under this Bill is the Joint Exchequer Board, which is set out in Clause 31. It has to consist of two members appointed by the Treasury, one by the Treasury of Southern Ireland and one by the Treasury of Northern Ireland, and a Chairman appointed by His Majesty.

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It is the duty of the Board to determine any matter which has to be determined by the Board under this Act and also any other matter in connection with Irish Revenue or Expenditure which may be referred to it. The members also have to decide the most important question whether any tax is substantially the same in character as, or has been imposed in lieu of, another tax. They decide, in fact, on the legality of taxes and their decision is final and conclusive. And they may act by a majority. How will this work? First of all, what is the constitution of the Board? There are two so-called Irish members, one from the North and one from the South. It is pretty clear that, as a general rule, these two gentlemen will disagree, not because they come from the North and South respectively, but for the obvious reason that the interests of the North will be mainly industrial and those of the South mainly agricultural. Even assuming that they do agree, Who have they got against them? They have the two members nominated by the English Treasury acting under the orders of the English Chancellor of the Exchequer and they have a Chairman who is paid out of the English Consolidated Fund and is equally anti-Irish. Therefore, even assuming the most favourable circumstances, that the two Irishmen agree, you have a permanent majority against Ireland on the most important body controlling finance. We have a nasty phrase in Ireland about juries. We called them packed sometimes. It is really not unfair to call this Exchequer Board a packed Board in the interests of England and against Ireland. Surely His Majesty's Government cannot expect that it will find the smallest confidence in Ireland in view of its constitution.
I go on to the financial powers of the subordinate Parliaments. They are given in Clause 20. The Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland have the power to make laws with respect to the imposing, charging, levying, and collection of taxes within their respective jurisdictions other than Customs Duties and Excise Duties on articles manufactured and produced, and Excess Profits Duty, Corporation Profits Tax, any other taxes on profits, Income Tax, or any tax substantially the same in character. This clause was explained to us by the Lord Chancellor yesterday. He said that the control of certain taxes by Parliament—in this case I mean the decision as to their
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rates and decisions as to their desirability and as to the method of their subsequent collection—was left to the Irish Parliaments. They are allowed to keep power over Death Duties, Stamp Duties, Licences, Entertainment Tax, and certain miscellaneous items amounting to £3,500,000. Your Lordships will notice their power to impose some other taxes if they can. I wonder what those other taxes are expected to be. One would have thought that all sources of taxation had been fully well explored by now on the present basis of taxation.
The two Parliaments are to be concerned with the policy of raising £3,500,000 of their revenue. On the other hand, the Parliament in London will retain control of the revenue of £48,500,000 collected in Ireland. Of this of course part will be given back to be spent in Ireland. But that does not affect my argument as regards Parliamentary control—that is, the control and authority over taxation and the method of collect on. These figures, of course, are for the whole of Ireland. I do not know the figure for the Dublin Parliament, but the percentage is probably approximately correct. The local Parliament will be allowed a say how little more than 6 per cent. of the revenue collected in Ireland shall be raised, and the London Parliament will decide how over 93 per cent. of the Irish revenue shall be raised. Would any self-governing part of the British Empire accept such a position for five minutes? You are even treating India in the Act of last year with far greater generosity, and unless His Majesty's Government can make up their minds to give up a very large proportion of what they have retained for themselves in the figures from which I have just quoted, and which were given yesterday by the Lord Chancellor, any chance of this Bill working is unthinkable.
But this is not all. I will refer to one or two other points very shortly. Ireland is to make a contribution to the Imperial Exchequer. It is quite right that she should, but the Irish Parliament has no voice in the amount. In my view the £18,000,000 a year is far too high. It may not even stay at £18,000,000, it may even be increased, and the authority that will decide the increase will not be the Parliament of Ireland or of the United Kingdom but your favourite packed body, the Joint Exchequer Board.

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Another point in which Ireland is unfairly treated as compared to England is this. At present there is a Consolidated Fund for the United Kingdom in which Ireland has her share. In future there is to be a Consolidated Fund for the United Kingdom as there is now, and there is also to be a Consolidated Fund for the Northern part of Ireland and a Consolidated Fund for the Southern part of Ireland. The Parliament of the Southern part and the Parliament of the Northern part each have power over their own Consolidated Fund. They, of course, have no share in the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, but the Parliament of the United Kingdom retains power to charge things on the Funds of the subordinate Parliaments. Do you think that will be considered fair?
These points that I have referred to briefly are what I call the financial leading strings. Why are they imposed? Are they imposed in the interests of Ireland? Are they imposed in the interests of the Empire? Not at all. They are imposed solely in the interest of the British Treasury. That fact will be thoroughly understood in. Ireland, and as long as it is understood in Ireland there is no chance of the acceptance of this financial scheme by any business man that you can quote outside Ulster. I was amused to notice the phrase used by the Lord Chancellor. He said, you cannot impose a Second Chamber on these two subordinate Parliaments. No, my Lords, but you have no hesitation in imposing the details of 93 per cent. of the revenue in the country that they are supposed to rule over. It is really not unfair to sum up this position in one sentence by saying that you are offering to the Parliament in Dublin less financial authority than is now enjoyed by the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, and I wonder that any British Government can think that such a position can be accepted by any body of sensible men for five minutes.
If you had produced a generous financial scheme I really believe that you might have found a majority in Ireland who would have tried to work it, but the fact that it has not been produced I claim gives ample authority to your Lordships to reject this Bill on the Second Reading. It has been laid down by the Lord Chancellor—and I rather think the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, agreed by an interruption I heard him make this afternoon—that your Lordships have no power over these financial clauses.
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That is a matter your Lordships cannot decide, it would be decided by the Speaker, but I am not sure that the position is quite as clear as it is laid down. Are we here really dealing with the question of taxation or are we dealing with the powers of a subordinate Parliament? The latter certainly would be within your Lordships' power. It sometimes happens that when the Government really want a thing done the other House is persuaded to waive its privilege, but as far as we know at present the Government do not want any financial alteration made in this Bill. If that is so, if the Government give us full warning that they will claim that this is a matter of privilege, we have no alternative but to reject the Bill in the hope that a better financial scheme will come up in some future Bill.
Before I sit down I want to touch very briefly on two small questions. Firstly, I want to say a word about the Council of Ireland, the little infant that is to grow into the full manhood of Irish union. Seldom has an infant started with less prospect of sustenance. My noble friend Lord Mayo has dealt with the point of its task of drafting second chambers, a task which few of us believe it will ever try to perform. When you set that aside, what else is there for it to do? The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack made great play yesterday with the Private Bill legislation which is to be transferred to it. I do not know why everybody who starts a Home Rule, or devolution, or federal scheme always drags in the poor old Private Bill legislation as one of the reasons for what he is doing. Let us see how much work that is going to give the Council of Ireland. I have been carefully through the list of Private Bills for the last seven or eight years to see how many Bills have come from Ireland and to try to obtain some light on the amount of work the British Parliament will be relieved of in future by the Council of Ireland taking over this particular task. In 1912 there were 129 Private Bills of which six were Irish; in 1913 there were 133 of which three were Irish; in 1914 there were 143, four of them for Ireland; in 1915—the first year of the war—there were 63, three of them for Ireland; in 1916 there were 37, one of them Irish; in 1917 there were 38, one of them for Ireland; in 1918 there were 67, five of them for Ireland, and in 1919 there were 81, of which five were for Ireland. The result is that in eight years we have had 28 Private Bills, an average of three in one year

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and four in the next. Putting it at the highest figure, are four Private Bills per annum, some of them probably unopposed, really going to justify the setting up of this elaborate Council elected by the two Parliaments and give it a busy existence during the twelve months of the year? Speaking plainly, the thing is rubbish. The last thing that remains to the Council is any legislation of the Government having to do with railways. That, as a rule, is really covered by the Private Bill figures. This Council cannot be claimed to justify the optimism of His Majesty's Government when they tell us that this is an infant which will grow into the manhood of Irish union or anything else.
My last point is this. If the ultimate effect of this Bill is failure, if it fails to give good government, if it fails to wipe out the partition of the country which is now being set up and which we all deplore, will it even do less than that? Will it do anything to restore the present unhappy state of affairs in that country? Do not let us minimise the importance of this. Do not let us shut our eyes to the fact that the restoration of law and order is the thing we want long before we want any schemes of government.
I think one must be struck in this debate with the fact that the speakers have all been merciful to their old colleagues with whom they have agreed in the past and with whom they disagree at present. But there was a speech by the Leader of the House—I am sorry he is not in his place—which I happened to come across the other day and is very valuable as illustrating the point I now desire to make. What is important in any scheme of constitutional reform is that it should start in a favourable atmosphere. And what is the atmosphere of this scheme? At this late hour I will not read Lord Curzon's quotation in full. It is in volume XV. of HANSARD and was delivered on the 12th February, 1914. In one sentence Lord Curzon said—
'The only chance for the future good Government of Ireland lies in starting the new system of Government, whatever it may be, in what" [Lord Curzon is quoting the Prime Minister] "he called an atmosphere which would give it a chance of working happily."
Does not that really hold good to-day? Where is your atmosphere? What single provision in this Bill will heal the present disorders in Ireland?
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The Government now are optimistic. I cannot forget a phrase used by the Prime-Minister at the Guildhall ten days ago, "We have murder by the throat." My Lords, the proceedings of the last weekend were a sad comment on that optimism. The evidence of His Majesty's Government, though, I have no doubt, given in good faith, we must remember, is bound to be coloured by their desire to restore order out of the disorder for which they are responsible. But even assuming you are breaking up the murder gang, is that the only thing that His Majesty's Government have to think of in the Imperial interest? There are districts in Ireland, which some of us know, where there have been no murders, where Sinn Fein authorities all the same are de facto governors of the country, not de jure. The meetings of local authorities are the meetings of Sinn Fein authorities, and Courts are sitting and dispensing rough and ready, but not on the whole a bad kind of justice. In some districts Sinn Fein influence is keeping order. There is no one else to do it. I had one case in particular brought to my notice the other day where some extremely valuable property of a kind that appeals to many Irishmen is being guarded by day by police patrols and by night by Sinn Fein patrols because at that hour the policemen are all shut up.
What is there in your Bill that will do away with all this and restore the authority of His Majesty? Take the life the people are leading. The transport of goods is at a standstill, passenger traffic is largely suspended. If the Irish Southern Parliament were called to-morrow morning half the members, I expect, could not get to Dublin by train. Confidence and credit have been shaken to the ground. Insurance companies are timid if not recalcitrant. How is this Bill going to restore credit and confidence? Do you think you will restore it by saying, "You will either work this Bill or we will hold the pistol of Crown Colony government at your head." I say with a full feeling of responsibility—and I say it with the very greatest regret, and knowing that I am departing from my most cherished principles—that if I thought this Bill offered any prospects of peace and orderly government I should vote for it. All that it will really do, however, is enormously to weaken the power of the British Executive—which, after all, we can assume has the sanction of British public opinion behind it—and to set up no promising

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power in its place based upon the necessary public opinion in Ireland. That being so, I hope that we shall have a Division, and I hope that a majority of your Lordships will vote against the Bill.
LORD KILLANIN and LORD HARRIS LORD KILLANIN and LORD HARRIS rose to continue the debate.
Several NOBLE LORDS: "Killanin."
LORD HARRIS: Is it not time that England had a word in the matter? I venture to suggest that this Bill is going to be decided by a vote from England. Your Lordships from Ireland have had every opportunity of attacking the Bill, and I think England has hardly had an opportunity of offering its opinion as to why it should support the Bill. I leave it to your Lordships.
LORD KILLANIN: My Lords, I am sorry that I should stand between the House and the noble Lord opposite, but it is difficult for many of us to get a hearing in this House. We are told that the debate is going to finish to-morrow, and though I fully admit that those in this House from England are intensely interested in the question, still, they must admit, I think, that they are not as intimately involved in the matter as those of us who live in Ireland. For that reason one feels justified in endeavouring to address your Lordships.
My noble friend Lord Donoughmore has just now delivered. a very useful and careful speech, and has gone into some of the most important provisions of the Bill, and I hope, if this Bill passes the Second Reading, we shall have the benefit of his very useful criticisms when we are going through the Bill in Committee. In order not to take up the time of the House I am not going to deal with a great number of important aspects of this question which immensely interest me, but I am going to confine my remarks to one view of the question, but I think it is an important one—being, in my opinion, the foundation and the body and the meaning of the whole of the Bill—and that is the partition of Ireland. The outcome of this Bill will be the permanent partition of Ireland—the permanent partition in the sense of being as permanent as anything is that we mortals can presume to call permanent. The noble Marquess (Lord Londonderry), whom I understand to dissent, will admit that it is permanent in this
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sense, that there is no time-limit put in the Bill, and therefore it is as enacted a permanent arrangement until some change is made.
I propose in my few remarks to show how this supposed solution of the Irish question—most disagreeable and most abhorrent, I believe, to all Irish people—has come to the fore. What does partition mean, and how is it regarded in Ireland? I will arrive at the matter by giving some expression of my own personal views about the position and about Ireland. I have always been a Unionist ever since I have taken any part in Irish politics—that is, since, 25 years ago, I first stood for Parliament, to which later I was elected Member for Galway. I have always been a Unionist on the merits. I believe in the merits of the Union, and if I may refer to the fact that I am a Catholic, that I live in the West of Ireland, that I belong to a family which during the penal times suffered both in position and in property, your Lordships will see that, in being a Unionist, it must be on the merits that I am one, and that I cannot have in my views any trace of religious or class ascendancy. All the tendencies and memories from the past would lead me in the other direction.
I am a Unionist for two main reasons. I believe that under the Union, if it had been accepted by the Irish people and properly worked, Ireland would have been a prosperous entity of the United Kingdom, and that she could prosper far more than under any Home Rule Bill I have ever seen or heard of. But I cannot help recognising that the Union has not been accepted by the Irish people and has not been properly worked. In my view the Union has never received a fair chance. Ever since modern times, during the last 30 or 40 years since democracy has been in power, the majority of the elected representatives of the Irish people have done everything in their power to prevent it working. They have deliberately said that they did not want the Union to work and intended to make the government of the country under it as difficult as possible, if not impossible. It is difficult to carry on the government of a country when you have the support of the majority of the elected representatives of she people, but to govern a country when a majority of its elected representatives are bitterly hostile and refuse to take any part in it and are determined to make it as difficult as

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possible, is an almost hopeless task. It does not, however, lie in the mouth of Nationalists to blame the Union. They certainly have never done anything to make it work.
The Union, then, not being accepted by the Irish people, it became necessary to examine as an alternative the proposition of Home Rule—its possibilities as a feasible policy for Ireland. There have been three Home Rule Bills introduced into Parliament, but each one was full of anomalies, absurdities, contradictions, and injustices, and was finally universally condemned by the people of Ireland, and this seems to me to demonstrate that it is impossible to devise any scheme of Home Rule that is acceptable and that would be workable.
In addition to Home Rule Bills we have had conferences; there have been endless committees; there have been conferences at Royal Palaces, and there have been Conventions in Ireland; but the members who took part in those conferences always came out by the same door as they went in. They arrived at nothing. There were no conclusions. I also read in the papers repeatedly that this is "a golden opportunity," that "the cup is at our lips," that "the ball is at our feet," that "the tide is at full flow." Why, if the ball is at our feet, does nobody ever kick a goal? Why does nobody ever quaff the bowl if it is so often at our lips? Why does the clock never strike? Why do all these golden opportunities vanish and come to nothing?
The reason is that a solution on national lines seems to me to be quite vain; and I wish to say here that in drawing attention to this view of the matter I am not for a moment suggesting that the failure of those Bills and the failure of those efforts to settle the question were due to any incompetency or dishonesty of any sort on the part of the Ministers or the Governments who brought in those measures. I believe that all the people who endeavoured in the past to settle the Irish question in these ways meant well and even produced clever Bills. Still, the fact remains, their attempts were failures, and they were failures because the conditions of the case did not apparently permit of any solution on those lines.
After examining these various proposals, I always found myself returning with
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redoubled confidence to my old original Unionist position. One of the facts that became clear in these efforts to settle the Irish question on Home Rule lines was that every Home Rule Bill that was proposed seemed as an inevitable result to lead either to partition or to civil war. When the last Bill was before the House in the spring of 1914—when that Bill was going to become law—we were on the verge of civil war. Now we are on the verge of the partition of Ireland. These are the only two developments which are possible out of the Home Rule policy—either civil war or partition—and I don't happen to be in favour of either of them. Therefore I am a Unionist, and cannot support a measure like this.
This Bill is a pure partition Bill. It is for the division and dismemberment of Ireland. It is going to divide up Ireland into two sections. Preparations are already being made for the cutting up of Ireland. I believe that this policy of partition is hateful to every Irishman. I believe that every Unionist, anyway in the South and West of Ireland, and a great many in the North of Ireland, look upon partition as the most deplorable and disastrous result that can come out of this national movement. Furthermore, I believe that in the eyes of every Nationalist and Sinn Feiner it is the most abhorrentsolution of the Irish question that you can produce. It is obviously in their case the complete destruction and annihilation of all their aims. It absolutely abolishes the ideals that have inspired the whole of the Nationalist movement, and for which undoubtedly many sacrifices have been made.
I said I would try and see how this proposed solution of the Irish question by partition had come about. How is it that you propose now to unravel the Hibernian knot by cutting Ireland in two? I believe this fatal dénouement is the direct and culminating result of the manner in which the Nationalist movement was conducted in Ireland for the last thirty or forty years. The Nationalists of Ireland never dealt at all with any of the obstacles or difficulties that stood in the way of their policy. They preferred to ignore all the difficulties. Yet these obstacles had to be removed and settled if a National policy was to have any success. They preferred, however, to ignore and even to deny the Irish opposition to their movement. They never made any attempt to come to any understanding with Ulster in the matter. Irishmen have a great gift for denying the

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existence of anything they do not like. Irishmen are said to be untruthful, and I do think they have a wonderful talent for deceiving themselves. There is no one an Irishman lies to so much as he lies to himself. But the net result is that, of course, this talent comes to its day of reckoning. Facts cannot be entirely avoided. They come home in the end, and so, on account of the manner in which Nationalists for thirty or forty years made no effort to deal with obstacles and difficulties, emanating from Ireland, we find ourselves up against the disastrous and grotesque position embodied in this Bill.
Although the Nationalists of Ireland in no way attempted to meet Ulster, or to come to some understanding with her, but denied and practically ignored her existence, yet Ulster was always there. Her position was perfectly manifest. She avowed it from the beginning and has upheld it since 1886, when Lord Randolph Churchill said that Ulster would fight and Ulster would be right, and when Mr. Gladstone offered to consider the treatment of Ulster separately from the rest of. Ireland. In so far as the Nationalists did recognise the existence of Ulster they seemed to do everything to antagonise her, and also, for that matter, any other Unionist in the South and West of Ireland. They seemed to me to preach hatred and intolerance of every Irishman who did not agree with them. That was a fatal attitude to take up in the case of the growth of a National movement. It was perfectly obvious that the wisest course would have been to endeavour to meet Irish opposition and come to some form of agreement. It was impossible for the National policy to succeed unless the Irish people were practically one people. Instead of that, they pooh-poohed Ulster; said their action was all bluff and only the action of a handful of people. But all the time Ulster was an important section of the Irish community that could not be neglected in any settlement in Ireland.
As the result of all this we are brought up against the question of the partition of Ireland. We were supposed to be dealing with Home Rule and self-determination in Ireland as a whole, and as that was the National policy I never could understand why the Irish Members did not devote all their energies to converting, not England or Scotland, which did not matter comparatively speaking, but Ulster. I will quote what should have been the
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guiding maxim of the Nationalists, as stated by an old Fenian. He said:
"It would be of infinitely more service to Ireland to convert ten Ulster Orangemen to Home Rule than to convince a million Englishmen."
I would ask your Lordships to consider what this partition will mean in Ireland. In the first place, it will mean a huge waste of public money. Unnecessary expenditure will have to be made in the case of every public service. Every institution in Ireland will have to be duplicated. There will be two judiciaries, two systems of local government, two systems of education, two systems of administrative Government, two systems of taxation, and of every public and civil service in the country. That means an enormous amount of unnecessary expenditure. Each of those services is at present run and controlled by one body. Talking of duplication, let me give one example. There is only one asylum for the whole of Ireland for criminal lunatics. I venture to say to my friends in Ulster that one of the first things the Northern Parliament will have to do will be to found a criminal lunatic asylum in the vicinity of Belfast.
You are duplicating Ireland. You are creating two Irelands, and I would have thought that—I say this between you and me—one Ireland was quite enough. In addition to this great public waste there will be an accentuation of every cleavage that divides Irish society at the present time. I do not think those cleavages will be healed by shutting up the two parties and religions in separate compartments. You talk of founding a Parliament for the North of Ireland and a Parliament for the South of Ireland—that is not geographically correct. What you really are doing is founding a Catholic Parliament and a Protestant Parliament. We hear that these two Parliaments will come together. If they were to do so, if we could induce them to work together it would be well. The Catholics and Protestants of Ireland can and do get on together. I have had the honour of being Chairman of a Viceregal Commission recently, dealing with primary education in Ireland. Primary education is one of the most contentious subjects in the government of a country. Every part of Ireland was represented on that Commission. I sat with a Catholic Bishop on my right and with a Protestant Bishop on my left. There was a Catholic Canon on my right

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and a Protestant Canon on my left. Canons to right of me and Canons to left of me. There was a Presbyterian clergyman from the North of Ireland, an Orangeman from Queen's University, Belfast, and a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. Others were present from various parts of Ireland, from Kerry to Tyrone, and we came to a unanimous agreement on most contentious matters in connection with primary education. Therefore I believe that when fellow countrymen come together and discuss matters, they can come to an understanding and an agreement, or at worst, we can accommodate the particular views that one of the Parties is very keen on, without any serious interference with the other.
What are you doing here? You are dividing up Ireland into two hostile camps, for that is what constituting a Catholic Parliament and a Protestant Parliament means. I am told that it does not very much matter founding two camps because both sides will have hostages. That is an extraordinary argument. It does not matter very much because there are Catholics in the Protestant part of Ireland and Protestants in the Catholic part of Ireland! I am even told the minorities are pretty equal, so that there is nothing unfair in the matter, that if a Protestant is maltreated in the South of Ireland, well, a Catholic can be maltreated in the North; if a man's ears are cut off in Kerry, you can cut a man's ears off in Portadown; if Mr. Devlin, the member for Belfast, is in any way maltreated or injured, well, my noble friend the Earl of Dunraven can be maltreated or injured, and so on.
The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and other noble Lords have delivered eloquent passages about the possible future unity of Ireland. I hope it will come about, but I doubt it very much. These separate Parliaments will be differently composed. There will be a big majority of Protestants in one and a big majority of Catholics in the other. If they were together they might come to an understanding, but when you deliberately put up Parliaments with large majorities of one way of thinking in each of them it is obvious that they will move more and more away from one another, so that instead of coming together in a few years we shall find that these Parliaments have gone farther and farther apart—in education, taxation, possibly marriage laws, in all sorts of ways they will have diverged.
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If the Parliament in Dublin follows the example of the local government councils in Ireland and makes Irish a compulsory language, in ten years time it will not be any good these Parliaments coming together because the members will not understand one another; they will talk different languages. I recognise the earnestness with which the noble and learned Lord referred to the union of Ireland. But it sounded to me, if I may be allowed to say so, rather as though the President of the Divorce Court in pronouncing a decree of divorce between two parties were to deliver a homily to them on the advisability of their speedy re-marriage.
Now, my Lords who wants partition in Ireland? The Church of Ireland—that is the Episcopalian Protestant Church—is entirely against partition. Cardinal Logue, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland:—
"It would be infinitely better to remain as we are for fifty years to come under English rule than to accept partition."
Mr. Devlin said he would sooner have his head cut off than consent to partition. Nothing destroyed Mr. John Redmond and his Party more than the fact that they accepted, or acquiesced in, the idea of partition whether temporary or permanent. Nothing injured that Party more; nothing is more responsible for the rise of republican movement in Ireland. It was not in 1916, but in 1914 before the rebellion that they first agreed to it. I constantly read articles in the Press about the cause of the complete fiasco of the Nationalist movement under Mr. Redmond and his Party. It is attributed to various reasons, conscription and so forth, and I daresay they had something to do with it. But I am convinced that the original and fundamental cause of the complete breakdown of the Nationalist Party in Ireland was the fact that they acquiesced in the idea of the partition of Ireland. They never got over it. That was in the spring of 1914 when the Amendment Bill to the Home Rule Bill was introduced into this House, and in 1916 the policy of partition was further supported by them.
We hear a great deal about the enthusiasm for this Bill of the members of this House who come from Ulster. What of the elected representatives of the people of Ulster in another place? I am not certain

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whether Sir Edward Carson said he loathed and detested this Bill, but I think he did. However, neither he nor any of the Ulster Members voted for this Bill. They took part in Committee, they voted for Amendments, but when the principle of the Bill was before the other House on First, Second, and Third Readings, not one of them voted in favour of this Bill. That is a remarkable fact, and I confess it does not seem to coincide with the attitude of the Duke of Abercorn and other Peers living within the six-county area. They talk about a change of feeling in Ulster, but the Third Reading of the Bill took place in the House of Commons only a fortnight ago when, for the third time, all the Ulster Members walked out of the House and did not vote for the principle of the Bill. It is still more remarkable that three of those Ulster Members were also members of the Government. We are told that this is a first-class measure, that the life of the Government depends upon it, and yet those three members of the Government did not vote for it—a thing unheard of in the case of a first-class measure, dealing with the country, too, that the members come from and represent.
With reference to partition, let me give you a few short quotations showing what public representative bodies in Ireland say about it. One says, "The worst form of Castle Rule would be preferable to having the country divided." Another says, "A partition of the country is worse than no settlement of the Irish question." Another says, "Better twenty years of Martial Law, coercion, and persecution than partition." These are a few views from Ireland on this measure.
I have endeavoured briefly to show how this proposed solution of the Irish question arose, what it means, and how it is regarded in Ireland. I hope it will be voted against by every Irish Peer. I have heard, I regret to say, that certain Peers from the North of Ireland are going to vote for the Bill. I would remind them that they will be the first Irishmen to vote for this Bill. No Irishman has yet done so. What are they afraid of They are, they say, afraid of the 1914 Act. I will hazard a remark about that. The 1914 Act is so unpopular in Ireland and at the same time so unpopular is the idea of dividing Ireland that the Irish people would sooner see the Home Rule Act of 1914 repealed than this Bill become law. In saying this I believe I express the view of the Irish people
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as a whole. For all these reasons I cannot then support this Bill for the dismemberment of Ireland.
Some of us thought that the Nationalist movement would result in this dénouement. I foresaw what is happening, and I feared it. I believe we Irish can get on together. I hate this Bill for the deepening of the Boyne instead of the bridging of the Boyne. If this Bill has to become law, if we are up against it, if there is no way of avoiding it, if partition is to come about, then in trying to be hopeful, though it is a very faint and distant hope, I pray that the South of Ireland will face the situation, and will make the best of it. I also venture to say to those who may be in both these Houses that I hope that whatever happens, however much separated they are, they will never, never forget that they are partners of one common country.
LORD MONTEAGLE OF BRANDON: My Lords, after the entertainment, so welcome to the House, provided by my noble friend who has just sat down, I shall not detain the House long. In the few remarks that I have to make I shall not attempt to discuss the question at large. The financial defects of the Bill have been so thoroughly exposed by Lord Donoughmore and the partition defects have been so thoroughly exposed by Lord Killanin that I will not at this hour go into either of these matters, though these are my principal objections to the Bill. I had my opportunity and said my say on the 1st of July, when I introduced a Bill to confer Dominion status upon Ireland. I am not going to repeat my arguments on this occasion, or to attempt to emulate the forcible arguments which have just been offered by the noble Lords to whom I have referred. I introduced that Bill because of my objection to what I conceived to be, and still understand to be, the main principle of this Bill—the partition of Ireland, involved in setting up two coordinate Parliaments and two coordinate Governments. I also wished to emphasize the belief that I held that the only alternative to this Bill (assuming that some form of Home Rule is inevitable) which was possible of acceptance in Ireland and would keep Ireland within the Empire was to confer the widest possible measure of self-government, including financial and fiscal autonomy. That was the main principle of my Bill. As to the method in

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which that was to be done, I favoured the adoption of a Constituent Assembly.
When I introduced that Bill I was rather a voice crying in the wilderness. But since that time, five months ago, there have begun to appear oases in my wilderness, and these have even lately begun to spread and to increase. I need only briefly refer to the remarkable pronouncements of several Prelates of the Roman Catholic Church, the resolutions passed by Chambers of Commerce, by meetings of magistrates, Lieutenants and Deputy-Lieutenants and other county meetings, and meetings in provincial towns, the deputation of the Cork business community to the Prime Minister on August 4, the peace conference in Dublin which shortly succeeded that in response to the Prime Minister's invitation, and last, not least, the resolution passed by the Unionist Anti-Partition League.
All those bodies practically adopted something very much resembling that principle of fiscal and financial autonomy. Many of them expressly adopted it as the irreducible minimum of the great body of moderate opinion, both Unionist and Nationalist, in the South of Ireland. My noble friend, Lord Dunraven, in moving the rejection of my Bill, criticised me severely for calling my plan by the name of Dominion status. I am well aware that many of my friends from the South of Ireland have joined in that criticism, mainly, I think, on the ground that the status which I proposed, and which the Irish Dominion League had been advocating, was not genuine Dominion status, because it reserved to the Imperial Parliament the Army and Navy and the whole question of defence. I adopted that reservation not merely because I believe it to be a necessity as regarded from the British point of view, but because I believe it to be essential for Ireland itself. But whatever it may be called, the principle of the proposal rested mainly upon financial autonomy. I am not going to argue that question now.
I rise for the purpose of pointing out that in addition to the remarkable expression of opinion in Ireland there have been pronouncements from the leaders of the Labour Party in England, and following upon that a remarkable pronouncement from the Irish Labour Party. The pronouncement of the English Labour Party was duly reported in the Press, and I think
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it showed a very significant trend of movement of opinion in this country. Taken in connection with that the pronouncement of the Irish Labour Party which followed was of supreme significance and importance. May I revert briefly to the proposals put forward by Mr. Adamson in the House of Commons? He said this—
"Let arrangements be made at once for calling together a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of proportional representation by secret vote. Let that Constituent Assembly draw up a Constitution for Ireland on the understanding that that Constitution shall be accepted subject to two conditions. The first is, that it affords protection to the minority … and the second is that the Constitution will prevent Ireland from becoming a military or naval power."
It is obvious that that is a very considerable advance on what the Labour Party said previously, and it should be remarked that it expressly avoids excluding a Republic. But it very seriously qualifies the powers that the Labour Party contemplate should be permitted to be included in such a measure. The first of the conditions seems to point to arrangements being made that should be satisfactory to Ulster, and the second condition clearly points—Mr. Adamson did not give any precise definition—to provisions being made for safeguarding defence. That I think must result in reserving defence, which I believe all but the most extreme Sinn Feiner would be quite willing should be reserved. These pronouncements surely merit the grave consideration of this House and of the Government.
During the same debate in which Mr. Adamson put forward this proposal, the Prime Minister deplored Ireland being in a temper, and then used these significant words—
"What is wanted is an atmosphere in Ireland where you can get calm consideration of what has been proposed and what the Imperial Parliament suggests, and what further suggestions Ireland has to make. We have never ruled that out."
I was delighted to hear, in the eloquent speech of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack yesterday, that he thoroughly endorses that, and that he will still welcome expressions of opinion from Ireland from all quarters as to modifications of the present proposals. The proposals of Mr. Adamson were put forward on Friday, 11th November, and on the following Tuesday, the Irish Labour Party in Dublin unanimously adopted that resolution. Is it not a very significant fact that at a time

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when the Irish Labour Party were in the middle of a serious railway crisis they should have so far met the proposals of the English Labour Party? I, at any rate, regard that as a very hopeful sign. Remember that the Irish Labour Party are almost entirely Sinn Fein. Outside Ulster, I suppose, they are entirely Sinn Fein. Remember that this unanimous vote took place at a time of great crisis for Irish labour. I think I may also ask you to bear in mind that at the Irish Convention, the Labour representatives persistently pursued a moderating policy. They supported Mr. Redmond in the compromise he arrived at with the Southern Unionists. I think that in itself is a hope for the future.
I do not wish to detain the House further at this hour. I should like to have said a word about Ulster, but I have on previous occasions reverted to that position. I have never been one of those who belittled the position of Ulster or disregarded its importance. I have always held that Ulster should have been considered, and I thoroughly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Killanin, has just said as to the folly of the Nationalist Party in disregarding it. I have always held that Ulster should be treated, as the Irish Peace Conference laid down, as an equal contracting party in the matter. But I cannot for the life of me see that there is any necessity for setting up two co-ordinated Parliaments and two co-ordinated Governments. These are likely to keep Ireland divided rather than bring her together. For the purpose of bringing the various elements together it would be a far more fruitful course to have a Constituent Assembly at which all parties would attend, and at which Ulster would have the right of a free contracting party.
In conclusion, I only wish to say that while I cannot vote for this Bill, I feel bound to support the Amendment of Lord Dunraven, I hope His Majesty's Government may still see its way to accept the suggestion which I believe is to be put forward by Lord Midleton for giving further time for moderate opinion to make itself heard and a reconsideration of the financial provisions of the Bill. In voting against the Bill I am far from wishing to place any bar in the way of any sincere attempt to settle this great question. My support of Home Rule is not a counsel of despair. I do not despair of Ireland, and may I say, I do not despair of this
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House giving consideration to the just claims of Ireland.
TILE MARQUESS OF LINLITHGOW: My Lords, in rising at this late hour may I say that your Lordships are safe in my hands in the matter of brevity. For the same reason the noble Lord who has just sat down will absolve me of the charge of discourtesy if I do not pursue him in the arguments he has advanced, but address myself to the considerations to which I desire to draw attention.
In surveying a measure of the nature of the Bill now before your Lordships two tests may be applied. You may ask yourself how far the proposal meets the conditions and the necessities of the moment; but you may also examine the scheme with a view to discovering whether the main principles which it contains are those to which history gives the sanction of success. And I submit this to your Lordships, that the more permanent the work upon which you are engaged, the mare weight should you attach to considerations of principle and the less to those of expediency.
My Lords, the main principle that you are asked to endorse in this Bill is that of race as the basis of nationality. This measure proposes to divide Ireland into two parts, with the people of truly Irish origin to the south of the boundary, and the people of English and Scottish descent to the north. I am well aware of the crudity of this picture, but it suffices for my purpose that every one of your Lordships recognises the distinction between a Southern Irishman and an Ulsterman. Indeed, speaker after speaker in this debate has recognised this distinction. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said that—
"The population of Ulster resembles more closely the population of Scotland than the population of Southern Ireland."
While Lord Massereene said—
"I have always held that in considering the question of the Government of Ireland it is no use disguising the fact that you have to deal with two races."
Each of the two areas so formed is to become a political entity; each is to be blessed—if blessing it be—with all the apparatus, legislative, judicial, and executive, of nationhood; and each is doomed to live, for a period to which no man may set a term, within the deaden-

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ing and acrid limits of its own self-interest. And with only this faint hope of reprieve, that upon the very instrument that will divide them there is written the pious—I was going to say the cynical—aspiration that some day they may again be one.
I find myself in agreement with Lord Oranmore and Browne in attributing many of our troubles in these days to the baneful influence of the catch-word "self-determination." Blindly accepted, ruthlessly applied, it is capable of inflicting infinite mischief and anguish upon the world. Born at the White House, this phrase flew round all the continents. Its power is evident upon the map of Europe to-day. Some there are, I suppose, who see in the jumble of States which now stand where once was the great Austro-Hungarian Empire the beginning of true light and liberty in the world. But then there are others who, in contemplating this array of weak and immature States lying on the fringe of a Germany still in being, are reminded of the spectacle of a convalescent by whose bedside there has been set some of those part-digested and dessicated foods, so well calculated to nourish his impoverished frame. And Germany is still after all in being.
My Lords, there is one area in Europe where this principle of race as the basis of nationality has been given a fair trial. I refer to the Balkans, and I do not know that it has in that area been a shining light and example of peace and tranquility. Indeed, nations are strong, not because they contain but one race, but because they combine within their boundaries the good qualities of different races. The greatness of the Anglo-Saxon peoples has sprung from no single parent, but is drawn from a mixture of races. The political genius of Britain is the direct result of the clash of contending outlooks and tendencies confined within the limits of one political system. And, my Lords, when, as in Ireland, it is proposed to draw political boundaries coincident more or less with the frontiers of the two religions to which the great part of the population adheres, the danger becomes great indeed. Unhappy the land where the vicious anachronism of inter-tribal hatred is fed by the consuming passions of sectarian strife. Some there are who hold that the fruits of this Bill will be a Unified Ireland in which the people of Ulster will blend their genius with that of the more indigenous stock. Is it really in that spirit that the rank and
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file of the Ulstermen—those who consider themselves as the British garrison in Ireland—view this measure? I doubt it. Surely to them this measure is a security against their greatest dread, a Dublin Parliament. It is to them a call to man the old defences. It is up with the drawbridge and down with the portcullis, the beginning of a long and anxious vigil in which the price of failure will be the loss of dear and hard-won liberties.
These views are well understood and sympathised with by all your Lordships. But if it can be shown that the setting up of an independent Parliament in Ulster is, in itself, a menace to the stability of political institutions in Great Britain, then it may be supposed that your Lordships would hesitate to give legislative sanction to any such scheme. Ulster opinion is, I suppose, to be fairly described as consisting on the one hand of Belfast with its immediate neighbourhood, and on the other of the Protestant farmer group. Now, Belfast and its neighbourhood is, as every one knows, a purely commercial and industrial area, and its inhabitants bear a close resemblance to those of the Clyde Valley. The ways and outlook of those groups, in the Clyde Valley on the one hand and Belfast on the other, are largely the same. But with this distinction, that whereas the Clyde workers have had nothing to distract their minds from the absorbing polemics of industrial strife, the Belfast worker up to a few months ago had for generations been concerned more with the maintenance of the political union between Ireland and England than with anything else.
Now it may confidently be presumed that, given an independent local Parliament in Ulster, the tendency there will be to elect a Labour Government of extreme type. But matters may go further than that, and you may have in Belfast the attempt to make an experiment of a daring nature, such, for instance, as a Workmen's Commonwealth on the lines of the Soviet system. If such a thing should come to pass you cannot segregate its influence to the immediate surroundings. And when you contemplate making Ulster a separate political entity it is reasonable to test the wisdom of the step by asking yourselves whether you would be prepared to make, for instance, the Clyde Valley a like political unit. If, upon the grounds which I have ventured to set before your Lordships, I cannot support, a proposal to sever the

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North of Ireland from the South, I could not for like reasons countenance the severance of Ireland from the United Kingdom.
I hold that the Irish people have given to the common stock of British ideas and culture, precious values of piety, of art, and, as has been demonstrated to us tonight, of humour. I believe that the peculiar qualities of the English are equally vital to the future of Ireland. What union, public or private, has ever existed of which nothing derogatory may be advanced. Yet men are patient with the evils because the good preponderates. Even, then, if I held that the state of Ireland in 1906 was the zenith of what we might reasonably hope for under the Union, I should still vote against this Bill. As it is, it is surely reasonable to hope that under the Union Ireland may come to better things than any of which she has ever dreamed. Who can believe—I say this with great respect—in the face of evidence that is all about us, that the individual citizen of whatever Church he is a member, be his piety ever so great, will for ever submit to a system that makes possible the use of religious authority as a weapon of temporal power? The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, in a moment of self-revelation which smacked a little of the fashionable art of autobiography, told the House that while still a Unionist in principle he was prepared to stomach this Bill because he was apprehensive as to the staunchness of those who may succeed him in power; and held that, to use a colloquialism, the sooner Ireland is made fool-proof the better. An interesting doctrine indeed, and we are entitled to hope that the present Administration may remain long enough in power to extend the benefits of its prophylactic treatment to India and to Egypt. Nor will your Lordships be too much influenced by the bogey of the 1914 Act. It is disturbing the Lord Chancellor's mind a good deal now. Not so as late as last year, because in a discussion on local Parliaments, on the Motion of the late Lord Brassey, the noble and learned Lord said—
"It would, of course, be idle to come before your Lordships, as to come before any assembly of Englishmen at the present time, and say, We recommend that a Legislature, whatever it deals with, be set up for Ireland. No one would listen to it."
My Lords, it is uncertainty, that poison specific to the Celtic mind, that is torturing Ireland to-day. Remove it, and you will be astonished at the rapidity of her recovery.
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These are days of peculiar difficulty. Public opinion in this country, weary and worn with four long years of war, battling with all the disturbing influences of an inflated currency, borne down by high prices and enormous taxation, has been quiescent, almost neutral, as to the Irish question. Give us peace, they cry, and let us mourn our dead and rehabilitate our stricken country without having in our ears this everlasting jangle which is the Irish question. Yet who amongst your Lordships believes that human happiness, even human quietude, were ever attained in a lasting degree by a refusal to face facts and to meet them? The noble and learned Lord in charge of the Bill attempted to divide his opponents by an argument against coalition. How shocking, he finds it, that those who dislike a thing for different reasons should combine to defeat it. I cannot believe that your Lordships are likely to be influenced by a trick of words that would leave a provincial jury wholly unmoved. I for one, my Lords, am bound to vote against the Second Reading of this Bill because—
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: When the noble Marquess describes what he has ventured to say is a "trick of words" he had better take the trouble to see what I put forward. Which of these parties in the combination under consideration that might assist in defeating the Bill is able itself to put forward any alternative—even if it had no responsibility of Government—to apply to existing circumstances?
THE MARQUESS OF LINLITHGOW: In spite of what the noble and learned Lord has said I hold firmly that those who argue that this Bill goes too far and those who contend that it does not go far enough may perfectly consistently support the Amendment of Lord Dunraven. I hold with every fibre of my mind that this Bill contains principles fatal to the stability of Great Britain and incompatible with the security of the Imperial structure—a structure precious for its past but more for its promise, a thing built by the hands of our fathers and sanctified now by the bloody sacrifice and the tees of half our generations.
LORD FARNHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, further debate adjourned until to-morrow.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (THE EARL OF CRAW-FORD): My Lords, I have had conversations with a number of noble Lords who are much interested in the Agriculture Bill. It is unlikely that the measure will reach this House until tomorrow, and it will probably therefore be difficult, if not impossible, to get the Second Reading of that Bill on Wednesday next, as had been hoped. It is therefore suggested that on Tuesday next, the 30th, my noble friend Lord Lee should begin the stage of the Second Reading, and that should Lord Lincolnshire so desire after the speech moving the rejection the debate should be adjourned till the following Tuesday—namely December 7—and the debate on the Bill be concluded on the next day, Wednesday the 8th. We should therefore begin on Tuesday by the speech of my noble friend Lord Lee, the debate being resumed on December 7 and concluded on the 8th. If that be so, I should hope
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that the House could begin to take the Committee stage of the Home Rule Bill on Wednesday of next week, and continue it on Thursday and on Monday, December 6. I hope that it will not be necessary for your Lordships to continue the Home Rule Bill on Friday the 3rd.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: The noble Earl, I think, made a mistake of a day. He spoke originally of having Lord Lee's speech on Wednesday. Did he not mean Tuesday?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: It is Tuesday—Tuesday the 30th.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: Otherwise the Committee stage of the Home Rule Bill, if it should get into Committee, would only come as second Order, if you had taken the speech of Lord Lee first
House adjourned at half-past twelve o'clock midnight.