in the absence of the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. T. B. Smith)—who undertook to deal with this subject—moved that the Order for the Second Reading of the Bill should be discharged.

said, he ought to be the last person to object to the Order being discharged, as he had always been opposed to the Bill becoming law; but he desired to represent the great inconvenience of the system of allowing Notices of Bills to appear on the Notice Paper, after the intention had been conceived of withdrawing them. It deluded hon. Members by bringing some down unnecessarily, and preventing others coming who would be there to take part on other Bills. In the present ease, many hon. Members had come down to oppose the Bill; but he himself knew at 7 o'clock last night, through the kindness of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, that the Bill would be withdrawn, but other hon. Members did not know, and the course which had been pursued, though technically right, was a very inconvenient and unseemly proceeding. Some means should be taken of informing hon. Members when it was intended that a Bill should be withdrawn.

agreed that it was very inconvenient that a Notice should be allowed to remain on the Paper after it had been determined to put the question off to a future time. He had had no intimation that the Bill would be withdrawn, and when he heard of the illness of his hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, he came down to the House with the intention of moving the second reading of the Bill, and should have done so, only that he was informed that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Staffordshire (Sir Charles Adderley), whose name was on the back of the Bill, and the President of the Board of Trade had agreed that the Bill should be withdrawn. Until just now, he had not the slightest idea of any such interference, and he thought if such an arrangement had been come to between those right hon. Gentlemen, the House should have had Notice of it.

observed that Notice should have been given not only on account of the Bill itself, but on account of those other Bills upon the Paper, which were affected by the withdrawal of the first one. It was most desirable that hon. Members who intended to withdraw Bills should take the trouble to inform the House through the ordinary channels of information, that such Bills would not be proceeded with. He had himself on the Paper a Bill, fourth in order, the Municipal Elections (Cumulative Vote) Bill, and he had no opportunity of letting his Friends know that there was a chance of its coming on that day.

endorsed the observations which had fallen from hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House, as to the inconvenience that accrued to hon. Members from the system of withdrawing Bills without previous Notice. He had come down to the House, at some inconvenience, to support the Bill, in which he took a deep interest, and until the Order of the Day was read by the Clerk at the Table, he had never heard a word of the intention to withdraw it.

who had given Notice of a Motion for the rejection of the Bill, expressed an opinion that the more the question was discussed the more public opinion would come to the conviction that it would be undesirable to pass it into a law.

said, he should be sorry if any undue blame should fall on his hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, who was ill. He was informed that his hon. Friend did take measures to acquaint hon. Gentlemen whose names were on the back of the Bill, that he would not be able to be present. Although his own name was upon the back of the Bill, he did not know until a few minutes before it was called on, that it was not to be proceeded with. It was evident that the inconvenience was great and general, and he hoped it would be understood that it was the duty of any hon. Gentleman who, from any cause should be unable to proceed with a public measure, to give full public Notice in future of his inability to do so. In this case, however, he held the hon. Gentleman the author of the Bill free of all blame in the matter.

said, that he had to ask for the indulgence of the House in allowing him to withdraw the Bill. If an excuse were required, his answer would be that he had had an honest intention to have the question fully discussed; but since he introduced the Bill, the Government had passed another measure, which had reduced his own to a state of coma. He begged to move that the Order be discharged.

thought that the hon. Member ought to have given Notice to the Clerk at the Table, that the Bill would not be gone on with that day. It was quite time that something should be clone to put a stop to the practice which was springing up.

remarked that when it was intended to withdraw a Bill public Notice to that effect should be given instead of following the irregular practice of going to the Clerk at the Table and getting the Order set aside without the knowledge of the House.

remarked that it would have been easy for the hon. Gentleman last evening at 10 minutes to 7 to have withdrawn the Bill with the permission of the House.

said, what his hon. Friend ought to have done was to have given Notice that he would that day move that the Order be discharged.

said, he was in the House yesterday until the last moment, and had no opportunity whatever of giving Notice that he intended to move that the Order be discharged.

said, that if nobody thought it his duty to rise and enter a protest against that most remarkable measure, he at least felt compelled to do so. Some discussion took place a few weeks ago upon the Bill, and there appeared then to be a general understanding that the discussion of the subject was not likely to be resumed in the present Session. An hon. and gallant Friend of his the Member for Portsmouth (Sir James Elphinstone)— whose absence on that occasion they all regretted, especially the cause of it—moved the rejection of the Bill, and he (Mr. Lowther) had certainly listened in vain to hear any argument in its favour. Clause 2 said that the tenant of a farm was to be entitled, at his own will and discretion, to erect buildings upon that farm, and in subsequent clauses it was provided that the tenant might compel the landlord at the expiration of his lease to buy the buildings. A more monstrous or outrageous proposition was never submitted to Parliament. Hon. Members might tell them that there were exceptional reasons for passing a measure of this kind for Scotland. On the other hand, they had been constantly told that, owing to the system of leases, the Scotch tenant was in a better position, and was more of a capitalist, than his fellow in England; and if that were so, there was less reason for applying legislation of this kind to Scotland than to any other part of the United Kingdom. Moreover, the difficulty of providing sufficient cottage accommodation was not exclusively felt in agricultural districts. Anybody who knew anything of the mining districts must be perfectly well aware that that was a difficulty which had always been felt; and on an estate with which he was himself not wholly disconnected, a practice had prevailed for many years of giving the colliery lessee power under his lease to erect such cottages as might be necessary for the efficient working of the colliery, and at the expiration of the term of his lease he was to give his landlord notice of the exercise of the right of pre-emption, or restore the ground to its original condition. Now, Clause 2 would almost lead the House to believe that that was the intention of the Bill; but if such was the intention, it was entirely over-ridden by the subsequent clauses. It was a crude and ill-digested scheme, and he protested against dealing in an exceptional manner with one portion of the United Kingdom in matters of the kind, and he begged to move that the Order be discharged.

said, that there was an Amendment before the House—That the Bill should be read a second time that day six months—and until that Amendment was disposed of, no other Amendment could be moved.

said, the Amendment would answer his purpose equally well, and he should vote for it.

said, it was alleged when the Bill was last under discussion that it would prove a dead-letter; but he did not think it was open to the charge brought against it by the hon. Member for York. If it were not an effectual Bill, it was at least a very innocent one, because it threw the burden of constructing these cottages upon the tenant. It was also a very necessary measure, for the erection of labourers' cottages was actually requisite on many estates in Scotland. The whole purport of the Bill was to enable a tenant, if he had a farm on which there was not sufficient labourers' accommodation, to erect cottages; and the fact that he was a leaseholder was rather an argument in its favour, because he could not threaten to throw up the farm unless the landlord erected cottages, and he must either conduct his agricultural operations with insufficient accommodation for his labourers, or he must construct cottages himself. It was not to the common interest that a farmer should occupy a holding without sufficient houses for his labourers, and he thought it would be unjust that the burden should be thrown entirely upon him.

thought it was clear that the tenant could not under the Bill erect as many cottages as he chose—he could only erect cottages where they were actually required. If there were no cottages in the immediate neighbourhood of the farm for the use of the labourers, and the landlord would not erect any, surely it could not be any very great hardship on the landlord that at the end of the lease he should be obliged to take possession of those which the tenant had erected, and which were actually needed, at their fair value.

said, that looking at the Bill, it seemed to him to be one to enable a speculative tenant to run up cottages, and then to let them in lodgings without any control on the part of the landlord or anybody else who had the decency and well-being of the country at heart. He supposed Scotland was like England, and anyone who knew anything of the agricultural population of England must know that the great obstacle to good and sufficient cottage accommodation was the herding of persons together in cottages against all decency. That Bill allowed the tenant to build cottages under the pretext of their convenience, but he did not see any test of convenience in its provisions, and a man might say that a cottage would be convenient, and he ran it up, and then let it in lodgings, with a total contempt of all the laws of decency or comfort, and by the Bill he might snap his fingers at the landlord. As long as he was tenant the cottage remained with him; but when he left his holding the landlord might be compelled to buy the building, and probably, the first use made of it would be to pull it down. He should vote for the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, for the cause of whose absence every hon. Member of the House must feel the deepest sympathy.

said, he regretted that the promoters of the Bill should have marred a most valuable principle with some most objectionable provisions. He quite agreed that a tenant who erected a building upon an estate should have power to remove it at the termination of his lease. He considered that a most valuable provision; but the Bill not only allowed the tenant to remove a building, but it gave him the power to sell it to a succeeding tenant; and it gave to the latter the same rights and privileges as were enjoyed by the tenant who erected the building. What was the effect of that? It was not only the buildings that were sold, but by selling them to the succeeding tenant, the landlord was deprived of the use of the land upon which these buildings were erected. He had never heard of such a monstrous proposition as that. He did not think a temporary occupier should have such a power as would enable him to deprive a permanent owner of his own property. They had before them the sad results of such a system as that in Ireland, where, in order to put things right, they were obliged to apply these exceptional remedies. The ease of Ireland, however, should act as a warning, and he trusted that the House would never consent to any Bill for Scotland which would produce the same complications as had been produced in Ireland by the Land Bill. But if he objected to that part of the Bill, he objected still more strongly to the 4th clause, by which a temporary occupier would have power invested in him of putting down a cottage on his proprietor's estate without giving the slightest warning to his proprietor, or asking his leave, or determining whether the amenity of the property would be destroyed or not. The House was asked to give the tenant full power to put down his cottage, and then, at the end of the lease, the proprietor was to be bound to pay the tenant for that cottage. He thought the House would never consent to a proposition of that kind. A great deal had been said as to the necessity for the Bill. It had been truly said by the hon. Member for East Aberdeen-shire (Mr. Fordyce) in moving the second reading, that there was a want of cottage accommodation in Scotland. But what was the cause of that want? In many parts of Scotland a system had prevailed which was known as "the kitchen system," under which the agricultural labourers were lodged in the farm houses. In other parts of Scotland there was what was called the "bothy system"—that was to say, the agricultural labourers were lodged in houses devoted entirely to unmarried servants. The fact was that the kitchen system had been given up in certain districts; the bothy system had also been given up; and unfortunately cottages were not built in sufficient numbers to meet the deficiency of accommodation which had thus been caused. But if they were to apply this principle to the agricultural districts, why not apply it also to the town districts. If hon. Members would read the statistics for last year, they would find that the want of house accommodation was far greater in the manufacturing counties in Scotland than in the agricultural counties; and if they compared the statistics of 1861 with those of 1871, they would find that the deficiency of accommodation in the agricultural counties was being diminished every year. while the deficiency of accommodation in the manufacturing counties was increasing every year. Under those circumstances, if it was reasonable for the tenant of a farm to have it in his power to erect a cottage upon his proprietor's land without asking his leave, and at the end of the lease to demand payment for the house or cottage, it was surely not less reasonable that a tenant of a house in a town who should find himself deficient of house accommodation for servants should erect these buildings, and at the end of the lease should charge his proprietor with them. He did not see any difference whatever in the two cases. He agreed with that portion of the Bill by which the tenant should have it in his power to remove the buildings he erected on his landlord's estate, and he should on that ground vote for the second reading; but he must protest at the same time against the other extraordinary powers with which it was sought to invest the tenant. But he would rather suggest to his hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire to consider whether it would not be advisable to withdraw the Bill, and introduce next year a short Bill giving the tenant more power than he had at present in regard to the erection of buildings, but free from those objectionable provisions.

I rise immediately, Sir, after my hon. Friend, because I wish to add my entreaty to my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire, not to press the Bill any further. He can hardly be so sanguine as to expect that it will come to anything in the course of the present Session, and the Bill is so objectionable in various and important respects, that even those who sympathize with him—as I do—in the objects he has in view, cannot give it anything approaching to a hearty support. Upon principle I am as adverse to any legislative interference with proprietors in the management of their estates, as with any individuals in any other walk of life in the conduct of their own affairs. That no doubt, like all other general rules, is subject to exception; but I take it to be a general rule of universal application, and not subject to very many exceptions—that men are best left to the management of their own affairs, and that landed proprietors in the management of their own estates are not an exception to the general rule. I quite admit that the law of Scotland, which at this moment governs the relations of landlord and tenant, and in matters not the subject of special contract is, in some respects, in an unsatisfactory condition. Of course, the relation of landlord and tenant may be constituted by contract, and the parties making the contract which constitutes that relation between them, are at liberty, subject to the general law of the land, to make provisions equally for their respective interests. I do not understand, I may observe in passing, that my hon. Friend proposes by this measure to interfere in any way with the perfect freedom of contract between landlord and tenant. There is, however, one rule of law relating to landlords and tenants which the Bill deals with, and which, in my humble opinion, is not only unsatisfactory, but positively wrong. According to the present law, if a tenant farmer, however long his lease may be, erects buildings suitable to his wants during his tenancy, he is not at liberty at the end of his lease to remove them. He can only erect those buildings upon the condition of forfeiting them to his landlord at the end of his lease, without any compensation whatever. Now, I think that that is an erroneous rule of law. and I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. M'Lagan); and in so far as the Bill has for its object and purpose the amendment of this rule of law, I am prepared to give it my support. I think it is reasonable that a tenant should be at liberty to make such erections upon his holding as he finds to be necessary for his convenient use of it under his lease, and that he should be at liberty to re- move the erections at the termination of his lease, unless he arranges with his landlord, upon terms satisfactory to him-self, to allow them to remain. I think that would be a right and reasonable state of the law, in the absence of a special contract between the parties to the contrary. The provisions of the Bill do not appear to me to be satisfactory, because it proposes to amend the law in this matter by making a distinction between the holding of land and certain buildings upon the land. Now, I think my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire and others would be prepared, upon consideration, to say that it would be inconvenient, and in the highest degree subversive of the law relating to such matters, to make a severance between the title to land and the title to buildings upon it. I think it would be productive of the greatest inconvenience when a proprietor went into the market with his property that he should have to go into the history of the buildings upon it, and show whether they are or are not included in the title to the land itself. Therefore while I fully approve of the amendment of the law in this respect, I cannot approve of the manner in which the Bill proposes to effect it. As to Clause 4, which it is impossible not to regard as the main feature of the Bill, and indeed it is described as the purpose of the Bill, "to facilitate the erection of labourers' cottages"—certainly, for my own part, so far from blaming, I feel indebted to my hon. Friend for bringing the matter forward, because it has elicited some valuable discussion upon this subject to which the clause relates. He has shown, I think to the satisfaction even of those who are most strenuously opposed to the Bill, that the accommodation for farm labourers in many parts of Scotland is at least extremely defective. The hon. and gallant Baronet who moved the rejection of the Bill attributed that to the comparatively helpless condition in which many Scotch proprietors were put by the law of entail. He said that by that law they wore cramped and hindered in dealing with their estates in the manner which would be the most beneficial not only to those dwelling upon them, and to the labourers upon them, but also to themselves. The restraints and restrictions of the law of entail, said the hon. and gallant Baronet, interfered with the proprietors in acting as they wished to do—not merely from considerations of self-interest—though these are entirely legitimate, but from considerations of another and a higher order. Well, it is certainly very unfortunate that the proprietors of land could by such an artificial law as the law of entail be hindered from doing that which they would otherwise do in justice to their own feelings, and to their own intelligence in the beneficial management of their estates. But the remedy for that is—not to compel landlords to pay for the erection of such buildings upon the farms, this work not being done by themselves, for they leave their tenants to judge what is suitable for the accommodation of the labourers upon the holdings—the remedy for that state of things is to remove the obstructions and obstacles which the hon. and gallant Baronet referred to as the cause of the existing state of things. Surely it is more proper and more in accordance with the spirit of modern legislation to remove artificial laws which restrain proprietors in the management of their property, rather than to endeavour to overcome one evil by the creation of another. I cannot consent to any proposition such as that contained in this 4th clause, by which the management of their property would be taken out of the hands of the proprietors and placed in the hands of the merely temporary possessors of the land. I may here also remark that no provision as to the endurance of the lease—whether for life or for terms of years—is contained in the Bill, nor does it even prohibit the erection of these buildings in the very last year of the tenancy. I do not wish to use such language as "crude" or "ill-digested;" but my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire, is here dealing with a very large subject, and one upon which it will be very difficult to legislate. That difficulty presents itself upon this matter in a very marked manner. The common experience in legislation upon almost any subject is that it is not a very difficult thing to do the thing you are aiming at, but the difficulty is to do that and no more. In dealing with this my hon. Friend has done a great deal more than he intended. I hope he will be satisfied with the discussion which the introduction of this measure has led to, and which I cannot consider as otherwise than extremely beneficial, and likely to promote the object he has in view in a safer manner than is done by the Bill, and I hope he will not put his Friends to the difficulty of considering whether the balance of advantage would be to support or oppose the second reading.

said, he would not have troubled the House but that the case of Ireland had been referred to, and Irish legislation had been quoted as a reason for the Bill. There was, however, a great difference between the cases of Ireland and Scotland. He did not believe that Scotch proprietors and tenants would wish to compare their position with the state of things which unfortunately prevailed in a great part of Ireland. Even in the case of Ireland there had never been a proposal made to force proprietors to purchase houses to the erection of which they had not given their assent. For his part he could not but regard any interference with freedom of contract as an unmitigated evil. He called attention to the fact that in Scotland there was freedom of contract, and the tenants had leases, while in Ireland most of the tenancies were yearly ones. He could not believe that when a Scotch farmer made a bargain for a 19 years' lease he did not consider whether there were sufficient buildings upon the farm for the labourers' accommodation. He could not conceive that the Scotch farmers would so totally neglect their own interests. He was glad to hear what the Lord Advocate had said on the subject; but he found it difficult to reconcile his speech that day with some of the votes the right hon. and learned Lord had given on the Irish Land Bill.

said, he had never seen a Bill which was more carefully and ably drawn than the present measure. He therefore hoped that, as its principle had been fully recognized, his hon. Friend would, at all events, take a division on the second reading. He and other landlords in Wales had introduced clauses into their leases, securing to the tenants compensation for improvements made with the assent of the proprietors. If cottages for labourers were erected by the tenant with such consent, and it was necessary to take them at the expiration of the tenancy, power might be given to charge the price upon the inheritance. That was in effect what the Bill would do for the tenant-farmers of Scotland, the restriction being that the buildings to be erected should be necessary.

said, that in his opinion, this was a subject of great and increasing importance. The landlords of this country had been considerate to their tenants by providing suitable farm buildings; but it had never occurred to them, as a general rule, that cottages were as essential to the cultivation of a farm as were the farm buildings themselves. He could perfectly well believe that there were many farmers who had long leases, who could not at the present day obtain a competent supply of labour in consequence of the inadequate cottage accommodation at their command. He therefore thanked the hon. Member who had introduced the Bill, for directing attention to that which was an increasing evil—although he admitted that a great number of cottages were being erected where they were most required. The right hon. and learned Lord Advocate had put forward with great force all that could be said in favour of freedom of contract; but in order to really have freedom of contract the law supposed the two contracting parties were upon an equality. In this case there was a total difference between the two parties in the provisions of the law. The law not only secured the landlord every sixpence of his property, but it enabled him to confiscate his tenants' improvements and eat him up with game without any compensation. It could be truly said that the landlord was clad in mail and armed with the sword of the State, while the tenant had his hands tied behind him, or at most was furnished with an oak stick in the shape of a one-sided lease or agreement, and then they were told they were quite free to settle their differences. The law gave the landed proprietor all the protection of his rights, but did not enforce any one of his duties. There was the law of distress and all sorts of laws for the special protection of landlords, and none or next to none for the protection of the tenant. The hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope) had used an argument of an astounding nature, when he said that the Bill would create overcrowding. He should have thought that by increasing cottage accommodation they would have prevented over- crowding. Labour was now so scarce that men would not walk two or three miles to work as they would formerly do. It was therefore necessary that house accommodation should be provided near the scene of their labour, and any effort to accomplish this object ought to have the serious consideration of Parliament. He should therefore vote for the second reading of the Bill, although he might take exception in Committee to they clause, which said that the landlord should be bound to pay for the buildings whether he liked them or not. He thought it but reasonable that if the landlord declined at the end of a tenancy to purchase the buildings erected by the out-going tenant, the tenant should be at liberty to sell them to his successor, and he was clearly of opinion that it would be but just, if the tenant could not dispose of them, he should have full power to remove the buildings and leave the land clear as he had found it. In the Bill which he was unfortunately obliged to withdraw a fortnight ago, larger provisions were introduced with respect to these matters, but he heartily supported this measure as a step in the right direction.

said, he did not think there was any probability of the Bill becoming law during the present Session. In reference to the question generally, the principal provisions of the Bill were contained in the clause which enabled the agricultural tenant to erect, with or without the consent of the landlord, a certain number of houses on the farm in proportion to the quantity of arable land that might be thereon, and at the end of his tenancy to claim for the value of those buildings. One objection to this was that it would interfere with house-building speculators conducting their operations, and it was also open to many other objections. He understood that the intention was to provide a suitable number of labourers on the spot for the cultivation of the soil; but the House must be careful, in legislating in that direction, that the labourer on the land should have some security for the tenure of the houses when built. Why should not power be equally given to the labourer himself to build? At present the responsibility of building houses rested with the landowner, and that Bill proposed to divide the responsibility between the landowner and the tenant; but suppose neither of them fulfilled that obligation, where would the labourer then be? It would be a great mistake in any legislation on the subject to divide that responsibility solely between the tenant of the farm and the owner of the soil. In such a Bill as this provision ought to be made to enable the labourer to build if he chose, and to give him some permanency of tenure. Public opinion called for the building of proper habitations for the working classes—especially for the agricultural labourers. He was himself owner of some cottages, many of which, he was sorry to say, were empty, the tenants having left them in order to procure more profitable employment in another part of the country. He should vote against the second reading of the Bill, because he did not think it either prudent or wise to attempt by legislation to do that under statutory provisions, which it was much better to leave to be determined by the requirements of the case, and which varied from time to time according to the peculiar circumstances of and the demand for employment.

strongly objected to the principle of the Bill, which might produce even alienation for ever without the consent of the owner of the land. If the measure became law, a man would be enabled to .create what in England would be termed a fee within a fee by putting a house on another person's land so as to form a perpetual incumbrance. Although the Bill only applied to Scotland it would commit just the same injustice as it would in England, and to any perpetual incumbrance, especially on another man's land, without his consent, moreover, he was opposed, and for that reason he should vote against the second reading; although he was willing to concede the right that when a tenant erected buildings upon the land with the consent of the landowner, if the landowner were unwilling to allow such tenant the value of such houses, the latter might have a right to take them down.

said, the hon. and learned Member for Leeds (Mr. Wheelhouse) had exercised his legal ingenuity in attempting to show that the Bill would saddle estates with encumbrances without the consent of the owner. He (Mr. Parker) did not assume to speak with any professional knowledge; but he was very much mistaken if the language of the Bill gave any title to the ground on which the buildings were erected. Certainly if it did, such was not the intention of the promoters of the Bill, and the words could easily be altered in Committee. The real position was this—that the property in the building was to vest in the tenant who erected or who purchased it, and the property in the soil was to remain with the landlord, who also would have the right of pre-emption, and the right to have the surface of the ground restored at the end of the lease. The measure did not interfere with the ordinary contract between landlord and tenant, but provided that in the event of no understanding having been come to between the landlord and the tenant in regard to farm buildings to be erected, the tenant should be entitled to claim the right of removing them or of selling them to a succeeding tenant. The Bill was not to compel but simply to facilitate the erection of cottages. The Preamble of the Bill well set forth the real objects it had in view. The first proposition of the Preamble was a matter of fact—namely, that by the law of Scotland it was presumed that buildings belonged to the person on whose land they were situate; and the second proposition was that this presumption should cease for the future, and that where there was no bargain to the contrary the property in the buildings should remain with the tenant. He thought there had been on both sides some exaggeration of the importance of the provisions relating to cottages. He did not think the Bill would do very much for the erection of cottages, and he was quite sure cottages would not be run up as matters of speculation. The capital of tenant-farmers found plenty of employment in the operations of agriculture, and they would never dream of putting up cottages unless they were really required. There was no doubt great inconvenience existed in consequence of the want of sufficient cottage accommodation. The country districts of Scotland were becoming depopulated. During the ten years of the last Census, the population of the county which he represented had decreased by 5,000—the labourers had gone to the large towns of Glasgow and Dundee, where they could find accommodation and better wages. The question, therefore, was whether it was not worthy of the attention of every person interested in agriculture to give facilities for labourers to remain on the land. He thought the 4th clause might be so modified in Committee as to have all its objectionable features removed. He especially approved of that part of the Bill which gave power to limited owners to provide the necessary cottages on the estate. He hoped the second reading would be agreed to.

said, the hon. Member who had just addressed them had said that the counties of Scotland were rapidly becoming depopulated, and that in his own county the population had decreased 5,000 since the last Census —and this the hon. Member had attributed to the want of cottage accommodation. He could assure the hon. Member that that was an entire mistake.

explained that what he intended to say—and believed he had said—was that the growth of the large towns had caused labourers to leave the agricultural districts, and that such being the tendency, it was worth the while of those interested in agriculture to see that cottages were built, in order that the labourers might have more inducement to remain.

said, they might build palaces for them if they liked; but that would not induce them to remain so long as the wages they could get in the towns were higher than those they were paid in the country. During the last 10 or 15 years he had laid out £30,000 in building houses for his workmen, and until late years he never had any trouble to get labourers of all kinds —in fact, he generally had a redundancy of labour—and there was always a great demand for houses, especially his own, which were of a superior kind; but he could assure the hon. Member that notwithstanding the men were earning very good wages, some of his houses were empty, and one part of his business was diminished and crippled entirely for the want of labour. So long, therefore, as there was one branch of trade extremely profitable they might build as many agricultural cottages as they liked, but they would not get people to occupy them. He had often told the agricultural labourers that they had better remain in the country districts, where there was little disease and plenty of fresh air. He had told them that it was shortsighted policy to run away from a healthy, cheerful, and joyful district for the temporary increased pay of the large towns. They would not do that, however, and they must accept things as they were. This was a free country, and he should be sorry to see that freedom interfered with. He was at a loss, however, to understand how anyone could support the Bill who wished to maintain freedom of contract. They had had a statement from the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read), which went beyond that of the hon. Member for Perth, who had an opportunity this day of delivering an eloquent speech, which was prepared for another occasion when he had intended to bring before the House the question of freedom of contract. According to his argument, the tenant was a poor, naked, defenceless body, utterly unable to withstand his landlord, because he was armed with all the power of the sword. Did the hon. Member really wish to persuade the House that the tenant-farmers were that poor, defenceless, unprotected class that they required special and exceptional legislation? And he put it to him, whether he would support such a Bill as this if it were to be extended to towns and cities? If the hon. Member's (Mr. Clare Read's) description of the tenant-farmers of England was a true one, he (Mr. Orr Ewing) could assure him it was not applicable to the tenant-farmers of Scotland. There was no more sturdy and independent class of people than the tenant-farmers had always shown themselves to be, and the course of events had a tendency to make them still more so. He did not know any landlord who, in dealing with his own tenantry, would not prefer the principle of private arrangement, or who would not say that this Bill would be totally useless. It might answer some hon. Member's purpose to pretend to be a great friend to the farmer; but, so far as the Bill was concerned, he must oppose it as being worthless and while doing so, he claimed for himself the title of as sincere a friend to the farmer as its most enthusiastic supporter. He was most anxious to do everything in his power to promote the interest of the tenant-farmers in Scotland; but he would not pretend to do so by supporting a Bill which he believed would produce endless confusion and stife.

regarded that as one of the crudest Bills he had ever seen submitted to Parliament, and one more likely to do harm than good. If a tenant had a piece of land opposite his landlord's mansion and did not happen to be on very good terms with him, he could build a row of cottages upon it. He concurred with the views of the previous speakers in thinking that an attempt to interfere with the freedom of contract between the landlord and his tenant, and he protested against it. It was a measure more likely to emanate from a Parliament of women than of "grave and reverend seigniors." He strongly objected to the great waste of Parliamentary time by the introduction of Bills of the sort, which could never come to fruition, although they kept the House frequently up to an advanced hour of the early morning. His health had suffered considerably by those post-midnight sittings, and he was determined if he had an opportunity next Session, to introduce a Bill to oblige them all to go home to their beds at 11 o'clock at night. He hoped that no more time would be wasted over the Bill, and that it would be thrown out by a large majority.

said, he had listened with great pleasure to the promise of the hon. Member to bring in a Bill to put a stop to 2 and 4 o'clock sittings, and to send everyone home at 11 o'clock, and would promise to support such a measure. He was also sure hon. Members of that House generally, and especially the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, would be grateful to him for doing so. As regarded the Bill, he believed it was a step in the right direction to improve the condition of tenants, and it should have his support when amended in Committee, and although he considered it an impracticable one in its present shape, yet he was very glad that attention had been called to the subject, believing as he did that there was great need for improvement as regarded the present condition of labourers' cottages. From the introduction of machinery, and one cause and another, our agricultural population was gradually deteriorating, which was a great misfortune to the country. It was of the greatest importance upon that and upon every ground that their condition both as to house accommodation and otherwise should be improved.

said, that the Bill gave a tenant power against his landlord to erect any sort of structure or fence which he might consider necessary. There was to be no limit to the number of cottages he might put up, although the Bill placed some limitation on the number to be paid for. A tenant, therefore, might erect a number of hovels for a temporary purpose. He was not bound to keep them in repair; and the landlord, who had no power to do any repairs during the tenancy, would have all the discredit. He believed the House would violate both justice and common sense in reading the Bill a second time, for its principle was utterly at variance with the rights of property. Besides that, there was no necessity for it, and even if there was its operation would, he believed, prove detrimental not only to the landlord, but also to the tenant and agricultural labourers themselves.

said, he thought that England had been somewhat too largely imported into the discussion of this Bill for Scotland. The circumstances of England and Scotland, however, were so different that arguments drawn from the experience of English Members did not apply to the Bill. That was a question between the landowner and the tenant not of every farm, but of every farm where there was not one cottage to every 100 acres of land. This Bill did not propose to apply any provision to those farms which had one cottage to every 100 acres of land; and he would remind the lion. Member opposite (Mr. J. Lowther) that the tenant could not claim the whole expenditure upon any buildings, as he bad stated, at the expiration of the lease, but only what they were worth. But that must be clone by agreement—his hon. Friend had made a great mistake when he said that the landlord must take the buildings. There was no obligation on the landlord to do so at all. All that the landlord was entitled to require was that the tenant should take away the materials of which they had been formed; and was that au unreasonable proposition? He thought not. But if the landlord said—" I should like to have these things," the Bill provided that a valuer might be appointed to say what they were worth, and at that valuation the landlord might take them. He must confess that upon looking over its provisions the Bill appeared to be one of the most equitable that had ever been introduced into the House. He supported it because, instead of asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer to put his hands into the public purse, it provided that better accommodation for the labourers should be provided by those whose undoubted duty it was to do so. At the present moment our labourers lived a very inferior sort of barrack life in villages, and indeed were much worse off in their domestic arrangements than soldiers. No one who was acquainted with Scotland but must know that in the agricultural districts of Scotland there were hundreds of cottages of the most miserable description, and in many instances there was not a cottage to be found on a thousand acres of land; and in his opinion it was high time that something should be done in the way of improvement on those grounds. He cordially supported the Bill.

said, he did not intend to reply in detail to the various Criticisms which had been made on the Bill. He was led, however, to say that it was impossible for him to agree to the advice of the Lord Advocate and of his hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. M'Lagan) to withdraw it. It had been called a crude Bill; but it had been well considered in Scotland, and the Agricultural Societies, which represented the tenant-farmers of Scotland, were unanimously in its favour, and the Chamber of Agriculture, of which the hon. Member for Linlithgow was a member, had petitioned to that effect. If anyone thought the measure an extreme one, which he denied, let him remember that it was intended to meet an extreme grievance—the frightful over-crowding and want of accommodation for agricultural labourers—shown by the fact that one-third of the families of Scotland lived in houses of one room with one window or with none. Let him recall to the house the exact provisions of the Bill. By the law of Scotland all buildings erected by the tenant belonged to the landlord in the absence of specific agreement to the contrary. The fundamental proposition of this Bill was an alteration of that presumption of law in favour of the tenant. It divided buildings into two classes, and the provisions in reference to each of these were somewhat different. In regard to buildings other than labourers' cottages, the provision was, that at the end of the lease he was entitled to remove the materials, or sell them to the incoming tenant or the landlord. In regard to cottages, the provision was, that where these did not exist to the extent of one for every 100 arable acres, and the tenant supplied the deficiency, he was to be entitled to recompense to the extent of £100 for each such cottage, provided first the Sheriff found it worth that amount, that it had three rooms and 3,000 feet of cubic contents. Could anything be more reasonable than that? In conclusion, he would mention that an hon. Member (Sir Frederick Heygate) had referred to Ireland; but what was the state of the case there? Why, what did the Blue Book which had just been circulated on the subject prove? The Poor Law Inspectors of districts in Ireland had been invited to give their opinions as to the improvement of agricultural labourers' cottages, and three-fourths of their number recommended the principle of the Bill—namely, that occupiers of land should enjoy facilities of building irrespective of the will of the landlord.

in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, he had to express his great regret that the subject should have to come before the house at a late hour on a Wednesday afternoon. He would endeavour, however, to explain as 'briefly as he could the object of the provision of the Bill, which was to apply the principle of the cumulative vote to the election of aldermen by town councils. It was no new principle, for already Parliament had sanctioned it as regarded school board elections; in the English Act, unanimously on the Motion of the noble Lord who represented the North West Riding (Lord Frederick Cavendish), and in the Scotch Act, after a. full discussion of the subject, on the Motion of the hon. Member for Lanarkshire (Sir Edward Colebrooke) also a ministerialist, by 162 to 36, and the question was not at all one of a party character. The present Parliament had therefore decidedly approved of the cumulative vote. Admitting that the mode of representing minorities in Parliamentary Elections might be open to objection on account of its partial operation, he considered that the local representation of a town or borough should afford a correct picture of the several interests represented; but in respect to the election of the aldermen that was not at present the case, for they, instead of being elected by the municipal electors themselves, were selected by the town councillors out of their own body. It was in consequence of that, that whenever there was a political question, or even such a question as that of providing gas or waterworks for the town, great agitation took place with the view of disturbing the balance of public opinion by the election of aldermen who would throw the majority of the council into a minority. It was another subject to be deeply regretted, that those municipal institutions, which had been originally established for the administration of local affairs, had degenerated into political organizations of the most violent character. This was the case in Liverpool, in Bristol, and in Leeds, and the wide-spread nature of the evil had been abundantly shown by the evidence taken before the Select Committee of 1869. A great deal had been said about the reform of our municipal corporations; but it was only justice to the unreformed Corporation of the City of London to say that, so far as he knew, it was the only municipal body in the kingdom the elections to which took place more out of regard to local affairs than to party politics. As an example of the way in which the Alder-manic Bench was monopolized by the party of the majority, he would refer to the fact, that at the last municipal election for Leeds, though one-third of the council was Conservative, the whole of the eight aldermen appointed were Liberals. He maintained it was unfair to give a majority in the town council the power to swamp a considerable minority by electing aldermen in all cases agreeing with their own views, and hoped that if the re-action in progress there resulted in a Conservative majority, they would not exercise their power in the same tyrannical and exclusive spirit. The theory of the Municipal Act, that the best men, irrespective of party, would be elected aldermen, not having been realized, he would urge that his proposal was the most available remedy, and with that view, he would give as a testimony the opinion of the late Mr. Mill, on the superiority of the cumulative over the limited vote, as being more popular and giving the most faithful expression of the wishes of the electors. It might not be possible to apply the cumulative vote to the election of all members of the council, because the larger towns were divided into wards; but the aldermen represented the whole of the town, and might without difficulty be chosen by the cumulative vote. No doubt, it would be said that nobody wanted the Bill. He held that that was a most unsound objection, because it was unreasonable to suppose that a dominant majority should endeavour to curtail their own power; and besides Parliament had dealt with the old municipal corporations, the Universities, and endowed schools, without expecting those bodies to ask for their own reform. He wished the measure could have been brought forward earlier in the Session, but that was impracticable; and in commending it to the justice, moderation, and fairness of the House, he hoped that it would not be overborne by mere brute voting power, and that some defence of the existing system would be offered by its opponents. Believing that the Bill would remedy a glaring injustice, he begged to move its second reading.

said, he had been curious to know why the hon. Gentleman opposite took so great an interest in the cumulative system of voting, and from his speech he discovered that as the present constitution of the Corporation of Leeds did not satisfy him he desired to alter it by introducing the cumulative system. The Preamble of the Bill was founded on the erroneous assumption that aldermen were representatives of the town council, whereas they were chosen by their fellow town councillors, and their duty was to act at elections in the absence of the mayor. It also assumed that aldermen had the power of meeting to consult about the interests of the borough in a separate chamber, whereas that was the case in London only. The object of the cumulative vote was to enable a minority to send a representative of their opinions into some representative body, and it did not apply to the case of the election of aldermen. He might observe that the cumulative system did not work well in small constituencies. It either enormously strengthened a minority, so as to make it practically a majority; or, if the votes were well divided, several of the candidates had an equal number of votes, and a fresh election was rendered necessary. He had not heard of any Petition for a change in the present system, nor of any complaint out-of-doors as to the mode in which they exercised their functions. Moreover, instead of seeking to introduce the thin end of the wedge by such an infinitesimally small application of the cumulative vote, why did not the hon. Member for Boston at once boldly propose to apply that principle to the election of town councillors and also of Members of Parliament, and not to that of aldermen only? Believing that the Bill, if passed, would produce greater evils than they had at present, he begged to move its rejection.

in supporting the Bill said, he should be glad to see cumulative voting extended to the election of town councillors generally; but if the friends of that principle wished to legislate in that House, especially at that period of the Session, it was necessary to confine their efforts to a moderate and modest measure. He did not think the Bill would necessitate second elections, because where two candidates had an equal number of votes the mayor's casting vote would obviate that difficulty. The aldermen of the City of London were elected not by the common councillors, but by the citizens generally—a much better system than that which prevailed in other parts of the country. As to the fear that a disciplined and intelligent minority might carry most of the seats on the aldermanic bench, if the majority should run candidates for all the vacancies, he had a much better opinion of the good sense of the majority than to think they were likely to fall into so stupid a mistake. In the case of such a small body as a town council it would always be easy to ascertain how the voting would go before the actual election occurred, and thus to find out how many candidates could be safely nominated. The object of the cumulative vote was not merely to obtain a fair system of voting, or a supply of speakers, but to make the representative body as fairly representative of different opinions and interests as possible, but where the election took the co-optative form, the representation of one side only surely could not be called a fair reflex of the constituency. In a town council they required, not great genius, but chiefly honesty, intelligence, and business experience. He found, however, that complaints were made everywhere, and even by town councillors themselves, that town councils were not as good as they used to be, and that it was a growing custom to make those institutions more and more instruments for the aggrandizement of political parties, instead of bodies for managing with proper skill and care the local affairs of a town. In the 'United States of America, where almost every evil of our representative system existed in an exaggerated measure, opinion was growing rapidly in favour of the cumulative vote for electing administrative bodies and various public officers. That principle was largely applied in Illinois and Pennsylvania, and many of the other States of the 'Union were advancing in the same direction. In forming our municipal corporations, it was thought that by a secondary election a better class of men would be obtained; but all experience showed that expedient was a failure. Town councillors had become mere delegates, instead of representatives, and their election was always arranged by a preliminary "Caucus." He admitted that that was a very small Bill. He advocated it only for the sake of the principle it involved; and he hoped if the measure were brought in again, that principle would be applied to the election of town councillors as well as of aldermen.

said, he must object to the second reading of the Bill, as he was opposed to the new-fangled method of election by the cumulative vote. When the Municipal Reform Act was introduced, Lord Lyndhurst proposed that aldermen should not be elected by the voters in the different wards, but by the town council itself. That was a bad principle, and he for one had always objected to it. He had proposed in the analogous case of the Metropolitan Board of Works, that the members of that Board should be elected directly by the ratepayers, and not indirectly through the medium of the different vestries. Modern inventions in politics, at all events in regard to elections, did not answer. The old system carried on the City of London from time immemorial, under which the aldermen as well as the common councillors were elected by the different wards, had answered. It was a system to which no objection had been taken, which could be clearly understood and by which the representation of the people could be secured; but by their new-fangled principles Heaven only knew who would be represented, or what would be the result. The cumulative vote would only introduce perplexity and confusion. It could not be right. It was impossible to say why it could not be right, and equally impossible for anybody to prove that it was right. He had never been able to understand the arguments urged in its favour, and he was sure that those who urged them were as much in the dark as he was. The hon. Member for Boston (Mr. Collins), who had given them a lecture about Yorkshire, with which no man was so well acquainted, should ask the people of that county whether they would not prefer the old principle so long carried out in the City of London to the new-fangled scheme contained in his Bill.

said, he had not intended to speak on the Bill, partly because the subject had excited very little public attention, and partly because he feared that he differed from a majority of his constituents with regard to it. But as his hon. Friend the Member for Boston (Mr. Collins) had so largely introduced into his speech the borough which he (Mr. Baines) had the honour to represent, he was sure the House would indulge him with permission to make a brief reply. His hon. Friend had stated that since the Municipal Reform Bill the Corporation of Leeds had elected all the aldermen from the Liberal party. That was true, and he regretted it; but he would inform the House how it came about. The fact was that the old close Tory corporation, which had governed the town for ages, had never admitted into its ranks a single Liberal; and when a representative corporation was elected, and the Liberals obtained the ascendancy, they resented their previous exclusions. But there was another reason which had exasperated the Liberals still more strongly. When the Tory party were unshipped from their seats by the Municipal Corporations Reform Act, they determined to alienate the whole of the property of the corporation for the purpose of weakening their successors. They did so alienate it, and there was an action at law then pending on the part of the new corporation to recover the funds which had been alienated by the old. That had a powerful influence on public feeling, which still prevailed. Another reason tended to perpetuate the feeling which had been referred to by the hon. Member for Boston. When he (Mr. Baines) argued with some of his own friends, that it would be more just and expedient for the public interests that some of the best men of both parties should be admitted to the bench of aldermen, and that the municipal elections should not be conducted with a mere reference to political party, the answer was—"We have two well-known parties, Liberal and Conservative. They have election committees and organizations, and they would not consent to set up a new organization for the election of the municipal council, and therefore we must go on in the old grooves, and work by means of the old organization." He was sorry to say that the same argument was to be met with everywhere. In Boston—his hon. Friend's borough—every alderman was a Tory; and in Liverpool all the aldermen were Conservative, and they would not ap- point a mayor who was not of the same party. The fact was, that the same thing prevailed over the whole kingdom. He believed that the local bodies were, notwithstanding, doing their best for the management of their property and the improvement of their respective towns; and he must say that, on behalf of his own constituents, that he believed there was no corporation in the kingdom more desirous of promoting public improvements, whether with respect to the streets, the sewers, with respect to the gas or water, or in improving public buildings and institutions, than the Corporation of Leeds; and he did not think that there was any town which had been more distinguished by its advancement in recent times than Leeds had been under the corporation which his hon. Friend had thought fit to denounce. He was well aware that it would be stated that all the salaried officers employed by municipal corporations were of one party; but as far as Leeds was concerned he was prepared to contradict it, for he knew, and could give the names, if it were desirable to do so, of several of the highest paid officers of the Corporation of Leeds who were of the opposite politics to the majority of the town council. Still he must say, from his own conviction, that it would be better and more fair, and, on the whole, for the greater advantage of both parties, and. the whole community, that the plan for electing aldermen, sketched out by the hon. Member for Boston, should be adopted. The aldermen were all elected by a majority of the town council, whatever might be its political colour. This was not the case with the town councillors, as they were elected by the different wards, and, being so elected, represented many different opinions and principles. His hon. Friend, with whom no doubt the wish was father to the thought, expected that his own party would soon get into power again; but if they did, he (Mr. Baines) was convinced that they would act on the same principles on which they had acted for ages. Still, he believed that the election of the best men of both parties to the office of aldermen would everywhere prove the most beneficial, and must, therefore, give his vote in favour of the Bill.

rested the question on a much wider basis than the ease of any particular borough, and ap- prehended that any process which tended to swamp the votes of the ratepayers in a municipality must be an unconditional, indeed, an unqualified evil. In nearly every borough in the North of England these elections were matters of political feeling; but he believed that if the cumulative principle were carried out, it would be found that many gentlemen occupying the aldermanic bench would find themselves so no longer. The exclusive principle had been earned out in Leeds ever since the passing of the Municipal Act, without paying any attention to the feelings and wishes of the ratepayers, and he maintained that the party whom he represented in Leeds were not responsible for the existing system which prevailed in that borough. If it was bad in the old corporation to be exclusive—that was purely the old argument that two blacks would not make a white—and surely there was no reason for the new corporation to follow a bad example. He thought the town council should be wholly elective, for he had never seen the advantage of the Municipal Act over the old system, and. the City of London had acted wisely in adhering to its ancient practice. During the last 20 years he had heard continual complaints on the part of the electors against being swamped by the aldermen, who said that it was quite useless to make any attempt to remedy the evil with which they had to contend as things now stood and were conducted. The fact was, that people were selected for office not because of their fitness, but from political considerations. That being so, he should be glad to see a return to the good old system which prevailed in London at the present moment, where the best man was chosen, whether he happened to be Whig or Tory.

said, he must strongly deny that the aldermen of Leeds were elected entirely on account of their political opinions, and in order to show that the corporation were not governed by political motives, begged to state that the town clerk was a Conservative, and that the surveyor for the borough, who was more lately appointed, was one likewise. Besides, those several other officers of the corporation held the same political opinions. He had a long experience as a member of the corporation, and could assert that the best men were appointed to seats in the council, irrespective of their political views, and the same rule applied to the official appointments. In fact, the question was never raised as to the political opinions of candidates for appointments. The hon. Member (Mr. Wheelhouse) had been elected to the Corporation of Leeds, but he had quarrelled with the committee to which he was appointed, and his constituency consequently quarrelled with him. Hence, his complaint of the corporation as it existed at present. He had originally opposed the principle of the Bill, because he thought it would not work well; but from what he had seen, however, of the state of feeling in his own borough, he felt satisfied that if the principle of the Bill were adopted, it would, when prejudices were overcome, be likely to produce a beneficial result. Looking at it in that point of view, he should vote for the second reading.