, in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that this Bill, the principle of which he would endeavour to explain, and which he should ask the House to read a second time, was the same as that which he introduced last year, but for the consideration of which he was unable afterwards to obtain a day. It was also founded upon the Resolution and Bill which were discussed in the last two Sessions of the last Parliament, but with respect to which Bill no decision was arrived at, partly owing to the limited time that remained on the Wednesday on the last occasion of its discussion. This was not a Party question, because the principle was supported as well as opposed by hon. Members sitting on both sides of the House. It dealt with a subject of a somewhat dry and technical character, and was perhaps uninteresting to others than those who took an interest in the working of municipal institutions, but at the same time it dealt with an abuse that required a remedy, and a grievance that existed to a considerable extent in many parts of the country, and whatever might be its fate that day it was a question that sooner or later would compel legislation, with a view to a remedy of the grievance complained of with regard to past legislation on the subject. The Reform Act of 1832 and the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 were no doubt beneficial in their general character by destroying the close, and in some cases corrupt, corporations, and substituting for them an open system of municipal government; and in that respect they were, no doubt, good and useful Acts, but they signally failed in one respect. The boroughs were divided into wards for the purpose of obtaining a fair representation of the feelings of the different sections in each borough. The wards were represented in the council by councilmen freely chosen by the burgesses; but there was not that equal and fair representation in the election of aldermen, and, unlike the election of aldermen for the City of London by the burgesses, it was given to all the councillors themselves to elect the aldermen by a vote of the majority, and it was invariably the case that when party spirit ran high the elections of aldermen were conducted on political principles more than for the sake of obtaining good municipal government. When men were elected, not for any special fitness for dealing with local and municipal affairs or business capacity and experience, but simply as a reward for their adhesion to the principles of a particular political Party, they failed to be a reflex of the public feeling, and of those best qualified to discharge local duties for the benefit of the ratepayers. Moreover, by the present mode of election the aldermen were not only not a fair reflex of the public feeling, but, as it sometimes happened, they were opposed to the feelings of the majority, because, inasmuch as only a portion of the aldermen went out of office each year, those remaining were able to vote for the vacant seats on the aldermanic bench, and the consequence was that the councillors were often outvoted and the aldermen represented themselves. This occurred a short time ago at Leeds, when all the aldermen not retiring by rotation voted for the election of their successors with the minority in the council, and thus turned the minority into a majority. It was sometimes the case in boroughs that very important questions were decided by the votes of the aldermen overruling the votes of the councillors. The working of the system was also illustrated by what had occurred at Leicester. The council met last year to consider whether they should petition in favour or against this Bill. A majority of the councillors approved of the Bill, and were in favour of affixing the corporate seal to the Petition, but the aldermanic vote came down and converted the majority which represented the ratepayers into a minority. The same with regard to Winchester. There the inhabitants were opposed to the establishment of a school board, and the councillors voted 8 for it and 9 against it; but the aldermanic vote, numbering 6, was given in favour of the establishment of a school board, and the majority was converted into a minority, so that if the noble Lord the Vice President of the Council had not hesitated to comply with the Petition the City of Winchester would have been unnecessarily taxed for a number of years by those who in no sense directly represented the ratepayers. He was willing to concede that this system of political exclusion was not general in all the boroughs in England, but it was unfortunately an increasing evil. In the north and midland districts these elections were nearly all political contests, and in some they appear to have lost sight of the real nature of municipal institutions. During the last Recess he took the trouble to gather reliable statistics upon the point from 30 boroughs in the north and midland districts, and he had to thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for the assistance they rendered him in the matter. In answer to the question—"Are the municipal elections in your borough fought out on political principles?"—he received an answer from one-third of the number—"Yes, plainly," and from five-sixths of the remainder the reply was more or less in the affirmative. One replied—"Yes, increasingly so." Another—" Nothing else is ever thought of." One—"Not until lately." One—" I believe you, my boy." One or two said—"Generally so;" and only one—the borough of Doncaster—and for the honour and glory of that distinguished borough let it be known—said these contests were not political, but that the best men of both parties were selected irrespective of their political opinions. Out of 30 large boroughs only one answered in the negative to his question, and he assured the House that answers came from friends on both sides of the House. The second question he asked was, to what extent the exclusion of the opposite claimant was carried out in the election of aldermen, and whether those elections gave a fair share of the honours to the opposite side? and the answers were generally that they did not give a fair share to the opposite side. Twenty-six out of the 30 stated their policy was, as a rule, to exclude the opposite element from municipal towns for political purposes, and in three places only, in addition to the happy borough of Doncaster, did they appear to give any sensible representation of the minority amongst the aldermen. He was informed, also, that a general desire existed amongst most of the respectable inhabitants of these boroughs for a change. Not only was there a complaint that the best men were excluded by the existing system, but there was a special grievance that the wards represented by the minority in the council had aldermen assigned to them who were entirely out of sympathy with them. He did not wish to be understood as making a sweeping charge against all the municipal corporations in England, because he was willing to allow that, in many cases, proper men still took part in municipal matters under the present system; but he was bound to express his belief that the best men were very often excluded, and many retired in disgust. In answer to the question whether the best men were excluded, the reply was, in almost every instance, that it was the case, and in one borough the office had fallen so low in public estimation that the "town councillor" went by the sobriquet of "town scoundrel." In 1835, Lord Melbourne made this system of political exclusion one of the chief reasons why there should be a change. After citing from the Re-port of the Corporation Commissioners, he said—

"Now, let us look at the corporation of——. From the mayor to the humblest servant of the corporation every office has been filled by persons of the corporation or so-called Tory party, to the total exclusion of all who entertained different opinions, however wealthy, however intelligent, however respectable. Now, let me ask your Lordships, what do you think of the working of such a system as this?"

If a reform was necessary then, in consequence of this political exclusion, surely it was no less necessary now. The aldermen did not fairly represent the opinions of those who were elected by the ratepayers. He might be told that the minority should be bound by the majority, though it were only a majority of one, and that this was the very essence of representative institutions. He was quite willing to admit that; but his Bill would not force a minority into a majority, as was sometimes the case under the present law, nor would it enable the majority, as he had shown was now the case, to artificially increase its own relative strength. He could not give a better illustration of the injustice that existed than by asking the House to suppose that they had to elect Peers to the House of Lords, and by a bare majority electing 200 Members to come and sit with them, and form one Assembly—the 200 being selected from one political Party. Who could defend such a system as just?—yet it was an exact illustration of what occurred in municipal boroughs. There were three modes by which the evil might be dealt with—first, the election of the aldermen by the burgesses of each ward, as in London—but not for life—where he believed it would work beneficially. He had heard no complaint of the way in which aldermen were elected in London, and the present Bill would not interfere with the working of the system there Another was to give the councillors of the ward the power of electing the aldermen for the ward; but there was this objection to it, that, in some cases, the wards were so small, and the number of representatives so limited, that it would be impossible to secure an adequate representation by asking three men to retire into a room and elect one; and therefore he was driven to that which was adopted in this Bill—to leave the election in the hands of the councillors, but to apply the Cumulative Vote—each Councillor to have as many votes as there were aldermen to be elected, which they might distribute as they thought fit. By that means a fair representation would be given to the minority. He knew that the word "cumulative" excited horror in the minds of some, and that many decidedly objected to it. He was not specially wedded to the word, and he had no wish to see the principle carried out generally; but be thought it was unobjectionable in the limited manner now proposed. It would often be a very valuable means of giving to the minority fair representation, and of securing to all sections of the community their share in the election of representatives in the municipal councils. The Cumulative Vote had been objected to on the ground that it was a difficult and complicated system to manage. The hon. Member (Mr. Dixon) brought in a Bill to abolish the Cumulative Vote in the case of school board elections, because of his experience of what had taken place at Birmingham at the first school board election there, when the parties in the minority obtained a majority of repre- sentatives. But the reason of that coincidence was well understood, and the objection had been entirely obviated by the last election, which showed how soon a large and intelligent constituency could be taught the right use of the voting power, because the voters on that occasion went in for what they could get. The result showed that, even on a large scale, the cumulative system brought about a fair representation. The object of the Bill was that the opinion of the burgesses, as expressed through the councillors, should find a fair reflex in the election of aldermen. By the means proposed in the Bill a fair representation, and no more than a fair representation, would be obtained of the different sections and classes of the community. In conclusion, he wished to say that he had no personal object or motive in bringing this matter before the House. He did not represent a borough, nor did he live sufficiently near one to be able to take part in municipal affairs. He had, however, seen the evil working of the present system, in so far as it often deterred the best and most qualified men in large towns from taking any part in municipal affairs. Therefore, he thought that nothing would do more to restore a healthy tone to municipal bodies, and to oust politics, so far as they could be ousted, from municipal affairs, than a measure securing a fair representation of all parties. He knew this Bill did not please those violent political partizans, who could not rise superior to party considerations; but when he remembered that when this subject was before the House, in the last Session of the late Parliament, three hon. Members for Leeds, each speaking from a somewhat different political standpoint, rose to support a Bill almost identical to this one, he could not but hope that the Bill now before the House might meet with the support of the thoughtful men of all parties. It was not a great measure he would allow; but it dealt with a subject in which an increasing interest was felt, and believing it was a just, righteous, and fair measure, he commended it to the impartial judgment of the House.

, in moving that the Bill be read a second time that day three months, owned that the hon. Member had introduced the question with much moderation and ability; but, at the same time it seemed extraordinary that a measure relating, as this one did, solely to municipal corporations, should have been brought forward by a county Member, and not by an hon. Gentleman representing a borough, and having personal experience of the practical working of the present law. The observations which had fallen from the hon. Member all failed to convince him that the Bill ought to be passed. His own experience differed from that of the hon. Gentleman in regard to the prevalence of political feeling at municipal contests in the North and East of England, and the hon. Gentleman had not given the names of the boroughs to which the statistics he had given applied. In the borough of Stock-ton, which he (Mr. Dodds) represented, he admitted that political feeling had to some extent crept into municipal elections; but both parties were fairly represented, and even in that Liberal borough no fewer than five out of the eight aldermen were Conservatives. In Darlington and Middlesborough, political feeling did not enter into the municipal elections. In these three leading boroughs in the North of England, Stockton, Darlington and Middles-borough, political feeling was scarcely recognized in political contests, and town councillors were selected from Liberals and Conservatives indiscriminately. The hon. Member said a small portion of the aldermen went out of office every year. That was an error, because the aldermen retired triennially, one-half going out at the end of one period of three years, and the other half at the end of the second. The deduction he gathered from the argument that in Leeds, Leicester, Winchester, and other places, the voice of the people, as represented by the councillors, was overruled by the voice of the aldermen, was that the office of alderman ought to be abolished altogether. At any rate, the argument of the hon. Gentleman pointed in that direction. This, however, was not the object of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman also stated that aldermen were appointed to wards where they were not in sympathy with the people. His own experience was diametrically the opposite of that of the hon. Member. In Stockton they had eight aldermen for four wards—two for each—and one year alderman A was assigned to the north west ward, and in the following year alderman B, and so in regular rotation in each of the wards. Nor had it been shown that the Bill was desired by municipal corporations, or by the people. Not a single Petition had been presented in its favour; the only Petition that had been presented on the subject being against the Bill. It was a Bill which sought to introduce a very novel, unusual, and at the same time mischievous principle. The Bill consisted of two parts. First, it provided that each person should be entitled to a number of votes equal to the number of aldermen to be elected. That, he ventured to say, was unnecessary. Then, the Bill went on to provide—and this was the objectionable part of it—that every voter might give all such votes to one person, or distribute them, as he thought fit. Now, the Aldermen were elected by the continuing members of the council. In Stockton, there 24 councillors and eight aldermen, four of the latter going out triennially, whilst the remaining four aldermen, with the 24 councillors, elected the four new aldermen, who in nine cases out of ten were re-elected; but the great objection to the Bill was that the persons elected aldermen might be selected, not from the councillors who had been elected by the burgesses, but from councillors, or from persons qualified to be councillors. So that if the Bill became law, a small section of the council, by combining together, would be able to bring in persons outside the council, and who had never been before the burgesses at all. The existing law, which had been in operation since 1835, had worked well, and it ought not to be disturbed by the introduction of a fancy franchise of this kind unless more substantial reasons for it were given than they had heard that day. It might happen that a candidate who had offered himself to the burgesses for the office of town councillor, and who had been unsuccessful over and over again, might by the action of a section of the town council be brought over their heads and placed upon the Alder-manic Bench. The power to be given to a small section of the town council was a point which ought to be taken into careful consideration, for under it six out of 32 persons in the town council of Stockton would be able to pitchfork an alderman into the council over the head of a man elected by the burgesses and properly representing them. The difficulty of getting good men to serve as town councillors was now very great, but the machinery of the Bill would not meet this in any way; indeed, the Bill would be an utter failure in that respect. There had been as yet no experience of the working of the Cumulative Vote, except in school board elections, which was not sufficiently satisfactory to induce him to support this Bill; but even supposing it had been a success it would not have afforded any precedent for a measure of this kind, because the principle of this Bill was merely to give the town councillors and the continuing aldermen power to adopt the cumulative vote. The Bill went either too far, or not far enough. It should have begun by giving the burgesses the Cumulative Vote, and then the other part of the measure would, perhaps, have been less objectionable. As it was, the Bill was most objectionable, and that was the feeling of those whom he had the honour to represent. With regard to the election of Members of Parliament, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowe) brought forward a Motion in 1867 which was similar—almost identical, in fact—to the terms of this Bill, relating to municipal elections. The clause then proposed was as follows:—

"At any contested election for a county or borough represented by more than two Members, and having more than one seat vacant, every votes shall be entitled to a number of votes, equal to the number of vacant seats, and may give all such votes to one candidate, or may distribute them among the candidates as he may think fit."

There was a long debate on the Motion, and, after two nights being spent therein, it was rejected by a large majority. The present Prime Minister, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time, said, in the course of the debate—

"Now, I am not prepared on the 5th of July to ask the House of Commons to enter upon a campaign to carry out a system which is, as far I understand it, alien to the customs, manners, and traditions of the people of this country. The proposal is opposed to every sound principle, and its direct effect would be, I believe, to create a stagnant representation, and a stagnant representation would bring about a feeble Executive."

The right hon. Gentleman added—

"I have always been of opinion with respect to this cumulative voting and other schemes having for their object to represent minorities" that they are admirable schemes for bringing crotchetty men into this House—an inconvenience we have hitherto avoided, although it appears we have now some exceptions to the general state of things, and I do not think we ought to legislate to increase the number of specimens."—[3 Hansard, clxxxviii. 1111–12.]

He observed from the Notice Paper that the Home Secretary intended to move the Previous Question, and he was glad to infer from this indication of opinion that the Bill was not likely to receive the support of the Government, because he quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government that the system it proposed was alien to the manners and traditions of the people; that it was opposed to every sound principle, and it would have a tendency in municipal corporations, as in that House, to create a stagnant representation, which would bring about a feeble executive. He had heard no sufficient reasons given why the established principle of Government by majorities on which the country had acted in its municipal matters for so long should not be continued, and as he regarded the proposal as one of the crotchets referred to by the right hon. Gentleman from whom he had just quoted, he trusted the House would refuse to give the Bill a second reading.

, in seconding the Amendment of the hon. Member for Stockton, said, that while admitting that the hon. Member for Leicestershire had shown that the present mode of electing aldermen was not satisfactory, he could not support the measure. In his opinion the proper course would be to abolish the office of alderman and increase the number of town councillors. He did not approve the Cumulative Vote. He might mention as an illustration of the working of the Cumulative Vote, in the school board elections, a case which occurred about two years ago. A school board of seven members had to be elected, and in the town where that took place there was a person who had signalized himself by having been before a magistrate and sent to prison for six months for an assault; and that person, before he had been many weeks out of prison, was returned at the head of the poll as a member of the school board, where he so conducted himself that every other member was compelled to resign.

said, he represented a borough (Clitheroe) in which the Bill of the hon. Gentleman was very much required, for one Party monopolized the municipal honours altogether. He was glad to hear that there were a few boroughs into which in municipal elections political feeling did not enter. But if any hon. Member would take up a newspaper on the 2nd of November he would see a long list of candidates ticketed-off with the magic letters L.C. For his own part he would be glad to see letters which were favourites in the Emerald Isle—he meant H.R.—attached to the names of candidates, provided they were intended to indicate a close attention to the local affairs of the municipality. At present the highest municipal honours were confined to the representatives of the dominant Party. In Clitheroe no one had a chance of becoming an alderman who represented the political Party to which he (Mr. Assheton) belonged. In Blackburn political feeling was so nearly balanced that at the last election the senior member was a Conservative and the junior a Liberal. The junior ran the senior member very hard, but there were rather more Conservatives than Liberals in the town. There were 12 aldermen who were all Conservatives. The third borough to which he referred was Burnley, which was precisely the counterpart of Blackburn. Burnley returned only one Member, and he was a Liberal; there were eight aldermen, and they were all Liberals. Why should not something be done which would render it possible to have a Conservative alderman for Clitheroe and Burnley, and a Liberal alderman for Blackburn? He was not so sanguine as to suppose that a Bill brought in by a private Member and only read a second time on the 14th of July could pass during the present Session; but he hoped to hear some declaration from the Government before the debate closed to the effect that their best attention would be given to this matter during the Recess, with the view of remedying an evil which no one could venture to deny. He should give his best support to the Bill.

said, he thought it very natural that the Bill should come from the other side of the House, as it was essentially a Conservative measure, inasmuch as it was directed against the violent fluctuations in the constitution of the municipal bodies which were of constant occurrence; while it appeared also to be a Liberal measure, because it provided that every section of the community should have its fair share in the representation of the local governing bodies. The hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds) had protested against the arguments of the hon. Member who had brought in the Bill, on the ground that the hon. Member for Leicestershire had had no experience of the facts with which he was dealing; but he (Mr. Rathbone) ventured to think that the hon. Member for Stockton had shown that it was possible to have a microscopic knowledge of facts that was in fact misleading. The hon. Member for Stockton had assumed two points on which he (Mr. Rathbone) thought he was mistaken—first, that politics were not the guiding principle of municipal elections; and, secondly, that men did not constantly obtain aldermanic honours who had been rejected by popular constituencies. In almost all the boroughs he knew in the North of England—and he was glad to hear there were some in the state of innocence described by the hon. Member for Stockton—the rule was that politics entered into the municipal elections. The history of the municipal body of Liverpool was very much to the point, and he believed it was parallel to the history of almost all the large boroughs. Under the old Corporation Act prior to the Municipal Reform Bill, the Tory Party held undisputed sway, the only two persons in the Council of those days who were not Tories being two who had slipped in unawares—men belonging to the oldest families in the borough, and whose politics had not been considered. There were few of the old corporations that had done so much work as had the members of that corporation. They had maintained the docks as a public trust, and had done many other useful things; but with all their merits they were subject to the demoralizing effects of being possessed of too much power, which they exercised in some instances with too despotic a sway, jobbing considerably in favour of the Church of England. The result was they offended the feeling of the ratepayers, and when the Municipal Reform Bill was passed the Conservative Party were swept away, only eight or ten out of the members then elected belonging to that political Party. But the Liberals showed themselves no wiser or stronger in resisting the temptations of power than the Conservatives, and they elected every alderman from their own Party. In their turn they were swept away, and the municipal power passed into the hands of the Conservatives who used it as the Liberals had done, in appointing Tory aldermen. The consequence was that the council had not always elected men from their own body, but had sometimes chosen a man because he had stood a certain number of contests, and not always because he had stood them on the purest principles; while the aldermen were not of the average standing and fitness of the rest of the town council. This certainly was not what was intended when the aldermen were elected for a longer period than the town councillors, and it could not happen under the Cumulative Vote proposed by this Bill. He held that if both Parties were certain of selecting a particular number of men, and neither could select an overwhelming number, the tendency would be to secure the best possible men. He was not afraid of democracy, if they could only ensure that the democracy had the opportunity, in times of political excitement and disturbance, of hearing truth and justice stated. There had been occasions on which the services of able and public-spirited men, in Liverpool, had been lost through the tide of popular opinion having set against the men who had endeavoured to carry most valuable measures, but which were not understood by the public; and experience had shown that it would have been a wise thing to have retained them in the town council as aldermen if they could have been elected on the principle advanced by this Bill. He thought it would be a most valuable principle, and he should be glad to see it carried further. He should also be very glad to see any extension of the principle of the representation of minorities by Cumulative Vote, or in any other way. But the application of the principle was most easily worked when applied to secondary instead of primary elections,

said, that when the Birmingham Corporation Act was passed, he was anxious to secure that the position of the alderman should be rendered analogous to that of alderman in the City of London. On that occasion he failed—he was, for the time, submerged by a democratic wave—but he never abandoned the object. It always appeared to him, that those who entertained ultra-Liberal opinions were apt to undervalue the ancient institutions of this country, as though they were not scientifically framed, forgetting that true science was always consistent with common sense, and that what had long been tested by experience, and had borne the test, was always in itself consistent with common sense. When the Reform Bill was passing through this House, he laboured to support the principles of representation of minorities; but he thought that the Cumulative Vote, as illustrated in the election of school-boards, ran to excess. It was desirable that considerable minorities should be represented; it was not desirable that too small minorities should be represented. It was possible that a small minority might introduce a mere obstructive, or a man of extreme views, who did not fairly represent public opinion. By public opinion, he did not mean the temporary phase of passion or feeling, but that deeper current which was, after all, the great source of progress and stability. He was glad that the Home Secretary intended to deal considerately with this Bill, and he hoped that some such remedy would be provided for the evils which it attempted to meet.

thought it a source of great satisfaction that the question before the House could not be distorted into a Party question, as evidence had been given in the course of the debate to show that all parties were interested in a right settlement of it. The reason why he had willingly allowed his name to be placed on the back of the Bill brought in by the hon. Member for Leicestershire was that he desired to interpose every difficulty in the way of obtruding Party politics into their municipal institutions. Nobody who had any experience of the large municipal boroughs of this country could be ignorant of the fact that politics were now obtruded, and that they frequently took the place of that calm and fair deliberation which men absolutely uncommitted politically would be likely to bestow upon questions of large local interest. They had in Bristol a case in point. He had not a word to say in depreciation of the gentlemen who filled the office of aldermen in that city; but it so happened that at the time of the passing of the Municipal Reform Bill, it was found that there was a majority of I on the Conservative side, and immediately 16 aldermen of Conservative opinions were appointed from outside, and, with one exception, that had been the character of the aldermen of the city of Bristol ever since. Precisely the same thing would have happened had the Liberals been in a similar majority, and, therefore, he must not be understood as condemning the action either of one side or the other; but what he desired was to interpose some obstacle to that interference with what he regarded as the fair and honest representation of the people of the borough. The question really deserved the consideration of the Government. There seemed to be an universal impression that something ought to be done. He believed the system adopted in the City of London was a sound one, where the aldermen were elected by the wards. He confessed that of the various methods that had been suggested for dealing with this subject, that proposed by the hon. Member for Stockton appeared to him to be, perhaps, most worthy of attention—namely, the extinction of the office of alderman, the usefulness of which he could never see.

mentioned the case of Leeds, with a population of 300,000, with 50,000 registered electors; a town council of 48 members and 16 aldermen, of whom only one was a Conservative, elected in 1836, and where there never had been a Conservative mayor. Questions of local administration ought not to be decided on political or Party grounds. Neither the wisdom nor the folly of municipal councils belonged altogether to one Party. The arguments adduced in favour of the measure by the hon. Member for Leicestershire were, to his mind, conclusive. He was not prepared to deny that the Municipal Act had worked well; but that was not the question they had to consider; and even if it were, he supposed it would not be contended that the Municipal Act would work less well, if those who held the highest offices in corporations were selected from a larger area. It had been objected to the Bill that outsiders would be admitted to municipal honours under it. That was quite true; but, as the law now stood, aldermen could be elected from those who were not in the corporation. It was further urged that the measure did not go far enough, but that was no reason why it should be rejected. On the ground that the Bill would remove many inequalities and anomalies which now existed in our municipal representation, and would give a fair representation of all classes of the community, and thus tend to a better representation of local affairs, he should certainly support it; and therefore trusted the House would reject the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Stockton.

would support the Bill, which he thought would operate beneficially. He hoped this discussion would impress on the Government the necessity of either abolishing aldermen altogether, or providing that the candidates who had the largest number of votes should be aldermen. That suggestion, if carried out, would be attended, he believed, with manifest advantage.

said, that like his hon. Colleague, he should not have thought it necessary, perhaps, notwithstanding the great interest he took in this subject, to address the House at all in the present debate, had it not been that more than one speaker had somewhat pointedly referred to the borough which he represented. Notwithstanding this, he was anxious, at the outset, to place the matter, if possible, upon a broader basis than that of mere localisms or Party considerations. Indeed, by no possibility could this subject, if reasonably treated, be brought within the realm of Party polities, and, certainly, it ought not to be dealt with as a Party question within the walls of that House. Undoubtedly, whatever might be the views, or even the experiences of the hon. Member for Stockton, he apprehended that nearly throughout the whole North of England, the municipal elections of the 1st of November had been for some time almost invariably and exclusively political elections, and were, he was sorry to say, year by year, becoming more and more so in their character. Whenever the triennial period arrived for the election or re-election of aldermen it was the self-evident result of such a state of things that these elections also partook more or less of a political view in all those boroughs, and in certain of them they became too exclusively so. It might be, no doubt, from the constitution of his (Mr. Wheel-house's) own mind; but he must confess that he had never yet been able to discover why it was considered necessary that a man should be a Whig or a Tory, a so-called Conservative, or a Radical, in order to judge of his capacity for determining how many rounds there should be in a lamplighter's ladder, upon what plan a street would be most efficiently paved and drained, or whether it was desirable to apply to Parliament for a new Local Improvement Act. These were the purposes for the due fulfilment of which it was supposed the governing body of a local municipality was called into existence, and such were the questions to which it might very well confine its scope of duty. But, instead of this, the elections in the district of which he spoke had, for years—indeed, ever since the passing of the Municipal Corporations Reform Act—been solely political or quasi-political. It must be manifest that such a course of operations would produce, as it unquestionably had produced, the great disadvantage of placing the members of a certain political Party in the borough, not indeed as a Party, but as residents of the borough, altogether beyond the pale or chance of having or taking any part in the municipal representation. They had been told often enough, both in that House and elsewhere, that taxation and representation ought to go together. He was the last man in the world to differ with that principle, and when, therefore, he saw that not only did the present system of electing aldermen cut at the very root of that principle, but that it excluded those who might be, and indeed were, often, the largest ratepayers in the borough, he was satisfied—and he thought it must be abundantly clear to everyone who would confess it—that a remedy was immediately and urgently required. He was as anxious as anyone could be, that this question should not be approached from a Party or political point of view, neither was he especially desirous of looking at it merely through the light thrown upon it either by the large borough he represented nor by any of the smaller boroughs in the North of England. His sole and earnest wish was to see the question considered from that aspect which might best ensure the full development of the old principle of "the greatest good of the greatest number, consistently with fairness to all." It was idle—if he might venture to say so—with all the abundant evidence to the contrary before us, to endeavour to impress upon the House that the elections for town councils, town councillors, and aldermen had not, he would say degenerated, into mere political questions; that they were so, was, he thought, a matter as undeniable as it was possible for anything to be. The hon. Member for Stockton ought to have entered a little more fully into the present bearing of municipal matters in that borough. Why did he not tell the House, when he said that politics were creeping into the municipal representation of that borough, how the elections for the several wards of Stockton were at present conducted? Were they guided by political feeling or ruled by political principles? That was the proper test; and the true answer to that inquiry, could it be obtained, would speak far more effectively than whole volumes of theory. In saying this, it must be understood that he (Mr. Wheelhouse) did not care for the result; what he wanted to know were distinctly two matters—first, how were these elections at Stockton as well as elsewhere conducted; and, second, why was political feeling creeping into questions which ought to be confined to streets and sewers? But even the hon. Member for Stockton himself, when he declared that the importation of political feeling was not common into municipal elections, practically gave up the whole of his own case; since if a single instance only could be shown to exist, that instance would of itself prove the contention of the hon. Member for Leicestershire to be absolutely and entirely correct. Prom his (Mr. Wheel-house's) standpoint he considered there ought to be no such thing as political feeling brought into municipal representation either at Stockton or indeed in any other borough in England. But even Stockton, where it was confessed that political feeling was only now creeping in, could not in any way be taken as a fair type of the full force and intensity of the evil which was thus generated. Besides which, it must be be remembered that however much the importance of that borough was increasing—and he, for one, as a resident of the North of England, and almost—if he might say so—a neighbour, most sincerely wished that its reign of prosperity might long continue to expand and increase—the size of its municipality scarcely entitled it to rank among the largest of our English boroughs. The evidence of hon. Gentlemen in that House representing such enormous constituencies as Bristol in the South-West, and Liverpool in the North, was conclusive on the point that there was an evil, and that immediate remedial agency was very desirable. It had been said, and said very truly, that the present system of electing aldermen had the effect of actually placing and continuing the minority of the representative element in the position of being in a majority of the town council, and thus occasionally over-riding its feelings and wishes. He said nothing of the town which he represented beyond this—and indeed they might take it that what had been mentioned by his hon. Colleague and which he himself could confirm was true—namely, that it was impossible, practically, in a council of 64 members, 16 of whom were not directly responsible to, or elected by, the burgesses, that its constitution could be so far altered during any triennial period as to afford room for that healthy change which was sometimes not only very desirable, but actually imperatively necessary. In such a borough the present system had the unquestionable effect of strangling the very intention of Lord Melbourne's Act, and repeating, in a far worse degree, all the evils and inequalities of which he then complained. Whatever might be the evils of the old courts of aldermen and assistants—or by whatever name the charter of incorporation might designate the municipality—that system did ensure a pretty sound reflex of the principle, so far as the franchise was then concerned, of something like equality in representation and taxation, whereas now the two were not only permanently divorced, but were often, not to say generally, placed in permanent antagonism to each other. That which had arisen in Leeds had also been mentioned as having come about elsewhere, and there could be no doubt that while various changes had from time to time taken place with regard to the social and domestic requirements of the several populations, the political element which had been infused into municipal elections had caused the councils to become, as it were, permanently stereotyped with a characteristic which, if not noxious in itself, was utterly one-sided and exclusive. It had been said to-day that they ought to have gone very much further, and that they should have started with the abolition of provincial aldermen altogether. He for one wished, most sincerely, they had done so, and he thought that those who were the representatives of the town in its municipal and social affairs, ought to be entirely elected by the burgesses themselves; and, being so elected, then let the choice take place for the whole body according to the present method. But in the meantime, there was no reason why they should reject the Bill at present before them. It was manifestly and admittedly a step in the right direction, and the time was already arrived when they ought to consider this matter, which pressed most seriously even now upon the taxpayer. Corporations might possibly do their work reasonably well, but what he (Mr. Wheelhouse) wanted, was a wider area from which to choose both elements of the town council. He wished that area to be enlarged so that every man in these councils should be directly elected by the burgesses, and thus immediately responsible to them; but, so long as the present system existed, that state of things was utterly impossible. He wished, at the time when the Municipal Corporation Act was passed, the same principle which was now applicable to the City of London had been carried into our provincial municipalities, since, if the aldermen had been a permanent body, as they were in London, it was quite possible to suppose, judging from the example of the good old city, that much of the evil now felt would have been wholly obviated, or at least considerably diminished. In conclusion, he could only say that having experienced the working of the Municipal Corporations Reform Act for now more than 30 years directly in one of the largest boroughs of England, and indirectly having become acquainted with its operations in many others, both large and small, he was satisfied that some remedy was urgently required; and for that reason he gave the Bill now before the House his most earnest, cordial, and emphatic support.

observed that the question under consideration was one of great social importance. There could be no doubt the system now pursued in cities and boroughs in the election of aldermen was very objectionable. He considered it most desirable that aldermen should be elected in that mode which would secure the services of the best men. The present system narrowed as much as possible the area of choice for aldermen. Looking at the position of Parties, how did the case really stand? Many persons were elected in a ward of which the dominant Party had the complete control, and this process was repeated over and over again until that ward furnished a large proportion of the aldermen. It had been said that there was a difficulty in obtaining good candidates; but that was hardly to be wondered at when, in most corporations, there was a dominant Party in full sway, and if a person was elected who was not connected with that dominant Party he could not expect properly to realize his position. He represented a borough the constituency of which numbered about 20,000, and it was a good many years since there had been such a thing as a Conservative alderman, and unless such a Bill as the one before the House passed there never would be one. Although he was ready to vote for the Bill he was not a strong advocate of the cumulative principle. Owing to the wonderful increase of the wealth and population in many of these towns this had become a matter of national importance, and therefore he trusted the Government would devise some means by which the people might have confidence that those who were elected to preside over their affairs would do the best they could for the benefit of the population whose interests were entrusted to their care and management.

said, that if the House went to a division on the Bill, he should certainly support the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds). He hoped, however, that it would not be necessary to take such a course. After what had been said by several hon. Members with reference to the presumed intentions of the Government, he would offer one or two reasons why he thought those who had brought this Bill forward might be satisfied with the debate. It had been said that there was no probability of passing the measure under any circumstances this year. If that were so, what good could arise out of pressing a division on the subject? Let hon. Members who had brought the Bill forward be contented with the discussion which had been evoked. During that discussion it had been every evident that the main reason that had been alleged by the supporters of the Bill in favour of such a measure was the allegation that the aldermen of the various corporations in the provinces of England did not fairly represent the ratepayers. At the same time that that allegation was made it had been over and over again admitted that the town councillors did adequately represent the ratepayers, and that what was required was that the aldermen should represent the ratepayers as efficiently as the town councillors. If that were the only reason why this Bill was introduced, the answer was in the hands of those who supported the Bill, and who had distinctly stated that in their opinion the aldermen, who were now elected by town councils, could be made adequately to represent the ratepayers if they were directly elected by the ratepayers themselves. One or two methods had been suggested whereby this more direct and perfect representation could be obtained, but he would not further allude to them than by saying that if it was true that the object of the promoters of this Bill would be better promoted by a different course, then he would suggest that it would be advisable that the Bill should be withdrawn, so as to give time for a mature consideration of the subject. He apprehended that there was another reason why the introducer of this Bill was anxious that it should be carried, and that was that there was a strong feeling in favour of the application of the principle of minority representation to municipal elections. If that was the reason why this Bill should be carried to a division, then he would suggest to the House whether they were not landed in this difficulty—whether really, under the cover of this Bill, the debate did not deal with the application of the principle of minority representation, not only to aldermen, but to town councillors. He thought the one would carry the other. That was a much larger question, and he did not think that it would be advisable to vote upon the larger question under cover of a vote for the second reading of this Bill. He would not enter into any discussion as to whether it would be advisable by a minority vote to proceed to the election of town councillors. But he would urge that it was advisable that the country should understand fully what the House was voting upon, and that these great corporations should have the opportunity of expressing their own opinion on it. Therefore, he would suggest to the introducer of the Bill whether, if it was true that the Government had any intention of dealing directly or indirectly with this question, it would not be better that the Bill should be withdrawn on this occasion, and the discussion deferred to a more suitable opportunity.

said, he agreed with almost every speaker who had addressed the House that their object should be, if possible, to eliminate politics from the election for aldermen and other municipal contests. Politics had entered far too largely into municipal elections. He was not, however, prepared to say that there was sufficient information before the House to justify the belief that by adopting the system which was recommended in this Bill they would strike a sufficient blow at the evil. Cumulative voting was at present adopted in the elections of school boards, and in the elections for three-cornered counties the same result was attained by a process nearly similar; but there was otherwise no instance of such voting in our Parliamentary and municipal systems. The discussion had shown that even those who supported the Bill were not unanimous that this was the proper remedy. Had the question been fully discussed either by the House or the country? It had been brought before the House by a Bill in 1873, but the discussion upon it had been hardly sufficient to elicit the opinion of the House. The subject had been briefly discussed upon one other occasion, but there had been no expression of opinion by the country itself, and where there were so many different opinions—the hon. Member for Bristol (Mr. Morley) being in favour, for instance, of abolishing the dignity of alderman altogether—the Government asked the House not to prejudge the question, but to leave it open for further discussion. He would, therefore, suggest to his hon. Friend that, instead of pressing the second reading of his Bill, he would be acting more wisely in the interests of the object he had in view in withdrawing his measure and consenting to the Motion for the Previous Question. The Government considered the subject deserving of serious attention, but they thought it could not be dealt with until after further information had been procured. He would ask the House to negative the Amendment unless the hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds) consented to withdraw it, and then to deal with the subject by agreeing to the Previous Question.

said, he had great pleasure in expressing his gratification at the course which the discussion had taken. He was not only assured, by what had fallen from the Under Secretary of State (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), that the Government were of opinion that it was a subject which required their consideration, but on the other side of the House hon. Gentlemen who represented most important constituencies, and who were always listened to with great respect, had for the most part coincided with the objects of the Bill, whilst not a single speech had been made against it beyond that of the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment, and even they did not agree. He should not, therefore, press his Motion to a division, or attempt to legislate on this matter at this period of the Session. Before he sat down he must, however, say, with respect to the observations that had been made on the absence of any Petitions in favour of the Bill, that it was not at all likely that town councils would petition for their own reform, especially as such a proposal must be agreed to by a majority, and the grievance was that that majority was not a fair majority of those who represented the ratepayers, but made up of aldermen who did not fairly represent them. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Dodds) was against the Bill because it would allow persons outside the council to be made aldermen, but that was the law already, so that this Bill made no change in that respect. He begged to thank the Government for their determination to negative the Amendment, and would assent to the Previous Question as proposed by his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State who had last addressed the House.

said he was willing to withdraw his Amendment, in order that the Previous Question might be put and carried.

rose, pursuant to Notice, to move the Previous Question. He said, he would not detain the House, because the views of the Government had been fully, explained by his hon. Friend (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson). The great object of municipal institutions was to get the very best possible materials for the governing body of the municipality. His hon. Friend (Mr. Heygate) had done good service by his treatment of this question and in having called attention to this matter. He believed the subject had not yet received sufficient attention in the country, but it would now be discussed by every municipality, and when Parliament again met the Government and the House would have the advantage of their deliberations in deciding upon the legislation to be adopted. His hon. Friend having done good service by bringing the matter before the House would now do equally good service in withdrawing his Bill from the decision of the House on the present occasion.

, in rising to move, That the Bill be now read the second time, said: Mr. Speaker—In 1832, a few days before the passing of the Re-form Act, there was enacted a law to authorize in certain parishes the letting of poor-allotments in small portions to industrious cottagers. The Preamble of the Act recites the existence in many parishes of allotments made for the benefit of the poor; which allotments were then comparatively useless and unproductive. It says that it would tend to the welfare and the happiness of the people if those allotments could be let at a fair rent and in small portions to industrious cottagers of good character. It enacts that it shall be lawful for the trustees of the allotments, together with the parish officers, to allot plots of between a quarter of an acre and one acre upon a yearly occupation from Michaelmas to Michaelmas, and at such rent as land of the same quality has usually let for, in the same parishes, to such industrious cottagers of good character, being day-labourers or journeymen, legally settled in the said parish or dwelling within or near it, as should apply for the same. There follows provisions as to the cultivation of the land, as to the holding of a vestry to receive applications, and as to the payment of rent. This Act, to which I will in future allude as the Act of William IV., was a good Act, and it has been put in force with the best effects in several parishes of the Thames Valley, especially in the neighbourhood of Walton and Weybridge; but it has not been largely put in force. It is doubtful whether its true legal construction makes it apply to cultivated lands, and the only remedy by which its enforcement can be assured is by the costly process of mandamus, which poor cottagers cannot afford. Still, I repeat that the Act of William IV., was a good Act and a safe one as regards lands in respect to which it is already in force and lands in the same and adjoining parishes. On the other hand, we passed in 1873 an Act called the Poor Allotments Amendment Act, which was a less good Act. It contained a clause, amongst others, which gave power to the trustees to require that the rent for any land let under the Act of 1832 should be paid for a whole year in advance. I, myself, frankly admit that I do not like that clause; but I have put it in my Bill because I think that the Bill with it will be an improvement of the present law, and one which it would be a substantial benefit to the labouring poor to possess; whereas the Bill without it would not possess the smallest chance of becoming law, either in this or the next Session. The object of the present Bill is to make clear the law, as stated in the two former Acts, and to provide the cottagers affected by them with a cheap and easy remedy in those cases where the spirit of the Act of William IV. is not fairly understood by the trustees. The Act of 1832 contemplates the acquisition of allotment plots by labourers in cases where they offer, and by the Act of 1873 may be required to pay in advance a rent equal to that generally paid in the same parish. But in the cases—any number of which can be produced—in which the labourers are refused those plots of ground, or in which they are offered to them only at a rent, two or three times as great as that which other persons pay, the present remedy is an application for a mandamus to one of the Superior Courts of Law—a remedy which, of course, is wholly out of the labourer's reach. The most important of all the objects of the present Bill is to provide a cheap and easy remedy in lieu of the mandamus. In order to make out a case for legislation, I ought to show the existence of a grievance. I will then briefly refer to 19 cases drawn from nine counties in England—the detailed information as to each of which is in my possession. The first case is one from Oakley near Thame in Buckinghamshire. In this parish, there are more than 115 acres of "poor folks" pasture, producing a rental of £102 10s., distributed in money amongst the poor of the parish. The land is let to a farmer; and the labourers state to me their desire and ability to rent it. They are willing to give a higher rent for it than is now given, and they would probably go to 50 per cent above the present rent. Two of the trustees, who are clergymen, are favourable to the labourers' view; but the farmers, who form a majority, are hostile. In the same parish the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) lets 86 acres of allotments to 90 tenants for £102, and the rents are so regularly paid that he has only lost a few shillings by bad tenants within the last five years. Part of this same land of his, was formerly let to a farmer at 7s. 6d. an acre; but he gave it up because the land was so poor it did not pay him. The men pay now £1 2s. 6d. an acre, and the farmers want to get it away from them; but the right hon. Gentleman, much to his honour, has replied that the men who have improved it shall have it; and I believe that the allotment-holders have lately presented him with a silver ink-stand. The second case is that of Wavendon, in the county of Buckingham. In this parish there are 11 acres of town-land. Ten acres were lately let at a rent of £14, and one acre let in allotments to the poor, at a rent of £4 7s. In 1873, the labourers, on the death of the late occupier of the 10 acres, made an ineffectual effort to become themselves tenants of the 10 acres. They memorialized the Charity Commissioners, alleging that the 10 acres, let for £14, were badly cultivated and had not been manured for 20 years. The son-in-law of the late occupier then offered £20 instead of £14; and the trustees accepted the same without trying to get more from the labourers; and they wrote to the Charity Commissioners stating that they objected to let land to labourers, inasmuch as with regard to the one acre already so let, the rents were paid at irregular dates. With regard to this one objection it must be observed that there is no fixed time to pay the rent, and that every man takes it to the clergyman when he pleases. The objection of the trustees would have no force against our Bill, because they could, if they pleased, demand payment in advance. The third case is that of Thurleston in Warwickshire. Here there are 43 acres set apart for the benefit of the poor—the rent to be distributed in fuel. Eight acres are let in allotments. Thirty-two acres at least are rented by one landowner; but there are 40 or 50 labourers at present without allotments who have offered to pay a higher rent for the 32 acres, if let in allotments. The fourth case is that of Hanslope in Buckinghamshire. In this parish there are 61 acres of charitable land and six acres of poor's allotments' land. The labourers cannot get either, although they would gladly pay higher than the present rent for both. The fifth case is that of Sutton St. James in Lincolnshire. In this parish political disputes have been imported into the selection of persons to occupy allotments—which state of things would be prevented by the remedy offered under this Bill. The sixth case is that of Burton in Buckinghamshire. In this parish there are 15 acres of arable charity land, for which the men would gladly pay higher than the present rent. The seventh case is that of Wappenham, near Towcester, Northamptonshire. Here there is a poors' allotment of 15 acres, let at £25 a-year. The men have offered to give £30 a-year and to pay in advance for it; but they have been refused. They are paying for other allotment-land, in the same parish, at the rate of £3 an-acre. The eighth case is that of Graffham in Huntingdonshire. Here there are 21 acres of town-lands, for which the men offer higher than the present rent, but are refused. The ninth case is that of Woughton-in-the-Green in Buckinghamshire. Here there are 14 acres of poor's-land, let at £20, to a Mr. Letts. He sub-lets half of it in allotments at an increased rent. The labourers would gladly directly occupy the whole at the same rent. The tenth case is that of Ratley in Warwickshire. Here there are 12 acres of fuel allotments, of which the labourers occupy one acre; but they would gladly occupy the whole at higher than the present rents. The eleventh case is that of Sympson in Buckinghamshire. Here there are 48 acres of poor's-land, which the labourers would gladly rent, but are refused. There are no allotments at all in the parish. The twelfth case is that of Little Barrington in the county of Gloucester. Here there are 24 acres of arable poor's land. On this some of the labourers have been given allotments of one-tenth of an acre each, but many have none at all. They would gladly take the whole of the land at an improved rent. The thirteenth case is that of Hampton Poyle, in Oxfordshire. Here there are four acres which are historical, inasmuch as they gave rise to this Bill. The rector of the parish, who is one of the trustees, vainly attempted to induce the other trustees to let the labourers have it instead of a butcher. The fourteenth case is that of Great Rollewright, in Oxfordshire. In this parish there are 27 acres of fuel allotments let out in allotments to the labourers; but there are also 56 acres of poor's-land let at £80, and which the labourers, by offering £90 or £100 for, have caused it to be put up to £90; which the labourers want to have; but they have been refused by the trustees, on the ground that if they had it "they could not attend to the farmers' work." The fifteenth case is that of Bampton, in Oxfordshire. In this parish there are about 70 acres of poor's land, for which the men would gladly offer a higher rent. The sixteenth case is that of Stamford, in Berkshire. Here there are 25 acres of poor's land, for which the labourers would give a higher rent. The seventeenth case is that of Farringdon, in Berkshire. Here there are 39 acres, of which nine acres are let in plots of three acres each to three labourers. There are many other labourers who would gladly pay a higher rent. The eighteenth case is that of Longborough, in Gloucestershire. Here there are 17 acres of fuel-allotments' land. The labourers have offered a greatly increased rent, and have applied to the Charity Commissioners, to whom the trustees wrote, saying that the labourers had already allotments of the average size of half-an-acre. But this is not true. The nineteenth case is that of Brill, in Buckinghamshire. Here there are 181 acres let at £184, for which the labourers would gladly give a higher rent. I might produce any number of similar cases, but I have only stated those with the whole of the details of which I am thoroughly acquainted. The Bill which is now before the House states in its Preamble that the provisions of the Act of 1832 have only been partially carried out. The main enacting clause of the Bill is the 4th, which provides that all trustees in whom lands are vested for the general benefit of the poor, shall annually in the month of June give notice of the situation and extent of the lands so held, and of the rent per acre which they are ready to accept for the same lands when let in plots under the Act of 1832; and also of the time and place at which application of cottagers to rent portions may be made. The clause goes on to direct trustees to let to labourers, provided that a higher rent cannot otherwise be obtained, but giving them the power to require the rent for lands let to cottagers may be paid for a whole year in advance. The 5th clause is inserted in consequence of an agitation against the Bill, as it was drawn last year, in the parishes around Weybridge, where the old Act had been successfully worked. We do not consider such clause to be necessary, but as there is a doubt on the matter, we think it is better to have it in. The 6th and 7th clauses are an explanation of the 4th. The 8th clause directs that where, either from the constitution of the trust, or from any other cause, it is difficult for the trustees to let the lands as directed, the Charity Commissioners may settle rules for the appointment of local managers. The 9th clause provides against neglect on the part of the trustees, and gives the newly-proposed remedy, which is by application to the Judge of the County Court, who is given power to issue an order, having for certain limited objects a similar effect to that of a mandanus from the Superior Courts. But, at the same time, the trustees are guarded by being enabled to show reasons for their omissions, and by a provision in the 10th clause that the certificate of the Charity Commissioners to the effect that, under the circumstances of the case, there are sufficient grounds for their so acting, shall be deemed to be a sufficient defence to any such suit brought before the County Court Judge. The 11th and 12th clauses provide that if the rent of a plot shall be for four weeks in arrear—that is, of course, in the case where the year's rent in advance has not been demanded by the trustees—that then the trustees may obtain a summons against the person as unlawfully holding, and regain possession. So much for the provisions of the Bill. The lands to which the Bill shall apply are partly defined in the Act of 1832, and partly in the 4th clause of this Bill. It should be understood that the question of allotments raised by this Bill is only the question of who shall be tenant. The rent remains for the benefit of the original objects of the trustees undisturbed, although we expect that the rents will be increased, because a higher rent is generally paid for an allotment of part of an acre than is paid when land is taken in large quantities for a farm. The general benefits, therefore, are either not affected or are augmented. But the only question is, who shall be tenant? Now, we all know that the labourers are commonly disliked as tenants by the farmers, on the ground that the allotments make the labourers "too independent." This is, however, I think, a narrow view which the farmers take of their own interest, inasmuch as the allotments would keep the labourers on the spot, and would form a sort of security for the farmer that they would not run

would briefly explain his reasons for asking the House not to read the Bill a second time. No one felt more thoroughly than he did that the system of allotments, if properly managed, was beneficial to the labourers in the rural districts. Therefore, he did not oppose the measure in consequence of any objection to the system, but because he did not think that the provisions of the Bill were necessary, or that they would effect the objects which the hon. Baronet had in view. The provisions of the Act of William IV. were almost identical with those which the House was now asked to consider. Under that Act the vestries and trustees of lands left for charitable purposes were obliged to let such lands to the labouring classes in the parishes where the lands were situated, so that the object of the hon. Baronet was really effected by the statute in question. Perhaps, however, the hon. Baronet might say that his object was to make the statute operative in cases where it had not been put in force. [Sir CHARLES W. DILKE: Hear, hear!] Well, the object in view could not be attained, for the Act of William IV. was compulsory on all parishes, but in Section 5 of the present Bill it was provided that it should not apply, except in cases where the previous Act had not been put in force. Now, in point of fact, the Act of William IV. was put in force in every parish. This 5th clause, he thought, was the defect in the Bill. Besides another statute was passed in 1873 in order to render the Act of 1832 operative. The Bill which the hon. Baronet now sought to induce the House to read a second time was intended to repeal the Act of 1873. To that he (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) was opposed. That statute provided that where the number of trustees was more than 20 a committee should be elected of not more than 12 or fewer than 6. The last-mentioned Act would probably produce efficiency, and considering how short a time had elapsed since it passed he doubted the expediency of an attempt at the pre- sent time to re-open the question. For these reasons, he asked the House not to agree to the second reading.

, in supporting the second reading of the Bill, pointed out that the Act of 1873 had failed to carry out the object which was desired. He maintained that the cost to enforce the application of the Act in the parishes referred to by the hon. Baronet (Sir Charles W. Dilke) was such as to preclude poor labourers from obtaining allotments. He believed the Bill, if passed, would confer one of the greatest boons that could possibly be granted to the agricultural labourer. He hoped that the Bill would be read a second time, and all necessary Amendments could be made in Committee.

sympathized with the hon. Baronet and with the hon. Gentleman who supported the second reading of the Bill in their desire to secure an extension of land for agricultural labourers, but he doubted whether the Bill was necessary, and whether the object in view might not be attained by a shorter and simpler course. He looked upon the Bill as calculated to compel the trustees to put up the land year by year to let, a provision which would be attended with considerable disadvantage. He considered the existing Act contained all the power necessary to warrant the trustees to let land for cottage accommodation. In the 19 cases adduced by the hon. Baronet there had been a direct breach of trust on the part of the trustees, and he would point out that the persons aggrieved might have at once applied for redress to the Charity Commissioners. It was only necessary in his judgment to put into operation the Act of 1832, as amended, by the Act of 1873, and this could easily be done by the machinery which the Charity Commissioners had at their disposal. He hoped the hon. Baronet would not press the second reading of his Bill.

said, he had had considerable opportunities of knowing that there were many counties wherein no land could be obtained to erect cottages upon for the labouring poor; and, so far as related to that fact, the Bill of the hon. Baronet seemed to be desirable. The hon. Baronet in his statement, referring to the Act of 1832, and to the Act of 1873, passed to enforce the provisions of that Act, said the words "you are required," addressed to the trustees, were embodied in it; but it was a fact that the trustees, notwithstanding that direction, had not acted as they should have done in compliance with the words. Looking, however, at the 5th clause of the hon. Baronet's Bill, he thought it objectionable. He was afraid that there would arise a conflict between the provisions of the Act of 1873 and the provisions of the 5th section of this Bill if it were passed into a law. Were the Bill to pass as it now stood its operation would be extremely limited. His opinion was that the second reading ought not to be pressed. The publicity which had been given by the debate, and the assurance given by the Government that trustees could be held responsible for the discharge of the duty cast upon them by the law, and that these trustees ought to be reminded of their responsibility, would, he thought, sufficiently gain the object sought to be attained by the hon. Baronet. No doubt the law had hitherto been in force, but he denied that it had been fairly enforced. What had been said, however, would help to bring trustees to a proper sense of their duty, and that would be sufficient in the meantime. There would be no practical purpose gained even were the Bill read a second time at this protracted period of the Session. For himself, he should be sorry if any display of want of unanimity were made by the House on such a subject as the condition of the labouring poor. That was not, and ought never to be made, a Party question. They were all equally interested in the welfare of the labouring poor. He felt quite certain that every necessary object would be served by trustees being informed as to what the law was, and the determination of the Government that the law should be put into force.

said, his object was to provide a cheap and easy means of compelling trustees to enforce the law. With reference to the suggestion of the hon. Member for East Sussex, he might remark that a case had occurred in Gloucestershire where an application had been made without success to the Charity Commissioners. He could not agree that it was undesirable that a division should be taken upon the Bill.

thought it was undesirable to have a division on the Bill, and therefore he moved the Previous Question.

, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, he did not expect to be able to make much progress with the measure, but hoped to obtain from the Government an assurance that would be satisfactory to himself and his friends. In his short experience of Parliament he had become convinced that whatever might be the differences and animosities of Party, there was underlying them a friendly desire to consider every proposal that had for its object the promotion of the material welfare of Ireland. English Members on both sides of the House had said to him—"We do not understand your sentimental grievances, but show us anything practical, that will not violate the principles of political economy nor entrench upon the rights of property, but which will be for the benefit of all classes in Ireland without being injurious to the Empire at large." It was in that spirit he had prepared the present measure, without wishing at all to depreciate the sentimental grievances of the country, which grievances were always the deepest felt, just as sentimental aspirations were always the noblest. In explanation of the necessity which existed for the measure, he might mention that there were in Ireland about 21,000,000 of acres. Of this area towns and plantations occupied about 1,000,000 acres, so that there remained 20,000,000 of acres more or less available for culture; but of that quantity there were 2,250,000, or more than one-fifth, totally barren. In some counties it was even worse. In King's County one-quarter of the land was barren; in Tyrone one-quarter; in Kerry and Gal-way one-third; and in Donegal and Mayo one-half. Not to overstate his case he would admit there was 1,000,000 acres of high mountain land and 1,000,000 acres of bog and morass, which might be left out of consideration; but still there was the broad fact that there were 2,250,000 of acres of land which could be reclaimed, which were not reclaimed, and this waste disfigured the country in a way which struck every traveller—from Arthur Young to Thackeray—who had visited the country. He believed all those lands could be reclaimed, and that even the Bog of Allen might be brought into culture. It was an historical fact that the Dutch soldiers in the invading army of William III. proposed to reclaim it if they were offered the security of the Dutch law. Again, in their own times the celebrated engineer, Mr. Nimmo, undertook to reclaim it at the price of £3 per acre; but neither of those offers received any countenance, and consequently the Bog of Allen was the Bog of Allen still. Were Ireland a manufacturing country she might perhaps be able to bear this ratio of waste to barren land; but as her only industry was agriculture it was simply so much taken away from the raw material of that industry, and which, if brought into cultivation, would obviate the expenditure of £4,000,000 per annum on foreign breadstuffs. Coexistent with this state of things there was such an eager competition for land that many holdings were let as high as the value of the fee-simple, while most of the agricultural population was flying from the soil because they could not obtain land on which to settle—one day or other to come back, but with no intention to advance the material interests of the Empire. Independently of those considerations the presence of the wastes and morasses was injurious to the adjacent soil which was under cultivation, rendering it so damp as to be almost unfit for the growth of cereal produce. It was, too, from those uncultivated spaces the weeds were derived which disfigured Irish agriculture generally, while the climate of the country was deteriorated from the same cause. This was a matter which had engaged the attention of Government and statesmen from the time of the Brehon lawgivers down to the days of Earl Russell, and it was upon the basis of that nobleman's measure—itself based on the Report of the Devon Commission—that he had proposed the present Bill. The object of the Bill was to bring about the re- clamation of the waste lands. Its general purport was that the Commissioners of Public Works might purchase the lands in question from owners who were willing to sell. Limited owners as well as others were empowered by it to convey to the Commissioners. An hon. Friend had called attention to the fact that the Bill did not provide specially for payment to the occupiers by the Commissioners. That, no doubt, was an error, which ought to be rectified in Committee, if the Bill should be fortunate enough to get so far. The Bill gave powers to the Commissioners to make roads, divide the lands into allotments, and dispose of those allotments; but it expressly provided that the general work of reclamation should be carried out, not by the State, but by the occupier. He hoped that at least the principle of the Bill would be accepted on the present occasion. It would be observed that the measure infringed no right of property and violated no rule of political economy. He submitted it to the House, not as involving a difficulty, but as an opportunity, and he did it confident in the earnestness of the desire of the Government to promote the material prosperity of Ireland. Objections might be raised to the details of the measure, but he was sure its principle would be acceptable to all classes. It proceeded on the teaching of Arthur Young—" If you want to reclaim land, plant it with men." The Bill was endorsed by Members on both sides of the House. It was petitioned for by all classes of Irishmen, irrespective of creed or of party, being an effort to benefit the Irish people, by adding to the productive area of their country. If he was a public benefactor who made two blades of grass grow where one only grew before, it was a noble ambition to bring the waste into smiling culture, following in the footsteps of Pericles, who planted Hymethes with the olive and the vine.

regretted that the discussion on this most important subject had begun at an hour when it was impossible to enter into it at the length which it deserved. The attention of the House could hardly be occupied with any question of greater importance to Ireland. He fully appreciated the feelings with which the hon. Member had brought the matter forward, and would be sorry to say anything that would lead hon. Members to suppose that he did not sympathize with the object the hon. Member had at heart; but he felt bound to say that he feared the scheme which had been submitted to the House was scarcely of a practicable character, and was unlikely to secure the benefits which the hon. Member anticipated. It involved an entirely new principle. The existing Statute Law contained provisions—which, so far as he knew, had been found ample of their kind—by which the State could advance money to owners for the purpose of improving land, or to persons who were desirous of purchasing land for the purpose of reclamation. Under the Land Act of 1870 the tenants on an estate which was for sale might have the assistance of the Treasury to the extent of two-thirds of the value of their occupations, repayable with 5 per cent interest in 35 years, for the purpose of enabling them to become proprietors of their farms; and powers were given to the Landed Estates Court with the object of securing that the lands for sale should be disposed of in lots, so as to meet the capabilities of small capitalists. The proposal of the present Bill was that the Government should take upon itself works which had hitherto been left to private individuals—that it should become the owner of the waste lands, improve them up to a certain point, and then re-sell them, or, in default of purchasers, let them on terms of lease. That proposal involved a principle of great importance, which could not be adequately discussed on the present occasion. Before, however, they imposed on the Government by legislation duties which had hitherto been left to private enter-prize, it ought to be shown first that in no other way could such necessary work be done, and next that such duties could be advantageously performed by the Government. The hon. Member had not proved either of those points. The hon. Gentleman had referred to a proposal made by Lord Russell at the time of the Famine, when it was necessary for the State to inaugurate large works of relief to keep the people from starving; but the circumstances of Ire- land were now very different, and they had arrived at a point in the history of that country when the means at the disposal of those engaged in agriculture were greater than they had ever been before. It was desirable to glance for a moment at what had already been done under the existing law in regard to reclaiming and draining land in Ireland. Since 1844 there had been drained, under the Land Improvement Act, 274,000 acres; by landlords and tenants another 300,000 acres had been drained; there had been nominally reclaimed by tenants 300,000 acres more. He said nominally reclaimed, because reclamation by the tenant too often meant cropping for a few years without supplying the necessary manures, in consequence of which the land became exhausted, and was soon allowed to return to a state of nature. In addition to that, there were 400,000 acres of mountain pastures which were now let to tenants. These, taken together, made a total of 1,274,000 acres added to the productive parts of the country during the last 30 years. What more could be done under the Bill brought in by the hon. Gentleman? Ireland comprised 20,800,000 acres, of which there were in pasture and tillage, 15,400,000 acres; in bog and waste lands, 4,390,000 acres; the remainder consisting of woods, lakes, and towns. Of the 4,390,000 acres of bog and waste lands, to which that Bill related, 1,300,000 were in the low country and in the centre of Ireland. If it was sought to improve that land for agricultural purposes, it would be necessary to convey to it, at great expense, materials to adapt it for cultivation, so that the result of an attempt to reclaim a very large portion, if not the whole, of that area, would be an absolute loss to those who undertook it. There was next an area of 1,100,000 acres of mountain land, at from 1,000 to 2,000 feet above the level of the sea. It was absurd to talk of that as being susceptible of profitable cultivation as arable land. Then, there was a further area of 1,000,000 acres, averaging 1,000 feet above the level of the sea, which was to a certain extent now employed as mountain pasture, and which could be more profitably used in this way than if broken up and cultivated. Lastly, there were 990,000 acres of lower mountain pasture, which might, no doubt, be improved for cattle grazing, but which could not be profitably improved as arable land. It might, therefore, be said that nearly the whole area to which the hon. Member alluded in his Bill was of a description that either could not be improved for the production of food of any kind, or could only be improved for the purposes of pasture, or would cost in improvement more money than it could possibly return. For, after all, a most important part of the question was, would the reclamation of the lands to which the hon. Member referred pay, whether it was undertaken by private enterprize or by the State? If it would pay the private owner to reclaim it he would do it for his own interest, on the advantageous terms which the State now held out to him. If it would not pay the private owner to do it, was it likely to pay the State? If anything could he done by way of Government interference to secure that works of arterial drainage should be more generally and thoroughly carried out than they were at present, that was a matter which the State might reasonably undertake. But that was a very different thing from the proposal contained in that Bill. An experiment, not without interest, of the kind suggested by the hon. Member (Mr. MacCarthy) had been made in the county of Cork. In the reign of William IV. the Commissioners of Woods and Forests began to improve certain waste lands in the West Riding of Cork, situate about 850 feet above the level of the sea. They expended £17 an acre in reclamation, and nearly £8,000 was presented by grand juries of Cork and Kerry for the formation of roads. The land was portioned out into small farms, roads having been made and steadings for tenants. A model farm, a village school, and tradesmen's houses were all built, and the land drained and divided into fields. Mr. Caird visited the district in 1850, and he found that the scheme prospered so long as the potato remained sound; but when money wages had to be paid, it did not succeed. Mr. Caird's general opinion on that experiment was as follows:—

"Better far that this tract should he left in undisturbed possession of the curlew and the solitary raven than that it should be made the means of perpetuating a system which only thrives through the misery of the people.

"At this moment, if the fee simple of the model farm, with the stock and crop on it, were sold, they would not repay the capital sunk in the undertaking, while it is acknowledged that without conacre labour the returns will not pay the expenses. The experiment at King William's Town may therefore serve as a beacon to warn others against a similar attempt."

The estate was afterwards sold. But if past experience, and present probabilities, showed that it was not likely that the proposal of the hon. Gentleman would succeed financially, why should the taxpayers of the country be called on to bear a loss for the benefit of the present owners of these waste lands? The hon. Member proposed that they should buy the waste lands by voluntary agreement from the existing owners; but it was hardly likely that they could do so except for a price above the real value. Then the waste lands were to be sold by private tender or by auction. It was not very probable, considering that there did not seem to be any general desire among those engaged in agriculture in Ireland under existing circumstances to become purchasers of the fee simple of land, that they would buy at a price fixed by the Government, land that was not yet under cultivation. Then, if the land was not sold, it was to be leased by the Commissioners to tenants. He did not think it would be beneficial either to the State or to Ireland that the Government should thus become the largest landowner in the country. The Bill was permissive; but if it was not carried out on a large scale, if the Commissioners of Works did not become land-jobbers to an almost unlimited extent, the scheme would obviously fail to produce the effect intended by its authors, and there would be a feeling which would urge on the Commissioners to the expenditure of public money under the measure. The best way to improve Irish agriculture and to increase the productive power of the country was not to add to the area under cultivation land which could not be cultivated profitably, but to do everything in their power to secure that the area already under cultivation should be better farmed. If that area were farmed even up to the standard of England and Scotland, more good would be done to Ireland than by any of the proposals of that Bill. The great object of all who had looked at that matter from the point of view of economical science was that as great an amount of food as possible should be raised from a given area, with the lowest amount of expenditure. In conclusion, the Government were not indifferent to that important question, and he had already admitted that, in regard to arterial drainage, their influence might be of advantage; but that they should, through the Public Works Commissioners, become the purchasers of large tracts of land in Ireland was a project to which they could not assent, because they believed it would be injurious to the United Kingdom, and do no real service to Ireland.

confessed that he was disappointed at the course the Government had taken in the matter. It was with great pain that he had seen the coercive legislation passed for Ireland early in the Session, and he certainly thought that when a practical measure like the one before them was introduced by an Irish Member, Her Majesty's Ministers might have given it their support. He believed that the proposal would do much to lift Ireland out of its present difficulties. Year after year Select Committees had pointed out that the reclamation of waste lands was the only remedy for the agricultural population of Ireland.

, thinking it would be highly inconvenient to take a division on the measure after so imperfect a discussion, then moved the adjournment of the debate.