Sir, I think I stated a few days since that when we had fixed upon the Commissioners who are to form the Royal Commission on the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act of 1870, we would inform the House and also state the terms of the Reference. I may now state, on behalf of the Government, that we are enabled to tell the House that we have availed ourselves of the assistance of five Gentlemen—namely, the Earl of Bessborough, who will act as Chairman; one Member of this House, my hon. Friend the Member for Cork County (Mr. Shaw); and three late Members, Mr. Baron Dowse, The O'Conor Don, and Mr. Kavanagh. The terms of the Reference are as follow:—

"To inquire into and report upon the working and operation of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act (1870); and whether any and what amendments are necessary or expedient with a view (1) to improve the relation of landlord and tenant in that part of the United Kingdom, and (2) to facilitate the purchase by tenants of their holdings."

asked, Whether the Government would proceed with the Employers' Liability Bill in the absence of Mr. Dodson, the Cabinet Minister who originally introduced it to the House, or whether they intended to wait for his return?

I hope we may be able to proceed on Wednesday, at 12 o'clock, with the Employers' Liability Bill. I may also mention that I propose to take the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill to-morrow at 2 o'clock, if I am not able to get the Speaker out of the Chair to-night.

desired to ask, If the House met at 2 o'clock to-morrow to consider the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, what would be the Business for the Evening Sitting?

The Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, if it be not finished.

put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether, as the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill was one which occupied the attention of many commercial men, it would not answer his purpose as well if the House met at the ordinary time to-morrow for its consideration? They would in that case be able to have an uninterrupted discussion on the subject. The right hon. Gentleman last week had said he would endeavour, if possible, to bring on the Bill at an Evening Sitting.

I will not take the clauses to-night unless they come on at an early hour—say by 10 o'clock. I believe there is great anxiety to go on with this Bill. It is possible that there may be some preliminary discussion before the Speaker leaves the Chair. If there should be such a preliminary discussion, I think we shall get more work done by having a Morning Sitting.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether anything further was known respecting the conflict between the Albanians and Montenegrins as to which he had put a Question on Friday?

Sir, information which has been received by Her Majesty's Government shows clearly that, so far from any attack having been made by the Montenegrins upon the Albanians, it was the Albanians who made a premeditated attack upon the Montenegrins.

I beg to give Notice that I shall move, on going into Committee on the Savings Banks Bill, that it be an instruction to the Committee that they have power to divide the Bill into two. The object of that is that the provision which has delayed the progress of the Bill—namely, that which relates to raising the limit of deposits—should not be decided at the present moment. I propose that that matter should stand over till next year.

asked whether or not the second Bill would also contain provisions relating to the reduction of interest?

It will contain nothing except that which refers to raising the limit of deposits from £200 to £300, and raising the limit of deposits in one year from £30 to £100.

asked whether the second Bill was to be abandoned?

That is altogether a prospective Bill in the main. It does not take effect till late in the month of November, and, in view of the state of Public Business, I thought it was desirable to disembarrass the measure of that part of the subject which I hope to take up again next February.

in moving as an Amendment, in page 1, at end of Clause, add—

"Provided always, That none of the provisions of this Act shall apply to any tenant who, at the time of the bringing of any ejectment, shall owe two years' rent to his landlord,"

said, that the Bill had been recommended by Her Majesty's Government on two grounds—first, that it was to be of a temporary character only; secondly, that it was designed to restrain the action of bad landlords. The Bill, then, being directed against landlords who were desirous of availing themselves of periods of great national distress to get rid of their tenants and enlarge their holdings, it would necessarily follow from the state of things assumed in the Amendment that the landlords, thereby excluded from the operation of the Bill, must have been singularly indulgent to the tenants in respect of whom they had permitted so large an arrear as two years' rent to accumulate. Now, the Bill itself was to cease in its operation at the end of the year 1881; and if it passed into an Act, which it could only do after some little time, it would seem to follow that, in respect of the matter which had been put forward as a ground for this exceptional and peculiar legislation, that the Amendment did not touch any case at which that legislation was aimed; and if anything could be done which would show that this exceptional legislation would not apply to the peculiar circumstances at that time existing in Ireland, it would certainly have the effect of dissipating that alarm which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had remarked upon as being exaggerated. He did not know upon what grounds his Amendment could be resisted, unless the right hon. Gentleman was prepared to state that the Bill was intended to remain in force beyond the time named, and embrace a wider class than that referred to in the arguments submitted to the House on the second reading. What could be said in defence of not permitting the right of the landlord to recover property let by contract to the tenant, when he had not enforced the right for two years? Upon what ground, then, could the Amendment be resisted? Did the right hon. Gentleman suggest that, although the ground upon which the Bill rested was exceptional and peculiar, and that although it was only intended to apply to bad landlords, yet the Bill as framed would embrace cases in which two years' rent was already due, and that the landlord would not be permitted to assert his ordinary rights as owner of the land for three years? It seemed to him that on either hypothesis upon which the Bill had been recommended his Amendment was consistent with the measure. If exceptional legislation were necessary, in consequence of temporary difficulties, it could not be justly applied to landlords who had so far slumbered on their rights, and been so indulgent to their tenants, as to allow two years' rent to accrue before attempting to enforce the law. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law) did not accept the Amendment upon that ground, with what confidence could he assure the Committee that the Bill was only intended to apply to bad landlords? Again, if the Amendment were not accepted, to what extent and within what period was it intended to fix upon a landlord a pauper tenant? He was encouraged in the view he took of this matter by the fact that there were upon the Paper several other Amendments, cast upon the same form, and obviously proceeding upon the same principle of endeavouring to restrict, as much as possible, the application of the Bill in the manner he proposed, and showing that it was regarded as, undoubtedly, a very serious innovation of principles which people had been in the habit of respecting, applicable to the laws of property, and to persons able to contract for themselves. Under the circumstances, the Amendment seemed to him to be one which the right hon Gentleman might well accept and still preserve every valuable part of the Bill. The Amendment would also be valuable as a guide upon which the Court might act in interpreting the word "reasonable," with reference to the subject-matter of the statute, if it happened that one of the topics which the tribunal had to consider was whether or not a tenant hopelessly in arrear should be preserved in his tenancy, unless a serious fine were imposed on the landlord for getting rid of him. For those reasons, he thought Her Majesty's Government might accept the Amendment, which he begged to move, without in any way interfering with the main provision of the Bill.

Amendment proposed,

In page 1, at the end of the Clause, to add the words "Provided always, That none of the provisions of this Act shall apply to any tenant who, at the time of bringing of any ejectment, shall owe two years' rent to his landlord."—( Sir Hardinge Giffard. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

said, that he did not see how it was possible to accept the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Hardinge Giffard), or, indeed, any of those of the same nature which had been placed upon the Paper by other hon. Members. He did not think the case contemplated by the Amendment was likely to arise; because, before the Bill could operate, the landlord must have refused the reasonable proposal of his tenant for dealing with the arrears of rent, and offered the tenant no reasonable alternative. It was well known that on the best estates a year's rent was almost always due at the end of each season. That was the case the year before last, and then followed an exceptionally bad year, during which the crops were destroyed so that no rent could be paid. Now, the tenant thus owing two year's rent would, on the hypothesis of this Bill being applicable, make a reasonable offer to his landlord; and it could hardly be supposed that a landlord who had allowed two years' rent to become due would refuse reasonable terms to the tenant. The difficulty suggested by his hon. and learned Friend was sufficiently met by the provision that, before the Bill could affect the landlord, he must have refused the tenant's reasonable offer as to the rent due. The Committee would also recollect that it had been stated by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) that almost all the tenants in Connaught were two and a-half or three years in arrear. If, therefore, the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Launceston were accepted, the whole of these persons would be absolutely excluded from the operation of the Bill.

said, that what his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) had stated was that if this Bill passed, then the tenants in question would be three years in arrear, and the landlord would be brought under the operation of the 9th section of the Land Act.

said, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite proposed that a tenant who owed two years' rent should have no compensation for disturbance. But if he owed three years, then they would have this Bill contradicting the 9th clause of the Land Act. He wished to point out with regard to one Amendment on the Paper, which proposed that the Bill should not apply to any tenant in the month of June last, that that would exclude nearly every tenant in Ireland, because the rent due on the 1st of May was not even expected to be paid before the month of November or December following. The Government would accede to any reasonable Amendment which did not touch the principle of the Bill; but as it was alleged that a very great number of the tenants in the West of Ireland were two years in arrear, the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman would defeat one of the objects of the measure by excluding all those tenants who required the most consideration.

said, that they had heard very much about harsh landlords; but it had been admitted by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland that a large number of the landlords had allowed deductions of rent. He would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to allow some Amendment, such as that proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard), or that which stood in his own name, to be put into the Bill. If the landlords had been generous in some instances, it was only fair to them that they should not be unfairly mulcted of their property. He thought that landlords who had allowed several years rent to go into arrear, and who, if this Bill passed, would have to give credit for some years longer, ought to be protected by an Amendment of the kind.

said, that the argument of the noble Lord opposite (Viscount Galway) seemed to him to be entirely unjustifiable. A desire seemed to be expressed by hon. Members to limit the operation of the Bill as far as possible. They assumed that it was in the nature of exceptional legislation, which had been pressed in its present form upon the Government by the distress of the last few months; and they, therefore, desired to restrict and curtail the operation of the measure within the exact limits covered by that distress. He had supported the Bill in the belief that while the Government brought in the Bill owing to exceptional circumstances and bad harvests, which had put pressure upon them to bring forward some measure of the kind, yet that they did in the Bill recognize certain principles of justice which went much beyond the mere temporary calamity of a bad harvest, and which represented future measures which would be brought forward by the Government. He had never understood that this was a Bill to deal with the bad landlords alone; it was unfair to put the Bill in that light. It was possible that a landlord might be a good landlord; but might, at the same time, finding that a tenant was unable to pay his rent, be anxious to press the tenant to pay the rent and proceed to serve notice of ejectment upon the tenant. What they said was that alongside the property enjoyed by the landlord they recognized the proprietary right of the tenant. Under exceptional circumstances of great pressure the present Bill had been brought in; and he hoped that they would not, out of regard to those rights of property which hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed alone to recognize, rob the tenant of his proprietary right in the soil. He objected to the Bill being called legislation for bad landlords. It would affect all landlords in the scheduled districts, and he should be glad to see the principle of the Bill extended to the whole of Ireland. He was willing to accept this exceptional measure at that time, and give the Government time to mature a general Bill dealing with the interests of land in Ireland. Such a Bill could be brought in when the Government had obtained full information; but he should regret any Amendment being put in the present Bill which would limit it to a greater extent than it was already limited. His complaint against the Bill was that it did not go far enough, or extend wide enough. It was based upon a just principle; and he could see no reason why a tenant who held under a benevolent landlord, to whom he owed two years' rent, should be deprived of his proprietary right in the soil by reason of his debt. There was no equitable reason why the tenant, under those circumstances, should not be compensated for his right in the goodwill; and he did not see why a landlord should set up against the proprietary right attached to the tenancy two years' arrears of rent. He could not understand on what grounds it was contended that because a man owed two years' rent, which only amounted to about one-third of the amount due to him for his proprietary right, he should be deprived of that right. On what principle of justice could it be contended that he should sacrifice what balance of his proprietary right might be due to him by reason of the rent which he happened to owe? Did hon. Gentlemen who were so much opposed to this little Bill imagine for one moment that this principle was going to stop here? He supported the Bill because he believed in the principle, and he wished to see the principle carried out much further; and he would be no party, by supporting any Amendment such as that proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard), to restrict the operation of a measure of justice which he believed would be the basis of legislation of a more permanent character.

said, that there had not been, during the whole course of the debates upon that Bill, a more important and a more interesting statement than that just made by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), and he hoped that the observations of the hon. Member would be thoroughly reported and understood throughout the country. Here was one of the most trusted supporters of the Government putting his construction upon a Bill brought forward by the Government. His construction was that, though the Bill was to be accepted for the moment as a temporary measure, brought forward to meet temporary pressure, he, and all who agreed with him, saw in the Bill the germ of a principle that might be applied, and which ought not to stop short before it was applied, to the whole of Ireland; and, if so applied, there was no reason, in his opinion, why it should not go much further and be applied to the whole of the United Kingdom. Under these circumstances, they could not be surprised that several supporters of Her Majesty's Government, who did not agree with the hon. Member for Burnley, had put down Amendments on the Paper in the same direction as the hon. and learned Member for Launceston. He wished once again to call attention to the mischief of this clause. The Bill had been supported on two grounds. The first was that it was to answer a temporary purpose; and the other ground on which it had been supported was that it contained the germ of a great principle affecting the landlords of all Three Kingdoms. When first brought in, they were told that the measure was only to meet a temporary necessity; but now the supporters of Her Majesty's Government came forward and openly said that they saw in the Bill a principle which ought to be applied to the whole of Ireland. He wanted to know whether that was the view of the Government or not. He should like to hear from either the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland or the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, what were the proprietary rights created in the tenant by the Land Act of 1870, of which they were now often reminded, and which they were in danger of losing. He hoped that a satisfactory answer would be made to the statement of the hon. Member for Burnley by some Member of the Government. He thought it would be well if some authoritative statement were made as to the nature and extent of the proprietary rights acquired by the tenant in the soil. It should, in the first place, however, be distinctly understood that those proprietary rights had nothing whatever to do with compensation for improvement, and they were further told in 1870 that a right to compensation was to be given to every tenant against capricious eviction under the 3rd clause of the Act. But were they now to be told that that clause created a proprietary right of the tenant in his holding? He wanted an answer to that question, in as much as a new point had been raised by a supporter of Her Majesty's Government. It was certain that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister stated at the time, in the most distinct and emphatic manner, that no such right was created by the Land Act of 1870; and it was on the faith of that statement that the Act was passed. With regard to another point, he wished to give his recollection of what had been said by his right hon. and learned Colleague the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), on a matter to which reference had been made. His right hon. Friend had not asserted that rent had been owing for the last two or three years throughout the greater part of Ireland; but he said that a very considerable amount was owing, which, if added to the rent due at the end of 1881, would leave many of the tenants three years in arrear, and so bring them within the mischief of the 9th clause of the Act of 1870. He (Mr. Plunket) need not add anything to the argument of his hon. and learned Friend the late Solicitor General, because the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law) had by no means met the point of his statement. The point of the argument was this—that the Bill was professedly framed on the assumption that there were bad landlords, who were about to take advantage of the present distress for the purpose of clearing their estates and consolidating the holdings, and that that alone was the ground upon which this Bill was founded, though no statistics justified that assumption. Therefore it was said by his hon. and learned Friend that it was doubly incumbent on the Government to accept an Amendment which would merely protect the best kind of landlords. As the Bill now stood, one of its greatest faults was that which swept together in one wide net all the landlords of Ireland, good and bad alike; and, in that respect, the Amendment would effect a great improvement. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had already produced some information; and he (Mr. Plunket) might, therefore, ask him whether he had any further information from the sub-Sheriff of Kerry as to the number of evictions reported in the Constabulary Returns, discriminating the cases in which the tenant had actually been turned out and those in which he had been re-admitted as care-taker or otherwise? He hoped that when the Government answered the question of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Launceston, as he presumed they would, they would also be able to give him the information for which he asked.

said, that he would not have risen but for the extreme importance of the statement of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands). As an old Member of the House, and of the Liberal Party, and as a consistent supporter of the present Government, he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland noticed the remarks of the hon. Member for Burnley? If he did so, and if this Bill rested on the principle enunciated by the hon. Member, then the Committee, at all events, ought to know it at once. He had never approved of the Bill; but he had certainly not suspected that it involved principles of that kind. As regarded the Amendment now before the Committee, he thought it was only fair and equitable, and that it ought to be accepted in common fairness. If the Bill was only to be a temporary measure, the actual temporary state of things should be considered, and those landlords who had received no rent for some years should not come under the provisions of the Bill. Already the Bill had created a very unfair feeling against the landlords, and he should hope that the sense of the Committee would be taken upon the Amendment.

said, that if the principles enunciated by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) were adopted, they would have a specimen of modern penal legislation for Ireland in the form of confiscation of property. There had not been anything like a con- fiscation of land in this country before, except in the case of revolution. There was once a grave revolution, and the consequence of it to those engaged in the insurrection was a confiscation of their land. If the principle enunciated by the hon. Member for Burnley were adopted, the House would sanction, by its legislation, the formal confiscation of the property of the landlords of Ireland. He had heard it maintained in that House that it was advisable that the tenure of property in Ireland should be entirely different from the tenure of property in the sister Kingdom. Mr. John Stuart Mill made a speech in that direction in 1856, which was duly reported, and could be found in Hansard. In consequence of that speech, which was held to be a gross violation of the doctrine of political economy, Mr. Mill lost his seat for Westminster. If, however, the Government did not intend to adopt those subversive doctrines for inflicting legislative confiscation upon innocent persons on account of adverse seasons, a denial of the statement of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) was called for on the part of the Government. He (Mr. Newdegate) had been opposed, but not blindly opposed, to the Bill. So far as it was a measure of relief, it had his hearty support; but he had observed that certain parties in that House were endeavouring to use it as a wedge to split up property in Ireland in the sense enunciated by the hon. Member for Burnley. He would be no party to such an attempt, and he saw no grounds for dispossessing the landlords in Ireland. That had been a revolutionary object with the enemies of his country for years and centuries, and it had been an object to those who wished to disintegrate the United Kingdom. Such a design ought to be strenuously resisted; he would always oppose it, and he hoped that Her Majesty's present Advisers would relieve the Committee from its apprehensions, and convince them that their fears were groundless. If they did so, he for one, would vote for any measure of relief to the people of Ireland, and would cease his opposition to the Bill.

said, that he wished to call the attention of the Committee to the fact that hon. Members had been speaking as if they were upon the second reading of the Bill, and not with special reference to the Amendment.

said, that, so far as regarded the principle enunciated by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), he must refer hon. Members to the speech in which he had moved the second reading of the Bill, and to which he still entirely adhered. That speech would show what he considered to be the principle of the Bill. He would not be answerable for any principles stated by the hon. Member for Burnley, who certainly went a little further than he did. With regard to the Amendment, it appeared to him that it could not be passed without an admission that they were considering only the last harvest and not the general state of the previous crops. The tenants had been brought into a state of distress through, what had happened in the last three years, and they ought to have regard to the conditions that must be fulfilled before they could obtain compensation. He thought that if the Amendment were adopted it would make the Bill illusory and absurd.

said, that the statement of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) was of a very serious nature; and the hon. and gallant Member for West Gloucestershire (Colonel Kingscote) had challenged the Government to state what were their views upon the principles enunciated by the hon. Member for Burnley. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland replied to that that he was not answerable for the views of the hon. Member; but the question of the hon. and gallant Member for West Gloucestershire was, whether the Government repudiated the doctrines of the hon. Member for Burnley. They had been directed by the Chair not to diverge from the consideration of the Amendment before them into a discussion upon the principle of the Bill; but he (Mr. Hermon) would point out that nearly every Amendment that had been proposed more or less involved that principle, and made discussion of another character almost impossible. It would be more satisfactory if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland were to state whether he entirely repudiated the opinions enunciated by the hon. Member for Burnley.

said, that he had been asked whether he repudiated the statement of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands.) The line which the Government had taken was, that whether hon. Members approved it or not, the Land Act of 1870 gave tenants in Ireland some kind of interest in their holdings. There could be no doubt about it. If that were not admitted Clause 3 was an absurdity. Clause 3 was a perfectly new clause as regarded the relations between landlord and tenant so far as England and Scotland were concerned. He could not conceive how hon. Members could read that 3rd clause without seeing that it implied that the tenant had an interest in the holding. As to the term "proprietary right," he was not the author of that. He believed that those words were used by his hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) in the course of an able speech which he made against the Bill; and he used those words as a phrase which would properly describe the tenant's interest in the holding. He (Mr. W. E. Forster) had stated over and over again the ground that the Government had taken. They thought that even a small minority of the landlords of Ireland ought not to be allowed to take advantage of the calamities of this and the previous year, in order to deprive their tenants of their interest, or goodwill, or whatever they might choose to call it, and that if they did so they should pay compensation to the tenants.

said, that when the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland rose to answer the question put by the right hon. and learned junior Member for the Dublin University (Mr. Plunket) the right hon. Gentleman failed to prove the object of these tactics. There were four or five gifted Members of the Conservative Party who were qualifying themselves for junior Offices in the next Conservative Ministry. Their activity on the Bill was thus explained. Taking the right hon. and learned Gentleman the junior Member for Dublin University (Mr. Plunket), without the smallest disrespect to him he (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) must say there was a considerable amount of double-facedness.

asked, whether that was an expression which ought to be used?

said, if it were applied to an individual it would be out of Order; but he did not understand it to have been so used by the hon. and learned Member for Meath.

wished to know, whether the hon. and learned Member for Meath ought not to be allowed to finish the sentence?

said, he would interrupt his own sentence, in order to protest against the disorder of the right hon. Baronet the Leader of the Opposition, who, without allowing him (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) to finish his sentence, rose to call him to Order. He begged, through the Chair, respectfully to tell the right hon. Baronet the late Leader of the House that he ought to learn the first principles of Order. He was about to say, when he was interrupted in this disorderly way, that there was a considerable amount of double-facedness on the part of a section of Conservative Gentlemen from Ireland in that House, in their pretended horror of, and aversion to, the doctrines promulgated from the Treasury Bench in regard to the clause now under discussion. The right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) spoke there with dismay of the "proprietary right of the tenant." "The proprietary right of the tenant," exclaimed the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin—"Oh, horrible.!" But he (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) begged to call the attention of the Committee to this fact—that when the Irish Conservative Members went to Ulster amongst their constituents, not a man of them would dare to question the doctrine of the proprietary right of a tenant in the soil. They had one language for the Committee; but, when they went home to Ulster, there was not a man amongst them who would say anything against the tenant's proprietary right. As regarded the Amendment actually before the Committee, he must say it was rather a startling doctrine to lay down, that if any equity at all were to be given the tenant, the fact of his being 11 months or two years in arrear with his rent was to be allowed to defeat that equity. He had heard of "geographical morality" in the course of that debate; but now they had a legal authority proposing to give an equity which was to be determined by the amount of rent due. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman (the Chief Secretary for Ireland) would not allow himself to be so easily drawn aside by the light horsemen of the Conservative Party who were worrying him with their interpolations with regard to the principle underlying this clause. He might mention that Liberals, Conservatives, deputy-lieutenants, magistrates, and public functionaries, had told a Select Committee of that House that they were satisfied that any attempt in Ulster to dispute the doctrine of the tenant's proprietary right in the soil would cause the land of Ulster to be reddened with blood.

said, that he understood the question before the Committee upon the Amendment, and upon the Amendment which followed was, whether the Committee would make any attempt to confine the action of the Bill further than it was confined already? The Committee would observe that the operation of the Bill was, at present, limited in a very remarkable manner. If the Bill passed, there would be three laws in Ireland with regard to land. First, there would be the law in Ulster, where tenant right existed; secondly, there would be the law in the scheduled districts, where that custom did not exist; and, thirdly, there would be the law in that part of Ireland not being in Ulster, and not being part of the scheduled districts. Consequently, the Bill was local in its character; and all that was asked by the Amendment was that they should make it rather more local. The principle of locality was admitted in the Act; it was only a question of the mode in which they should apply that principle. He very much felt the force of what had been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He asked what the principle was on which the Government had introduced the Bill? He said—"We have brought the Bill in now, because we find we can no longer do without it. Evictions have increased and are increasing, and the great increase in the number of evictions causes a necessity for increasing amount of force to carry them into effect." Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to quote figures in support of the position which he took up. In his (Mr. Fowler's) opinion, the Act was not required in Ulster, and in those parts not scheduled, for in Ulster no distress and no evictions existed. That being so, the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister stated that the real mischief was confined to the acts of the oppressive landlords. But this Bill included the good landlords and the bad, and the question was whether they ought to be included together in this peculiar legislation. He had heard a good deal on the subject, and he could see no reason, if they could find words which would mark their meaning clearly, why they should not exclude the good landlords and include those who were guilty of the evil conduct. He did not think that any punishment would be too great for those men who took advantage of the bad crops to rob men of their rights; but they were asked to apply the Bill to half Ireland, on account of the evil deeds of the few bad landlords, and the question was whether that was just and right. The Bill was not only to be limited in the matter of the locality, but it was to be temporary. That being so, it would be more easy, if they limited its operations, to go back to the present law when the proper time arrived. They were told that the Bill was only temporary, and that it ought not to be applied except where absolutely required. With regard to the Amendment before the Committee, he did not see his way clearly to its operation. He was not at all satisfied that it was the best way of carrying out the principles he had stated. On the contrary, he thought it would be more inconvenient to have a different law, as it were, for each separate holding, according to the state that the tenant's arrears happened to be in at the passing of the Bill. He did not understand the effect of the Amendment before the Committee clearly enough to enable him to vote for it; but he proposed, when the proper time arrived, to move that where there had been no eviction for a considerable time the landlord should not be affected by the Bill.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, in introducing the Irish Land Act of 1870, said—

"There is an old notion that some property in the soil adheres to the tenant, even if his contract has expired, and that notion is deeply rooted in the popular mind."

The right hon. Gentleman also said that the object of the Act was to interfere as little as possible with freedom of contract. That phrase, "freedom of contract," was sneered at when it came from the opposite side of the House. His object was to show how that notion had grown to the point at which the hon. Member for Burnley now contended it had arrived—namely, a proprietary right. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland did not indignantly repudiate that notion; he merely said, with an amiable smile, that some of his supporters went a little farther than he did. The hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan), in saying something about the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket), than whom there was no one that he (Mr. Warton) listened to with more admiration and respect, charged somebody with double facedness. He (Mr. Warton) charged the Government with double-facedness and treble-facedness. For some time they were feverishly anxious to punish bad landlords, and to put forward a penal measure.

said, he rose to Order. He would appeal to the Chairman as to whether the hon. Member (Mr. Warton) was keeping to the question before the Committee?

said, that he had already stated to the Committee that he considered the discussion was wandering altogether away from the clause. He would beg the hon. Member who was addressing the Committee to keep to the subject under discussion.

said, that, having already stated all he wished to do, he would make no further observation.

said, the object of the Amendment, as he understood it, was to make some distinction between good landlords and bad landlords. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland objected to the manner in which that was done by the Amendment, he might himself find some way by which the object which he acknowledged to be just could be carried out.

said, that the Amendment did not seem to him to meet the case of prospective arrears of rent. One effect of the Bill would be to create artificial arrears of rent; and what appeared to be fair was this—that any arrears accruing during the operation of the Bill should not be added to previously existing arrears, so as to create an additional claim on the part of the tenant.

said, that if the point that his hon. Friend the Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter) had mentioned was brought before the Committee in the shape of an Amendment, he should consider it.

said, that he was not the junior Member for the University of Dublin, and, therefore, the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) did not apply to him. If the junior Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) were present, he (Mr. Plunket) had no doubt he would be perfectly able to take care of himself. He wished to know from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law) whether he had received any return from the sub-Sheriff of Kerry, which either varied or modified the figures referred to in the Constabulary Return?

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 136; Noes 199; Majority 63—(Div. List, No. 63).

in moving as an Amendment, in page 1, at the end of Clause, to add—

"Provided always, That in case the court shall declare such ejectments to be a disturbance within the meaning of the said third section of 'The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870,' the tenant shall be entitled, if he thinks fit, instead of claiming compensation for such disturbance to continue in occupation of his holding for one year from the date of the order of the court declaring such ejectment to be a disturbance;"

said, he should not take up the time of the Committee for long. He had not said a single word during the prolonged debate upon the Bill, and he, therefore, should claim the indulgence of the Committee for a few minutes. He had thought he should best discharge his duty to his constituents and the poor tenants of Ireland by allowing the Bill to pass through with as little delay as possible; he had, therefore, remained silent, being content with simply voting as he thought best for their interest. The Amendment on the Paper he had felt bound to bring forward, and he hoped that the Government would see fit to accept it. Its object was to give to a tenant, served with notice of ejectment, an alternative. It was to allow him to choose between a loss of compensation and a loss of home; it amounted to something in the nature of a fine. The proposal was, that where a tenant had been awarded compensation for eviction by a Judge, it was to be in his option to accept, instead of compensation, the right to remain in his holding for one year. He thought that a reasonable alternative, considering especially that the tenant was not qualified to obtain the advantage of it unless the misfortune under which he suffered was entirely apart from his own fault. There must be no fault on the part of the tenant, or else he would not be in a position to obtain compensation under that Act. He thought it unlikely that any tenant would be awarded compensation less than the value of one year's rent. If compensation to that amount were awarded, and a provision were made that the tenant might remain one year longer, there would be no ultimate loss to the landlord. He would go further than that, and say that in the case of a good landlord whose holdings were let at a comparatively low rent, and not rack-rented in order to bring about the ruin of his tenants, he would not be sorry to see the Government compensate such a landlord. In the cases of rack-renting landlords, he did not think that compensation should be permitted, because it was more than probable that those rackrents had largely contributed to bring about the present distress of the tenant. When the rent was confessedly moderate and reasonable, he should not at all object to see the Government compensate a good landlord. The effect of the Amendment would be to give the tenant only six months more than the law now allowed him. He had now a right of pre-emption for six months, and he proposed only to extend it to 12 months. He had not the slightest doubt that many tenants would do anything in their power or make any money sacrifice in order to retain their homes. In the case of a small money compensation, it would not be sufficient to give them a passage to America; even in the case of large fanners it would hardly be enough if they had a family; and, therefore, the compensation amounted simply to this—that for a short time the tenant might live upon it, and would then pass into the workhouse. It would be most unlikely that it would amount to enough to set him up in any other business, if there were any open to him in Ireland. Landlords said that if that Bill passed without amendment, rents could not be collected. He was old enough to remember that creditors said, a few years ago, that if they took away the privilege of imprisoning their debtors for life they would be unable to collect their debts. That privilege had been taken away, and debts were as justly paid as ever they were. He believed that, as a rule, rents were too high in Ireland; if they were not too high for the land, they were a great deal too high for the tenure. Rent might be moderate when leases in perpetuity or for long periods, but not when there were only short leases. He thought that the almost universal poverty of the country proved the fact that rents were too high. Long before the two last years of distress, he had seen tenant farmers living in a state which would be called destitution in England. He was very sorry to see that, on the votes upon this Bill, in no single case had the majority amounted to the ordinary Liberal majority, not even when joined with the Irish vote. That did not promise well for Liberal legislation in the future. He was sure that there was, on that side of the House, a very large number of what might be called "Limited Liability Liberals." Their liberality might be evident as regarded England, but it did not extend across St. George's Channel. He thought he ought to make some appeal to English Liberals and Conservatives, with reference to Irish Questions, especially the Irish Land Question, which they did not approach altogether with clean hands. A certain amount of inherited responsibility lay upon the English and Scotch Members with reference to Irish affairs. He believed the Government acknowledged that responsibility; but he earnestly appealed to both English Liberals and Conservatives to take into consideration the fact that, in dealing with Irish matters, a certain large amount of reparation was due for the spoliation and cruelty of past years. The Government, especially the head Member of it, thoroughly recognized that position. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had paid, with his own hand, many instalments due to Ireland; but he had not yet paid the long arrears of accumulated interest and compound interest due to that country. He appealed to the Government to accept his Amendment.

said, he was sorry not to be able to accept the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Macfarlane), nor those of the hon. Members for Tralee (The O' Donoghue) and the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). They all tended in the same direction—namely, to put a new principle in the Bill. The basis of these Amendments was non-payment of rent, rather than the admission of the principle of compensation. He thought he must say at once that he could not accept any of those Amendments.

Amendment negatived.

in moving as an Amendment, in page 1, at end of Clause, to add—

"Provided always, That, in every case, it shall be allowable for the tenant to elect between accepting compensation for disturbance as provided by the third section of 'The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870,' and selling his interest in his holding under such conditions as the court may deem reasonable;"

said, he was sorry to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland that he could not accept the Amendment he was about to propose. But that would not prevent him from putting it to the Committee, and taking a division upon it. He was sorry that the Amendment was not considered to be a useful addition to the clause, and that the Government did not see their way to support it. The hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell) had pointed out that where the rent was too high the tenant had not, from an economic point of view, anything to sell. To that he had heard the liberal rejoinder made that, when the tenant had nothing to dispose of, why should the landlord give him anything? The answer was, because the high rent charged by the landlord had destroyed the marketable value of the tenant's interest; and, again, because the tenant's holding was always of value to himself, inasmuch as it furnished him with his only means of living. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had said that—

"No Judge in his senses would award compensation to a tenant, when the landlord had given him permission to sell his interest."

That meant, that the tenant would always be obliged to accept the permission to sell. He submitted that there was great exaggeration in the language of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, because it was very plain that, in a variety of cases, the tenant's interest might be either unsaleable or of very little selling value. He would propose that, in every case where the Court decided that the landlord was acting unreasonably in proceeding to evict, a tenant should have the right to select between accepting the compensation under the 3rd clause of the Act, or selling his interest, as either course recommended itself to his judgment. In no case would he exempt the landlord from his liability to suffer from what must be regarded as a crime—namely, to evict a tenant for non-payment of rent which, owing to circumstances for which the tenant was not responsible, he could not pay. In Ulster, under the Act of 1870, a tenant, being evicted or disturbed by the landlord, had the power of choosing whether he would take compensation under the 3rd clause, or sell. He had that power with, the permission of the Court. He could quite see the reason why, in Ulster, a discretion should be allowed to the Court, because the Court had, in every case before it, a number of terms which the tenant might accept, instead of selling his interest, according as the custom which existed restricted or left the right of the tenant free. But in the other Provinces the Court would have no means whatever of forming any judgment which would be fair for the tenant; and he, therefore, ventured to submit that in every case in those circumstances the tenant should be allowed to choose whether he should sell his interest or accept compensation under the 3rd clause of the Act. He begged to move his Amendment.

Amendment proposed,

In page 1, at the end of the Clause, to add the words "Provided always, That in every case, it shall be allowable for the tenant to elect between accepting compensation for disturbance as provided by the third section of 'The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870,'and selling his interest in his holding under such conditions as the court may deem reasonable."—( The O'Donoghue. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

said, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be able to see his way to accept the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue). One great weakness and danger in that Bill was contained in the Amendment giving the landlord the right of making an alternative proposition. By that means, they had brought into the Bill that system of forcing—he maintained it to be—the tenant to sell his interest at a most exceptional season. It was at a time when there was exceedingly little money in the country, in the first place; secondly, when there were very few buyers of land of any description; and, thirdly, in very many instances, the property for sale was not of a saleable character, and the land of the holdings was of exceedingly poor and barren quality. Well, by the Amendment which the Committee had agreed to, an additional difficulty was added to the duty the Court had to discharge, because they threw upon it the duty of ascertaining whether the offer or alternative made by the landlord was of a reasonable character or not. Supposing the tenant said, "I have been unable to find any purchasers," the County Court Judge might think that the tenant had made out a claim for compensation, under the 3rd section of the Land Act, where it says that the necessity for the alternative offer by the landlord did not arise until the tenant had established a case to the satisfaction of the Court. The Act ran—

"Until the tenant had established to the satisfaction of the Court that he was unable to pay his rent, that his inability to pay arose from the distress, and that he was willing to continue in the occupation of his holding upon just and reasonable terms as to rent, arrears of rent, and so forth."

Therefore, by the Amendment, the Court could not consider the question of an alternative offer until what he had related had occurred. Let them look at the number of circumstances that would have to be inquired into by the Court. They would have to inquire—first, whether there was a possibility of the tenant selling his interest; secondly, whether the amount payable for his holding would be commensurate, or an equivalent for the amount the Court would have awarded him in compensation under the 3rd section. If the land- lord did not claim the alternative, a fresh set of difficulties was created for the Court. There had been no experience of the matter yet; but he believed there would be great difficulties, on the one hand, when the tenant claimed from a grasping landlord, and, on the other hand, when a landlord sought to evict a bad tenant. He believed that in both cases there would be extreme doubt and uncertainty, and that would have been brought about by the acceptance of the Amendment to which he so much objected. The alternative given to the landlord of making an offer should, he thought, also be given to the tenant, so that he might be placed upon the same footing as the landlord. Otherwise, he feared that this state of affairs would come about in Ireland. The deliberate opinion of Mr. Chichester Fortescue was that the right of selling his interest under the Ulster Custom was not a sufficient protection to the tenant. Therefore, he said, under those circumstances, and considering that the Bill was only to apply for a year and a-half, there would be extreme difficulty in ascertaining whether the landlord had made a reasonable offer in offering permission to the tenant to sell. He submitted that the tenant ought to be given the alternative suggested by the Amendment of his hon. Friend, either to claim compensation, or to sell his interest in his holding. The principle of free sale would then be established, and a great improvement would be effected in the Bill, which, as it then stood, he was sorry to say was greatly injured by the principle of compulsory sale which it contained.

said, Her Majesty's Government could not accept the Amendment. He must demur to the statement of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) that the clause, as amended, meant forced sale. The Amendment proposed would unsettle what had been already settled, by bringing in fresh matter which was quite unnecessary.

said, the principle of sale underlying the Amendment had already been conceded by the Government, because it was contained in the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law), the only difference being that, under that Amendment, the sale would be forced. The Amendment now proposed simply gave the tenant the opportunity of going round the market to see if he could make an advantageous bargain. There was, in his opinion, a great basis of justice in the Amendment of the hon. Member for Tralee.

said, that one merit of the Amendment was to bring to the test the meaning of the word "reasonable," which, no doubt, as it was laid down in the Bill, was extremely vague and uncertain. It left the whole thing to the discretion of the Judges, who were likely to decide in very different ways, sometimes in an extremely unreasonable way, the meaning of the term. The Amendment brought the matter to a point, by leaving it to the option of the tenant to decide on one of two courses. In the event of a tenant being disturbed for any other reason than that mentioned in the Bill—namely, the non-payment of rent—he would be entitled to a fixed sum, and the Judge would be the party to settle it without appeal; in that case, the landlord would get his arrears of rent paid out of the disturbance money. He did think that the Government had advanced any reason why the Amendment should not be accepted.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 32; Noes 122: Majority 90.—(Div. List, No. 64.)

said, he did not propose to detain the Committee for more than a few moments in asking their attention to the Amendment standing in his name. It had been stated, as a justification of the Bill of the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power), that the landlords in Ireland were in the habit, under the present Land Act, of gradually raising all their rents, and thereby practically depriving their tenants of the benefit conferred upon them by the Land Act, and it was urged that by that process the interest of the tenant was eaten into or destroyed. That statement on the part of the hon. Member for Mayo had been distinctly challenged, and a noble Lord had said he would withdraw all opposition to the Bill of the hon. Member, if six authenticated cases were forthcoming for the entire of Ireland. He was not aware that any authenticated case of the kind had been given by the hon. Member. Now, the Amendment he was about to move distinctly grappled with the charge which had been brought against the landlords in Ireland, and the 10 years named therein exactly covered the period from the passing of the Land Act of 1870 to the present time. Surely, as the present Bill was avowedly brought in not to press too severely against landlords entitled to consideration, but to make bad landlords do what good landlords where in the habit of doing by punishing those who possibly abused their position, it was but reasonable that the Amendment should be fairly considered. He ventured to put it to the Committee that the Irish landlords who during the past 10 years, amongst which there had been many good years, had not availed themselves of their position to increase the rent of their tenents by a single shilling, should be excluded from the operation of the Bill. He begged to move his Amendment.

Amendment proposed,

In page 1, at the end of the clause, to add the following words, "Provided always, That if it shall appear to the Court that the rent of the holding has not been increased for ten years before the bringing of the ejectment, then and in every such case the claim of the tenant for compensation shall be disallowed."—( Mr. Gibson. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

said, he could not accept the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, whom he would remind of the denial that something which had been stated in the second reading of the Bill of the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) was no reason for amending the present measure in the manner indicated. Again, supposing particular rents not to have been raised during the last 10 years, that was no proof that those rents were necessarily moderate. Assuming that a landlord had never raised his tenant's rent during the last 10 years, but that the tenant, owing to the exceptional calamity of last year, was now penniless, it was no answer to the tenant's claim to say—"Oh! I never raised your rent for 10 years." It was not what had happened in past times that they had to consider, but what a landlord might do when the Bill came into operation. The present crisis would test whether the landlord was a good and reasonable one or not—that was to say, whether he was willing to act fairly towards his tenants in their existing distress.

said, he thought the Amendment proposed was worthy of consideration. Its object was to indicate the distinction between good and bad landlords. Speaking for England, he must say that the fact of a holding being continued at the same rent for 10 years consecutively, would be a clear proof that the relations between tenant and landlord were in a fair state, for it must be assumed that the rent during that period was a fair one.

said, that there were few landlords in England who did not think that rents were now too high, which, 10 years ago, had been considered by both tenant and landlord fair and equitable. And in view of the pressing need of their tenants, many landlords were returning from 10 up to 50 per cent of the rents to their tenants. He knew of an estate, within a few miles of his residence, which some years ago let at £2 4 s. an acre, and was a short time ago in the market at 10 s. an acre. Such had been the effect of the wet seasons experienced, that it was necessary to let the land at any price. He thought it would be most unfair to adopt the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin University.

Amendment negatived.

said, before he called on the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham), he would point out that the Amendment standing in his name could not be put to the Committee without a prior Resolution being taken in the Committee of the Whole House. It might, however, be made to come within the powers of the Committee by the withdrawal of a few words. He would also mention that the same remarks applied to the Amendments standing in the names of the hon. Baronet the Member for Chippenham (Sir Gabriel Goldney) and the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin). It was not within the powers of the Committee, without a prior Resolution in Committee of the Whole House, to grant loans to landlords, unless they were included within the specific purposes for which the Public Loans Acts had been passed. Some of the Amendments included postponements of instalments of debts due to the Crown, and these were clearly out of Order unless the consent of the Crown were obtained.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

said, he desired to call attention to a point which had been brought to his notice by an English lawyer in connection with the borrowing powers of landlords tinder the Act of 1870. The letter was to the effect—that by the Land Act of 1870, Section 13, Sub-section 42, a landlord who had not disturbed his tenant might borrow, from the Commissioners of Public Works, money wherewith to pay for compensation for improvements. Now, under this Bill, the tenant ejected had also a claim for disturbance, and because the tenant was disturbed, the landlord would be unable to borrow under Sub-section 42. Another disability was created in the Bill—namely, that caused by the landlord having to pay compensation for disturbance for non-payment of rent, which he had not to do under the Act of 1870, and in consequence of which he was barred from borrowing money under that Act. These points were very clearly put in the letter to which he had referred, and had not, he thought, been raised in the previous discussions which had taken place on the Bill. There was one other point to which he wished to draw attention. He did not know whether a County Court Judge had the power, but he certainly thought he ought to have it, to ascertain whether a tenant had any money in the bank. In order that the Judge might be convinced that the tenant was not able to pay any rent, "by the act of God," there should be a power given him to call for the tenant's bank - book, and ascertain what his balance was, say, on the 1st of January last, and what money he had drawn from the bank. That case often arose in Ireland, and if the power were not at present vested in the Judge, he thought it ought to be.

said, that on the Question, whether the clause should stand part of the Bill, he wished to point out that the 2nd provision provided that the tenant should offer to remain in reasonable occupation of his holding on just and terms as to rent, arrears of rent, and otherwise. But no time was mentioned in the Bill as to when the tenant should disclose the fair and reasonable terms he was willing to accept. No time whatever was named; and, for anything that was provided, it might be that the landlord would never hear the terms until he and the tenant were face to face with the County Court Judge. There ought to be a provision in the Bill enabling County Court Judges to make rules as to the time and conditions under which a tenant should serve a landlord or the Court with the terms as to rent, arrears, and otherwise, which he thought were just and reasonable; or, if the Judges were not to make rules, the Bill ought to contain them. That was a very important matter, for it would cause great inconvenience to the Judge, and might be a very inconvenient surprise to the Landlord. Another point to which he wished to draw attention was one as to which he had received a vast amount of correspondence. It ought to be stated whether the Bill was intended to apply only to the tenancies comprised in the 3rd section of the Land Act, or whether it extended to any lease which did not come under that section.

said, that the Land Act restricted the borrowing powers of the landlord, so as to prevent his burdening the inheritance with in cumbrances arising out of his own act. If he rejected his tenant's reasonable proposal, it was not right that he should have the power to burden the estate with the claims which were the direct consequence of his own unreasonable conduct. Under the Land Act, whenever a landlord disturbed a tenant in his occupation, the borrowing section did not apply, either with regard to compensation for improvements or for disturbance. As to the means of proving that a tenant had money in the bank, the landlord could summon the bank officials to produce their books, and thus give evidence as to the financial condition of the tenant.

said, that the whole matter turned upon the effect of the Bill. They knew perfectly well that where a landlord disturbed a tenant, he had no claim to borrow money to pay compensation under the Land Act of 1870.

said, that the point of his noble Friend would be raised by an Amendment which he proposed to move.

said, that the point which he had ventured to bring under the notice of the Government, and upon which he wished the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown, was this—whether they were not extending by this Bill, to the Land Act of 1870, the non-payment of rent, and preventing the landlord from borrowing under the 42nd section? The other point to which he wished to call attention was, whether a County Court Judge had power to examine a tenant's banking account, and see whether his inability to pay rent was perfectly bonâ fide.

said, that with reference to the question of disturbance by ejectment for non-payment of rent, under the exceptions in Section 9, it would be observed that a landlord was not by the Land Act given the power of borrowing money to pay such compensation. As the landlord must first act unfairly before the Act could operate against him, it was not unfair that no special facilities of borrowing from the State should be afforded him.

said, he should like to know whether it was possible for him to discuss the principle of his Amendment at that time? He was inclined to differ from what had been said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland. In introducing the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland said that it was to carry out the principle of the Land Act for temporary purposes, and for a limited time. He wished to know the effect of the principle laid down by this measure upon the provisions of the Land Act of 1870? There were provisions in that Act for limited owners to recoup themselves for the money which they were called upon to pay.

said, that the question was that the clause should stand part of the Bill, and the hon. Member could raise the question which he wished to do upon his Amendment.

said, that it was left to the County Court Judge to decide whether the tenant was entitled to complain of any disturbance. He had to decide that non-payment of rent was owing to the tenant's inability to pay, whether the tenant ought to continue in occupation of his holding upon just and reasonable terms, what reasonable terms were, and whether the landlord had or had not offered any reasonable alternative to the tenant's proposition. The whole matter was, therefore, placed under the consideration of the County Court Judge, and this Bill did not lay down, as was the case in the Land Act of 1870, any principles upon which the County Court Judge should decide; and this showed what appeared to him to be one of the great defects in the Bill—namely, the necessity they were under of leaving this wide discretion to the Judges. He did not say that County Court Judges were not adequate to the work they had to perform in the exercise of their legitimate jurisdiction; but he did not consider that such an absolute discretion should be intrusted to them, or that it fell in any degree within the exercise of their judicial functions. They might as well leave it to an engineer or a surveyor to decide whether there had been any disturbance, as to place it in the power of a County Court Judge to decide the matter. From the nature of the Bill, they must, of course, leave a discretion somewhere; and as it showed whenever a complaint was made, the County Court Judge would have to investigate it, there would be thrown upon him the duty of defining what a disqualifying disturbance was as well as he could, as the Bill did not in itseif contain any definition or clause upon the subject.

said, that he did not think that this question of borrowing powers was confined to limited owners only. He did not think that there was anything about it in the clause of the Act of 1870. This Bill was brought forward on the ground of the prevalence of distress, and it was admitted that, except in the case of distress, the operation of the 3rd clause of the Bill would not arise. It should be remembered that the distress did not fall solely upon the tenants. It was well known that many landlords were driven to the most extreme straits by the distress, and if additional burdens were to be placed upon them, it would end in their absolute ruin. Because there was distress in the country "by the act of God," it was sought absolutely to ruin the landlords, and yet this argument was not allowed to be pleaded for them.

LORD ELCHO said, that, on Report, he should propose a clause to the effect—

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 2 (Short title and construction).

said, he had to move, as an addition to the clause, the words—

"Except that a disturbance under this Act shall not be deemed a disturbance depriving the landlord of the power of borrowing under the 42nd section of the Act of 1870."

Under the 42nd section of the Land Act, the power of borrowing was not confined to limited owners; but any landlord who had to make compensation to a tenant for improvements, might obtain a loan from the Public Works Loans Commissioners on petition to the Civil Bills Court. That loan became a charge upon the estate, and took a preference over other charges. The concession as to borrowing was made at the time of the passing of the Land Act as a general one to landlords, and the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister stated that he had provided the sum of £1,000,000 to meet these loans, but he did not wish it to go forth that no more than that sum was to be advanced. He did not think that anyone had a right to interfere between the landlord and the Public Works Loans Commissioners. For that reason, he begged to move the addition to the clause of the words he had read.

Amendment proposed,

To add, at end of clause, the words "Except that a disturbance under this Act shall not be deemed to be a disturbance depriving the landlord of the power of borrowing under the 42nd section of the Land Act of 1870."—( Sir Gabriel Goldney. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had told the Committee that he had been compelled to introduce the measure for the purpose of providing against the unreasonable conduct of a small minority of landlords, who sought to take advantage of the present distress by acting in an unreasonable manner, and clearing their estates and robbing the tenants of their interest. What was the effect of the proposition on the hon. Baronet the Member for Chippenham. (Sir Gabriel Goldney)? After having passed a measure to fine unreasonable landlords for an unreasonable exercise of their privileges, the Committee was now asked to set aside a sum of money for compensating those landlords for acting unreasonably. It seemed to him that that was the coolest proposition that had been brought forward since the introduction of the Bill. If carried, it would be a direct encouragement to bad landlords to clear their estates at that time, in order that they might do so at the expense of the ratepayers of England, Ireland, and Scotland. It was not sufficient that unreasonable conduct on the part of a small minority of Irish landlords should cause the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to introduce that Bill upon which they had spent so much time in discussion; it was not sufficient that many thousands of constables should be necessary in order to protect the landlords in their unreasonable conduct; but now they were asked to compensate the landlords for the fines which they were to be made to pay by making them advances of public money.

Question put, and negatived.

Clause agreed to, and added to the Bill.

I understood your ruling to be, Sir, that I cannot move my first Amendment.

In stating what I did, that the proposed clause could not be put, I ought to have stated that I am acting in accordance with the highest authorities of the House, that the two clauses, in the present form, could not be put; but the second clause, with the omission of some points, might come under the powers of the Committee.

said, he would move a clause to meet that view, and would confine his remarks to that clause only, which was intended to protect those landlords who, under the operation of that measure, would be unable to collect their rents; and it appeared to him so reasonable that he could not help hoping that the Government would accept it, unless, indeed, some of the speeches from the Treasury Bench might be taken as evidence of a desire to improve the landlords out of the country altogether. He had listened to some of those speeches with pain and indignation. They would have been more worthy of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, or of the agitators now convulsing the country, rather than of Statesmen on the Treasury Bench. No statements more heartless or cruel from Statesmen on the Treasury Bench had ever been made about the landlords of Ireland. Not a single fact or figure had been brought forward to prove these imputations and insinuations; and it would be well if right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench had been less disposed to deal with hypothetical propositions of what might or might not happen, and had brought forward some distinct and specific charges, instead of those which he believed existed solely in their excited imaginations. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had charged landlords with clearing their estates for the purpose of growing sheep instead of men. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: I never used any such expression at all.] He understood the right hon. Gentleman to have said so. Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland would be responsible for it, as well as for this—"Deluging the tenants with evictions which they might now have in their pockets." The Prime Minister had also talked of 15,000 people turned helpless and homeless on the world; but when his facts came to be confronted with the figures, what became of that statement? Why, it was relegated to the region of hypothesis, from which he ought never to have brought such a statement against the unfortunate landlords. He (Mr. Tottenham) used the term "unfortunate" advisedly, for they were the only persons to be pitied under the proposed legislation. It was based on figures which bore a totally different interpretation to that put before the House. The speeches of right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench had been infused with a spirit of aggressiveness and hostility against landlords which was not called for. If those statements could be substantiated, the Committee had a right to the proofs, and the landlords had a right to be told upon what evidence they were charged with these offences, and who the minority were of which so much had been said. Questions on these points had been asked by several hon. Members, and replies had been given that these were questions for debate; but replies were never given when they were so brought forward. In reply to several questions put upon that subject by the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), by himself (Mr. Tottenham), and by other hon. Members on the same side of the Committee, he had not heard a single syllable of reply from the Treasury Bench. He would not trouble the Committee with the many arguments brought forward in the public Press, and by hon. Members, showing the disastrous effect this measure would have upon the rights of landlords. That point had been conceded from all sides of the Committee, Liberal as well as Conservative, by Gentlemen representing alike financial, commercial, and landed interests. He would merely say that, unless the Committee were prepared to accept the proposal which he now made, they must discard all the evidence on this point as utterly worthless, and accept, in their entirety, all the statements of the authors of this Bill, who asserted what was not the fact, without bringing forward the slightest proof or substantiation of any kind in support of their statements. He hoped the Committee, however, would consider that his proposal was based on simple justice, and was one which, in the interests of the landowners, should be conceded. He would further say that when the State was rendering difficult, or, perhaps, impossible, the payment of rent, was it not also right that the State should defer its claims upon property of this character? He would, therefore, ask the Committee to support his proposed clause, which was as follows:—

(Relief of landowners from Imperial taxation and repayment of loans.)

"During the continuation of this Act, and for six months next ensuing the expiring thereof, no landowner who shall be able to show satisfactorily that his rents are twenty per cent in arrear, owing to default in payment of the rent by his tenants, shall be called upon to pay Income Tax or tithe rentcharge, where such are payable. And the production of the rental and office books, coupled with a declaration by the owner or his agent, made before a Justice of the Peace, shall be considered sufficient proof by the official charged with the collection of the said taxes or instalments that such percentage is still due and unpaid."

said, he was very happy to second this clause, because it seemed to him only reasonable and fair that taxes charged on the land should be exempted at the time when the landlords were getting nothing from the]and. That was only reason, common sense, and fair play. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) was evidently of that opinion, because the remedy which he favoured in the present case was to abolish rent for holdings under £20, and for the State to reimburse the landlords. He believed the present Bill was useless, for it would only lead to a lot of litigation, and would not help the tenant one rap.

New Clause (Relief of landowners from Imperial taxation and repayment of loans,)—( Mr. Tottenham; )— brought up, and read a first time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be now read a second time."

observed, that if this clause were accepted, English and Scotch tenants would certainly have a great grievance; because, if the doctrine that when rents were 20 per cent in arrear no Income Tax was to be paid were accepted in Ireland, it ought to apply to English and Scotch estates as well. The arguments of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had supported the proposal (Major O'Beirne) were based on a misconception of the object and effect of the Bill. If its object was to effect a suspension of the payment of rent, there would be a strong argument for this new clause; but what he and his Colleagues believed was, that reasonable landlords would not be affected by the measure at all, and the only men affected by it would be those who, having tenants unable to pay, were treating them harshly and ejecting them. He denied having attacked landlords as a class, and defied the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Major O'Beirne) to find any remark in any one of his speeches containing such a statement as that which had been quoted. On the contrary, he had always declared that, in his opinion, the great majority of landlords had behaved with great forbearance. The Bill merely forced landlords, who were behaving unreasonably in ejecting their tenants, to give them compensation; and that, bethought, nobody could object to.

begged to say a word on behalf of a class which had been libelled by the hon. and gallant Member for Leitrim (Major O'Beirne). He (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) knew something of the landlords of Ireland, and he declared that only a very small minority of them were liable to the charge that had been made, and that it was a mere libel to speak of them as a whole in the manner the hon. and gallant Member had done. Only a very small minority were guilty of the acts complained of; and when the hon. and gallant Gentleman tried to make out that this was a picture of the class as a whole, he could only tell him that he was doing landlords a grievous wrong. He (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) had a better right to speak for the landlords of Ireland than the hon. and gallant Gentleman, because he represented a county which had as good and as bad landlords as the hon. and gallant Gentleman's own; but, while some of those landlords voted against the hon. and gallant Member, not one voted against him (Mr. A. M. Sullivan).

said, landlords had submitted to every possible sacrifice in order not to be drawn into litigation with their tenants. It was not the Bill itself of which he complained, but the interpretation which the tenants were putting upon it. He could assure the Committee that, throughout Ireland, it was interpreted everywhere as a suspension of rent for two years. That was the view of the tenants, no matter how unreasonable; nothing would convince them that that was not a correct one, until they had the decision of the County Court Judge in repeated instances. Therefore, as he had said, landlords who had submitted to every kind of sacrifice rather than resort to litigation, would now be obliged to bring these cases before the Courts, in order to show their tenants what the real state of the law was. They would be compelled to issue writs against tenants who could pay, merely to convince them that this was not a Bill to suspend rents for 18 months. He believed he was the only extensive Irish landowner on that side of the Committee, and he voted for the second reading of the Bill, because the wholesale evictions in certain places were a scandal in the eyes of Europe, and were a danger from their effect on the people who witnessed them. But he voted for it also in the hope that considerable Amendments would be introduced in the course of the Bill through Committee, and he was encouraged in that hope by the words of the Prime Minister in the debate on the second reading, when he said that the remedy should be carefully adopted and limited to the necessity. Trusting those words, he had expected that limitations would be introduced into the Bill to protect the landlord from injustice. He had supported the Bill throughout, because he believed the tenants in Ireland had grievances to be redressed; but, at the same time, he expected that something would be done for the landlords. The present Bill seemed to him merely to compel bad landlords to do what good landlords had always done; but, unfortunately, the measure had been represented everywhere as a Bill for the suspension of the payment of rent for a year and a-half, and, for that reason, very great difficulty would be thrown in the way of good landlords. In his own case, all his 80 tenants owed him three years of rent; he had done nothing to obtain that rent from them, and now, unless something were done, his remedy would be postponed for this further time. The result would be that, as bad landlords had taken care to protect themselves, good landlords would be in a worse position than bad ones.

said, the Amendment came to this, that where a landlord was not in receipt of 20 per cent of his rents, that he should keep back the Income Tax on 80 per cent which he had received. ["No, no!"] Well, if the Amendment did not mean that, it meant nothing. Of course, where a landlord had not received his rents, he would not be called upon to pay Income Tax on them; while it would be very unjust to let him off the Income Tax on the rents he had received, because there were other rents which he had not received.

thought there was no danger that the tenants would be misled as to the meaning of the Bill. They were scarcely likely, when it was necessary for them to go into Court to enforce their claim, to do that under a misapprehension as to the meaning of the Act. A great advantage of the Bill would be that it would also bring the tenants into the Courts of Justice to have their claims adjudicated upon with a knowledge that justice would be done them, than that they should remain outside protesting that they could not obtain their rents. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Villiers Stuart) had spoken of not having had any rents for three years, and he talked of the hardship that he was suffering; but the case was an extraordinary one. He could understand a Gentleman, just before a General Election, not pressing his tenants for their rents; and although, of course, he bad no suspicion of creating a feeling in his favour by doing that, yet as the hon. Gentleman had now obtained the seat, he hoped he would console himself for his liberality by that reflection, even if he never recovered his rent at all. As to this claim to abolish Income Tax, it was impossible, because it could not be done in Ireland without extending the same measure of relief to England and Scotland, and then the result would be to throw the tax on the shoulders of the tenants rather than on the landlords.

said, the hon. Member who had just spoken had charged the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Villiers Stuart) with remitting his rent for three years in order to obtain popularity. That was one way of winning the votes of electors; but another and less satisfactory way was that of bringing in and supporting measures of this kind, which took property from the landlord and gave it to the tenant. He might remark, in reference to that matter, that he was quite sure justice would never be done to landlords until their votes were as numerous as those of their tenants. He had always observed that the legislation very much depended upon a numerical proportion of classes, and the distribution of political power. The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) had said that it was very unfair for landlords to ask that taxes should be removed on the 20 per cent of Income Tax which they had not received.

said, that was scarcely a correct representation of his remark. What he said was, that the Government did not collect Income Tax on incomes which had not been received.

replied, that he was afraid the landlord would have to pay his Income Tax although he had not received his rent. The real difficulty was, that in this attempt to guard against the acts of bad landlords, the good landlords throughout the length and breadth of Ireland were being punished. Letters without end in the newspapers, which had not received contradiction, proved this broad fact, that in Ireland where there was no distress, the tenantry everywhere, whether by conspiracy, by agreement, or by some extraordinary consensus of opinion, had come to the conclusion that they ought not to pay rent.

said, he had been rather surprised at the Amendment of the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham), in which he had asked for a remission of 20 per cent in Income Tax from the landlord for rent in arrear, and not only from Income Tax, but also from tithe-charge. He did not know whether the hon. Member was aware, but the Committee were, no doubt, aware, that on the rental in Ireland, as a general rule, landlords did not pay Income Tax on more than 60 per cent. It was paid on the Poor Law valuation, and if that Amendment were adopted, and 20 per cent were deducted, they would really pay on 40 per cent only. It was a most unreasonable thing to ask the Committee to accede to such a proposal as that. It was quite bad enough at present, when the landlord escaped paying Income Tax at the same rate as the shopkeepers or professional men. At present, 40 per cent was saved; and if the Amendment were adopted, they would only pay on 40 per cent—60 per cent being deducted. He had listened during that debate, which had been many days under discussion, and had heard many reasons he might bring forward against that Bill. The principal reason brought forward by the Landlord Party on the Opposition side was that the Bill was unreasonable and not required, because there was no injustice done to the tenant. He had already brought before the notice of the Committee four or five cases in his own county to show that there was injustice. He had brought them forward, because the rents were over and above the limit of £30. In those cases the parties were in arrear to the extent of one year's rent only. He had received that night, by post, from his own county, a letter with reference to a much worse case. It was the case of a widow named Ellen O'Brien, who had been served with a writ. It was dated from the High Court of Justice, Exchequer Division, Dublin, and required her to enter an appearance personally, after so many days, at the Exchequer Chambers, Dublin. It was for a half-year's rent, due the 25th March last. The noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) had said that landlords were unable to get their rent; but it appeared to him (Mr. O'Sullivan) that they were, in many cases, taking extreme measures in order to obtain it. They talked on that side about the landlords; but he would say that they were acting in a most cruel and exacting manner, nearly all over the country. Here they had a case in which a poor widow was being sued for half-a-year's rent.

asked if the hon. Member was in Order in discussing the question as to the exaction of landlords?

The hon. Member (Mr. O'Sullivan) would be out of Order in discussing that question; but I think he has only alluded to it incidentally, while communicating the contents of the letter he had received to the Committee.

said, he bowed to the ruling of the Chair, He only wanted to show that the landlords did not require any relief. Here was a case of a widow being served with a writ for rent, which was only due 10 weeks; and, at the same time that he had brought that before the Committee, they had a landlord standing up and asking for relief in the way of abatement on the Income Tax. He thought that he had clearly shown that the landlord only paid then on 60 per cent, because it was paid only on the Poor Law valuation. He must say that if they got such an abatement as that then asked for, it would be most unreasonable and unjust. As it was, the landlord escaped, when the shopkeepers and professional men had to pay; and, therefore, he thought that a more unreasonable, unfair, or unjust proposition had never been put before that House, than that of the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham).

said, that a more extraordinary proposal than that of the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) was never put upon the Notice Paper of that House. He was astonished at the short-sightedness of the hon. Member, inasmuch as, not with standing his short experience in that House, he had already gained the position of one of the pillars of landlordism. To admit the Amendment would be to admit a principle which would strike a fatal blow to every principle of tenant-right. Still, he was glad that it had been placed upon the Notice Paper, if only to show what was passing in the mind of his hon. Friend and those whom he represented. He believed, also, that it indicated the principle upon which they acted. What did that Amendment mean? It meant that the rent was to be regulated, not in accordance with the price of produce, nor the capacity for produce of the soil, nor the effect of competition, but in accordance with the charges which the landlords had to meet. They had constantly stated at meetings all over the country, that it was on that principle that they granted their claim for some mode of settling the question of rent. The hon. Member, in putting that Notice on the Paper, had practically admitted that for which they had contended. He was happy to think that there was no chance whatever of such a principle as that advocated by the hon. Member receiving the sanction of that House.

said, he did not know whether it was the intention of the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) to divide the Committee upon that question; but he should say that it seemed to him that the position taken up by the hon. Member was a wrong one. It was well known that the ordinary custom, when there were tenant farmers was, that if the tenant could not pay his rent, the landlord did not pay the Income Tax. He obtained the exemption which he claimed in those cases. But, moreover, in the great majority of cases, as pointed out by the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan), the landlords charged more rent than the Government valuation, and it was upon that valuation that the Income Tax averages were based, so that the landlord did not suffer any real injury if there was an arrear, because, ordinarily, he only paid upon that which he received. The hon. Member, in the early part of his speech, attacked the Front Government Bench for having criticized the conduct of what were called bad landlords. He (Mr. Biggar) believed that there were but a small number of such landlords; but, at the same time, there could be no doubt of their existence. He held in his hand a letter he had received from a friend of his who was not a member of the Land League. He described a particular landlord—he should not then name him—as having increased his rents, in some cases to as much as three-fold that of the Poor Law valuation. If the valuers did not give him satisfaction, he sent them away. Often the amount to be paid was three times the Poor Law valuation; and it was impossible that that could be paid, were it not for American, English, and Scotch friends, who sent over money to the tenants. The writer of that letter went on to point out that should the unfortunate tenants not have a good season, they would be likely to die in the winter. He understood that most of the property of that landlord was to be left at rack-rent. The writer of the letter referred to the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham).

said, that the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) had dwelt principally upon the question of Income Tax; but there was another important item. He believed he should be right in stating that landlords were not, as a rule, getting more than 25 per cent of their rents; and he thought it was hard that they should be called upon to pay tithe-rent-charge, which amounted to about a tenth of their income—if they got it. This year, he should only receive, probably, about 25 per cent on his land. At the time the Bill was brought in, not a single tenant had gone to the office to pay his rent. That happened because they believed that that Bill, in point of fact, was for a suspension of rents. He knew that they were mistaken; but what he complained of and thoroughly deprecated, was being drawn into the Land Court in the manner forced upon him by the terms of that Bill. Of course, it might not be the fault of that Bill; he only stated what he believed was the subject of much comment on the part of the landlords. He could assure hon. Members opposite that no man in that House was a better Irishman than he was, or had a less divided sympathy with the tenants in their difficulties and grievances; and, therefore, he should be ready to support any measure which would place the tenure of land upon a fair and just footing. He would put it to the Government whe- ther some provision might not be added to the Bill by which some relief might be given to the landlords. He believed that no landlord would take hold of such an opportunity in order to clear his estates. If he did, he deserved no consideration whatever. He trusted that the Government would be able to see their way to do something for the landlords of Ireland.

Question put, and negatived.

said, that, in the absence of his respected Leader (Mr. Parnell), he begged to move the clause which stood in his name. It was—

"That in any case where the holding is valued at or under the annual value of fifteen pounds, when the court shall have awarded compensation for disturbance, in accordance with the provisions of that Act, it shall be competent for the tenant to require in lieu of such compensation that the court shall suspend the decree for the recovery of the holding until the thirty-first day of December eighteen hundred and eighty-one."

He need not point out that that was simply a matter for the benefit of the poorer classes of tenants whom that Bill was expected to compensate. It simply left to them the right of remaining until the time stated upon their small holdings, where the compensation was not sufficient to send them abroad or keep them for any length of time. If those tenants were really driven out of their small holdings, it meant being driven at once into the workhouse, so as to become a tax not only to those good landlords of whom they had heard so much in the House, and so little in Ireland, but they would become a serious charge upon the other unfortunate tenants of the district. He would not delay the time of the Committee, having pointed out these few facts; and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be able to see his way to accept the Amendment which he had already read to the Committee.

New Clause (Suspension of decree of recovery,)—( Mr. Finigan, )— brought up, and read a first time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."

said, he could not agree to the clause moved by the hon. Member (Mr. Finigan), which would make the Bill what it had, without foundation, been charged with being—namely, a Bill for suspension of the payment of rent. With regard also to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Carlow, the Government could not depart from the lines of the Bill, which was to give compensation in cases where it appeared that justice required it.

said, he had urged almost everything he had to say in support of the proposed clause on former occasions, and would then not detain the Committee at that moment further than to say that, in his opinion, the Bill would have been improved had it contained some such principle as the clause embodied, coupled with some machinery for enabling landlords to obtain advances when their tenants were unable to pay their rents. This would afford much greater protection than was given in the Bill to small tenants, which, as it stood, he feared would afford them little or no protection. He should be compelled to take a division on the clause.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 31; Noes 116: Majority 85.—(Div. List, No. 65.)

Schedule.

said, he would call the attention of the Committee, in moving the Amendment which stood in his name, to the answer of the Local Government Board in reply to the application of the Guardians to have Athy Union included in the Schedule of the Bill. It would be seen that they were only two or three days late in their application to have the Union scheduled. The reply of the Local Government Board was to the effect that they had received the resolution of the 3rd March, referring to the necessity of including Athy Union in the Schedule, and had to state, in reply, that the application could not then be entertained, the 29th ultimo being the last day for entertaining applications for loans. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would take the matter of the application into concideration, for, had it been made in proper time, it would have brought the Union under the operation of the Bill. As an illustration of the distress prevailing in the district, he would call at- tention to some cases of ejectment that had come before the Judge. In one case, Richard Young stated that he had the land fully cropped with five acres of oats, two acres of barley, and two acres of turnips, the whole being worth £100 at least. He owed nothing in the world but the rent; his father paid £240 for the farm, and he himself had been in possession for 35 years. His family consisted of five persons; his rent had been £19 a-year, and his present landlord had raised it to £44. There could be no plainer case than this, and the Judge said he would take time to consider the case. In the next case, only one year's rent was due. The defendant had been 40 years on the farm, and intended to spend his life there if he could. The next case was that of a person who had paid his rent regularly; he only owed a year and a-half's rent. Besides these, a large number of cases had been brought forward, and the Judge stayed execution in all of them, until the 1st November. The effect of all this would be, that unless the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland came forward and scheduled this Union, these parties would be turned out of their holdings. Hon. Members would see that the Judge, who had stated he would give every reasonable time that the law allowed, was in favour of the tenantry in these cases; but they would also observe that he was powerless in the matter, beyond a certain time, unless the Union were included in the Schedule. There was another reason why that should be done, in the fact that the number of persons in the poor-house had risen from 318 in the year 1870, to 320 in 1879, and to 430 in the present year. That was in addition to the out-door relief afforded by the Guardians, and to the special out-door relief given, in some cases, to small farmers. Under the circumstances, he besought the Chief Secretary for Ireland to agree to add this Union to the Schedule. He begged to move that the words "County Kildare, Athy Union," be added to the Schedule.

Amendment proposed,

In page 2, line 8, after the word "Tralee," to insert the words "county Kildare, Athy Union."—( Mr. Leahy. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

said, he had no intention to follow the hon. Member who had just spoken into the details of the cases he had alluded to; but he had understood the hon. Member to refer to a case of great hardship and cruelty, which related to the tenant of a Duke. In Ireland there was, at one time, only one Duke, the Duke of Leinster. There was now another Duke. [Mr. LEAHY: The Duke of Leeds.] His contention was that the hon. Gentleman had mentioned no name; and it had appeared to him (Lord Elcho) that the name should be given, in order that inquiry might be made into the alleged facts, and, if possible, that the statement might be refuted. He had now, however, succeeded in the object he had in view.

said, they had already debated whether the Act was to apply to non-scheduled, or only to the scheduled Unions, and it had been decided that it was to apply to the latter only. He could not follow the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Leahy) through the statements he had made; but it must be remembered that they were ex parte statements, and that the Committee had no power to go into them, No doubt, there might be cases for inclusion which, unhappily, it was not now possible to admit. The Government had adopted a definition which the late Government and the late Parliament laid down with reference to relief, and that, he must tell the Committee, they could not then alter.

said, he asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland on what principle he insisted upon maintaining the Schedule unaltered? He was much better acquainted with the state of Ireland than the right hon. Gentleman. He had just spent six months in travelling through the distressed districts, and he would like to know upon what principle the Union of Mallow, one of the distressed districts, was excluded?

said, he must point out to the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), that the question before the Committee was simply that the words "county Kildare, Athy Union," be inserted in the Schedule.

said, he submitted, with all deference, that the hon. Member for Louth was justified in the course he was taking.

said, he thought his hon. Friend the Member for Kildare (Mr. Leahy) had made as strong a case as it was possible to make out for the admission of Athy Union to the scheduled districts. He understood that this Bill had been framed upon a principle, and the principle which was applied to the other Unions would certainly apply to those of Kildare. He thought it hardly fair on the part of the Chief Secretary for Ireland to state that the facts brought forward by his hon. Friend could not be accepted or acted upon in that House. His hon. Friend had shown that it was by a purely exceptional circumstance that the Athy Union had not been scheduled—namely, that application was made on the 3rd of March, while the 29th of February was the last day for scheduling the Unions. The Local Government Board, to whom application was made, had given no other answer than that it was technically out of date; therefore, they had a clear proof that upon every other technical rule the Union should be included in the Schedule. The hon. Member had besides stated a number of cases where the necessity for legislation was abundantly clear; and, in doing so, had pointed out a case where forcible possession had been taken of a farm, but where the Judge, not with standing that an act of violence had taken place, actually extended the time of taking possession. His hon. Colleague had further cited a number of cases in which the Judge had stayed execution. What stronger facts than these could be brought forward on behalf of cases which the Bill already applied to? As an additional reason for including the Union in question in the Schedule, the workhouse had been fuller than it had been for some years previously, there being 420 inmates at the present time, as compared with 320 and 318 in the years 1879 and 1880. Again, they found out-door relief was being granted in the Union to the very class of persons to whom the Bill applied—namely, the small farmers, 76 of whom had received relief of that kind. Then, reference had been made to the enormous amount of distress caused by the sweeping away of the crops by floods—the crops being the only means the tenant had of paying his rent. He (Mr. Meldon) defied the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in the case of any one of the Unions men- tioned in the Schedule, to show such a combination of distressing circumstances as had been embraced in the question before the Committee. He could conceive no stronger argument in favour of the admission of Athy Union than the cases vouched for upon the personal authority of his hon. Friend. With reference to another point—namely, that this relief was not wanted in the County of Kildare, he (Mr. Meldon) was aware that the same necessity did not exist there as in other parts, because the Unions round about Athy had been giving an enormous amount of work, and keeping destitution from the doors of persons living in these districts. That remark, however, did not apply to Queen's County, where evictions were rife at that moment; and he would maintain that there was no place in Ireland where relief was more wanted than in some places in that county. The Union of Athy had been excluded from the Schedule simply through a technical error. Every condition but one that was requisite to bring the Union under the Act had been fulfilled; and, therefore, he trusted that the case would be re-considered by Her Majesty's Government.

said, from everything he had heard that evening he could only arrive at the conclusion that the Schedule had been made on the most haphazard principle. As he understood, the right hon. Gentleman said there was a fatality in following in the principles of his Predecessors in this matter, which, if he persisted in, might lead him into many errors. The way the Schedule was made up was this—it was made upon the Reports of the Inspectors submitted to the authorities of Dublin Castle. Whether the districts got into the Schedule depended in a great measure upon local energy. One district which was very poor was put into the Schedule, while another district equally poor, side by side with it, was excluded. The reason was that some fussy individual had harassed the Inspector sufficiently to induce him to include his district. The Schedule was drawn upon no principle at all, but entirely upon a haphazard plan.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had been allowed a liberty to travel away from the subject under discussion which was denied to private Members. He had been permitted to refer to the principle of the measure in the course of the debate in Committee, while they had not. If he were in Order, he would ask upon what principle the Government framed this Schedule? The hon. Member for Kildare (Mr. Leahy) had shown the state of his Union, and the increase there had been in the pauperism there, and the way in which the number of inmates in the poorhouse had increased. In some places, which were not included in the Schedule, the farmers had been so poor that they had been obliged to obtain seeds for their crops by means of charity. He would ask, when it was proved that there was no employment for labourers in certain districts, and the farmers were so miserably poor that they could not obtain seed for their own ground, whether the Act ought not to be extended to those places? He maintained that that Schedule had been compiled in an entirely haphazard manner, and that it was a disgrace to the legal authorities of Ireland. When this Schedule should be circulated throughout Ireland, it would show the people the ignorance of English officials with regard to that country; for while some of the richest Poor Law Unions in Ireland were included, on the other hand, some of the poorest were left out.

said, he thought that this Amendment deserved attention. If it were right for a tenant farmer, in the districts scheduled in the Bill, to obtain compensation, he could see no reason why the poor tenant who happened to be in a non-scheduled Union should not get the same advantage. The hon. Member for Kildare (Mr. Leahy) had pointed out a case in which the tenant farmers had been served with ejectments, and the ejectments had been given against them in a County Court. It had been shown that the rent charged was excessive, and that all conditions were complied with upon which the arguments in support of this Bill rested. It appeared to him that the general principle of the Bill ought to be carried out in all parts of Ireland where the people were suffering from excessive rent and so forth; and he could not see the use of spending all this time in passing a Bill which was to be so limited in its extent. If the Government could not show any special reason why these Unions should be excluded, then they ought to adopt the Amendment. In a great many cases, either from negligence or from other causes, such as not applying in a proper time, many of the most impoverished districts in Ireland were not in this Schedule. It appeared to him as if the object of the Schedule was to give rise to endless litigation.

said, that, in introducing this Bill, he was sensible that they were proposing legislation of a highly exceptional character, and they stated reasons which they thought justified that proceeding on their part. One of the conditions they had laid down for themselves was that, the legislation being of an exceptional nature, it was absolutely requisite to mark out by a clear and sharp line that could not be mistaken, so that Parliament might perfectly well understand, at any future time, within what limits it should be made a precedent. They found that the late Government, or rather the late Parliament, had dealt with certain portions of Ireland in an exceptional manner for certain purposes, and they had accepted the limits so dealt with as the limit of their Bill. From the point of view in which they contemplated the matter, under very special circumstances and very strict limitations, they proposed to interfere with freedom of contract; and the rule that they laid down for themselves in doing so was a strictness in local definition, bearing in mind the state of things which they found to exist in Ireland. The Government found in certain portions of Ireland difficulties of government and of administration existing which it was their duty to confront, and their proposal had been all along to apply the remedy in those portions of Ireland already marked out. The Committee had already decided in favour of those limitations, and not to extend the exceptional legislation to the whole of Ireland. The present proposal was to extend the application of the Bill, not to the whole of Ireland, but to one particular district not named in the Schedule. If they were to do that, and to extend the application of the Bll in any case, they would have to consider, with most imperfect and inadequate means, of other Unions lying beyond the limits marked out in the measure. Now, that was a process which it would be plainly irrational for them to undertake. There were also proposals to exclude portions of the scheduled districts from the operations of the Bill. Those proposals, if acted upon, would involve the Committee in another set of difficulties, and impose upon them a toil which they would be powerless to complete successfully. The Government, he maintained, must endeavour in this matter to proceed upon particular and intelligible rules. They had to deal with an evil affecting certain portions of Ireland; their view was not to adapt the law precisely to the particular modicum or quantum of distress which might be found in any particular spot over the face of Ireland. The local limitations established by the Schedule was one of the essential elements which tended to prevent the precedent of the Bill from becoming dangerous.

said, he rose for the purpose of supporting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Kildare (Mr. Leahy), inasmuch as he had some knowledge of portions of that county. He must differ altogether from the view taken by the Government that they were bound to follow in the footsteps of their Predecessors in this matter. He did not recognize that the footsteps of their Predecessors were such as any Government ought to follow in any matter connected with Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman ought to extend this Schedule as suggested for the benefit of the tenant, because he had already in practice extended it for the benefit of landlords. The late Government introduced a measure by which Parlinment sanctioned advances to the extent of £750,000 to the landlords; but they exceeded that sum, and actually advanced more than they had power to do. Now, the Government was refusing to the tenants assistance analogous to that which had already been granted to the landlord. He thought that the majority of the Committee would be of opinion that the Amendment should be passed, when they considered that the principle of extending the operation of exceptional measures of relief had already been sanctioned by granting loans to landlords in non-scheduled Unions. Although the advantages which would be obtained by the tenants under this Bill were very paltry, yet they were willing to take them as they were. If it were right and just to give protection to the interests of tenants in some of the counties of Ireland, it was equally right and just to give it to the distressed tenants in Kildare and Wexford, or any other part in Ireland. If a man were distressed or a pauper in England, he was not asked whether he was in a scheduled Union or not before he was relieved. The same advantages ought to be conceded to the people of Ireland. In his view, this measure ought to be extended to all Ireland, and he should again raise his voice in favour of such extension. He hoped that the hon. Member would press his Amendment to a division, and in doing so he would be supported by all who wished to see justice and right done.

said, he could not support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Kildare (Mr. Leahy), as he thought the Committee ought to be satisfied that the Government could not extend the provisions of the Bill beyond the limits of the Schedule as it stood at the present time. He begged to suggest, however, that provision should be made in the Bill for granting the benefits of the measure to such Unions or parts of Unions outside the scheduled districts as the Lord Lieutenant in Council should direct. It seemed to him that such a course would be entirely free from objection, and that it would be a great advantage such a power should exist wherever special grounds existed for it. The Lord Lieutenant ought, he thought, to have the power, whenever a case was made out to the satisfaction of the Privy Council. If that course was adopted, it seemed to him that a great deal of the objection urged by the other side of the House would be met, and the Schedule might stand as at present. If it had been anticipated that the Government were about to bring in this measure, there would, no doubt, have been a rush of Unions claiming the benefits conferred by the measure, and it was obvious that a great many Unions had been excluded from the Schedule by accident or inadvertence. If the harvest did not turn out to be so favourable as was at present expected, there would certainly be great distress outside the scheduled districts, and the power accorded by a provision such as he had suggested in the Bill would be of very great good. If, on the contrary, the Bill should pass without containing any power to extend its provisions, the hands of the Government would be tied at a period when it would be, perhaps, impossible for them to come to Parliament. His suggestion simply was that there might be power to extend the operation of the measure if the Government thought fit to apply it.

said, that with great respect to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and to the Prime Minister, he must say that what had fallen from them entirely failed to convince him that the Amendment was not required. As he understood the Bill, it was intended, not only to meet the distress caused by the failure of crops last year, but to relieve that also which would exist during the coming autumn. Perhaps, when the Schedule was originally framed, or when the Act was passed, the whole of the distressed districts might then be included within the scope of the Bill; but if that were so, the situation had since then greatly changed, and a strong case was made out for the Union of which the hon. Member for Kildare (Mr. Leahy) had spoken. It had been shown by the ton. Member that great injury had recently been done to the crops in that Union; and as strong a case had thus been made out for its inclusion in the scheduled districts, as could be shown for any other coming within the operation of the Bill. It did not seem to him to be a satisfactory reason for the exclusion of any districts now suffering, or likely to suffer, that the Schedule had been framed to meet only the emergency of last year.

said, that, in his opinion, the Schedule ought to be extended; he did not mean to say to the whole of Ireland, but certainly wherever it was required. The Government expressed their intention to adhere to the Schedule; but he could not see that the Schedule was a very valuable, much less an infallible, document. As originally framed, he supposed that the Schedule was put forward by the Local Government Board, subject to the approval of the Lord Lieutenant in Council. He thought that the same power that was given to the Local Government Board in framing the Schedule originally should be granted them for extending it, if necessary. He was strongly in favour of the suggestion which had just been made by the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton). He did not think that the Bill should be restricted to the Schedule; it ought to be applied to any district in Ireland, under the direction of the Local Government Board, and with the approval of the Lord Lieutenant in Council; that was the only way in which they could meet the difficulties of different hon. Members advocating the claims of their respective districts. He would give further power—he would throw the entire responsibility on the Local Government Board to apply the Bill to such Unions as required it. Perhaps it would be well not to bind them necessarily to apply the Bill to the whole Union; but they should be given power to apply it to any particnlar electoral division of a Union which they should think fit. A case was known to him in the North of Ireland, where one portion of the Union was wealthy, and another portion was very much distressed. To meet such a case there ought to be a power given to apply the Bill to any electoral division or Union which required it; if the Bill was to be of any use at all, it must be made elastic, and some power given to local authorities to adapt it to local requirements.

said, that he also would support the proposal of the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton). The Government must, in all these cases, rely upon their own official information; he quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister that the Government must make the Reports of their own Inspectors the guide for drawing the line at the districts where the Bill was to operate. No one would suppose that the Government would rely on any but official testimony; they must act upon the testimony of their own Inspectors, backed up by the recommendation of the Local Government Board. But he could see no reason why the judgment and the testimony of those Inspectors, and the judgment of the Local Government Board, put into the Bill at the passing of the Relief Act, was to be an infallible guide for all time thereafter. If that testimony, and that judgment, had been given with respect to the districts scheduled originally before the passing of the Bill, then the same testimony and the same judgment could be relied on in respect of instances which might arise subsequently. They all hoped that the necessity for extending the area of the scheduled districts, would never arise; but they thought that the Government ought to have it in their power to provide for any possible contingency that might occur. Next December, when the Government would be unable to apply to Parliament, the distress would be greatest in Ireland; and he thought it would be well that the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton) should be adopted, so that the Government might make provision. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had stated that there was very great force in the arguments for extending the Bill, but that the reason for applying it to a limited area was that the case for the Bill rested upon extra-legal considerations. He said that the Government found certain extra-legal state of things to exist in Ireland, and that they proposed to act in the same line. He (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) would venture to offer the right hon. Gentleman, as a reason for adopting the suggestion of his hon. Friend, that the Lord Lieutenant in Council should have power to apply the provisions of the Bill—a very analogous case. When the House of Commons applied to certain districts in Ireland, a much more severe extra legal power than this—when the Irish people were interfered with, and the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended—a provision was inserted in the measure that it should be applied to such districts in Ireland as the Lord Lieutenant and his Council should direct. It was not confined to any particular district; but a wide discretion was given to the Lord Lieutenant in Council to proclaim such districts as he thought fit. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone made the proposal to in trust the same power in the present case to the Lord Lieutenant in the most friendly spirit; he had a considerable knowledge of Ireland and of the legal consideration applicable to their country, and the Committee might feel sure that his proposal might well be adopted. He hoped that the Government might see their way to adopt his very sensible and prudent suggestion, whereby the whole contention concerning the application of the Bill to individual cases would be avoided. He (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) was not authorized to speak for his Colleagues; but he would not hesitate to say that the whole of the Amendments would be withdrawn if power were given to the Local Government Board or the Lord Lieutenant in Council, to extend the operation of the measure. If the Government in trusted to the Local Government Board and the Lord Lieutenant in Council such a power, they might be sure that it would be exercised with prudence and discretion. He would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, as one who had throughout these discussions endeavoured to do justice to his good intentions towards Ireland, in which he firmly believed, and he hoped he would not oppose the present Amendment.

said, he felt conscious of the kind intention with which this alternative was proposed and supported; but, really, on the part of the Government, he must say that they could not undertake such a duty as was proposed. If they were to have the power of including districts, they must have the power of excluding them; and the result would be that the Committee and the House, instead of passing an Act making a certain exceptional or temporary alteration in the law in regard to landlord and tenant, and in regard to contracts in certain districts, would be altering the law in such places as the Executive Government of Ireland thought fit. He did not think it was possible for such an Act to be rightly passed, and the Government could not undertake that responsibility.

remarked, that the discussion had really brought this Bill to its primitive elements, and that was where it exactly stood. The hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) had supported this Amendment on the ground that, in another measure—the Peace Preservation Act—where the liberties of the people of Ireland were temporarily suspended, discretionary power was left to the Lord Lieutenant; and he asked that the same principles might now be applied. He (Lord Elcho) thought logically there was a great deal to be said for that argument; indeed, he did not think it could be answered by the Government, and the Chief Secretary for Ireland had utterly failed to give any answer. They were told that the great object was to consult the Irish people, and to conduct the Bill according to their views; but if that were done on both sides of the House by Repsesentatives from Ireland, the necessary result would be the extension of the Bill to the whole of Ireland. They had found out already that it was not a measure for the relief of distress, but a measure for the good government of Ireland, and to enable the Government to deal with districts in which, without that step, it would be impossible for the Chief Secretary for Ireland to do his duty and to maintain peace. But such a principle would lead to the extension of this Act everywhere, simply because any district outside the scheduled districts had only to make itself sufficiently ungovernable for the Lord Lieutenant and all his officers to come to the conclusion that he dare not enforce the law without putting the district into the Schedule. He used that argument to the hon. Member for Queen's County, who had replied and told him that he might state it publicly. "I will engage if that is done, and that practice is adopted in my county, which is the most orderly county in the whole country, to bring hundreds of men to meet me on the slopes of the Slieve Bloom Mountains, to prove, not that their district is not in a condition to pay their rent, but that they are ungovernable, and that, therefore, the Government ought to put it in their scheduled districts."

I will not ask that these words be taken down; but I want to know whether the noble Lord suggested to the hon. Member that disorders and crimes should be committed in the Queen's County? ["Oh, oh!"] I am delighted to know nothing of that kind passed through his mind.

explained that he was entirely misunderstood. All he did was to put in different words the argument advanced from the Treasury Bench.

observed, that, as he understood the contention of the Prime Minister, it was wrong if the Chief Secretary for Ireland had given Notice to leave out part of a Union. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had several times laid down the doctrine that the duty of a Minister was to listen to the arguments, and, if he could make any alteration which would improve the Bill, without interfering with its general principles, it was his duty to agree to the Amendment. He thought that they had shown that this alteration would be of advan- tage, and that the Government ought to agree to it.

said, that it should be remembered that the precise Amendment before the Committee was an exceptional one. It was the case of a Union of which the Guardians passed a resolution that it should be scheduled, and it was not done owing to the technical objection that it was out of time. That was the only point which arose, and it was surely one which ought to be considered. If the right hon. Gentleman would say that before the Report he would consider whether it should be scheduled he would be satisfied. He hoped the Committee would not allow the general rule to govern this case.

remarked, that there were several other Unions on the point of being scheduled which were not scheduled because of the expiration of time; and if the Chief Secretary would give an assurance that, on Report, the cases of these several Unions would be considered, he trusted the Amendment would not be pressed. He would venture to suggest to the Government that the special circumstances and claims of these Unions, though not in the Schedule to the Bill, should be fairly and dispassionately considered. Indeed, it was plain the Government originally invited discussion of the matter; for, when framing the Bill, they had not confined it to what were known as the scheduled districts, but had used these words—"The Poor Law Unions mentioned in this Schedule." Thus, they very fairly invited discussion on the matter. It was to be regretted that the Government, instead of adopting as their main principle the scheduling under the Relief of Distress Act, had not adopted that under the Seeds Supply (Ireland) Act, 1880. The last mentioned Act could only be applied when the Local Government Board were satisfied that the occupiers of land in the district were generally unable to procure an adequate supply of seed, and thus a clear primâ facie case of general agricultural distress was shown, and a broad line marked out on which the Government might have proceeded. It must be borne in mind, as the late Prime Minister had pointed out, that the scheduling under this Relief of Distress Act was not intended to include small farmers and small agricultural owners, but was for the purpose of giving em- ployment to labourers. It was said that there was no Schedule in the Seeds Act. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: There is no Schedule.] But by the Act the Local Government Board were directed to schedule Unions and districts; and, in fact, there was a list made by the Board, and it was only when so scheduled a Union obtained a loan for the purchase of seeds. To be inserted in the Schedule the Union must show, as he had stated, there was general distress amongst the small holders of land, and an inability to procure seed. The Athy Union had, in fact, been scheduled under the Seeds Act; and the instances quoted by the hon. Members, with names and dates, from the public newspapers, showed very many cases where ejectments had been carried out in a very unfeeling and arbitrary manner. Indeed, the County Court Judge—a gentleman of the highest character and position—Mr. Darling, who was himself a landlord, had, as it appeared, pronounced the very strongest condemnation in respect to the hardships and character of these ejectments. Consequently, in the case of this particular Union not included in the Bill, they had it clearly shown there were in the Union small occupiers generally unable to procure seed, and all suffering from great distress; that there were very many harsh and cruel ejectments brought by the landlords, as to the circumstances of which even the Judge had expressed a very strong opinion. And was it to be said the tenants in this Union should be denied a right conferred upon occupiers in the West Riding of Galway merely because 3,000 police in that county were required to keep it in order? No worse argument could be used by the Government than the police argument, for it simply came to this—that those who had been uncomplaining and patient were to have nothing done for them because they had been so patient and uncomplaining.

only wished to mention one circumstance in support of the Amendment. In one very small district he knew of 40 decrees of ejectment that were pending against the farmers.

said, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, on several occasions, had denied that there were any Unions scheduled for the purposes of the Seeds Act; but the Report of the Local Government Board for Ireland, dated 17th of April, 1880, dealing with the advances of money by the Local Government Board to the Board of Guardians, without interest, for the purchase of seed to be sold at low prices to the occupiers of lands, stated that the Board was instructed to inform the Guardians in certain Unions that they might anticipate the passing of a Bill brought in for that purpose, and that they were also directed to entertain applications from other Unions, if they were satisfied the occupiers had no seed, and no means of purchasing it. The Report went on—

"We accordingly issued a Circular, and later we were instructed to keep a Schedule of Unions for seed purposes, separate and distinct."

That proved that the Chief Secretary for Ireland was incorrect in his statement.

remarked, that he was not at all prepared to agree with the suggestion now under discussion, because he had always contended that the House of Commons was the proper tribunal to settle such matters, and that as little as possible should be left to the Executive. But as it had now been proved that there were Schedules for seed purposes, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would allow all Unions so scheduled to be added to the present Bill. If that were done, he thought all the purposes desired could be served.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 41; Noes 275: Majority 234.—(Div. List, No. 66.)

said, it was the intention of the Schedule to confine the operation of the Bill to those districts scheduled under the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act; the object of the next Amendment on the Paper, which stood in his name, was to correct a clerical error, three Unions having been inserted where only certain electoral divisions were intended. He, therefore, begged to move that after "Old castle" the following words be inserted, "so far as relates to the electoral division of Ballyjamesduff, Castlerahan and Kilbride."

Amendment proposed,

In page 2, line 9, after the word "Old castle," to insert the words "so far as relates to the electoral divisions of Ballyjamesduff, Castlerahan, and kilbride."—( Mr. William Edward Forster. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

said, he need use no further argument against the Amendment than to say that if one district was excluded through an error from the Schedule, he did not see why other districts which had been inserted in the Bill in error should also be excluded. He was inclined to think that the argument of the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) would prove correct, that places were not scheduled because they were not sufficiently disorganized. He hoped the whole Irish Party would support him in opposing the Amendment.