said, he rose for the purpose of opposing the suspension of the Standing Orders; and he opposed their suspension on this ground—if ever there was a Bill which ought to pass through all the regular Forms of the House, it was the Bill now under discussion. The Standing Orders were intended to prevent the promoters of Private Bills from taking the House of Commons by surprise, and smuggling through the House Bills involving important general principles, without affording a proper opportunity for having those principles discussed. In the case of the present Bill, a most important general principle was raised; and although, no doubt, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin), whom he (Mr. Gorst) saw in his place, would endeavour to make out that there was no very important principle raised by the Bill, but yet, when the hon. Member for Hythe was addressing a more congenial audience, in the shape of the shareholders of a Railway Company, he boasted that the Bill repealed virtually certain sections of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act; and the hon. Member added, that if the measure passed, as he hoped it would, in the House of Commons, it would be possible in the future for Railway Companies to set at naught the provisions of that Act by having clauses introduced into the middle of a Private Bill, which would effectually take them out of the operation of that Act.

rose to Order. He thought the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Gorst), in discussing whether the Standing Orders should be suspended, in order to enable a Private Bill to be considered, was travelling very much out of his way in the remarks he was addressing to the House.

, continuing, said, the question was not whether the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act was a bad measure, but whether, in this particular instance, the House would depart from its Standing Orders or not. Surely, it was more than ever necessary to adhere to the Standing Orders, when the Bill with which they were dealing raised so important a question as the alteration of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. He was surprised at the silence with which the Motion for suspending the Standing Orders had been made. He certainly thought some reason should have been given by the promoters of the Bill, in justification for this departure from the ordinary course; whereas, he scarcely knew who it was who moved the suspension of the Standing Orders, and no reason had been given by the promoters of the Bill for the extraordinary course taken. The delay, if there had been delay, had been at the instance of the promoters themselves. In the last Session of the late Parliament, they lost considerable time by their own dilatory proceedings; in the present Parliament, they had lost at least a month by the same kind of delay and dilatory proceeding. It was, therefore, too much for the promoters of a Private Bill to come down to the House, and ask to be relieved of the consequences of their own delay by so drastic a measure as the suspension of the Standing Orders, without giving a single reason why the Standing Orders ought to be suspended. The hon. Member for Hythe would tell them that this was not the time to discuss the Bill. He (Mr. Gorst) had only occupied the time of the House in explaining the general effect of the peculiar clauses of the Bill, and he thought they afforded sufficient reason why the ordinary course of procedure should be adopted, and why the Standing Orders ought not to be suspended. Under these circumstances, he would oppose the Motion for suspending the Standing Orders.

Question put.

The House divided: —Ayes 82; Noes 142: Majority 60.—(Div. List, No. 76.)

asked what effect the division would have? Could the Bill be brought on again?

said, the effect of the Vote just taken by the House was against the suspension of the Standing Orders. On another occasion the Bill might be brought forward.

, who had on the Paper the following Amendment:—

"That this House, sympathising with the distress of the tenant farmers and cottiers of Ireland, prefers to vote from the Imperial Exchequer the funds necessary to relieve their present sufferings and promote their future welfare, and considers it inexpedient to provide the means for this outlay from one class of the community holding property in the distressed districts,"

said, he found that a great many hon. Members were anxious to support the Government; but, at the same time, they did not go with them entirely in their views on the Bill. They all were surprised at the arduous way in which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had carried the Bill through to its present stage, and they all felt that the right hon. Gentleman had his heart in doing that which he thought would benefit the inhabitants of the distressed districts in Ireland. He Mr. Crompton-Roberts), however, was anxious not to let the opportunity pass without saying how deeply he felt the almost immorality of voting away the money of the landowners of Ireland, and how severely it went against his conscience to be there and to support what he considered was immorality. He should be very glad if it were in the power of Her Majesty's Government, having seen the difficulties which surrounded the Bill, and knowing that it did not in any way satisfy the Irish Party in the House, to find the means of relieving the distress in Ireland from sources other than trying the landlords in the distressed districts. The measure did not meet the wishes of anyone, not even the Irish Party. He believed 99 out of 100 landlords had done their duty to their tenants; and he thought, therefore, that it was unjust to make them suffer, when they had behaved kindly and humanely to their tenants. It appeared to him that it would be very desirable, if possible, to place this matter entirely in the hands of the Irish Party, and let them find some more ready and convenient way than the method proposed by the Bill. He thought the general funds of the country should be charged with the means of relieving the miseries of the tenant farmers. If it were possible, he should like to see a Committee formed to work out these views thoroughly, and to find out the best means of obtaining relief, and then applying it. He was told that the amount required was comparatively small; and, for his part, he should very much prefer to start a subscription towards the relief instead of burdening the Irish landlords, and, if it were in Order to do so, he would gladly put down his mite of £1,000 for that purpose. If the country could provide the funds necessary to relieve the tenants, he should rejoice that the landlords of Ireland were not mulcted for that purpose. It would be much better to take the course which he recommended on the Notice he had given than to rob the landlords. It was far from his intention to impede the progress of the Bill; his only object was to endeavour to induce the Government, if possible, to charge the general funds of the country with the sum requisite for the relief of Irish distress; and, therefore, he should not move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

, in moving as an Amendment—

"That having regard to the limited powers and the restricted area of application proposed in this Bill, this House is of opinion it will fail to accomplish the praiseworthy purpose contemplated by the Government of affording protection and relief to the suffering tenantry of Ireland, and declares that a much more comprehensive and efficacious measure of justice is imperatively called for in the interests of Her Majesty's subjects,"

said, that the conduct pursued by the Irish Members toward the Government in reference to that Bill, throughout the debate, had not been correctly understood in the House, nor had it been fairly appreciated out-of-doors. Some of his hon. Colleagues, therefore, thought it would be well upon that which, perhaps, would be the last opportunity afforded, that they should place on record in a clear, concise, and intelligible form the grounds of their action during the debates, the motives which had actuated them, and the attitude which they desired to take up as to the future consequences of the Bill. In the first place, he rejoiced that he was able to make the statement that they desired to recognize frankly the praiseworthy intention with which the Government had introduced that Bill; and if the course which some of the Irish Members had felt themselves bound to take, in their endeavours to amend the Bill, had, at any time, seemed to savour of hostility to the purpose of the Government, or if they had occasionally seemed to lack appreciation of the motives of the Government, they desired, at that last moment, to state candidly that they had been anxious, while recognizing the praiseworthy intentions of the Bill, to say that, knowing, as they did, something of their own country, the only fault they found with it was that it would fail to realize the beneficent intentions of its authors. For his own part, and he believed he also spoke for others, the Bill had been commended to him far more by the opposition it elicited than by what he could read of the Bill. From its first inception, it seemed to him to be a small measure, painfully inadequate to the terrible emergencies of Ireland. Many of the Irish Members, in fact, doubted whether it was worth while discussing the Bill at all. Many of them believed that, for all practical purposes, there were not 10 tenants in Ireland who would be saved or served by the Bill. Some took that view—he did not. But even those hon. Gentlemen had been quickened to the perception of merit in the Bill by the opposition which had sprung up against it on the part of some hon. Members of the House. Between that time and the 1st of May, all he could say was that the opposition in the House and out-of-doors, the threatened revolt of the Whig section of Her Majesty's Government, had driven him back upon the contemplation of the history of the efforts made by Ministers in the House since 1816 to grapple in the same way with the Land Question. The right hon. Gentlemen the present Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary for Ireland were not the first who had essayed to deal with the question, and whose intentions had been frustrated by English public opinion failing to appreciate the dangers which a statesman's judgment and foresight had detected. How often had the classes who had defended landed property in that House been too strong for a Minister whose courage or whose humanity had induced him to declare that reform was needed? Thus it was that the half-century down to 1870 marked a period in Irish history black and disfigured in blood that had been shed in the dreadful war over the Irish Land Question. [ Laughter .] He was sorry to see hon. Gentlemen now taking up the historic attitude of their class, and meeting with the laugh of scorn the cry of the Irish peasant for protection and justice. Could any Member of the anti-tenant Party in the House put his finger upon one period when the landlord class in Ireland, or their Representatives in that House, came forward and asked a Minister of the Crown to reform the Irish Land Laws? Where was the evil which that class had not defended? Where was the now admitted crime in the past Land Laws of Ireland which they had not vindicated? Where was the now generally admitted beneficent reform on the Land Question that they had not doggedly resisted inch by inch? And yet there were Whigs and Tories in the House who would admit that some of the laws repealed within the last 60 years were defenceless and abhorrent—laws, the repeal of which was opposed with the same bitterness and dogged determination as were now again displayed. This unhappy friction between classes who ought to live in good will had produced lamentable results in past times, for no country could prosper in which the relations of landlord and tenant were not based on good feeling and justice; more especially must this be the case in Ireland, where agriculture was the occupation of the great bulk of the population, and every day the heat and temper, if not the passion, of the Irish peasantry, was rising as they marked the resistance to their just demands by those who ought to lead them to reform. No doubt, strong language had been from time to time used, and sentiments were uttered which, if they were accurately reported, were to him detestable and abhorrent; but he asked the defenders of the landlords in that House whether they were not themselves responsible for the agitation which prevailed, and whether their acts and language did not encourage it? He would warn them not to play the game of those whom they called incendiaries. If they wished to teach the Irish people to have confidence in Parliamentary action, let them not say that Ministers of England proposed to destroy the foundations of society. If the Irish peasant read that such language was used by Ministers he would care little for any denunciations of himself. He adjured Her Majesty's Government to make use no longer of the word "confiscation." Let them not stir up by that word the memories of the Irish peasant. It was the last and most fatal word in the whole dictionary which they should teach him, yet it had been applied to this measure. Hon. Members who used that word little knew the painful memories the word called forth. To whom was the word addressed? To the Irish population, who had lost everything by confiscation. Why, those hon. Members themselves were the Representatives of a class who held property by a real confiscation in its most lawless and ruthless sense, not by the so-called confiscation of the peaceful and legitimate action of the Legislature of the country. But there was another confiscation besides that, enacted in the spirit of conquest, of which the Irish peasant had to complain; and that had almost been lost sight of in these debates. Long after the Irish farmers had, on the confiscated estates in Ireland, set themselves to create farms on what was bog and moorland, the Irish landlords stepped in, and by the new confiscation of raising the rents had robbed the tenants of their right in the reclamation of the soil. Out of £20,000,000 worth of property which passed through the Landed Estates Court in Ireland, it had been computed—and he did not doubt the substantial correctness of the computation—that £3,000,000 had been filched from the tenantry, their own property, as sacred in the eye of moral obligation as any property of the landlord. But that property, however, in the absence of any just law dealing with it had been confiscated. This was before the Act of 1870, in which the first recognition of the equity of the tenant in his holding was placed on the Statute Book. He listened a few evenings ago to the well-affected horror of hon. Gentlemen on the Conservative side at the language of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) in speaking of the proprietary right of the tenant in his holding, and he could not help saying then, what he repeated now—that there would not be a Conservative Member returned for Ireland but four—namely, the Members for Belfast and for Dublin University, if the Members went to their constituents in Ulster and denied the proprietary right of the tenant in his holding. But they were told that there ought to be freedom of contract, and hon. Members pointed to the law of property. But who made those laws and contracts? Were they passed in a Court of Parliament in which the tenant was before the Court? It was known right well that it was only within the last three or four years that the tenantry of Ireland could be said to have had any practical representation in the House, and even now they had but a very in-different representation in it. What did Lord Chief Justice Pennefather say in reference to Irish Land Laws? He said that in all the laws relating to the Land Question up to his time the sole object of the Legislature was to protect and advance the rights of the landlords, and to sacrifice, if necessary, to those the equitable rights of the tenant. Those were not the words of Mr. Davitt at a land meeting; but were the words of the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, sitting on the Bench. It would be a severe thing to say that in Russia despotism was tempered by assassination; but it had been said that in Ireland landlordism was tempered by assassination; and there was the language of an English historian, Mr. Froude, who declared that the Land Act of 1870, which came in to temper landlordism more legitimately, was almost the only beneficent Act passed for the tenantry of Ireland for 200 years. He (Mr. Sullivan) hoped that these words would cause the ultra-landlord Party to consider what they were doing, and to look, which they could not do without a blush, to the record of the resistance offered for 70 years to land reforms in Ireland, and he hoped, however faintly, that they would waive their objections to this faltering and almost trifling endeavour to settle some of the evils of the Land Question in Ireland. The Irish Members felt that the Government measure ought to have been more strong-handed, more comprehensive, more thorough. It was, however, a step in the right direction, and they knew very well that the reason it had been opposed in so bitter a spirit by hon. Gentlemen who thought they were defending the doctrines of property was because they saw, or thought they saw, in it, looming in the future, the germs of a great, comprehensive, and just measure of Land Reform for Ireland. Heaven grant it might be so. If Her Majesty's Government intended to introduce such a measure they would have to nerve themselves for a great effort, for they would have to oppose not only their usual opponents, but their faint-hearted—if not back-sliding—nominal supporters sitting on the Ministerial Benches. His only reason for having put the Amendment on the Paper was that he might place on record the opinion of a considerable majority of the Irish Members that the Bill was not entirely efficacious, and did not rise to the level of the present emergency, but that it had some points to recommend it, and ought to be accepted as an instalment of justice, and as a recognition of the wish of the Government to do yet further justice to the Irish people.

, in seconding the Amendment, said, that throughout the discussions on that Bill he had found his position very embarrassing. He cordially approved of the Bill so far as it recognized the principle of the revision of rent; but, at the same time, he could not help seeing that it put before the public an entirely erroneous view of the causes that had led to the distress existing amongst the occupiers of land in Ireland, and which, consequently, brought misery upon the whole agricultural population. There was one fact which the House ought always to keep before it when dealing with the Irish Land Question, and it was this—that the Irish agricultural occupiers were, and always had been, rack-rented. He maintained that rents in Ireland were too high, when they considered the character of the climate, the means at the disposal of the occupiers to develop the resources of the soil, and the extraordinary competition they had to encounter. Let them take an agricultural occupier from England, Scotland, France, or Belgium, over an average Irish farm, give him a faithful idea of what it produced, and ask him if he thought, after paying the rent, he could live on the balance of the produce in comfort, or even comparative comfort. He (the O'Donoghue) was sure that in 99 cases out of 100 the stranger's answer would be that the rent was too high, and that he could not live on the farm in anything approaching comfort without an expenditure of his capital. ["Oh, oh!"] It might be unpleasant for hon. Members to hear statements of that nature; but, nevertheless, they must allow him to make them, because he believed them to be strictly true, and to have an important bearing upon the subject under discussion. He could say that he had always had a great aversion to bringing charges against individual landlords; but, at the same time, he could not admit that only a section of the landlords required to be controlled by Land Acts. They all claimed the power of charging what they pleased for the land, and of evicting if they did not get what they wanted. The mere laying claim to that power was a standing menace to the existence of the tenantry, and its exercise had led to the extermination of millions. He did not care then to distinguish between good and bad landlords, and he avoided doing so, lest it might be supposed that the agricultural occupiers of Ireland could ever be satisfied with anything short of the un- equivocal recognition by the State of their undoubted right to live on the land, subject only to the fulfilment of certain conditions, which, as honest men, they were ready to perform. In support of his statement that the Irish tenantry were rack-rented, he had quoted the testimony of the late Lord Derby, and he had shown that the causes which led to rack renting at the time that noble Lord spoke existed still, and produced precisely similar results. Moreover, he (the O'Donoghue) referred to what was an indisputable fact, that in innumerable cases in Ireland rent was only paid under threat of eviction or threat of seizure of stock. [ Laughter .] The House laughed at that. It did not occur to him that any explanation was necessary, as he took for granted that everyone would see that pressure was required, owing to the rents being too high, and not from any inherent reluctance of the Irish tenant to pay rent. The Irish agricultural occupiers had been impoverished by the continued exaction of excessive rents, and the statement in the Preamble of the Bill that the distress had arisen from the failure of the crops was altogether misleading, if it was intended to convey that the failure of the crops was the sole cause of the depression. As a general rule, the Irish farmers had been able to lay by little or nothing; and, consequently, they had no reserve with which to meet a sudden emergency, such as the failure of the crops. Now, why was it necessary that the House should keep before it the fact that the tenantry of Ireland were rack-rented? The reasons were numerous. One was, that excessive renting was the chief grievance of the Irish tenant. Another was, that the exaction of excessive rents rendered futile, absurd, and utterly irrelevant, the high-toned lectures which were frequently delivered from both sides of the House for the special benefit of Irish tenants and their advocates. Whenever the Land Question was under discussion they were always reminded of the obligation that rested on individuals and communities of paying their debts, of the inviolability of contracts, and of the ruin that must overwhelm society if those principles were not rigidly adhered to. They admitted all that, and were quite as keenly alive to the vital necessity of enforcing these principles as any of their self-constituted censors; but that admission in no way implied that any obligation rested upon tenants to pay unjust, excessive rents, which recently, as well as in the time of the late Lord Derby, they had been forced to assume, under the pressure of circumstances, they could not resist. That admonitory tone was most offensive to the Irish tenantry and to their advocates. It suggested an entirely false issue, and rendered argument almost impossible. The House would admit that no good could come of the attempt to misrepresent the grounds of the controversy between landlord and tenant which was now agitating Ireland. The most astounding instance of the immeasurable length to which reckless partizanship would carry even a Judge on the Bench had been recklessly afforded by some observations of Mr. Justice Lawson, during the late Assizes at Tralee. That learned Judge had had what he (the O'Donoghue) could not help calling the effrontery to say that the action of the tenantry of Kerry, in resisting the exaction of unjust rents, was similar to that of some persons who stood before him charged with pilfering. He deplored that exhibition of partizanship coming from such a quarter, as it must shake general confidence in the impartiality of the Bench, and he would have passed the matter over in silence had he not felt it ought to be known that the only effect of such shameless misrepresentation would be to rouse still more the spirit of the people. The best answer to the statement of Justice Lawson was afforded by that Bill, by which it was sought to bring about throughout a great portion of Ireland a revision of rent, and, by so doing, to substitute, at all events temporarily, for rent which the tenant could not pay, and which threatened to cause his eviction, rent which he could pay, and thus retain his position on the soil. This provision of the Bill, limited though it was in the area of its operation, and uncertain as it must be in its operation, owing to the circumstance that it rested with each individual Chairman to say what constituted a fair or an unfair rent, still that provision of the Bill carried the Bill immeasurably beyond any that had ever been introduced by a Government, inasmuch as it called the landlord to account for the rent he had thought proper to impose on the tenant, and recognized that the claim of the landlord to charge what he liked for the land might lead to the ruin of the tenant. This Bill admitted the principle for which they had long contended, that the power of arbitrarily fixing the rent could not, with safety, be left to the landlord, and was an admission on the part of the responsible Advisers of the Queen, who had at their head the foremost statesman of the day, that the landlord could now ask the tenant for rent which it was utterly impossible for the tenant to pay, and ruin the tenant for not doing that which was impossible. As he had already said, the principle of the Bill, limited though the Bill was in the area of its operation, and uncertain as it must be in its application, commanded their entire approval, as they saw in it the principle of the revision of rent by an independent authority. Notwithstanding the good intentions of the Government—which had been referred to by the hon. and learned Member who moved the Amendment (Mr. A. M. Sullivan)—and the credit they deserved for their mode of dealing with the Land Question, as compared with that of their Predecessors, still it was impossible not to see that their position was, in many respects, very illogical. What the Government were going to do was this—when a tenant was on the point of being evicted, they were then going to step in and tell the landlord the rent which, it would be fair to charge the tenant. Would not the reasonable course be, at some early stage of the tenancy, to provide some means which would insure the fixing of a fair rent, and thus lead to a destruction of the causes that brought about eviction? The Government had admitted, over and over again, that there were certain cases in which it might be wrong for the landlord to evict a tenant; but, in the same breath almost, they had given the tenantry to understand that if they did not submit to this wrong quietly they must expect to be shot down. It was unnecessary to point out that what was wrong could have no moral sanction whatever, so that in these cases all that the landlord could have to rely upon would be law of brute force. Why was it that this law was sanctioned? One answer only could be given to that question, and it was this—that the influence of the territorial class was too great to admit of justice being done. At all events, it was a consolation to reflect that the course taken by the Government in the Bill amounted to a practical condemnation of the existing land system, that in certain cases an effort was to be made to punish landlords if they attempted to carry out that system; and this, he felt confident, could not fail to have a very serious effect upon the agitation now existing in Ireland in helping it forward. He believed, no matter what might happen to the Bill, that the course taken by the Government in introducing it had sounded the knell of the present land system; and he was convinced that, in peace or in convulsion, by the law, or in spite of the law, through the Parliament, or over the Parliament, tenant right must be carried.

Amendment proposed,

To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "having regard to the limited powers and the restricted area of application proposed in this Bill, this House is of opinion it will fail to accomplish the praiseworthy purpose comtemplated by the Government of affording protection and relief to the Buffering tenantry of Ireland, and declares that a much more comprehensive and efficacious measure of justice is imperatively called for in the interests of that class of Her Majesty's subjects,"— (Mr. A. M. Sullivan,)

—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

said, that the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend opposite (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) appeared to him to suggest to all those who really supported the question of tenant right in what some of them considered its moral and full aspect, that there was no alternative but to vote for it, because it embodied almost a truism, so that no hon. Member of the House who had really taken an interest in the Irish Land Question would hesitate to affirm the latter part of his hon. and learned Friend's proposition. Nobody believed that the present Bill of the Government was designed for any other purpose than to deal with the particular circumstances of the moment. It was not intended as a land reform; and, on that account, for his part, he regretted very much a portion of the discussions which had taken place during the progress of the Bill through the House. He was not, perhaps, a persona grata with some of his hon. Friends opposite; but, notwithstanding that circumstance, he must say that he believed that sympathy for the Irish tenant in the minds of independent Members of that House was less after the discussions which had taken place, and for which they were responsible, than it was when the Bill was introduced. The attempt to force the Government and the House of Commons to deal exhaustively with the Land Question in the remainder of this Parliament, when it was impossible for the Government to make up its mind on the questions involved, had led to a great many acrimonious scenes, which would leave behind them a sting which would not redound to the benefit of the Irish tenant. There had been statements of the most extraordinary and exaggerated character made in that House as regarded the Land Act. He would not yield to anybody in his sympathy with the Irish tenant; but it was ridiculous to say that the sole cause of the state of the Irish tenant at this moment was rack-renting. That statement was not correct. Doubtless, there were many tenants who suffered greatly from rack-renting; but others held their lands at a very just rent. Everybody that looked back during the past 10 years must be aware that up to five years ago the tenants in Ireland were as prosperous as those in any other part of the United Kingdom. ["No, no!"] At any rate, they were more prosperous than they had ever been in their own history; and it seemed to him that when they looked at the prices of the commodities in which they chiefly dealt—that was to say, in cattle—it was impossible to gainsay his statement. During the time when the commercial prosperity of this country was proceeding by leaps and bounds, the demand for cattle and for meat was so great that almost any price could be obtained for Irish stock. The tenants then became careless about the rents they paid, they threw their land into pasture, and they themselves inflicted the greatest hardship on their suffering fellow-tenants by bidding over their heads for their little holdings. At the same time, the landlords were greatly to blame. They took possession of every acre of arable land they could obtain, and converted it into pasture, and the result had been that the produce of the whole of Ireland had vastly decreased, not only during 10, but for 40 years. They were punished now for the sins of their forefathers. Those sins were shared by the landlords; but it was impossible for him, with any sense of justice, to hear it said that the tenant was all virtue, and the landlord was all vice. He did not believe that the question of rent in Ireland was the beginning and the end of the Land Question, as it had been put by his hon. Friend the Member for Tralee (the O'Donoghue.) The real danger and ill of Ireland was the uncertainty in which a tenant was placed as to whether his improvements and fruits of his exertions would not be confiscated by reason of his rent being arbitrarily raised. If hon. Gentlemen who wished to arouse the sympathy of English and Scotch Members would adduce instances of the unjust raising of rent and the confiscation of tenants' improvements, they would make a greater impression on the House than they could hope to do by wholesale denunciations of the land system. He did not believe that amongst the great mass of the tenantry of any part of the United Kingdom there was an overweening desire to own land which was to pay them only 3 per cent. Sometimes arguments were brought forward in favour of the total abolition of landlords. If hon. Members desired to abolish landlords altogether, it was folly to pretend that they aimed at placing the relations of landlord and tenant on a better footing. That could not be their aim. The principle that he who tilled the soil should own it had been promulgated as solemnly as if it were a Divine law. [A Voice: True.] The tenant did not go that length. All he really desired was some guarantee that his rent should not be arbitrarily raised upon him. The object of the Irish tenant was to get security that he might know what his rent would be, and not that he should be converted into a landlord himself. But when hon. Members went about teaching that a man ought only to pay what rent he pleased—[The O'Donoghue: No, no!] Well, he had heard of such doctrines being promulgated by Gentlemen whom, he believed, he had the honour of seeing before him. He trusted hon. Members in that quarter of the House would note what had just been said by the hon. Member for Tralee. [The O'Donoghue: I am for arbitration.] As to that, he would remark that arbi- tration could only arise when there was a dispute between the landlord and tenant as to the amount of rent to be paid. Now, if the principle was admitted that the landlord and tenant should settle the rent between them, if necessary by arbitration, everything was conceded that he asked for. But the moment they went beyond that, and taught the tenant that he ought to be his own arbitrator—[The O'Donoghue: I never said that.] He was not alluding to the hon. Member for Tralee; but he should like to hear what the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), or the hon. Member for Tralee's Leader, had to say on that point. Was it not the fact that doctrines of the kind alluded to had been preached in Ireland during the past 12 months? Well, if such were not the doctrines of the Land League, he was unable to comprehend the English language. Against those doctrines he protested. He would not, however, pursue this subject further. As regarded the main question, he was convinced that no solution of the land difficulty could be arrived at until absolute security was given to the tenant that his rent should not be arbitrarily interfered with. But when they had given the tenant fixity of tenure, the right of selling his interest in the holding, and arbitration in case of dispute between him and his landlord as to rent, they would not have made the tenant a prosperous man. The Irish soil itself must be put into a condition which would enable the tenants to be prosperous. Ireland was, in truth, an undeveloped country, and he believed that a capital not larger than the capital of one of their smaller English railways judiciously expended in Ireland, in great part upon reproductive works, would be an insurance for this country such as they had never obtained before. Here was a splendid opportunity for the Treasury! It would give them a tranquil Ireland, a contented people, and would be the best safeguard that the Crown could have against those shocks of coming wars, which those who looked at the disturbed state of Europe and of the East must think not to be wholly impossible. He entreated the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland carefully to consider the question during the coming Recess with special reference to the strange, and, he might say, the unexampled, conditions in which the Irish people lived. There were no people who were subjected to greater privations than the ordinary Irish tenant. For two or three months in every year there were something like 150,000 people in Ireland compelled to subsist on food which hon. Members in that House would not throw to their dogs. The poor people of the West, once their stock of potatoes was exhausted, had no resource but boiled seaweed and periwinkles sprinkled with Indian meal. Children were often brought up without ever tasting milk. In many parts of Ireland, indeed, milk could not be obtained, owing to the land being given up to the grazing of bullocks. Now that Parliament had been brought face to face with this great Irish land difficulty, he would say, Woe to the Government which did not rise to the occasion! It was, therefore, to him (Mr. Mitchell Henry) depressing in the last degree to hear the Chief Secretary for Ireland say, as he constantly said—"Icannot undertake to deal with this or that social difficulty; it is a question for the Treasury to consider." Let the right hon. Gentleman, however, first convince himself of the remedies demanded by the state of Ireland; and if he was then unable to get the funds he believed to be requisite for the development of the national resources of the country, let him do what many noble statesmen had done before him, resign his Office. If the right hon. Gentleman were to take that manly step, he would not only fulfil the high expectations formed by those who knew him, but compel the Government to adopt his view, and would cover this Session of Parliament and the present Administration with unfading glory which would descend with them to all coming ages.

said, he had listened with attention to the speech of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), who had really been discussing the principle of the Bill; but, although he agreed with much his hon. Friend had said, he must say he did not feel justified, on the present occasion, in following him upon the very large questions to which he had adverted. He felt obliged to his hon. Friend for the kind way in which he had alluded to himself, although he might not feel called upon to signalize himself by resigning this Session, as his hon. Friend had suggested in his strong lamentation. [Mr. MITCHELL HENRY: Not this session.] He under- stood his hon. Friend to say that he (Mr. W. E. Forster) should resign, if he could not get the Treasury to do what was wanted. He did not know that such a heroic measure as that was necessary; but he was quite prepared to admit that the development of the resources of Ireland was a subject of the greatest possible importance. It was a subject, at the same time, which demanded for its full consideration not a few weeks or a few months only, and any attempt to deal with it in haste might result merely in jobbery and a waste of money. But he had no objection to state that if money could be lent on good security in Ireland, for the purpose of developing the resources of the country, its expenditure might be productive of great advantage. There was, he might add, something in the condition of the Irish peasantry which went beyond the question of rents; for if that question were decided in accordance with any particular view, it would by no means follow that the condition of the Irish small holders would be materially improved. As to the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan), he did not suppose the Mover had any hope of carrying it if he went to a division; for if it were carried, the result would be to defeat the Bill, and he supposed hon. Members from Ireland did not wish that. He quite agreed with the hon. and learned Member that the Bill would not effect all that ought to be done with regard to the Land Question in Ireland; but he had over and over again stated that it was meant to be only a temporary measure to meet a temporary emergency. He could not, he might add, accept the interpretation which had been put upon the Bill by the hon. Member for Tralee (the O'Donoghue), either as to its object or effect; and he could only suppose that there had been so much exaggeration as to the meaning of the measure on the part of some leading Members of the Conservative Party that the hon. Gentleman had, to some extent, caught the infection. The Bill had not been introduced with the intention of revising rents in Ireland; but to prevent the landlord from taking advantage of the position of a poor tenant to deprive him of that which he possessed. He would only say, further, that, as there had been so much discussion on the principle of the Bill, and as it was not likely to undergo any greater change than had already been made in it, he hoped it would be passed by a large majority of the House with as little delay as possible and left to the opinion of the country.

wished to point out, in reply to the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), that there was plenty of money in Ireland to develop its resources, which was now invested in English securities, because it was found that it could not be employed with advantage at home. He protested, therefore, against its being suggested publicly and privately to a Minister, who could know nothing of Ireland, to lend public money in the way which had been proposed for the development of the resources of that country; for to do so, as proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, upon what he called "good security," would be a mere idle farce, for it would tend to demoralize the country, as it would be sure to get into jobbers and speculators' hands, instead of into the right channel. All who knew the history of those Government loans were aware that they had been expended in the most injudicious way, and on works which had been left unfinished. As to the existence in many cases of exorbitant rents in Ireland, that they did exist was proved by the fact that in several instances of ejectment for non-payment of rent it had been found that the rent claimed was very much over the Government valuation, and much more than the tenants could afford to pay. The result of the present system of excessive rents was that the tenants were kept on the verge of poverty, and they had no margin to fall back on in bad years. The consequence was that they became in arrears with their landlords, and were turned out of their holdings. With regard to getting rid of landlords and not paying rent, all the Land League said was that the men who occupied the land should own the land; but they never contended that the occupiers should get the land without paying a fair price for it. What they wanted was the Government to fix a fair price, and lend money to the tenants to enable them to pay it. He held that none of the arguments which had been advanced against the suspension of ejectments were of any weight. By far the simplest thing to have done would have been to have brought in a Bill to do away with ejectments for non-payment of rents within a given time. As it was, he did not think the Bill would be of any value whatever. It only affected a very small portion of Ireland, and that was his great objection to it. The Bill was based on thoroughly unsound principles in many particulars. His experience of the House was that the Ministers of the Crown, no matter to which Party they belonged, cared little for principle, but all for expediency; and as to the very small amount of principle in it, it was not worth the time wasted on it, or the disappointment it would give to the people of Ireland.

denounced the Bill as bad legislation, and one which should be met by a strong protest on the part of the Irish Members in the shape of a division. The onus of passing this Bill through the House should be left on the shoulders of those who introduced it. The Bill had been carried through Committee without any concession to the Irish Members; and they could only do their duty by leaving the responsibility of it; and he urged his hon. and learned Friend to divide on his Amendment. If the Bill was just, he would have supported it; but as it created anomalies, giving partial justice in one place and injustice in others, it was better to let the sores that festered round the body of Ireland come to a head than to gloss them over, and partially deal with them by the quackery of the present Bill. Had the Government brought in a thorough-paced Bill, and relied upon the principles enunciated by the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright), and had they not given way to the base Whiggery that he was afraid had hampered them, he (Mr. Finigan) would have supported the Bill. The measure was the result of the Whigs, and was neither a measure of relief nor compensation.

Question put.

The House divided :—Ayes 132; Noes 25: Majority 107.—(Div. List, No. 77.)

Main Question put, and agreed to .

Bill considered .

, in rising to move the following Clause:— ment for the non-payment of two years' arrears, and the Judge awarded three years' as compensation, the tenant might repeat the process he had mentioned, besides putting the additional year's rent into his pocket. He could hardly think these consequences were intended—consequences so startling that they plainly shocked common sense, and could not have been contemplated by the Government. As to the Proviso in relation to mortgagees, he was unable to see why, in seeking to do justice to one class, another equally innocent should suffer, or that a person holding securities from his tenants should be damnified in his right. He did not ask that the clause should be adopted in the exact words which he had put on the Paper. It was sketched out on the second reading rather hurriedly; but he thought the principle involved in it was not unreasonable.

New Clause:—

said, he was willing to believe that his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) did feel some difficulty about the operation of the Bill without some clause of this kind; but he (Mr. Law) should be surprised to hear him address his argument to the Court of Chancery in Ireland, or, indeed, to any Court in Ireland. It was decided in Ireland a century and a half ago whilst relief from forfeiture by nonpayment of rent was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, that it was not incumbent on the Court to relieve the tenant on his merely paying or tendering the rent due and costs of the ejectment without due regard to the other just rights of the landlord. He therefore differed entirely from his right hon. and learned Friend as to the effect the Bill would have if it passed in its present form. That, however, was not the place to discuss legal points. It was, he thought, desirable that a tenant who accepted compensation should, if he might so express it, cry quits with the landlord altogether. But it would be very unfair to the tenant that, before he could form any certain opinion as to how his cause would be decided, he should be obliged to forego his statutory right of redemption. The tenant might very reasonably think he had a fair claim to compensation, and yet might fail, or he might, in fact, have a just claim for compensation, and yet fail by non-attendance of witnesses or other accident; and it would, he repeated, be exceedingly unfair that his mere claim should extinguish his right of redemption. The clause of his right hon. and learned Friend would, in this respect, do injustice to the tenant, and, on the other hand, leave the landlord exposed to injustice. For, according to the clause as proposed, the tenant might accept, and he paid the compensation; and yet, as his mortgagee was to be unaffected by this provision, the latter might insist on his right of redemption, and thus, of necessity, revive the old tenancy even against the will of both tenant and landlord. Surely this could not be intended by his right hon. and learned Friend. He thought, however, they would both agree in this—that the tenant who accepted compensation should thereby be barred from seeking redemption; whilst, at the same time, it was necessary to provide that those who were interested in the tenancy, whether as mortgagees or otherwise, should have due notice, and an opportunity of considering whether they would concur in such acceptance. But it would be too much to allow an ill-natured mortgagee to step in and forbid the settlement, which might be quite fair and proper. He, therefore, thought the proper way to proceed would be to substitute the acceptance for the claim, and, striking out the Proviso with which the clause now ended, to insert a provision to the effect that if it appeared to the Court that any person other than a tenant had a specific interest in the holding, and notice was given to him, no acceptance of such compensation should affect him, unless he concurred in the arrangement or the Court interfered. He believed that would meet the case. He thought the only way of doing justice to the landlord, the tenant, and the tenant's creditors was that which he had suggested. He (Mr. Law) did not agree that the clause was necessary; but if the right hon. and learned Gentleman would look at it, as it was altered, he would see whether he could accept the Amendment.

Amendment proposed,

In line 1, to leave out the words "It shall not he lawful for any tenant who claims,"in order to insert the words "The acceptance of."—[ Mr. Attorney General for Ireland. )

expressed his willingness to accept the Amendment in the Proviso proposed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law): but he could not assent to the Amendment proposed, as the acceptance of compensation was very different from its claim.

hoped the House would not accept the clause of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), or the Amendment suggested by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland. It had been said that the present Bill had been hurriedly introduced; but the Land Act had not been passed without very great deliberation, and the legal difficulties predicted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin University would arise equally under the Land Act of 1870. All that the present measure did was to remove an exception which existed under the Land Act. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman were right in his construction, he (Mr. Meldon) repeated that the difficulty which he had mentioned would occur also under the 9th section of the Land Act of 1870; and if there was a difficulty the clause of his right hon. and learned Friend did not go far enough. He (Mr. Meldon) would admit that very few cases of the kind had arisen, or else substantial difficulty would have presented itself. The case stood thus—A tenant being ejected for non-payment of rent, he would make a claim for compensation for improvements made on his farm, and, that compensation being paid, there was nothing to prevent his lodging in Court the arrears of rent, getting his restitution, and putting in his pocket the balance between the two. If the difference, however, really had manifested it self, it would be absurd for the House to legislate for the smaller number of cases dealt with by the present Bill, as distinct from the general operation of the Land Act, leaving the larger class of cases utterly untouched. But the truth was that no difficulty whatever had been found in the working of the Land Act of 1870, and for the good reason that no such legal difficulty as had been suggested could possibly arise, for two reasons. In the first place, the Land Act of 1870 enabled a tenant to ask for a writ of restitution, and the Court thereupon was to give such relief as a Court of Equity might have given. No cases had arisen under the Land Act of 1870 to declare what the law was. His (Mr. Meldon's) view of the law was opposed to the Amendment suggested by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland. His view was that if a tenant chose to claim compensation under the Land Act of 1870, or under this Bill, he made his bargain with his landlord for good or for evil, and squared the matter with him, and it was not open to him to come into a Court of Law and ask it to exercise the jurisdiction of a Court of Equity and go back upon that bargain. The Court would say—"You have made a contract, you have taken from the landlord that which is utterly inconsistent with your claim to be restored to the possession of the premises, and we cannot hear you at all." He would suggest that if he took this compensation either for disturbance or for improvements, the tenant should be debarred from asking a Court of Equity to give him restitution at all. This was the real reason, be believed, why no difficulties had arisen under the Act of 1870.

said, the fallacy of his hon. and learned Friend who had just addressed the House (Mr. Meldon) was this—there was really no analogy between the case of a tenant who had a claim for improvements under the Land Act of 1870, and the case of a tenant who had a claim for compensation under this Bill. A tenant claiming under the Land Act claimed for improvements as his own property—that was, for the value of his own edpenditure upon his holding; and he was entitled, if put out of his land, to the equivalent of his improvements. But in the most unusual case of a tenant evicted for non-payment of rent claiming and being paid by his landlord for his improvements, if the tenant afterwards redeemed and went into occupation again, those improvements were then the landlord's property, and the tenant could not claim for them over again. He could not be entitled to both money and marbles. But this was a Bill with a totally different object. Under this Bill, a tenant disturbed in certain circumstances was regarded as entitled to compensation from the landlord for that disturbance—that was, as an alternative. He agreed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) that this exceptional measure ought to express, and with clearness, that about which there might be some difficulty in establishing the equitable doctrine. The relief in case of eviction by ejectment for non-payment of rent was given upon payment of arrears of rent, accruing rent, and costs; in other words, the tenant put the landlord in statu quo, and the landlord put the tenant in statu quo. It was that equitable principle which was now sought to be in some way plainly expressed with reference to this Bill; and he thought the Amendment to the clause proposed by his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland was adequate and sufficient for the purpose, was a very reasonable one, and ought to be adopted.

considered that the clause was contradictory upon the face of it; and, in his opinion, there was no necessity for it at all, as the Bill provided that an ejectment should be treated as a disturbance. It did not contemplate the possibility of anything so unreasonable and so absurd as that the tenant should get compensation for disturbance and should still continue in his holding.

said, he had an Amendment upon the Paper dealing with the question; and he certainly, as was not unnatural, preferred his own Amendment, which provided that if a tenant, having received compensation money under the Act, should seek to redeem his holding, he should be bound to pay to the landlord not only the rent arrears and costs of ejectment, but the compensation money received. The Amendment before the House prejudiced the tenant to some extent by requiring him to elect at the time compensation was awarded. He would, therefore, suggest that the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) should allow his clause to be negatived, and that the House should accept the clause that he (Mr. Litton) himself would presently move, which left with the tenant the power which he now possessed of considering for a period of six months whether or not he would apply to the Court to restore him. Let them act upon the existing law as to the right to restitution, and so express it as not deprive the tenant of the six months given him in which to determine whether or not he would apply to be reinstated in his holding.

recommended that the clause of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) should be withdrawn, as it was condemned by every speaker, and that the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland's Amendment should also be withdrawn, because it was not required on its author's own showing. The clause of which the hon. and learned Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton) had given Notice ought not to be proposed, as it only expressed what was the existing law, with which the County Court Judges must be presumed to be duly acquainted. Moreover, having regard to the discussions which might be raised on the measure in "another place," it was not desirable to encumber it with any needless provisions.

said, he had a strong impression that the very question they were now discussing had been mooted a few nights ago, and was stated in the form of an objection by some hon. Members on the other side, when it was at once distinctly repudiated as an absurdity by hon. Members on the Treasury Bench. It had never occurred to him as possible that, under the Land Act of 1870, or any other Act, the tenant could at once claim compensation for eviction, and have a right to go back to his holding. It was a maxim well known to Englishmen—he knew not whether it had the force of a legal doctrine—that a man could not have his cake and eat it. According to another maxim, which was one of a legal character, Expressio unius est exclusio alterius, it would tend rather to throw some doubt on the law, if an exceptional clause of that kind were proposed to meet a supposed difficulty which he did not believe to exist. He could hardly suppose that a tenant who had received compensation for eviction would be reinstated in his holding.

urged that there should be no misunderstanding with regard to the Bill and the Land Act of 1870, because a different interpretation had been placed upon that Act from the one propounded by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) when he introduced that measure. Then the right hon. Gentleman gave the most solemn assurances that the Land Act did not confer, and was not intended to confer, any proprietary rights whatever upon the tenant. Since then they had been told repeatedly, and in the most unblushing manner, by the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the Act did confer proprietary rights on the tenant. There had not been the smallest attempt to explain the gross inconsistency between the language used now and the language used then. What he now insisted upon was, that there should be no room left for mistake.

said, he would refrain from again entering into the legal part of the question, though he might say that he was, at any rate, as much a lawyer as the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. It was a curious circumstance that, in the discussion of this question, lawyers managed to differ, some saying that this clause was wanted, and others that it was not. If there was any ambiguity it would be well to avoid it; and, therefore, he would accept the clause with the Amendments of the Irish Law Officers of the Crown.

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.

Words inserted.

Other Amendments made.

, before the clause was added to the Bill, appealed to the Government to extend the proposed alteration of the law to the Act of 1870, as the same difficulty would arise under that as under this measure. The tenant evicted for non-payment of rent under the Act of 1870 had power to obtain compensation for improvements, espe- cially for unexhausted manures; and by getting such compensation, he might pay rent out of it, keeping the balance in his own pocket.

Clause, as amended, added .

moved to insert the following new Clause:—

New Clause (Arrears of Rent,)—( Mr. Gibson, )— brought up, and read a first and second time.

On Question, "That the Clause be added,"

said, it had been stated that the Bill was intended as a complete arrangement of the land tenure in Ireland. For his own part, he thoroughly concurred with the right hon. Gentleman as to the fact of his introducing this measure for a special purpose, and it was only in that sense that he should give it his humble support.

pointed out that the hon. Baronet could not on that clause discuss the general principle of the Bill.

said, he feared he was not in Order, and that he had, in some degree, been presuming on the disorder of last week. He would bow to the decision of the Chair and resume his seat.

said, that as the clause removed a difficulty that now existed he would accept it.

Question put, and agreed to .

Clause added .

moved the insertion of a clause providing that, on the landlord paying or depositing the compensation awarded by the Court, he and his successors shall be discharged to the amount pad or deposited from all taxes, poor rates, and other charges of a public nature due in respect to the holding.

New Clause:—

Motion made, and Question, " That the said Clause he now read a second time," put, and negatived .

moved the following new Clause:—

(Relief of landlord in respect of private charges.)

"During the same number of years as the number of years rent which the Court takes into account in awarding compensation, the landlord shall, by virtue of this Act, be protected, as far as regards the holding, against actions for enforcement of charges and incumbrances affecting the holding, without prejudice to his liability ultimately to meet those charges and incumbrances; and the Court shall, on the application of the landlord, grant such certificate as may be necessary or proper as evidence of the landlord's right to such protection as aforesaid."

New Clause (Relief of landlord in respect of private charges,)—( Mr. Chaplin, ) — brought up, and read the first time.

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

said, if, in reality, the Bill was, as the hon. Gentleman persisted in regarding it, one suspending the payment of rent for anytime, there might be something to be said for the Amendment; but as the Bill was only for guarding the tenant against an unreasonable landlord, the Government could not consent to the Amendment.

Question put, and negatived.

moved the insertion of the following new Clause:—

"Where the landlord has purchased or acquired from the tenant, or any of his predeces- sors in interest, the Ulster tenant right custom, or the benefit of any usage corresponding therewith, to which the holding was subject, any alternative offered by the landlord shall not be deemed unreasonable on the ground that the alternative does not include permission to the tenant to dispose of his interest in the holding."

New Clause (Provision where a landlord has acquired the Ulster tenant right custom,)—( Mr. Chaplin, )— brought up, and read the first time.

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

opposed the clause, pointing out that although a tenant might have parted with the rights which he possessed under the Ulster custom, he would still be entitled to compensation under the 3rd clause of the Land Act in the same way as the tenants in other parts of Ireland. If the clause were adopted, it would place the Ulster tenants in a much worse position than those in other parts of Ireland, and he could not assent to it.

thought the principle embodied in the clause was fair and reasonable.

asked, whether, after a tenant had sold or forfeited his right under the Ulster custom, he would still retain a proprietary or saleable right in his farm?

repeated that he would be entitled to compensation in the same way as tenants who did not come under the Ulster custom.

said, there was not a single instance of the landlord having bought up the Ulster tenant right of his tenants.

observed, that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was entirely mistaken, and referred to what took place on the second reading of the Irish Land Act with reference to Lord Dufferin having purchased that right from his tenants. They had, nevertheless, been held to be entitled to the privileges enjoyed by other tenants under the operation of the Land Act.

Question put.

The House divided :—Ayes 13; Noes 139: Majority 126:—(Div. List, No. 78.)

Clause 1 (Temporary provision regarding compensation for disturbance).

, in moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice, to limit the operation of the Bill to holdings of the annual value of £30, said, he had made inquiry, as far as he could; but he was sorry to say that he had not got a Return of absolutely all the holdings. He had, however, information which quite convinced him that this limitation would include an enormous majority of the holdings included in the scheduled districts—he might almost say all the holdings to which the Act was likely to apply. The valuation of property was based upon what was called Griffith's Valuation; and, undoubtedly, in many cases it was largely below the rent, and in some cases, he had little doubt, it was unreasonably below the rent. It might also be in some cases above it, as was, he understood, the case with regard to the rent on the estates of the hon. Member for Waterford County (Mr. Villiers Stuart); but that was rather an exceptional case. He believed he should not be accused, by those who best knew Ireland, of going far astray, when he said that upon the average, and especially within the scheduled Unions, a £30 valuation was equal, on the average, to a £42 rent, if not £45. The number of holdings in the scheduled districts under £30 valuation, he found, was 284,280; and in the entire scheduled districts, which comprised about half Ireland, the total number of occupiers of land was 585,000. That, he thought, would show how very large a proportion of the scheduled Unions were under the £30. He found that the late Government, for the purposes of the Seed Act, obtained the number of occupiers of land under £30 in most of the counties which came under the Seed Act. Unfortunately, that Return did not give the total number, or the number of holdings above £30; and he could only, therefore, compare the Return with the Return of agricultural statistics of 1839. He had not been able to make an exact comparison; but he thought he should be correct in stating that in Connaught the number of holdings under £30 was about 122,000, and the entire number of holdings only 128,000. He would not say anything more about the matter, because he understood that hon. Gentlemen from Ireland, although they objected to the limitation, yet agreed to adopt a reasonable limit, if it was not too low, and he did not think they could now say this was unreasonably low.

Amendment proposed,

In page 1, line 11, after "holding," insert "valued under the Acts relating to the valuation of rateable property in Ireland at an annual value of not more than thirty pounds."—( Mr. William Edward Forster. )

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

said, this limit was as objectionable to himself as his Friends, as it was at the lowest figure—that was to say, he would have preferred £50 to £30. He hoped, however, the right hon. Gentleman would not think his (Mr. A. M. Sullivan's) Friends were departing from the opinions they expressed on previous occasions if they did not now press the matter to a division. He might mention that the only division that the Irish Party had taken this evening was on the Motion that he (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) himself had moved for the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell). He believed it was that hon. Gentleman's desire that, having taken that division, no further opposition to the Bill should be offered by the Irish Party.

wished it to be understood that the statement of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) also applied to the Representatives of Ireland who sat on the Liberal side of the House.

said, he must express his intense satisfaction at the course that had been adopted by the Irish Members.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary's figures might be all right with regard to Connaught; but he (Mr. Synan) should think that a £40 valuation approached nearer to a £50 rental. However, he did not see any use in fighting the matter now.

said, he need hardly remind the House of what had taken place on previous occasions, and he did not intend to revert to any of the observations he had made, or which he might possibly feel it his duty on some future occasion again to make; but he had only to suggest to the House that it was not in the least surprising that the proposal that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had made met with nothing hut a chorus of what might be termed unavowed approval from the hon. Members for Meath, Kirkcaldy, and Limerick. He apprehended that all the various suggestions which had been put forward amounted to this—that his hon. Friends who represented Irish constituencies were wise enough, with the intelligence of their race, to see that under the guise of a limitation they had practically secured what amounted to no limitation. ["No, no!"] Well, in the one figure relating to Connaught that had been given by the right hon. Gentleman, what was it he (Mr. Gibson) found? The limit of £15 he proposed to the House was a real limit, raising a real and substantial question on which men might test the validity of their convictions. The right hon. Gentleman said that all the holdings in the Province of Connaught amount at present to 128,000; and, bearing in mind that the Bill was introduced by the right hon. Gentleman in a statement in which he stated that it was only intended to protect those who occupied small holdings, it was somewhat startling to find that the limitation now proposed by his right hon. Friend would include almost all the holdings in the entire Province of Connaught. In other words, it would include 122,000 out of a gross total of 128,000. Surely, it would have been a great deal more can did and a great deal more frank for the Ministry at once, instead of beating about the bush, and muffling up their meaning in the difference between rental and rating, to have said decidedly that they would impose no limit at all. Those who were pleased to accept words instead of realities might be satisfied with the Amendment of the Chief Secretary for Ireland; but he was not.

said, that a £15 limit would have left numbers of tenants in the county of Cork outside the scope of the Bill, and if it was intended to protect small holdings it was necessary to raise the limit. The last proposal to fix the limit by rating was a very good one, as it prevented the hard landlord, whose rents were too high, from escaping the operation of the Bill.

Question put, and agreed to ; words inserted accordingly.

rose to move as an Amendment, according to Notice, that words should be inserted, in page 1, line 21, to the effect that Commissioners should be appointed specially invested with the jurisdiction to investigate and determine land claims for the purposes of the Act. He said that the existing tribunals were not satisfactory, County Court Judges having much practical knowledge of land and its value. He voted for the second reading of the Bill, because he felt that wholesale evictions at the bayonet's point, in the famine-stricken counties of Ireland, were a scandal before all Europe, and that a yet greater danger might be apprehended from the feelings excited by them in the hearts of the people; but though a necessity had arisen for resorting to exceptional measures, yet steps should be taken carefully to adapt details of the Bill to the work it had to do. He did not think that the County Courts were the best machinery; if a more efficient machinery could be devised the Government were bound to adopt it. The Prime Minister, on Saturday, used these words—

"In my opinion, it ought to be shown, first, the necessity is strong; secondly, that the provisions of the Bill are carefully adapted and carefully limited to the necessity; and, in the third place, that we have taken effectual precautions against being betrayed unawares into a dangerous precedent."

He was also glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that he would be prepared to consider any suggestion as to the tribunals which were to carry out the Act. The County Courts were not very well qualified for dealing even with the ordinary land cases. The County Court Judges were lawyers, often able lawyers; but they were not agriculturists. The protective clauses of the Bill would require a much more minute investigation into the merits of each case than even with the ordinary class of land disputes; they could not, in fact, be satisfactorily dealt with except by personal visits to the farms in dispute, and personal inquiry on the spot into all the circumstances. Special Commissioners would do this; but County Court Judges could not. The latter would have to arrive at their conclusions by striking a balance between the conflicting evidence of rival witnesses. There would be some very hard swearing, and they would oftener arrive at a right conclusion by retiring into their private room behind the Court and tossing up, for then they would be right every alternate time. He had heard of an Indian Judge who resorted to this expedient, and became, in consequence, celebrated for the wisdom of his decisions. But if the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland considered that the County Courts could not be dispensed with, then he would venture to suggest that Assistant Commissioners should be attached to the County Courts for the purpose of the Act, who might personally visit the farms in dispute, and have Reports ready drawn up for the information of the Judges. This would save much time, and render the working of the Act more satisfactory. He hoped, however, that the Government would see their way to the appointment of Special Commissioners for the purpose of this Bill, and he begged to move the Amendment which stood in his name.

Amendment proposed,

In page 1, line 21, to leave out after the word "declared," to the word "to," in line 23, in order to insert the words "by Commissioners specially invested with jurisdiction to investigate and determine land claims for the purposes of this Act."—( Mr. Villiers Stuart. )

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."

opposed the Amendment. He believed the County Court Judges were perfectly competent to deal with land questions on having proper evidence submitted to them. He thought judicial work of that kind was likely to be better done by lawyers than by any other persons. It was not necessary that the Judges should themselves have special knowledge of the value of land, any more than it was necessary for a Judge hearing a patent case to have a scientific knowledge of the merits or demerits of the patent discussed before him.

supported the Amendment. He did not consider the tribunal appointed by the Bill was satisfactory. Under the provisions of the County Courts Act, which the House had recently passed, he found in a short time the Judges would become resident in some of the counties over which their jurisdiction extended. The effect of this would unfortunately be to generate a suspicion as to their impartiality, and an idea in some cases that the Judges were influenced in their decisions by the neighbouring landlords. Besides, though some County Court Judges were, no doubt, able and efficient men, there were many who were incompetent to decide the questions which came before them. Whoever adjudicated in these cases should know the price of agricultural stock and the value of agricultural produce; and he did not think that the previous training or experience of most of these Judges was of a character to fit them for the discharge of the duties intended to be conferred. In his judgment, in coming to a decision, the Judge should have the trained aid of valuators and practical agriculturists.

thought that the position in which the County Court Judges were to be placed by the Bill ought to be taken into the serious consideration of the Government, with a view to their salaries being raised. It was possible that after a few adverse decisions the County Court Judges would come to be looked upon in the same light as the landlords and agents were now looked upon by the aggrieved tenantry—namely, to be shot at as woodcocks, at sight. ["Oh, oh!"] Why, he was told that threatening letters were not only sent to them, but they were told that they would be shot at if they were out after dark. Under the circumstances, he submitted the Government ought to take into consideration the fact that the responsibility of being shot was now thrown on the County Court Judges. It would be only fair to raise the salaries of the Judges, and he should like very much to move that their salaries be raised £50 a-year.

said, he had a good deal of sympathy with the Amendment on the Paper, which he considered to be right in principle; but he felt there would be great difficulty in making the change at this time. It would be well, if the Government found that the Courts were not strong enough, that assistance should be given to them.

said, he could not see what appreciable difference £50 a-year would be to a Judge if he was to be shot at. If he wanted to make a practical suggestion to meet the danger indicated, it would be that each learned gentleman should be provided with a suit of mail. [ Laughter. ]

did not feel disposed to treat anything connected with the Bill as matter for laughter. He only wished to say that men he had known at the Bar had written to him to point out that when the Bill passed two years ago, regulating the system of these County Courts, no such measure as this Bill was in contemplation, and the duties this Bill would bring were considerable. He told his correspondents that demands for money were not usually well received in the House of Commons, and attacks on the Treasury, even in a legislative way, were resented strongly. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had said the Bill was one out of the ordinary, and for a specific purpose. Then he thought those learned gentlemen, who had increased duties thrown on them, might well demand some consideration from Her Majesty's Government. He had promised to bring their claims forward, and he did so.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

said, he was afraid the Government were not in a compliant mood; but he submitted his Amendment with some hope of their favourable consideration. It was to add at the end of the clause—

"Provided always, That no alternative shall be deemed to be unreasonable on account of any diminution in the saleable value of the tenant's interest in his holding arising from political or agrarian agitation."

The loss which the Bill was intended to meet was that which had been described as arising to the tenant from the act of God; and, that being so, he should not have supposed the Government would reject his Amendment but for the answer which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland made a short time since to a question put by the senior Member for Dublin University (Mr. Plunket). In that answer the right Gentleman said that it must rest with the discretion of the Judges to say how far the tenant had to do with any agitation; so that implied that if the tenant was not concerned in these anti-rent societies, then the landlord had no remedy against the tenant for depreciation of rent. Without this Amendment, then, the landlords would be extremely ill-used, and it must be evident to the Government that by the arrangement they suggested they put a premium on agitation. Nothing could be more plain than that. He could not but think that if the Government contemplated the state of things which might arise they would see the propriety of adopting an Amendment which would save, to a certain extent, the rights of the landlords. As at present arranged, agrarian agitation told altogether in favour of the tenant's rights.

Amendment proposed,

In page 2, line 9, at end of the Clause, to add the words "Provided always, That no alternative shall be deemed to be unreasonable on account of any diminution in the saleable value of the tenant's interest in his holding arising from political or agrarian agitation."—( Mr. Arthur J. Balfour. )

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

congratulated the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Balfour) upon his Amendment, and congratulated the House also upon the recognition of the fact that the tenant had an interest in his holding irrespective of improvements, whether that interest was termed property, goodwill, or tenant right. Up to a certain point this had been vehemently denied. There was now a recognition of the tenant's interest—a something which he had the power to sell.

denied that he had admitted that the tenant had a right previous to this Bill. He admitted that the Bill gave the tenant the right referred to.

said, he thought the hon. Member would find that this Bill did not give the tenant a right which he had not possessed before under the Land Act of 1870. That Act had recognized Ulster tenant right, and the principles of the right in holdings outside Ulster, and in that respect the present Bill would not go further. A man who came into a farm by arrangement with the tenant, even though he should give but one year's rent for it, would be in a very different position from one who came in by the action of the landlord alone.

said, that the hon. Gentleman the Mover of the Amendment (Mr. A. J. Balfour) ought to make his Amendment complete by putting into the Bill a definition of what was "political" agitation, and what was "agrarian" agitation. He (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) had heard proceeding from the hon. Gentleman, and the peculiar group of hon. Members with whom he acted, the most inflammatory agitation, conducted with a keener and more polished edge than those delivered from the platforms of the Land League, but not the less dangerous on that account, as an incentive to the Irish peasant. He could assure the hon. Gentleman that a series of extracts culled from the speeches of Conservative Members would be a most potential instrument in the hands of the Land League in Ireland. No doubt hon. Gentlemen were in earnest, and would follow up their action in the House by stumping the country in the Recess, and the speeches of the hon. Member, and the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), and of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) would be followed up by political agitation in England. He did not see, however, why the Irish tenant should be defrauded of his rights in consequence of the agitation of those hon. Gentlemen.

said, he was glad to find that he had an opportunity of concurring for once with the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan), who, by-the-bye, addressed the House in dangerous proximity to the hon. Gentleman the Mover of the Amendment, in the fact that he had repudiated the doctrines of the Land League.

said, his hon. Friend (Sir Patrick O'Brien) was not present when he spoke earlier in the evening. Consequently he might be allowed to explain that he did not say that he repudiated the doctrines of the Land League. What he said was, and now repeated was, that he repudiated certain of the sentiments which had been attributed to those speaking from the platform of the Land League. If correctly reported, they were to him repulsive and abhorrent.

said, he had never heard any statement with greater delight than that of the hon. and learned Member for Meath. There had been during the last 10 days attempts to explain away opinions. There was no hon. Member in the House who did not know that there had been, to use a phrase well known in the City, "financing" with this Irish question. He joined with the hon. and learned Gentleman in his repudiation. How many hon. Gentlemen opposite would have the same candour?

The hon. Baronet is wandering very much from the Question before the House.

said, he was obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for interfering. [ Laughter. ] Hon. Gentlemen laughed. From his experience of the House he knew there was nothing so cheap as a laugh, and a man who would not know what to say to a question put to him broadly could indulge in that "cachinnatory arrangement" that had been heard from hon. Gentlemen opposite. He would take the opportunity on Monday, or any other night when this Bill should be presented for third reading, to allude to many things which had occurred in the dark hours of the evening, and especially to statements with respect to a county, not the county he represented, but one in which he (Sir Patrick O'Brien) had some little property, when, if rightly informed, he was designated as one that ought to be hunted from all respectable society. It might be that the person who made that speech knew little of what he was saying. He would take that opportunity of telling that hon. Member that when the third reading of the Bill came to be discussed, the statements of gentlemen in Ireland, superior in position, aye, and in character, to the hon. Gentleman, would be produced by him. [ Cries of "Order !"]

I must draw the attention of the hon. Baronet to the Question before the House, and beg of him to confine himself to that question.

said, he knew the danger of a third caution, and, although he did not think himself likely to come under Mr. Speaker's observation, he would do as the hon. Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton), of whom he read the other day, had done; and, having succeeded in saying what he had meant to say, would submit to Mr. Speaker's ruling and sit down.

said, the House would probably not be surprised at his observing that " Enough for the day was the debate thereof." He thought they might very conveniently adjourn further discussion until the opportunity came. He did not think the Amendment could be seriously proposed, for it would throw a good deal upon the Judge of the County Court, or on any other tribunal; and he did not see how it would be possible to put the practical results on a political agitation into an estimate of pounds, shillings, and pence. It was not likely that there would be found any very considerable agitation by tenants to lower the value of their own property, and this was what the Amendment would really amount to. He could not speak in terms of too great condemnation of those who promoted or excited the agitation, for such persons were more to blame than the people who participated in the grievances complained of, and who had some excuse. There had, no doubt, been combinations and agitations to prevent persons from taking land from which the tenant had been evicted; but he did not believe that in any counties outside Ulster, much less in Ulster itself, there would be any serious agitation against a man selling his goodwill. Every man of common sense would see that that would be diminishing the value of his own property.

supported the Amendment, which he thought the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) was perfectly justified in moving. The hon. Member had been accused by the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) of taking a step in Irish agitation; but the hon. and learned Member who made that accusation did not know the real nature of Irish agitation, of which hon. Members spoke with so much ease, if not levity, and which had reduced the value of landed property in Ireland to nothing, and had already induced those who bad invested their money in Ireland to withdraw it, or threaten to withdraw it. That was a serious matter; and what the Mover of the Amendment contended for was that, in addition to other injuries, they should not be deprived of the only alternative or consolation, if it might be so termed, that was offered them by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland, and, in another form, by the Prime Minister, in the Bill—a poor consolation —in the right to offer the tenant the alternative of selling his holding. It was said they gave up the whole question when they spoke of the tenant's interest as unsaleable. They had contended again and again that no such interest existed; but the right hon. Gentleman, forgetting that no such language had been used during the discussion on the Land Bill, called it goodwill. The Amendment did not concede that any such interest existed; but said it should not be rendered wholly illusory by the same agitation which had led to the introduction of the Bill. He was glad that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had had another opportunity of condemning the Land League; but after the discussion which bad taken place, and in view of the persistent opposition of the Government, he supposed it was of no use further to press the Amendment, however much they might deem that it was required in justice to the landlords whose interests were so seriously menaced, and whose rights were treated with so little regard by this measure. However, if pressed to a division, he would support it.

asked why it should not be open to the Irish people to agitate, provided they did so legally and for a just cause? So long as it remained, they would maintain the right of the Irish to agitate in such a cause and by such a way, for it was by such agitation that many of the grievances of the country bad been removed. It was idle to denounce Irish agitation. The Irish Land League would not be turned from their course by the denunciations which had been bestowed upon them. As long as their country was treated with injustice, they would stand by it to the last extremity, in spite of all the denunciations which bad been bestowed upon them, and they would continue to agitate within the limits of the law. Was not Cobden an agitator? "Was not Wilberforce an agitator? And were the people of Dublin not just now raising a monument in Sackville Street to a man who was pre-eminently an agitator? Many of the so-called agitators had no personal ends to serve; but, so long as the necessity existed, they would ever be ready to throw themselves into the forefront of the battle-field.

thought the danger of Irish agitation was that it sometimes led to the blowing up of a prison, or the murder of a policeman, and then it received attention from the First Lord of the Treasury as the time for redressing Irish grievances. In order to show the disastrous effect which the Bill had produced on landed property in Ireland, he would, with the permission of the House, read the following extract from a letter which he had received a few days ago. It was dated Gell Hall, Dromore, July 14:—

''A circumstance has just occurred to a friend of mine which seems to me to throw considerable light on the very disastrous effect which Mr. Forster's Compensation for Disturbance Bill will have on landed property in Ireland. My friend unfortunately invested some capital in the purchase of some landed property in Galway. It was then unlet, and he let it to a tenant whose son is a minor. This child's interest was set up for sale by order of the Court of Chancery, and was supposed to be worth a considerable sum; but there were no bidders, and the guardian of the minor had no funds to pay my friend's rent, two years of which became due last November. Under these circumstances my friend determined to sell the property, and had made a bond fide arrangement for the purpose, except a trifling difference in price. He wrote to say he would accept an amount which was considerably less than he had paid a few years ago. The following is the reply:—' My dear Sir,—I heard yesterday from my brother-in-law. Not alone will he not advance on his offer, but he requests me to tell you ''that as the offer was not accepted, he withdraws it." He says he has read Mr. Forster's speech in introducing his Bill, and that he no longer considers an investment in land in Ireland a safe one. God help us poor landowners soon! "We are passing through critical times, and it is hard to know or foresee how it will end. In ruin, I fear, for many.' I may add that the writer was a most popular resident Roman Catholic gentleman, who has filled the office of High Sheriff for his county."

Question put, and negatived.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 2 (Short title and construction).

On the Motion of Mr. W. E. FORSTER, Amendment made in page 2, line 12, by inserting "for all purposes, including the making of rules for carrying into effect the provisions of this Act."

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

expressed a hope that the Return received from the sub-sheriffs which had been promised would be laid on the Table before the third reading of the Bill.

said, he had communicated with those gentlemen, and could make no other promise than that he would lay on the Table such Returns as he might receive.

Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 276.]

Post Office Money Orders Bill

[ Mr. Fawcett, Lord Frederick Cavendish." ) [BILL 172.] SECOND READING.

Order for Second Reading read.

, in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he hoped to be able to make a short statement to the House as to the object of the Bill which would remove, to a considerable degree, a misunderstanding which he could not help feeling was entertained towards it. In a single sentence he might say that its sole object was to facilitate, through the agency of the Post Office, the transmission of small sums of money, and which he believed would be meeting a great public—he might almost say, a great national—want. Looking to some of the criticisms and objections which had been made to the Bill, one would be led to the conclusion that it was a dark and ingeniously conceived design to introduce into the country a small inconvertible paper currency; but that was not so, and he need not say that he was a very unlikely man to be made a party to such a design; and if it was desirable to introduce a currency of that kind into this country, he, so far as he was concerned, would be no party, knowingly, to its introduction in an indirect way, or by a side wind. He would first explain what was the origin of the Bill, and the House would see there was no ground for that fear. It had been long felt that it was necessary that in some way the present money order system should be cheapened. The system was, undoubtedly, somewhat cumbrous and costly, although it carried with it this great advantage, that it gave absolute security to the sender of money. In England alone in one year 15,000,000 of money orders, to the valueof £25,000,000 were issued, and so free from fraud was the system that of the £300 annually voted to cover all losses from fraud, not more than half of it was spent in any one year. Yet, as he had said, the system was cumbrous, because a man living some miles from a post office had to go or send there for an order. There could not be absolute safety without introducing a great number of precautions, and that necessitated a great amount of expense; and, consequently, it was found that each money order cost the Post Office 3 d. If, therefore, on small sums of money, a rate of transmission was charged considerably below 3 d., a principle was sanctioned which he could not help feeling to be a very serious one to sanction, and that was, they were doing for a certain class of people a certain public service at the cost of the whole community, or, in other words, they were imposing a tax on the community to do certain people a service at less than cost price. It had, however, been infringed upon, undoubtedly, to a certain extent. Then, again, the small orders were charged a heavy commission, and though issued at cost price, they were very dear. For instance, if some poor lad wanted to send the first shilling he had saved to his mother in the country, he had to pay 2d. for the order and 1d. for postage, which was equal to 25 per cent on the amount sent. Probably, the House would say there was no demand for shilling orders, and before he accepted Office that had been his opinion also. But a remarkable Return had been prepared for him by the officials of the Post Office, which completely justified the principle of this Bill. Although the sending of a money order for 1s. involved a charge of 25 percent, there were no fewer than 94,500 orders for 1s. issued last year. The number of orders for 5s. was not less than 500,000, the number for 10s. was 750,000, and the number for £1 was considerably more than 1,000,000. No one could deny, in the face of these figures, that there was thus a great demand for the transmission of small sums of money, and, accordingly, the Bill was intended to facilitate and cheapen the transmission of small sums of money to all parts of the Kingdom. He did not believe that the Bill would introduce a small, inconvertible paper currency; but he wished to say to his hon. Friend the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock), that if it got into Committee he would be prepared to consider any Amendments which would not be destructive of its principle, and, if it was thought necessary he would limit the time during which an order was payable to one month, instead of three months. If it were also proposed that the name of the payee should be introduced, he would consider the suggestion favourably. With regard to the origin of the Bill, it was not his Bill, but the Bill of an important Committee appointed some years ago to inquire into the subject of cheapening money orders, on which served men of practical experience in such matters, including Mr. May, the cashier of the Bank of England, and which was presided over by the late Mr. George Moore. This Bill was based on the recommendations contained in the Report of that Committee. But, after all, he would acknowledge that the Bill was not originally his own, but that it had emanated from the late Government; and the noble Lord his Predecessor in Office (Lord John Manners) had not only authorized, but wished him to state that it had his warm approval, and would be supported by all his late Colleagues. The noble Lord greatly regretted that an unavoidable circumstance prevented him from being present that evening to give the Bill his cordial and entire support. If there was still a lingering idea that the proposal would introduce a paper currency of £1 notes, he thought a very small amount of calculation would show how very groundless those fears were. He had said that he should be willing to confine the circulation to a month, and each time an order exceeded that period in date the commission of 2 d. per month would have to be renewed. The consequence was, that on a £1 note the depreciation would be in 12 months as much as 2 s., or 10 percent; and he thought they might safely leave it to the common sense of the English people whether a sovereign was not preferable in the pocket to an order which depreciated to that extent. But on those of smaller amounts the depreciation would be more than this. It was proposed that orders for Is. should be issued for ½d.; for 2s. 6d., 5s., and 7s. 6d., at 1d.; and from 10s. to £1, at 2d. There would thus be a considerable reduction on the present money order commission; but, what was more important still, there would be an immense gain in convenience to those persons living at a distance from a post office. As to the abuse to which the system of £1 orders was said to be liable, this objection might be at once set aside by the fact that it would be cheaper to send 30s. by the existing money orders than by the new postal order, and, therefore, that it would be cheaper for higher amounts. In fact, it was not proposed to interfere in the slightest degree with the existing modes of sending money. Those people who preferred the more complete safety of the existing money order system would still be able to use it; and, on the other hand, the extent to which the new system would be used would thereby be speedily shown. The Government believed that the new system would give reasonable security, and that it would be not only more economical, but more convenient. If the contrary proved to be the effect, the public would soon revert to the old money order system; but he certainly believed that the Bill would be found to facilitate the transmission of small sums of money from one end of the country to the other. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the second reading of the Bill.

Motion made, and Question proposed, " That the Bill be now read a second time."—( Mr. Fawcett .)

, in rising to move, as an Amendment—

"That it is inexpedient to pass the Second Reading of this Bill until a Select Committee has inquired into the effect it might have on the general circulation of the Country, and on the organisation of the Money Order Department of the Post Office,"

said, he had to thank his right hon. Friend the Postmaster General for his lucid and conciliatory speech. Still, he thought he should be able to show that the proposal ought not to be granted without further knowledge than they had at present upon the subject, and which should be obtained by means of a special inquiry into it. In the first place, the Bill was of a much more important character than might at first be supposed. The name was misleading. It was not a "Post Office Money Order Bill," but a " Post Office Note Bill."It practically abrogated the Bank Charter Act, as far as the Post Office was concerned, and established a circulation of greenbacks. Under it the Post Office might issue notes for 1 s ., 2 s ., 6 d ., 5 s ., 10 s ., 15 s ., and £1, to any amount. When a similar Bill was recently brought in by the late Government, the Bank Charter Act was openly and boldly abolished as far as concerned the Post Office. The need for doing so was, in this Bill, ingeniously evaded; but the practical result was the same. It was impossible to prevent a note having the effect of a note by merely calling it an "order." What, he asked, was the advantage of the Bill? It was said that it was for the convenience of the public; but he thought it was easy to show that the convenience would be mainly to the Post Office. Anyone now could get a Post Office order for these small amounts, but the Post Office had then to advise them, and, as far as small remittances by post were concerned, the main effect of this Bill would be to save the Post Office the trouble of advice. But the Post Office dared not abandon the advice in case of Post Office orders, because of the frauds and robberies which would result, and he feared that the same thing would happen if this Bill became law. For his own part, however, he confessed that, in his opinion, this Bill would have a far wider operation than Her Majesty's Government seemed to foresee. He hoped the House would not pass this Bill without full inquiry. He was not speaking as a banker. The bankers, no doubt, were almost unanimously of opinion that the Bill required very careful consideration, and he could assure the House that their objection to it was based on public, and not selfish grounds, but because they were in the best position to see its effects upon the currency. They were told that that could not be the case, because the time for which one of these new notes could circulate was limited to three months, and because they would not be legal tender. As for that statement, he admitted that the right hon. Gentleman's offer to limit the life of each order to one month was a great concession; but, after all, supposing the term was longer, the amount could always be obtained, subject to a very small fine. Moreover, three months was a considerable time. The average life of a £5 note was less than three months. Practically, therefore, the limit of three months would not interfere with the circulation. Nay, the very existence of the limit might tend to keep these notes out of circulation, because everyone would prefer to pass such a note away rather than have to pay the fine. Then, again, as to their not being legal tender, he might remind his hon. Friend that neither country bank-notes nor Scotch bank-notes were a legal tender; but he surely would not deny that they constituted a currency. There were six grounds of objection to this Bill—First, it would lead to numerous robberies of letters, as anybody could cash one of these orders; secondly, it introduced a system of notes without limitations; thirdly, it introduced a Government issue of notes; fourthly, it introduced small notes; fifthly, it would create an issue of notes not based on bullion; and lastly, it altered their system of currency on insufficient grounds. As regarded the last point, Lord Althorp, in moving the Bank Charter Bill, in 1833, truly observed that—

"Unless we can distinctly see some paramount advantage in making a great change in the monetary system, nothing can be more foolish than to try the experiment."

One of the objections to the issue of small notes was their liability to forgery. The smaller the note the easier it was for the forger to pass it off, and the more difficult it was to trace. The late Mr. Kirkman Hodgson, in giving evidence before the Committee of 1865, expressed the general opinion of those most competent to judge, when he said—

"I cannot think that any good purpose would be served by returning to the system of issuing £1 notes for circulation in England and Wales. What the risk would be may be estimated by reference to the amount of forgeries existing during the last year before the £1-notes were called in. Anything more inexpedient or unnecessary than to re-issue —1 notes in England I cannot well imagine. The risk of forgery is very much greater in the case of the smaller notes than in the case of the larger."

That was not a mere matter of opinion or theory. He (Sir John Lubbock) found that in the five years preceding the abandonment of small notes—from 1816 to 1820—there were no less than 131,000 forged notes presented to the Bank; while the number now, in the same period, notwithstanding the great increase of population, was about 400. Moreover, out of those 131,000, more than 127,000 were under £5; 3,600 were £5 notes, and 400 were notes of over £5. Nay, more, though £1-notes had ceased to circulate for more than half a century, even now the majority of forged notes were those of £1. Taking the last five years for which they had any Return—namely, from 1869 to 1874—the total number of forged notes was 369, of which 245 were under £5, 88 were £5 notes, and 36 were above £5. The next reason for objecting to the Bill was that it would tend to replace coins by a circulation of small notes. Such a course had been deprecated by most of our great financial authorities. Lord Liverpool, for instance, in his celebrated work on coins, expressed his opinion without the least hesitation or reserve. The noble Lord said—

"The sort of paper currency to which I principally object is that which interferes with the use of the coins of the Realm."

The next objection to the Bill was that the circulation it would create would not rest on a metallic basis. They were told, indeed, that was a mistake, because Government would only give the notes in exchange for money. Well, but on that view every circulation rested on a metallic basis. The Austrian, Russian, and Italian Governments never gave their notes for nothing. The American greenbacks themselves were issued in exchange for value. But would the Post Office keep the gold in reserve? That was the question. Their experience, unfortunately, enabled them to answer the question. What course had the Post Office taken with reference to its deposits? Had it adopted a prudent policy and kept a good reserve? Far from it. The deposits in the Post Office Savings Banks were £31,000,000, and the cash reserve was only £68,000, which was, he did not hesitate to say, a most unsatisfactory state of things. Now, what steps had Her Majesty's Government taken before recommending to the House that revolution in the currency of the country? They had intrusted the inquiry to two gentlemen connected with the Post Office, one in the Bank of England, one gentleman nominated by the London and Westminster Bank, and one by Messrs. Copestake, Moore, and Co. Surely that was a most singular mode of constituting such a Committee. The gentlemen composing it, no doubt, were all able and respectable; but not one of them had shown any special acquaintance with that subject. Nor, indeed, did they at all enter into the higher aspects of the question, but confined themselves almost entirely to practical details. He submitted, also, that their verdict was contrary to the evidence. He had already adverted to the reasons which, induced this country half-a-century ago to abandon the use of small notes; and he might mention that other countries were gradually doing the same thing. America, for instance, was withdrawing her greenbacks, and proposing to issue silver currency, just when our Government, without any serious inquiry, proposed to replace our silver by greenbacks. All the greatest financial authorities had expressed themselves adverse to the proposals contained in that Bill. Hitherto it had been considered most important that the note circulation of the country should be limited in amount, should be based on bullion, should not be issued by Government, and should not be for amounts falling below £5. The Bill violated every one of those principles. These notes were not to be limited in amount, they were not to be based on bullion, they were to be issued by Government, and they were to be for very small amounts. So radical a change, so complete a revolution in their currency system, ought not to be made without careful consideration. He had been anxious to lay before the House the reasons which induced him to question the expediency of the measure; and even if the House agreed to the second reading, he hoped Her Majesty's Government would assent to the proposal of the hon. Member for Essex and refer the subject to a Select Committee. He implored the House not lightly, nor without the gravest reason, to unsettle their currency, and for the sake of a trifling and, perhaps, imaginary profit, to alter a system of currency which had gradually grown up in accordance with the wants and experience of the country, which, as he ventured to think, was one of the best which had ever existed and which they all understood. He did not deny that there were some novel and ingenious points about the Government suggestion. If Her Majesty's Government proposed a Committee to consider the whole subject he should readily consent; but he intreated the House not to pass the Bill in its present form without more information and the most careful inquiry. The hon. Baronet concluded by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

Amendment proposed,

To leave out from the word " That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words " it is inexpedient to pass the Second Heading of this Bill until a Select Committee has inquired into the effect it might have on the general circulation of the Country, and into the organisation of the Money Order Department of the Post Office,"—( Sir John Lubbock ,)—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

said, that his right hon. Friend the Postmaster General had shown clearly that there was a great need to extend still further the accommodation to the public afforded by that mode of transmitting small sums, which could best be attained through the instrumentality of a large Government Office. He did not exactly understand what they were to gain by referring that subject to a Committee, as proposed by the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Lubbock). The hon. Baronet's own speech was so ingenious in suggesting every possible difficulty in the way of the scheme of the Government, that it was doubtful whether any Committee could subject it to much more searching criticism than was contained in that speech. The hon. Baronet had, he thought, in the latter part of his remarks, dealt with the question from an entirely wrong point of view. He had spoken of it as a matter of currency. It was not a matter of currency at all, but a banking operation by a large Government Department for the advantage of the industrial poor and the labouring classes of this country. He could not conceive that a more legitimate and more desirable object than that could be undertaken by the promoters of the measure; and he could not see that bankers had any cause for jealousy of a measure intended to facilitate the transmission of small sums. The hon. Baronet opposite had objected to its interference with the circulation of the country and with the Post Office money order system. If, however, the Post Office itself proposed to extend its business by means of the Bill, it was not for him to object to its doing so. Then came the objection that the change would more or less interfere with the circulation of the country as carried on by the country bankers; but he thought there was nothing unjustifiable in the action of the Government on that point, as the right of issuing paper money belonged exclusively to the Crown. The House might, therefore, fairly dismiss the idea that the Bill would interfere with the currency of the country. Nor did he believe the Bill would interfere with the Bank Charter. That suggestion seemed to him very improbable; and he might remind the House that it had always been regretted that the lowest Bank of England note was for so large an amount as £5.All that the Bill would do would be to provide a legitimate means of transmitting smaller sums. Again, it had been objected to the Bill that it would be the beginning of a large paper issue not founded on bullion. By bullion was meant, of course, value received; and he took it for granted that the Post Office was not going to issue its orders without previously receiving the value for every order. He presumed that in every case the full value would be received. It might be doubted whether it would be better to limit the circulation of the orders to one month or to three. It was intended, not only to afford an opportunity of transmitting orders payable to a certain payee, but also to enable persons to purchase books of orders available at any time within the limit. That being so, he wished to know from what date the period of circulation was to begin. Was it from the time of the date of each order, or from the time of the issue of the books from the Post Office? If the period of circulation were limited to one month, the orders would not have time to come to their natural maturity; while if the time was reckoned from the date of the issue of the books from the Post Office, three months was not at all too long a period of circulation. His hon. Friend had feared the possibility of forgery and fraud, and, no doubt, every document of value was liable to be forged. But there was a material difference between the currency of these documents and of the regular paper money. The circulation of the latter was for a very long period; but the money orders would live for at most three months, and, there being little time for forgery, the forgery would run an exceptionally serious risk. He altogether failed to appreciate the danger apprehended by his hon. Friend. With regard to the measure itself, he had but few suggestions to make. If the arrangements were adhered to of issuing books of orders in an inchoate form, they ought to be dated at each post office, so that the limit of the period of currency might be clearly indicated. He recommended that persons issuing these orders should be required to insert the name of the payee, and the place of payment, so as to guard against fraud as far as possible. With these conditions, he should give his approbation to the Bill.

said, he had no doubt that the issue of these notes would be a great service to the country generally, and more especially to the working classes. It would increase the transmission of small sums to a greater extent than heretofore, and would be highly profitable to the Post Office. Even now cheques were used largely as a circulating medium. In Scotland, while cheques had been frequently forged, the forgery of £1 notes was a thing almost unknown. He wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General to one point. He was going to charge ½ d .for a 1 s . note, then 1 d . for each 2 s . 6 d ., 5 s ., and 7 s . 6 d . notes, and 2 d . for 10 s . up to 20 s . notes. Now, he (Mr. Holms) thought it would be only fair if the two amounts of 10 s . and 12 s . 6 d . were charged 1½ d .

wished to ask the Postmaster General, Whether, if the term of three months was reduced to one month, he would make the commission now running after three months, be payable on each order after the month?

, in reply to the Question of the hon. Member for Mid Somerset (Mr. R. H. Paget), said, he did not quite agree that the question as between three months and one month was of the essence of the Bill, though, undoubtedly, it was very important; and it should also be understood that his right hon. Friend the Postmaster General had not announced his intention of making that contraction of time. But if it should be the desire of the House, and not interfere with the purpose of the Bill in relation to the transmission of small sums, rather than give up the Bill he would be prepared to listen to a proposal having that object in view. He had heard with great satisfaction the speech of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. G. Hubbard), and, with the reservation of the question as to whether payment of these orders should be made in a single place or not, the Government were disposed to follow pretty much, what he said. With regard to the speech of the hon. Baronet the Member for the London University (Sir John Lubbock), he should be very much disposed to sympathize with his apprehensions, provided it could be shown to the satisfaction of any reasonable mind that they were going to create a paper currency on a large scale. He did not agree with the hon. Baronet in his views regarding the elementary principles of a sound paper currency, including the doctrine that it should not be issued by the State. On the contrary, a paper currency, except when issued by the State, required some special apology and justification. There was one most important condition of which his hon. Friend had taken no notice at all with regard to the insertion of the name of the payee, and that insertion was most important in two points of view—first of all, as providing a security against forgery, because, as they knew very well from an enormous experience in the transmission of railway dividends, the forgery of signatures was generally regarded as a most serious matter indeed; and second, as preventing the instrument from becoming an instrument of currency. His hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. W. Holms) said that cheques and drafts were largely used in that way. But he (Mr. Gladstone) must say that was not his experience, and he doubted whether it was the general experience that they were used properly as currency. He (Mr. Gladstone) meant that the orders would not be used largely as a means of effecting payments from hand to hand. They were for an entirely different purpose— namely, the transmission of money from place to place, and they were designed to meet a great and growing and most legitimate public want. Years ago, it was never dreamed of when the money order system was first introduced tentatively, for no one had any idea of the gigantic dimensions to which it would grow. The mass of the community had hardly the means of making known their wants; it was only by experience that the knowledge of them was gradually arrived at; and now it had grown to such, an extent that the means to satisfy it might be almost indefinite in extent without going beyond the necessities of the case. Under those circumstances, he was sorry that, on account in the main of a proposal which seemed to him and to the generality of the House farfetched, that the document might become an instrument of currency, his hon. Friend should not be disposed to accept the Bill, but also that he should meet it with an alternative of acceding a general inquiry into the subject. That was an act of retrogression which he hoped his hon. Friend would not seriously propose. The case of the Government had been properly stated by his right hon. Friend the Postmaster General, and might be summed up in one sentence— that they had ample evidence of the existence of a most legitimate and needful want, not economical only, but social and domestic quite as much as it was economical, connected not less with the moral habits and family ties of the people of this country than it was with their pecuniary interests; that they had found every attempt which had been made in the direction of supplying this want thoroughly beneficial and satisfactory; but as the means were not yet perfect, they were now invited to go forward in creating fresh provisions; and he hoped the House, under the circumstances, and with the concurrence of opinion which prevailed, would certainly not consent to relegate the matter to the initial stage of a general inquiry, but would, on principle, adopt this Bill, and then go forward to the consideration in Committee of the undoubtedly important detailed provisions which it would be necessary to make as safeguards.

said, he regarded the Bill as the natural result of what he had always looked upon as the mistake committed in the abolition of £1 notes in the currency, many years ago. Hon. Members would remember that Scotland and Ireland were allowed to retain the £ 1 note system, when it was decided upon abolishing it in regard to England; but for what reason, he (Mr. W. Fowler) confessed, he had never been able to discover. If forgery was dangerous in England, it was dangerous in Scotland and Ireland also. He had made a great many inquiries, some years ago, upon this subject; and he found that both in Scotland and Ireland, and even in Australia, where £1 notes were also in use, that the question of forgery was not found to carry much weight with it. He wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General to one aspect of the subject, which involved, he thought, a very important consideration in the event of due precaution not being taken by the Post Office. All the banks which issued notes for small amounts, in this way, took very great care that the form of the plates they used was changed from time to time, so as to render it as difficult as possible to forge the notes. He thought that the Postmaster General would find that this point would require very great consideration from him; but, supposing all the precautions to be taken by the Post Office which were now taken by the bankers, he did not think the question of forgery would be found to involve any insurmountable difficulty. The question of stealing was one which, he confessed, affected his mind a good deal more than that of forgery. If it became a general practice to steal letters, because of the possibility of finding these postal notes in them, it would be a very serious business indeed. It must not be forgotten that enormous sums were transmitted through the post every day, both in large and small amounts. He had himself often opened a letter containing £100,000 or £200,000 in it, which had been transmitted with perfect safety through the post. When it became the habit to send a constant succession of small amounts of money through the post, the temptation to open the letters, while in the course of transmission and to plunder them of their contents, would be very great. The danger was that letters containing small amounts would not be so carefully looked after as letters were now which contained large amounts. There might be something in a consideration of that kind which should induce the Post Office to devote careful attention to it; but, at the same time, he did not think that any apprehension of the kind would be a sufficient obstacle to prevent Her Majesty's Government from carrying out a great improvement of this kind. He thought that all the matter required was that it should be properly looked into; and, for his own part, he should be glad to have all the information he could possibly obtain from the Department. With regard to the suggestion that the payee's name should always be inserted in the order, that, of course, would be a most important precaution. He did not understand that Her Majesty's Government would demand that the name of the payee should be inserted, but that they proposed to give power to insert the payee's name if the holder of the note wished to send it away. If the holder desired to send it by post, he would probably insert the payee's name; but if he was simply going to hand it over to a neighbour and was not going to send it away, then he would not consider it necessary to insert the name of the payee. No doubt, if the payee's name were inserted it would be an immense safeguard against the stealing of the note, because, in that case, if the wrong man got hold of the note, and the payee's name was inserted, he could do nothing with it unless he was willing to commit forgery. Thus, the stealing of letters containing these notes would not prove to be a profitable occupation. He was not apprehensive of any considerable amount of danger or evil on this head, and he certainly did not share in the fears which had been expressed upon the point by his hon. Friend. To his mind, the really important point involved in the Government measure was the question of the currency. Would this system of postal orders create a new currency without a reserve, or without a proper bullion reserve? If they had had a proper small currency for all these years, they would have been able to transmit small sums with great ease and facility, and they would have a bullion reserve for the £1 notes. They had lost the £1 notes, and the question for consideration now was whether they should continue to be deprived of a proper substitute for that which they had lost. He must admit that he was able to see some danger in the matter. He did not think that anyone was able to foretell beforehand what the effect of the introduction of the new system, would be in a great country like this. He agreed, however, with his hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. W. Holms); and he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister hardly appreciated what his hon. Friend had said that, at the present time, cheques and bills were made to supply the place of a currency. Indeed, the commercial affairs of this country could not be carried on without the gigantic currency which these cheques and bills supplied. Cheques and bills at that moment passed readily from hand to hand, and the vast commercial business of the country was thus, practically, conducted without the employment of money at all. He ventured to assert that, in that great City, by far the largest commercial transactions were concluded without a £5 note being used during the whole of the day. It was very rare, indeed, that actual money passed. Therefore, the money currency they possessed was a mere nothing in the transaction of the commercial business of the country; but the deficient money currency was supplemented by a currency of bills and cheques, based, no doubt, upon money, but which were not money, except for the purpose of being passed from hand to hand. Of course, the bills and cheques did the work of money, and if they were to replace them by money, they must have a large number of millions of bank-notes. Something like £30,000,000 would pass from hand to band in the City in the course of one day, although hardly any monetary currency would pass at all. Thus, it would be seen what a currency was created by the people for their own convenience; that currency not existing in the form of actual money. At the same time, it would be very wrong to have a currency really bearing a money value which was not based upon a proper reserve of money. That would be contrary to their whole monetarysystem, and would be a most dangerous innovation. He apprehended, however, that his right bon. Friend the Postmaster General bad no such idea, and that there was no such intention on the part of Her Majesty's Government. His hon. Friend said it was very likely, if they did not take care, that the Government would be introducing such a system without knowing it. Now, he (Mr. W. Fowler) confessed, that if the proposal of the Government were acceded to, and the currency of the notes called into existence by it was limited to one month, it would be rather difficult to create a great currency by means of these notes; because, if he understood the matter rightly, in that case, any money held for more than a month would have to pay a pretty heavy fine for being held over. Therefore, it would be absolutely necessary that the notes should come rapidly in, and, according to the figures which the Postmaster General had placed before the House, a very large amount of these notes would be continually in circula- tion. He was not prepared to say, offhand, that there would be any great danger in that. He did not himself think that there would be any very serious danger, any more than in the circulation of a vast number of cheques every day, provided always that it was not dealt with as currency by the people at large, and treated as if it were a supplemental currency unsecured. He was not prepared to express any opinion upon the argument that it would be so used. If there was any apprehension that it might be so used to such an extent as to become a danger to the State, he should certainly like to have the opinion of a Select Committee upon the matter after a thorough investigation of the whole question. But he was inclined to think, having regard to what had passed in the House that night, that his hon. Friend the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) would be wise not to divide the House on the question, but that he would accept the interesting debate which had taken place as a preliminary to a further discussion of the details of the measure in Committee of the Whole House. He must again express regret that they had ever lost the convenient £1 notes of which they saw so many North of the Tweed, and which, if continued in this country, would, he believed, have proved to be of equal convenience to the people of England. He did not think that hon. Members, who were in the habit of dealing with large sums of money, could have any idea of the number of people who were in the habit of dealing with smaller sums. It fell to his lot to give a lecture on this point some years ago, and something that he said was quoted in The Economist, which led to his receiving letters from people in the country saying how strongly they felt the importance of the question of the transmission of small sums of money. One gentleman wrote to say that he had had to send 11 miles across the country for a Post Office order, in order to transmit a sum of £1 13s.to his bookseller. He had no wish to occupy the time of the House further; but he did feel strongly upon the question, and he thought it was one which demanded the careful attention of the Committee. He would avoid, in every way, affording encouragement to the Government in starting a trade in position to any other trade. He confessed that he viewed with great jealousy the principle of Government Departments taking up the business of private persons; but, at the same time, he was afraid that the proposal of the Postmaster General would unwittingly do great damage to a very struggling and not unimportant institution which had been endeavouring to do this work for some years. He alluded to the Cheque Bank. That bank conducted a special business, and he was certainly afraid that the present Bill would put a stop to it. The people connected with the bank had been working hard to do what the Government now proposed to do, and this measure would probably stop them in their valuable labours. At the same time, it could not be expected that Her Majesty's Government would stay their hand on account of the Cheque Bank; and he had very little doubt that the new system, if carried out with due precautions, would be a great success. He very much admired the interesting speech which had been delivered by his hon. Friend the Member for the University of London; but he thought it would be better that his hon. Friend should not divide the House upon the present occasion.

said, be did not wish to detain the House for more than a few moments; but he could not help expressing his regret that his noble Friend the late Postmaster General (Lord John Manners) was not present to support, as he (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) knew he would have done, the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the present Postmaster General. He (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) had had something to do with the preparation of a measure on the same subject by the late Government; and he could bear testimony to the fact not only of the want of some such Bill as this among the poorer classes of the community, but that, in the opinion, at all events, of the officials of the Post Office, it was regarded in that light, and that it would prevent almost the whole of the objections of the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock), if not everyone of them. The objections of the hon. Baronet rather seemed to be the reflection of the objections that were taken to the proposal which was submitted to the House on a former occasion, and which really related more to the issue of a note which had very little limitation in regard to time; whereas the real safeguard of the present proposal undoubtedly was the limitation proposed in regard to the duration of the notes. Upon that point, he confessed that he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Post master General would pause, before he gave way too readily to the reduction of the period for which these notes were proposed to be issued from three months to one month. He believed that, practically, any such reduction would immensely diminish the value of the Bill to the general public, and he did not think that the retention of the three months would, in any way, result in establishing the circulating medium which the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London had suggested as the intention of the measure. There was one other point only upon which he should like to express his own feeling, and that was the limitation of the issue to one Office. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would hesitate and carefully weigh the effect, before he consented to adopt the proposal of his right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. J. G. Hubbard) to limit to one Office the circulation of these notes. There, again, he believed that if the suggestion now made were accepted by the Government, one of the most important and advantageous of the proposals contained in the Bill would be eliminated from it; and he sincerely trusted, therefore, that the convenience which would be established by enabling the general public to take up these notes in order to pay small sums in other parts of the Kingdom, would be still retained in the Bill. He believed that the proposal, as it now stood, was of the utmost value and importance to the country. He did not think, where they had safeguards such as those which were now at hand— safeguards as to the limit of time, and safeguards as to the amount of fine that would be practically inflicted for a renewal of the notes— that they could feel themselves in any position of insecurity. In point of fact, the scheme could only be considered as something in the shape of an enlargement of the system they had already established with regard to Post Office orders. At one time, there were great doubts whether a measure of this kind was necessary at all, and whether it was not in the power of the Postmaster General, without further legislation, to carry into effect the proposals contained in the Bill. It was only on account of a technical objection that it had been found necessary to enlarge the powers of the Postmaster General by further legislation. He asked the House to look upon the proposal rather as an entension of the money-order system, than to set up, as the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London suggested, a new medium of circulation.

(who was imperfectly heard) said, the discussion upon that question had come on rather sooner than he had expected. In venturing to trouble the House with a few remarks, he would ask for that indulgence which was usually accorded to a Member on rising for the first time to address it. He wished, first, to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General upon the clearness and conciseness of his statement in moving the second reading of the Bill. He could not deny that the measure would be for the advantage and benefit of a very large number of persons who were in the habit of transmitting small sums of money. The figures given by the Postmaster General of the number of persons who now sent away Post Office orders for small sums were very large indeed, and they would probably be greatly augmented by the operation of the present Bill. Speaking as one who was himself connected with a bank, he must confess that he did not share in the apprehensions which had been expressed by his hon. Friend the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock). He looked upon he apprehensions of his hon. Friend as being, for the most part, without foundation; but, at the same time, there was one point in regard to which it would be necessary to take precautions. He referred to the necessity of providing security against the notes issued by the Post Office. It would be advisable to make a daily calculation of the liabilities of the Post Office in regard to the postal notes, so that the notes issued should never be in excess of the provision made to meet them. The notes would be for very small amounts, and he did not think that any one post office would be likely to have such a large number of notes presented for payment on any one day as would make it necessary to supply extra bullion in order to meet the payment. He could not help thinking that the objections raised by his hon. Friend the Member for the University of London on this point were more visionary than real. There was one other point raised by his hon. Friend in regard to the extra penalty that would be incurred by the holders of notes if they failed to present them for more than a month after the date of issue. He did not think there would be much delay in the presentation of the notes, because those who held them would not wish to incur the penalty of the extra payment of 2 d. for not presenting them in due time. But he presumed, if there was any difficulty in that or any other respect in questions of detail, Her Majesty's Government would devise the proper means for rectifying them when the Bill got into Committee. He had simply desired to make these few observations to the House; and, as a banker, he was prepared to give his support to the second reading of the Bill.

remarked, that as so much had been said in favour of the Bill, he would not delay the House long. He should not have risen at all if he had not desired to enter a caveat against an observation which fell from the Prime Minister. His hon. Friend behind him, the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock), objected to the power of issuing notes, on the ground that it ought to be vested in private hands. The Prime Minister, on the contrary, laid down the doctrine that the power of issuing notes ought to be vested in the State. He confessed, for his own part, that he did not believe in the sacred and exclusive right, either of the State or of private individuals, to issue notes. It was a matter of public convenience, and ought to be regulated in that respect alone. The views just expressed by the Prime Minister, and also by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. J. G. Hubbard), were much in vogue 35 years ago. They had come to be questioned, as was not unusual, by a later generation; but he did not wish to discuss them now, and it was only in view of possible proposals of future legislation that he demurred to the supposition that they remained unquestioned. He joined with the hon. Baronet the late Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) in hoping that his right hon. Friend the Postmaster General would not think of reducing the term of the currency of these notes from three months to one month; and he hoped also that the right hon. Gentleman would not agree to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. G. Hubbard) that the notes should be made payable only at one place. If such a principle were adopted, he (Mr. Courtney) was of opinion that it would reduce very much the usefulness of the notes. The great advantage of the notes would consist in their being available whenever occasion might require; but it was obvious that that would be impossible, if they must be returned for payment within one month and be made payable only at one place. What was required was a note which might be circulated from hand to hand, until it was brought to the place where it was to be paid; but the usefulness of the measure would be very much curtailed, if they were to be tied down to one particular place. Their object in obtaining the notes would be to make use of them as the occasion demanded. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler) was of opinion that nothing should be undertaken by the State which would interfere with private enterprize; and he then somewhat inconsistently approved of this measure, although, as he rightly said, it would materially interfere with the operations of the Cheque Bank. Here, again, he (Mr. Courtney) differed from the view expressed. Whatever function the State undertook—even that of sending letters to and fro—could be discharged .by private enterprize; and the question whether any particular work should be undertaken must be decided on a comparison of advantage and disadvantage. As to the objection that this new issue would be without a metallic basis, it must be observed that the issue of these notes would be in the nature of an issue in exchange for money, and this currency would be exactly analogous to the issue of the old Bank of Amsterdam, which received certain sums of money into its vaults and issued tickets in exchange; the money in the vaults representing the actual notes issued, until the notes or tickets came back again to be exchanged for money. He did not believe there was likely to be any large or objectionable currency established, and it would be perfectly innocuous so long as there was money at the Post Office to meet it. Before the noney could be applied to any other purpose than the redemption of the notes, it would require the sanction of an Act of Parliament. The Post Office Savings Bank was an institution of an entirely different character. In that case, the Government expended the money and lent it again with a very small margin of interest—in his opinion, a margin that was not at all sufficient. In this case there need be no attempt to issue money except for the purpose of re-paying notes. Lastly, this was a cumulative process of transmitting money. It was not intended in any way to be a substitute for the present Post Office money-order system, but was rather an addition to it; and if any hon. Member was afraid of robbery, forgery, or any other mischance, he had only to go to the Post Office and inquire how the money orders worked under the present system. He would find that the system worked with perfect safety, and to the great convenience of the country. He had no doubt that a system of postal notes, based upon the present Bill, would widely extend the money-order system, and would be brought into use upon a very large scale, greatly to the convenience of the public at large. In the first place, they would be reducing the expenditure upon a branch of the Public Service, and money saved there would be money saved to the public; and in the next place, they would be supplying a public want. Her Majesty's Government, he presumed, would not think of making the Post Office, in any of its branches, a means of gain to the Revenues of the State; and if it was found that the cost of working the machinery of the new system was less than was anticipated, and that the profits were accordingly greater, he presumed that by-and-bye there would be a considerable reduction in the charges to the public. He had nothing further to add, except the expression of a hope that his right hon. Friend the Postmaster General would adhere to the scheme in its entirety. He could not refrain from expressing his gratification at the proposal, because he believed that it would prove an additional means of beneficially utilizing the Post Office.

said, he had not laid down as an axiom that all the circulation should be in the hands of private hankers, but had simply pointed out that the great authorities to whom he had alluded were of that opinion. He was glad to hear that the Government would be prepared to consider whether the limit of the duration of these notes should not be reduced from, three months to one month. Under all the circumstances, he thought he would be best consulting the feeling of the House if he were to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question again proposed.

said, he should not have risen but for one remark which had fallen from the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney). The hon. Member expressed a hope that these postal notes would be made payable at any post office in the Kingdom. He (Mr. R. N. Fowler) did not think that such a proposal could be carried out. He did not deny that the system introduced by the measure might be of great convenience to the public; but it would be very inconvenient to find, in some small post office in an out of the way part of the Kingdom, a large number of these orders made payable on a particular day with an insufficient amount of money to meet them. He presumed that that difficulty was really the cause why the 14th clause had been inserted in the Bill. To some extent, Clause 10 was met by Clause 14, which said that—

"A postmaster may refuse or delay the payment of a postal order, but shall immediately report such delay or refusal, with his reasons for it, to the Postmaster General."

He presumed that the real reason why that clause was inserted in the Bill was that, in the event of a large number of orders being presented at a post office, and the postmaster found himself unable to meet them, he would be afforded an opportunity of asking for time. He had only risen for the purpose of making these remarks in consequence of what fell from the hon. Member for Liskeard.

said, he was gratified that the House generally had so cordially assented to the second reading of the Bill, and he had nothing more to do than to thank hon. Gentlemen for the practical suggestions they had made, and to assure them that those suggestions should be very carefully considered by the Department. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler) particularly cautioned them with regard to certain safeguards which, in his opinion, they ought to take. He (Mr. Fawcett) ought to have told the House, in the first instance, that they had already been in communication with the Bank of England on the subject, and that the authorities of that institution received them most kindly, and promised to give them every assistance. With regard to the proposal to limit the circulation of the proposed notes from three months to one month, he was rejoiced to find that the late Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), and many others, objected to that limitation. He (Mr. Fawcett), himself, did so; but if it were the general wish of the House that the circulation of the notes should be limited to one month, he would not oppose the proposition. He should, however, much prefer that the House would assent to the proposal contained in the Bill. There was only one other suggestion to which he desired to allude, and that was with respect to the office at which the notes were to be made payable. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. J. G. Hubbard) appeared to be labouring under some misunderstanding on this subject. He (Mr. Fawcett) did not wish that the name of the post office at which the note was payable should be inserted at the time the note was purchased, but at the time it was sent off. He thought he had already sufficiently explained that, in the Bill as it now stood, the insertion of the name of the post office would be left optional. Anyone sending one of the notes would have perfect security, because he himself had the power of inserting, the name of the payee, and the office at which the note was payable; in fact, to all intents and purposes, the order thus treated, amounted to a crossed cheque. The various suggestions made in the course of the discussion should receive careful consideration.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Friday next.

Universities and College Estates Act Amendment Bill. [H. L.]

( Secretary Sir William Harcourt. )

[BILL 257.] SECOND READING.

Order for Second Reading read.

said, it was his duty to ask the House to assent to the second reading of this Bill, which he would endeavour to explain as briefly as possible. Under the Universities and College Estates Act, every College in either University had borrowed large sums of money, which they were empowered to borrow with the consent of the Copyhold Commissioners, and upon those large sums they had to pay interest at the rate of 4 per cent per annum, and to provide for the re-payment of the principal within a fixed period. Now, some of these very Colleges had considerable sums of money invested at 3 per cent, standing with the Copyhold Commissioners, or the Court of Chancery. These sums were the produce of the sale of lands which the College had been authorized to make under the same Universities and College Estates Act. The object of the Bill was a very simple one. It was to enable the sums which were invested at 3 per cent to be used in the re-payment of debts which carried 4 per cent per interest, and provision was made that the principal should be replaced within the same period as heretofore. If any future loans should be required for the purposes which were authorized by the existing Universities and College Estates Act, or for the other purposes which he would shortly mention and which were included in the present Bill, it was provided that the sums which belonged to the Colleges were to be used, instead of raising the money by future loans, and the application in every case would have to be made with the consent of the Copyhold Commissioners. He believed he was right in saying that the Copyhold Commissioners approved of the Bill. He had mentioned, a moment ago, that there was one enlargement of power given to the Colleges, under which they were enabled to borrow money; that the House would see was included in the 3rd section of the Bill. Under the enlarged powers, however, the money raised could only be employed in the re-building of the chancels, which, by law, they were obliged to do. He need hardly say that, in the present state of agriculture and general depression, it was the object of many of the Colleges of Cambridge and Oxford to obtain a higher percentage for the money they invested than they now got, and they would be in a very much better position if they were enabled to carry out that purpose by the Bill now under consideration. The Bill was suggested, in the first instance, by some of the Colleges at Oxford, but it had the approval of nearly every College at Oxford and Cambridge; and if the University Commissioners did not originate the Bill, he believed he was right in saying it had their full approval. He had heard an objection raised to the Bill, to the effect that the Colleges would have larger powers, and would be released, to a certain extent, from the control which the Copyhold Commissioners now exercised over them. He believed that that would not be the case, for the Copyhold Commissioners would have the same duties imposed upon them as before. They would have the duty of seeing that the monies borrowed under the Bill were replaced within a fixed period. He was not aware there was anything further he need refer to in explaining the provisions of the Bill; but he hoped that, considering the emergency in which many of the Colleges found themselves, the House would assent to the second reading of the Bill, the main provision of which was that the Colleges should be enabled to apply the money now invested at 3 per cent in paying off a large and heavy burden of money now standing at 4 per cent.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—( Mr. Arthur Peel. )

said, it would be in the memory of hon. Members of the House who had glanced over the Parliamentary Papers, that he put upon the Paper a Notice to the effect that when this Bill came up for second reading he would move that it be referred to a Select Committee. He saw that course was inconvenient, because, at that late period of the Session, it seemed hardly probable that a Select Committee could get evidence and report upon the Bill before the Prorogation. When the Bill was introduced, he viewed it with much apprehension. He always looked with considerable apprehension upon any scheme which had for its object the enlargement of the powers of the Colleges in Oxford or Cambridge in regard to their estates. The Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge had played fast-and-loose with their property, and he might say that, after a somewhat deliberate investigation of their practice and motives, he had arrived at a very definite conclusion as to the difference between an Oxford Liberal and an Oxford Conservative. An Oxford Liberal was very free with Oxford money, and an Oxford Conservative wanted to keep it to himself. There was another point worthy of mention. When this Bill was introduced, no previous notice of it had been given to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford. It was generally understood when a Bill was introduced in either House of Parliament, which affected the status of the Universities, that that courtesy was shown to the Universities. That this courtesy was not extended in the present instance was, no doubt, an oversight. The introduction of the Bill, however, had caused a certain amount of alarm. When he was lately at Oxford, he got into conversation with some of the most intelligent persons in the University, and he found that they looked upon the Bill with great alarm, because they considered that it would benefit the wealthier Colleges at the expense of the poorer Colleges; and he might here mention that some of the poorer Colleges did their work very much better than their wealthier brethren. There was an impression in the poorer Colleges that this was an attempt on the part of the wealthier Colleges to enlarge, what he ventured to call, the trading element of the Colleges. It did not appear to him to be the object for which any of these Colleges were founded, and he believed that this system of trading would ultimately land the Colleges in certain inconvenience. He understood one of the objects of the Bill was to enable the money of the Colleges to be very largely employed in extending the buildings. At the present moment, there were three Colleges who were notoriously purposing to lay out large sums of money in increasing their buildings. Furthermore, very large sums had already been laid out in sheer extravagance; and he had been told, he believed correctly, that at one particularly wealthy College in Oxford, such a sum had been spent in decorating the quadrangle as would buy the fee-simple of some of the poorer Colleges. There ought, in his opinion, to be certain powers to stop that extravagance. In the Act of 1877 three purposes were put forward. One of those purposes was to relieve the University from £5,500 a-year, in aid of the salaries of Professors; and it was determined that the Colleges should hereafter contribute nearly a clear half of the expenses of the Universities. He did not think that the general body should be taxed, in order to enable certain Professors to live at ease and comfort. Another purpose of the Act of 1877 was to provide certain endowments, in deference to a very general cry on the part of the public that funds which were really given, in the first instance for the development of learning, should be so applied. The third purpose of the Act was to provide certain assistance to unattached students.

rose to Order. He desired to know whether this discussion was at all germane to the Bill?

said, the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) would perceive the relevancy of his observations before he finished speaking. It seemed to him that the powers provided by the Act of 1877 could not be postponed indefinitely. The objects he had mentioned were before Parliament when it passed the Bill of 1877; and if larger powers were now given to the Colleges, if the Colleges were enabled to anticipate their future, if they were able to deal in the manner now prescribed with Trust funds, it was very probable that the satisfaction of the objects of the Act of 1877 would be indefinitely postponed. He did not rise for the purpose of opposing the second reading of the Bill; but he thought there ought to be a strict and careful scrutiny of the scope of the Bill when it went into Committee.

wished, briefly, to state to the House the strong objections he entertained to the Bill. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State (Mr. Arthur Peel) said, a moment ago, that the scope of the Bill was not an enlargement of the scope of existing legislation, except in the matter of the rebuilding of chancels. The real object of the Bill, however, was to enable the Colleges to apply money to building purposes generally; and in order to show to the House the significance of this proposal, he would state what was being done at Oxford in the matter of building. He believed it to be true that one of the Colleges at Oxford had incurred a debt of £75,000 for building purposes, and some of the wealthy Colleges, like St. John's, proposed to expend equally large sums in extending their buildings. The point for the House to observe was this—that, going back to the time when the Duke of Cleveland's Estate Commission was appointed, it was the object of several of the Colleges at Oxford to apply their College funds for purposes of their own, with a view to avoid contributions to University and other purposes which they were expected to make, and that object would be aided by the present Bill. Then, again, the House must observe that the present measure dealt with the sale of lands. The Act of 1858 prescribed the mode in which the proceeds of the sale of College estates were to be applied. The purchase money was to be invested by the Copyhold Commissioners, but upon the condition that it was re-invested in land; and he would ask the House to consider what would be the effect of the present Bill, if it were allowed to pass as it now stood. If the Bill were to pass, Colleges would be able to borrow the money which accrued from the sale of lands and apply it to building purposes, and, at the same time, to defer the re-instatement. It was contrary to public policy and to the interests of the Universities that the Colleges should be allowed to defer re-instatement of their estates beyond a given period. His hon. Friend had referred just now to the control which the Copyhold Commissioners would exercise. He (Mr. Roundell) contended that that control was good for nothing. They might see to the regularity of the transactions, but they were no judges whatever of the policy of allowing Colleges to borrow money, and to defer re-instatement of their estates. All he could say on that point was, that having regard to the insufficiency of control given by the existing Acts of 1858 and 1860, the present Bill ought not to be allowed to become law without a definite compulsory provision that every College borrowing money should be required to repay the money by instalments within the period over which the loan extended. Assuming that the period was 30 years, he submitted that it ought to be made compulsory that the College should repay one-thirtieth part every year, and so secure the reinstatement of the College estates at the end of the 30 years. At present, there was no obligatory provision for that being done. Speaking as a former Fellow of a College at Oxford, he submitted that the Colleges ought not to be trusted in the matter of borrowing money. His experience taught him, that however much he would trust Colleges in matters of education, he would not trust them for one moment in matters of finance. There was only one other point to which he desired to refer. The 3rd section of the Bill enabled Colleges, with the consent of the Copyhold Commissioners, which he contended was worth nothing, to apply these monies to the restoration or re-building of the chancels of any of the churches. Whatever his objection would be to trusting the Colleges in matters of finance, he would, least of all, trust them where those financial matters were mixed up with the aesthetic tastes of members of a College. When the proper time came they must take the sense of the House upon that section.

said, that, without having any instructions in this matter from the University which he had the honour to represent, he thought it would hardly be respectful if he, as the only University Member who happened to be present, did not add a few observations to the present discussion. As far as he could understand from the statement of his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State to the Home Department (Mr. Arthur Peel), the Bill was really of a very simple character, and the opposition which they had just listened to did not really rest upon the merits of the case. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Roundell) thought that Colleges were not to be trusted in matters of finance; that they spent too much money in buildings, and not enough in the re-placement of the estates they sold. There was a further objection raised, and that was that the Bill ought not to have been brought in before the Commission had discharged their duties. But there was one point which told very much in favour of the Bill, and which commended itself to his mind. The Bill came to them recommended in the very strongest way, for it had been introduced to Parliament by the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, who was also the Chairman of the Oxford University Commission. They knew that the Commission were endeavouring to do what they could to carry out the provisions of the Act under which they were appointed. His mind was, therefore, considerably relieved upon the subject, for he did not think it likely, seeing that the measure was introduced in that manner, that the framers had neglected to take care that sufficient money was kept for the purposes which the Commission had in view. As to the charges which had been made against the Governing Bodies of the Colleges, he was very sorry that it should be necessary for him to defend those Bodies. He had thought that many of them were more of the way of thinking of the hon. Member who had brought forward the charges than of his (Mr. Talbot's) way of thinking at the present moment. He had thought they were all people whom they could trust to act in a thoroughly liberal manner; but he was sorry to hear, on the authority of the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Roundell), that that was not the case. The hon. Member said he would trust the Governing Bodies on all matters of education, but not on matters of finance; but that was a matter which the hon. Gentleman must be left to settle with the Governing Bodies. Seeing that those Bodies were acting under the public eye, he did not think there was much to fear. Neither the people inside the Colleges, nor those outside, who were carefully watching, had any reason to fear that the Colleges would not keep sufficient funds in hand to do all the things they ought to do, besides carrying out all the necessary building operations. He would put it to the House whether, after all, these building purposes were not very useful and necessary purposes? They all desired that all these great ornaments of their country—the Colleges of their Universities—should be kept up in the best possible manner, and that the existing buildings should not only be maintained, but extended, as time went on and requirements multiplied. It would be impertinent to remind the hon. Member for Grantham, and other hon. Members who were conversant with the Universities, that there had been a large addition to the work of the Colleges, and increased demands upon their accommodation, and that, therefore, it was necessary that they should extend from time to time. New College, for instance, had made enormous strides during the present generation, and it had become necessary that additions should be made to it—that new buildings should be erected in connection with it.Why should it be feared that the money would be misapplied, if the Governing Body were intrusted with the management of the building operations? He would put it to the hon. Member, before he took any strong action in the matter, whether it would not be wise to bear in mind that no new duty would be imposed on the Governing Bodies— that they were getting no new powers? The Bill simply said that they should pay sums invested at 3 per cent in the discharge of debts already imposed upon them, which carried 4 per cent. With regard to the clause which enabled the Colleges to lay out some of the money they were to borrow on advantageous terms in the repairing or restoration of chancels, he would say that this was an existing obligation, and if the House disapproved of it, why not make a declaration to that effect repealing the obligation? While, however, the obligation rested on them, it was a fair thing to say that the funds to be received under the Bill should be applied in that way. [Mr. ROUNDELL: All money applicable under the Act?] The money would be obtained more easily, but it would be paid to discharge obligations already imposed on them. He was surprised to find that he had been in a "fool's paradise" on this subject. He had thought that the tendencies of the Oxford Colleges, at the present day, were not at all remarkable for their ecclesiastical character; but it seemed that the hon. Member opposite was afraid that too much money would be spent in restoring the chancels. He was not sorry to have made the discovery. The Government were not inclined to be retrograde in that or any other matter, and he was glad to find that, in their opinion, the House would be doing very wrong if it did not assent to the second reading. Time, no doubt, would be given before going into Committee to prepare any reasonable Amendments that hon. Gentlemen might consider necessary.

said, he might, perhaps, be allowed to point out that the Bill conferred on neither University nor College any new power of selling lands or changing them; and so also with regard to expenditure on the matter of building, that could be and was arranged for under the existing University and Colleges Estates Act. The Colleges could now borrow sums of money for building purposes, under the proviso that they were repaid in 30 years by means of a sinking fund, or agreement with the lender for repayment by instalments. At the present time, under the Act to which he referred, estates were sold with the approbation of the Copyhold Commissioners: they borrowed large sums for building, and sold estates, and the money now, in some cases, was lying in the Court of Chancery. In cases were estates had been sold to Railway Companies, the money realized was lying on one side yielding 3 per cent, and loans were due on the other side carrying 4 per cent. Well, by the Bill, the Colleges, instead of being forced to borrow at 4 per cent, whilst they had money of their own invested at 3 per cent, would be able, with the approbation of the Commissioners, to lend from one of their own funds to the other, with the same obligation as to repayment in 30 years. There was, therefore, nothing at all dangerous in the transaction. The income of the Colleges would be economized, because instead of, as at present, having to pay a larger sum than they received, they would be themselves at once both the borrowers and the lenders. With the exception of what had been said with reference to the 3rd clause—which provision could receive all the consideration that was necessary in Committee—he confessed that the criticism that he had heard to-night on this measure had been apart from the objects of the Bill.

said, he did not wish to oppose the second reading of the Bill, but was anxious to impress upon the Government the desirability of allowing time, before going into Committee, for the preparation and consideration of Amendments. He desired to correct a misapprehension into which the hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. J. G. Talbot) had fallen. The Bill did make a material difference in the matter of building. It was quite true it only dealt with chancels which the Colleges were bound to repair—that was to say, where the Colleges were the erectors—but it must be remembered that they had 30 years allowed in which to repay the money. He was sure that the hon. Member for the University of Oxford would appreciate this—that the Head of a College and the Fellows would be much more tempted to indulge their own taste in the matter of ecclesiastical architecture when they could borrow for a period extending over 30 years, than they would be if they had to find the amount expended out of their current income. There was a great difference between the other objects provided for in the Bill and this, which was a matter more or less of taste and artistic indulgence. The hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) had not quite correctly appreciated the effect of the section to which he was now referring. It was quite true that the Colleges could borrow through the Copyhold Commissioners for permanent works; and it might be a convenience, where the work to be done was proper and necessary, that they should be able to borrow at 3 instead of 4 per cent. In that case the Colleges, by using their own money, would be both the borrowers and lenders, and that was a material consideration, because, when they borrowed under the Act of 1858 from an outside person, the character and the terms of the mortgage were specifically prescribed. The mortgage was for 30 years, and the principal was cleared off either by an annuity or sinking fund. In the case of an outside person, he took care to collect his principal, because, if he did not, he might not have a claim against the College, but only a personal claim against the Fellows for the time being. There would not be the same inducement on the part of the Colleges themselves to collect the principal; in short, when they made a mortgage in a special form to a third person, it was more likely that the instalments would be paid. It might be said that the Copyhold Commissioners would be able to see that the money was paid; but, as the Bill stood, he did not think the Commissioners would have jurisdiction or power to see that a proper sum was set apart for re-payment of principal. He knew very well, from College experience, that they had not been over scrupulous in the matter of re-funding principal, as well as paying interest. They had taken trust funds in Consols under their own control, and they had treated them as book debts, and so long as they did that, they thought they were doing their duty. It was quite essential, if this measure was to become law, that they should insert an express provision in it, making the Copyhold Commissioners themselves the mortgagees. Just as in cases where, when the Commissioners allowed a College farm to be sold, they only paid over the interest on the money; so, in the future, when a College obtained a loan from itself for building purposes, the Commissioners should see that the sinking fund was paid to them year by year, so that at the end of the 30 years they would be in possession of as much capital as was originally handed over for the works. If the hon. Member for Warwick (Mr. Arthur Peel) would consult with the Law Officers of the Crown, he might be able to arrange, with their assistance, for the Copyhold Commissioners to be custodians of the sinking fund as it accrued year by year. If the Colleges were to be both the lenders and borrowers, unless the arrangement he proposed were adopted, there would be no check upon them. [Mr. ARTHUR PEEL dissented.] The hon. Gentleman shook his head, and if he (Mr. L. Stanley) was wrong in the view he took he should be very glad; and if the hon. Gentleman would tell them, in Committee, that the Commissioners would be bound to see that the sinking fund was paid, he should be content with the security. But he certainly thought that hitherto there had not been a sufficiently independent audit in the Colleges. The visitor was supposed to audit; but everyone who knew anything of the Colleges was aware that he did nothing of the kind, and that he did not go into the details of these matters. If they were going to permit these loans, they ought to take the fullest care in the Bill to make the Commissioners responsible for seeing that the proper instalments came in every year. There was one other matter to which he wished to refer. This money was to be repaid within, or at the expiration of, a certain period. They should take care that the instalments came in year by year. Nothing would be more unfortunate than to allow money to be borrowed for 30 years, and then, at the end of that period, when there were newly elected Fellows in office—men who, perhaps, were not born when the debt was contracted—to allow the Commissioners to come down upon those Fellows for the deficit of past years. They all knew that the caution money had been, in many cases, spent by the Colleges, and had become a mere book debt.

said, it appeared to him that neither the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers), the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Roundell), nor the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lyulph Stanley), had quite appreciated the remarks made by the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Arthur Peel), with regard to the Bill. The hon. Gentleman had made it clear to him (Mr. Bryce) that the measure did not propose to confer any additional borrowing powers whatever. All that it proposed was to enable Colleges to borrow money at 3 per cent instead of 4; and if his hon. Friends had fully appreciated that, he thought they would have felt that their present criticisms were not criticisms of the measure, but really suggestions to the Government that the Bill should be framed on a different principle. There was a proposal that a Bill should be introduced to subject Colleges to far more strict conditions as to borrowing and paying money than the conditions that at present existed, and this was a matter it was hardly relevant to discuss at the present moment. There was no reason the House should not grant Colleges the boon they so greatly required of being able to borrow at 3 instead of 4 per cent. It could hardly be supposed that they would, in the future, borrow more recklessly than they did now, merely because they would have a smaller interest to pay. As the hon. Members for Southwark and Grantham had spoken about the danger that the Colleges should, under this Bill, borrow for the erection of buildings, he would like to point out to them that the Colleges could at present borrow as much as they liked for that purpose. The hon. Member for Oldham, in offering some criticisms upon Clause 1, sub-section 2, had referred to the words "expiration of the period" in the Bill, and had seemed to imagine that there was something less efficacious in those words than in those contained in the existing Acts. But the words which were called in question made precisely the same provision as the existing Acts did with regard to the liability imposed on the Colleges, and did not give the Colleges any wider powers. As to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Oldham with regard to the Copyhold Commissioners not having sufficient power for watching the conduct of the Colleges under the Act, that might be true; but it must be remembered that such a power was not possessed by the Commissioners under the existing Acts, and the question was whether, if further power were needed, it might not be given in Committee. The absence of a provision giving that power was no reason, why the Bill should be now rejected.

said, he did not wish to delay the measure for a single moment, but only desired, as an Irish Representative, to express a wish that the House would facilitate the passing of the measure. He wished to see everything possible done for the advancement of education; and, in that view, he hoped the House would permit the second reading of the Bill.

said, there was one point on which all seemed to agree, that put forward by the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lyulph Stanley)—namely, that the Copyhold Commissioners should be charged with some supervision over the account between the Colleges as borrowers and themselves as lenders. [Mr. COURTNEY: They have that supervision.] If the hon. Member can show in Committee that that is so, it would relieve them from difficulty on that point.

said, that the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) had very properly stated the real point and purpose of the Bill, which had reference to the general financial convenience of the Colleges. It was said that the Colleges were not to be trusted in the matter of there-payment of capital borrowed; but the hon. Member, who had made the statement had not said distinctly how he proposed to increase the supervision over them—and whatever powers the Colleges possessed they would exercise under the control of existing Acts. Under the existing Acts, the Copyhold Commissioners came in at every turn; but, if their authority was not sufficient, as the hon. Member for Oldham said, the subject was worthy of discussion, and an Amendment could be inserted in Committee. His own impression was, that under the Clauses the Commissioners were bound to see that the instalments were paid. The hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Roundell) seemed to think that the College authorities— whom he so little trusted— would give full licence to their aesthetic tastes in the matter of the rebuilding of chancels and other portions of the structures; but he (Mr. Arthur Peel) wished to point out that their liberty would be restricted, and would be exercised under the control of the Copyhold Commissioners, and he did not think that the Copyhold Commissioners were a body likely to be unduly influenced by any aesthetic tendencies. Therefore, he trusted that the House would take their intervention as a sufficient check. The Bill would be put down for Committee for that day week, in order that it might be thoroughly examined by hon. Members.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday next.

Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No.3) Bill

On Motion of Lord FREDERICK CAVENDISH, Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders under "The Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Act, 1863," and the Acts amending the same, ordered to be brought in by Lord FREDERICK CAVANDISH and Mr. Holms.

Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill278.]

Corn Returns Bill

On Motion of Mr. ASHLEY, Bill to amend the Law respecting the obtaining of Corn Returns, ordered to be brought in by Mr. ASHLEY and Mr. CHAMBERLAIN.

Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 277.]

House adjourned at half after One o'clock.