said, that the Amendment he was about to propose did not appear on the Notice Paper. It was in page 16, line 18, to leave out "dwelling house," and insert "premises." In one city in Scotland he knew there were 476 licensed grocers who occupied shops only, and were liable to pay the same as the public-houses; and if the Bill passed in its present form, he believed they would escape without paying anything at all, not being dwelling houses. Therefore, he had proposed his Amendment. By making the change he suggested, the Bill would effect the object they had in view. If the Government, however, had any objection to the Amendment, he should be glad to withdraw it.

said, before the right hon. Gentleman replied to the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), he should like to call attention to the position in which they stood at the present time.

said, that his right hon. Friend (Mr. J. G. Hubbard) was speaking on the general question. If he would allow him, he would reply to his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh first. He had proposed an Amendment which had primâ facie evidence in in its favour; but, practically, he was opposed to it. The words in the clause were those of the existing law, under which the duty was originally levied. The hon. Member said that many houses would escape payment. His answer to that would be that they had not escaped payment hitherto, nor would they be more likely to then. He believed it would be decidedly inconvenient to introduce any variation in the phraseology of the present terms.

said, that, under those circumstances, he should ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.

said, he wished to draw the attention of the Committee for a few moments to the question of licences. As it was in the Act, the term was "dwelling houses." Now, everyone conversant with the present constitution of the City was aware that "dwelling house" was no description at all of those buildings in which a large portion of the industrial population of London took their mid-day meal. They were merely large places constructed for the purposes of refreshment only; and it must be borne in mind that those valuable buildings had no reference whatever to the value of the dwelling houses in which the proprietors resided. Therefore, he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider the convenience of legislation generally, so that they might know what they meant when they spoke of "dwelling houses" and "annual value." He did not want to raise any discussion unnecessarily; but his right hon. Friend would see that it was exceedingly inconvenient, in matters of legislation, to have one meaning in one Act of Parliament and another in another, because in that case they were constantly vacillating in construction of law between those two different meanings. He felt bound to draw the attention of the Committee to that subject. They had not yet passed the clause which referred to annual value.

said, he thought that the remarks of his right hon. Friend had no bearing upon the subject before the Committee.

said, he would submit it to the Chair whether he was in Order or not. He had ventured to suggest nothing but what was for the convenience of legislation.

said, that it appeared to him that the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman had nothing to do with the annual value.

said, that with the permission of the Committee, he wished to say that he thought it was important that some definite meaning should be assigned to the terms in that clause. There was nothing to show in the phrase "annual value" whether it meant the net value which went to the owner. It made all the difference whether the annual value went wholly into the pocket of the owner or not. Legislation was tending to scientific results on that point. If they went back to the year 1836, they would find that the rateable amount was that primarily inserted as expressing the value of the property. He assumed that the definition to be carried forward from the last Bill on the subject would receive the same interpretation as was previously given to it. He wished to know, for the convenience of the Committee and legislation, whether the interpretation of the term "annual value," given in the Bill of 1879, was to be repudiated by the present Government? As to the value of the property, the terms of the Act were clear and distinct for the purpose of ascertaining the amount of the licence. The valuation of property was according to the rateable value.

said, he had not been fortunate enough to catch the eye of the Chairman before; but he was about to observe that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) was an important one. There ought to be a clear and determinate meaning in the minds of the Committee before they proceeded to deal with the question as to the scale on which persons were to pay licences. It was very important that the Committee should consider what was the basis upon which the scale ought to be calculated. The words used by the Government—"dwelling houses" and "appurtenances" might be a fair basis upon which to raise the scale of licences in the case of ordinary country districts; but it was not so in the case of large towns, such as the Metropolis, Liverpool, and Manchester. He believed that it would be fallacious in such cases. Let them take, for example, the case of the Westminster Palace Hotel. In a large hotel of that kind there were rooms for public meetings and the transaction, of business, and the mere sale of spirituous liquors was a minute part of the business done. It so happened that in the case of the Westminster Palace Hotel there was attached to it a small refreshment bar, at which spirituous liquors were sold; for that they would have to pay for a licence, according to that Bill, of something between £300 and £400 a-year. If, however, that business were done in a separate building, he believed the whole licence duty would not be more than £50 or £60 a-year. He wished to point out that the basis for the assessment of licence duties was a wrong one altogether. The duty should be assessed, not according to the value of the dwelling house, but of the premises which were used for the purpose of carrying on the sale of spirituous liquors. He thought that the point had been very properly raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), and he submitted that it was one which deserved the serious consideration of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

said, he thought the Amendment had been withdrawn. But, at any rate, he would say, in reply, that they had endeavoured to meet the case in the best manner in their power. He was not then speaking of the principle on which they had proceeded. They had endeavoured to meet the difficulties on both sides. In the first place, there was the case of those large establishments, frequently let at enormous rents, existing for the purpose of supplying either eatables or eatables and lodgings as well as drinkables. That case they had endeavoured to meet by providing for hotels of that description separately. But in many cases hotels carried on a pure drinking business; and, in respect to that pure drinking business, such hotels were as much drinking shops as any establishment that did nothing else whatever. They had provided for that case also; but they would not be in Order in discussing the contents of the 3rd sub-section then, inasmuch as what they had before them was the scale of charges, and not whether the figures in that subsection were right or not. He should say, in answer to the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), that each case could not be decided separately; they could not go into the interiors of houses in order to determine the taxation by the way in which the different rooms were used. If an Amendment to the 3rd sub-section could be suggested, that could be discussed when they came to consider that sub-section. With regard to the desirableness of a uniform standard of annual value, as alluded to by his right hon. Friend (Mr. J. G. Hubbard), he would say that that was a matter for which he could not be responsible. Former Governments had dealt with the subject, and he should never have thought fit to establish a particular value totally distinct to that assigned in other cases. The fact was that the Acts relating to the sale of Excise liquors were of two classes. Those relating to the one class, to which reference had been made by his right hon. Friend, were the Acts with reference to Excise licences, such as that of 6 Geo . IV. c. 81, which supplied the basis upon which licences were levied. But his right hon. Friend seemed to forget those relating to appeals and licences by Justices. As regarded Excise licences, the annual value was in conformity with the express terms of that Act of Geo . IV. With regard to the second class, the rateable value was taken as the guide. He agreed with his right hon. Friend that the question, as a general one, was one that should be dealt with.

said, he did not understand whether the Amendment of the hon. Member for Edinburgh was withdrawn or not.

The Question before the Committee is—Is it your pleasure that the Amendment be withdrawn?

said, that he should then object to the Amendment being withdrawn, unless some other were substituted for it. There were for the convenience of the public a great many places in London, Liverpool, &c., where there was no dwelling house, but merely refreshment rooms, where the public were supplied with luncheons and dinners. If "premises" was put in the Bill, it would include all such places. He would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that some such term as that should be inserted in the Bill, so that such cases as those he had referred to might be included.

said, he would ask the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to a matter which arose out of that clause. He had had representations made to him by Licensed Victuallers in the North, and he believed the same feeling existed in many other parts of the country. While they had put a larger amount of taxation upon licensed premises, there were houses used for the sale of beer which did not come under the scale at all. Those houses were established under the name of clubs. A few men engaged a cottage, and brought into it a quantity of beer. Many persons spent Saturday evening, Sunday, and, probably, Monday, drinking that beer in the so-called clubs. From the representations that had been made to him, he believed that a large amount of beer was actually sold in those places, and the vendors would escape paying any licence. He held in his hand the report of a case which came before the magistrates last week, where it was stated by the police officers that it was an extremely common thing for men to be found coming from those places in a state of drunkenness. He thought that was a matter of rather pressing importance. At the same time, he was bound to say that he was quite unable to suggest any means of meeting the difficulty. Those premises were, undoubtedly, used for the sale of liquors, and many of his constituents, who were Licensed Victuallers, paying the taxes, complained that, in consequence, both they and the Government were being defrauded. He thought it was a matter for consideration.

said, that he would suggest that the words "dwelling houses" should remain, and that they should add "or premises."

said, that the hon. Gentleman had mistaken the objection he had made on the part of the Department responsible to them for the working of the clause. There had been no change whatever in the words now used, and, as the present terms worked satisfactorily, he could not agree to accept any Amendment whatever. Upon the surface it seemed that there was great force in the application; but the effect would be to depart from the terms of the present Act. With regard to the houses referred to by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), he must say that he did not see how that matter could be gone into. It was, to a great extent, a branch of the general co-operative question, and he failed to perceive how it could be dealt with.

said, there was a class of cases very frequently found in Ireland which was not quite covered by the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, though it would seem to be contemplated by the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), who had proposed to substitute the word "premises" for "dwelling houses." In Ireland there were many cases where a great part of the dwelling house was unconnected with the trade—in fact, where only the shop upon the ground floor was used for the business. It was very hard, in such a case, that the entire dwelling house should be assessed for the purposes of taxation. In England it was quite a common thing to have the entire buildings devoted to the trade, although he supposed that in England, as well as in Ireland, there were many places where only the shops were used. In Ireland, hitherto, it had been so managed by the Excise that only that portion of the dwelling house used for the trade had been assessed, and they were anxious that that should continue to be the case.

remarked, that the system now in force in Ireland would not undergo any alteration.

said, that it might so happen that the lower part of a house might be let for refreshment purposes, and the upper part for offices. The upper part, therefore, could not be denominated a dwelling house. He desired to ask how a case of that kind would be met?

observed, that it would be provided for under sub-section 3.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

said, that with great deference to the Prime Minister, he did not think the case mentioned by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. R. N. Fowler) would be provided for under sub-section 3. It seemed to him to arise under the subsection now under consideration. He had no doubt it would be extremely convenient for the Customs Department, or the Excise Department, to have the words of the present law retained; but it was very necessary sometimes to have an alteration in the words of the Acts under which taxes were levied. He was quite sure the discussion which had taken place had proved the necessity of an alteration in the present instance. When he rose a few moments ago he pointed out to the Prime Minister the inconvenience of levying taxes upon "dwelling-houses," because of the existence of such buildings as the Westminster Palace Hotel. It was quite true that an exception was made in a different part of the Bill in respect to such establishments; but a point of difficulty had been raised by the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hermon), which was not met by the subsequent exception. There were now premises of which use was made for retailing spirits which were not dwelling-houses at all, and which, he ventured to say, if the Bill were passed in its present form, would under this section escape taxation altogether. ["No!"] He ventured to say so; but he should be very glad to have his error pointed out. The hon. Member for Preston had pointed out that in Liverpool, more, perhaps, than in other places, the common refreshment room was a cellar. No one lived there, and no other part of the building in which that cellar was situate was used as a dwelling house, but as offices or warehouses. How, therefore, was it intended to assess the licence tax, which the occupier of the cellar had to pay? They would not assess it on a dwelling-house, because there was none there. If they intended to add to the value of the cellar the value of the warehouses and offices above the cellar, they would assess on a perfectly erroneous basis. The time had, therefore, come when, owing to the changes which had been made in the habits of the people, the Excise authorities, whether they liked it or not, must submit to the inconvenience of any alteration in the basis upon which their taxation must be levied. It seemed to him that the proper basis on which to levy the tax would be the premises made use of in the retailing of spirits. That would apply to all the cases which had been suggested. It was upon the value of that small portion of the premises in which spirits were retailed, like the bar at the Westminster Palace Hotel, that the tax should be assessed; and, therefore, he would propose the omission of the words "dwelling-houses in which the retailer shall reside or retail spirits," and the insertion in lieu thereof of the words "premises in which a retailer shall carry on the trade of retailing spirits."

observed, that if he understood the Amendment correctly, it really revived the question raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), who had been induced to bring it forward because he thought that, under the Bill, certain people would escape taxation. The hon. Member withdrew his Amendment, after he was assured that there was no escape from taxation for persons who ought to pay taxes. The effect of the present Amendment would be to wholly break down the Revenue from this source. They would have so great a loss in consequence of the insertion of the words that they would be compelled to withdraw the clause altogether, or else they would have to substitute, if they could devise it, some new kind of taxation. If the hon. and learned Gentleman would give Notice of his Amendment, they would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity of considering whether any real improvement could be made. At the present moment, he was bound to oppose the Amendment. The point raised in regard to the refreshment houses was one which must be tried by itself; because they were now laying down a general basis of taxation for houses which ought to be taxed as drinking houses, or drinking places. It was contended that there were some refreshment houses which were not proper drinking places. That was a point to be dealt with separately.

observed, that if the words "dwelling-house" were retained in the clause, the whole of the building in which this particular trade was carried on would be valued as premises kept for the retailing of spirits. The cellars in Liverpool, and other places he had in contemplation, and in which the business was conducted, had nothing to do with the dwelling-houses. It was only proper, therefore, that there should be two distinct valuations.

remarked, that the valuation in the future would be exactly the same as at present, and under the system now prevailing. He was advised that the present words were sufficient to secure the levying of the tax, and he had not understood that on the other side the parties had any grievance.

was sure the right hon. Gentleman understood the point he desired to bring under the notice of the Committee, and, therefore, he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.

observed, that great difficulty would be experienced in Ireland in respect to this taxation. The whole premises were rated as a place kept for the retailing of liquor; but it was not always a fact that they were so used. A provision ought to be inserted in the Bill to meet the case.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

moved, in page 16, line 19, after "spirits," to leave out "together with the offices, courtyards, and gardens therewith occupied." The hon. Gentleman said, the system which had been in existence for a considerable time, respecting the rating of public-houses, provided that the offices, courtyards, and gardens should be rated in conjunction with the houses themselves. That had been long felt to be a very unjust system; and he held in his hand a Petition, signed by something like 160 innkeepers in the market towns and other parts of the county of Hereford, complaining of the injustice under which they now suffered. They felt that they suffered injustice by the addition of the outbuildings, gardens, courtyards, brew- houses, &c., to the rateable value of the house in which they conducted business. He was aware that, as the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had just stated, this system, which had been complained of by other speakers, had been in existence for several years, and that the Department felt that they could not submit to an alteration. In his opinion, however, the sense of the House of Commons ought to regulate the Department; and, if an injustice was experienced, the time had come when it should be remedied. There were in the suburbs of all market towns several small public-houses with stabling attached, where farmers put up their horses and carts while they were disposing of their produce in the market. The accommodation thus afforded had the effect of keeping the horses and the vehicles off the streets; but it was part of the proposed system that, on account of the accommodation those innkepers in this way afforded, they should pay an increased amount for licences, whereas those who did a vastly increased amount of business from their very position in the centre of the towns, but did not provide such accommodation, were not required to pay so much. According to the present Bill, £1 a-year was to be paid for a brewer's licence. The small innkeepers in the suburbs of market towns were, generally speaking, brewers of the beer they retailed; therefore, by the system which was now laid down, they would not only have to pay for a brewer's licence, but they would have to pay an increased amount for their retail licence for the premises they occupied, because they had accommodation for brewing. There were also many houses in the rural districts of the country where accommodation was provided for tourists and others; and it became excessively hard to increase the amount of their licences because they had a little stabling, which was principally used by themselves in carrying on their business. The occupation of a roadside public-house yielded comparatively little, and it often happened that the publican had to add some trade or other to enable him to obtain a livelihood. Very many of them occupied a few acres of land to increase their means of subsistence, and that occupation usually required a certain number of buildings, which buildings were occasionally used as stables by their cus- tomers. He considered it most unjust to increase the licence upon such houses in consequence of the little accommodation they were able to give to travellers and others who required it. In the Bill there was a special provision for boarding-houses. Now, these boarding-houses offered accommodation to visitors who did consume excisable articles, but the horses in the stables did not. He felt his Amendment was one which ought to be accepted, and he had pleasure in submitting it to the Committee.

said, that the Amendment now proposed rendered it necessary for him to recall the attention of the Committee to the fact that this was a clause distinctly founded upon a policy, and that that policy was, in some degree, to improve a classification and arrangement with a view to regularity, and uniformity, and intelligibility, and also to increase the tax upon the trade in spirits in the shape of a spirit licence. Upon that state of facts, the hon. Gentleman came forward and proposed a diminution of the tax upon the trade in spirits. ["No!"] He begged pardon; but the Amendment would produce a great diminution of the tax. He spoke with some practical authority. He could not approve of the proposition to exclude the stables, coach-houses, and other buildings from the valuation, for the effect of that would be to reduce the valuation, say of £20 to £13 a-year, and the result of such reduction would be that the small trader in spirits would pay a smaller tax upon his spirit trade than he now paid. The hon. Gentleman had an object in view; but the question for the Committee was whether they did or did not agree with the principle laid down by the Committe of the House of Lords upon a very full examination. That principle was that the value of public-houses throughout the country had been largely augmented of late years by public legislation, and that that Parliamentary Return ought to be accompanied with an augmentation in the tax—that Parliament should lay some tax upon the additional value which by legislation the property had acquired. His hon. Friend would say that that principle was a very broad one. Now, in laying down that principle, the Government had endeavoured to proceed, not with too much severity, because it was as against the spirit trade, or it was in reference to the spirit trade, that they had attempted the application of it to a certain extent; and because if any of those persons for whom his hon. Friend spoke were contented to deal in wine and beer, they could do so by obtaining a licence for £4; or, if a man preferred to brew for the whole world, he would be required to pay £5—a sum independent of the rating. If the Committee thought that the Committee of the House of Lords were right in laying down this doctrine—that in respect to the increased value created by legislation there ought to be something in the nature of a tax, then he approached the consideration of the Amendment from a different point of view to that of his hon. Friend; because, probably, in all these matters of valuation, they should consider how much money they wanted to raise, and, having considered that, they ought to get at at the valuation which finally determined the rate in the manner which was most convenient. To get at the valuation in the manner proposed by the hon. Member, new rules would be required; and the authorities accustomed to valuation would have to apply principles they never yet had applied. The effect of that would be that they would be compelled to ask Parliament to raise the rate considerably in order to get the new revenue to replace the old. The hardship was one the Government proposed to cure. While the small houses had been taxed at a certain rate upon their trade, the large houses, doing an infinitely larger business, had, comparatively speaking, been paying no tax at all; and it was to that state of things they were going to apply a remedy by introducing a scale which would call upon those establishments to pay in proportion to the value of the premises and the trade carried on. There was another limited concession that they might be able to make, which would have some effect in meeting the views of his hon. Friend. In the scale, as regarded the very small class of houses, they would not object to make a change by taking a small sum off the houses under £10, and by introducing a new class from £10 to £15—taxing the houses of the new class at £6 instead of £8, and the houses under £10 at £4 10 s . instead of £4. He had suggested £4 10 s ., because it would be observed, under the clause they had already passed, that the small houses must pay £4 for a beer and wine licence, and it was not too much to require them to pay £4 10 s . If they wished to include spirits, he desired to meet his hon. Friend so far as he was able; but the hon. Gentleman would see that his Amendment could not be accepted.

did not think the value of houses had increased in Ireland during the last few years. They had, in fact, actually diminished in value, owing to the legislation of that House. He welcomed, very cordially, the proposition made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because he had made the reduction in the right place, if he were to make it at all; but he doubted whether he had made a sufficient reduction in the case of the smaller houses, which were now to be taxed £4 10 s . That was really an increase of £1 4 s . upon the existing rate; and it would be well if the right hon. Gentleman would assent to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick, and reduce the tax still further—namely, to £4. He recommended the hon. Member for Limerick to forego his scale, and be content with having gained his point in the two first items. He hoped, however, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would complete the good step he had taken by making the further reduction, and being satisfied with an increase upon the existing rate of 14 s .

pointed out that they were not yet considering the scale.

desired to make a few observations in reply to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If the wine licence was added to the spirit licence for the small houses in the country, it would impose a considerable burden on them, without the opportunity of their deriving any benefit, as such houses had no sale for wines. He felt that the injustice to the small houses doing so very little business would be so very great, that he had ventured to direct their attention to it. He trusted the Committee would see the correctness of the views he had expressed; also, that the licences should not be increased by adding the value of the offices, courtyards, gardens, &c. The difficulty of valuation became very small, indeed, compared with the injustice involved. The surveyor of taxes could very readily divide the assessment between the house and the out-buildings.

asked if he was to understand that the premises which were not used for the trade would not be valued for trade purposes?

said, that nothing could be included in the valuation but what had been included before.

Amendment negatived .

moved, in page 16, line 21, to leave out "£5," and insert "£4;" and in line 23, to leave out "£11," and insert "£8." He remarked, that he moved this Amendment because he considered the taxation proposed by the right hon. Gentleman was too high. He was well aware that the right hon. Gentleman had put all the increase against the sale of spirits; but he was not surprised at that, because this was not the first time he had aimed a blow at the spirit trade. But, before proceeding with his Amendment, he thought it right to allude to certain observations made during the discussion on Wednesday in regard to the trade and the incidence of taxation, as it related to Ireland and Scotland. Until he heard the speeches of the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. D. M'Laren) and the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho), he was under the impression that Scotland paid a higher, or at least equal, licence duty with Ireland; and he was rather surprised at the attack made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh upon Ireland, because he had always considered the hon. Gentleman very friendly to them in Irish matters, unless those matters related to money. As to the noble Lord, he had never heard him express one kind word towards Ireland during the seven years he (Mr. O'Sullivan) had had the honour of a seat in that House. He was not, however, astonished at it, for the noble Lord was never out of his war-paint. He found that there was a great discrepancy between the licences paid in Ireland and those paid in Scotland. In Ireland, if they took out a spirit retailer's licence, they were required to pay £10 10 s . In Scotland, no such licence was required. In Ireland, a beer dealer's licence cost £3 6 s . 1½ d ., and a beer retailer's licence cost £1 2 s .; but those licences were not required in Scotland. In Ireland, a refreshment licence cost 10 s . 6 d .; but one was not required in Scotland. In Ireland, if a wine retailer's licence was taken out under the Refreshment Act it cost £2 2 s . In Scotland, a wine retailer's licence was £2 4 s . 1 d . In Ireland, for a spirit grocer's licence they had to pay £9 15 s . 5 d .; whilst in Scotland, a beer and spirit licence included could be obtained for £4 4 s . The result was, that for a grocer's family licence in Ireland the charge was £27 9 s . 1 d .; while in that much injured country, Scotland; which, according to its Representatives, was so much overtaxed, it was only £6 8 s . 1 d . He was not surprised to find that this was the case, because he knew people from a great many countries—but he never knew any who were so well able to take care of the pounds, shillings, and pence, as Scotchmen. The family grocer's licence to carry on the trade in full cost in Ireland £33 8 s . 10 d .; whilst in Scotland it was only £15 7 s . 1 d ., or a good deal less than 50 per cent of the amount paid in Ireland. He was glad to see that the new Bill would equalize the matter, and that in Scotland they would have to pay as much as they did in England and Ireland. The Scotch Wine and Beer and Spirit Trade Defence Association had presented a Petition to Parliament, and in it they very naturally stated that the proposed alterations in the existing law, if carried into effect, would introduce a new scale of Excise duties payable by dealers in Scotland, by which the amount paid by them annually in respect of their premises would be largely increased. "Well, at any rate, whatever faults the Bill had, he was glad to see in it the one redeeming feature of equalizing the duty, and making the Scotchman pay as much as they were called upon to pay in Ireland. In moving the first three items in his scale—namely, that where the annual value was under £10, the duty should be £4; £10 and under £15, £6; and £15 and under £20, £8—he wished to say he did it, because he thought the poorer traders were hit rather hard. First of all, he objected to the £5, £8, and £11 in the Bill, because he thought there was nothing to warrant the great interest put on. It was well known that, lately, they had had bad times in Ireland. Last year had been a bad one, as had been the year before, and as had been the present up to now. There had been nothing but bad prices for all kinds of produce, and in Ireland they had nothing to depend on but the produce of the country. When these prices were bad, all kinds of trade suffered. Then there was another con- sideration—the short hours. Six hours had been taken off the time public-houses could remain open during the week, independent of Sunday closing. If they compared the hours of closing in Ireland, more particularly in the small towns, with the hours in London, they would find that this was how they stood. In Ireland, they closed at 10; while in London, houses put down on the same scale, were kept open until half-past 12. Then, in England, they had seven or eight hours on Sundays, which were denied to the Irish publicans. Furthermore, clubs were springing up everywhere. Taking all these facts into consideration—the bad times, the shortened hours, the Sunday closing, and the clubs—the time seemed to him most inopportune for increasing the licences in Ireland. But this was not the only increase the Irish people were threatened with. He had understood the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that he did not mean to increase any tax but the Income Tax. He had no objection to the proposed increase. [An hon MEMBER: No, no!] Well, if the right hon. Gentleman did not say so, and he had failed to understand him, he would withdraw the remark; but he had certainly understood him to say that it was not proposed to increase any tax but the Income Tax. The right hon. Gentleman said that 1 d . on the Income Tax was wanted for some drawbacks and other expenses incident to the changing of the Malt Duty. What did they find, however, in Ireland? Why, that the brewers, while they would have some improvement, would lose £75,000 a-year. The addition to the Income Tax would come to £52,000, and the increase on the present scale of licences would come to £30,000; so that the total of the increase on Ireland would be £157,000. It would be for the hon. Members who represented England and Scotland to say what the increase would be in their countries. And, no matter what it was for—so long as they paid, as he maintained they did, an increased duty on whisky from 1856 to 1860, when the duty was increased from 3 s . 4 d . to 10 s . They paid £2,500,000 per annum more than their fair share of the Imperial taxation, and so long as such a state of things as that continued, he thought no additional tax should be imposed on Ireland. Unfortunately, they lost £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 a-year through absenteeism; and the general result was that they paid every 40 years, on these losses on excessive taxation and absentee rents, as much as France had to pay Germany for her great Indemnity. Ireland paid that not once, but every 40 years. What were they getting back for this £157,000 a-year to which he had referred? They got £45,000 for piers and harbours. That was all they got at this unfortunate crisis of next to a famine which had fallen on their country. Canada, on whom they had no claim whatever, had already given a grant of £20,000, or nearly half as much as the Government, who got annually £2,500,000 in excessive taxation from Ireland. With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's scale of charges, he objected most strongly to the first three items, for the reason that they were paid by the class npon whom the great bulk of the increase would fall. The right hon. Gentleman would tell them that he had given the right to sell foreign wines. That was, no doubt, the case; but he might inform the right hon. Gentleman that, in three cases out of four, amongst this class of roadside inns and public-houses in the small towns of Ireland they might as well give them leave to sell diamonds as wine, for he was quite sure they would not sell a glass once in three months. It was like throwing pearls before swine, to give these publicans liberty to sell wine. The hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Charles Lewis), had used as an argument against the increase of the franchise in Ireland that these public-houses were of a low class, and very low-rated. It was too true that they were rated at a very low amount; but that did not save them from taxation. And yet it was made an argument against them for not increasing the franchise in Ireland. While the charge on the small houses had been increased 50 per cent by the Bill, the charges on the large houses had only been increased from 10 to 38 per cent. This remark applied to the first item in the scale. He was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that he was going to make some concession with regard to this item; but he thought he ought to have accepted his (Mr. O'Sullivan's) scale, for it was quite fair. Out of a total of 16,493 licensed houses in Ireland, 7,039 were under £10, or only 40 per cent. He was quite satisfied that out of 40 per cent of small houses, 30 per cent of them did not want the privilege of selling wine. It was no use whatever to them, and yet the increase on the item would be such as would require a man who did not want to sell wine, and whose taxation was only £3 6 s . 1½ d . a-year to pay £5. That was an increase on that class alone of something over 50 per cent. It was a striking fact that, though the largest increase was put on that class of houses in Ireland, in England, with 69,112 houses, there were only 4,248, or 17 per cent, rated on £10. It was a remarkable fact that, unfortunately for poor Ireland, the great increase was put on the great bulk of the licensed houses. This was with regard to the first item in the scale. And now with regard to the second, England had 16,794 of the houses, while Ireland had only 5,487. The increase was 38 per cent. That was increase enough, rather too much; but it was remarkable that where it was brought down from 50 to 38 per cent, Ireland had only 5,487, or 20 per cent of the houses, while England had 16,794, or 24 per cent. That, again, was another hit at Ireland. The third item on his scale related to houses of between £15 to £20; whilst in the Bill, the third item was houses between £20 and £25, the charge being £11. Ireland had only 1,117 houses under this figure, while England had 6,385. The increase was only a little over 10 per cent. In reality, it was nothing at all, for houses of this class, both in England and Ireland, were sure to take out a wine licence, so that the difference would be rather a decrease. If they calculated the wine licences, and took the new scale, the charge would be £12 2 s . 6 d .; but the right hon. Gentleman, in the Bill, only made it £11, so that where the dealer took out a wine licence he effected a saving of £1 2 s . 6 d . Unfortunately for Ireland, they had only 1,117 of that class, while England had 6,385. He would ask the Committee to bear in mind that in this case, where there was a saving, Ireland came in for only a small share of it; whilst, where there was an increase, she came in for the best part of it—50 per cent. That was as the matter stood now. According to a document he held in his hand, he found that, according to the scale he proposed, there would be a large increase of duties of the amount at present paid. The right hon. Gentleman wished to increase the licence duty. Very well. He had no objection to it, and he had prepared a scale which would increase it. The total increase on the three items he had named—under £10; £10, and under £15; and £15, and under £20—would be £30,000. The amount derived from these houses in England, and Ireland, and Scotland at present was £285,888; and by his amended scale it would be £316,210. He would appeal to the Committee whether, in these bad times and with shortened hours, an increase of £30,000 was not sufficient for the right hon. Gentleman? If the Chancellor of the Exchequer carried out his Bill in full, he would have a revenue of £363,170, or an increase of nearly £80,000. He had not expected that there would be such an increase, and the right hon. Gentleman ought to be quite satisfied when he could get an increase of £30,000 on these three small items. Then he found that the charge on houses of from £25 to £50 came, under the scale of the right hon. Gentleman, to £390,725; whilst, according to the scale Tie proposed, it would come to £344,850, which was an increase of £16,000 over the present charges. He thought the right hon. Gentleman ought to be quite satisfied with his proposal, without putting on the large additional charge he was suggesting, especially in the matter of the first three items, which would operate entirely on the poor class. The right hon. Gentleman could not say he (Mr. O'Sullivan) proposed to reduce the Revenue. On the contrary, he proposed to give him an increase; and he put it to the Committee whether it was not sufficient to increase the duty on these poor people from £3 6 s . L½ d . to £4, and the duty on the others from £7 10 s . to £8?

said, he understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to make a certain concession to the poorest class of licensed houses; and the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had gone so thoroughly into the details, that he would not occupy the time of the Committee by going over the same ground. He held in his hand a copy of a proposal which had been submitted to the right hon. Gentleman; and he hoped he had had time to consider it. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he could not, under the circumstances, carry the reduction he proposed to make a little higher—say, to the annual value of £50? This proposal would not have the effect of reducing the Revenue proposed to be obtained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but would actually increase it considerably upon the present amount. He thought it right to make the appeal to the right hon. Gentleman now, as it would, perhaps, be convenient for him to consider the question when he came to make his reply on other matters.

said, that as he had an Amendment on the Paper, it would, perhaps, be convenient for the right hon. Gentleman to consider it in the event of the proposal of the hon. Member for Limerick not being accepted. He would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to confine himself to the three first items proposed, but to let them know what scale he would adopt, as it would simplify matters very much. The scale he proposed was very similar to that of the hon. Member for Limerick; but he had only 11 values, while the hon. Member had 17. They came to a point very much the same; but if the Amendment of the right hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. J. G. Hubbard) were accepted—to leave out of the scale of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan), from "£40" in last column to end of scale—that would bring the two so close together, that he would accept the hon. Gentleman's proposal. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would begin at £4; because, otherwise, people rated at under £10 would be very hard hit. On the second item, he was glad the right hon. Gentleman was going to reduce the £8 to £6. If he would only stop at £400 or £500, instead of going on to £700, he would meet their objections. With regard to the height of the scale in the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman proposed to begin at a charge of £5, and go up to £30 on a value of £100, and then increase at the rate of £5 for every £100. He now proposed to go from £5 to £60, stopping at a value of £700. That was too high a figure, because those houses for which the proprietors paid a high rent were generally—like those of Spiers and Pond—houses into which a large capital was put, not so much for the sale of wines and spirits, as for the sale of provisions, luncheons, and dinners. It was scarcely fair to tax these people for the comfort they gave to the public. There had been a desire growing up in England for some time to get these large French restaurants established in the country. The value was very high, because the proprietors went to great expense; but he did not think this was a reason why they should be charged at such a high rate for their licences. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to accept the scale of the hon. Member for Limerick, subject to the Amendment of the right hon. Member for the City of London.

said, he only proposed to move the first three items.

said, it was difficult to follow so large a range of various figures as had been submitted by different speakers; but he would state to the Committee, as simply as he could, what he proposed to do. The hon. Member who had spoken in the interests of Ireland had fairly given him credit for some desire to meet his views; and it was to him a great recommendation for the remission that he proposed to make that a large portion of it would fall to the share of Ireland, because the country had a considerable proportion of licensed houses under £15. If he understood the hon. Gentleman's figures rightly, out of from 17,000 to 18,000 houses in Ireland something like 12,000 were under £15. They would get a large proportion of the remissions he proposed to make. As the matter stood at present, the revenue received from houses under £25 was £286,000, which it was proposed to raise to £363,000—an income of £77,000, or 30 per cent. The concession he proposed to make disposed of about £26,000. Under £10 he would make a reduction of 10 s ., and between £10 and £15 he would make a reduction of £2. He proposed to give £36,000 out of an increase of £76,000; and that, he thought, would be considered a very liberal concession. With any view to regularity, he thought he could hardly be asked to go further. He should, therefore, at the proper time, ask the Committee to negative the proposal of the hon. Member fixing £4 as the licence for houses under £10 rental, with the intention of proposing £4 10 s .

wished to point out that in many houses in Ireland, which were used for the purpose of supplying refreshments, the amount of the spirit trade and the trade in porter was very small indeed. It was, in point of fact, a very small contribution towards the sustenance of the occupier. In the remote country districts a person licensed to sell spirits and porter would not have more than £5 or £6 worth of stock; and, under the Act, no matter what the extent of the trade was, and however small the stock, the same sum would be paid. He thought the levy upon these houses in regard to the trade in spirits and porter should be in accordance with the value of the portion of the house devoted to its accommodation. He quite agreed with the concessions which Her Majesty's Government had made; but he wished to impress upon the Prime Minister that, so far as Ireland was concerned, the lower scale of charges would press more heavily upon the traders in Ireland than upon those in England and Scotland. The position of the latter, relative to the business done, was very inferior. The ordinary houses in England and Scotland conducted a business quadruple or quintuple in extent to that which was carried on in the same class of houses in Ireland.

said, he had a slight complaint to make. A short time ago he rose to address the Committee, and the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair called upon him by name. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister rose immediately afterwards, and then, after having called upon him (Mr. Anderson) to address the Committee, the Chairman turned to the right hon. Gentleman and substituted the name of the right hon. Gentleman. He willingly gave way to the Prime Minister, and would always be ready to do so; but he thought it was hardly in Order to alter the call in that way. He was of opinion that when an hon. Member had once been called upon to address the Committee, he was there and then in possession of the House, and ought to be allowed to proceed with his observations. Of course, he willingly gave way to the Prime Minister, when that right hon. Gentleman's name was called; but he thought it was an irregularity to call two names.

If the hon. Member had claimed his right, undoubtedly he was in possession of the House; but I thought, as the hon. Member sat down, that it was for the convenience of the Committee that I should call upon the right hon. Gentleman, and I accordingly did so.

remarked, that he had sat down because the right hon. Gentleman called upon the Prime Minister, and only after that. However, he would not dwell further upon the matter. The hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) commenced his speech by an attack upon the figures of the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. D. M'Laren), and placed before the Committee a great many figures in relation to licensing in Scotland and Ireland. If his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh were present, no doubt he would reply to that part of the speech of the hon. Member for Limerick far better than he (Mr. Anderson) could do; but, having listened to the figures of the hon. Member for Limerick, he could not, for the life of him, imagine where he got them from. He (Mr. Anderson) held in his hand a Government Return, dated from the Inland Revenue Office, June 25, 1880, and he presumed that the Return gave a correct statement. In the first scale, the licences charged in England and Ireland appeared to be the same; but, in the second, there were rates charged in Scotland which were wholly different from those charged in England or Ireland. The hon. Member said that Scotland paid a great deal less than England and Ireland; but, when they looked at the scale, and took the total figures—he would not trouble the Committee with all the details—they would find that, while, in certain cases, Scotland paid less than England and Ireland, in other cases Scotland paid considerably more.

rose to Order. He had spoken simply of grocers' licences, and of no other licence in Scotland as compared with England and Ireland.

gathered from that explanation, that the hon. Member for Limerick did not mean to lead the Committee to suppose that the Scotch licences were a great deal cheaper than those imposed in other parts of the Kingdom. [Mr. O'SULLIVAN: Only in that particular.] As a rule, the Scotch licences were dearer. The spirit licences were dearer, and for this reason—that even those which appeared on the scale to be lower in Scotland had to be studied by the light of the law which in England and Ireland legalized six-day licences at a reduced rate, whereas in Scotland there was no reduction for Sunday closing.

said, he had not alluded to any licences in England or Ireland, except family or grocers' licences. If the hon. Member would confine himself to those licences, and would show that his (Mr. O'Sullivan's) statement was incorrect, he would bow to the correction; but, at the present moment, the hon. Member was introducing other licences to which he had not referred.

accepted the hon. Member's correction; but the hon. Member's remarks tended to make the Committee suppose that Scotch licences were cheaper than English and Irish, and he wished to point out that Scotland, in reality, paid more for licences than either England or Ireland—and for this reason. All the Scotch licences were, in practice, six-day, and not seven-day licences, as public houses were entirely shut on Sundays, and yet there was no reduction made in Scotland on account of that fact. Therefore, before they contrasted the one scale with the other, it would be necessary to take off one-seventh part from the English and Irish scale; and, when that was done, it would be found that in every case the Scotch public-house keepers paid more highly for six days' business than those in England or Ireland. That was all he had to say on that particular point. He now came to the scale itself. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had, in his original Bill, a certain scale, in regard to which he (Mr. Anderson) had placed an Amendment upon the Paper. Without fixing any limit, the principal feature of his scale was that it should be progressive—that however high the rent might be, the licence paid should be in proportion to the sum paid for rent. He proposed, for every additional £10 rental above £50, to impose an additional licence duty of £2. The right hon. Gentleman accepted that proposal to this extent—that in the Bill now before the Committee he had placed at the end of the scale the words, "and also for every £100 of such annual value over £100, a further rate of £5." The right hon. Gentleman, therefore, accepted the spirit of his (Mr. Anderson's) Amendment, and was doing what was only fair and just in the case. He was sorry, however, to see that the right hon. Gentleman had now on the Paper an Amendment going back to his original proposal in the Bill of having a limit at which, increase of duty entirely ceased. The new Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman would leave the matter very much where it was before, except that he put the limit higher up. The right hon. Gentleman fixed it before at £100, and he now fixed the limit at £700. He (Mr. Anderson) certainly did not see why there should be any limit at all. If the business was done and justified a higher rent, it justified a higher licence also; and, therefore, the annual value of the premises, however high it might be, should be considered in the licence. The difference in the licence should be in proportion to the amount of business done as represented in the value of the house. The tendency of all their legislation upon this question, and the custom of most of the licensing magistrates, had been to reduce the number of licences, and, consequently, to increase the amount of the business done upon each licence. If the same principle was continued hereafter, they would very soon have a very small number of public-houses indeed, each of them doing a very large amount of business. If that process was to be continued to any extent, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Revenue would be the sufferers in the end. There would not be the same number of houses paying a licence duty; and if the right hon. Gentleman made no provision for the payment of largely increased rents by making the licences rise in proportion, there must ultimately be a falling off in the revenue derived from that particular source. He admitted that it was quite fair where a house was a hotel or a restaurant, or something of that kind, that it should not pay at so high a rate. Some hon. Members believed that £700 would be too high in the case of restaurants; but the point was open to question. What was really wanted was something like a classification of houses. On the one hand, one man had a house which was purely a spirit shop; while another had a restaurant, in which he sold different kinds of things, and had but very little demand for spirits; a third kept an ordinary hotel, with accommodation for sleeping and board. He was of opinion that, in the licensing system, these three classes of houses ought to be absolutely separated. The right hon. Gentleman, in the Bill, limited the charges to be made upon the hotels, and he proposed to add the words—"Provided that such hotel has not got an ordinary public-house attached to it." He (Mr. Anderson) thought that that was not sufficient. It wanted something more to make the scale correct. As to the question of progressive increase, what he should like to see was that the right hon. Gentleman should stick by his Bill. He understood that it was impossible now to go to anything higher than appeared in the Bill; but he asked the right hon. Gentleman not to go lower, but to adhere to the scale which appeared in the Bill, and not to fix the limit which was suggested by the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment.

hoped the right hon. Gentleman would pay attention to what the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) had said in regard to Ireland. No doubt, there were in Ireland many houses which were only partly used for refreshments, and partly for other purposes. He should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would inform him whether the valuation was to taken on the ordinary valuation in Ireland, or upon some other valuation?

said, the valuation would be taken upon the annual value; but that question was dealt with in another part of the Bill.

thought that the proposals made by the Government in reference to this scale were a step in the right direction. He wished, however, to call attention to the position in which the question of wine licences stood. The licence for selling beer amounted to £1 2 s . or £2 4 s ., according to rental. Then there was a spirit licence, also varrying according to rental; and lastly, there was a wine licence, which was fixed at the sum of £2 5 s ., but it was optional with the publican to take it or not as he pleased. Under the new system of the right hon. Gentleman, one licence was to be taken by the trader; and there was to be no option on the part of the trader as to whether he sold wine. [Mr. GLADSTONE: That is so, if he wishes to sell spirits.] He (Mr. Hardcastle) believed there were no Parliamentary statistics which gave an idea of the number of houses which now sold spirits, but which did not take out a wine licence. But he had obtained a Return, which came from all parts of the country, and was drawn from no less than 24 counties in England and Wales. The Return applied to between 3,000 and 4,000 public-houses. The exact number was 3,734, and it appeared that only about 20 per cent of the whole number took out a wine licence; so that the remaining 80 per cent availed themselves of their option not to take out wine licences. Observing that to be the case, it would be a hardship to compel those traders which, did not now take out wine licences, to take out such licences in future, seeing that they did not require them. The lower they got in the scale the more this source of expense was avoided. In houses under £30 a-year only 11 per cent took out wine licences. In houses under £25 a-year the percentage was only 6 per cent, and in houses under £20 a-year it was only 4 per cent. He thought that these statistics afforded a fair sample of the feeling of the country; and he wished to urge on the right hon. Gentleman the propriety of considering whether it might not be possible, in reference to houses of this kind, to make some exemption. He did so on this ground—that the persons who kept those houses were generally very poor, so much so that it was difficult to make a livelihood at all out of the small returns they got. Very few of them did a business that amounted to £500 a-year, and the majority of them did not take £2 a-day. Out of this small pittance they had, first of all, to pay the brewer and spirit merchant, then the rent, taxes, and other expenses attached to keeping on the house. Under these circumstances, he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would consider the case of these small houses where there was no demand for wine; that he would still retain to them the option of selling wine or not; and that in those cases where they wished to abstain from selling wine, he would relieve them of the extra charge.

wished to take upon himself the responsibility of having interrupted his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, and of having interposed between him and the Com- mittee; but, really, when the House was in Committee, and when the speaking became as nearly as possible a conversation, it was desirable that the person who was responsible for a Bill of this kind should have a good deal of latitude and liberty. It was not possible always to be quite sure as to who was in possession of the Committee. In regard to what had just been said by his hon. Friend behind him (Mr. Hardcastle), he wished to observe, in reference to this lower class of houses, that his doctrine was not at all to compel them to take out wine licences, nor did he pretend to say that a wine licence would be of any great value to them. Hitherto, the law had been so framed as to place very low rates on the publican's licence for the sale of spirits. That had been a matter of policy; but it was a matter of policy which they desired to modify. They desired to impose a fair licence duty on the sale of spirits, and, in doing so, they threw in the sale of wine; but they did not make that an element of charge, especially upon the lower class of houses. He thought he could show his hon. Friend that they were proposing, in connection with the lower class in the scale, not an augmentation, but a reduction, of charge. A house from £10 up to £20 paid £7 14 s . 3 d .; but as regarded the larger number of these houses—those from £10 up to £15—they would, in future, be required to pay only £6, so that, considering the wine licence as an element in the matter, there would be a considerable reduction. He thought, therefore, that the Government had met what had been stated by his hon. Friend, and the Committee would do well to keep in mind what he had already stated as to the amount of increase it was proposed to make, and as to the moiety of the increase on houses under £25 which he proposed to surrender.

said, that there appeared to be a general agreement on the part of the Committee and of the Government that the present cost of licences, irrespective of the value of public-houses, should be regarded as obsolete. At the same time, he regretted the decision arrived at by the Government to make a reduction only in the lower class of the scale proposed in the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister informed the Committee that the proposals of the Government were directly based on the recommendations of the Lords' Committee on Intemperance; and yet one of the most striking recommendations of that Committee in respect to public-house licences was that in future they should be granted upon a graduated scale of cost. One reason why he (Mr. Arnold) preferred the scale of licence duty recommended on the outher side of the House was that it was more easily graduated than the proposal of Her Majesty's Government. If the principle of graduation was to be adopted, they could hardly consider that principle was equitably acknowledged when the value of the premises in relation to the cost of the licence was made to rise £100 at a single step. He could hardly believe that that was a proper acknowledgement of the principle of graduation. In regard to the scale suggested by the hon. Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer), he must say that while he acknowledged a preference for it in some respects, he disliked it because it stopped at even a shorter limit than the scale proposed by Her Majesty's Government, and, therefore, did not comply with the recommendations of the Lords' Committee. There was another recommendation of the Lords' Committee which was of some importance. That Committee reported that the existing public-houses had a monopoly, and it was one reason why they recommended that the cost of licences should be increased. His own information in regard to the monopoly of the public-houses was that that monopoly had certainly been considerably interfered with and reduced in value, from time to time, by the Legislature, and, as had been pointed out by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), and as was the case in the borough which he (Mr. Arnold) represented, and in many others, this monopoly had been materially affected by the establishment of clubs. But the monopoly had been growing in consequence of the enormous rise in the value of public-houses. That rise had, unquestionably, taken place; but he thought it was to some degree explained by the fact that of late years the public-houses of the country had passed, to a great extent, into the hands of large capitalists, who had been content with much smaller returns for their capital than the original holders; and, therefore, when they saw public-houses sold, and fetching astonishing prices, the fact was partially accounted for by the circumstance that they passed into the hands of men who were contented with smaller returns for their money. The Chancellor of the Exchequer now said that he would make a reduction in his scale upon the lowest class of houses, and he had determined to stop at the limit of £700. He ventured to make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to amend the middle of the proposed scale in the direction suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon), although he did not accept that proposal in all its details. It had always appeared to him (Mr. Arnold) that the existing prices of licences pressed hardly on houses ranging in value from about £50 to £150 a-year. He thought that some relief should be given to people in that part of the trade who had a fair claim upon the Legislature for relief, and he should be glad if the Government would make a concession in this respect.

said, there was one aspect of the licensing question as regarded Ireland which had not yet, he thought, been presented to the House. It was that the additional duty would be more in the nature of a tax on a necessary of life than in the case of England or Scotland. Hon. Members might deny this; but no one who had not travelled in Ireland, and witnessed the wretched dwellings and the wretched diet of the labouring classes, could realize the miserable conditions under which they often lived. The revelations contained in the Return distributed that morning, relating to the hovels of the labourers in Swineford and Foxford, County Mayo, were enough to make one shudder. Returning after a day's work, often drenched through, wet and exhausted, what awaited them? Why, a supper of ill-cooked Indian meal, without milk or any other addition to render it palatable. Under such circumstances, he thought, that even in a medical point of view, some beverage more stimulating than water was at least salutary. But if they put an additional tax on the smaller class of public-houses they insured additional adulterations of the beverages sold in them, and the poor labouring man it was who alone would suffer by it. He felt sure there was not an Irish Member present who would not unite with him in hoping that the Go- vernment would accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan). The great majority of the Irish publicans were poor; they had already been hit hard by the Sunday closing, and harder still by the general depression which had weighed so heavily upon every branch of Irish trade and industry. They shared the poverty of their customers. There could not, therefore, be a worse crisis for imposing additional burdens upon them. They already, in proportion to their earnings, contributed largely to the Imperial Revenues, and had as good a claim to consideration as any other class of Her Majesty's subjects. He hoped, therefore, that the Amendment would be accepted as it stood.

said, that he did not see why, because the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was abolishing the Malt Tax and imposing a tax upon beer, he should seek that opportunity of interfering with the trade of the Licensed Victuallers. They were made to pay in two ways—they had to pay an increased licence, and an additional 1 d . on the Income Tax. It was the only trade in the United Kingdom which was made to pay two increased taxes. With regard to what had been said by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Hardcastle), it should be remembered that every licensed house at £30 a-year was compelled to pay for a wine licence, whether it required it or not. It was all very well to say that they had the option of a wine licence; but as they had to pay for it, whether they used it or not, it was clear that an increased tax had been imposed. In many places in the country the publicans did not sell a bottle of wine in the year; but, under the present scale, they would be compelled to pay for what was, practically, a wine licence. That seemed to him to be a very hard thing. He saw no reason for altering the present scale. The only reason for doing so, in his opinion, was that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer might be enabled to have a flourishing Budget next year. Next year they would probably have the right hon. Gentleman come down to the House and state that everything had turned out very successfully, and that there was a large surplus. There was no real necessity for this alteration.

said, that it would be a most unfortunate thing if it were to go forth from that House that encouragement was to be offered to people to drink because they were miserable. The desire to escape the consequences of poverty, of bad food and miserable homes, tempted men to drink too much; but it would be most disastrous if it went forth from that House that drink was any antidote to such misery, or that any sort of facility should be offered for relieving misery by drink. Drink aggravated the ills of poverty and did not reduce them.

said, that he only rose for the purpose of expressing a hope that the right hon. Gentleman who had charge of the Bill would stand by it, and refuse to listen to the "voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely." To give more facilities for the trade in drink would be entirely a retrograde step. For his part, he could not understand why they were asked to support public-houses. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would hold to the lines of his Bill, as it seemed to be approved by the country.

said, that he must ask the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, before he went to a division, to complete the good work he had begun in giving some relief to the lower class of public-houses. By raising the tax from 14 s . To £l 4 s ., he would, doubtless, obtain an increased revenue; but if he were to leave the smallest class of public-houses alone—namely, those under £10 a-year—there would only be a loss to the Revenue of some £6,000 or £7,000. He was sure that his hon. Friend the Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) would withdraw his Amendment if this concession were made by the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that the lower class of houses—those under £10 a-year—should be left to pay the duty of £4, as at present. In spite of what had been said by the hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury (Sir Andrew Lusk), he thought the House had gone out of its way to do something very definite against the public-house trade. It should be remembered that the House had interfered, by direct legislation, to close public-houses on Sunday in Ireland. That was very right, and he was saying nothing upon that subject; but there was another way of affecting the trade, and that was by raising their taxes 30 or 40 per cent beyond what they formerly were. This would have a very important effect in Ireland, and the exemption which he advocated was very necessary for the smaller class of houses. He thought that this was a small point, and he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would concede it.

said, that his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for County Galway (Major Nolan) had appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer a second time to allow the duty upon houses rated under £10 to remain at £4. His right hon. Friend would be very much inclined to yield to the appeal if he did not consider it inconsistent with his duty, having regard to the general scale he had proposed. It was so for one or two reasons. In the first place, a licence for the sale of beer and wine was £4; and if the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman were adopted, a licence to sell beer, wine, and spirits in the smaller class of houses would cost no more than one for selling beer and wine. His hon. and gallant Friend had also referred to the effect of the matter in Ireland, where, except in certain towns, no drinking took place on Sunday. That being so, the Irish publican would have the benefit of the full reduction of one-seventh, and would, therefore, pay only £3 17 s .

said, that he must draw the attention of the Committee to the Amendment now proposed. The hon. Member for Limerick and the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister were agreed that "£5" should be omitted from the Bill; but they were not agreed whether "£4" or "£4 10 s ." should be inserted in its place. It was his duty now to put the Question that "£5" stand part of the clause.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the words 'five pounds' be struck out of the clause."

Question put, and agreed to .

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the words 'four pounds' be here inserted."—( Mr. O'Sullivan .)

said, that he was very thankful to the right hon. Gentleman for the concession he had made; but he was sorry that he had not made it quite so ample as he could have wished. But as the right hon. Gentleman had made the concession, he should ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the words 'four pounds ten shillings' be there inserted."

Amendment agreed to .

said, that he begged to move to insert "fifteen pounds, and under twenty pounds, six pounds."

Amendment agreed to .

said, that the case of a man who was rated at £16 a-year would be a very hard one, and he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would make some concession on his behalf?

asked if the hon. Member moved any Amendment?

said, that as the Government did not accede to his suggestion, he did not propose to do so.

said, that he would move the Amendment which stood in his name.

Amendment proposed,

"Page 16, leave out lines 28 to 30, inclusive, and insert,—

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

said, that houses rated at £50, and houses rated at £100, were of a very different class. Those of £50 were small public-houses, while those of £100 were of a totally different character. He should suggest that they drew the line at £75, and that instead of making the advance in duty £50 up to £75, it should be increased only by an additional £2 10 s . He trusted that the Government would accept that proposal.

said, that he would consider it upon Report.

said, that, in that case, he would not move his Amendment.

hoped the right hon. Gentleman would consider the propriety of adopting the scale of 10 s . for £10.

said, he should like to know at what point they had arrived, because he had an Amendment upon the scale proposed by the right hon. Gentleman when it reached the houses rated at £40. His proposal was, that when the duty amounting to £40 had been passed, the rest of the scale should be omitted.

said, that the Question at present before the Committee was with regard to the exemption in line 28, upon which the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had proposed to insert other words.

said, that he had to move that when the duty amounted to £40, the scale should then stop. It was quite plain that the amount of difference in the trade in spirits and liquor did not increase rate-ably in proportion to the amount of rent. The rent was influenced by a great many circumstances which did not affect the sale. Therefore, his proposal was that when the rental, which was the primary consideration, had risen so high as to amount to £400, then the principle should be affirmed that the full rate of duty had been reached in respect of premises for the mere distribution of liquor. The right hon. Gentleman was now proposing to charge nearly double the present scale for licences. If it were admitted, which he was not prepared to admit, that this doubling of the charge was equitable, he certainly was of opinion that it ought to be more than doubled. But he would submit that, as regarded houses in the City of London, the assessments had been so enormously increased as to add more than 50 per cent to the charge for the licences. Admitting that they were even prepared to double the charge for the licences to those houses, yet he did think that that should not be done when the rental of £400 was reached; £40 was to be the amount of duty on houses of the value of from £300 to £400, and he entirely objected to the assessment being carried beyond the yearly value of £400. His Amendment was that the residue of the proposed scale should be abandoned, and that £40 should be the highest charge for a licence.

Amendment proposed "To leave out from '£40' in last Clause to end of scale."—( Mr. J. G. Hubbard .)

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

said, that he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not agree to the Amendment. As a matter of fact, it was well known that a great many of the large establishments in London were worth far more than £400 a-year. He did not see on what ground it could be argued that they should only charge a man £40 for a licence, when his estimated rental might be £40,000 a-year. The proposition seemed to him so unreasonable, that he hoped it would be rejected.

said, that hon. Gentlemen from Scotland and Ireland first agreed with each other that exemptions ought to be made in their cases, and then they turned round upon English Members and said that the value of houses in this country was so great that they could not be charged too much. It was quite clear that they did not understand this question. The extra licence duty was only charged upon a house which sold spirits; for if the house were to sell wine and beer only, it would not be brought within this category, and it would not have any increased duty laid upon it. But those large houses to which reference had been made sold many other articles besides spirits—they were large refreshment houses, and luncheon rooms; and they were obliged to have large houses in order that, in a few hours of the day, they might afford accommodation to the large number of persons who entered the City daily to transact their business and who required refreshment. A large number of the persons who had refreshment in those houses took no wine, spirits, or beer, but were frequently supplied with mineral waters, tea, coffee, or anything else they required; but those who wished for spirits ought to be able to obtain them at those establishments—and it should be remembered that many persons took spirits because they had been ordered to do so by their medical men. Members of that House, he had no doubt, had been ordered by their medical attendants to drink Scotch whisky. The amount of spirits sold by those houses bore no proportion whatever to the amount of refreshments sold; in fact, the value of the spirits sold was only about one-tenth of the other articles consumed. In calculating the value of a licence, it was most unfair to take it upon the annual value of these premises. When the Bill was first introduced it proposed a large increase to the present licence duty; but it limited the amount of the charge to £30. Afterwards, upon the suggestion of some person or other out of the House, who thought it would be well to tax heavily those establishments in the City which paid large rentals, the scale was increased to its present figure. And, according to that scale, the licence duty would reach the enormous amount of £250 annually on some of these houses. He must congratulate the Treasury and the Inland Revenue Departments that they had seen fit to make some concession and to limit the amount of the duty to £60; but he hoped that something more would be done, and that, on further consideration, it would be found that there were many houses in and out of the City of London which had a very large refreshment trade, upon which this tax would fall most heavily. Under these circumstances, he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would accept the Amendment, which was to allow the duty to remain as it was placed in the first Bill.

said, that although he wished to do nothing injurious to the refreshment houses in London or large towns, yet he thought that they might find some other way of relieving them than that suggested by those representing the City of London. He was bound to say that he thought he was accurate in stating that they had no means of knowing precisely the real value of those houses. His opinion was that, judging as fairly as they could of the effect of the Amendment, it would be to cut out a very large number of pure drinking establishments which ran from £400 to £800 in annual value. With regard to those establishments, they were exactly the kind of places which they ought not to exempt. He admitted that the remarks made did apply to some of the smaller houses; but there was one most cogent reason why they should not accede to the Amendment. Those houses were distinctly rated lower than they otherwise would be, in proportion to the trade which they carried on, in consequence of the heavy payments made for the goodwill. Each buyer paid a premium for entering into the business, and the annual value at which it stood was a less adequate representation of the actual value than it would be in the case of other businesses. The principle of this Bill was to place the tax upon beer, spirits, and drinking establishments; and if that tax bore heavily upon any other description of establishments, such as refreshment houses, then they could make changes in order to meet their case. The direction in which they were going led them irresistibly to the conclusion that there was no right to exempt pure drinking establishments.

said, that as the right hon. Gentleman suggested some other mode by which he could exempt refreshment houses from paying a tax, which, he had assured them, was only intended to be levied on drinking establishments, he would not press his Amendment.

said, that all he had stated was, that it would be quite possible to introduce some means of exempting them.

said, that if the right hon. Gentleman considered it was possible, then it must be feasible.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn ,

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put and agreed to .

said, it was not necessary to move the first part of his Amendment, in consequence of what the Prime Minister had stated, adopting in effect the proposal—

"That in Ireland the duties should be charged according to the value of the premises as rated under the tenement valuation for the relief of the poor."

But he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to also accept, in some form or other, the latter portion of his Amendment—namely,

"That where the retailer shall reside on the same premises, the business part only shall be rated, if such part is so distinct from the dwelling as to be capable of a separate valuation, and the duty shall be payable upon such valuation."

If the right hon. Gentleman could accept the words he had read, or some equivalent words, and add them as a Proviso at the end of the clause, the object of several Members for Irish constituencies would be attained; and as the right hon. Gentleman had so kindly acceded to the views of Irish Members as to the question of rating according to tenement valuation, he hoped that this other concession would be also made. He would not detain the Committee by going through the reasons for proposing this Amendment, but would simply say that the means of making a separate valuation of distinct portions of the same premises existed in Ireland which did not exist in England or Scotland; and that it was advisable to take a course manifestly just where it could be easily followed, in preference to one which was obviously unjust. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman did not see his way to accept the Amendment, he would not put the Committee to the trouble of a division. He begged to move, in page 16, after line 30, to insert—

"Provided, That where the retailers shall reside on the same premises, the business part only shall be rated, if such part is so distinct from the dwelling as to be capable of a separate valuation, and the duty shall be payable upon such valuation."

As there seemed to be no disposition on the part of the Government to accept the Amendment, he would, with the leave of the Committee, withdraw it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

said, he thought the part of his Amendment which the hon. Member had proposed was so reasonable that he hoped it would be at once accepted, as, if accepted, it would have the effect of setting at rest a very vexed question which had been before the House on previous occasions.

ruled that, the Amendment having been withdrawn, these observations were out of Order.

, resuming, said, he would proceed with another Amendment which dealt with a very important question. That question was with regard to the construction of an Act of Parliament which dealt with the licensing laws in Ireland. He himself brought it forward as far back as the year 1874; and he thought, at that time, he so far satisfied the Committee, or, at any rate, the Government, on the point that the then Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant told him that if the Clerks of the Peace did not give in an account of the value of properties, he would accept the proposal made on the Report of the Bill then under discussion. He (Mr. O'Sullivan) had to return to Ireland before the Bill was reported. He supposed the Chief Secretary was so pressed with business that he forgot all about the Amendment when the stage was reached. He, therefore, now begged to move, in page 16, line 33, after "retail," to insert—

"Such licence shall continue in force from year to year, unless in cases where the magistrates, at the annual petty sessions for the renewal of certificates, shall refuse to certify for the holder of a licence, and retailers and dealers in wine, beer, and spirits shall be subject to no further charge for their licence or annual certificate more than the sum stated on the face of their licensing paper."

The 3 & 4 Will . IV., c. 68, provided as follows:—

"And be it further enacted, that upon each application being disposed of by the justices attending at such sessions, it shall be lawful for the clerk of the peace, or his deputy, and he is hereby required to give, or cause to be given, to the person entitled thereto a certificate, and every such clerk of the peace shall, by the issue of such certificate, be entitled to demand and receive the sum of 28 s . 6 d ., and no more as a fee, before he shall sign or deliver such certificates."

But the Clerks of the Peace had gone to the length of contending that each annual renewal was the granting of a new licence, and, by means of that contention, had been able to levy blackmail upon the poorer classes of publicans in the country.

, rising to Order, pointed out that the Bill, which was to fix the amount of licence duties, did not afford a fitting occasion for discussing the whole principle on which licences were to be granted.

said, the question which had been raised by the hon. Member was purely a question of magisterial regulation, and he did not think it would be convenient to discuss it on the present Bill.

said, he did not think the hon. Member for Limerick was entirely out of Order, as the subject which he raised was a relative one; but he thought the general opinion of the Committee was that the subject had better not proceed further on the present occasion.

said, he was of opinion that his Amendment was very pertinent to the question before the Committee, in that it referred solely to the Licensing Laws that had been accepted in 1874 by the then Chief Secretary for Ireland and by the House. He wished to state, further, what he understood by the Licensing Act of 1874—the 37 & 38 Vict ., c . 69—which was in these terms—

"From and after the first day of September, 1847, there shall be paid a fee of 55 upon every certificate given for the grant of a new Excise licence, or new wholesale beer dealers' licence, or for the transfer of any Excise licence or wholesale beer dealers' licence by a divisional justice of the peace in the district of Dublin Metropolis, or by a justice in petty sessions, and no other fee or stamp duty shall be payable in reference to any such certificate or the entry thereof."

He did not object to the charge of a fee for the renewal or transfer of a licence; but he certainly could not consent to the annual renewal of an existing licence being regarded as the granting of a new licence, and charged for accordingly. Many of the clerks who charged and obtained these fees, which amounted to not less than £6,000 a-year, were personal friends of the magistrates, and were, therefore, allowed to levy this amount of blackmail on the trade. He, therefore, begged to move the Amendment which he read at the outset of his speech.

objected to the Amendment, that the Bill under the consideration of the Committee had reference to the scale of licence duties, and not to the fees to be paid to officials in Ireland, or to the general question of the Licensing Laws, to which the Amendment of the hon. Member was directed.

thought the clerks of petty sessions were entitled to some remuneration for special services rendered in connection with those duties. They were paid at a very low rate; but it was a very different matter with the clerks of the peace, who were officers of the Crown receiving very large salaries. He, therefore, thought it would be a very graceful concession to continue the payment to the clerks at petty sessions, and discontinue it as far as the clerks of the peace were concerned. To do this would do no injury to any persons, and would, in a great measure, remove a soreness which was felt universally among those officials throughout the whole of Ireland.

thought that if this Amendment was carried it would throw the Revenue arrangements into utter confusion, in that it would have the effect of granting perpetual licences.

replied that he had shown, from the Acts of Parliament, that the impost which, as he had said, produced £6,000 a-year was levied in the shape of half crowns, that small traders could not afford to go to law in order to contest principles for so small sums; and it was, therefore, on principles of simple justice that he asked the Committee to accept his Amendment. If the officials were not paid sufficient salaries let those salaries be increased; but do not put that increase upon one class of the community only. He felt the case to be one of such great justice that if his Amendment was not accepted he should have to press it to a division.

hoped the hon. Member would not ask for a division, for if he did the Government must oppose it, if only on the ground that in their view it was out of Order to mix up a question of magisterial procedure with a Bill of this kind. He had no wish to prejudice the question, and, therefore, hoped the hon. Member would be content to lay it before his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland, by whom it would be carefully considered, with a view to justice being done.

said, that after the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman he should not persist with his Amendment, and asked leave to withdraw.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

, in rising to move, in page 17, line 12, after "behalf," to insert—

"And in Scotland such licences for selling spirits in reputed quart bottles may be issued to grocers at the same rates of Licence Duty as in any other part of the United Kingdom."

said, that in Scotland there was no such thing as a restriction on grocers as to the quantity of spirits they should sell to any one customer. They might sell a single glass, if they chose to do so, only it ought not to be drank on the premises, and this was thought by many persons to have a very demoralizing effect. Whether, however, that was or was not so, he wished the same rule to apply to grocers in all parts of the three Kingdoms if they sold spirits, and especially that Scotch grocers should be exempted from the payment of the higher duties, but only on the condition that they agreed to cease from selling the small quantities to which he had referred, and confined themselves to quart bottles as in England.

said, what was known as "the bottle licence" did not apply to Scotland, and was not affected by this Bill, in that it did not exist in the country.

said, his complaint was that the licence referred to by the noble Lord and by his own Amendment was now existent in Scotland; and he complained that there seemed to be no disposition on the part of the Government to equalize the matter as between the different parts of the Kingdom.

complained that grocers' licences in Scotland were not proposed to be exempted from the operation of the Bill, as were those held by grocers in England and Ireland.

objected to the Amendment that it was not germane to the object of the present Bill, which was intended to deal with the Licensing Law as far as the scale of licences was concerned, and not with the question in the abstract.

said, he hoped the question he had raised would be dealt with on the Report.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

moved—

In page 17, line 12, after sub-section (5), to insert "(6) In the case of premises in Ireland, the annual value, upon which the duty on the licence in respect of the premises is to be charged, shall not exceed the amount of the value assigned thereto in the valuation in force under the Act of the fifteenth and sixteenth years of Her Majesty's reign, chapter sixty-three, with the addition of twenty per centum of such amount; and the licensed person may appeal against the amount of annual value upon which the duty has been charged and paid in like manner as in the case of an assessment to Income Tax, and the appeal shall be determined in like manner as an appeal against such an assessment under sections twenty-one and twenty-two of the Act of the sixteenth and seventeenth years of Her Majesty's reign, chapter thirty-four."

The right hon. Gentleman said this Amendment had been framed for the purpose of reducing the pledge which he gave a few days ago in regard to the rates of assessment.

proposed to amend the Amendment by inserting words—

"To provide for the separate rating of the business and residential parts of the premises used for the sale of intoxicating drinks,"

where such were capable of a distinct valuation.

said, he could not accede to the proposal of the hon. Member, inasmuch as the sub-section had been introduced by the Government for the purpose of equalizing the assessment in Ireland with that of England and Scotland. They could not make that in Ireland without making it throughout the Three Kingdoms. He was appealed to to make this concession after having resisted the Amendment of the hon. Member for Herefordshire (Mr. Duckham). This Amendment was a much more stringent one than that of the hon. Member for Herefordshire, and went much more to the root of the matter. The effect of adopting this Amendment, therefore, would be to reproduce in an aggravated form, and give to Ireland, only what he had previously stated his determination not to do for the Three Kingdoms. He hoped that the Amendment would not be pressed.

said, that after what had been stated he should not press his Amendment.

Amendment to said proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

said, that since Griffith's Valuation had been made rent had only risen considerably in value during the last two years; but in the town that had not been the case, and there had been a distinct decrease in value. Everyone going through the farm districts in Ireland—Meath, Louth, and other places—must have noticed the numerous grazing farms; but if the small towns and villages were visited a stranger would be impressed by the number of vacant houses. The rent of houses known as public-houses in the towns and villages throughout the greater part of Ireland had decreased very much during the last 10 years. He certainly thought that 10 per cent would be a very fair sum by which to increase Griffith's Valuation generally. As regarded the country districts in Ireland, he believed that 15 per cent added to the amount of Griffith's Valuation would be the outside limit of increased value. Probably that would not be the case with regard to places like Belfast and Dublin; but in the rural districts, and in the small towns, house property had not increased in value, and the rate laid down in the Bill—namely, 20 per cent, at an increase on Griffith's Valuation, was much too high. The consumption of liquor in those public-houses had fallen off, and house property had, in every respect, deteriorated. He would suggest, therefore, that the scale should be reduced by 5 or 10 per cent.

said, that he had no objection to some addition to Griffith's Valuation being made; but he thought the proposition to add 20 per cent was entirely too much. House property had fallen off very much in country towns and villages in Ireland, and an addition of 20 per cent on the existing valuation was entirely too much. He should propose that after the word "sixty-three" they should add "ten per cent," and omit the words "twenty per cent." In his opinion, 10 per cent added to Griffith's Valuation would come much nearer to the actual value of property than the actual words proposed by the Bill.

said, that the hon. Members who had just spoken had not argued as if they were proposing to make a fixed rate in addition to Griffith's Valuation. What was proposed was only that there should be given power to the authority in certain cases, according to the merits of each case, to add an amount to Griffith's Valuation which should, in no instance, go beyond 20 per cent. It was not assumed that there was a general increase in the value of house property in Ireland. His impression was that there was not. But, in some parts of Ireland, and in some of the most important parts, there had been a very considerable increase; and it was provided for by the Bill in the authorities being given power to increase the valuation over Griffith's Valuation by 20 per cent. The judgment of the Excise officer would be subjected, in the first place, to revision by the higher authorities of the Revenue, and then by the Court of Appeal.

said, that decidedly in some parts of Ireland house property had fallen off in value very much lately. He thought that they must take the whole average of the country; and he did not think that, under those circumstances, 30 per cent would be an unfair maximum to fix, provided that there was an appeal. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister whether the appeal was to be to the Commissioners of Income Tax?

said, that it was proposed to make the appeal to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.

said, that if the right hon. Gentleman would make the appeal to the Chairman of Quarter Sessions throughout Ireland then he should have no objection to the Amendment. On all questions of renewal of licences the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions had jurisdiction, and they would be quite competent to decide this question also.

said, that should be done.

said, that, in his opinion, it would be well that a compromise should be made between 10 and 20 per cent, and that the maximum addition to Griffith's Valuation should be 15 per cent. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman was well advised in accepting the proposal to give an appeal to the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions; and he would suggest to the hon. Member for Limerick that he should withdraw his Amendment, and that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer should place the maximum at 15 per cent. Some hon. Gentlemen seemed to have very hazy notions as to the nature of Griffith's Valuation. It seemed to be supposed that that valuation was made so many years ago that it did not keep up to the present time. He might inform the Committee that Griffith's Valuation was kept up year by year, and there was in every county in Ireland a revision yearly; in addition to alterations in many cases the valuation had been doubled from time to time. He did not believe that there was much truth in the statement that Griffith's Valuation was a very low valuation. Taking one season with another, and one year with another, he believed that that valuation was a fair, medium, and a proper one. The justice of the present case would be met by placing the maximum of increase over the valuation at 15 per cent.

said, that with regard to grazing farms in Ireland, the increase of 20 per cent upon the valuation might be fair; but it would not be fair upon house property, which was of a perish- able nature, and of a very different character from land.

said, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would make the maximum 15 per cent. In conjunction with other hon. Friends and the late Member for Roscommon, (the O'Conor Don) he was happy to state that they had succeeded in closing the greater portion of the public-houses on Sunday, and he hoped soon they would succeed in closing them every day in the week, but consistently with the principles of justice to the owners so far as giving them fair compensation for the loss they would incur for the public good. The result of their efforts had been to reduce the sale by public-houses during the last year by £1,250,000. He trusted that next year there would be a reduction of £1,500,000, for the sake of the morality and well-being of the people. Those houses had suffered severely by the Sunday closing movement, and he hoped that would be taken into consideration by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that he would accede to the reasonable proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for County Limerick, as he thought the Irish publicans had been hit hard enough without increasing their licence duties.

said, that it seemed to him that the purport of this Amendment had been misunderstood. It had been supposed that the value of the houses, no matter what the value of the premises were, should be increased for the purpose of the licence to 20 per cent over Griffith's Valuation. That was not the effect of the proposal.

said, that the Exciseman could put any value upon a house he pleased, as long as it did not exceed Griffith's Valuation by more than 20 per cent. It should be remembered that the Excise had a power of adding 20 per cent to the valuation whenever they thought fit. He was very glad that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had acceded to the suggestion of the hon. Member for County Cork (Mr. Shaw), and had given an appeal, not to the Income Tax Commissioners, but to the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions. In his opinion, the Income Tax Commissioners were a very useless body, and ought to be done away with altogether. He should not trouble the Committee by going to a division on his Amendment; but he felt that he should not be discharging his duty if he accepted the proposition to allow any Excise officer to raise the valuation 20 per cent. In order not to put the Committee to the trouble of dividing, he had no objection to accepting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Byrne); otherwise he should be under the disagreeable necessity of going to a division.

said, that in proposing to adopt Griffith's Valuation, and to allow it to be increased by 20, he stated that in so doing he was making a concession.

Amendment ( Mr. O'Sullivan ) negatived .

Amendment ( Mr. Gladstone ) agreed to .

Clause, as amended, agreed to .

Clause 44 (Extension of six-day and early closing licences to the United Kingdom).

said, he begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice, and which, as he had altered it, would read as follows:—

"Provided always, That the sum to be payable by the holders of six-day licences shall be no larger sum than would have been payable previous to the passing of this Act."

His reason for proposing this Amendment was that he wished to facilitate and to promote the closing of public-houses on Sunday. He was opposed to the principle of compulsorily closing public-houses throughout the Kingdom on Sundays. The subject of closing public-houses on Sunday was sure to be agitated throughout the Kingdom. No doubt it was advisable, in theory, that many of the public-houses should be closed on Sunday. In a recent statement of the Licensed Victuallers the other day it was said, among other matters, that the hours during which public-houses were closed throughout the year had been increased some 800 or 1,000; and it was shown that, in consequence of that, and the depression of trade, the publicans throughout the country, during the last year, had had a much smaller sale than previously. Although opposed to the propositions of the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), yet he agreed with him in thinking that the more drinking establishments closed on Sundays throughout the country the better. This, he thought, was to be done, not by the compulsory action of Parliament in the great towns of this country, but by offering inducements to the publicans themselves to close their houses. He did not believe that any Minister would ever take upon himself the responsibility of assenting to a Bill for the compulsory closing of all public-houses on Sundays. But he proposed to give the publicans an opportunity of closing themselves, and thereby obtaining a benefit. At the present time the system did not give sufficient benefit to those who chose to close on Sunday. But he proposed, by exempting from the extra duty in the event of Sunday closing, to offer a direct inducement. He believed that many publicans were most anxious to close on Sunday, if they could find an excuse for doing so. Many were anxious to close for the sake of themselves, their families, and their servants; but, at present, they were compelled by custom to keep open on Sunday. If his proposal were adopted an excuse would be given them, and they would be able to say that for the sake of obtaining a reduced licence they closed on Sunday. In that way they would arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to what number of public-houses it was necessary to have open on Sunday. The proposition he was sure, so far as it went, would have the support of the temperance advocates in this country, for it meant that the people would consume less exciseable liquor. He believed that there thousands of houses which would be closed if his proposition were adopted. Supposing the result of it was a loss to the Revenue of £100,000 a-year, yet, as that would be for the advantage of the people, it would be very cheap. With respect to Ireland, it would be a settlement of their difficulties as to the increase of valuation, or as to the increased sum for licences, for at present all the public-houses were closed on Sunday, except in the large towns. With regard to Scotland, the same was the case there; and, therefore, the proposal would be acceptable to that country. No doubt the proposition was a novel one; but he thought that the principle of making it to the advantage of the publican to close on Sunday was a good one, and would tend to the benefit of the people. He begged to move his Amendment.

said, that everyone must admire the motives of his hon. Friend who had moved this Amendment; but it was impossible for the Committee to accede to it as a practical measure. No doubt, they had in legislation plenty of instances where vice had been mulcted in sums of money for pursuing practices contrary to virtue; but there were no instances, on the other hand, of virtue having been rewarded by granting it sums of money. If this boon were to be given to the publican for the virtue of closing his house on a Sunday, he did not see why they should not reward all persons for the performance of good actions. He must oppose the Amendment.

Amendment negatived .

Clause agreed to .

Clauses 45 to 48, inclusive, agreed to .

Clause 49 (Grant of additional duties of income tax).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—( Mr. Gladstone .)

said, he objected to this Motion. He did not think that that was a proper time to report Progress. The real reason why it was sought to report Progress was to allow another Bill, that for the registration of voters in Ireland, to come on. A great many hon. Members had come there for the express purpose of being present at the discussion of the Bill upon which they were now engaged, and not upon the Bill for the registration of voters in Ireland. In his opinion, it would be well if the Government had announced their intention to report Progress at that time before allowing hon. Members to come down under the impression that the present Committee was to be continued during the whole of the Sitting. If the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had announced his intention of reporting Progress at a certain stage, then hon. Members would have known what to expect. The object of the Government was to try to force on the Registration of Voters (Ireland) Bill at an hour when it was very improper that it should be taken. He thought that, under the circumstances, it was perfectly legitimate to oppose this Motion, and he thought it his duty to go to a division upon it. He hoped that on another occasion the Government would give the House notice of the intentions it intended to pursue. Everyone had come there that evening to attend the discussions on the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, and not of that of the Registration of Voters (Ireland) Bill.

Motion agreed to .

Committee report Progress; to sit again this day .

Registration of Voters (Ireland) Bill.—[Bill 150.]

( Mr. Meldon , Mr. Shaw , Mr. Mitchell Henry , Mr. Findlater , Mr. Dawson .)

Consideration

Order for Consideration, as amended, read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now taken into Consideration."—( Mr. Meldon. )

appealed to the hon. and learned Member to postpone the stage, as there were three pages of Amendments on the Paper, and hon. Gentlemen were not in attendance to support them.

did not think it fair that the measure should be further postponed.

Question put, and negatived .

Consideration, as amended, deferred till Monday next.

The House suspended its Sitting at a quarter before Seven of the clock.

The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

, in rising to call attention to the condition of Asia Minor and Armenia in relation to the 61st Article of the Treaty of Berlin; and to move an Address for

"Copies or Extracts of the Correspondence which has passed respecting the condition of the populations in Armenia, Asia Minor, and Syria, in continuation of that contained in Blue Book 'Turkey, No. 4,' of this year,"

said, although he did wish that the question had fallen into more experienced hands, he need make no apology for bringing it forward, because there was no part of the Eastern Question which was so important in itself, or which involved such large interests in the future, as the questions relating to Armenia and Asiatic Turkey generally. The ultimate issue he expected from the solution of these questions would have far greater influence on the future of civilization and progress in these regions than that of any question at present pending with regard to European Turkey. It was only in very recent years that the groans and cries of the unhappy Armenian nation had been able to reach the ears of Western Europe. The sufferings of the Armenians dated from the fall of their independent Kingdom, about the time of the Norman Conquest; but of late years those sufferings had become more intense, partly because the fanaticism of the Mahomedan people had been steadily growing during the last 40 years, and partly also because the Sultan's Government, seeing that its end was approaching, and having become more uneasy in the presence of its Christian subjects, had sought more and more to depress, exhaust, and diminish them, lest they should become a source of political danger. The misfortunes of Armenia had excited much sympathy in the Russian Empire, where there was a large Armenian population, and within whose territory stood Echmindzin, the seat of the Catholicos or Universal Patriarch of the Armenian Church. A provision had, consequently, been introduced into the Treaty of San Stefano with the object of affording protection to the Armenians. By it the Sublime Porte engaged—

"To realize, without delay, the improvements and reforms demanded by local wants in the Provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee them in future against the incursions of the Kurds and Circassians."

That provision was adopted in the 61st Article of the Treaty of Berlin, with the addition that the Porte—

"Should periodically make known the measures which it had taken to carry out those reforms to the Signatory Powers, who would supervise their application."

Therefore, they were considering this question not merely on the general ground of humanity, but upon the firm foundation of a Treaty right, with the most complete title to demand the execution of the Treaty from the Sublime Porte. It was natural to ask what steps had been taken to carry out this provision. Rather more than two years had elapsed since the Treaty of Berlin was signed, and during that period the late Government, through Lord Salisbury and Sir Henry Layard, had continually pressed upon the Porte the duty of carrying out these reforms; but not only had nothing been done, but things had grown positively worse from week to week and month to month. They were brought down, then, without any change in the situation, to the presentation of the Identic Note, shortly after the advent to power of Her Majesty's present Advisers, in which occurred this passage—

"Her Majesty's Government, among the Signatory Powers to the Treaty of Berlin, must demand complete and immediate execution of Article 61 of the Treaty, and call upon the Sultan's Government to state explicitly what are the steps they have taken in order to fulfil the provisions of this Article."

But, before he proceeded further, he wished to say a few words with, respect to the Anglo-Turkish Convention, which was a document hardly more remarkable for its substance than for its legal form. It contained no absolute undertaking by the Porte to introduce certain reforms; but only a promise made in condition of our guarantee of the Asiatic frontier; and, according to its strict legal interpretation, the only way in which our Government could hope to enforce the introduction of the contemplated reforms would be by the real withdrawing from our guarantee of the Asiatic dominions of the Sultan. But a further and even more serious objection to the idea of proceeding under the Convention was that it created rights for Great Britain alone; and thus, while the jealousy of other States was excited, the chances of succeeding with the Porte were diminished, for it was next to impossible to influence Turkey, except by the united action of the Powers. These were the grounds which made it desirable that whatever action England took should be taken, not under the Convention, but under the Treaty of Berlin. Such being our rights, what were the facts with regard to the condition of Armenia which called upon us to put those rights in force? Among the grievances of which the Armenians complained the following were the four principal:—The heavy taxation, and the exaction of arrears of taxation when the people were not in a position to pay them; the unjust seizure of the land, and especially of Church land; the abuse and denial of justice, and the refusal to admit Christian evidence; and, lastly, the frequent robberies and other outrages committed by the Kurds and other nomadic tribes. These complaints, together with many others, were enumerated in the Blue Books in the hands of hon. Members, and were proved to be well grounded by the testimony of Her Majesty's Consuls, men for whose zeal and energy in endeavouring to grapple with the miseries and oppressions they saw around them, no praise could be too high. No further evidence of the deplorable state of Armenia was needed than that contained in the despatches of these Consuls and of Sir Henry Layard. The Porte showed no disposition to press the Kurds or to mitigate the other evils complained of. It wanted power, no doubt; but it also wanted the wish to do what was right and necessary. Indeed, a desire seemed to exist to take advantage of the present famine to reduce the population to as low a point as possible. This feeling was evinced by the late Turkish Prime Minister, who was reported to have said—"The way to get rid of the Armenia question is by getting rid of the Armenians." When taxed with the existence of the evils to which he had referred the Porte had the face to deny them, maintaining that the average of crime in Armenia was not higher than in many districts in Europe. Another answer given by the Porte was that the Armenians were so few in number that they were comparatively unimportant. But, according to statistics which he had obtained from the Armenian Patriarchate, the number of settled Armenians in the four Provinces of Erzeroum, Van, Diarbekir, and Kharput was much larger than the settled Mahomedan population, excluding the nomad Kurds. No satisfactory statistics were in existence; but, anyhow, he believed the Christian population to be in these Provinces at least as large, and probably larger, than that of the non-nomadic Mussulmans. In addition to the denial given by the Turks to the charges made against them by the Armenians, they flourished in the face of this country that tale of reforms with which we had been familiar ever since the Crimean War, and which now no longer found any currency. The greater part of the reforms which the Porte now undertook to put in force had been promulgated long ago, and a part of them nominally in operation since 1863; and, judging from the results achieved, what hope was there of bringing about any improvement in the future? What, then, he asked, should be done to remedy the existing admitted evils? Paper reforms had been of no use in the past and would be of none in the future. What was wanted was, not a change of measures, but a change of men. The administration must be taken out of the hands of those who now held it, and given to persons who could be trusted. In an able article lately published by one of the highest living authorities on Eastern affairs, the opinion was expressed that there did not exist throughout the whole of Turkey an honest or competent Mahomedan statesman, and that even if one did exist he would have no chance of doing good. No one went out more disposed to see the best that could be seen in the Turks than did Sir Henry Layard; but their conduct and the behaviour of the Porte had been too much for him, and it was impossible to pass a more decisive condemnation of Turkish policy than that which had been passed upon it by the late British Ambassador. Sir Henry Layard had stated in one of his despatches that it did not matter how good a man might be selected for a provincial office, he was perfectly certain to be thwarted from Constantinople, and be removed in a short time. There was thus a double difficulty—first, that of getting an honest man, and then that of giving him power and opportunity to work for good. The very fact of a man's honesty would be an injury to him as a provincial Governor. If a Governor were upright, it would be because he was an earnest and pious Mahomedan, and a pious Mahomedan would be necessarily intolerant, unjust to all who were not Mahomedans. ["No, no!"] Hon. Members might say "No!" but the evidence which was brought home from time to time by persons resident in the East, the evidence which the whole history of Turkish rule supplied, was too conclusive on that point to admit of a doubt. In the Turkish dominions there was no such thing as a State, there was only a Church; there was no such thing as patriotism in the proper sense of the term; there was only devotion to Islam. He did bring this as a charge against the Mahomedans. They were right from their own point of view, and we must respect them for their sincere attachment to the principles, however cruel and intolerant, of their faith. But the fact remained that no Mahomedan Governor was fit to be trusted to rule over Christians. The local administration, or, at least, the chief post in it, must be taken out of the hands of the Mahomedans and put into the hands of Christians, in order that equal justice might be done to all classes of the people. That doctrine was amply confirmed by experience. What was the one district in Asiatic Turkey where the people were contented, and where no cries of discontent were heard? That district was the Lebanon, whose inhabitants had been placed under a Christian Governor, and were allowed to manage their own affairs. Peace reigned there where, up till the arrangement of 1860, there had been perpetual bloodshed; and it reigned, chiefly owing to the security afforded against the entrance of Turkish troops, who were not allowed to enter the Province unless called in by the Governor. The district now known by the name of Armenia was, speaking roughly, about 250 miles long by 200 broad. The population was under 2,000,000. The Christians, nearly all of whom belonged to the Armenian Church, formed a majority, so far as could be made out, of the settled population. They might not exceed one-half of the total population; but of the settled population they probably constituted a majority. This district it was proposed to erect into one Province, subject to Turkey, but managed by a Christian Governor, who should be appointed for a term of years with the consent of the Signatory Powers, and be removable only with their approval. This Governor should have power to administer and apply the taxes raised in the Province paying only a fixed tribute to the Porte, and should establish a local militia or gendarmerie to maintain order and repress the Kurds. The Armenians did not ask for political independence; they repudiated such a claim, feeling that things were far from being ripe, for they asked only that the internal management of the country, finance, and law, and justice, should be in the hands of the people themselves. That was the modest remedy demanded by the Armenians. It was not, however, all that they might ultimately come to demand, if their present sufferings were allowed to continue, for those sufferings might, in time, excite the desire for complete separation from the Turkish Empire. They demanded it, moreover, quite as much in the interests of the Mahomedan population as of the Christian. That was proved by the case of the Lebanon, where a population, partly Mahomedan, had lived content under Christian Governors. Some of the tribes outside the Lebanon had prayed to be withdrawn from the direct rule of Turkey, and to be admitted into the Lebanon Province. Could there be a more complete answer to those who said that the Mahomedans would not accept the government of Christians? There was no branch of the Eastern Question which called for a speedier remedy than this question of the condition of Armenia. There was no gainsaying that the Sick Man was mortally sick, and his best wishers did not say that they still cherished any hopes of his recovery. All that remained was to apply such anodynes as might make the death of the Turkish Empire less painful, and to provide heirs who might step into its place. So much was that so, that no hon. Member of the House would now be found to get up and repeat the once sacred words—"The independence and integrity of the Turkish Empire.'' The total incompetence of the Turkish Government to improve had been more conclusively proved by its helplessness since the Treaty of Berlin than even by its disasters during the war of 1877. There was no denying that its existence as an Empire would be limited to a very few years; and all they had now to do was to consider what must be done when the inevitable dissolution came. It was admitted on all hands that the best, and, indeed, the only course, was to encourage and develop schemes of local self-government. There were two reasons why Armenia was, perhaps, the most important point to look to in considering the Asiatic dominions of Turkey. In the first place, Armenia was contiguous to the Asiatic territories of Russia; and, although he was not one of those who thought that Russia had any present intention of annexing Armenia, or, that if she did, it would make the slightest difference to the hold of this country upon India, still, as the other view, embodied in the Anglo-Turkish Convention, was held by many and influential persons, and as it might probably, at some future time, lead to active measures being taken by England, he desired to point out that if Russia had ambitious designs on Armenia, and those designs were feared, the best thing to do was to remove all grounds for Russian interference in that quarter by applying a prompt remedy to the evils which existed. If such remedies had been used in the case of Bulgaria, Russian soldiers would never have crossed the Danube. Armenia, moreover, was the only country in the Asiatic territories of the Sultan where there existed a population which held out great hope of future growth and development. Ever since the days of Constantine, when she became a Christian and civilized country, Armenia had produced a succession of remarkable men. Three of the most conspicuous men in the Eastern world were Armenians—Loris Melikoff, now, under the Czar, dictator of Russia, Nubar Pasha, and the present Persian Ambassador in this country, who enjoyed an influence and reputation in Persia such as no Christian had ever obtained before. The Armenians possessed brilliant qualities, and they were, besides, a very practical race, and not mere dreamers. Nor were they possessed, as they had been accused, of the desire to establish an independent Principality. All they desired—and he hoped it might be intrusted to them—was self-government. They alone among the Native races of Western Asia had the tenacity, the vigour, the intellectual gifts which would enable them to become the pioneers of progress, and of social as well as commercial development. It was not even now, after their numbers had been so sadly reduced by misgovernment and famine, too late for England to take action in the matter. But delay made the task more difficult, and tended to increase the bitterness which existed between the Christian and the Mahomedan population. Our easiest course, therefore, was to endeavour to do something at once. He was not one of those who thought that the late Government could be charged with evil intentions in the matter. He believed their intentions—with respect to Asiatic Turkey at any rate—were excellent; but they wanted vigour and boldness in carrying them out, because they were hampered by their previous relations both with Turkey and with Russia. The present Government was happily free from the entanglements and prejudices which had paralysed the action of the late Government. It might be said that the Government had many other questions on hand—the questions of the Greek frontier, of Montenegro, of Macedonia. But he held that it was just as easy to deal with all these questions together as it was to deal with them one by one. The Porte would never give way except to force. Sir Henry Layard himself had said that if they were anxious to reform the country they must prepare to go further than menace. Nothing short of a demonstration of force would ever induce the Porte to give way upon any of the points upon which it now confronted Europe; and if a demonstration of that kind was to be employed, it might just as well be employed to enforce compliance in the matter of Armenia as in the matter of Greece or of Montenegro. In these circumstances, he thought they might appeal with some confidence to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, whose accession to power was welcomed with such outbursts of joy by all the subject races of the East, to give effect to those principles which he had so often announced. If he might presume to express the feelings of those who advocated the cause of the subject races of Turkey, he would say that they trusted that Her Majesty's Government would not allow England to hang back in a policy of selfish isolation; and, on the other hand, that they would not pursue the special peculiar interests of England in the narrow views sometimes taken of those interests. They trusted that under the guidance of Her Majesty's present Government England would advance towards a solution of those questions in a spirit worthy not only of her power, but also of her moral greatness; and that, while she upheld the concert of Europe, and disarmed jealousy by the purity of her aims, she would exert her influence, and, if need be, her material strength, to exact the acceptance of broad and sweeping measures of reform, measures which might give back to these ancient homes of civilization some of the peace and prosperity which they once enjoyed, and of which they had been so long deprived. He concluded by moving his address for Papers and trusted the House would accept it.

, in seconding the Amendment, observed that no apology was needed from his hon. Friend for bringing the question before the attention of the House. He thought, indeed, his hon. Friend would have been justified in going further, and in asking the House to express its strong sense of the sufferings of Armenia and the urgency of the question with which they had to deal, and also the desire of the House to give all proper support to Her Majesty's Government in any measure which, if not so extreme as that advocated by his hon. Friend, a responsible Government might see fit to adopt. It would, however, be unwise to put any Motion before the House which might be calculated to excite illusory hopes in the minds of the Armenian population, or to embarrass Her Majesty's Government in dealing with the difficult circumstances which existed in the East; but there could be no objection to the form in which the question had now been raised. It was true that the question had been dealt with in "another place;" but he could not admit that as a reason for leaving it out of sight in the House of Commons. They must remember that it was to the House of Commons that Europe and the world looked to see what was English feeling in this matter; and they would naturally look to the proceedings of that House to see whether, after the recent Elections, the House was in the same mind to do its utmost to bring about a satisfactory settlement of this question. The reference at the end of the Identic Note left no doubt as to the wishes of the Government in the matter, and he was sure the House of Commons would readily back up the Government. It was true that England's remonstrances had effected little down to the present time. The late Government, however, on the urgent representations of Sir Henry Layard, appointed the British Consuls in Asia Minor; the Porte had sent Commissions into some of the districts, and appointed new Governors, who, however, were replaced by corrupt ones; and, all these things having been tried, the Porte innocently inquired what more the British Government desired to be done? The whole system was, in point of fact, thoroughly bad; and the result was that the Christian population was in a state of terrible misery, almost of anarchy. As was said by the Armenians themselves, the Turkish promises ended in words, and in words alone. He feared that no better result was to be expected of the reforms that were now paraded before Europe. It was clear from what Sir Henry Layard had said that something had to be done, and the only question, was as to the course of action that would be found necessary. His hon. Friend had noticed the happy population of the Lebanon, in the enjoyment of the government provided for them in 1860, after the massacres. That government, however, was brought about by the presence of 6,000 French bayonets, and the promise of 6,000 more, and his hon. Friend was evidently disposed to send British bayonets abroad on a similar mission. [Mr. BRYCE: I did not speak of sending troops to Armenia.] At all events, his hon. Friend had suggested a vigorous and coercive policy. The desire of everyone was, of course, to see a prosperous and thoroughly reformed Armenia, and to find out the means of obtaining that result. The responsibility of action would necessarily rest with the Government, who would require to be supported by the House. Their old traditions would encourage them to act on behalf of a suffering population, and they were bound to go forward by the Treaty of Berlin and by declarations of Lord Salisbury. It was not to be forgotten that in the Armenian question, as in the case of Bulgaria, there was a danger of foreign interference. The hopes to which the Treaty of Berlin had given rise had been disappointed, and the Armenians were turning to Russia, whose tendency always was to go southward. The late War had assisted her movement in that direction, and the best barrier to her further progress in that direction would be a prosperous, a reformed, and a well-governed Armenia; and any Government that endeavoured to procure that end would obtain the support of the House.

Amendment proposed,

To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, Copies or Extracts of the Correspondence which has passed respecting the condition of the populations in Armenia, Asia Minor, and Syria, in continuation of that contained in Blue Book, 'Turkey, No. 4,' of this year,"—( Mr. Bryce ,)

—instead thereof.

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

complimented the Mover of the Motion on the speech he had made, but was unable entirely to concur with all that he had said. He called the attention of the House to the somewhat limited nature of the Motion, and declined to be led into a general debate on the state of the whole Turkish Empire. The Motion related to Asia Minor and Armenia, but hinged on the 61st Article of the Treaty of Berlin, which had reference solely to the Provinces inhabited by the Armenians. It would be desirable to keep the question before the House separate and apart from all others not immediately connected with it, and to follow closely the subject under consideration. No one would dispute the general truth of the statements made by his hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets, and by the hon. Member for East Devon, as to the oppressive character of the Government which at present existed in Armenia. He need not give specific instances of the nature of that Government; but he might say, in general terms, that the latest accounts of Armenia given by competent observers reported abuses, anarchy, frequent miscarriage of justice, and insecurity of life and property. It was the opinion of Her Majesty's Representatives in Asia Minor—the military Consuls—that the state of the Armenian Provinces was probably worse than that of any other portion of the Ottoman Empire. He might call the attention of hon. Members opposite to what Lord Salisbury had said in "another place" two months ago. He had stated that the very darkest colours would fail of their effect in depicting the state of those Provinces; that it would be hard to exaggerate the responsibility both to its own subjects and to others interested in their welfare that belonged to the Turkish Government for its negligence.

"Had the Turkish Government the will to reform; and, if it had, was there anything in the past conduct of its Sovereign, with whom the responsibility rested, to lead us to think that he would try to reform the government of his Asiatic subjects?"

Those were the words of Lord Salisbury; and, for his own part, he felt it almost impossible to overstate the abuses that existed in Armenia at the present moment. Coming to what had been done with a view to remedy the evils which all admitted, the hon. Member for East Devon (Sir John Kennaway) had referred to the incessant pressure which the present Government had brought to bear upon Turkey. At the present time it was rather the pressure of the whole of the six Powers than of England alone which was being used. The hon. Baronet smiled at that remark; but he (Sir Charles W. Dilke) had stated a simple fact. He could not see what there was to cause a smile; for it was a fact that Her Majesty's Government had succeeded in bringing about, in this as in the other phases of the Eastern Question, an absolute unanimity of action among the whole European Powers. At the same time, this very fact made it necessary that he should speak with some caution with regard to the details of the reforms which they were pressing on the attention of the Porte, because it was necessary that Her Majesty's Government should have the consent of each of the other Powers before they could make any statement to the House on the subject; and in assenting, as he was prepared to do, to the Motion for Papers, he would ask to be excused if some delay took place in the presentation of the Papers, because it would be necessary to obtain the consent of the other five Powers before they were laid on the Table of the House. Up to the time of the accession to Office of the present Government the House had been informed of the actual reforms which the English Government, during Lord Salisbury's term of Office, had asked. Lord Salisbury attached immense importance to the establishment of a gendarmerie , to tribunals, and the appointment of collectors of revenue of good character, who should be Europeans, and who should abolish tithe farming. Subsequently Lord Salisbury had minimized his demands, and had asked for a mere beginning of reforms, and especially for the creation of a gendarmerie in those Provinces which were most subject to the ravages of the Kurds. Unfortunately, the Porte had as yet not given effect even to the minimized promises it had made, and not only had nothing been done, but the state of Armenia was now worse, so far as government was concerned, than before. It was true that the Turkish Government had several times talked about reform. In 1879 the Porte appointed a Commission to proceed to the Eastern parts of Asia Minor in order to inquire into the grievances of the Christian population. Sir Henry Layard requested that English officers should be appointed to accompany that Commission, and the request was complied with. In 1879 a Local Consultative Assembly of Delegates was called together, and sat for some weeks to consider the reforms to be introduced. There had been, or there should be, laid before the House a statement of the reforms asked for by the Christians. Not one single step had been taken by the Porte to carry out the recommendations made before the Commission. One step, indeed, had been taken by the Porte which had shown a want of recognition of a principle to which Lord Salisbury attached great importance. Lord Salisbury had always pointed out how necessary it was, if a beginning of reform was to be made in the Armenian Provinces that the Governors should be left for several years in possession of their posts, and that when they got a good Governor there they should keep him. One Governor, Abeddin Bey, who was a man possessing considerable energy, and who was in many ways an excellent man for the position, began to do fairly well; but he was soon removed by the Turkish Government, and again all security of uniformity of action in the direction of reform, was lost. He need not go at greater length into these unfulfilled pledges of the Ottoman Government as to reforms in Asia Minor, and Armenia in particular. The Identic Note, presented to the Porte in the names of the six Powers of Europe, contained the views of Her Majesty's Government on the present position of this question; and to that Note an answer had been made by the Porte. In that answer the Porte denied the accuracy of the statements made to Her Majesty's Government by those admirable military Consuls to whose Reports he had already referred. The Porte treated as mere gossip the Reports made by those gentlemen. It was a matter of extreme regret that the Government of the Porte should be so ill-advised as to throw any doubt whatever on the statements made to Her Majesty's Government by officers specially chosen—men of high character, who, actuated by no kind of personal interest, went out to seek the truth for the information of Her Majesty's Government. In almost all cases, the accuracy of their Reports had been borne out by the testimony of the best people on the spot; and, therefore, it was most unfortunate that discredit had been thrown on their Reports by the Porte. The Porte had expressed the gravest possible doubt on the figures laid before the world as to the numbers of the Armenian population. Now, the question of the population in the different countries inhabited by the Armenian race was one of great importance; for unless we knew the relative proportions of the Christian and Mahomedan population, it would be impossible to lay down a scheme for their future government. For this reason, Her Majesty's Government attached great importance to obtaining exact information as to the numbers of the various races inhabiting the countries mentioned in the 61st Article of the Treaty of Berlin. The Porte had put forward figures of its own, to which his hon. Friend (Mr. Bryce) had referred. He did not go as far as his hon. Friend in accepting, without fuller examination than had been given to them up to the present time, the figures of population put forward by the Armenian Patriarch; but, on the other hand, the information in the possession of Her Majesty's Go- vernment did not incline them to accept the figures put forth by the Porte. In the circumstances, it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to immediately take steps to ascertain, for their own information, and that of the other Powers, the exact numbers of the various races which inhabited these Armenian Provinces. The facts would be ascertained by means of an inquiry conducted by European officers, and we should then have before us information which would form a basis of future reforms in those Provinces. Turkey had proposed to have but one law for all the Provinces of the Empire, with very small modifications; but this was held to be inadmissible by Her Majesty's Government. It was impossible to make one law serve for the whole of the Provinces of the Turkish Empire. The Identic Note having been handed to the Porte on the 12th of June, the attention of the Porte was called to the 61st Article of the Treaty; and on the 7th of July the Porte made a reply, which would be laid before the House. He had stated the two points in which that reply was worthy of notice—first, the doubt thrown most unfortunately by the Turkish Government on the truthfulness of Her Majesty's Consuls in Asia Minor; and, secondly, the point of the numbers of the population. The Turkish Government, in their reply, had also named two possible reforms. They had suggested the splitting up of the Communes, and the employment of capable and honest persons, without distinction of creed, and had made a few other general promises of that kind, such as the construction of public works. Of course, Her Majesty's Government could not be content with any general promises. Such promises had been made for an immense number of years in even stronger terms than those which the Porte now employed. On the other hand, it was impossible for him, for the reasons he had given, to tell the House at the present time what steps Her Majesty's Government proposed to take in answer to this proposition of the Porte. The steps already taken were taken in concurrence with the six Great Powers; and, therefore, a statement of what they were could not be at once laid upon the Table of the House. He would, however, promise his hon. Friend that as soon as the Government had any figures as to the exact number of the Asiatic population they should be presented to the House at once. In assenting to his hon. Friend's Motion, he promised to give the House all the information he could respecting the condition of Armenia, with this restriction only—that some little time might elapse before it could be laid before the House, because of the necessity of consulting the other Powers. He could only thank his hon. Friend for having brought the question before the House, and for having shown it still occupied the mind of the House and of the Government. It was one of the three branches of the Eastern Question which they would bear in mind in settling the two other points in absolute concert with the other Powers.

thought that the House could hardly be satisfied with the answer of the hon. Gentleman. It was said that Her Majesty's Government intended to act in concert with all the Powers in order to obtain reforms in Armenia and Asia Minor; but the hon. Gentleman had not in any way indicated what the nature of those reforms would be. The hon. Member who broached this question might say, after listening to the speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite—"Thank you for nothing." He knew that this was a most difficult question, and that great care must be taken in order that the Mahomedan population in these Provinces might not be impressed with the idea that Her Majesty's Government intended to do all they possibly could against the Mahomedans, or that this country was in any way unfriendly towards them. The Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had stated that Her Majesty's Government were not content with the reply of Turkey to the Identic Note; but be did not indicate in any way why Her Majesty's Government were not content with it. The hon. Gentleman said that the Porte had specified certain promises. If the Porte acted up to the promises it had made great reforms would be effected in Armenia, Syria, and other Provinces where there was a Mahomedan population. Was this country to understand that if those promises were not fulfilled by Turkey Her Majesty's Government, in concert with the whole of the European Powers, would use force in order that the reforms might be carried out? They were told that on the coast of Albania force must be used. The Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had intimated to-night that if the Turkish Government did not carry out their promises, or that if they did not, at all events, carry out certain remedies, Her Majesty's Government would propose that coercion might be used. If that were to be the case a very grave responsibility rested upon this country. He objected to England having a Roving Commission to improve the condition of every country. The state of affairs was very bad in Burmah; and, in his opinion, before the Government interfered in Armenian affairs, they should set themselves to work to carry out reforms in Burmah, as it was on the confines of our territory in India. Before this Session was concluded he hoped the Prime Minister would tell the House whether the Government intended to use force or not. He did not think the country was satisfied with the position which the Government now held. It was said something was to be done. What was that something? That was a grave question. If it was to be force, let the country know it. They had no definite information. The Government was urged to exercise all reasonable and prudent means to force good government on the Porte, but those were vague words; and what he wished to know was this—what policy the Government intended to adopt should the Porte turn a deaf ear to the so-called "reasonable and prudent means."

said, that he quite sympathized with the Armenians, and as much as his hon. Friend could. He knew very little about them; but he always had been told from his youth up that they were about the greatest scoundrels upon the face of the earth. He had not the slightest intention of speaking on the Armenian question or any other until he heard the remarks of his hon. Friend, and he confessed what he had heard filled him with great alarm. There was nobody in the House who condemned the policy of the late Government more strongly than he did in stirring up a war feeling against Russia; and nobody rejoiced more than he did when the late Government was thrown out principally on account of its foreign policy. His joy at that event would be mitigated, indeed, if he found after getting rid of the late Government, they were now supporting a Party who had an intention of making war on Turkey. For his part, he would oppose to the utmost of his humble ability any warlike demonstrations made against Turkey, quite as much as he opposed warlike demonstrations against Russia. It was said that the Great Powers would act together in the demonstration which they were going to make against Turkey, and that Turkey would "cave in." Who knew that? It was said that she would do so when Russia went to war with her; but she fought furiously. He did not like these naval demonstrations, and would do what he could to oppose them. He hoped that the Government would be wise in time. He read with alarm, morning after morning, these accounts of what they were going to do in Turkey, and as to union with this and that Power. The hon. Gentleman talked of selfish isolation. Here we were, 33,000,000 of people full of crime, misery, and vice! He said, let them have good government here, and when they had got rid of all these things, then, and not before then, he would be ready to join his hon. in his amiable crusade for the reform of Armenia.

wished the hon. Baronet had given expression to the opinions he now held at the time of the General Election. He remembered that the complaint against the late Government was that they did not interfere in the affairs of Turkey at a critical moment.

said, he had never at any time advocated interference with Turkey.

said, he did not accuse the hon. Baronet of having expressed such views; but the Prime Minister, and others of his Party, complained that the late Government had not, at a critical time, coerced Turkey. He had not heard the whole of the speech of his hon. Friend (Mr. Bryce); but he agreed in a great measure with what he heard. There was not a single person who had looked into the question who was not aware that Turkish misrule had reached a limit. Turkey had neglected all remonstrances. She had ignored advice given to her for her own advantage, as well as that of the subject populations. But what was the remedy now suggested? It was said they should display vigour and boldness. But Turkey had never given way even to force. A policy of vigour and boldness might be disastrous to the subject populations, and might lead only to the extension of the evils from which they suffered. The hon. Member did no more than justice to the late Government in the reference which he made to its policy. One of the objects of the Anglo-Turkish Convention—an instrument which was not, he granted, popular in that House—was to offer an inducement to the Porte to introduce reforms. The late Government offered practical inducements to the Porte to carry out reforms; and it appeared from the speech of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that the present Government were trying to bring the concert of the Powers of Europe to bear in the same direction. He did not, however, inform the House what the exact course was which it was proposed to take, and it was clear that to get the Great Powers to act continuously in that direction was a matter of the most extreme difficulty, for the selfish ambition and different views by which they might be actuated must necessarily throw obstacles in the way of united action. Besides, in Asia, the indifference of the Powers had to be contended with, for it mattered very little to either one of them, except Russia and England, what became of the subjects of the Porte in Asia Minor. He was afraid lest in endeavouring to bring about the concert of Europe the instrument might break in our own hands and England be the Power that would suffer. This discussion had been a useful one; and the Under Secretary of State having promised the Papers, he trusted the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets would not think it necessary to divide the House on his Motion.

wished, as he took a great interest in the subject, and had a personal knowledge of the facts connected with it, having resided several months in Armenia, to express his satisfaction at finding, by reading between the lines of the speech of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that it was calculated to convey the impression that the Government were about to take up the question of Asiatic reform in earnest. Having put their shoulder to the wheel he hoped they would not take it away until they had arrived at some satisfactory result. As to the speech of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce), he must say it appeared to him to be rather that of an advocate than of a statesman. At all events, his impression of the facts of the case did not tally with that of the hon. Gentleman. He had the best authority for stating that the Armenians were numerically in a minority in the so-called Province of Armenia, in which there was a very large element of the pure Turkish race. But, be that as it might, it was not the Armenians, whether in a minority or not, who suffered most under Ottoman administration, which pressed with severity on the subjects of the Porte in every part of its dominions, and with even more severity on Mussulmans than on the Christian population, who, however, were better able to make their grievances known through the medium of travellers and newspapers. There was, he might add, in his opinion, no sufficient foundation for the cry of Armenia for the Armenians; and when the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets referred to the Lebanon as a model for administration, he seemed to lose sight of the fact that there were not 500 Mussulmans in the whole of it. He would not weary the House by attempting to describe how Turkish mis-government worked. A Turkish Province was administered by a Governor General, who was sent from Constantinople, and chosen without the least reference to his fitness for the post which he was to occupy, and which he had, in all probability, purchased with money borrowed from some Armenian usurer. Having got to his post he plundered and pillaged right and left; and there was throughout the whole system of administration ramifications of legal robbery and abuse which were monstrous and grievous in their results quite as much to the Mussulman population as to the Christians of the country. What he desired, therefore, earnestly to impress upon the Government was the necessity of having in any reforms which they might initiate in Asia Minor regard to the whole of the population, and not simply to any one portion of it. There was a great deal of false sympathy with Christians residing in the East because they were called Christians; but with the Christianity of the East he himself had very little sympathy, for it was corrupt and base in an inconceivable degree. The attributes of morality, truth, and honesty were to be found rather on the side of the rural Mussulman population than on that of the Christian. He therefore thought that any reform proposed or initiated by Her Majesty's Government, and supported by that House, should have reference to the whole of the population, and not to any one section of it. He was not in favour of the appointment of a Christian Governor over Armenia. He should prefer the selection of a well-chosen Mussulman. He had an intimate knowledge of the events leading up to the atrocities in Bulgaria, and on the authority of a high Russian official he could say that those atrocities were worked directly by Russian intrigue. Now the schemes which had worked so well in European Turkey might before long be found similarly operating in Armenia, to be followed by a repetition of the melancholy scenes enacted in Bulgaria and Roumelia. He warned the Government that unless they persisted in their movement towards actual and real reform Russia would soon re-appear upon the field. The only way to avoid that was to take all excuse for interference away from the Russians by promoting the comfort and happiness of the people under Turkish sway, for no better barrier could be raised against Russian aggression than a well-governed and prosperous population.

thought the only possible reform in connection with Turkey was the excellent reform which was outlined by the Prime Minister some years ago in his "bag and baggage policy." Every Turkish employé must be turned out of the country before improvement could be hoped for. There was only one argument to which Turkey would ever listen—namely, "the stick." What did the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs say would be the sequel of the Collective Note? The hon. Gentleman hinted at the employment of force; but the Turk knew well that it was extremely doubtful whether we should ever impose our will upon his country by force of arms. Probably the present Government were right, and the late Government were wrong in dealing with Turkey; but, at the same time, we were meddling with matters which did not directly concern us, and he trusted that we should not be the Don Quixotes of the human race, that we should not place ourselves in such a position that if the Turks re- fused to listen to our recommendations we should be forced by the logic of events to interfere with arms to press our views upon them. He hoped the Government would take into consideration what such wars cost us. They had £15,000,000 to pay for the Afghan War. Were they going to interfere in the affairs of Armenia, or constitute themselves the schoolmasters of misgoverned nationalities? He contended that the only thing they could do in Armenia was to say to the Turks—"If you will not yourselves reform the government, we shall allow the Russians to take possession of the country." ["No, no!"] Hon. Gentlemen might say "No!" but he believed it would be a great advantage to Armenia to belong to Russia rather than to Turkey. He did not credit all those old women's tales about the dangers to England from Armenia belonging to Russia; it being almost impossible, as every intelligent military man knew, for Russia to advance to India by that way. No English money ought to be spent either in defending themselves from what was merely a Russian bugbear, nor ought this country to indulge in Quixotic enterprises of forcing Turkey to adopt reform in Asia Minor, Armenia, or any other quarter of that part of the world.

said, that he should oppose the Motion on general grounds, and not merely the particular phrases expressed in the Paper. He thought it was a great injustice on the part of the British Government to press for the fulfilment by Turkey of certain clauses in the Treaty of Berlin, while nothing was done to carry out those provisions of the Treaty which would be to the advantage and benefit of Turkey; and he argued that it was unreasonable for the Government of Turkey to obey the dictates of England when no disposition whatever was shown by any of the Powers to lend her a helping hand on those points upon which she had a right to demand justice. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that Great Britain was, in reality, the largest Mahomedan Power in the world. What was taking place in Europe was being regarded with the utmost anxiety and alarm by the enormous Mahomedan populations under our rule, and the results might prove very disastrous to the Empire of this country. He did not believe, and he did not think any states- man believed, in the concert of Europe. What concert could exist between Germany and France, between Austria and Russia, between Russia and England? Europe was, in fact, one great armed camp. After the experience of 30 years, during which the different States of Europe had been engaged in wars of aggression and spoliation, it was idle to talk of any real concert among the Powers of Europe, or of a joint coercion of Turkey. He feared the result might be a general conflagration. He thought, with reference to the famous "bag and baggage policy," that the right hon. Gentleman the author of the phrase must himself now regret that he ever invented it. He thought the right hon. Gentleman was largely responsible for the misery and suffering which had taken place throughout the Empire of the Porte. It was notorious that the action which the right hon. Gentleman and that section of the Liberal Party which followed him in 1876–7 took with regard to our Eastern policy had a large share in bringing about the late war; and that the course taken by them in hampering the late Government whenever they tried to adopt a firm and vigorous policy, which could alone have prevented the war, and did ultimately put an end to it, had led to half, or perhaps three-fourths, of the misery which had resulted from that war. He (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett) disclaimed all sympathy with Turkish misgovernment. He had done his best, in a humble way, to enourage and help the formation of the Turkish Constitution and Parliament, which the right hon. Gentleman now professed to be anxious to encourage, and in a recent State Paper had declared to be the only means of reforming Turkey, at a time when the right hon. Gentleman was ridiculing it and endeavouring to help Russia to strangle it in its inception. He wished to see justice done to all the populations of the East, and to the Turkish among the number. The Turks were honest, temperate, and courageous, to an extent scarcely matched in the West of Europe, and they only wanted a chance of good government in order to distinguish themselves. A good deal had been said about the misgovernment of Turkey. For his own part, he repeated that he had no sympathy with misrule in Turkey; but he was convinced that up to the out- break of the late war the condition of that country was not half so bad as it was represented. In 1862 Lord Palmerston, indeed, said that Turkey had made greater progress than any other country since the Crimean War; and but for the discouragement offered by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to the development of that Turkish Constitution which he now professed to favour, it might have been possible to weld Turkey into a homogeneous and prosperous whole. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Oh, oh! When did I discourage the Turkish Parliament?] Yes, he could produce not only speeches, but pamphlets, by the right hon. Gentleman, in which he stated that the Ottoman Constitution was a sham. The result of that policy, it was scarcely necessary to say, was the late disastrous war, which cost over 2,000,000 of lives. Now, his contention was that it was unfair to press upon Turkey the questions of Armenia and the Greek Frontier until justice had been done her in other respects under the Treaty of Berlin, and there were many conditions in that Treaty which, to the detriment of the Porte, had not yet been fulfilled. Bulgaria did not pay tribute, and she had Russian-built gunboats on the Danube. Turkish owners of property in Bulgaria not only saw their property confiscated, but were treated with the most horrible cruelty. Eastern Roumelia was to have been under "the direct military and political authority of the Sultan." His authority there was a cypher. Now, the Mussulmans of Roumelia were in a state of abject slavery—nay, worse than abject slavery—for even slaves had rights, but these unfortunate creatures had none. The southern slope of the Balkans was not yet garrisoned by Turkish troops; and, lastly, Batoum, as he was informed on good authority, was being fortified by Russia. Large Russian forces were being massed in the Armenian fortresses, which Russia had obtained after the late war, so that a Russian Army, according to eminent military authorities, might easily be marched through Asia Minor upon Constantinople. All this proved a state of things which was in direct contravention of the Treaty of Berlin. But this was not all. He was afraid we were going to be made a cat'spaw of by France in our present policy towards Greece and the Porte. It was well known that the French Government had long been beating about for some means of restoring their lost influence in the East, and it was not improbable that they would make use of England to promote that purpose. France had lost her traditional claim upon Syria, and she was being edged out of Egypt by the superior vitality and energy of the English race. France had her own object in view. French officers were proceeding to Greece to train the Army there; Russian officers were pouring into Bulgaria, and Prince Bismarck was making a counter coup by sending German officials to Constantinople. Time would show what was meant by these things, and he feared that the right hon. Gentleman would be undeceived in his calculations as to the result of the concert of Europe. Not only was the policy of the present Ministry most unjust towards Turkey; but even in their replies to questions they showed an extreme bias against her. A little time since the Prime Minister, in answer to a Question as to the cause of the flight of the Mussulman population from Roumelia and Bulgaria, said that it was occasioned by order of the Turkish Government. That reply was cruelly incorrect, as he was in a position to demonstrate. The Mussulman population of the Balkan Peninsula fled in terror before the Russian armies, and from the barbarities committed by Russians and by Bulgarians at the instigation of Russia; they fled before murder and outrage never equalled since the fall of the Roman Empire, greater than the atrocities which took place after the siege of Madgeburg, during the 30 years' war. Then, again, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, replying to a Question as to who were the aggressors in the recent altercation between the Montenegrins and Albanians, replied that the aggressors were the Albanians. What was his authority for the statement? [Sir CHARLES W. DILKE: My authority is Mr. Kirby Greene, Her Majesty's Representative.] Well, that was not his point. The statement was that the Albanians had made a premeditated attack upon the Montenegrins, and the accuracy of that assertion he altogether denied. What right had the right hon. Gentleman to set himself up as the father confessor of the Albanians, and to attribute motives to them which could not possibly have been entertained, as they had only been for a few weeks in occupation of the places in question. He had endeavoured to show that the spirit of the hon. Gentleman's Motion was altogether unfair; and he regretted that injustice had been done to the Government of the Porte by Her Majesty's Government in every act they did and in every speech they made. Their policy was likely to cause us the loss of the Turkish Alliance, and would encourage the Porte to refuse compliance with the demands of Europe. When, the Sultan found that no justice was being done to himself or to his people it made him disinclined to take the advice of England or of Europe as to internal reforms, and strengthened the hands of the fanatical and anti-reforming party at Constantinople, who could with justice say—"Of what use have your concessions to Europe proved?" They were denying justice to Turkey, and neglecting the complaints of her Ruler. Every portion of the Treaty of Berlin that was unfavourable to Turkey was insisted upon, while a like course was not adopted in reference to that part of the Treaty which was favourable to Turkey; and these facts would not only operate unfavourably towards us in Turkey, but might produce grave and disastrous discontent among the Mahomedan population of British India.

The speech of the hon. Member, Sir, does not require any very detailed notice. Considering, however, the gravity of the matters with which he has been dealing, it is right that I should refer to one or two points by way of testing the value of those sonorous declarations which he has made, and the copious instructions he has offered us. One of his main propositions was that Turkey is reluctant to reform itself only because she has no proof of our goodwill towards her. She sees our injustice, and therefore will not reform. Will the hon. Gentleman have the goodness just to carry his recollection back to the year 1855? I suppose that the expenditure of £150,000,000, and of many precious lives, during the Crimean War will be entitled to be regarded as some assurance of goodwill by this country towards Turkey. And what reforms did Turkey execute while she had such copious evidences of the goodwill of the Western Powers?

What attempts were made to press reforms upon her?

Incessant attempts—attempts continued until remonstrance and expostulation, being productive of no results, became ridiculous. The range of the hon. Member's knowledge is something wonderful. It extends over both Europe and Asia, and includes the opinions and conclusions of every statesman and military officer of importance upon every imaginable topic. I cannot presume to follow him in his lofty flight. I will only take one single point upon which we have some authoritative information. That is the condition of Batoum. There we venture to place ourselves in direct conflict with the hon. Gentleman, and to tell him that his excellent authorities have misled and bewildered him. The Russians have done nothing of what he imagines; and if his knowledge on that subject be a fair sample of his extensive and untested knowledge on other subjects, I really would recommend him to sift it more carefully before producing it for the information of the House. The hon. Member's speech has no relation to the Motion before the House; but it contains charges of so grave a nature that it cannot be passed over in silence. He says it is unjust, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, to prosecute the fulfilment of conditions in the Treaty of Berlin unfavourable to Turkey, while others favourable to her are neglected. Well, we are aware of no Article for the benefit and advantage of Turkey in the Treaty of Berlin which remains unfulfilled. If the Porte indicates to us any Article favourable to its interest which remains unfulfilled through the obstinate resistance of any other Power, we shall be disposed at once to tender our good offices in order to bring about a settlement. But no such step has been taken by the Porte, and there is not a shadow of foundation for the charges of the hon. Member. We know perfectly what is contained in the Treaty; but with regard to the details of ulterior application we are rather dependent upon information to be received from others. Let that information be placed before us, and see whether we act upon it, and then let the hon. Gentleman make his charges. The hon. Gentleman refers, in the most intelligible portion of his speech, to the garrisoning of the line of the Balkans, and he positively appears to charge us with the fact that the Porte has not garrisoned the southern slope of the Balkans. Does he consider that we have done anything to prevent the Porte from doing that? Where is his evidence for it? So far as I am aware, not a single word has been said by us since we came into Office which could bear such a construction. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the garrisoning of the southern slope of the Balkans is, after all, esteemed so great a privilege by the Sultan? Is he sure the Sultan is very anxious for it? What is the meaning of all these vague charges? The hon. Gentleman further charges upon me the responsibility of the late war between Russia and Turkey. This is what I must call a little too bad. What was I during those events? An insignificant private individual, having no official position. What I am now touching is an important matter of principle. Those who have the government of the country, or those who support the line of policy of the Government of the country, have no right to throw upon private persons, divested of the power of using the resources of the country, the policy pursued by those in Office. If those who wield the power of a great State like this are dissatisfied with results which they believe to be due not to their own policy, but to the unauthorized action of persons not in power—if they find themselves unable to hold the reins of State—their business is to resign them to those persons who have taken the guidance of affairs out of their hands. They cannot retain Office and at the same time shrink from the responsibilities of Office. The hon. Gentleman has introduced into this debate a tone which is totally foreign to it. Others have freely criticized the Government; but they have, for the most part, spoken to the Motion. Every step in this extremely difficult matter must be taken with circumspection and care, and almost with fear and trembling. The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow) made certain demands upon us which we are quite ready to deal with. His demand was for the exact line which we propose to follow with regard to the future stages of this question. [Mr. ONSLOW: As regards coercion.] With regard to coercion. It appears to be the demand of the hon. Gentleman that we should state that we intend to coerce Turkey, or that we intend to entirely renounce coercion. No such demand had been addressed to the late Government, and no such demand can reasonably be addressed to any Government. Where you have obligations, or believe yourselves to have obligations, of international good faith, which give you the title and the duty of intervention in the affairs of a foreign country, it is really beyond the limits of human discretion to describe at some given stage of those affairs the precise length to which you will go in fulfilment of those obligations under contingencies that are not yet developed. I am not aware that at any time any such demand has been met otherwise than by a respectful negative. [Mr. ONSLOW: I said before the end of the Session.] Before the end of the Session does not relieve me of difficulty. Affairs may, before the end of the Session, be greatly advanced; but also it may be that they will not be greatly advanced with respect to these very great troubles. What you have a right to expect from the Government is a clear statement that they are acting with caution within the limits of what appears to be recognized duty—that they are not inventing novel objects and unauthorized purposes or devising unheard of lines of action. The general confidence of Parliament and the general assurance of their prudence, of their moderation, must be the guarantee to the House and the country of the course they may think proper to take. But there is a question on which my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) spoke in a tone of distrust, although I am bound to say the general spirit of his speech did him very great credit. He spoke with great misgiving as to what is termed the European concert. There seems to be a disposition more or less on the other side of the House to cast a doubt upon European concert, to question the possibility of using it for beneficial purposes, and to point out that secondary and selfish motives may interfere with the action of individual Powers, and may thus prevent beneficial results. That may be true. Her Majesty's Government have never referred to European concert as an instrument of certain and infallible action. What they have said is that without European concert there is nothing to be obtained; that without European concert there is resistance, there is jealousy, there is ill-will, there is disorganization, and there is frustration of results. Now, that frustration of results, the hon. Member for Hertford must feel, although he must have very natural reasons for taking a very favourable view of the Anglo-Turkish Convention. The Anglo-Turkish Convention has been a memorable example of that frustration. The consequence of that Convention has been, so far as reforms in Asia Minor are concerned, absolute barrenness and futility. The jealousy of the European Powers with reference to that Convention was placed at the time on record by France, although that record was, unhappily, concealed from us, and not only the jealousy of the European Powers, but the strong jealousy in the mind of Turkey itself—the strongest suspicion that the object of the Anglo-Turkish Convention was gradually to insinuate British power and influence in lieu of Ottoman power and Ottoman supremacy over the whole territory of Asia Minor, and thereby to take a large part in plundering the Ottoman Empire. These, I think, were most unfortunate results not intended—most unfortunate results and in the nature of warnings against any attempt to pursue a similar mode of action. There is this to be said—that some good has been done in the East of Europe, and that, as far as any good has been done in the East of Europe by the Western Powers, it has been done entirely by European concert. The existence of the Kingdom of Greece is before us as a monument of what could be obtained by European concert; for, although it was not unanimous action, yet it was action in which three of the greatest Powers of Europe were active and were united, and in which no Power of Europe was opposed. If that is so, is it not fair and reasonable to say that this principle of concert, which has, at least, produced one great triumph of humanity—freedom and justice in the East, and opened a great door of hope for the whole of one race in the East, is an instrument that ought to be tried, at least, until you can point to to some other instrument which has achieved some result equally memorable and equally good. That is the mode in which we view the principle of the European concert without at all pretending to set it up as one of certain and infallible result, but, at the same time, saying that it is one which undoubtedly, so long as it can be maintained, carries with it by far the greatest amount of moral authority—which gives the fairest promise of excluding jealousy and ill-will, and which has something at least to point to on the page of history better than we can hope to achieve by sole and separate action. We shall, undoubtedly, endeavour to act on that principle—to work along with that combination which we feel to represent the moral authority of Christendom, the greatest moral authority in the world. And if, unfortunately, we should arrive at the point which we have not reached, and which we have reason to expect to reach, that that European concert is broken up, that point may require our consideration. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), in speaking of the imperative duty of giving the first place in our estimation to the interests of the people of this country, and to the affairs of the British Empire, speaks the language of good sense. But when he pushes his doctrines to such a point as to imply, if not to assert, that there can be no case in which we are warranted, and more than warranted, are bound to take a practical and an energetic interest in the affairs of foreign countries and foreign races, then I cannot follow my hon. Friend. I do not deny that for these doctrines there is much to be said. They ought to be made effective in the Councils of this country before you enter into engagements of national honour and good faith, which engagements, when once contracted, cannot be treated as not existing. What we contend is that we have acted, and are acting, within the limits of those engagements—within the limits of the obligations which honour imposes on us, and in the fulfilment of duties which it is not possible to neglect. As regards the particular Motion of my hon. Friend behind me, I may refer to what has been said by my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State. We do not disguise from ourselves that the Armenian question is a question of the extremest difficulty. The difficulty of obtaining access, moral or physical, to that country, the difficulty of the constitution of society, and the want of a sharply-impressed nationality and social character in some given delimitation of territory—all these are most serious matters in our view. But I heard with great satisfaction the declaration of the hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan), who pointed out that which is, in some sense, at least, an answer to a portion of these difficulties, when he justly contended that we are bound to work for the welfare of the Mahomedan population, as well as for that of the Christian. And in the obligations which we have entered into for the better government of the remaining Provinces of Turkey, I am not aware that any distinction is drawn between Mahomedans and Christians. I do not altogether agree in his statement that the Mahomedans are the greater sufferers of the two, and for this reason:—In what he says, and says with great force, as far as the direct action of the Government is concerned, the sufferings of the Mahomedans may be the greater of the two. But we must bear in mind that the evil in Turkey is not merely that of a corrupt and oppressive Government, it is also the greater and more subtle evil of religious ascendancy which poisons, if I may so speak, the whole of the relations of life—which aggravates and renders tenfold more severe every other difficulty which belongs to the constitution of the country. If we look, for example, to the case of Egypt—it was not easy, as a mere question of misgovernment or of unscrupulous maladministration, to find anything worse than the case of Egypt. Yet that was considered as different from the case of Turkey, and as not being hopeless, because it was not poisoned by the evil of religious ascendancy. However, for all practical purposes we are entirely at one with my hon. Friend; and my hon. Friend may rely that whatever measures we may be able to take for producing a better state of things in the Province of Armenia, no distinction will be drawn, either in the letter of the arrangements or in the spirit of our intentions, between the Mahomedan and the Christian subjects of Turkey. The hon. Gentleman seemed, I thought, to make the most powerful and valuable use of one of the topics to which he referred. He said that he had been a witness of the manner in which the atrocities which occurred in Bulgaria had been worked by Russian agency. It was supposed that it was not Russian agency alone that was employed, and found field for employment, in the disturbances that broke out first in Herzegovina, and then in Bosnia, and which were followed by the great horrors in Bulgaria. When the hon. Gentleman stated his opinion that those atrocities were worked for purposes of foreign, and especially Russian, intrigue—I do not pretend to say how far that may be true—he was loudly cheered by hon. Gentlemen opposite; but when he proceeded to draw his moral from what he had stated, then, I am sure, he must have felt that the cheers did not follow him. That moral was that the only way to disarm foreign intrigue, and to render the integrity of Turkey something more than a wild dream, was to remove the pabulum of foreign intrigue and take away the diet on which it feeds. Our desire is to shut out all foreign intrigue, and that foreign influence which approximates to intrigue, with regard to the internal concerns of that country. The only mode in which there is the slightest hope of attaining that end is, by just and firm measures, to put some stop to the monstrous evil which stains the whole surface of the Empire; and I am glad to think that in the attempts we make for that purpose, we shall, on the one hand, receive the indulgence of the House of Commons, and, on the other, be fortified by its support; for, if I gather rightly the general colour of this debate, there is a general conviction that it is neither for the honour nor for the safety of Europe, neither for the honour nor for the safety of Turkey, that the state of things which has so long prevailed should be permitted indefinitely to continue, and that it well deserves the employment of our best and most effective means to consider in what way a remedy can, by any possibility, be applied to evils so afflicting to humanity.

said, he had not intended to obtrude himself upon the House on this occasion, because the time had not yet arrived when the House could consider the great questions involved in the discussion that had just taken place; but, considering the part he had had the honour to take during the last Parliament in the foreign affairs of the country, he felt that he should not be doing his duty if he did not say a word in answer to some observations which had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman. He did not wish to enter upon the general question of the condition of affairs in the East. Anyone speaking in that House at that moment involved himself in great responsibility if he addressed himself to this question, because they all knew that affairs were in such a state that an ill-advised expression at any moment might lead to disastrous results. He, for one, though a very humble individual, could never subscribe to the doctrine laid down by the right hon. Gentleman, on more occasions than one, and repeated just now, that private individuals who occupied a certain position in the country had no responsibility. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no.] He (Mr. Bourke) thought, of course, that a person misrepresenting a speaker who had gone before him did a foolish thing, and he was sure the right hon. Gentleman would acquit him of any intention to misrepresent him. He had understood that on several occasions the right hon. Gentleman had pointed out that in his private capacity he had no responsibility whatever. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no.]

I took down his words. He said a few minutes ago that he was an insignificant and private individual during the discussions that took place in the late Parliament, and that he thought it distinctly unfair that any responsibility should be thrown upon him.

I can assure my right hon. Friend that I never said I nad no responsibility. I said—"I was an insignificant private individual," because I consider every private individual insignificant in comparison with those who rule the State. But I have said, again and again, during the whole of this controversy, that I felt I myself had immense responsibility. What I say is that it is not fair for those associated with distinct authority to cast on those in a minority a responsibility which does not belong to them.

was glad that now, at any rate, they had it distinctly from the right hon. Gentleman that he did hold himself responsible for the utterances which had proceeded from his lips. No person, he was sure, in the House or in the country, wished for one moment to derogate from that great authority which everyone was ready to admit the utterances of the right hon. Gentleman always carried with them. But it was impossible for an humble individual, occupying even the minor position that he (Mr. Bourke) occupied in the House, to be too careful in what said. He was glad that the right hon. Gentleman had at last put the question of individual responsibility in a totally different light to that which it bad ever been put in before. Certainly be had himself always felt most keenly that very great responsibility was attributable to the right hon. Gentleman in the result of his speeches and writings during the progress of the Russian War; and he very much desired to go a long way with his hon. Friend behind him in throwing upon the right hon. Gentleman the consequences—the disastrous consequences—of the speeches he made. As he had said, he did not intend to enter upon the general question, but only to answer one or two of the observations made by the right hon. Gentleman. One of his observations—and one which he insisted on with great vigour—was that incessant remonstrances were made to Turkey between the time of the Crimean War and the accession of the late Goverment to power—between 1855 and 1874. That was an assertion with regard to which he should like to join issue with the right hon. Gentleman. Why, over and over again it had been said in the hearing of the right hon. Gentleman, and in that of the House, that no such remonstrances could be found in any of the documents preserved in the Foreign Office. It was always difficult to prove a negative; and all he could say was that with the exception of one or two despatches written by Lord John Russell in 1862—or somewhere about that date—with regard to religious toleration in Turkey, no remonstrance whatever was made by the British Government. One of the stock replies made from the Conservative side of the House against the right hon. Gentleman when he used to talk in this way was—"You may search all through Hansard, and through all the documents in the Foreign Office, and you will find no remonstrances from the right hon. Gentleman on the part of Her Majesty's Government. During the whole of that time—from 1855 to 1874, or for 14 years of that period—the right hon. Gentleman was either Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer. Another remark had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman which he had heard with a great deal of pleasure, and it was that if Turkey really could put forward any just claim to our good offices for inducing other Powers to carry out certain Articles in the Treaty of Berlin which had not been carried out, she would appeal with some success to the good offices of Her Majesty's Government. That was a declaration they must all have heard with a great deal of pleasure; and he was certain Turkey would hear it with a great deal of pleasure; because he had seen it stated, over and over again, in the newspapers, that one of the great complaints Turkey now urged in consequence of the pressure put upon her by Europe was that there were Articles in the Treaty of Berlin which were for her good which had not been carried out. He was extremely glad to hear the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman that, at any rate, Turkey and the rest of Europe were labouring under a mistake on this subject; and that, if remonstrances were made by Turkey, they would have the hearing of Her Majesty's Government. The right hon. Gentleman had touched very lightly, indeed, upon the great question as to whether or not coercion was to be applied to Turkey in case she did not attend to the wishes of Europe. He was not going to take upon himself the responsibility of saying whether coercion should be applied or not. He held that it ought to depend entirely upon circumstances; and certainly, upon that subject, he thought the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly justified in shielding himself in his private capacity from giving an opinion, particularly at the present moment; because the House was well aware that no Papers on the subject were before them or the country, and it was, therefore, impossible for them to give an opinion as to whether it was a desirable thing or not that coercion should be applied to Turkey. Of course, all the elements of this great question were to be found in that. It would depend a great deal upon the demands that had been made upon Turkey; it would depend upon the answer given by Turkey; it would depend on the exact nature of the limits of the territory Turkey was asked to give up; it would depend, again, upon the opinions of other Powers, and therefore it was impossible for them to give an opinion at the present moment as to whether it would be right or wrong on the part of Her Majesty's Government to apply the principle of coercion. But, in connection with this subject, he hoped that before they separated they would have an opportunity of hearing the opinion of Her Majesty's Government on the subject, and that they would be informed as to what would be the nature of the coercion the Government proposed to apply—whether it would be naval coercion, or naval and military, or whether it would be military coercion. The House would see that—call it by what name they pleased, "Coercion by the concert of Europe," or anything else—it came to this—that this country might be involved in a war before they knew anything about it. The right hon. Gentleman had then spoken a great deal about the concert of Europe. He had said—"Nothing can be obtained without that concert." Now, he (Mr. Bourke) thought the concert of Europe might be a very good thing or a very bad thing. They knew there was such a thing as the Holy Alliance, and that the concert of Europe was, to a great extent, effected at that time; but he certainly did not think there was anyone in this country now who would be disposed any more than they were then to support the principles of that Alliance. The great danger, after all, with regard to the concert of Europe was this—that they would get the Powers to go along with them to a certain extent, but that afterwards a time would come when, in all probability, they would be obliged to separate. Under these circumstances, of course, it was often found that the last state of affairs was very much worse than the first; and he might say that when a Power like England found herself in such a position as that she was in a very humiliating and embarrassing position. She was in a humiliating position, because she was obliged to go against the opinion of the rest of the Powers, and she was in an embarrassing position if she was obliged to go to war with Powers having totally separate and distinct interests to those she had herself. He was not laying down distinct rules with regard to the concert of Europe not being fulfilled. So far from that, it was the opinion of the late Government that, as long as they could get the Powers of Europe to work with them, provided that they held in view, first and foremost, what were the interests of our own country—England—they thought they were bound to maintain the concert of Europe as far as the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister professed to be able to do. The right hon. Gentleman made one very important statement, which he (Mr. Bourke) heard with a great deal of surprise, and which he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would take another opportunity of verifying more satisfactorily than he had done to the House this evening. That statement was to the effect that during the time of the discussion respecting the Anglo-Turkish Convention they aroused the jealousy of France, and they concealed from the House a despatch upon that subject. That was a very serious charge to prefer against the late Government, and he would give the right hon. Gentleman notice that he should certainly call attention to this statement on another occasion. The House was well aware that there was a great number of volumes of Blue Books issued about this period; and he was not going to take upon himself, at this moment, the responsibility of saying that no such despatch could be produced which would show that France was jealous of England. He had no recollection of any such despatch, and he should be surprised to hear that it did exist. He could, with confidence, say that with regard to all the negotiations that were carried on after the signing of the Anglo-Turkish Convention, our accord with France was just as perfect as before, and he had no recollection whatever of M. Waddington ever privately or publicly making any statement upon this question. He (Mr. Bourke) was not going into the question of the Anglo-Turkish Convention. He had discussed it over and over again, and he did not suppose the House would care to re-open the subject. The Prime Minister had made some remarks with regard to Greece as connected with the concert of Europe, and he (Mr. Bourke) could not help thinking that this was a rather unfortunate allusion, because they had heard of such a thing as Navarino. He knew the right hon. Gentleman was not one of those persons who regarded Navarino as an untoward event; but, at the same time, he believed this country was perfectly unprepared to see a repetition of Navarino, and if the House had an opportunity of expressing itself upon. this subject, the expression of opinion would be most distinct and significant—namely, that it was not desirable, in the interests of Europe and England, that such a blow should be given to Turkey as occurred at Navarino. The Prime Minister then proceeded to deal with Armenia. He spoke of the difficulties in the way of doing anything in the nature of reform in Armenia. There could be no doubt about those difficulties, for they proved the most complicated part of the Eastern Question. For this country, however, they were to be regarded as most important; and it was of no use for the Prime Minister to come down and tell the House of Commons that there were great difficulties in the way, and to discourage the idea that those difficulties could be met; because he (Mr. Bourke) was perfectly certain that if those difficulties were not met by England very great disasters would occur, not only to Turkey and the various populations in Asia Minor, but very great disasters would occur to this country and to her commerce. With regard to this subject, every person speaking from this Bench ought to be particularly careful; and, therefore, he did not wish to say anything which could have the effect of embarrassing Her Majesty's Government. He believed very strongly before he left the Foreign Office that the time had come when it was absolutely necessary for this country to do something with regard to the condition of Asia Minor. He did not know whether hon. Gentlemen had read the Papers with regard to Asia Minor that were placed on the Table of the House; but if they had done so, they would find that nothing could have been worse than the condition of Asia Minor as described in those Papers, and that anything in the nature of reform, which was proposed by Her Majesty's Government and carried out, to a certain extent, under the influence of Sir Henry Layard, proved to be utterly futile. If anything was to be done, either Her Majesty's Government, or the Powers of Europe, or Turkey alone, must go a great deal further, and must move considerably quicker than they had done of late. He could say a great deal upon this subject, but he would refrain from doing so. There was, however, one remark which ought to be made, for it was one of the greatest possible moment. It was to this effect—that amongst all the populations of Asia Minor there was a strong growing feeling that the best friend of those populations was England, and they looked upon the influence of England being exerted in their favour as the only solution of their difficulties and misfortunes. He was quite certain that amongst these populations, whether they were Mahometans, Armenians, Greeks, or Kurds, there was a strong feeling to this effect—that they would much rather see the influence of England exerted by itself, than the influence of any concert of Europe or the influence of any other Power. And he was in a position to assure the present Government that if they would exert themselves in this direction, and upon the lines he had described, they would receive the support of hon. Gentleman on this side of the House. The importance of Asia Minor to England had been frequently pointed out in the House. Some persons, he knew, were inclined to ridicule this idea; but he was not one of those, and never should be. He considered it was absolutely necessary for Asia Minor to be defended against the dangers which it was the main object of the Anglo-Turkish Convention to defend her against. The Prime Minister had spoken a great deal of the blighting influences of religious ascendancy, not only in Asia Minor but in other parts of Turkey; and the right hon. Gentleman accompanied his remarks upon this subject by severe denunciations of the Turkish Government which had exercised, on many occasions, the religious ascendancy to which he alluded. He assumed the right hon. Gentleman meant the religious intolerance of the Moslem race. He did not suppose there could be any greater mistake than to imagine that the religious intolerance of the Moslem race was greater than the religious ascendancy of any other race. In fact, all writers—whether historians, or diplomatists, or Consuls, or travellers—were agreed that the Turkish Government, with all its radical vices, was not intolerant. It was weak and corrupt; but it was certainly not intolerant. The hon. Gentlemen in this House—particularly those who belonged to the Ca- tholic and Protestant religions—all those persons who had strong feelings on religious subjects, and took an interest in Missionary enterprise—had been the first, over and over again, to recognize the fact that the Turkish Government were tolerant about the practice of all religions. When they compared the Turkish Government with other Governments in relation to this matter they found it stood out as the champion of civil and religious liberty. Many hon. Gentlemen had been to Syria, and were, no doubt, aware of the war that was ever going on between the Latin and Greek races; and they had seen that it was absolutely necessary for the Turkish Government to come in and act as mediator between those races. She did, in fact, act as mediator; and, therefore, it was unfair for the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to say that this great religious intolerance was a bar to the reform of the Turkish Government. What they wanted in Turkey were good and capable men to administer the civil government of the country. If they had good Civil Governors, they would meet with no religious intolerance to frustrate any of their designs. Then came the question, which he was greatly afraid the present Government would not be disposed to deal with—namely, the money question. There could be no good civil government without money; and he was afraid that, disagreeable as it might be, if Europe, concerted or unconcerted, really wished to do anything with Turkey they would have to put their hands in their pockets, and provide certain necessary funds for the purpose of securing proper civil government. It was not possible to shirk this question. However, it did not matter. The time had passed for idle recriminations from one side of the House to the other. He hoped he had not said anything which would lead the House to suppose that he was likely to resist the good government of Turkey. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that it was not Russian agency alone that gave rise to the lamentable events in Bulgaria. He must have forgotten a great deal of the Blue Books of the time. Everyone who remembered the events of that time could not help remembering the Report from General Tchernaieff, who, months before the outbreak of the atrocities in Bulgaria, wrote a despatch in which he pointed out clearly everything that the Slav Committees had done, and he was a member. He described all the actions of the Committee as leading up to one object—war with Turkey. Distinctly the evidence was overwhelming that it was the Russian Government, acting by men like General Tchernaieff, that was the immediate cause of the Bulgarian atrocities. He should not have addressed the House but for the observations of the right hon. Gentleman; and, in conclusion, he would only say for those who supported the late Government that if they could in any way assist Her Majesty's Government in promoting the establishment of good government in Turkey they might rely on them giving no factious opposition to their measures. He could only hope that, whether in concert with the other Powers or alone, they might be enabled to do that which the late Government desired to achieve.

Question put, and negatived .

Words added .

Main Question, as amended, put.

Resolved , That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, Copies or Extracts of the Correspondence which has passed respecting the condition of the populations in Armenia, Asia Minor, and Syria, in continuation of that contained in Blue Book, "Turkey, No. 4," of this year.

To be presented by Privy Councillors.

Customs and Inland Revenue

( re-committed ) BILL—[BILL 255.]

( Mr. Playfair, Mr. Chancellor of the Exehequer, Lord Frederick Cavendish .)

Committee

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clause 49 (Grant of additional duties of income tax).

said, it was rather late to proceed with the discussion of the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

suggested that it might be convenient to the noble Lord to take his Amendment on Report. In the event of the Bill passing through Committee now the Bill would be reprinted, and the Report would be taken on Wednesday.

assented to this arrangement.

Clause agreed to .

Clause 50 (Provisions for securing additional duties on dividends, &c., and as to right of deduction).

moved, in page 19, line 37, after sub-section (2) to insert—

(3) "Provided also, That the charge of deduction of duty at the rate of sixpence in the case of any payment made in the course of the said year prior to the passing of this Act shall be deemed to have been a legal charge or deduction."

Amendment agreed to .

Clause, as amended, agreed to .

Clause 51 (Relief to owner-occupiers of land).

moved the following Amendment:—Page 19, line 87, leave out after "section" to "thirty-four," in line 39; inclusive, and insert—"Three of the Act of the fourteenth and fifteenth years of Her Majesty's reign, chapter twelve." The hon. Gentleman said, if the reference was left as it stood in the Bill it would be useless. The Act referred to was the 16 and 17 Vict . c. 34; but on reading the words of that section it would be seen that the proper Act to refer to was the 14 & 15 Vict . The Amendment was intended to cover that, and it would also be a considerable help in connection with the Income Tax Clauses. He should afterwards propose an Amendment at the end of the clause that it should be deemed to include land assessed under Schedule A of the Act recited. The point he wished to cover in his Amendment was this. At present, the assessment of Income Tax on owners occupying their own land was under two Schedules—B as occupiers and A as owners. But, at the present time, a large number of owners were obliged to farm their own land, taking up the position of occupiers. Now, what he wished the right hon. Gentleman to do was to cast the clause so that owners farming their own land should not be placed in a worse position as regarded Income Tax than they would be were they occupying land under the owner; and under the correction he proposed the reference would be to Schedule A of the Act he mentioned, and these owners would get the relief which he thought they were entitled to.

said, he did not quite understand the object of the hon. Member's Amendment.

said, that the Bill was so drawn that it was difficult to explain. If the Bill were drawn with full reference to previous acts it would be easy; but he must say drawing the Bill in this fashion made explanation exceedingly difficult. What he proposed was that the owner who farmed his own land should have the same right of appeal as the occupier had under Schedule D. The owner might be called upon to pay Income Tax when he might be making no profit at all. It was not a question of choice, but of necessity, and numbers of gentlemen occupied their own land making no profit. Another reason which made it the more necessary to have some means of redress was that, notwithstanding what had been done by the Committees of 1851 and 1861, the assessments were most unequal, in consequence of the variation of the valuation, and one gentleman would be paying 50 per cent more than another on a similar property in another county. The regulations of Somerset House did not meet the case, and he only asked that the class of owners who were also occupiers should have the right of appeal.

said, he had had some communication with the country upon this subject, and he had gone into it personally. He was of opinion that the landowners in this case had a remedy under the existing law. It was perfectly true that the references to the Act were incorrect, and that incorrectness ran through the series of Acts under which the Income Tax was charged. But, with regard to the power of appeal, the landlord already had it, and ought to be able to avail himself of it. He found that the gentlemen who had communicated with him had failed, in the first instance, to fill up a Return correctly of the annual value of the land they possessed. Had they done that, they would have succeeded in establishing their position in regard to an appeal, and the authorities, who were empowered to deal with appeals, would, no doubt, have made their case good. In reference to Schedule B., the owner being the occupier of the land, had just the same opportunity of appealing as the farmer had who occupied the land of another person. The truth, he believed, was this:—The landowners had very generally left to their tenants the duty of filling up the form which contained the statement of the annual value of their estates; and, unfortunately, it was frequently the case that the tenants failed to pay sufficient regard to these forms. That had certainly been the case with the gentlemen who had communicated with him. They had thereby lost their opportunity of appealing. He thought if the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Magniac) went through the Act, as he [Mr. Pell) had done, he would see that full opportunity was given in the Act for making an appeal. In point of fact, the opportunity of making the appeal good did exist at present; and, consequently, there was no need for an alteration in the present law by the Amendment they were now considering.

said, that undoubtedly he could not undertake to consider and decide upon a case of this kind without Notice. The charging of the tax on the ownership of the land was a question of such delicacy and difficulty that he could not possibly undertake to touch it without Notice and full opportunity for investigation. The truth was that the owner of land now stood better in regard to the land he owned and occupied than the land he owned and let. His hon. Friend now desired to give the owner a further advantage in a certain manner, which did not appear clear to him (Mr. Gladstone). Under these circumstances, he asked his hon. Friend to let them have the power of examining and considering the matter.

understood that the demand of the hon. Member for Bedford was expressed in the Notice which appeared on the Paper.

said, that was not so.

apologized, and said he would explain what he understood to be the case. At present, as they well knew, the farmer was assessed at half the rent he paid as income, that being supposed to be his mesne annual profits; but he had the power of appeal against the assessment. He confessed that he had always thought the law allowed an invidious distinction, because it gave the farmer a ready rule in a good year, and gave him the power of exempting himself in bad years. The proposal of the Bill was to extend to owners and occupiers the power of showing that there was really no profit. If the owner also occupied the farm and realized no profit and had no rental, he would be able to appeal to the Income Tax Commissioners on the question of rental as well as of profits—appealing on Schedule A. as the owner, and upon Schedule B. as the occupier. Therefore, the object of the hon. Member for Bedford was already realized. If the landlord received no rental at all, he could appeal on account of rental, and he could be excused the payment of Income Tax on the rental. But the appeal against the assessment of profits on the occupation was an invidious distinction in favour of the farmer, quite independent of anything else, and was, he believed, a matter to be watched with great jealousy.

said, the privilege which the hon. Member for Liskeard had mentioned was under the Act 14 & 15 Vict . extended by the 16 & 17 Vict . to owners being occupiers of land, but not obtaining a livelihood principally as such. The object of the Act was to extend the privilege to owners.

felt, of course, that Notice ought to have been given. Perhaps he might mention that the reason he had not given Notice was owing to a wrong reference. He should endeavour to bring up the Amendment on the Report; and he hoped that, in the meantime, Her Majesty's Government would give the subject their consideration. He could not agree with the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) that there was already an appeal in the case. There was no appeal whatever. Under Schedule A. the assessment was practically that for poor's rate; but that assessment was made three years in advance, and in consequence of the occupation being in the owners' hands no rental was received, and there was no possibility of any ever being received.

remarked, that if the hon. Member for Bedford was not satisfied that the view he (Mr. Pell) had taken of the case was correct, he had, at all events, satisfied his correspondents that it was correct. It was open to anybody to go to the Act and consult it. He had heard from his correspondents, since he had given them his opinion, that they were satisfied. They found that they had not filled up the proper form at the proper period.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

Clause agreed to .

Clause 52 (Composition for stamp duty on transfers of debenture and consolidated stocks of municipal corporations).

moved, in page 20, line 3, after "debenture stock," to leave out" or consolidated," and insert "corporation."

Amendment agreed to .

moved, in page 20, line 3, after the second "stock," to insert "municipal stock or funded debt, by whatever name known."

Amendment agreed to .

said, that in regard to the earlier Amendments of which he had given Notice in this clause he understood that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister accepted the principle of those Amendments, and had adopted them himself. He should, therefore, prefer that the proposals should be made by the right hon. Gentleman. It would be necessary to leave out some of the words which now appeared in the Bill, as they were quite useless. Indeed, it was quite necessary to leave out the words after ''sum calculated at the rate of," as they were scarcely English as they stood. He thought the clause would also read better if, in line 9, after the word "stock," all the words down to "pounds," inclusive, in line 13, were omitted.

said, he intended to move the Amendment which stood in the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was compelled to admit that the language of the clause would he somewhat improved by a little careful revision. He would move, in page 20, line 9, after "calculated" to insert "(1.)."

Amendment agreed to .

moved, in page 20, line 9, after "rate of," to leave out to end of sub-section (1), line '20, and insert—

"One shilling and three pence for every full sum of ten pounds, and the like for every fraction of ten pounds of the nominal amount of such stock inscribed in the name of each and every stockholder at the date of the composition; with the addition (2), when the period within which the stock is to be redeemed or paid off, or during-which annual or other payments in respect of the redemption or payment off of the same are required to be made exceeds sixty years but does not exceed one hundred years from that date, of three pence for every such ten pounds or fraction of ten pounds; and (3), if the said period exceeds one hundred years, or no period is fixed for such redemption or payment off, or no such annual or other payments are required to be made, with the addition of the said sum of three pence, and a further sum of three pence for every such ten pounds or fraction of ten pounds; and in consideration of such payment, transfers of the stock in respect of which such composition has been paid shall be exempt from Stamp Duty."

Amendment agreed to .