(rising at the same time as Mr. GORST, who had given Notice of an Amendment to refer the subject to a Select Committee), said, he had an announcement to make which he thought would simplify the question before the House. It was to the effect that within the last few days, since the Notice of Motion and Amendment was given, Mr. Dodson had accepted the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, so that the seat was now void. It seemed to him that the Mover of the Motion was acting in a description of concert with the Mover of the Amendment. However, he was not inclined to take exception to what was proposed; but he was anxious it should be known that the right hon. Gentleman had accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, so that his seat was vacant.

said, that after the statement of the Prime Minister he did not propose to take up the time of the House by discussing the question whether, if Mr. Dodson had not accepted the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, he would at the present moment be Member for Chester; because that, he thought, was wholly unnecessary. But he should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, or one of his Colleagues, before this Motion was disposed of, to explain to the House of Commons two things—first of all, whether there was any precedent in the long course of their Parliamentary history of a Minister of the Crown accepting so humble an office as Steward of Her Majesty's Chiltern Hundreds; secondly, whether, in the whole course of their Parliamentary history, there was any record or precedent for the Chiltern Hundreds being conferred upon a Member of that House the validity of whose election was about to be called in question?

wished to put a Question to his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General with regard to the extraordinary appointment conferred upon Mr. Dodson. He also wished the Speaker to be good enough to inform the House whether such an appointment could be conferred upon a Gentleman who was the subject of an Election Petition? He would ask also whether, if the election of Mr. Dodson was void in consequence of a subsequent decision on the Petition as to the previous election for Chester, Mr. Dodson was or was not liable to penalties for having sat in the House from the date of his second election? Sir Erskine May, in his book on Parliamentary Procedure , mentioned a case which happened in 1847–8, where a Member thought he might be disqualified in respect of a Government contract. In that case the Member was allowed to take the Chiltern Hundreds, because the House was not cognizant of the possible disqualification. In the case of Mr. Dodson, however, it was. When the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds was granted, the House proceeded at once to issue a New Writ; but the Stewardship was conferred on Mr. Dodson at a time when the House could not issue a New Writ. There was to be a Commission to inquire into the proceedings at Chester; and, therefore, they could not issue a New Writ for that borough, although they had conferred that appointment on Mr. Dodson. He (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) wished to ask whether conferring the Chiltern Hundreds on Mr. Dodson was not contrary to the traditions of Parliament, and the rules laid down by Sir Erskine May? When the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds was given to a Member during the Recess, it was given to that Member to relieve him of his obligations; but it did not vacate the seat. The same regulation, however, did not apply when the Stewardship was given during the Sitting of Parliament. He should like to ask the Attorney General, who had, undoubtedly, considered the question—for it was plain that a manœuvre had been executed—whether Mr. Dodson vacated his seat from the date of the Return made by the Judges, or whether it had always been vacant and the election void? He should also like to ask whether the conferring of the Chiltern Hundreds on a Member at a period when a New Writ could not be issued relieved him sufficiently from the representation of his original seat to enable him to stand for another constituency?

said, that, although the hon. Member had addressed Questions to the Speaker, perhaps he would be allowed to answer some of those which had been put to himself. He really did not understand the position which the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) wished to assume in that matter. The hon. Member appeared to be mixing up two questions which were entirely distinct. The simple fact was, that Mr. Dodson, having taken his seat for Chester by obtaining a majority on the poll, a Petition was presented against his Return. On his taking Office a New Writ was issued, and he was elected a second time. After his second election, when the time for petitioning had expired, the first election was declared void. The hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) had withdrawn his Amendment. If it had been discussed, he thought it would have been found that Mr. Dodson was no longer a Member of the House for any purpose, and that the decision and Report of the Judges on the first election would have caused him to vacate his seat for all purposes. But he knew that some entertained opinions in a contrary direction. He understood that the hon. and learned Member for Chatham thought that, although Mr. Dodson could not sit or vote in the House, still he was a Member of the House for some purpose. If any attention were given to that opinion, both Mr. Dodson himself and the new constituency which might elect him might be put in an unfair position. In order, therefore, to get rid entirely of the doubt raised by the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member, although he entirely dissented from it, it had been deemed best to grant to Mr. Dodson, on his application, the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. The hon. Member for Portsmouth spoke of that as a manœuvre; but it was no such thing. It was strictly in accordance with precedent, and had been approved by a former Leader of that House whose authority hon. Gentlemen opposite would respect. Wherever there had been a question of doubt as to a Member's right to sit in that House, it had been usual to solve it by granting him the Chiltern Hundreds, although he held Office under the Crown. In 1808 Mr. Bagot was returned for Castle Rising, and he was also appointed Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; but there being at that time two Under Secretaries of State sitting in the House, the question arose whether he could take his seat in the House. He continued as Under Secretary, and the question being raised whether he had been rightly elected, the Chiltern Hundreds was granted to him. That precedent was much discussed in 1864 in connection with the question whether a fifth Secretary of State could sit in the House. Speaking of that precedent, Mr. Disraeli then said that Mr. Bagot was appointed as Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that there were two Under Secretaries of State then sitting in that House, that Mr. Bagot immediately accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, that the Attorney General had endeavoured to frame an argument on it that he did not vacate his seat by taking Office as Under Secretary; but he (Mr. Disraeli) apprehended that it was the common course for Members of Parliament to accept the Chiltern Hundreds, even if they held any other office. Now, that was precisely the case to which they were now referring.

After the Member has been unseated for bribery?

The hon. Member for Portsmouth seemed to say that there was some connection between Mr. Dodson's accepting the Chiltern Hundreds and the fact that he had been subjected to a Petition against his return for Chester. But there was no such connection. Mr. Dodson had ceased to be Member for Chester, and he had received the Chiltern Hundreds though holding another Office under the Crown. The contention of the hon. Member for Portsmouth appeared to be that, because a Petition had been heard and determined upon, Mr. Dodson was not to sit for any other constituency until the Writ was issued for the City of Chester; and he supposed, according to that, the hon. Member for Portsmouth held that if the city were to be disfranchised, Mr. Dodson would never be able to sit again. He would only refer to one other precedent—that in 1782, when Lord Althorpe was elected for two constituencies. He wished to act for the latter of the two, and the question arising as to whether, it not being at a time of General Election, he could be returned for two constituencies, the Chiltern Hundreds was granted to him for the express purpose of solving the doubt, although he then held Office under the Crown. Wherever there was a question of doubt, that doubt could be always solved by granting the office of the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds.

said, that the Motion had been brought forward from motives of friendship towards the President of the Local Government Board to extricate him from what appeared to be an anomalous and a disagreeable position. The Motion and the Amendment had had the effect on the Government of inducing them to confer a further office on the right hon. Gentleman. Under those circumstances, he did not know whether it was necessary for him to continue his friendly action towards the President of the Local Government Board. But with the permission of the House he would withdraw his Motion for the issue of the Writ—["No, no!"]—and consult further with his hon. Friends as to what course it might be necessary to take.

Question put, and negatived.

, in rising to move that the Bill be now read a third time, said: Sir, we have had 12 sittings on this measure, and it is not necessary that I should now detain the House long. This is, I believe the last speech which I can possibly make on the Bill. Generally speaking, the Minister who has charge of a measure when the third reading comes on explains what changes may have been made in it during its progress through Committee. Although so much has been said of a change of front in reference to this measure, there has been absolutely almost no change in the Bill. ["Oh, oh!"] I maintain there has been absolutely almost none. Two clauses have been introduced in Committee which we did not think necessary; but they were thought necessary by others to remove possible inconvenience, which we gladly accepted. An explanation has been made of one of the conditions of the 1st clause. That was in order to make clear what was our meaning when we brought in the Bill; and with regard to the only change that could possibly be said to be made in the Bill, the limitation of the amount, we have always stated we did not consider even one below that amount would practically make much difference; the effect of the Bill would not in any way be altered by the limitation. Therefore, I maintain I have no changes to explain, because the Bill is practically unchanged. But in the long discussions which have been held, there have been many objections stated and a good many hard words used. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) is in the House. He led the opposition to the Bill originally, and I rather think I must look to him as expressing more clearly than anyone else his strong disapprobation of the Bill. In fact, the hon. Member has a remarkable faculty of wrapping up his argument in a short sentence and thereby saving his opponent much trouble. He led the opposition to the Bill because he said it contained all the noxious features of the Land Act of 1870. In so saying he saved me a great deal of trouble, because if I could show that it carried out the Land Act of 1870 I could do a great deal to justify it. He said he had a great suspicion that throughout these proceedings the object of the Government had been to create a state of chaos and confusion.

I am aware I did make that observation; but I wish to say one word in explanation. It was wrung from me in a moment of haste by the ironical cheers of Gentlemen opposite. I regret that the remark fell from, me, and I am very glad to have the opportunity of entirely withdrawing it.

I am very glad the hon. Gentleman has made that explanation. I am obliged to him for making it; and I make no further comment on it. I was quite sure when he came to think over the matter the hon. Gentleman would be sorry for having uttered the statement. Another objection was that the Bill was brought forward for purely Parliamentary reasons—to prevent possible obstruction from the Irish Members. That objection was made by the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), not in this House, but at a meeting of some of his constituents on Saturday last. I generally read the noble Lord's speeches with a good deal of attention—they are very well worth reading. I find that on Saturday the noble Lord said—

"The sole and only reason why this Irish Bill was introduced was to buy off a 'block' by the Home Rule Party."

That statement of the noble Lord was made, no doubt, after dinner; but only a few days before the noble Lord, in a well-reasoned speech, gave the Government credit for their real motive in bringing the Bill forward, and he did so in a very handsome manner. He said in allusion to me—

"My idea, no doubt, was that there might be a few cases in which the landlords will act harshly, and if I could, in a simple form nobody could dispute, eliminate the hard cases from the processes of ejectment, it would be much more easy to maintain the law during the winter."

That was a very reasonable explanation, and I am sorry the noble Lord did not abide by it. Another ground of objection, was this—that inasmuch as many Home Rule Members acting with the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) were not satisfied with the Bill, and spoke of it in disparaging terms, therefore we ought to drop it. These last two objections answer one another—the one being founded on the supposition that we brought in the Bill to remove the opposition of a very small section of the House, and the other that we ought to drop it because they opposed it. If we did drop the Bill on that account it would be giving the hon. Member for the City of Cork and his Friends a power over the legislation of the country which, would be very unwise and disadvantageous to Ireland. But I will leave these criticisms and say a word or two on what are the main objections to the measure. First, it is said it was a sop, and, therefore, a stimulus to agitation; and next, that there is no justification for a measure which we deemed exceptional, and which we supported as such. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin University (Mr. Plunket) made a remark on the very last day of the debate which I thought at the time unfair. He very rarely says anything one can call unfair; and, with his acknowledged oratorical power, he has very little excuse for making such a remark; but he said he was glad to have extorted from me an adverse opinion to the agitation now proceeding in Ireland. I appeal to the House whether, from the first speech I made on the Bill, I have lost an opportunity of expressing my very strong opinion—as strong as his own—of the mischief—I may say the wickedness—of much of that agitation. The House will allow me to say a word or two on that subject. I denounce the object of that agitation; I cannot do so in too strong terms. The avowed object is an appeal to tenant farmers to pay such rent only as they think they ought to pay. ["No, no!"] I could quote the words to that effect used over and over again. [The O'DONOGHUE: I ask the right hon. Gentleman to do so.] Was not the expression used, "Keep a grip of the land?" I still more deplore and condemn the means by which that agitation has been promoted. Many of the speeches made with the view of promoting it it has been my duty to read. I think they were as cowardly as wicked. Very often there was a skilful endeavour to keep within the law, while speeches were made by persons who, if they understood human nature at all, especially that of those they were addressing, must have known them to be calculated to tempt them to break the law; and the result has been, that many of those speeches made to excitable and distressed men have excited many outrages of great cruelty to tenant farmers, torture to animals, one case of murder, and other outrages endangering the lives of many law-abiding and innocent people. I need not say more, but I cannot allow the Bill to leave the House without letting it be clearly understood what my opinion is about this anti-rent agitation. There are two ways of dealing with that, as with all agitation. You may ignore the cause of it, or you may acknowledge the cause of it; we may refuse to hear anything but the speeches of the agitators, and we may blind our eyes to any fact except these atrocities. Or, on the other hand, while doing our utmost to preserve law and order, we may try to find out why law is resisted and order endangered. This last course the Government feel they ought to take. How comes this agitation to be so active? The House will bear in mind this fact—that this anti-rent agitation is most active in those parts of Ireland which are most distressed. There can be no doubt about it. It is not easy to prove the connection between the two. Very often the most lawless individual is by no means the most distressed—perhaps they may not be distressed at all. The districts where there is most lawlessness are in Mayo and Galway; they have also been much distressed; but there is one curious and instructive exception: there is great distress in parts of Donegal and hardly any lawlessness. The rights of the tenant are fully acknowledged in Donegal, where there is less of this lawlessness. The fact that distress and lawlessness do go much together is a warning to us to consider the causes of the distress, and also a ground of hope that if we can improve the condition of Ireland we shall have less lawlessness to contend with. That I believe, and it should encourage us in our long and arduous efforts to improve that condition, though I do not say that this Bill, or even a permanent measure dealing with the Land Laws, will entirely avert the danger of distress. "We ought to bear in mind some rather remarkable facts. It will be acknowledged that, however severe the present distress may be, it is nothing like so intense as it was in the terrible famine years, and that there was then much less disorder than there is now. The reason is there is more access to the distressed districts from without; they are not so isolated as they were. Formerly the sufferers thought their cry would not be heard; but now constant communication with the outside world inspires them with hope that their condition will be considered. I believe that means this—that even in those districts where there are most invectives against English rule and the English Parliament we shall find, in spite of the invectives, unconscious hope and unexpressed reliance upon the justice of the Imperial Parliament, and the belief—at any rate, the hope and expectation—that we shall make things better for them in the end. Let not that hope be disappointed; but it will be disappointed if we simply deal with agitation such as this by repression without endeavouring to find out the cause, and without taking from the agitators the grounds on which they rest. So much for the charge that this Bill is a weak concession to the agitators. Our opinion of them is as strong as that of any hon. Gentleman in this House; but we believe that we shall take from agitation its excuse by measures such as these. As to the objection that there is no justification for this Bill, I would ask hon. Members, and, if it was in Order, I would ask noble Lords to put themselves in the position of the Government, whose duty it is to administer the law. What would the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) feel to be his duty if he were in my place? We find in the distressed districts farmers crowded together in barren mountain farms, unable to live off their farms except in the workhouse, and hardly able to live on them even in good times, with no other means of living in their homes in Ireland and no means of going elsewhere. Well, many of these men in these bad years, and especially in this bad year, are unable to pay their rent by reason of the bad harvest. I know it has been stated that they are able to pay their rent, and it is merely the agitators will not let them, and that it may be so in one or two cases I can believe; but I do not imagine any hon. Member will deny that in the vast majority of cases the non-payment of rent arises from inability to pay, and that inability arises from the bad harvests. This, it is said, means that they are unable to fulfil their contracts, and then political economists—some of the old school, but not all—a great many political economists who have become such for this measure, who were very rarely, if ever, heard of as such before—cry as with one voice, "Contracts are sacred, and above all this contract to pay rent." And then is heard the maxim, Fiat justitia ruat cœlum , which I suppose in this particular instance may be interpreted, "Let the rent be paid though the heavens fall; let these contracts be fulfilled or let the law take its course." Consider what that means. It means one thing, at any rate—that we who administer the law are not to leave the law to itself, but are to back it with all the force we have at our disposal. I do not deny that that ought to be the meaning; law must be enforced and carried out or society is utterly disorganized; but then we must consider what is this law that is to be enforced. It means that the present law of ejectment shall be enforced this year in those districts at all risks, under all circumstances, and regardless of any consequences. Now, ought this to be done? That is the sole question for us to consider. What is this law of ejectment? It has been proved that it is a special Irish law, giving special powers to the Irish landlord, not to recover rent, but to recover land if the rent be not paid. We must remember that we cannot always for contract debts seize what we find in a man's house. You cannot seize instruments of trade, and, to some extent, land is the instrument of these people's trade. Then comes the question, may not the Irish landlord do what he will with his own, like an English or a Scotch landlord? Now comes in the Land Law. We have to consider, not merely the ejectment law, but the Land Law passed 10 years ago. The 3rd clause of the Land Act declared that the Irish landlord was not in the same position as the English or Scotch landlord, and that if he tried to do exactly as he pleased with his own he had to pay for it. I do not think anyone can doubt that he could not raise his rent without paying compensation, that he could not get rid of a tenant for anything except non-payment of rent, and even in that case, in some circumstances, without running the risk of having to pay compensation. We find this is the Land Law, and we have to consider this law as well as the ejectment law, and there comes a clashing of laws. I believe the 9th Clause of the Land Act has in its letter very much of the principle of this temporary Bill; at any rate, it is in harmony with the spirit of the law; and then we ask ourselves this question—What does the spirit of the Land Law require? It requires what we think its letter secured in the circumstances of the year 1870, and what we cannot at all doubt, from what was stated in the debates, was the feeling of the enormous majority of the House as to what would be the letter of the law if we had passed it in the circumstances now existing. While endeavouring to carry out the spirit of the law and to make an amendment of its letter, we are merely doing what justice requires—we are merely enacting, as a temporary measure, that the landlord shall be discouraged from taking advantage of this special legal power, and depriving tenants of their interest in their holdings, and that, if determined to deprive them, they shall have the penalty of compensation hanging over their heads. That is all we wish. I am not going into the old question of what is an interest in a holding. Does anyone deny that it was something valuable to a tenant? If not, why compensate him for being deprived of it? It is perfectly clear it must be something valuable to the tenant. It is certain that in the great majority of cases outside Ulster the tenant has something in his holding which is considered to be of value. If the tenant were allowed to sell his interest by his landlord he could do so, as we find throughout a great part of Ireland that where a tenant wishes to sell he readily finds a purchaser. Well, then, we say that we are carrying out the spirit of the Land Act when we say that a landlord should not take advantage of the calamity of this year to deprive his tenant of his holding without the possibility of his getting anything for it. By what we propose to do we do not invade the sanctity of contracts. We leave the landlord creditor in the same position as other creditors, the money-lender, the baker, and the shopkeeper. All we do is, we impose conditions upon unreasonable evictions for this year and next, so fencing round the imposition as to avoid the possibility of hardship. That is all we do. I may be told that these are abstract grounds, and asked what are our practical reasons. Well, I must say a word or two about statistics. I have nothing to take back from the statistics I first laid before the House. I said on the second reading that evictions had increased and were increasing. I had before me Returns, hurried Returns, no doubt; but I have other Returns prepared with greater care and after a thorough examination—and they strengthen rather than weaken my case. I stated that during the five years ending with 1877 there were 503 evictions; in 1878, 743; in 1879, 1,098; and up to the 20th of June, 1880, 1,060 evictions. I am told that in these cases many persons were re-admitted as care-takers. I never denied that that was so; I distinctly stated that it was so. But what is the position of a care-taker? He loses whatever interest he has in his holding; the article that was saleable becomes un-saleable. I received a Return this morning from the Constabulary which abundantly proves the constant increase in evictions, especially in this year. I speak now of evictions for non-payment of rent only. In 1877 there were 261 such evictions; 80 were re-admitted as caretakers, leaving 181; in 1878 608 evictions, 171 re-admitted, leaving 437; in 1879, 903 evictions, 373 re-admitted, leaving 530; and in the first half of this year there were 995 evictions for nonpayment of rent, the number of tenants re-admitted as care-takers was 392, leaving 603 evicted; whereas in 1877 the number actually evicted was only 181. [Mr. GIBSON: Have these Returns been checked by the sub-sheriffs?] I do not think they have. I rely on the Returns of the Constabulary, and it should be remembered that in so far as they are not complete Returns they are against my case and not for it, because they merely contain those that come within the knowledge of the Constabulary. I stated that since the 1st of January in this year 107 officers of Constabulary and 3,330 men have been employed in protecting process-servers alone in the West Riding of Galway, and 16 officers and 626 men in carrying out the actual evictions. The number by the amended Return turns out to be greater, for I find that in protecting process-servers alone in the West Riding of Galway there were employed altogether in 63 cases 145 officers and 4,290 men—an average of almost 70 men being necessary to protect the men engaged in serving the common processes of the law. In considering these statistics I have not to dwell upon what has happened, but rather upon what we fear may happen. We have brought in this Bill very much as a precautionary measure. No matter what may be the justice or otherwise of the eviction—no matter how harsh the landlord may be, unless I have a Bill of this kind I am bound to follow the eviction in the distressed districts, and to clothe it with all the force the law can give it. Whether it is hard or whether it is humane, whether it is taking from these men against whom the evictions are directed that which really belongs to them, I am bound to carry out the letter of the law. And I say, further, at the risk of what may be said of me by hon. Members from Ireland opposite afterwards, that I ought to carry out the letter of the law. I am very loth to be put into that position. For the odium that may be cast upon me or upon the Government I do not care; but I am determined that the responsibility shall rest entirely upon the Parliament. This is all we propose to do. We propose to discourage the possibly harsh and greedy landlords from taking advantage of an exceptional calamity. I am told we are guarding against a small minority of bad landlords and heaping ruin upon good landlords. Well, in the first place, I believe the effects of the Bill to be enormously exaggerated. I saw a curious specimen of that exaggeration in the leading journal this morning. That journal says that the Bill has already had a great effect in the stopping of the sales in the Encumbered Estates Court. Well, the right hon. Gentleman opposite moved for a Return. It is a curious Return; hopeful in some respects, showing what the Land Act of 1870 did. In the year ending November 1, 1870, the property sold in that Court was just about £750,000, in 1878 it amounted to £1,327,000, in 1879 it fell to about £800,000, under the beneficent rule of the late Government, and from November 1, 1879, to July 17 this year, it had fallen off in a larger proportion, the Return being £335,000 odd. Well, how could this Bill have had to do with that falling off? It fell off in proportion to the distress in the country—as the sales of other articles fell off from bad harvests or other causes, and as the sale of land in England and Scotland doubtless fell off. I say, therefore, that the charge upon me, or upon the Government, or upon this Bill of causing a stoppage of the sales in the Land Court, only shows the amazingly exaggerated feelings with which this measure has been regarded from first to last. In so far as there has been any effect produced, I maintain, in the strongest possible terms, that we are not responsible for it. What we did was this—We brought in a Bill which could not harm, I will not say the exceptionally good landlords, but even the tolerably good landlords; it could only affect the exceptional and unreasonable landlords. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) says that thousands of landlords will be ruined. Statement after statement was made that the real provision of the Bill was to suspend payment of rent. Well, if the Irish landlords persist in saying that, and in saying it so loudly and so unanimously as they have done, I am not surprized that some tenants have believed it. I very much lament that it is so, because there will be a great misconception in any case of the effect of the Bill. There will be great disappointment on the part of the Irish tenants if the Bill is not finally passed; and if it is passed there will also, in some cases, be disappointment. All this arises because the observations and explanations of those who support the measure are not listened to. It is possible, on that account, that some tenants will be greatly disappointed. I maintain that the conditions which fence round this Bill are such that I fully believe there is not a landlord in this House, I would even say there is not a friend of a landlord in this House who will say that evictions ought to take place, if these conditions are fulfilled. I do not believe that Judges of the County Court can be found who will say that the penalty of eviction ought to be imposed except when these conditions exist—first, that the tenant is unable to pay; secondly, that his inability to pay arises from the distress; thirdly, that he has made a reasonable offer in accordance with his circumstances; and, lastly, that the landlord has made no proposal of a reasonable alternative. It is stated that I have cast reflections upon Irish landlords. That is not so. I have over and over again stated that as a body they have behaved well in difficult circumstances. At any rate, I do not think so ill of them as to believe that many of them will be affected by this Bill. This Bill will only affect a small minority of exacting landlords who will fear the Court and the penalty. But the great body of the tenants will feel that they have the protection of the law. I believe that you will vastly improve the relations of landlord and tenant, even in the disturbed districts, because the tenant will rely upon the County Court, and you will in this way transfer the dispute from the open field to this Court. You will bring in the interposition of the Judge in place of the police on the one hand and the resistance of the tenant on the other. We regret the opposition which has been shown to this Bill, and, above all, that of the Irish landlords and their friends. We regret that the majority of the landlords have this view of the Bill. I am very sorry they have misconceived its meaning. If they had taken the Bill in its real meaning I do not believe any Member in this House would have suffered; hardly any of their friends would have suffered from it. They would have found that this Bill would not have operated against them, because their action would not have been unjust. On the other hand, they would have found that the knowledge of these legal tribunals would have made processes of law easier to carry out. But I take comfort in this—that a large majority of hon. Members and the representatives of the people have co-operated with us, and understood this Bill in the sense in which it was brought forward, and I have good hopes that Parliament will confirm their decision.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time,"—( Mr. W. E. Forster. )

, in rising to move—

"That no justification has been shown for a departure from the vital principles of the Irish Land Act 1870, which, while recognizing in all future tenancies the claim of a tenant for compensation for improvements, made the nonpayment of rent a bar to a claim for compensation for disturbance; and this House deprecates legislation which, even as a temporary expedient, remits to a public officer the regulation of rents, and which places upon one class only the burden of relief of exceptional distress,"

said, that he based his opposition to the Bill on many different grounds—first, because it was in opposition to the 9th clause of the Land Act of 1870; secondly, because the Government had entirely failed to substantiate the facts alleged when the Bill was first brought forward; and the Returns presented to Parliament were susceptible of an entirely different interpretation from that which was put upon them. Thirdly, there had been an entire omission of the recognized fact that the increase of evictions had been most marked in Ulster, where the tenant right custom prevailed, and in the districts where there was an agitation against payment of rent, and an unwillingness to pay other just debts. Fourthly, the distress had been greatly exaggerated for the purposes, in most cases, of the agitators. Fifthly, because the Government had shown no sympathy for the hundreds of landowners who would be thrown into distress by the Bill; and, lastly, because he believed the Bill to be the forerunner of an attack upon the rights of property, which, from the speeches and writings of some right hon. Gentlemen opposite, it was well known would find favour in their sight. What had become of the insinuations so freely scattered, and the hypotheses raised by the right hon. and hon. and learned Members who had acted throughout as counsel for the prosecution of the unfortunate landlord, and who had lost no opportunity of throwing dirt at him behind his back? Where were the 15,000 people out on the roadside? Why, as had been shown by one statement after another, and by the Return forced out of the Government, in a large proportion of cases they had been reinstated in their farms as tenants, or admitted by the landlord as care-takers pending redemption of their interests by them on payment of what they owed. The Prime Minister had also said, by way of heaping further obloquy on the unfortunate landlord, that the number of evictions in the second half-year of 1880 was likely to go on increasing and to exceed the first half-year, because the first half-year had exceeded the proportion of the previous year. In this matter, as well as in every other branch of the case, hon. Members were utterly without any data or statistics to form any opinion upon, except a Return, No. 254, dated the 1st of July inst.; but those acquainted with Ireland knew that it was in the early months of the year that ejectment proceedings were always the most numerous, owing both to the fact that the majority of agricultural tenancies expired in November, and that it would be at the Quarter Sessions in January or April succeeding that the action would be brought, in cases where the ejectment was on the title; and that the landlord who had waited till after the harvest, giving his tenant time till then to pay, but had not succeeded in obtaining payment, would also be obliged to proceed at these sessions to recover possession for non-payment. He would give some Returns which bore out this view. He would give the number of evictions in the first two quarters as compared with the last two quarters. In 1877 it was 229, as against 177; in 1878, 526, as against 308; in 1879, 615, as against 483. Had the House been in possession of more accurate statistics on these points it could judge for itself: but as they were quite in the dark as regarded figures, he asked the House to accept the reasons founded on practical knowledge of the working and management of property, rather than the theories evolved from the inner consciousness of right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Another most mischievous theory had been propounded by the Solicitor General for Ireland—namely, that the persons re-admitted to their houses and holdings were so admitted by the landlord for the purpose of having such persons under his absolute control at a week's notice. But did the hon. and learned Gentleman not know that it was in no wise incumbent on the landlord to re-admit the tenant at all after his eviction, and that his doing so was the best and strongest possible proof that he was desirous and anxious that the tenant should have the opportunity of redeeming his holding, and with the least possible amount of inconvenience or hardship; and was not that a proof of his goodwill and sympathy rather than an attempt to turn the tenant into the serf or servant the hon. and learned Gentleman had described? The hon. and learned Gentleman had endeavoured to impress the House with the idea that he was in favour of the soft word which turneth away wrath, rather than forcible language; but insidious propositions such as these, and unworthy motives imputed by gentlemen of the hon. and learned Gentleman's experience, did more to give an incorrect view of the situation than any forcible language could. The Attorney General for Ireland had put before the House a new proposition of law—namely, that the fact of a tenant's being re-admitted as a care-taker vitiated his right to redemption. He should very much like to hear who was going to be the right hon. and learned Gentleman's seconder of such a ridiculous proposition; no one, he thought, would be rash enough to endorse it. The Prime Minister had made use of a most extraordinary argument in his speech on the second reading of the Bill. Referring to the statements which had been made by successive speakers that capital would be driven, out of the country, and that solicitors and others arranging for the investment of capital would now decline to do so in Ireland, he said that unwillingness to invest in Ireland was nothing new, and that it had been a very common practice to except Irish securities in testamentary and trust dispositions of capital. He asked the House, therefore, to accept it from him that, as there was an unwillingness before, Irish securities would be in no worse a position now, though all the evidence went to prove that his proposed legislation would depreciate still further their value. The right hon. Gentleman was an acute and subtle reasoner; but he failed to comprehend how such an argument as that could carry conviction to the mind of any person except one gifted with the faculty of seeing facts by the converse to the reality. He should now direct their attention to the figures relating to the Bill on which so much reliance had been placed by the Government. He found from one Return that of 687 families evicted, 324 were re-admitted as caretakers, so that the actual evictions were 363, or only 53 per cent of the number given in the Return. That Return, issued on the 6th of July, showed the number of ejectments in the whole of Ireland in the six months ending in June last. Ulster stood first with 552; and in Ulster and Leinster together the evictions were 969 out of a total of 1,696 in all Ireland, or 57 per cent of the whole. Ho should now take the counties of Kerry, Galway, Mayo, and Roscommon, where the anti-rent agitation was at its height. He found that the total evictions in the four counties was 269 families out of 154,703 families; or, in other words, that even in the teeth of the anti-rent agitation the evictions amounted to one in 570 families. The number of holdings in Ulster and Leinster was 328,441, and the number of evictions in the past six months was 969, equal to one in 339 families. He took the total of the holdings in Munster and Connaught—250,958—and he found that the evictions were 727, or equal to one in 345, showing that the evictions were 1¾ per cent greater in the unscheduled districts than they were in the scheduled districts. Turning again to Return No. 254, he found that while in 1878 the evictions in Ulster were 83 out of 834, or one-tenth of the whole, in 1880 they were 203 out of 1,060, or within a fraction of one-fifth of the whole. Let the right hon. Gentleman challenge those figures if he could. He would take his own figures and his own Returns, and out of his own mouth would he judge him; and he defied the right hon. Gentleman to justify his argument that, because it was found necessary in the scheduled districts, in the teeth of, in some parts, a fierce and criminal agitation, to proceed in one case out of every 345, and in the unscheduled district to proceed in one case in every 339, where there was no agitation to contend with, exceptional legislation was necessary. Why did not the right hon. Gentleman apply the Bill to their neighbours in Ulster and Leinster, who, if anybody was to be called a sinner for trying to recover their rent, were the greatest sinners of the two. He contended, however, that on his own figures the right hon. Gentleman was out of court, and he could well afford to rest his case on these figures alone; but he had a word or two to say on the other Returns as well. Then, as to the suggestion that the landlords would and did raise their rents to a pitch which the tenants could not pay, and in consequence render eviction inevitable. The most unanswerable refutation of this speculative and unfair insinuation was to be found in the Return presented to Parliament on 15th March last, showing—

"The number of land claims in which the Court had certified under Section 9 of the Act that the non-payment of rent had arisen from the rent being exorbitant, and the amount awarded for the years ending December 31, 1877, 1878, and 1879.

The number of claims in these years was "none," and the amount awarded nil. He thought a more complete knockdown than that theory had received by this Return could not be met with. Even the very map with, which they had been supplied was incorrect. Four of the Unions scheduled were not coloured as scheduled in the map. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: They are in the Bill.] That was what he wished to point out. The Unions Borisokane, Thurles, and two others were in the Schedule, but not in the map placed before hon. Members. He had seen the map supplied to the House of Lords, and he found that it differed from the map in the Commons. Next, as to the Return of the police in County Galway. The normal establishment was 16 officers and 567 men, and the greatest number of men in the county at one time was under 850, so that the small army corps stated to have been in the county at one time had been the result of a mental calculation for the mystification of the uninitiated—the process being to multiply every man by himself five times. As to the agitation for the nonpayment of rent, its existence was clearly proved by the charges of the different Judges at the Spring and Summer Assizes. Baron Fitzgerald, in Mayo, on March 12, 1880, said—

"Both these documents, the calendar and returns, show the prevalence in your county of what is commonly known in this country as agrarian crime in nearly all its forms. They show what appears to be an extensive combination, for the purpose of interfering with the rights or preventing the payment of rent by tenants to landlords. This appears to have been carried out partly by the custom of threatening notices throughout the country, so far as I can see, forbidding the payment of rents or requiring such reduction as may be thought proper by the tenant; by threatening with violence those who were entitled to rent, or those who were willing to pay it; and by infliction of actual violence upon those who have paid it. It is further shown, by threatening ministers of the law, whose duty it is to serve processes for enforcing these legal obligations by us, and violence on those who have to discharge that duty, and by attempts to resist the actual performance of it by notorious modes, in many instances in the face of armed constabulary called out for the purpose of preserving the peace. There is no sign of any general indifference upon the part of landlords in their obligations to their tenants arising from this state of things."

On March 18, 1880, in County Galway, Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, after referring to ordinary cases, said—

"From the bottom of my heart I wish it was all the crime that will engage your attention; but, unfortunately, it is not. There is one case of what is called Whiteboy offence, one case of rescue, and 14 different cases of riot, unlawful assembly, or attacks by a number of persons upon bailiffs, process-servers, and police. This is, indeed, an exceptional list of offences. In the great majority of these cases the suggested motive is agrarian; these are the familiar cases of injuring a farm from which the tenant has been evicted, and injuring the property of those who take the land. I do not stop to particularize; but there are many special cases—cases in which large numbers of tenants' sheep are supposed to have been destroyed because the owners were suspected of having paid their rents; and cases in which landlords' and agents' property has been destroyed, as it was supposed, because they were about to issue processes; and there had been interference with the bailiffs and process-servers employed in serving processes, with persons suspected of giving in formation to the police, employers who dismissed servants, shopkeepers trying to recover their debts, tenants warned not to pay rent or even to put it in by work. The inevitable and melancholy conclusion must be that there prevails, in at least a large portion, of your county, a system of intimidation successful and unpunished, of which the natural fruit is shown in the open violence which has led to the deplorable cases which will come before you."

Mr. Justice Barry, at Limerick Assizes, July 8, 1880, said—

"Trial by jury has become a perfect farce in this county, and will call for the interference of the Legislature. The county of Limerick is becoming a by-word in Ireland in consequence of the verdicts found by the juries trying prisoners. It was a total maladministration of justice."

Mr. Justice Harrison, in Sligo, on July 8, said—

"There have been, it is true, a number of cases of threatening letters and intimidations in regard to land which we must all deplore. We must pray to a Higher Power that our fellow-countrymen will soon see the evil of pursuing such a course, and that the time will soon come when they will not allow themselves to be seduced by ill advice such as they get from some persons."

In Roscommon, on July 12, 1880, Lord Justice Deasy said—

"Although there are no very serious cases to be brought under your notice, there are some which indicate that the county is not in a very satisfactory state. This is evident by a spirit of lawless resistance to the enforcement of law which I regret to observe."

On July 13, in South Tipperary, Mr. Justice O'Brien referred to the general state of the county, and then said—

"The conduct of the resisting party showed a spirit of utter disregard of all the rights of property, as well as a determination to carry it into effect by force. Then there were two cases of rescue, which pointed to the growing idea that persons who owed money need not pay it."

On July 13, in County Kerry, Mr, Justice Lawson, who, after saying that some parts of the county were in a very alarming condition, said—

"And I am sorry to see that the picture presented, especially in the north end of the county, is that of a determined and organized opposition to the payment of rents and to the carrying out of the process of the law, which state of things, if allowed to go on unchecked, must lead, I should say, to the breaking up of all the bonds of civilized society."

Mr. Justice Harrison on July 17, 1880, in Mayo, said—

"I regret that on the document which now lies open before me there appears a large number of cases of crimes committed which came under the observation of the constabulary officers, and which disclose a state of affairs of a very serious character. The cases so reported are 114 in number. I find in the list of indictable crimes 11 cases of letters being written threatening murder. These letters may sometimes be written by persons having no intention of committing the crimes threatened; but they are frightful things. I find that all these letters were addressed to persons exercising their proper duty—exercising their discretion in the management of their property—in the direction of those in their employment, or in limiting or removing their servants or labourers, or altering their numbers in different ways."

He maintained that all this testimony on the part of these learned Judges was the strongest possible condemnation of the course pursued by Her Majesty's Government, who, while lightly acknowledging and passing over as a side issue, quite unworthy of serious notice, that such agitation was in existence, had deliberately ignored the important bearing it had upon the question at issue, and had as deliberately added fuel to the flame by the course they had seen fit to adopt. There still remained the question of the amount of distress actually existing now in these scheduled districts, and that had existed there in the past, and on the evidence which he should produce he would ask the House whether it was sufficient to warrant the extraordinary legislation which was being forced upon it. He would refer to the Report of the Local Government Board in Ireland, which had been issued within the last few days—imperfect again in some respects, as there was no appendix, which ought to contain the reports, which would in themselves be strong evidence, but which, from the 18th of April to the 26th of July, it had been found impossible to complete and issue. The House would observe that it was at least somewhat extraordinary that the very documents which were supposed to supply authentic records and figures for the discussions which had been going on for the past few weeks should not have been laid before it at the earliest possible moment, and in a fully elaborated form. In these circumstances he had felt it his duty to obtain as much of the information as they were at present without, as far as possible, from elsewhere, and that from a source which he thought the Government would not dispute. Beginning with the Report as furnished, he found that on the 12th of January, 1880, there were 90 Unions, scheduled as distressed, for the purpose of obtaining loans for works of various kinds on favourable terms. On the 15th of March, 1880, there were 56 Unions of a total area of 4,935,000 acres, out of these 90 empowered to give out-door relief with the enforcement of the labour test; and on the 17th of April, the Board's orders having then expired, there were only 28 Unions with an area of 2,671,882 acres then so empowered by the renewal of the orders, and, in the words of the Board—

"Nearly all the above-mentioned orders expired on the 17th of April, and we renewed them in several cases; but in many Unions the Guardians considered it unnecessary to do so, in which opinion we concurred."

So that on the 17th of April, instead of the area which was scheduled to this Bill, representing 11,603,448 acres, there was an area of 2,671,882 acres, which both the local authorities and the Local Government Board themselves considered to be actually distressed to the extent of requiring out-door relief. The daily average number actually in the workhouses on the 31st of January, 1880, was 51,946, as against 47,994 the previous year, or an increase of 4 per cent, and against an average of 45,731 in the six preceding years, or an increase of 6 per cent on the average of those six years. He would carry the comparison a little further, and it would be found that in the years 1862 to 1869, when there was no allegation of distress, the numbers in every year but one exceeded those of last January. Was this such an extraordinary increase of pauperism as to justify the outcry that had been raised about distress, and did not the figures presented to us by the Local Government Board go to show that the distress which was supposed to be urgent in January did not exist to anything like the same extent in April, and presumably that it was since then still on the decline? He should like to read a letter received within the present month from one of the Local Government Board Inspectors, which would show the House what impartial witnesses thought on the subject—

"Junior United Service Club,

July 10, 1880.

"Dear Mr. Tottenham,—With reference to our conversation this morning, I have no hesitation in placing on paper the following summary of my opinion respecting the recent (and present) alleged distress in the North-West of Ireland. I am emphatically of opinion that this cry of 'distress' has been, and still is, unduly raised. Distress, when it has existed at all, has been invariably confined to small districts of each Union, and has not, as far as my experience goes, ever prevailed generally over an entire Union. I believe, moreover, that, on the whole, there was never more than a small percentage of the population of each scheduled Union in the North-West who could justly be considered fit subjects for relief. During the four months I was in this part of the country no case of eviction or consequent complaint came under my notice. Reports which, on inquiry, turned out to be totally without foundation, or grossly exaggerated, were frequently presented to me for investigation, and I firmly believe that very many people received relief from the various charitable funds who had no shadow of ground on which to base a just claim thereto. When I consider the alarming outcry which has been raised, and is still maintained, by the light of the results of close personal inquiry and actual observation, I cannot resist the conviction that it is almost impossible to exaggerate the exaggeration with which the so-called 'distress' in the North-West of Ireland has been depicted.

"Believe me, yours truly,

"BONAR DEANE.

"A. Loftus Tottenham, Esq."

Colonel Deane had supplemented his letter by statements to the following effect. In the latter end of February he wrote that he did not consider any further steps were necessary to alleviate distress in the northern part of Sligo. The general opinion of the Guardians of the Glenties Union was that out-door relief for labour equivalent would not be accepted. Only one recruit was got for the county Militia at a large fair fully attended by young men, in the town of Donegal, although there was 10 s . bounty, four months' board, lodging, and clothing, besides daily pay offered. Early in March he believed the cry of distress was aggravated by political causes and partly by meal contractors, who preferred selling for ready money to the local Committees, rather than on credit to the poor, and finally—more, perhaps, than from any other cause—by the wish of the priest or other representative to get for his district the largest possible amount of relief. The ragged condition and bedclothes he believed to be no more than the normal state. In no instance could he find that the people had parted with bedding or clothes for the purpose of procuring food or fuel, and he only found one house without a fire. In the middle of March he was sent to the Island of Arran to investigate and make a special report of the distress, and found none apparent. The people wore superior clothes, and there was food in every house. In the middle of May he was sent specially to Carrick-on-Shannon to report as to the existence of famine fever. He saw that six out of seven were well-to-do people who had not been in receipt of and did not require relief, and the idea of famine was palpably absurd. The Postmaster General, in reply to the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), had recently given some additional remarkable figures showing that there was an increase of deposits in the Post Office Savings Banks of £91,500 last year, an increase of £32,000 in the first quarter of the present year, and that there was an increase in every one of the distressed counties. He thought he had said enough to show that the distress was not of such an extraordinary or exceptional character as to imperatively demand exceptional legislation. From the authors of a Bill conceived in such a spirit of rupture of all the relations of property and of the law between landlord and tenant, and of meum and tuum , it would be hopeless to expect or ask for any consideration on behalf of the class to be mulcted, and the reception of the Amendments proposed for their relief had abundantly proved the truth of this; but, before finally sending this measure to be dealt with in "another place," he would ask the House to say whether, in the face of public opinion, and of the opposition the Bill had met. and was likely to meet, from all quarters, it would not be better at once to say this was a deliberate attempt to undo the principles of the Land Act of 1870, to infringe the rights of property, and to injure one class of the community for the supposed benefit of another, and decline to sanction any such, principle. He, therefore, begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

said, he was sorry to feel it his duty to second the Motion of opposition to this measure. It was most painful to him to break the ties of Party; but there were circumstances in which he thought that course ought to be taken. He believed this Bill was brought forward without any adequate knowledge of the facts of the case. They had heard on all sides the statistics of the Government questioned, and questioned in such a way that it could hardly be doubted that, in the first instance, they were anything but correct. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister admitted that the figures of the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) afforded ground for grave consideration. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Examination.] The statistics which the noble Lord had laid before the House showed how utterly unreliable were the figures on which the Government had relied. The Bill proposed to tax the landlords of Ireland at a time when they were least able to endure the burden. How were the Irish landlords to meet this fresh imposition? How could they pay compensation to the tenants when the money with which the compensation was to be paid was not forthcoming? The result would be that the compensation would have to be paid out of their capital, which was their land, and that the land would be thrown upon the market at a time when it was of the least value. The inevitable consequence would be to bring ruin upon hundreds of the most innocent and deserving of Her Majesty's subjects. If the House were to bring in a third person to determine as between the landlord and the tenant what rent should be paid, they would be infringing one of the most valuable principles of the law of contract, which was one of the main stays between man and man. Why should not the landlord and the tenant be able to regulate the amount of rent between themselves? Under the existing law a landlord knew at what rent he could let his land to remunerate him for the outlay of his capital, and the tenant knew what rent he could pay to give him a profit on working the farm; while a third person, brought in to settle the amount of rent, would be ignorant of the facts of the case and of the local peculiarities, and would be just as likely to fix the rent too high as too low. The Government would have acted more wisely if, instead of bringing in this Bill, they had introduced some measure for the relief of the suffering people both in England and Ireland out of a Fund which a great many people were most anxious to get rid of. He very much regretted that a Bill had not been brought in which they could all have supported; but as the Government proposals were such as he could not possibly accept, he had no other alternative but to second the Amendment of the hon. Member for Leitrim.

Amendment proposed,

To leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'no justification has been shown for a departure from the vital principles of the Irish Land Act, 1870, which, while recognizing in all future tenancies the claim of a tenant for compensation for improvements, made the non-payment of rent a bar to a claim for compensation for disturbance; and this House deprecates legislation which, even as a temporary expedient, remits to a public officer the regulation of rents, and which places on one class only the burden of relief of exceptional distress,'"—( Mr, Tottenham, )

—instead thereof.

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

said, he was not in the least surprised at the Amendment which had been moved; but he confessed he was very much surprised at its having found a Seconder on the Ministerial side of the House. He thought that hon. Members opposite had greatly exaggerated the consequences of this Bill. He felt deeply the unfortunate position of a great number of the tenants of Ireland; and he should be unwilling to delay the passing of this measure, or to protract the discussion upon it for a moment, had it not been that the extraordinary statements that were so persistently repeated by hon. Members opposite required immediate and emphatic contradiction. He charged hon. Members opposite with making rash, unfounded, and delusive statements which had greatly influenced the country, and had raised a panic against this measure. The Bill did not depend on the exact number of police in a single district, or exact number of tenants evicted. That was not the question. The real question which had affected the people of this country was that arising from statements that the Bill was not what it professed to be; that, instead of being an honest measure for the relief of real and bonâ fide distress, it was a measure which would have the effect of injuring property, and would speedily, if not finally, do away with the whole payment of rent. There was not a person in that House who was more utterly and exclusively dependent on rent than he was, and if he were not perfectly certain—if he were not convinced on a conviction based upon long acquaintance with the management of property in Ireland—if he were not convinced that he would be able to recover every 6 d. of rent with little or no more difficulty when this became law than he did now—that would be quite sufficient to prevent him from voting for this Bill, whatever the consequences might be. In the case of the tenants who could not pay rent, the landlords of Ireland had, as a general rule, behaved with great indulgence; still there were exceptions, and those exceptions were undoubtedly on the increase. He believed, however, that the cases which would come under this Bill would be very rare indeed. They had heard some most extraordinary definitions of the word "reasonable" by hon. Members on the other side, and among those definitions he would refer to one as a sample, which stated that the tenants in Ireland would consider as "reasonable" rent that which the tenant would be inclined to pay. It appeared to him that the word reasonable would be interpreted to be an arrangement beneficial to both sides, and not tending to favour one more than the other. He contended that it was perfectly absurd to suppose that the Bill would be in the least degree hurtful to landlords, and much less was it likely to be subversive of the rights of property. The difficulty of the case was that there would be the danger that tenants who could pay would be tempted or induced to pretend that they could not pay, and thus take advantage of the measure which was intended only for those in real distress. That, he considered, was a very serious danger; and the House could not be sur- prised, after the language they had heard used with regard to the Bill, if that was to happen to a certain extent. The tenants in Ireland had not only been suffering from very great distress, but they had also been exposed to one of the most nefarious and injurious agitations of modern times; and they could not be surprised after what had been said by the anti-rent agitators—indeed, by certain hon. Gentlemen in the House—if a certain number of tenants in Ireland did endeavour to twist the law to their own benefit. Therefore, he thought it became their duty, and should have been the duty of Gentlemen on the other side of the House, who had considered themselves "the Constitutional Party," to say that the Bill should only be allowed to apply to the subject which it was intended to apply—namely, bonâ fide distress; and that any attempt to change the Bill from that, and turn it into what it was not—a Bill for the suppression or suspension of rent—would be attended with most serious consequences. That was why he called it a serious matter, not only on account of the landlords, but also on account of the tenants. The Bill had been denounced as one of the most injurious to landlords; but he contended that the only abuse of the Bill which could take place was the abuse which was due to the circumstances of Ireland, and to the diffusion of statements by hon. Gentlemen opposite; and if that took place, it could only injure the tenants, and not the landlords to any material extent, because the landlords were guarded by the whole framing of the measure, and with Courts of Law which could interpose to prevent the abuse of the Bill to the harm of the landlord. With regard to the composition of the Courts, it was admitted by those who went into the matter that a great deal of the measure depended upon what the conduct of the barristers of the County Court would be in Ireland. Ever since 1870 the barristers of the Courts had been conversant, not with cases of exactly the same kind, but with cases quite as complicated and difficult; and so numerous had those cases been that days had been set apart in almost every session in Ireland, which were known as "land sessions," and which were devoted to the exclusive hearing of such cases. In fact, the barristers were now doing very much what the Bill proposed they were to do. The County Court Judges were also constantly deciding and entering into small details with regard to actions for debt, and all sorts of small matters; and, therefore, he contended that there was not the smallest danger to suppose that the Irish Judges would not rise to be fully equal to the occasion. In the case of an eviction for non-payment of rent, the Judge, under this Bill, could exercise his discretion, if he thought there was reasonable ground for doing so, as to whether the granting of a decree should be postponed in order to give time to the tenant to pay or make arrangements with his landlord. The Judge did so at present. Gentlemen opposite were not justified in assuming that Judges, who had hitherto been just, would become unjust in dealing with cases under this Bill. He could not help regretting the character of the opposition which had been offered to the measure. If hon. Gentlemen opposite objected to the Bill, there was not the smallest reason why they should not have argued against it and done all they could to throw it out; but what he did deprecate was the line of argument which had been taken up in regard to it. They had allied themselves directly with the most dangerous and injurious agitation which Ireland had known for a very long time; and he believed whatever happened—so mischievously ingenious was the way in which that opposition had been carried on—that the harm done was irrevocable. If the Bill passed it would be sent forth on the authority of the Constitutional Party in that House that it was a Bill for the suppression, or, at least, for the suspension, of rent in Ireland; and they would not, at all events, blame the poor people of Ireland if some of them were led into that kind of trap. He felt that there had been a kind of panic felt by those who were interested in the land in Ireland, and he appealed to hon. Gentlemen on the Ministerial side of the House not to allow themselves to be carried away by such a panic, but to endeavour to recover from it and to look at the matter in the face, and then they would perceive that instead of serving the interests of property and order by opposing the Bill, they were in reality, doing great and lasting injury to those interests and thwarting the efforts of those who were fairly and honestly dealing with one of the most terrible dispensations of Providence.

appealed to the House for that indulgence which it usually extended to those who addressed it for the first time. He had listened with considerable attention to the debates on this Bill, but, so far, had heard no sufficient reason to justify the introduction of such an exceptional measure. In supporting the Bill, the Prime Minister had dwelt on the importance of the number of evictions which had taken place; but neither that right hon. Gentleman nor the Chief Secretary for Ireland had yet given any refutation of the figures and statements on that subject which had been adduced by the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton). He did not yield to any man in his sympathy for the distress which existed in Ireland, but trusted that they would not allow their sympathies for the distress to lead them away from the point at issue. Ireland, no doubt, had been suffering from very great distress; but he had evidence that that distress had been much exaggerated and greatly misrepresented, and he maintained that it afforded no adequate justification for the measure now before the House, which might be described as an Act of Radical Land Reform. Having quoted one or two illustrations of the demoralization connected with the distribution of relief in the form of meal and of seed, which he had on the authority of one of the best known land agents in the North—namely, Mr. James Sinclair—the hon. Member urged the necessity of guarding against deception and abuse in dealing with alleged suffering in the sister country. Reverting to the Bill under discussion, he asserted that it differed entirely from the principle of the Land Act of 1870, because, by the 9th clause of that Act, distinct provision was made that eviction for non-payment of rent should not give the tenant a right to compensation. They were told that this was only a partial and temporary measure. Certainly it did not extend to the whole of Ireland; but out of some 20,000,000 of acres about 12,000,000 acres were included in the Schedule to the Bill. As to its temporary character, what he wished to ask the Government was, were they prepared to say that they could limit the operation, of the Bill if carried into law to 18 months, or to any short period at all? [Mr. GLADSTONE: Hear, hear!] He was glad to hear that cheer of the right hon. Gentleman, as it was evident he was sanguine on the point. He hoped if the Bill became law, which he trusted it would not do, when the time came, if the right hon. Gentleman still occupied his present position, he would be able to come down to the House and tell them that the measure was no longer necessary. The Prime Minister had disclaimed any intention of creating a joint property in the soil by the Land Act of 1870. But in this Bill there was undoubtedly an attempt to create such a joint property, and in that respect the Bill differed essentially and radically from the Act of 1870. They had been told that there was no reason why those who represented the landlords should oppose the Bill, because it would affect only bad landlords. But never had an argument met with so crushing a reply. It had been met at once by the landlords of Ireland, and the name of the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment was enough to show that among the best landlords in that country an opinion prevailed that the Bill would affect not only the bad landlords but the good. He would urge the House, before passing the Bill, to consider the position of the landlords of Ireland. They had heard much of the state of the tenant farmers. He knew it to be very bad; but the greater portion of the landlords of Ireland had got by no means a full share of representation in that House, and in Ireland there were many small landlords who lived upon their properties and had done the best they could for their tenants. He asked hon. Members to take into account the evidence which had been brought before the House and the letters which had appeared in the newspapers, and to consider whether, if this Bill passed, it would not very seriously affect the condition of those landlords who deserved pre-eminently to obtain the support of Parliament. The Bill was a dangerous one, and, so far from promoting that happiness and universal content which right hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to expect, it would rather encourage discontent, if they were to judge by the conduct of hon. Members below the Gangway—"the third Party." The manner in which those hon. Gentlemen accepted the Bill did not indicate much gratitude, but rather seemed to say—"We will take this now, and next year we shall get more." And how would the people of Ireland look upon it? They bad been advised "to keep a firm grip of the land;" and was it not a matter of common sense to conclude that, finding that advice to have been followed by such results, they would be only too ready to take the next advice of a similar kind which would be offered them? The Bill would create discontent and ill-feeling between landlords and tenants, and, so far from doing away with absenteeism, would promote it; for what landlords who would be affected by the measure would be content to live on their properties? Moving pictures had been drawn by the Chief Secretary and the Prime Minister of the poor people turned away from their homes and their land. But had nobody in the House any sympathy for the landlords who would be driven away from theirs? He had looked with the greatest possible care into this matter, he had endeavoured to learn something of the past history of the Land Question, both in this country and in Ireland, and he was convinced that this Bill was bad in its principle and would be bad in its working, and that it would be subversive of all those just rights of property which ought to receive the sanction and support of the House.

said, that the hon Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) in his Amendment stated that the Bill was a departure from the vital principles of the Land Act of 1870, and had proceeded to state by inference what, in his opinion, those principles were. He considered that the hon. Member had given an entire misdescription of the Act of 1870, which was by no means confined to giving compensation for improvements. Its principle was to give compensation for disturbance, thus recognizing a sort of continuous occupation by the tenant of his holding. In doing so, the Act of 1870 recognized the Ulster Custom, and the custom existing in certain estates outside, and gave those customs the sanction of law. The present Bill, instead of being a departure from the Act, merely did for the rights created by the Act of 1870 what the Act of 1870 did for the Ulster Custom and other analogous customs. The Act of 1870 did recognize a right which could be estimated at a money value, and that money value had been pronounced by competent authorities to be five years' purchase, and the present Act merely said that where by act of Providence a man was disenabled from paying his rent he should not be prevented from claiming the right. If this Bill had been intended to be permanent, he should have been able to show that no such measure could be satisfactory which did not provide a tribunal for the regulation of these matters; but, nevertheless, he maintained that the assistant barristers had for the last 10 years indirectly decided questions of rent over and over again. If they went anywhere in Ireland and asked a man whether such or such a holding was cheap or dear, they might be told, "neither one nor the other, it is let for the value." This was independent of Griffith's Valuation, and it meant that the rent was one that a man could pay, and then make a living. The assistant barrister would have no difficulty in ascertaining by evidence in any given neighbourhood whether a rent was reasonable or not. As to exorbitant rent, he would appeal to the hon. Member for Leitrim, who had stated that he had 400 tenants, whether, up to 1877, he could not have obtained almost any rent he asked for small holdings, the competition was so great—the land hunger as it was called. The land had not a commercial value; but that very competition would itself provide a remedy for any possible hardship inflicted on a landowner under the Bill. Everything seemed to promise that we should be blessed with a good harvest, and consequently there would always be found, even in the most distressed districts, people willing to deal with an occupying tenant if he wished to leave. He maintained that this Bill was strictly consonant with the Act of 1870. It was merely an extension of the principles contained in that Act; and, moreover, he thought that the exceptional circumstances in which the tenants were now placed required some exceptional legislation.

said, that in the course of the debate he had observed a want of diplomatic education on the part of the Irish Members, for instead of using words in order to disguise their feelings, they had, in defending the Bill, "let the cat out of the bag," and told hon. Members what they expected as regarded legislation in the future. The hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Colthurst) had not at all directed his argument against the principle of the State fixing rents, but had tried to show them how simple it would be to justify the establishment of State rents. Further, the hon. and gallant Gentleman had endeavoured to show that the Amendment was wholly wrong in saying that the Bill was a departure from the vital principles of the Land Act, and that that Act recognized the property of the tenant in the soil. Under the question of improvements, it was mentioned that in that Act—and by the speech of the Prime Minister who moved it—that there was a distinct assurance given to the landed proprietors of Ireland—that the non-payment of rent would be a distinct bar to compensation for disturbance. That assurance could not be denied, for it was reported in Hansard. Further, he (Lord Elcho) remembered that in answer to a Question, Mr. Dowse, the Irish Solicitor General, said that the raising of rent was not to be considered as disturbance. He did not want, however, to say much on the question as between landlord and tenant; the question had been fully argued in Parliament, and he believed that in the long run it would work evil in the case of the tenant. The only attempt at illustration or analogy which the Prime Minister had adduced had reference to tithe commutation. But the Archbishop of Canterbury had spoken strongly for the Act, representing that the clergy were strongly in favour of it; and he (Lord Elcho) held that the attempt on the part of the Prime Minister to find in past history any justification of the principle of the Bill was out of the question. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Tottenham), in an Amendment which appeared to him (Lord Elcho) to consist of a bundle of truisms, called upon the House to deprecate legislation which provided that rents were to be regulated by the State, and that one class only was to pay for distress, and that, too, for the benefit of another. The Amendment further said that there was no justification for this measure. There were many reasons given in support of the Bill. The Government maintained that the Bill had not been changed; but could any Member who had listened to the debates in Committee say that their reasons and arguments for the measure had not been perpetually changing, under the attacks made upon it from different parts of the House? One of the reasons assigned for this was that this little Bill, this multum in parvo , which at one time was to take the shape of a single clause in the Belief Bill, was neither more nor less than a cheap way, by reducing the value of the property in Ireland, to bring about the great measure that was wished for by the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) for establishing a peasant proprietary. Another reason given by some people was that it was intended to promote a system of State emigration, and he had good reason for saying it was so. The Chief Secretary said he had always been in favour of emigration, but thought that the emigrants ought to go out with something in their pockets. Now, this sounded very much like State emigration; but who was to pay for it? Not the State, but the landlords of Ireland. It was to be a State system of emigration, but an extremely cheap and hardly a just one. Again, there were people who perceived in this Bill the germ of what were called "the three F's"—fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale. But there was one more reason which he might also give, and that was, that the Bill contained a new system of political economy. When asked to explain why it should not be applied to tenants of houses as well as tenants of land, the Chief Secretary for Ireland replied—"I believe political economy consists in taking care that the right of property of the tenant is not taken away." But the Chief Secretary did not add, what he now begged to do for him, that those so-called rights of the tenant were to be maintained at the expense of the landlords. The ostensible reason assigned for the introduction of the Bill was the existence of distress and evictions. But, on the question of distress, the ground had been entirely cut away from beneath the feet of the Government by figures which had been quoted in the debate, and the reports of evictions were materially modified by the fact that in many cases the tenants ejected into the roadway had been reinstated through the kindness of their landlords in their holdings. It appeared that in the scheduled districts the num- ber of evictions was only one in 339 cases, and in the non-scheduled districts one in 345—a state of things which not unnaturally led some hon. Members to contend that the Bill, if passed at all, should be applied to the whole of Ireland. So far as regarded the two ostensible grounds for the introduction of the Bill—distress and evictions—the Government had not a leg to stand upon. But the real object of the Bill was to preserve peace in Ireland. It was a Peace Preservation Bill, and such the Prime Minister had himself avowed it to be when he said that it was brought forward not so much in the interests of the tenants as in the interests of law and order. So, then, the Government felt that, in spite of their great majority, and their command of the whole resources of the Empire, this Bill was necessary to enable them to maintain law and order in Ireland. In these circumstances a grave question suggested itself, which he asked the House to consider that night—namely, Was the Government, in taking such a course, doing its duty, not only to Ireland, but to the Empire at large? Was it to be tolerated that the Government should only be prepared to enforce the law in Ireland on condition that they were first allowed to override an Act of Parliament passed 10 years ago? With all respect to Her Majesty's Government, he ventured to say that no country in the world could be governed on such a principle. He would ask hon. Members to turn back to the circumstances attending the passing of the Land Act of 1870, which was one of the so-called great successes of the present Prime Minister. That right hon. Gentleman had, no doubt, carried many great measures; but if practical utility was to be the test of the success of those measures, there were few of them on the back of which the word "successful" could be written. They knew that the Irish Church Bill was brought in to pacify Ireland—but had it pacified Ireland or its people? There, too, was the Irish Education Bill—and he was one of the few who had voted for it—but it was thrown out. The Army Purchase Act had signally failed—it had destroyed their first line and failed to create a Reserve. Only the English Education Act had been a partial success; but that, however, he and his Friends had had to doctor and tinker. The greatest failure, however, of all was the Irish Land Act of 1870, which had been brought in with a great flourish of trumpets by the Prime Minister, who avowed that its object was to bind together and satisfy the Irish people and make them law-abiding. On the occasion of the second reading, Mr. Bryan, who had the support of 11 other Irish Members, declared that the Bill did not satisfy the aspirations of the Irish people. He said—

"You may pass it into law as it stands; but if you think that it will quiet the disaffection that prevails, and satisfy the country, I warn you that you grossly deceive yourselves."—[3 Hansard , cxcix., 1376.]

And what did the result prove? That Mr. Bryan and those 11 Irish Members really represented the people of Ireland. The Land Act of 1870 did not satisfy the people of Ireland. There was another Irishman who expressed himself in the same sense as Mr. Bryan—namely, Lord Cairns. Lord Cairns said, in reference to the Bill of 1870—

"I do not like to be a prophet of evil, but I do ask the House not to indulge the delusion that this Bill will put an end to agitation in Ireland. I am afraid that those who trade on the grievances of Ireland find the occupation too profitable a one to be lightly abandoned."

Had or had not, he would ask, those prognostications been realized? He admitted that the Land Act had undoubtedly, to a certain extent, been beneficial. It had, to a certain extent, improved the tenants' holdings. But it had also been the cause of the present evil. For what had it done? It had given a certain description of property to tenants for the first time in history without payment. He repeated that the Bill had introduced the new feature of taking property from one person and giving it to another without payment; and what had been the result? Why, a state of indebtedness on the part of the Irish tenants to the shopkeepers, who, having given tick to the full amount of the holding, were now foreclosing, and this was one of the main causes of the present distress in Ireland. As to outrages, there had been greater outrages in Ireland since 1870 than in the years which immediately preceded it; and whereas agrarian attacks used to be made single-handed, or what in military phrase might be called independent firing, there was now volley firing by men who went in parties, and they had also murdered a Peer. Again, although there were some Irish landed proprietors Members of that House, the great majority of the Members for Ireland were now Home Rulers, who were not the Representatives of the land, but of "Disturbance." [Mr. T. D. SULLIVAN: The Representatives of the people.] They represented in the main the interest of the tenant in his holding. Then there was the anti-rent agitation, and he was told that the Peace Preservation Bill not having been renewed, a positive reign of terror prevailed in Mayo, which he was told was divided into districts, and where the system of signalling and arming was so complete that in 20 minutes 50 men could be got together, and in three or four hours as many as 20,000. These things were well-known at Dublin Castle, and he believed this Bill was brought in in the hope of preventing an outbreak. But if the House wanted to have more certain proof of the failure of the Land Act, it was to be found in the fact that, while between 1860 and 1870 the number of Land Bills which had been brought in was only 12, the number introduced between 1870 and 1880 amounted to no less than 39. A stronger proof still of that failure was the introduction of such a measure as that which the House was at that moment engaged in discussing. The lesson which was to be learnt from such a state of things was a very plain one, and it would show the evils of unwise concession founded on wrong principles. The Prime Minister said the Irish motto was " Excelsior ," and in the way of demands connected with the land it certainly was, because the more was given to the Irish people the more they asked, their love of land, like that of Hamlet's mother for her Lord, growing by what it fed upon. Now, if any hon. Member would turn to the pages of Hansard he would find that when the Land Bill of 1870 was under discussion it was spoken of by the present Lord Carlingford as one which was intended to facilitate the matters of agreement between landlord and tenant. The last words, he might add, of a very wise Minister, Lord Palmerston, on the Irish question, speaking in reply to Mr. Maguire, who was then Member for Dungarvan, were that—

"If there was anything which more than another a nation was, in his opinion, bound to regard it was the rights of property, and that laws infringing those rights, however tempting the advantages which their supporters might hold out might for a time be, were sure to prove injurious."

The noble Lord in another passage said he understood that it was proposed that some tribunal should be created which would determine questions arising between landlord and tenant as to what should be the conditions of the rent to be paid and the period of occupation of a holding, and expressed it as his opinion that any arrangement of that kind would violate the fundamental principles of justice, whereupon Mr. Maguire rose and said that the noble Lord had misconceived his meaning when he spoke of his having advocated the reference of the question of rents to any tribunal, for he had never done anything of the kind. And now he would ask whether it was likely that the present Bill, if passed, would be successful? Whom did it satisfy? The Chief Secretary for Ireland would not contend that it was acceptable to the Irish landlords. It did not satisfy the tenants, as was clear from the action of those hon. Members who sat near him. In a word, it satisfied no one, not even the distinguished lawyer opposite who made such an able speech upon it—he referred to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell), who said the Bill only touched the extreme fringe of the Irish Land Question. He might further observe that almost every speech which was addressed to the House from the Treasury Bench indicated that there was something more behind; what that something was would no doubt depend, to a great extent, on the amount of disorder which prevailed in Ireland. But there was a Commission which was to tell the Government what they were to do; and, if he was rightly informed, the history of the appointment of that Commission was somewhat curious. It was a Commission to examine into the operation of the Irish Land Act, a subject which was being inquired into by another Commission, and the man in the street said that the evidence taken before that other Commission went so much against the working of the Act that the Government thought they must, in order to bolster up their Bill, issue another Commission, at the head of which they placed one of the three Irish Peers who approved of this Act. His main reason for thinking that this legislation would fail was that it amounted to an admission that the Government were afraid to administer the law, an admission which was a direct premium to agitation. If the Government had, in the first instance, taken firm, action, he was convinced that the agitation would have collapsed, and that the Irish people would have abided by the law. The question which they were to solve was not an Irish question only. The question was how agitations were to be dealt with, and how far they were to be allowed to influence property; and, therefore, it affected Scotland and England quite as much as Ireland. The principles of the Bill appealed to the predatory instincts of primitive man, and were Communistic in their tendency. Why, he asked, should not the principles of this Bill be applied to England, where many people also found it difficult to pay their rent, and suffered from distress caused by "the act of God." Upon what possible ground could the Government refuse to England and Scotland the boon they were now giving to Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman opposite might smile. Perhaps it was the only way in which he could answer the question. Let not the Government think that the feeling they were encouraging in Ireland would not extend to this country, nor let them imagine that it would be confined to land. Within a radius of a mile from that House how many unfortunate families in the last six months had been obliged to leave their homes through inability to pay rent? They left peaceably, and, as yet, did not agitate, for they had not 60 Members specially returned to advocate their cause. The occupiers of houses in Ireland, however, were already taking steps to procure the extension of the principles of the Bill to houses as well as land. The hon. Member for Tralee (the O'Donoghue) had presented a Petition stating that the conditions of occupancy in Tralee were most unsatisfactory, and praying for legislation; and what had occurred at Kingstown? He held in his hand a document showing that the first business at the meeting of the Kingstown Commissioners on Tuesday was the consideration of tenant right in towns, and that the Commissioners agreed to the adoption of a Petition which said that in towns in Ireland houses were largely held on yearly tenancies, and that, in the interests of all classes, it was desirable to put an end to this state of things by establishing fixity of tenure and making the tenant the proprietor of the house in which he lived or carried on his business. He maintained that this showed that the question had already got beyond the stage of a land question, and had become a town question. A correspondent had sent him a letter which contained a very happy reductio ad absurdum of the proposals of the Government. His correspondent said—

"I am a soda-water manufacturer. The last three years have been as disastrous to me as to the Irish husbandman. My landlord is inexorable, and will have every copper of rent, and threatens eviction and distress on my plant and machinery, built into his freehold. Smitten sorely by wretched weather and German spring water competition, a Sodawater Relief Bill enabling me to claim my plant or full compensation, in defiance of legal process, would put me on a bed of roses. It is useless for me to attempt to shoot my landlord, as he is an officer of Volunteers, and a far better shot than I am."

He (Lord Elcho) prayed the House to pause before it sanctioned principles such as those contained in this Bill, and followed up a system of legislation which, since the year 1865, had so signally failed. They were told, when the Government was formed, that there was this security for those who disapproved such principles—namely, that there were moderate Liberals in the Cabinet who would deprecate any evil interference with property, or with any sound principles of legislation. But now, what was the value of this boasted security arising from the presence of moderate Liberals in the Cabinet? One of those Liberals was the Duke of Argyll, at whose feet he had sat, and whose wisdom he had imbibed—on the matter of land only. Well, what had the noble Duke said on this question of tenancy? He once said that the demand for what was called fair rent was a demand that prices should be lowered by Act of Parliament in favour of a particular individual, and he had called freedom of contract "the salt of human society." He had no doubt that the noble Duke had some very able argument by which to explain how he had come to agree with this great exception to those sound principles; but, in his opinion, the noble Duke must fail to reconcile statements, such as those quoted, with his position in a Cabinet which had brought in the Bill they were then discussing. It was evident that they could not look to moderate Liberalism in the Cabinet for safety from pernicious and evil legislation. He maintained that they must look rather to the outsiders—the moderate Liberals in that House—or the other who were true to the traditions of the Liberalism of Russell, Peel, and Palmerston, and would not adopt the spurious Liberalism of the present Government. He trusted that all who were interested in freedom of contract and the security of property would, upon that question, have the courage to throw Party aside, and join shoulder to shoulder in maintaining those necessary principles upon which all legislation ought to rest. The sort of language which had been used was only employed with reference to Ireland; it was never applied to England or Scotland. Let no one say—"I am not interested in Land Bills; I am interested in mines." The principles were the same in either case. They applied to England and Scotland as much as to Ireland; to mines as much as to other kinds of property. They applied to houses equally. In the North of England might be seen rows of cottages tenanted by miners. They belonged to the mine owners. Strikes sometimes took place. What happened? Tenants were ejected—evicted. ["No!"] He could only speak from what he had seen—an agitation taking place on the part of those who represented the miners against it. ["No!"] He knew they had been, were now, and would continue to be, evicted when strikes occurred, and he did not say it was wrong. It was in the way of business, and was right. If it was declared that the Irish tenant was not to be evicted from his holding, the same must be said of the miner and his cottage. He, therefore, asked all those who were interested in the free dealing of free men with each other to join together in resisting pernicious legislation such as this. He would give his hearty support to the Amendment of his hon. Friend. He would add but few words to what he had said. In the discussion, a few nights before, an Irish Member had said that he (Lord Elcho) had never shown the slightest sympathy with Ireland. He was connected with Ireland by birth; he had relations settled in Ireland. No one valued more highly than he the importance of Ireland to the British Empire; no one was more anxious to see Ireland prosperous. He had shown his feelings by actions as well as by words. He had given votes. When he had stood for his county, in 1847, he was told that if he voted for the Maynooth Grant he would lose his seat. His answer was a very simple one—"Then I shall not be returned, for I intend to vote for it." He voted steadily for the Maynooth Grant, and was the only Scotch Member who did. He should have been prepared to support a wise measure, founded on the same principle, for the payment of the Roman Catholic priesthood; and when the question of Roman Catholic University Education came up, under the first Gladstonian Administration, he gave his vote for it, and was the only Conservative Member on these Benches that did. But he was totally unable to accept the principles which had been laid down so eloquently, among others, by the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell). He thought that the application of such doctrines would not be a kindness to the Irish nation, and he declined to vote for them or to show his sympathy in that way. It was not kindness to the Irish people to encourage false hopes and vain delusions. It was not true kindness to teach them that exceptions should be made in their favour, and in their favour alone, to principles which were universally recognized. It was not kindness to the Irish people to teach them that the doctrines of political economy, sneered at now by the Treasury Bench—["No, no!"]—and by their Chief Secretary for Ireland—["No, no!"]—yes, he sneered at them to-night—it was not kindness to teach them that the doctrines of sound political economy were to be abolished for them, and that they could be abolished for them or any other nation with impunity. It was a new and spurious political economy which was being advocated. Such principles as were now being laid down would lead to the failure of all legislation. It would lead to discontent, dissatisfaction, agitation, fresh demands, and fresh concessions. Unless this House took its stand against this legislation, who would venture to say where they should be in 1890? The true friend to Ireland was not the man who pandered to her passions in this question of land, but the man who told her the truth—who told her her true wants. What were the true wants of Ireland? They were told that there were in Ireland 278,000 tenants below £8 rental; that men could not live on such tenancies; that the tenants had to go abroad, to England and elsewhere, to endeavour to make up a living. That was in evidence before the House. They were told that tenants could not live on less than £20 holdings. The first want, therefore, of the small tenants was the acquisition of holdings and the means of subsistence. For that want emigration was the true remedy. Another question was that of steady labour. He did not mean to say that an Irishman could not work as well as any Englishman or Scotchman. But the fact was that, what with holidays, fairs, markets, and funerals, the Irish tenant did not work steadily more than 100 days out of the whole 365. ["No!"] That statement he believed to be correct. The last great want of Ireland was law-abidingness. Capital would follow in the train of law-abidingness and order. The present Lord Sherbrooke, when he was in that House, as Mr. Lowe, had described capital as a nymph that threw herself readily into the arms of the sober and steady citizen; but who shunned the arms of the fiery and eloquent agitator. Capital, the one great want of Ireland, would follow in the train of order. But it was not by a Bill like the Bill before the House, which outraged justice, which outraged sound principles of government and of political economy, that Ireland could be brought into a better condition than she was in at present. It was not by such a measure, which offended against the primary duties of government—namely, protection to life, fulfilment of contract, security of property; principles which formed the basis upon which civilization rested—that Ireland could be made a thriving country. It was only by maintaining the law and those sound principles which he had mentioned that nations could be conducted in the path of prosperity and progress.

Sir, the animated speech of the noble Lord may be considered as a résumé of all the exaggerations and misconceptions which have been raised against this Bill throughout the long debates. I have listened in vain for anything new in it; and, indeed, it would have required a genius greater even than that of the noble Lord to have improved upon what has already been invented against this measure. These objections may be divided into two classes—those relating to the changes in the Bill, the conduct of my right hon. Friend who has charge of it, and the statistics on which it was based; and those opposed to the principle of this Bill, and which accuse it of spoliation, robbery, confiscation, and other polite expressions of this kind. I shall not waste the time of the House in dealing with the first of these; even if they were all true, they do not affect the principle of the measure at this stage. It would be still our duty to consider the Bill on its merits, and the interests of 300,000 tenants who will be affected and protected by the measure are of more importance to us now than the conduct of the Government. My right hon. Friend, however, has answered by anticipation to-night all these objections; he has shown that, practically, the Bill has undergone no alteration, that such changes as have occurred were with the object of bringing the Bill into strict conformity with the description given of it; that the measure has not been introduced in deference to agitation, but from a strong sense of responsibility as to the position of the Executive Government when called upon to support evictions with force. He has also shown that the statistics fully bear out the moderate statement which he based on them in support of the Bill. It is quite certain that, looked at in any way, the evictions for the whole of Ireland have during the last six months been four times as great as for a similar period three years ago. The hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) made a point of the fact that the increase has been greater in the districts not scheduled for distress. The logic of this argument would be that the Bill should be extended to the rest of Ireland; but may it not be that the evictions would have been more numerous in the distressed districts if it had not been for the agitation which prevailed there? About one-third of the evicted families have been re-admitted as care-takers, but their tenancy is at an end; they may be ousted at any moment; it is probable that they have been readmitted in this menial capacity in the interest of the landlords, for, pending the six months during which the tenant can redeem, the landlord can make no use of the land. I ask hon. Members whether it is possible or probable that these, and the other evicted people, have neglected or refused to pay rent when they were able to do so? They have been evicted in a time of grave calamity, when, through no fault of their own, they have been temporarily unable to pay rent, and without that compensation or recognition of that interest which the Land Act was intended to secure to them. I ventured myself, early in the present period of distress, to point out this grievance, and to suggest the necessity of such a measure as now before us as a remedy. In the debate on the Address before Easter, I pointed out that, much as we might deplore and condemn the agitation of the previous autumn, it was right to probe its causes; I showed that its prevalence and success might be attributed to two grave defects in the law which specially press on the small tenants of Ireland in the emergency of such a failure of crops as had occurred during the autumn—in the first place, the state of the Poor Law, which forbids any outdoor relief to any persons in occupation of land; and, secondly, to the defect in the Land Act, which renders the tenant, who by reason of the failure of the harvest, temporarily unable to pay his rent, liable to eviction without recognition of that interest which was secured to him by the Land Act. Is it possible to conceive a more terrible position for the tenant? In either alternative the workhouse alone was open to him, and he must give up his land to which he is so passionately attached. The late Government tardily and temporarily suspended the provisions of the Poor Law, and this measure tardily and temporarily proposes to suspend the operation of the 9th clause of the Land Act; and I feel confident that had these measures been carried at an early period in last autumn, or had the law provided the means of suspending these clauses in the event of a grave emergency, we should have been spared the agitation of last autumn. What, Sir, is the principle of the Bill? It is this—that in view of the grave and exceptionally grievous calamity, which deprived the tenants in the West of Ireland of the means of living and of paying their rent, the Legislature is justified in intervening between landlord and tenant, to prevent the harsh exercise of their rights by the former, especially in view of the interest recognized by the Land Act in the tenants. I frankly admit that such an intervention is a novel principle in English law and legislation. We justify it on the special grounds of the Land Act. We might justify it on broader grounds, and by an appeal to the experience and example of every other civilized country in Europe than our own. It has been frequently pointed out in the course of these debates that the Roman Law justified intervention, on behalf of tenants where an unexpected calamity had destroyed or greatly reduced the produce of the land; but I do not think it has been pointed out that this principle has been adopted by every other country in Europe. Let me take the law of France as an illustration. It laid down as a principle of their law that rent is the payment for the produce of the soil, and if, by an unexpected calamity, not within the ordinary calculation, there is little or no produce, it is only right that rent should be reduced by law in proportion, and that the loss should not be borne wholly by the tenant. The Code Napoléon contains these provisions. In the case of yearly tenancies, it provides that when an unexpected calamity occurs, which destroys or prevents one-half or more of the crops, the Judges have the power of reducing the rent in proportion. In the case of leases the same rule holds good; but the Judge is directed, in estimating the remission, to take into account any unusual gain in the previous period of the lease, and if there be no such gain, the estimate of the remission ought to be postponed till the end of the lease; but, nevertheless, the Judge has the power of temporarily remitting the rent in order to protect the tenant against the immediate hardship; a provision very similar, it seems to me, to the power given by this Bill to the Judges. I need hardly say that the Code Napoléon is the law for half of Europe; I have ascertained that the law of Germany is to the same effect, and is based also on the Roman Law. It has also been pointed out that the Scotch law, to some extent, also incorporates the same principle. Generally, it may be said that in Europe the contract to pay rent only covers the usual vicissitudes of harvests, and if there is a very exceptional bad year, in which the land does not produce its crops, the loss is not to be borne wholly by the tenant; but the Courts of Law have the power of remitting or suspending rent to meet the emergency, with equitable provisions in favour of the landlord, where the land is let on lease. I need hardly say, then, that our English law is exceptional. With us rent is payable, and can be enforced by law, no matter what the calamity, even if the land itself disappear, and there be no crops. I have been curious to learn when this principle of English law, so different from that of other people, was adopted. I find that it was definitely laid down by the Judges in the time of Charles I. The case is a very interesting one. A landlord sued his tenant for three years' arrears of rent; the tenant replied that Prince Rupert's force had devastated that part of the country, had driven him out of his holding, and had prevented his cultivating the land. The Judges held that this was no answer.

"It was resolved," says the Report, "that the matter of the plea was insufficient, for even if the whole of Prince Rupert's army had teen alien enemies, yet the tenant ought to pay his rent. And this defence was taken—that where the law creates a duty or charge, and the party is disabled to perform it without any default in him, and hath no remedy over, then the law will relieve him; but where the party by his own contract creates a duty or charge upon himself, he is bound to make it good, notwithstanding any accident by inevitable necessity, and though the land be surrounded or gained by the sea, or made barren by wild fire, yet the lessor shall have his whole rent."

From that time till now this has been the English law. A contract to pay rent is above the act of God, or any calamity, however great. The fact is, that in dealing with land our Judges never would admit the equitable principles of the Civil Law, which they adopted freely in commercial transactions, and they left the tenant completely at the mercy of their landlords. Now, in saying this, I am not to be supposed to argue the necessity of any change in the law of England as distinguished from that of Ireland, though, if we were to codify our law, we should probably change it in this respect; but the law in practice does not work so harshly as it appears in statement, and for these reasons—first, that the English land- lords, without exception, observe in practice and admit in foro conscientiæ that which is matter of law elsewhere. They go even further; for nothing is more common than for English landlords to make remissions of rent even in ordinary bad years, much more so in cases of calamity; and, secondly, we may safely leave it to the enlightened self-interest of landlords to protect those who by law stand within their danger. A change of tenancy in a time of disaster would result in a reduction of rent, or, at least, in great expense to the landlord; and to press the tenants, at such a time, by taking their stock, would be ruin to them or to the land; and public opinion, in such matters, where the landlord lives among his tenants, is strong. But across the Irish Channel the case is different. The class of tenants is different—the small tenants are not capitalists; they are labouring men cultivating small holdings. The self-interest of landlords is no protection to them; for their interest lies often the other way, and the landlord who could consolidate his farms at a period of distress, without the payment of that compensation which he would be compelled to pay at other times, would be a great gainer. Public opinion also counts for little where the landlords are absentees, and manage their land through agents. Apart, then, from consideration of the Land Act, there would be strong arguments in favour of an intervention by the Legislature in favour of the small tenants, in a time of calamitous distress, to prevent the harsh and arbitrary execution of their rights by the landlords; but the case is infinitely stronger, is overwhelmingly greater, when we consider the effect of the Land Act. It is, I think, impossible to deny that the Land Act has given a substantial interest to the tenant—I will not say a proprietary right, for this would involve fixity of tenure—but an interest of a valuable nature; this has been universally recognized, and has been the subject of mortgage and sale. It certainly does not he with hon. Members opposite to deny this, for they have never ceased to denounce the Land Act as a measure of confiscation. The hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire has frequently spoken of the Act, as having confiscated one-third of the landlord's property; and the hon. Member for Leitrim, in his able speech a few days ago, said that—"Under the Land Act a large portion of the landlord's interest was transferred to the tenant." I will not join issue with the term confiscation. I believe the true description to be that the Act gave legal sanction to an interest which was already admitted in practice, and that its effect was in no way to diminish the value of the landlord's property. It is true that this interest was subject to the payment of rent; but surely it is harsh and unjust that the temporary inability to pay full rent in a season of great calamity should forfeit this interest and justify the landlord in ousting his tenant, and in appropriating that interest which the Land Act gave to him. A few months ago the tenant paid his rent regularly, and could not be ousted without payment of a sum varying from £70 to £250. A calamitous season occurs, such as has not been known for 35 years; he is temporarily unable to pay rent; is he to be evicted at once, without a penny? It seems to me to be horribly unjust and harsh. Yet this is what the law sanctions, permits, and may enforce. It is said that very few landlords avail themselves of this power; but all have it, and may use their power in various degrees. That a large proportion of the Irish landlords are just and generous cannot be doubted; but there is a minority of the most grasping character, who would wittingly squeeze the last shilling out of their tenants. It was to protect the tenants against such landlords that the Land Act was passed. The same arguments justify this measure. It is a necessary sequel and a logical conclusion of the Land Act; and no argument has been, or can be, brought against this measure except by attacking or ignoring that Act. In conclusion, Sir, I have only to repeat that the measure is just and necessary; it is in pursuance of principles admitted by all civilized countries except our own; it is also a logical sequence of the Land Act. To those who object to it on account of the agitation of last autumn, I would ask when has it been that remedial measures have been carried for Ireland except after agitation? The way to deal with agitation, to quell it, and avert it in the future, is to probe its causes, to remove grievances which are its pabulum, and on which alone it can be successful. It is by the substitution of law for force, of friendly process of arbitration by the Judges for the harsh exercise of rights by the few and the brutal resistance of the many, that we can best hope to make the Government respected, and to maintain peace and content among the Irish people.

said, he felt it was impossible not to sympathize with the arguments of the Chief Secretary for Ireland in favour of this Bill. It was his duty, he said, to enforce the law, and he asked Parliament to amend the law so that he might be certain that it was absolutely just; and. if, unhappily, he were compelled to use force, he might be able to do so with clean hands and an easy conscience. His maxim was—first do justice, and then compel obedience. That was the wise and noble principle which lay at the root of that great series of measures for the relief of Ireland by which the late Government of the present Prime Minister had won for him undying renown. Ten years ago, he (Sir John Ramsden) had given a steady support to every one of those measures. He wished with all his heart he could find for this measure the same justification. His right hon. Friend commended it to them as a fulfilment of the spirit, thought it might be a departure from the letter, of the Land Act. As he truly pointed out, an unforeseen emergency had arisen for which the Land Act did not provide, and he called on them to supply that defect. This argument, if he understood it aright, implied that if this emergency could have been foreseen 10 years ago it would have been supplied by the Land Act. It went further than that. It said it would have been supplied on the same terms as the Bill now before them. He confessed he thought that a questionable proposition. It was undoubtedly true that the Land Act conferred upon the Irish tenant a right up to that time unknown to the law of Ireland—a right still absolutely unknown to the law of England or Scotland—the right to claim compensation for the mere termination of the contract of tenancy, irrespective altogether of any claim which he might have for unexhausted improvements. It was true that, in some quarters, in the course of these debates, this provision had been spoken of as a principle which it was desirable we should extend further. To put the matter in plain language, it had been treated as the thin edge of the wedge to which, as time and opportunity offered, successive blows were to be given until it was driven home, and the whole fabric of the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland was shattered in the process. That was not a principle which had ever been put forward by the Government or accepted by the House. On the other hand, it was impossible to look back to the proceedings of 1870 without becoming convinced that, in accepting the 3rd clause of the Land Act, Parliament accepted it as altogether an exceptional provision. Parliament hedged and limited it around with special safeguards, for the express purpose of preventing it being extended further at any future time. It was also clear that, in return for the great sacrifices Irish landlords made in giving up a great portion of the powers which they formerly possessed, it was understood that the powers which remained to them were to be made more secure than before. It was said at the time—

"From the moment the measure is passed, every Irishman, small and great, must be absolutely responsible for every contract into which he enters."

These words showed the understanding as to the general effect of the Land Act; and what followed showed the understanding as to the particular provision with which they had now more especially to deal—

"And with regard to all prospective contracts, it is absolutely necessary that if the landlord evict for non-payment of rent, that should not be in the sense of the Bill a disturbance of the tenant by the landlord, for the tenant will disturb himself by non-payment of rent."—[3 Hansard , cxcix., 380–81.]

These were the words of the Prime Minister in the speech introducing the Bill—a speech which all who heard it still looked back to with admiration. Could words be clearer than those? Was it possible more admirably to express what was the intention with which the measure was proposed by the Government and accepted by Parliament? A great settlement like that to which the Land Act was the seal partook in a great measure of the sanctity of a contract entered into by Parliament itself. He would not contend that Parliament could bind the plenitude of its power by any legal contract; but he contended that a great settlement like that, so solemnly entered into, involving as it did a compromise of so many conflicting interests ought not to be disturbed without far weightier reasons than any adduced by the Government in support of this Bill. Were they justified in turning round upon the owners of land in Ireland and saying—"It is true these were the assurances given—honourably and sincerely given—by the Prime Minister himself in his place in Parliament. These were the promises on which we asked you to rely—these are the guarantees we gave when we compelled you to accept the Bill; but now 10 years have passed away, an unforeseen emergency has arisen. Circumstances are entirely changed; our minds are changed with them; and while we hold you, the owners of land in Ireland, bound by every clause of that Act which tells against you, we will invoke the strong hand of Parliament to suspend its operation the moment it begins to tell in your favour? "Was that the language which the Liberal majority were going to use to any class of their fellow-countrymen? If so, he could only say, as a humble Member of the Liberal Party, he sincerely lamented it; and he would venture to ask a plain, simple question—Was this justice? But if the Bill did not come up to the requirements of justice, did it fulfil the lower requirements of expediency? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, with all the tender instincts of a generous nature, shrank from the painful duty of enforcing the law. All honour to him for that reluctance. The cry of the poor debtor—"Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all"—came down to them with more than human sanction. It was one of those appeals to which the heart of man could never listen unmoved. But he would appeal to the experience of those who had large dealings in land; and ask whether the mere postponement of the payment of rent without any other relief was not one of the most questionable, he might almost say one of the most cruel, forms of help? Rent postponed was only another word for accumulating debt. If a tenant could not pay one half year's rent now, was he more likely to be able to pay two half years' rent six months hence, or four half years' rent in a year after that? Those who had experience would agree with him in saying that if they had a tenant in distress and wished to save him, they would not succeed in doing so merely by postponing the payment of rent; and the true and wise course was to find out what he could pay, to insist on his paying that at once, and to remit the balance altogether. By that means they stimulated the man to make a great effort; they released him from the millstone of debt hanging about his neck, and they gave him a fresh start in life. The 9th clause of the Irish Land Act showed that the framers of it were so deeply impressed with the dangers which would arise if these poor Irish tenants were allowed to run into accumulated debt, that they inserted a most remarkable provision by which the landlord subjected himself to a penalty if he allowed the tenant to run into three years' arrears of rent. Yet this Bill, which was called a logical deduction from the Land Act, would compel the landlord to do the very thing which the Land Act punished him for doing. If the position of the Irish tenant was such that it required special intervention now, what would it be in 1882, when he had to face these accumulated arrears of rent, when the protection given to him by this Bill would have ceased, and he would be exposed to the operation of the general law? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had said over and over again that he proposed this Bill as a temporary remedy for a temporary emergency, and, no doubt, he would be true to his word, and 18 months hence he would be precluded from prolonging this measure; but he would have to face a far graver emergency, and how was he to meet it? He must either turn a deaf ear to an outcry to which the present complaints would be as nothing, or else propose some large measure of relief, far greater than if the case were thus dealt with at the present moment. The House found itself in this position. The Government told them that the Irish tenants were in a state that required some assistance, and he, for one, accepted that statement with implicit confidence. But, asked, was there no other way in which assistance could be given, which was not open to the objections urged against the present Bill? Assuming that the Government must intervene for their relief, would it not be much better that their intervention should take the form of giving direct assistance to the Irish tenant to enable him to fulfil his contract rather than this indirect encouragement to evade, or, at all events, to postpone it? No doubt, to give State aid for such a purpose would be an infraction of the principles of political economy. But the condition of Ireland was so unhappy that the best course open to them was, after all, but a choice of evils; and surely it was better to choose a course which violated political economy, rather than the course prescribed by the Bill, which not only violated political economy, but justice itself into the bargain. If some such course as that could now be taken, the Government would no longer have to face such objections as those which were put forward by the Amendment before the House. It could not then he laid to their charge that they had attempted to cast the burden of providing for this great calamity upon one class. They would be able, on the other hand, to say that as the burden had to be borne, they had called upon the community at large, and not one class of it only, to bear it. They would also avoid that infinitely complicated and difficult series of objections arising out of the question whether, if they protected the tenant against his landlord, they were not also bound to protect the landlord against his creditors and mortgagees. If he might presume to appeal to the Prime Minister on an aspect of the question which affected more especially his own supporters, he would venture to say that if some such course could be taken the right hon. Gentleman would be saved a necessity, which must be to him a very painful one, of pressing upon Parliament a measure which was notoriously repugnant to many of his own steadiest supporters—a measure which he (Sir John Ramsden) considered to be so pernicious—that, deeply as he honoured and reverenced the right hon. Gentlemen as his Leader; long as he had followed him in the past, and faithfully as he had trusted he might be able to follow him in the future, still he felt that an overmastering sense of public duty constrained him for that one occasion, and he hoped for that occasion only, to place the ties of Party allegiance in abeyance, and to give his vote against the third reading of the Bill.

said, he intended to put in plain words the self-deceiving fallacies with which the hon. Baronet who had just spoken had amused himself for the last half-hour. He did not know whether the hon. Baronet was aware where his principles led him; for he appeared to oscillate between the programme of the Land League and the opinions of the most Conservative Members in the House. He said that when a landlord saw that his tenant was too poor to pay the full rent, he should make him pay all he could, and remit what he could not pay. That was the principle of the Land League—

I said, if it were his wish to save the tenant; but I did not say it was his legal duty.

Then, if not the legal, it was, according to the hon. Baronet, the moral duty of the landlord to remit that portion of the rent which he knew his tenant was unable to pay—and that was the principle of the Land League. The other principle which he could gather from the hon. Baronet's observations was that the landlords were the absolute owners of the soil. Now, there were about 500,000 tenants at will, or 2,500,000 persons dependent on tenancies at will in Ireland. Roughly speaking, there were 8,000 landlords; and the principle of the hon. Baronet, and of the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) was this, that 2,500,000 people—men, women, and children—ought to depend for their right to exist in their own land on the uncontrolled will of 8,000 landlords. [Sir JOHN RAMSDEN: I did not say anything of the sort.] He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) hoped the hon. Baronet would not interrupt him. That was a principle which the hon. Baronet dare not proclaim in the dominions of the autocratic Czar of Russia, for it was not the principle on which he had emancipated the serfs. It was not a principle which the most Conservative Member of the Prussian Assembly could dare to enunciate in face of the fact that the ownership of the land fixed in the tillers of the soil was one of the great principles on which the freedom and prosperity of Germany depended. It was not a principle that could be advanced in the French Assembly, in face of the fact that the most Conservative element and the most stable pillar of the Constitution of France was the ownership by the tenants of the soil of France. The Chief Secretary was more than polite in his expressions with reference to the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire; but he had gone out of his way to denounce everyone connected with the Land League. The right hon. Gentleman had truly said that all great remedial measures for Ireland had to be preceded by agitation. The reason of that was that it was difficult to get Parliament to attend to the first demands of Ireland, and it was for the same reason they found so much exaggeration of facts, and sometimes, perhaps, so much violence. There was a time when famine and epidemic had done their work, that the landlords of Ireland had before them a race of weak and cowering slaves; but they were now confronted boldly by a vigorous and determined peasantry. Passing to the statistics of the subject, he would remark that they were convincing against the opinions generally held by hon. Gentlemen sitting on that side of the House; but they were convincing, also, against the right hon. Gentleman himself. They showed that there was not a warning raised by the hon. Members who came from Ireland in 1870 against the Land Bill which was then introduced by the right hon. Gentleman that had not been verified by the relentless hand of time; and it had taken 10 years of ruined lives and desolated homes to bring the House of Commons in 1880 to the point which Irish Members had reached in 1870. To his mind the measure was most insufficient. If they went on the ground of distress, he would show them as much distress in the unscheduled as in the scheduled districts, and he would show them as many evictions. If they went on the ground of agitation and disturbance, he could indicate places in the scheduled districts which agitation had never reached and where the law had never been broken. He saw no reason that could be advanced in favour of the principle of limitation except that stated by the Prime Minister, when he said that if individual cases were to be discussed on their merits, he did not see where the discussion was to stop. This language, if it meant anything, meant that because the English Parliament had not time to consider the case of the unscheduled districts, evictions might go on there to any extent. He challenged any hon. Mem- ber of the House to produce a stronger argument than this in favour of Home Rule. The right hon. Gentleman did not know so much about Irish landlords as perhaps he did; but he would remind him of the words of Mr. Cobden concerning them, that "the annals of Irish landlordism stink in the nostrils of every Christian country." In England the landlords had generously remitted a portion of their rents; but in his own constituency, where 90 per cent of the people were receiving relief, not a penny had been taken for rent during the last three years. It was not Ireland alone, however, that was interested in this question. It was also an English one in more than one sense. They would have to deal one day with the English land question; and with what prospects of success would they approach a settlement of it if they received this most moderate Bill in such a spirit? If the timorous Liberalism which now talked of relieving Irish distress by the present measure was in power, he could foresee the result. It was also an English Bill in this sense, that the present law drove to English shores bands of hungry and desperate men, ready to do any work for any wage, and which made the battle of life harder for the English working man. He would only add that although the Bill was an honest and even a bold attempt to deal with a great calamity, it was a timorous and dangerous measure, and was vastly disproportionate to the tragic nature of the distress which it was designed to meet.

thought it would be a curious subject for consideration what had been the feelings of the occupants of the Treasury Bench during the delivery of the two speeches to which the House had just listened. By introducing this Bill the Government had sacrificed the support of some of the staunchest old Liberals in the House, and also that of some who returned to the present Parliament after a prolonged absence. They had spent a considerable time in discussing the details of the measure, and the reward of the Government was to hear the hon. Member for Galway, for the sake of whose countrymen the Bill was said to have been introduced, describe it as a timid and dangerous measure, and to claim the Prime Minister as a supporter of Home Rule. The mild rhetoric of the hon. Gentle- man the Secretary of the Admiralty was caught up and translated by Home Rule Members in a way he must regret. When he said that landlords were few and tenants many, his words were travestied, and made to mean that because landlords were few their rights were more easily destroyed and sacrificed in a time of difficulty. He was not one of those who felt touched by the sarcasm of the Chief Secretary, when the right hon. Gentleman spoke of men who were devoted to the sacredness of property. He had not the misfortune to be an Irish landlord. He would not be exposed to the calamity of being shot if he were in. Ireland, or of having the value of any property deteriorated while he might stay in England. He should hesitate to speak of the sacredness of property, and he did not attribute any special sanctity to the rights of a landlord. In all moral justice a landlord had no greater rights than any other creditor; but he had no lesser rights, and the law had no business to come in and destroy his property, by taking part of it from him, or by destroying the means it had itself already given to him of enforcing the contracts he had made. There were, no doubt, circumstances superior to any law of property or contract; but the interests of any particular class should only be sacrificed in face of great and imperious national danger and calamity. Anything short of this state of things should be met by national generosity, and not by oppressing one particular interest. In any other case it was obviously unjust to put upon the landed or any other single interest the charge for meeting the calamities that might befal any other single section of the community. There could be no doubt that great distress had fallen upon the tenantry in various parts of Ireland; but the mere fact that this was so showed that the landlords had suffered also. It was clear from the fact that in the non-scheduled districts there had been more evictions than in those included in the schedule. The landlords, in the last-named class of districts, had given longer time for the payment of the rents, and were, therefore, less able to bear the burden which it was proposed to put on their shoulders. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had prided himself upon the fact that the Bill had suffered but little change in its passage through Committee; but there was but little to change. The Bill had a Preamble, and four clauses only. Two of those clauses, the reasonableness of which was at once admitted, had been suggested by the right hon. and learned Member below him (Mr. Gibson); another was the clause giving the short title of the measure; and there remained only one clause which the Government themselves had brought in. He agreed that that clause was substantially unchanged. But the fact that the Bill had not been changed was the misfortune, and not the fault, of the Government, who had tried to change it, but had not been allowed to do so by hon. Members from Ireland. When the House was called upon to say whether the Bill should pass into law, the question was how far the measure, as it now stood, represented the wishes of Her Majesty's Government. When, some two months ago, the House was discussing the Address in answer to Her Majesty's gracious Speech, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in deprecation of a measure proposed to be introduced, characterized it as one for the suspension of the payment of rent; and on the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) explaining that the proposed measure was one for the suspension of eviction, the right hon. Gentleman was the first person to turn round and say that, in his judgment, that came to the same thing. And yet the right hon. Gentleman had felt himself justified in attacking bon. Members who sat on the Opposition Benches for describing the Government measure as one for the suspension of the payment of rent. The Government, who now prided themselves upon the fact that the Bill was unchanged, had made two serious, deliberate, and well-reasoned attempts to alter it. When the measure was first brought in, it was pointed out that serious injustice would be done if the penalties of the Bill were made to apply to a landlord who gave permission to a tenant to sell his interest in his holding, and, accordingly, the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law) framed a reasonable clause to exempt the landlord from the operation of the measure in such cases. The clause, however, was peremptorily condemned by a meeting of Irish Members, who declared that if it were inserted in the Bill the measure should not pass, and the consequence was that the Government gave way and withdrew the clause, and substituted another Amendment proposed by the Prime Minister himself, which had the great recommendation and advantage that nobody had yet been able to explain it. The ambiguous text of that Amendment bore one interpretation which satisfied, or, at all events, soothed, those hon. Members who sat on the Benches behind the Government; while it bore another, which recommended itself to another section of the House below the Gangway. The result was, that the House was worked to pass a legislative equivocation, the meaning of which the unfortunate County Court Judge would be left to puzzle out as best he might. He would refer to another important Amendment merely for the purpose of showing the manner in which it had been abandoned by Her Majesty's Government. The late Attorney General for Ireland had moved an Amendment limiting the operation of the Bill to holdings the rent of which was under £15 per annum; and, even with that limitation, it was clear that the measure would affect by far the larger proportion, of the holdings in Ireland, because it had been shown that in one county out of 33,000 holdings 24,000 were let at rents under £8 per annum. The Prime Minister, however, proposed that the limitation of £15 should be extended to £30. The proposal to limit the operation of the measure to holdings, the rent of which was under £15, was defeated on a division, and the Government were prepared to accept the £30 limit instead, when the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) talked the Bill out, much to the indignation of the Prime Minister. On the following day, however, Her Majesty's Government, after some show of coy reluctance, found it convenient that the matter should stand over until the Report; and now it appeared that the £30 limit had been extended from the rent to the rateable value, thus making the limitation practically useless. But while Her Majesty's Government had thus suffered themselves to be driven from their own Amendments by the opposition of the Irish Members, how differently had they treated the Amendments which had been proposed from the other side of the House? It had been stated that the measure was only intended to apply to the unhappy ten- ants who had been ruined by the disasters of the year. What could be more reasonable, therefore, than to exclude from its operation cases where tenants owed three or four years' rent? Again, it was said that the provisions of the Bill were only intended to apply in cases where the rent had been raised unreasonably. Then, what could be more reasonable than that the landlord should not be subject to the penalties imposed by the Bill where the rent had not been raised for the last ten years? These Amendments, however, had been rejected. Under pressure from below the Gangway they were obliged, against their will, to keep the Bill in the condition in which it originally was. There might be a case in which any sacrifice of property, any interference with private right, might be justifiable; and when this Bill was first introduced into the House of Commons, and described by the speeches of two responsible Ministers of the Crown, who had taken the greatest share in the preparation of this Bill, there did appear to be something like a case of national calamity and national necessity. In his speech, on introducing this Bill, the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister dealt with the humanity of the question, and appealed to the House in sentences which made a great impression, not upon the House only, but upon the public. The right hon. Gentleman appealed to the House to consider the case of those 15,000 persons who had been driven from their homes, and he made an impression upon the House and upon the public by that statement. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman shook his head. If he denied that he made an impression upon the public, he attached far less importance to his statement than he (Mr. E. Clarke) did himself. But one part of the case was that they had to interfere to protect hapless creatures from the cruelty and tyranny of their landlords. On the other hand, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant took the police view of the measure, and spoke of armies of men going about to execute evictions; and he was astonished to find that, even to-night, the right hon. Gentleman still seemed to think there was a sort of virtue in the figures he originally placed before the House. It was true, that if they took the number of the police, and multiplied them by the number of the evictions in in the course of half-a-year, of course they got a considerable number. But when the right hon. Gentleman spoke of 3,400 men being engaged in the West Riding of Galway in six months in carrying out evictions, did anybody believe, except those well acquainted with the facts, that only from 500 to 700 men were engaged in carrying out evictions in a year? You might as well talk of 300 men being engaged in carrying out the process of a County Court in England, because a solitary and not too-hard worked bailiff managed to serve a process on every working day in the year. But these figures had been subjected to examination, and had broken down at every point. It was suggested to the right hon. Gentleman that he should apply to the sub-Sheriffs for information; but, instead of this, he persistently contented himself with his favourite Constabulary. What did the figures come to? He would not go through the figures that had been given. [ Cheers .] He was very glad of that cheer, as the meaning of it was that hon. Gentlemen had these figures in their minds, and, if they had these figures in their minds, his object was gained. But there were two figures in his hand. He had a document signed by the Under Sheriff of County Donegal, which showed how those figures still more absolutely disappeared as the groundwork of this measure the more they were examined. It had been stated that 156 evictions had occurred in Donegal from the 1st of January to the 30th of June this year. His noble Friend the Member for the County of Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) gave an analysis of those figures, and pointed out to the House that 45 persons had been taken back as caretakers, that no less than 93 had signed acknowledgments and continued in their holdings, and that there were only 18 out of the 156 who had been ejected from their holdings. He (Mr. E. Clarke) would give the statement of the Under Sheriff with regard to those 18 cases. Of those 18 cases in which possession was given to the plaintiffs, three were in town, in one the premises were deserted, in two no houses at all were on the land; as to three others, they were cases of renewed ejectment, which might have been executed in 1879; in one case the tenant refused to sign the agreement as caretaker; one case was between mother and son; and as to the remaining seven cases, the particulars were not known. Now, it must be remembered that these figures were not mere ornament, but had been made the very groundwork of the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. And if, wherever they were able to test them, the figures broke down, as did these 156 cases, which shrunk down to 18 cases, of which only a portion were real ejectment cases, it really became the duty of Her Majesty's Government to consider on what ground this Bill was now offered to the acceptance of the House. He did not imagine for a moment that the Prime Minister or the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had, when making those speeches, any idea whatever that the figures could be modified in the way in which they had been. He believed they thought the figures represented absolutely the names of persons who were evicted and put out of their homes in Ireland. But if they were misled with regard to these facts, which formed the basis of the proposed legislation, was it not well for the House—was not the House entitled—to ask of them that they should re-consider the proposal that they had made? Would the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister get up to-night and repeat that sentence about 15,000 persons going out of their homes, without remedy and without hope? And if he could not with his present information repeat that sentence as a justification of the proposal he was asking the House to agree to, surely the House was entitled to ask him on what ground he now asked for an acceptance of this Bill. It was quite true there was another aspect of the figures put before the House. He was not going to quote a phrase—though he thought it was an unfortunate phrase—that had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. In the course of many nights' debate he had been called on again and again to justify the action he had taken in respect of this Bill. He was called upon to state the principles upon which the Bill was founded; and he would have been more than human if he could have stated the principle of the Bill without falling into some inaccuracy on some occasion or other. The right hon. Gentle- man told them that he was unwilling to face the responsibility of enforcing the law; on the ground of humanity, he thought it would be a grievous hardship if the law were enforced. But every other Minister in his position, or holding any other position in the Government, was sometimes called upon to enforce the law, though he believed its enforcement would be a hardship. The right hon. Gentleman was not the first Minister who had been called upon to enforce the law in circumstances of some difficulty and danger. But the important point was that the House was invited to adopt what the Chief Secretary and the Prime Minister called exceptional and temporary legislation, and to do so with respect to places where an agitation of a most mischievous character had been put in action—an agitation which would, by that Bill, be rewarded for its efforts in the past, and which would, he believed, be stimulated to more daring hopes and more desperate efforts in the future. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken in terms of emphatic and manly condemnation of the agitation which had gone on in Ireland among ignorant and excitable peasants; but it was not in Ireland only that that agitation existed. It had spoken in that House within the present Session, when the Chairman of Committees had to interpose, on the suggestion of the Chief Secretary himself, to check and rebuke an apology for assassination in Ireland. And the hon. Member who was thus rebuked was the very hon. Member whose persistency in talking the Bill out on that Wednesday was the cause of the subsequent surrender of the Government. Again, they had heard, only an evening or two ago, a declaration at the end of a speech from the hon. Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue) which pointed out to the Government the consequences of what they were doing. Perhaps it was hardly fair to attach more importance to the phrases of a prepared peroration than to the less premeditated parts of a speech; but the hon. Member for Tralee said—

"Whatever might happen to this Bill, the course taken by the Government has sounded the knell of the Irish land system;"

and he added—and these words deserved the particular attention of the Chief Secretary—

"In peace or in convulsion, by the law or in spite of the law, through the law or over the law, tenant right will be carried."

Declarations of that kind were made in that House. There was agitation in that House; there had been submission on the part of the Government; and that agitation was being helped and fed by the concessions which were made to it. When the great Election contest in March last was nearly over, among the various speeches then delivered none, he thought, served the Liberal Party more than the admirable speeches made by the noble Lord the present Secretary of State for India. That noble Lord asked towards the end of his campaign that a strong majority should be given to the Liberal Party, and pointed out that one of the great advantages of that majority would be that they would be free from the terror of those sectional influences which were then looked upon with something like dismay by all English politicians. Well, the appeal was answered. The great majority had been given to them. They had their great battalions, and their first campaign was a capitulation. To-night the House was asked to pass a Bill, which the hon. Member on whose behalf it had been brought in, and by whose dictation and under whose control it had passed through Committee, now repudiated, with something like contempt for the Ministry which had introduced it and something like pity for the Minister who thought that such pabulum would satisfy the appetite it was sought to appease. The Government had had warning with regard to that matter. It was too late, he supposed, for them to withdraw the Bill. It had been suggested to them more than once—whatever they might think of those suggestions—by their own supporters behind them, that that Bill was not one which could be satisfactorily passed through Parliament, and that it should be withdrawn. The opportunity had been lost, and he did not think that opportunities ever came twice. But if the Government could not make any concession now—if they were bound to their bargain, and must fulfil its terms—there was yet time for the House to interpose; and the speech of the hon. baronet (Sir John Ramsden) gave a hope that the House might interpose with effect. The responsibility was with that House, and not "elsewhere." The Mem- bers of that House could not escape from their responsibility in dealing with the Bill by thinking that ''elsewhere" it would be dealt with in another fashion. But he hoped it would not be left to Members on the Opposition side to make protest against that legislation. It was legislation which fed and fostered a dangerous agitation; which was supported, when first put before the House, by a case resting on figures which had absolutely broken down on every point. It was a measure which conflicted with the best principles and the best traditions of legislation; and now that they had introduced to the House and accepted the germ theory of legislative disorder, he thought it was a measure ominous of very wide-spreading and serious mischief if it was adopted, and its principles were allowed to affect their future legislation.

said, that if he was to judge from the speeches which had been made by the hon. and learned Member (Mr. E. Clarke) who had just sat down, and by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire(Lord Elcho), he should think that the actual provisions of the Bill now under discussion were about the last thing they had before them when forming the opinions to which they had that night given utterance. This Bill was not designed or calculated to put an end to the system of paying rent in Ireland. What the Government said was this—"Whereas, by the 3rd Section of the Land Act of 1870, you cannot evict tenants who come under that section in ordinary times without compensation, if you avail yourselves of extraordinary times to grasp an advantage which the Land Act never intended you should have, Parliament will take care that the spirit of the Land Act is not frustrated; and because it is the equity of the Land Act that in such cases you should pay compensation, compensation you must pay." That was the whole scope of the Bill; and, so far from its being, in the language of the hon. Member, "a departure from the vital principle of the Land Act," the Bill did thus much and no more—it applied the equity of the Land Act to unforeseen cases. After all the speeches he had heard, he failed to realize what it was that had excited such opposition to the Bill. When he saw the vehemence exhibited on the other side of the House, he was prompted to go to the landlords—to approach them in a spirit of real docility—and to say to them, "Come, let us reason together; tell me what it is that frightens you." There was nothing in the Bill itself which could frighten them; but he wanted to know what there was in connection with it at which they could be alarmed. Hon. Members said that the landlord had to live on his rents, and the only effective way by which he could get them in was to threaten ejectment. Why could he not threaten ejectment, that Bill notwithstanding? He wanted some hon. Gentleman to answer that. The landlord could threaten ejectment at the risk of having to pay compensation. But what had the tenant to prove before he could claim compensation? He hoped on that point nobody would be led away by what he had heard in the early stages of these debates—that the landlord would have to prove this, that, or the other. The landlord had nothing to prove. The whole burden of proof lay on the tenant. Was it true that this man, over whom the landlords were bewailing their loss of power, had to prove that he was unable to pay his rent by reason of inclement seasons? If so, the Irish landlord who was a just man, would not turn him out. He dared not do it for justice's sake, and would not do it for pity's sake. Was it also true that the tenant was to be willing to continue in occupation upon just and reasonable terms as to rent and arrears, and that the landlord was to have unreasonably refused a reasonable offer? Well, then, what did the Bill come to, after all? It came to this, but went no further—it said to the landlord, "Under these circumstances, you may evict; but, if you do, you must pay compensation to the miserable tenant." Was it not the extravagance of exaggeration to call such a Bill a dangerous and revolutionary measure? The Bill was a small Bill. Its tendency had been fiercely denounced, and its defects had been greatly exaggerated by hon. Gentlemen opposite; but it was certainly not the revolutionary measure many persons imagined. If a catastrophe awaited it in "another place," its rejection would only strengthen the hands of the more extreme reformers.

said, he intended to vote for the third reading of the Bill, as a measure of justice and conciliation to Ireland. Much had been said as to Irish discontent, the cause of which had often been investigated. It had been poetically asserted to be due to the influence of the melancholy ocean—a hypothesis that was rendered untenable by the fact that the ocean nearly surrounded Scotland also, which was far from being a discontented country. Others, adopting a more practical theory, had attributed the evils of Ireland to the predominance of the Roman Catholic religion; but a momentary glance at other Catholic countries was enough to dispel that idea. The plain and evident truth was that Irish discontent was the direct outcome of conquest, oppression, and confiscation, the bad effects of which had not as yet been completely removed. So difficult was the work of conciliation, that many Englishmen were inclined to say to Ireland—"Wayward Sister, depart in peace;" but that could never be. The Union was irrevocable. Ireland might not be the better half, but she had been taken for better or worse. No more important task could be undertaken by Parliament than that of making Ireland contented; but the entire responsibility would rest with us as long as we had to take special precautions against periodical outbreaks of violence, and as long as Irish children cried out for bread. Public opinion would always hold the rich and prosperous country accountable for the woes of the weaker people, and England herself would not enjoy domestic peace until she had done her utmost to make amends for the wrongs inflicted on Ireland. The question before the House was whether they ought not to be prepared to make considerable sacrifices to try and appease the discontent of Ireland. In that country the fear of emigration was before the eyes of the tenants when they agreed to pay exorbitant rents. For a great number of the unfortunate people of Ireland the law of supply and demand was modified and circumscribed by the continuous struggle between existence and exile. He was not prepared to say what shape the sacrifices ought to take; but he maintained that, for the sake of achieving the contentment of Ireland, we ought to be ready to put our hands into our pockets.

Sir, I am led to hope, from the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down, that he is about to record his vote against this measure; because, when he expressed his willingness to put his hand into his pocket for the benefit of Ireland, I felt convinced that he did not want to do so vicariously, by putting it into the pockets of other people. We have had two important speeches this evening from Members of Her Majesty's Government. One of them, from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty, being a very elaborate dissertation upon the general relations between landlord and tenant respecting payment of rent in all the countries of Europe—and, I may almost add, in all the countries of the world. He has discovered that, in every country except England, the landlord, in seasons of exceptional scarcity and failure of crops, is bound to give back to the tenant a portion of, or, perhaps, the whole, of his rent. The hon. Gentleman did not go on to say whether that was an entirely fair principle, or whether it should be carried further, so that, in the event of an exceptionally good season, the tenant should give something additional to the landlord. The statement of the hon. Gentleman, however, appears to me very significant. I cannot help thinking that the hon. Gentleman may, perhaps, have had something to do with the authorship of this Bill, and that we have in it not only a measure dealing with the exceptional distress considered to exist in Ireland at the present time, but a measure, faintly, perhaps, foreshadowing the policy of Her Majesty's Government with reference to the whole of the United Kingdom with regard to the question of the relations between landlord and tenant. ["Hear, hear!"] When, however, that proposal is made, it will be time enough to discuss it. I can assure hon. Members who cheer, that I should not have alluded to the question now had it not been previously raised by the hon. Gentleman. Now, with regard to the speech of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, that, I think, was more appropriate to the question before the House than the speech of the Secretary to the Admiralty. The right hon. Gentleman defended this as an exceptional measure brought in solely to deal with exceptional circumstances, and, certainly, he has, in the course of his speech, made two assertions which might place those who replied to it in some little difficulty He has told the House that everybody who, speaking on behalf of the Irish landlords, expressed the belief very widely felt by Irish landlords, that this Bill was tantamount to depriving them of a large portion of their rents for the period during which it would be in force, was, in effect, bringing about the very events which he deprecated. I think the right hon. Gentleman forgot that these prophecies of evil, whether true or exaggerated, have been made, not only by Irish landlords and hon. Members sitting on this side of the House who represent them, but by public writers and speakers belonging to his own Party, and that their force had been felt in the minds of his Colleagues who have lately left Her Majesty's Government. I do not now wish to deal with this question as it may affect the present Irish landlords. I believe that, under the provisions of this Bill, you are doing them a terrible injustice; but I think that enough has been said on that point, and I desire to approach the subject from another point of view. But the right hon. Gentleman has addressed to us another argument. He said—"If you don't pass this Bill, I absolve myself from all responsibility for the administration of the law in Ireland. To be consistent with justice, the law requires to be altered in an important particular; and if Parliament declines to do it, I throw the responsibility on Parliament." I venture to say that the right hon. Gentleman has no right to throw a responsibility of that kind upon Parliament; and I suggest to him that before doing so, he should, to use his own words, at least do his utmost to promote law and order, and try, by careful inquiry, to find out why the law is resisted and order disturbed in Ireland. Her Majesty's Government have undertaken, as I understand, a careful inquiry on the subject of the relations between landlords and tenants in Ireland; but they have brought in this Bill without waiting the result of that inquiry which they themselves have instituted. I confess it appears to me most dangerous, without any such inquiry, to introduce a measure of the kind now before the House; as the effect of that measure, whether whether passed or not, but most certainly, if passed, must be to encourage agitation in Ireland and trouble in the future. Let me take the Bill as it presents itself to the right hon. Gentleman, and as it has been recommended to the House. I do not doubt for a moment the right hon. Gentleman believes that it is merely a measure to deal with certain hard cases which he surmises, rather than proves, may arise during the time of its operation. I do not doubt for a moment that, in. his mind, the Bill wears none of those characteristics which it seems to wear in the minds of everybody else except those whose affection for the Government may, perhaps, blind their judgment. I am not referring to those who sit on this side of the House, or to that section of the Liberal Party who may be opposed to the principle of this Bill; I appeal to the Irish Members, and to what they themselves have stated. It was only a few nights ago that the hon. Member for Meath proposed a remarkable Amendment upon the Report of the Bill. He said that the Irish Members had condemned the measure as so painfully inadequate to the terrible emergency, that many Irish Members had doubted whether it was worth while to discuss it at all; and many who followed him said that it was totally insufficient. These hon Gentlemen are, as I believe, intending to vote for the third reading of this measure, notwithstanding that they think it inadequate for its purpose. Why is that? I think I can find a reason in some words which fell from the hon. Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue), who said he would support the Bill, because its principle was that the arbitrary fixing of rent should not be left to the landlord, and because it was a practical condemnation of the existing land system in Ireland. Now, that, at any rate, is the view taken by Irish Members, whether they are of the Conservative Party, or Whigs, Radicals, or Home Rulers, as to the meaning and effect of this Bill. And I am bound to say that, as I understand the Bill, that view is perfectly justifiable; not only because the measure contains the principle that the tenant shall be permitted, under certain circumstances, to sell a right of occupancy for which he has never paid; not merely because it is left to the County Court Judge, under certain circumstances, to fix in future the rent of his holding—thus adopting that principle which the Prime Minister himself, a few days ago, admitted was included in the Bill, but to which he confessed he had great objections as a permanent measure, and which had been characterized by the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington) as absolutely incompatible with freedom of contract—it is not merely because the Bill includes that principle; it includes, also, the power to the County Court Judge, having before him a contract freely entered into between the landlord and tenant, to decide, although these parties have agreed upon a certain average rent, that, in a bad year, the landlord should lose, and that in a good year he is not to gain. It includes the principle that the State may release one party from the liability he has incurred while leaving him the advantages he has obtained by his bargain. This appears to me to be a principle of more dangerous import than any which, so far as I can remember, was put forward during the land agitation, when I had the honour to hold the Office of Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. The first public enunciation of it seemed to have come from the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell), when he recommended the tenant farmers in the County of Limerick in August last to pay no rent until they got a further reduction, but to keep a firm grip upon the land. But that is not all. Words have fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland which filled me with further alarm. In referring to the clause under which a creditor cannot seize in execution an instrument of the debtor's trade, he compared that with the position of the landlord and tenant, and said that land might be regarded as an instrument of the tenant's trade—the land which has always been supposed to be the property of the landlord and not of the tenant. I do not wonder that Irish Members representing the popular Party, are prepared, after a decent show of dissatisfaction, to accept this Bill as an instalment of what they hope to get. That is the way in which this Bill is regarded by all except Her Majesty's Government and those who blindly follow them in their views upon this subject, and this fact adds to the danger to which its passing would probably lead. Because, what will happen? The right hon. Gentleman anticipates that this Bill will have a very limited application. But, if that is the case, will it satisfy the people of Ireland? Will it not rather have the effect of promoting more agitation, dissatisfaction, and trouble in that country than would result from the widest application of its provisions? Whether we judge from the history of this Bill, or whether we judge from its probable working in Ireland, I can conceive nothing more likely to promote agitation in that country than this measure. The right hon. Gentleman said, at an earlier period of this debate, it was his belief that by passing this Bill we should destroy agitation. But how can we destroy agitation by establishing the principle for which the agitators contend, taking care to limit its application in point of time and space, so that it cannot possibly content those who have contended for it? What has been the history of its passage through this House? It was not referred to in the Speech from the Throne, and no allusion was made to its principle in the first stages of the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Bill. Nothing was heard of it until late one evening, when the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) pressed forward his Bill for practically prohibiting evictions throughout Ireland. The Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland could not make up his mind on that occasion whether he would support that Bill or not, and he postponed his decision, informing the House that a statement would be made by the Prime Minister. That statement was made. It was not altogether intelligible to the House; and, consequently, an hon. Member rose in his place to say that, as he understood the Chief Secretary for Ireland would support the second reading of the Bill, he begged to give Notice that he should move its rejection. The Chief Secretary for Ireland then again said he had not made up his mind whether or not to support the measure, and a very short time afterwards Notice of this Bill, in the shape of a clause to be added to the Belief of Distress (Ireland) Bill, appeared on the Table of the House of Commons. Until then, nothing whatever had been said to show that, in the opinion of the Government, there was any necessity for such a measure as this. The Bill was subsequently brought in as an ordinary measure. What happened since has been detailed in the speech of the hon. Member for Plymouth, and I will only add one quotation to what he said with reference to the change in the intentions and proposals of the Government upon the clause which stood in the name of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law). On the second reading of the Bill, the Prime Minister said—

"No Judge in his senses could possibly allow the Act to apply in cases where the landlord had teen willing to allow the tenant to sell his goodwill."

And the clause of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland was proposed, at a later period, to carry out that undertaking. But when the clause was withdrawn, and when the words proposed by the Prime Minister were inserted in the Bill, what was the interpretation put upon these words by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland? The old position was no longer defended, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman said—"If the tenant tries to sell and cannot sell, the landlord is to be liable for damages." I do not at all mean to say, in referring to this point, that the Government ought to attempt to pass a measure without considering reasonable Amendments, from whatever quarter they might come. But I say that the history of the progress of this Bill through the House of Commons shows the influence of the hon. Member for Cork City and his Colleagues over the Government; that it is an earnest to the Irish people that a continuation of the same pressure will remove any limits and restrictions which, in their minds, now encumber this Bill; that it is a proof that no sufficient consideration was given by Her Majesty's Government to the provisions of this Bill before it was proposed; and that, if, indeed, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ever really apprehended the difficulty of the question with which he had to deal, he had no idea of what is likely to be the future working of the Bill. He anticipates it will only apply to a few hard cases; he thinks that the landlords, when their tenants are unable to pay, will not be discouraged by the possibility of a heavy fine from bringing their cases before the County Court Judge, who will be able to distinguish between tenants who can pay and will not, and tenants who would pay but cannot. But I ask, will that be satisfactory to the people of Ireland? Again, supposing these cases come frequently before the County Court Judges in this way, you have left them, as I have endeavoured to explain before, the widest possible latitude for difference of opinion under the provisions of this Bill, upon the question of what constitutes the inability to pay rent, upon the extent of which it will be necessary to prove the failure of crops, and upon what may constitute a reasonable alternative on the part of the landlord. Upon these points some of the Judges may, undoubtedly, take a view more favourable to the tenant, and others to the landlord. Now, with regard to the limits within which this Bill is to apply. What is the reason the Government have adopted the Schedule of this Bill? In February, when the Schedule of distressed Unions was drawn up. it was, no doubt, correct. But can it be said that, now we are in the month of July, that the circumstances of the case are so unchanged that this Schedule is still applicable? Can it be said that there are no cases of distress or evictions without the limits of that Schedule, and that all the hard cases are likely to occur within its limits, and that all the places scheduled are places to which the Bill ought to apply? I cannot conceive anything more likely to cause troubles in Ireland than the arbitrary limits you have adopted. You will have a tenant in one Union receiving no compensation, who knows perfectly well that he has suffered more than his neighbour in the adjoining electoral division who has received it. The Bill is to hold good for a couple of years. But what may happen during that time? Are we certain to have good harvests in that period, and are we sure that the tenants, whose rent has been postponed, will be in a better position at the end of that time than they are now? On the contrary, is it not probable that their position will be worse? Again, if a tenant holding at the termination of the Bill, has bonâ fide paid something for the tenant right of his farm, is it not clear that you will be absolutely compelled to continue the Bill, so far as to meet his claim? All these points must arise at the end of the term, and will, I venture to say, unless the Bill is made permanent, cause far greater and more reasonable agitation in Ireland than anything that has occurred in our time. Practically, you are now passing a measure extending over the whole of Ireland; you are enacting the Tenant-right of Ulster for the other Provinces, and pre-judging the labours of the Commission which you yourselves have appointed. But, if it is exceptional, I maintain that no justification whatever of such exceptional legislation has been presented to this House. The figures, as to evictions, so far as they have been laid before the House, have been shown to afford no basis of justification; while the statistics of the number of Constabulary necessary to execute processes in Galway prove absolutely nothing. For it has certainly not been shown that the cases in which 50 policemen are employed for this purpose would be met by this Bill. Again, with regard to distress. There was very serious distress in Ireland last winter which required exceptional legislation; but where are the proofs that the distress continues at the present moment? Is it not the fact that the savings banks' deposits are increased; that the poor rates are little higher than in ordinary years; that there is a promise of an abundant harvest, and that the Dublin Mansion House Committee is likely to dissolve, in view of the improved state of the country? But, if the measure cannot be justified in that way, it certainly cannot be defended at all; for it is one which satisfies nobody, and must result either in increased agitation or ruin to the landlords. What have the Irish landlords done to deserve the latter alternative? I believe that during the recent distress in Ireland landlords have done, and are still doing, their duty side by side with their tenants, and that there is no sufficient ground whatever for the allegation that systematic evictions are contemplated in any part of the country. Both this Parliament and the last have chosen the Irish landlords to be the instruments for dispensing the relief granted by the State during the period of distress; and their reward is, that you are now about to pass a measure which they believe will deprive them of the means, not only of meeting the liabilities you have induced them to incur, but also former liabilities in connection with their property in the scheduled districts. The Land Act of 1870, not only at the time it was passed, but for long afterwards, was held up to us by its authors as a final and conclusive settlement of the Land Question in Ireland; surely, if they deem it necessary now that this settlement shall so soon be re-opened, it ought to be approached with due deliberation. I can conceive nothing less answering that description than the hurry in which this Bill was brought in—a Bill laying down principles which, if included in any permanent measure, this House would not sanction, and which, if not continued at the end of the term for which the measure is proposed, will have simply raised in the minds of an excitable and imaginative people hopes that can never be realized. I hope the House will yet pause before it passes this Bill. We have heard more than one eloquent protest against its provisions from hon. Members on the Benches opposite, and more than one expression of a hope that it would be withdrawn by Her Majesty's Government. I trust that many, to-night, may be found to imitate the manly resolution of the hon. Baronet the Member for the West Riding (Sir John Ramsden), who stated his determination to vote, as well as speak, against a measure which, I agree with him, in believing to be most pernicious to the true interests of the people of Ireland.

I think the House will agree with me that the moment at which we have arrived is one of considerable gravity. I feel the responsibility of the Government. The effect of that feeling is to make me sincerely anxious to avoid, in what I have to say, using language of a controversial nature. I think that great responsibility also rests upon the House, whose ultimate judgment determines the fate of all great questions in this country. Great responsibility also rests upon the Members of this House, each of whom contributes his individual part towards the decision of the question. I must allude to the fact that impressions have gone abroad about this Bill which are far from being accurate. Exaggerations have been spread about, which I will not now bring before the House, exaggerations which some may deem, as I do, monstrous and utterly unfounded. Well, Sir, if this Bill should pass, I have no doubt that the proceedings of the Courts in Ireland, to which I am glad to see the occupiers of land have, of late years, been in the habit of resorting with increased sentiments of confidence, will cause these exaggerations gradually to melt away. If this Bill should not pass, and should fail, after the sincere, and, at the same time, very positive statements and declarations of hon. Gentlemen opposite—I do not say Gentlemen connected with that side of the House exclusively—those declarations will constitute a formidable fact in the government of Ireland, because the people of Ireland will have been told by a great Party in this country, and by individuals worthy of all respect, that this was a Bill which was to have conferred upon the occupier of the soil privileges and gifts of enormous magnitude, disappointment in their hopes of receiving which they will ascribe to the acts of the Legislature. Sir, that is a very grave state of facts, which I trust hon. Members of tins House will lay to heart. It has been said, and said boldly, that the ground upon which this Bill was originally recommended to the House has disappeared from under our feet. It is grievous to me to obtrude myself upon the House for the purpose of testing, even for a short time, that allegation; but it will be felt that it must be done. It was recognized as a promise in honour on our part that we should state how far we admitted, and how far we refused to admit, the criticism of farts or estimates submitted by us to the House, and it would have been much more agreeable to us to do this at an earlier period of the discussion; but the House will understand that we did not dare to interpolate extracts in the discussions which arose, and, therefore, we felt compelled to reserve to a later stage of the Bill the discussion of these points to which I am now referring. Again and again it had been repeated that the object of this Bill is held by us to be simply the relief of distress, as if we were in honour bound to find out the exact amount of distress in every Union in Ireland, and to administer to it the same amount of relief. It has never been simply the amount of distress on which we have founded the justification of the Bill. It has been the amount of distress as connected with the government of Ireland, and as creating difficulties in the government of Ireland which have brought us, I will not say to the verge of civil war, but I will say within a reasonable distance of that terrible catastrophe. And what is the answer of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach)? It is quite true that the geographical circumscription is rough, and little satisfactory; but the geographical circumscription is perfectly adequate. It covers the district in which the danger to public law and order arose, and to which the Government thought it necessary to direct the notice of the Legislature last winter, and of which we feel compelled by our responsibility to take notice in this Bill. The most vital fact of a statistical character, upon which we have founded a justification of this Bill, is not the number of evictions, but the difficulty found in giving effect to the processes of law. If there is one single fact upon which I will take my stand, it is that which has been repeated so frequently to-night. Putting aside evictions altogether, and looking only to the service of processes, in the single County of Galway, in a few months of this year. I say the conclusion is inevitable. In one part of that single county there were 63 processes of law, which had to be sustained, on an average, by nearly 70 of the Constabulary force. Of course, many of those processes required the presence of a much smaller number of Constabulary; but it is also true that some required a much larger number. That, Sir, is the main presentation of the case on which this Bill was originally justified. No doubt, evictions were referred to; and now, let us come to them. The hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) appeared to create a great impression on his Friends, and was exceedingly bold in his challenges to opponents, by the confidence with which he stated his case. He was understood to contend that the evictions in the non-scheduled districts and counties were quite as numerous, if not more numerous, than in the scheduled districts. If that be true, it was undoubtly important. It goes, if not to the root of the Bill, to a certain extent to weaken the case of the Bill. We do not admit the statement or the figures of the hon. Member. I take the year 1879. According to my statement, the scheduled counties in that year give 826 evictions, and the rest of Ireland gives 272 evictions. I take the first quarter of 1880, and in the scheduled counties there were 383 evictions, and in the rest of Ireland 107 evictions. I am now speaking of the Constabulary Returns, to which the hon. Member also refers. In the second quarter of 1880 there were in the scheduled counties 550 evictions, and in the rest of Ireland 137 evictions; so that it will be found that, in the 18 months, while there were 1,700 evictions in the scheduled counties, there were in the rest of Ireland only something over 500 evictions. So much for the very imposing statement of the hon. Member, which he said it would be impossible for us to escape from. I now go back to the statement of the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), which has been resumed with additional notes of triumph by the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. E. Clarke), whom I beg to congratulate upon the able speech with which he has introduced himself to the present Parliament. From the statement of the noble Lord there arise these four main propositions. First of all, that Donegal must be taken as a fair sample of Ireland—which, undoubtedly, it is not—I do not say that he said so much, but that was to be inferred from his statement, for it was said immediately after that he had destroyed the statistics we had produced and upon which we defended our case. The second proposition of the noble Lord was that the conversion of tenants into caretakers was a great matter; and that when it had been shown that a number of tenants were retained as caretakers, they had only to get rid of the phrase, and they no longer ought to be taken into account. That was as if a mere change of phrase would get rid of the fact that they had been evicted. The third statement was—and this was the most important by far, and has been repeated, to-night, by the hon. and learned Gentleman—that because in the County Donegal, out of 150 cases of eviction, in 93 the tenant, signed acknowledgment without disturbance, they were continued in their holdings. What is the meaning of "being continued in their holdings?" What I fixed as the interpretation at the moment, and what the hon. and learned Gentleman supposes is, that, by an acknowledgment of the debt in 93 cases, the persons referred to were continued in their holdings. Sir, they were nothing of the kind; every one of them was ousted from his tenancy and reduced to the condition of a caretaker—that is, allowed to remain under the roof from day to day at the mercy of the landlord, without goodwill, without rights of any kind, in a condition of as complete dependence as if they were under the roof of a workhouse. That was the position of those caretakers. They are liable to be ejected at any time without notice or demand by the landlord. But their case need not be considered in detail, because, except in the County Donegal, there are not many in that position. Then comes the question—the most important question—that of actual evictions. On the whole, they were very few; and a reference has been made to an estimate of mine, in which, founding myself on the number of evictions computed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law), I said that 15,000 persons would, during the present year, be rendered homeless and hopeless. Those words had relation to a computation for the whole year, as to six months of which we have no Returns. Had we fixed the third reading of the Bill for to-morrow, hon. Members would have had in their hands Returns from the Sheriffs for the last six months of the present year. I will now give an analysis of those Returns. The total number of evictions for Ireland is 1,701, and those ejected outright were 695. Those re-admitted as caretakers were 745; but the other re-admissions, which in individual instances might be re-admissions as tenants, only amounted to 261. Let the House understand this, that, so far as our information enables us to judge, the re-admission to tenancies are so slight in these Returns, that they are hardly worth taking into account.

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that those Returns are to supersede those which we have?

Not at all to supersede. These are the Judicial statistics; whereas what we have had are Constabulary statistics. The Judicial statistics include all cases in the Constabulary statistics; but only those cases are included in the Constabulary statistics which are reported through the Constabulary. It would be observed that 695 was the number of families actually evicted. Now, Sir, what are we to say of these caretakers, with regard to whom it seems to be supposed that the whole matter is pretty well disposed of when you have proved that those persons are admitted as such. I have described them as having no rights whatever in respect of their holdings. Here is an agreement which has to be signed. It is kept ready printed for the purpose of being signed by the caretaker. He promises that he will give up the holding with quiet and peaceable possession to the landlord or his agent, whenever required to do so—there is no process, there is no notice, there is no right or title of any kind. He is not, it is true, in the workhouse; but he is as much dependent as if he were. I wish to point out to the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) and to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Plymouth (Mr. E. Clarke) into what an error they have fallen. They have assumed that the caretakers were allowed to remain in their holdings; but if they are not, you must add the number of caretakers ejected to the number of tenants ejected. I have stated that there were 745 caretakers. What assumption am I to make about the duration of their sojourn—I can call it nothing else—in their holdings? I go back to the year 1879—I must judge from that year, for during the present year I have no facts with regard to them. In 1879, I find that of the number of caretakers in the different holdings, 36 per cent were summarily evicted. I must add this 36 per cent of caretakers evicted to the 695 families directly evicted, because caretakers are quite as effectually, though indirectly, evicted. The number of families evicted is thus brought up to 970, and, taking five as the proportion of persons to each family, we get 4,947; or, in round numbers, 5,000 persons for one half-year in actual eviction. Is it true that those statistics are frivolous, or that they have been torn to ribbons, as has been said with an air of satisfaction and triumph? I never supposed that those 5,000 persons had been exposed to great physical suffering, because I know that everyone has a right to obtain shelter in the workhouse. But while those figures fully justified my epithets, "houseless and homeless," I say that, besides these, there were no less than 700 other families, with respect to whom it may be said that they were deprived of civil status, of tenancy, of all fixed means of livelihood, and placed entirely at the mercy of the landlord or his agent. These were 3,500 more, and, added to the 5,000, they make 8,500, with regard to whom the epithets, "houseless and homeless," if they were not literally true, were literally true with regard to two-thirds; and as to the rest, true in spirit and as to the main part of the allegation. In this state of things, it is notto be expected that Her Majesty's Government, so far as they founded themselves upon evictions should, in the slightest degree, recede from the ground which they have taken up; nor must you merely look at the absolute number of those evictions. It is all very well to say that they were one in 330, or one in 360. Let us compare them with what they have been in former years; and let us lay this fact to heart, that the evictions of the last six months ending the 30th of June are five times more in number than the evictions of the corresponding half-year three years ago. Who will say that that is not a serious state of things? In our judgment it is a serious state of things, and it is a state of things that has been growing more and more serious from week to week and from month to month; and there in a great degree is our answer to the right hon. Gentleman, when he says—

"Why did you not act on coming into Office? Why did you not announce what you intended to do with regard to Ireland?"

As if the right hon. Gentleman had left us so little to do. I beg pardon for that allusion; I did not intend to have made it, nor did I wish to mix up this controversy with other matters grave enough in themselves. Well, then, we hold that the necessity for this measure stares us steadily in the face; but we hold also that the measure has been carefully and strictly fenced, so that it would be in the power of none to extend it as a precedent, or as an authority, beyond the necessity in time and place to which it is to be applied. But, then, you will say that the restrictions are futile. The right hon. Gentleman has again attempted to make it appear that the Bill has been seriously altered. The Bill has been altered in one point, and in one point alone, and that is in favour of the views of the right hon. Gentleman. As it was introduced into Parliament the Bill embraced the whole of the tenancies in the scheduled districts; but a limited number of those, and not an unimportant fraction of the whole tenancies of the scheduled districts are now excluded from it. And it is not the right hon. Gentleman, but hon. Gentlemen sitting below the Gangway, who are in a condition, if they think fit, to complain of the alteration of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman thinks that we have, in all things, yielded to the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) and his Friends; and the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth was copious upon this subject. I wish the hon. and learned Gentleman no worse than this—that he had attended the House during the Committee on the Bill, as he has attended the third reading, and he would then have had much better means than he at present has of judging of the view which was taken by the hon. Member for Cork City, and his Friends, of the limitations which the Bill contains. If the hon. and learned Member had been here during the weary hours of the night, whilst these questions were contested, and of which no record remains—[Mr. E. CLARKE: I did.]—well, I am astonished that, if he did so, the hon. and learned Gentleman is not a more careful historian, because, sitting here, he would seem to be totally unconscious of what took place, and of the deliberate and determined efforts made by a small, but a very resolute, body of the House to break down those restrictions and restraints which you have deprecated, I think most imprudently, but which we conceive to be of the essence of the Bill, and which we think are the conditions of its safety. Sir, I had a proof of the importance of those limitations afforded us by the premeditated and tenacious discussions of last Monday night as to the sale of the tenant's goodwill. The House knows that that provision was objected to by the hon. Member for Cork City who, at one time, went so far as to intimate the probability, on account of it, of his opposition to the Bill. Not that alone, but the local limitation was again fought for hours in this House; and, what was more important still, was the discussion on the Preamble. When we came to the discussion on the Preamble, it was announced as a discovery by the hon. Member for Cork City and some of his Friends, that this was not a Bill for the relief of distress, but only a Bill for the relief of a particular kind of distress within certain local limits, and due to a particular cause—namely, the failure of crops. But that was what had been announced by my right hon. Friend from the first. We had all along from the first said that this was not a Bill for the relief of distress generally, but a Bill for the relief of distress due to the failure of crops—just as Acts of Parliament in the last century were founded not upon distress in general, but upon particular distress; but, most manfully, a struggle was made to get rid of most, if not all, those limitations or guarantees which we were told would have removed what was dangerous in the features of the Bill. We adhere to one and all of them. I must say that we were not assisted by those who see, or are supposed by some persons to see, in this Bill the elements of such great danger. I do not make any complaint, and I am not entitled to make any complaint, on that ground. Now, Sir, the right hon. Gentlemen opposite (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) says the Party to which I refer will support this Bill on the present occasion. It may be so. They have made no such communication to us; I have not, at any time, had communication with them, except on the floor of the House, and what I have gathered from the public journals which are open to the world. If they support the Bill, why will they support it? You say because it gives a sanction to their principles. [An hon. MEMBER: No!] An hon. Member justly says "No!"—with justice, because it does not give a sanction to their principles. I will say that I do not believe it inflicts a blow upon their principles. That would be presumptuous, uncharitable, and unfair on my part; but I believe it does inflict a blow, and does offer an obstacle, to that reckless and unscrupulous agitation out-of-doors, which has been spoken of with just indignation by my right hon. Friend;(Mr. W. E. Forster)—and it is a vain endeavour to oppose agitation of that sort by merely denouncing it. Agitation of that sort never lives except with something of justice to support it; and it is the duty of the Legislature to take away that something of justice from the mouth of the agitator, and then to denounce him, and then to repress, and, if need be, to punish. It is not that the Bill satisfies the Party to which I have referred; but it is, and I speak in their hearing, though without their authority, that they will not take the responsibility in the face of Ireland of rejecting a measure which they feel will be, as far as it goes, a measure of relief. That is the relation in which we stand with the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) and his Friends. Now, I make no complaint of what I may call the Tory opposition to this Bill. I deeply lament the great exaggeration, by which it appears to me the objects of the Bill have aggravated the difficulties, not so much of the Government as of the general situation as to the carrying on of the public affairs and duties of Ireland—but, speaking generally, I am not surprised at the Tory opposition to it. [An hon. MEMBER: And the Whig opposition.] Will the hon. Gentleman, as a particular favour, allow me to arrange my thoughts for myself? I do think their order cannot be, in the least degree, amended by his charitable suggestion. I am not at all surprised at the Tory opposition to the Bill. The Party opposite were opponents of the Land Act, as they are of this Bill. The true sentiment of the Party opposite, with respect to the Land Act, was that expressed by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) when he said that in this Bill were embodied and developed its worst and most vicious principles. The Land Act was accepted by them as a necessity. That is not a matter of complaint that I make. In a slight degree, I state it only as a matter of history. The Act of 1870 was the Act of the Liberal Party. And now, Sir, come to those who are not Tories, and who have had objections to urge against this Bill; and I say I think it is difficult for any hon. Gentleman taking his stand—as my hon. Friend behind me did in a speech, the feeling of which I could not but admire, while I deplored the conclusion—it is difficult, I think, for anyone taking his stand on the debates of 1870, and, upon the conclusions of the House of Commons of 1870, to take exception to this Bill. The hon. Gentle man has quoted, and has quoted justly words of mine; but those words must be interpreted by the aid of contemporaneous Acts. And what were the contemporaneous Acts, and what were the provisions of the Land Bill as it left this House with the unanimous assent of that Cabinet, containing, as it did, many Statesmen of weight, experience, know- ledge of Ireland, and known moderation. Why, Sir, that Act left this House with a clause, which expressed the true sentiments of the Liberal Party, that the non-payment of rent should, as a general rule, evacuate and destroy the claim for disturbance, but that rent might be taken into view by the Chairman of the Court under special circumstances. Now, Sir, I stand here to state, boldly and without fear of contradiction from any quarter, of that clause which the Liberal Party of 1870, and which the large majority of the House of Commons in 1870, sent to the House of Lords as the deliberate expression of its view—had that clause remained in the Bill, we never should have been before you for the Bill we are now asking you to pass. That clause would have sufficed, and more than sufficed, to do all that is necessary. Sir, it is true, indeed, that, in one point this Bill goes beyond the Act of 1870—that is to say, that it admits tenancies established since 1870 to a very limited share of what the Act of 1870 gave to tenancies established before 1870. But, at the same time, is it a strange thing that, at a time like this, that we should and that there is some occasion to introduce a modification into that Act in behalf of what has since occurred? Hon. Gentlemen, it appears to me, too persistently exclude from their view the extra legal state of things they have created. The Acts of Parliament they have passed are founded on principles of supporting one portion of the country wholly or partly at the expense of the whole. The great grants of money we have made are most of them from an Irish Fund, in which Ulster has a large share; but what does Ulster get? A mere trifle. The landlords and tenants of the districts which get these great sums of public money seem to have broken up in those districts the whole principles of the Poor Law. With regard to 5,000,000 of acres in Ireland, whole principles of the Poor Law have been set aside. I believe I have stated the figure correctly, in the hearing of my hon. Friend, that in over 5,000,000 of acres—[Mr. SHAW-LEFEVRE: Nearly 6,000,000]—that in nearly 6,000,000 of acres the population of the country are receiving out-door relief without giving up their holdings. Is that a small matter which you have created, I do not say without any necessity? To talk of the money in the saving hanks is all very good; but why did you pass these extraordinary Acts of Parliament, founded on principles which nothing but the strongest necessity can justify—principles which, if you adopt them except under necessity, lead you straight into Communism? We are told this is a case where we are going to place on one class only the burden of the relief of exceptional distress. Upon one class only! Has the law placed anything upon that one class already? Is not that one class already bound to maintain every one of these distressed persons and their families? Is that so, or not? Is not what we are laying on them, if we are laying anything at all, anything but the merest trifle in comparison with that liability, which is a fixed liability of the Irish Poor Law, and which is the immemorial principle of the Poor Law of this country—namely, that the subsistence of the people is to be had in the last resort and extremity from the land? In regard to these statements, I think it was the hon. Member for Lei trim (Mr. Tottenham) himself—I should be very glad if I am wrong, but I think it was the hon. Member—who told us, in a late debate, we were handing over £5,000,000 a-year from the landlords in Ireland to the tenants. Is it possible really to suppose we, as responsible men, are upon these grave matters to be guided by a spirit which betrays a Gentleman like the hon. Member into such enormous and even immeasurable calculations? No doubt, an imagination raised to the fever point was necessary in order to enable him to devise that wonderful statement, which I thought I heard, but in regard to which I hardly could believe my own organs of hearing. It is no wonder that hon. Gentlemen with an imagination in that state could frame strange notions and make speeches containing heavy charges. But, Sir, let anyone calmly and quietly read the provisions of the Bill. Let him give us whatever credit we deserve—I do not know that we deserve any credit; but he can give us the acknowledgment that we have maintained the limitations which we have attached to the main provisions of the Bill—and let him ask himself seriously whether he can believe that the Bill, as it now stands, will do more than for the most part by preventive, but also to some extent by remedial, operations, to restrain these extreme and extravagant employments of the rights of property which no wise, discreet, or humane man would dream of making use of in the circumstances of Ireland, but which some men, if not inhuman—God forbid I should say any man was inhuman!—but which indiscreet men might be tempted to make use of. It is said, again, that we are destroying the whole title of the landlord, and of the landlord only, to recover that which is due to him—that he alone among the creditors is to be deprived of his remedy. If every limitation in this Bill were to be destroyed, and the Bill were then made law, the landlord would still remain not only on as sure a footing as other creditors, but on a footing of priority and preference to other creditors with regard to his debt. He would have every remedy that other creditors have; but he would have them with this enormous difference, that no other creditor could obtain recovery of his debt without, in the first instance, depositing a year's rent. Then, we are told, we are destroying the rights of the landlord as a creditor, and placing him in a position worse than that of other creditors—when, if our Bill went ten times further than it does, it would still leave him in a position of a favoured creditor. The truth is, that I am one of those who believe with my hon. Friend in the limited scope and action of this Bill. We have never proposed it as a great measure. The hon. Gentleman who spoke eloquently from the second Bench below the Gangway on the other side of the House (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) described the Bill, from his point of view, as a small and insignificant measure. It is an important measure we do not deny, because it touches principles of importance. It would be a perilous measure, I grant, if it were a measure adopted without safeguards and restraints—without those safeguards and restraints which have been stamped on it so ineffaceably, that no amount of misunderstanding, exaggeration, or misrepresentation could destroy or obliterate its character as an exceptional measure called for by exceptional necessity, and limited strictly to that special necessity. It does no more than, in these circumstances, restrain the most extreme exercise of the most extreme rights, at a time when Parliament thought the time to recognize the demands of the people of Ireland had reached such a point that they required to be met by peculiar provisions and laws at variance with those general rules which it is necessary to enact for the good government of the country. Under these circumstances, I cannot believe we are not entitled to expect and hope for that same warm and determined action of the Liberal Party of this country for the purpose of promoting this legislation to which alone it is that we owe the Land Act of 1870. If we measure the distance by what it was before the Land Act to the standing point of the Land Act, it is a distance perfectly immense compared with that single step we are making by the present Bill—a step having reference to the most special time, place, and circumstances; a measure directing itself only to the limitation and restraint of those rights which are so extreme that, under the circumstances, it is admitted that no discreet and humane man should use them. Therefore, I am sanguine in the belief that this House, in which the hopes of the people lie for the settlement of every great question such as this, now it has reached the last stage, will not fall short in the wisdom and courage which it has shown in every former stage of our proceedings. I believe it is convinced, as we are convinced, that now and promptly the project of the Government ought to become the law of the land.

Sir, I am most reluctant to stand, for more than one minute between the House and a division; but there have been two remarks made by the Prime Minister in the course of his speech upon which I find it necessary to say a very few words indeed. I entirely acknowledge, what the Prime Minister impressed upon us in his opening remarks, that while the Government feel themselves subject to heavy responsibility in proposing this measure, the House of Commons is also liable to a serious responsibility for the course which it may take with respect to it. I acknowledge that responsibility on the part of those who feel themselves obliged to oppose this Bill. We know that it is a serious thing when a Government come forward and say, upon their responsibility, that they a require a certain measure to be passed, having in view the duties which they have to perform in keeping order and peace and promot- ing good government in an important portion of Her Majesty's Dominions; and I am aware that there is a serious responsibility lying on those who hesitate to accept their legislation. But I point out to the House and to my right ton. Friend, that if their duties are such that they must exercise them to the best of their judgment and knowledge, we, on our side, must exercise our judgment upon a similar principle, and if we are not convinced, by the arguments brought forward, that the measure is in itself a good and necessary one, we must not hesitate to exercise our privilege and duty in criticizing and rejecting it. Now, what is the case which my hon. Friend himself makes in the statement which he has submitted to us? He tells us that this is a measure which he himself would admit to be dangerous, if it were not surrounded by safeguards, restrictions, and restraints. We claim to take his view, that it is a dangerous measure; and we ask what are those safeguards, restrictions, and restraints on which he lays so much stress, and what are they likely to be worth? It is because we cannot place the same confidence in those restraints and restrictions that he is able to place in them, that we hesitate to accept the recommendations he has made. We are told that it is wrong, unpatriotic, and foolish, that we should endeavour to show what is the mischief that underlies this proceeding. We are told that if we would only say nothing about it, the mischief and the peril would be very little indeed, and that it is our exaggerated alarm which causes the danger. It is not the exaggerated alarm of a particular section in this House, it is not the alarm of political opponents which is felt; the alarm has spread to, and, what is more, hopes have been excited in, all portions of the country. I would appeal to public opinion beyond this House. I ask my right hon. Friend to look to that expression of public opinion which, in some cases, takes the form of apprehension, in others, that of exultation, at the prospect of what is to come, and then say whether it is we only who are guilty of the feeling of alarm. It is our duty, in this case, to express candidly the fears which such a measure as this produces; and I say that we look upon this measure as one which is inappropriate to the state of things which it is intended to redress, and as one that fails on the ground both of justice and political economy; and we feel, therefore, that it is our duty frankly to criticize and to object to it. There is one other point in the speech of my right hon. Friend to which I must refer. My right hon. Friend has just told us that he is not at all surprised at what he calls the Tory opposition to the measure, because it is the legitimate outcome, and the logical consequence, of the Land Act, which the Tory Party objected to and never liked. I do not wish to re-open the question with regard to the Land Act; but, that Act having been passed, we have always loyally accepted it, and mainly on this ground—that we looked upon it as an Act that had, as we believed, the one great merit of being a settlement of the question. But what I object to in this measure, even more than its details, is that it is an unsettlement of the relations between landlord and tenant, hastily conceived, and presented to us upon no principle upon which we can take our stand. Let me ask what it is that Ireland wants. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) continually tells us, what is wanted is that capital should be advanced in order to develop the material resources of the country. Others tell us that what is wanted is to encourage amongst the peasantry and lower classes a feeling of independence, and a desire to work for that independence by honest labour. If those are the objects to which we should look, we ought surely to be very cautious how we pass a measure that will alarm capital and disturb confidence, and, at the same time, give to the tenantry of a portion of the country an idea that their prosperity is not to be found in work, but in such measures as they can induce Parliament to pass in order to assist them out of their difficulties. When you add to this the suggestion that the mode in which they are to influence Parliament is not by deliberate statement of their case, or by examination of their circumstances, but by proceedings which lead us to such a point that the Prime Minister tells us we are within measurable distance of civil war, I say that you are introducing into the minds of the people of that country thoughts of the most mischievous description. I promised not to detain the House, and I wish only to put on record the fact that we are opposing this Bill with the fullest sense of the responsibility we are incurring, but with the greatest desire not to stand in the way of any measure that we believe to be for the real good of Ireland. We know well that hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, the Party that represents Irish interests on those Benches, look to something beyond and at variance with the principles contained in this Bill. But we say, conscientiously, we desire in no way to impede the true interest of Ireland; and it is because we believe you do not promote the true interest of Ireland by this measure, which sins against the principles of justice and political economy, that we find it our duty to oppose it.

Question put.

The House divided :—Ayes 304; Noes 237: Majority 67.

Bill read the third and passed .

General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Provisional Order (Forfar Gas) Bill

On Motion of Mr. ARTHUR PEEL, Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made under "The General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act, 1862," relating to Forfar Gas, ordered to be brought in by Mr. ARTHUR PEEL and Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT.

House adjourned at Two o'clock.