said, he had to move the omission of the 22nd clause.

If there is any opposition to the Bill, the Motion for the third reading must stand over until tomorrow.

said, he had no desire to oppose the third reading of the Bill, but simply to move an Amendment in it.

Does the hon. Member object to the Bill as it stands?

said, he objected to the 22nd clause.

Then the Motion for the third reading of the Bill must stand over till to-morrow.

Motion deferred accordingly; Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.

Metropolitan and Metropolitan District Railways (City Lines and Extensions) Bill (by Order)

Consideration, as Amended

Order for Consideration, as amended, read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now considered."—( Sir Charles Forster. )

, in moving that the Bill be considered upon, that day three months, said, it was a Bill presented to the House for the completion of the Inner Circle Railway. It was, perhaps, desirable that he should state the various stages with respect to this question. When the Underground Railway was first inaugurated in the City of London, it extended from Farringdon Street to the Paddington Station, and it was supported by the Corporation of London, or otherwise it might not have succeeded as it did. Afterwards, the extension of the system was brought before the House, and was considered by a Joint Committee, of which Lord Derby was Chairman. That Committee inquired into the whole of the various Underground Railway schemes, and recommended what was known by the name of the "Inner Circle Scheme." It was left to two Companies—the Metropolitan and the Metropolitan District Railway Companies—to carry out that scheme. The Joint Committee laid down the lines of that scheme, by which it was proposed to carry the underground system eastward, not quite so far as was provided by the present Bill, but to make a circle considerably eastward of the present Mansion House Station of the Metropolitan District Railway, and continue it to the Moorgate Street Station. The Act was passed. What then occurred? When the time came for making the line eastward by the Metropolitan District Railway, the promoters bought a portion of the property through which the line was to pass. They bought the Weigh House Chapel, and also agreed to give an annuity to the then incumbent—the well—known Dr. Binney—of £500 a-year. They paid that sum until his death; but whether they had sold the chapel now, or still held it, he knew not. At any rate, they spent their money in the purchase of land in the East End which was considered would be afterwards of great advantage to them; and when the time came for completing the railway, they found they had not sufficient means, and the Metropolitan District Railway terminated at Mansion House Station in Cannon Street, and the Metropolitan Railway at Moorgate Street. Some time afterwards, another Bill was introduced for the completion of the Inner Circle Railway; but it left the East End of London out of that Inner Circle altogether. The proposal was to run through that beautiful new street—Queen Victoria Street—cutting it in two, and proceed up Princes Street and Moorgate Street to the Moorgate Street Station, and so complete the Inner Circle. That Bill Parliament refused to pass, and it was not carried. Afterwards, another attempt was made to unite the two railways, and form an Inner Circle, and the scheme then propounded met with great favour in the City of London, because with it was combined a new street. The railway was to be continued under Cannon Street to Eastcheap, and from thence under a new street to be formed from the corner of Eastcheap to the east end of Leaden-hall Street, Aldgate, making a great improvement, so that persons coming from the east, down the Whitechapel Road, would have been able to pass along a fine thoroughfare to the foot of London Bridge. This scheme was embodied in an Act of Parliament. Without troubling the House further with that measure, he would simply say that that Act of Parliament somehow or other did not suit the Metropolitan Railway proper, because they were desirious of keeping their railway to the east of Aldgate. The portion of the Metropolitan Railway continued to Aldgate would simply have been a spur outside the Circle. They, therefore, threw cold water on the carrying out of the scheme, which he believed would have been of greater benefit to the Metropolitan District Railway than any other scheme. The scheme, nevertheless, was passed by that House, and by the other House of Parliament, and would have been carried out if the promoters had been able to obtain the means. Not being able to find the money, a new scheme was brought forward last year, with the same attraction as the former scheme in suggesting a fine new street to continue Cannon Street to Tower Hill, and so to complete a line of communication from Westminster Bridge to Tower Hill. Of course, it was felt that it would be of great advantage to the City of London and to the whole of the Metropolis, as well as to the Railway Companies, to have this new street; and the City of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works agreed to contribute the same amount towards the expense as they had agreed to contribute under the former Bill. But when the Bill came before Parliament last Session, and it was sent to a Committee upstairs, come extraordinary clauses were inserted in the measure. What were called "underpinning clauses" were passed, which enabled the promoters to seize the vaults in front of a house, without being required to take any other portion of the premises. All these exceptional clauses were granted in consequence of the new street being part of the project that was to be carried out, and he thought the Chairman of the Committee stated that if that had not been the case, the Bill would not have been passed. The Act was passed in 1879, and it was left to the different Bodies to arrange the terms. They had not been able to arrange the amounts and the terms on which each Body should contribute, and, while the negotiations were going on, the present Bill was brought forward. Although there were extraordinary clauses in the preceding Act of Parliament, there were far more extraordinary clauses introduced into the present Bill. These extraordinary clauses were not in the Bill when it was read a second time and sent up to the Committee; but the Committee had introduced clauses which, if they had been in the Bill originally, would have insured that the Bill would never have been read a second time by the House. It was necessary that he should call the attention of the House to these clauses. The Committee introduced this very remarkable clause that the Railway Company should be at liberty to take any portion of any premises they came in contact with, either taking a small portion or a large portion, and paying for that portion only, leaving the owner to do what he liked with the remainder, whether what remained was sufficient to enable him to carry on his business or not. That clause had never been introduced in any Bill up to the present time, and it was contrary to the provisions of the Land Clauses Consolidation Act. The Committee introduced another clause, giving the Railway Company a power of appeal against the decision of a jury as to damages. He (Mr. Alderman W. Lawrence) asked if the House was prepared to sanction these alterations in the general law of the country, inserted in a Bill of this kind, which was really only a small Private Bill for the extension of a line of railway, five-eighths of a mile, from Cannon Street to Tower Hill. Were they going to sanction the establishment of so dangerous a precedent? What did the hon. Baronet the Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkins), the Chairman of this Company, as well as of various other Railway Companies, say? The hon. Baronet stated at a public meeting, that these were certainly great privileges to grant to a Railway Company. He said, further, that they would be regarded as a precedent which they could use afterwards, no doubt, to the advantage of Railway Companies. Consequently, they would only be a step towards further clauses and provisions, carrying out the same principle, rendering it almost impossible for private individuals to withstand their encroachments in any shape or form, and compelling them to make the best terms they could. He would not delay the House longer; but would simply move, in conclusion, that the Bill be considered on that day three months.

begged to second the Amendment of his hon. Friend and Colleague (Mr. Alderman W. Lawrence), who had gone so fully into the matter that it was not necessary he (Mr. Fowler) should further detain the House. He was of opinion that arrangements should be made for street improvements, which were not provided for by the Bill; and, therefore, he gave his cordial support to the Motion moved by his hon. Friend.

Amendment proposed,

To leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."—( Mr. Alderman W. Lawrence. )

Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

thought that, as Chairman of the Committee to which the Bill had been referred, it was desirable that he should explain the reasons which had induced the Committee to pass the measure in its present form. The Bill sought to obtain certain powers for the purpose of enabling the Inner Circle of the Metropolitan Railway to be completed, and also for the purpose of enabling the line to be extended to Whitechapel. A portion of the completion of the Inner Circle was to run through Eastcheap to Tower Hill, and the property so traversed was confined to about 660 yards. It was in regard to this property that the difficulty created by the Bill mainly arose. The property was very valuable—most valuable—and therefore the Railway Company, last year, felt unwilling to take the ordinary course of buying up the whole of the property involved in the construction of the line and the proposed new street. The local authorities—the Metropolitan Board of Works and the Corporation of London, and the citizens of London generally—were very anxious that the new street should be made. And both the local authorities and the Railway Company were desirous, if possible, to combine the construction of the railway and the formation of the new street. By that means, it was thought that a great public advantage would be secured, and that a considerable saving would be effected for the Railway Companies. Accordingly, a Bill was brought in last year to enable the Railway Companies to enter into agreements for the purpose of building a new street, and of running under it a portion of the projected line for the completion of the Inner Circle. Power was given to the Railway Companies and the local authorities, by the Bill of last year, to make this agreement. It had been alleged that there was an absolute undertaking by the Railway Companies, that they were to build a new street, and that it was only on the condition that they built the new street, with the aid of local contributions, that the Committee was induced to pass the Bill. That was an incorrect construction to put on the Bill of last year. The 91st section of the Act of last year said that if no such agreement should be entered into in connection with the building of a new street within four months, the Railway Companies were not to be required to construct the street, or any part or parts thereof respectively. Therefore, the assertion that the Railway Companies were to build the street, and that it was only under that condition that they obtained their Bill, was disproved by the Act. No doubt, the Railway Companies obtained unusual powers in contravention of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. The 92nd section of that Act said that if the Railway Companies wanted to run through any part of a man's premises, they must take the whole of the property; but by the Act of last year, which was passed both by this House and the House of Lords, these Railway Companies obtained power to take the cellars of houses projecting into the streets, through which the line was to pass, without taking the adjacent buildings. In that, there was a violation of the 92nd section of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. They also obtained power to go to a considerable distance on either side of the line, and underpin the buildings between, if they considered there was danger, and that was also contrary to the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. There were, to some ex-extent, precedents which had been followed in the present Bill. The local authorities offered to contribute £750,000 towards the building of the new street, and the Railway Companies were to contribute £450,000. But it was agreed by both parties that the total of those two sums would not be sufficient to defray the cost of making the new street. The total was £1,200,000, and that was felt to be not enough, and the question arose as to who was to pay the balance. The Railway Companies made a fair offer to the local authorities. They said—

"We have agreed to contribute £450,000 of the necessary cost against your £750,000, and we are willing, whatever the balance may be, to contribute in the same proportion."

The local authorities declined to enter into any such arrangement, and said—

"However much the value of this street may he to the public, we will not entertain the proposition that we should contribute more than £750,000."

It was estimated that the cost of the new street would be about £300,000 more than the £1,200,000 already agreed to be contributed. No doubt, the local authorities were the very best judges of the power of the ratepayers to bear additional taxation, and of the value of the new street to them; but the question before the Committee was whether, if an arrangement could not be arrived at for the building of the new street, the important work of completing the Inner Circle should be sacrificed. The Railway Companies, in the present Bill, sought to take for the purposes of the railway a certain portion of premises situated in the City, without being compelled to take the whole; but they offered fair compensation for so doing, and they produced evidence before the Committee to show the extent of their proposed violation of the 92nd section of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, and the damage which was likely to be inflicted on the property with which they proposed to interfere. They adduced the evidence of eminent and experienced engineers on the subject. Sir John Hawkshaw, whose authority was unrivalled; Mr. Barry, who had been connected with these underground projects for many years in London, were examined, and their evidence amounted to this—that, so far as structural damage to superincumbent buildings was concerned, really none would be sustained in consequence of the construction of the railway. More than that, they stated that there were many old houses in the City which rested on a weak foundation, or on no foundation at all, and the result of running a solid basis of masonry beneath them would be to supply them with that they wanted at the present moment. That might seem a strong expression of opinion; but it was taken from the evidence of Sir John Hawkshaw and Mr. Barry, whose opinion was worth a great deal more than his. The opponents of the Bill did not attempt to produce a single witness of eminence to show that harm would be done to the existing structures, although they had at their command engineers of great reputation. Nevertheless, they did not produce one of them; but they did produce a subordinate officer of the Corporation of London, of whose respectability and knowledge there could be no doubt, but whose evidence was not to be compared with the impartial testimony of such men as Sir John Hawkshaw and Mr. Barry. Practically speaking, there was no evidence from the locality, either in number or weight, which could be put against that called on behalf of the Railway Companies. It must be remembered that this was not a struggle of the inhabitants of a place, or of the owners of property, against a Bill. The evidence before the Committee showed that it was a struggle on the part of the local authorities, the Metropolitan Board of Works, and the Corporation of the City of London, to compel the Railway Companies to undertake an indefinite expense for the building of a new street. What the Committee thought on the subject was this—that it was desirable the street should be built, and that it was fair the Railway Companies should subscribe. But they had offered to subscribe £450,000; and the negotiation was still pending. It was not right, therefore, to say that the Bill was brought in in contravention to those negotiations; on the contrary, the Bill contained a clause which provided for the continuance of the negotiation.

begged pardon of the House if he had in any way unintentionally misled it. He had no intention of saying that the Bill had been brought in in contravention of the negotiations. He did not intend to convey any such impression. What he meant to say was that it was brought in even while negotiations were still going on.

said, that was quite true. Four months were given. Those four months ended in December; but it was necessary to give the notices for the Bill before then. Indeed, as a proof that the Railway Companies did not mean that the Bill should be a bar to further negotiations, they inserted in it a clause providing for the maintenance of the negotiations in the event of their being carried on. When the Committee had heard the whole of the case, they did not retire for half-an-hour, as Committees often did, and come back with their decision; but they adjourned and deliberated for a day as to the conclusion at which they should arrive. They went into that deliberation with very unbiassed minds. They arrived at eight Resolutions, which gave these Companies certain powers; but they also restricted, and placed conditions upon them—the best they could devise—for securing the property from damage in giving these powers. He could point to some of them, suggested and marked out, not by one Member of the Committee, but by general consent, which showed the care which the Members of the Committee took. He was anxious to tell the House, partly, what the powers were which they gave to these Companies. They fully recognized the value of Section 92 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, and the propriety of preventing the taking of parts of premises without the necessity of taking the whole where serious injury was likely to be done to the premises. They, therefore, inserted a clause in the Bill to provide that the 92nd section of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act should be maintained, and not violated, and that the Railway Companies should not enter upon premises, unless they went before a jury, and proved to that jury that the violation of Section 92 by taking part, instead of the whole, could be done without material detriment to the premises. It was said that there was no precedent for such a provision. There were, at least, a dozen Acts of Parliament passed within the last six or seven years, under which Railway Companies coming into London, and dealing with premises in London, had been allowed, after having obtained the decision of a jury in their favour, to do the very thing which these Companies sought to do. Then came the question, what provision with regard to compensation they should make? In the first case, they gave the owners of property an express provision for compensation in case of damage to their trade. They gave them, also, a provision for compensation in case of damage to structural buildings. They gave them, further—and he begged to call the special attention of the House to this fact—compensation for only taking a portion of the premises. But, in case the railway ran under any man's premises, through a portion of the subsoil, they gave them, in a distinct manner, power only to give compensation to the extent of the injury committed, and they gave a power of appeal, in case the damages assessed by a jury were deemed excessive. It was said that it was unusual to give an appeal clause in a case of compensation. He must inform the House that the opponents of the Bill withdrew from the Committee Room before it was possible to discuss the clause in the Committee. He ventured to say that had they remained there, and discussed the clause, the clause would probably have been thrown out by the Committee. As it was, it did undergo discussion by the Committee, and received a certain amount of modification. In this matter, the Committee were under a slight disadvantage, and so were the House, because the opponents had deliberately withdrawn from the Committee, and left the matter to be discussed in a place where it was not possible to discuss it in a careful and complete manner. They remembered that these claims for compensation were very novel claims; and that, in some cases, a jury might give too much, while, in others, they would give too little. They, therefore, gave a power of appeal. But let the House see what the power of appeal was. It was a power of appeal to a Divisional Court, and could not go further than such Divisional Court. The Court could only determine a question of mixed facts and law, which it was proper for a Divisional Court to decide; and then, if it thought the compensation unfair, it had to send the case back again to be again adjudicated upon by a jury of the citizens of London. Under these circumstances, it could not be said that the clause, in regard to an appeal, when it came under discussion, was at all an unreasonable one. Nevertheless, he (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) knew that the House was strongly against it, and he knew that the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Lyon Playfair) did not look upon it with favour. He (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) regretted that the clause had not been more fully discussed by the Committee; and if the House was against the clause, he should, if he were perfectly in Order, at that stage of the Bill, move that it be omitted. The Committee gave further powers and security against the damage. They inserted a clause to provide that, if there were any damage to a structure from the railway works at any subsequent time, no matter how remote it might be, then a claim for structural damage should arise. They also gave power to call on an engineer, to be appointed by the Board of Trade, to dictate to the Railway Companies the mode in which they were to proceed. The power of burrowing, as it was called, against the 92nd clause of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, was sought in connection with the whole of the Inner Circle and the Whitechapel spur; but the Committee felt that it should only affect the new street, and they, therefore, confined its operation to the 660 yards affected by the new street, and cut out the Whitechapel section. The last thing they did was this. They said—"We are asked to accept this Bill in connection with the proposal for making a new street. You are carrying on negotiations for making that street, and we will only give the powers asked for alternatively, so that they shall only be exercised in case the negotiations do not succeed." If the negotiations went on, as he believed they would—and nothing would be more calculated to induce them to go on than that Bill—then the powers would fall to the ground. Under those circumstances, he thought the Committee had done their best to preserve the spirit of the 92nd section of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, the object of which was to save a man's dwelling-house and business premises from material detriment by severance. He had sat upon several Committees in connection with railways coming into London, and he believed that it was impossible for the public to avail themselves of the Metropolitan Line until the Inner Circle was completed. It was utterly impossible that the residential portion of the suburbs of London could be brought into perfect communion with the City until the railway ran all round. The result of the non-completion of the Inner Circle was that, at present, there was a great restriction upon the number of trains that could be run. When the Bill first came before him, he confessed that he was as strongly prejudiced against some of the powers sought for as any hon. Member could be, and he believed that other Members of the Committee shared his views. He did not think anyone present could feel more strongly against any attempt to infringe the 92nd section of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act than he did. But, as the case went on, he saw clearly that this was not an attempt by the owners of property to any large extent to defend their property, but that it was merely an attempt to compel a Railway Company to undertake an unlimited expense at the instance of the local authorities. If the Bill were thrown out, he had no objection to its being thrown out. If it went to the House of Lords it would, no doubt, be carefully examined therein and tested by evidence. He was sorry that he was not able to give a more comprehensive and lucid view of what had taken place before the Committee upstairs; but he ventured, with great respect, to say this—that no matter how comprehensive or lucid might be the explanation of the Chairman in regard to a matter so complicated, it could not place a large Assembly like that, at a moment's notice, and upon ex parte statements, in a position to enable it to come to a decision. He left the matter now, with great respect, in the hands of the House. He had endeavoured to speak as judicially as he could, and he begged to thank the House for the patience and attention with which they had heard him.

I understand that the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) desires to move the omission of a clause. The Question before the House is, "That the Bill be now considered," since which an Amendment has been moved, "That it be considered on this day three months." If the House thinks proper to go into the consideration of the Bill, the hon. and learned Member could then move the omission of the clause.

That is my intention.

If, on the other hand, the House agrees to postpone the consideration of the Bill for three months, the Bill will be lost.

said, he intended to be very brief in the remarks he intended to make. He had, for many years, had experience in the construction of railways in the Provinces, but not in London; and he was satisfied that the 92nd clause of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, in its application to the interference with property for railway purposes and by Companies who were prosecuting public works had been most oppressive and most injurious to those who had had anything to do with them. It went to this—that if they took part of a house, or a building, or a property, they might be made, if the owner liked, to take the whole. Often, if they were passing by a house, and were obliged to take some small outbuildings at the end of a garden, or some other insignificant part of the property, the owner or person interested in the property, if he happened to be opposed to the enterprize, had the means of putting them to a large expense, and to compel them to take the whole of the property. It might be that they would be able to sell it subsequently to advantage; but still, so far as the owner knew, there was nothing to protect the Railway Company from what might prove to be an uncalled for and unnecessary expense. He (Mr. Robertson) was not speaking of railways belonging to Companies with large means, but of those smaller lines which were projected for the advantage of a district, where the landowners and others interested endeavoured, as far as they could, to get railway schemes carried out, and tried to economize as much as possible. This clause of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act had been found most detrimental and injurious to public enterprize, and he hoped the view of the matter which had been taken by the Committee would not be disapproved of by the House. Surely, if the Railway Companies had not spent £700,000,000 in the construction of railways, they would not be in the comfortable position they now occupied, and be able to deal with the affairs of the country as they were. In making a railway now, for the accommodation of a particular district, out of an expenditure of £200,000, £20,000, or one tenth part, would be spent in acquiring property. The case was worse in London. He believed that the works that were necessary for the purpose of connecting the two ends of the Metropolitan Circle would cost about £200.000; while the cost of the property approached £1,000,000. In this particular instance the circumstances were very exceptional; and he held that the Committee was quite entitled, in the interest of the Railway Companies, who were seeking to confer a public benefit, to take an exceptional view of this 92nd clause, The real question for consideration was, how they were to give the inhabitants of London the benefit of railway accomodation. He lived in the West of London himself, in Marylebone, and he had occasion to go to the City frequently. He was one of the 90,000,000 who used the Metropolitan Railway in one year, but he found the communication cut short; and were they going to stop this great improvement, because the Corporation of the City of London raised a question as to the value of some new street which it was proposed to make—because there was some difference between the Railway Companies and the Corporation of the City of London—this very poor Corporation of the City, who wished to contribute a certain proportion towards the completion of the Inner Circle, were they to deny to him and to everyone who used the Metropolitan Railway the advantage of this great public railway? He had no interest in the Metropolitan Railway, and never had; but he spoke in the interests of those who wished to use the railway. No one disputed the necessity of completing the communication; and were they, on the ground of some question of money—for his hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Alderman W. Lawrence) put it no higher—to deny to the whole of the Metropolitan districts the advantage of this great and important public improvement? It was true, they might say it was a question of private interests; but was there any reason why they should neglect private interests? Was property a matter of no importance to hon. Gentlemen opposite, or to hon. Members on that side of the House; and were they not to assist those who were ready to invest largely in public undertakings, which would be the means of improving the communication and providing for the wants of the entire population of the Metropolis? The important questions raised on this occasion were not matters that were to be hastily slurred over. They had heard an account from the Chairman of the Committee of what the Committee had done, and the nature of the inquiry they had made; and it was shown to be desirable that, in this particular instance, the 92nd clause of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act should not be brought into operation. Only some 660 yards of property were affected, and there was a provision in the Bill that the decision of the Board of Trade was to be required before the works of the Company could be proceeded with. The Bill afforded full opportunity for preliminary inquiry, and surely nothing could be fairer than the provisions of the measure. Then came the question of appeal against the award of a jury. He believed that the Railway Companies did not very much approve of litigation where it was not absolutely necessary. He spoke in the presence of many hon. Members who were connected with railways; and they knew that in the purchase of property for railway purposes, in dealing with landowners, it was the rule for the Railway Company to pay all the law expenses, and to pay thoroughly for the privileges they acquired. Were they now, after the whole matter had been fully investigated, and after everything had been done that the law required, to shut the door to justice, and say they would have nothing to do with the inquiry of the Committee. It really amounted to that. What were their Private Bill Committees to do if they were incapable of deciding a question of this kind? Were they to put the Railway Companies to the expense of this inquiry, and then, because the City of London, that miserably poor Corporation, were disinclined to part with their money, to deny the Railway Companies justice? He hoped the House would support the Committee in the decision at which they had arrived.

did not know what the supporters of the Bill though of the speech which had just been delivered; but he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) could conceive nothing more calculated than the remarks of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Robertson) to place the motives of the promoters of the Bill in a clear light before the House. There was one statement made by the hon. and learned Chairman of the Committee (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) to which he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) wished to call the attention of the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman made it a matter of complaint that the opponents of the Bill withdrew from the Committee Room before the Committee came to deal with the clauses. The hon. and learned Member knew perfectly well that if they had remained to call witnesses, and to deal with special clauses, they would have been precluded from attacking the principle of the Bill in "another place." Therefore, it was not because they felt their case was weak that they withdrew, but because they thought they might, in the long run, be better able to continue their opposition. He did not quarrel with what had been said by the hon. and learned Gentleman; but his remarks entirety failed to meet the objections which he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) and many other hon. Members of the House entertained towards the provisions of the Bill. The ground and main essence of his complaint against the Bill was that it afforded a precedent, and an entirely new departure from the ordinary principles of railway legislation. For the last 30 or 40 years the principles upon which railways had been allowed to take property from private individuals had been well understood. The country had been satisfied with the way those principles had worked; and he was of opinion that if they were to be altered, they ought, to be altered, not by those hon. Gentlemen sitting as the Committee upstairs and dealing with one special Bill, but altered by a vote of that House, after a consideration of the whole hearing of the question. His hon. And learned Friend (Mr.O'Shaughnessy), when he was defending the action of the Committee, said the Bill of 1879, by its exceptional character, afforded a precedent for the Bill of 1880. What a very dangerous lesson against precedent! Why, if the exceptional legislation of 1879 afforded a precedent for the exceptional legislation of 1880, the exceptional legislation of 1880 would most undoubtedly afford the same for an extension of the principles there embodied, and he did think that before the House admitted an alteration of the fundamental principles which had always regulated their action with regard to railways, it ought to deeply consider the whole question at issue. The truth was that the Committee of four hon. Gentlemen sitting upstairs, whatever their ability, was the very worst tribunal in the world for deciding upon general principles, and for this reason—that they were necessarily influenced by the considerations brought before them as to the special utility of the plan they had under notice. His hon. and learned Friend dilated upon the great advantage to the Metropolis of the completion of the Inner Circle, while the hon. Gentleman the Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Robertson), who announced he lived at Marylebone, pointed out to the House the immense advantage which the completion of the Inner Circle would give to all those people who lived in the same district as himself, and, indeed, to all the people who lived in the suburbs of London. There could be no more misleading consideration than that; and he hoped the House would not allow the Report of the Bill to pass until, at any rate, they had fully considered all the consequences which must necessarily arise from this new departure in railway legislation.

, as one who sat upon the Bill last year, sincerely hoped the House would not be led away upon a general discussion of the principles of the 92nd section of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. Were they to be so led away, the whole of the present Sitting, and even more Sittings, would be occupied with such a discussion. He considered the clause, generally speaking, a very valuable one: but he also had no doubt whatever that there were many cases connected with railways in the Metropolis in which modifications in the clause were absolutely necessary, and that was the reason which induced the Committee of last year to sit for many weeks on the Bill, and to give to it the greatest possible attention. He considered it his duty to say that the Committee of last year were very much impressed, in the first place, by the enormous advantage which would be given to the public by the completion of the Inner Circle. There could be no doubt whatever that certain temporary inconvenience would be caused to various parties; but the Committee thought that that inconvenience would, to a certain extent, be compensated, and that the object of the Bill itself was so valuable they ought, to a certain extent, override the private objections. The Committee, however, were firmly convinced that the two streets already mentioned would be made. It was perfectly true, as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Chairman of the Committee this year had stated, that that provision was not inserted in the Bill—that was to say, the Railway Companies were not forced to go to unlimited expense in making the streets. But, still, he believed he was speaking the opinions of every Member of the Committee, when he said they felt at the time that these street improvements would be made; and he believed that if they had thought that the streets would not be made they would have hesitated as to whether they would have passed the Bill at all. He could not say they would have refused to do so; but they certainly would have hesitated in passing the Bill, if they had not been firmly of opinion that the new streets would, as a matter of fact, be made. He (Mr. Evans), himself, might claim to be entirely disinterested in the matter, for he had no concern with the railway, except as an occasional passenger. He did, however, think that it was most important for the convenience of the inhabitants of London that the Inner Circle should be completed; but, at the same time, private and local interests must be duly respected. He was very much startled when he was informed that the Bill contained a clause for arbitration in certain cases. That was very objectionable; but he understood from the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees that he was prepared to withdraw the clause, if the House would allow the Bill to be reported. He (Mr. Evans) felt he had no right to give the House advice—he would not presume to do so—but he could give expression to his own feeling, and that was, that the Bill ought not to be stopped at the present stage. It was better that it should be further considered, and, if there were still found to be overwhelming objections to it, it might be thrown out.

said, that as one of the Members of the House who had been unfortunate enough to act on the Committee, he must ask the indulgence of the House while he endeavoured to show his reasons for joining in the unanimity displayed by the Committee in favour of the Bill. It had been well said that many a judgment was good until the reasons for that judgment were given. He trusted it might not be so in this case. After the very exhaustive speech of the hon. and learned Chairman of the Committee (Mr.O'Shaughnessy) there was very little left for him (Mr. Moss) to do, further than to give a statement of the facts as they appeared to come before them. It appeared that in the Session of 1879 the Railway Companies obtained an Act for completing the Inner Circle, and in that Act there were clauses suspending the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act of 1845, so far as regarded the taking of cellars and areas, without it being necessary to take the upper premises. There were also powers in that Act enabling the Companies to make arrangements with Local Boards for the creation of new streets, and time was given in which to make those arrangements. The Local Boards offered to find £750,000 towards the street improvements, and the Railway Companies offered to provide £450,000. But the Local Boards would not accept the proposal of the Railway Companies that the Local Boards and the Railway Companies should find capital in proportion to whatever the extra amount might be—that was, as 75 to 45; the Local Boards declined to accept what they called an indefinite agreement. They had their constituents' money to deal with, and they declined to enter into any contract where the amount was not defined. In consequence of the Railway Companies failing to carry out the arrangements with the Local Boards, they came to this House, in this Session, to ask for further powers; and, on the Motion for the second reading of the Bill, the House, by a considerable majority, sent the Bill to be considered by a Committee upstairs. If the House declined to accept the principle of these "burrowing clauses," he must ask the House why they sent the Bill to a Committee. It seemed to him that the Committee had very little option in the matter. They were to consider whether the "burrowing clauses" could be carried out without injury to the owners of property, and the evidence given to them was of such a character as to lead them to determine that the powers could be carried out without prejudice to the rights of the owners of property. They determined, therefore, to give those powers to the Companies; but they guarded them in the most stringent possible manner. They inserted a Proviso that if any damage were done to a man's property, or to his trade, he should be fully compensated by a payment in money; and, in order to meet the cases in which the Company did not respect the rights of property, the Committee determined to insert an appeal clause. He very much regretted that the appeal clause had caused so much disagreement on both sides of the House, because it had been, clearly introduced in the interest of the owners of property. Under the Circumstances, the Committee unanimously came to the conclusion that the Resolutions they had passed should be embodied in the Bill. If they were embodied in the Bill, the view of the Committee would be met; but, if one single iota of those Resolutions was omitted, their view would not be met.

said, he would like, before they went to a vote upon the Bill, to call the attention of the House to the circumstances under which the Bill again appeared before them. On the 15th of June, the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie), in a very clear speech, brought before the attention of the House the fact that there were new powers asked for in this Bill, which did not exist in any other legislation in regard to railways. Upon that, a Motion was made to defeat the Bill. The House, however, by the large majority of 74, thought it was a case for a Committee upstairs; and, accordingly, it was sent to a Committee instructed to consider whether the new powers asked for were justified, and whether the owners of property could be properly protected. The hon. and learned Chairman of the Committee had explained all the provisions which had been made for the protection of private owners. They proposed to call in the Board of Trade to be an arbiter, in case of any dispute, and to appoint an engineer at the expense of the railways, so that every precaution which could possibly have been devised had been placed in the Bill to surround the power of "burrowing" given to the Companies. They had every reason to believe that the Committee most carefully examined into the subject; and he saw nothing in the Bill which should induce the House to withdraw the confidence they reposed in the Committee when they sent the Bill upstairs by such a large majority, There was one clause to which objection could be taken. Outwardly, it appeared to be an impartial clause, for it gave to the owner of any property, or the Companies, the right to appeal against the decision of the jury. He could not but believe that such a clause was unwise, as well as unfair, for the Companies were very powerful, and might drag an owner of property from Court to Court, imposing upon him a large expense by taking an appeal to a Superior Court, and he thought the promoters had acted wisely in consenting that the clause should be omitted from the Bill. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) said, very truly, that the opponents of the Bill withdrew after the Preamble, and did not represent their case to the Committee—in other words, they preferred the other House in which to carry on the opposition to the Bill. The Bill must necessarily go to "another place," and the opponents had a right to represent their case there. He (Mr. Playfair) thought they had a strong reason to support the action of the Committee, who had displayed so much care and diligence in the investigation of the case intrusted to them.

quite agreed with previous speakers that it was most desirable, in the interests of the public, that they should do all they could to assist the completion of the Inner Circle; but, at the same time, he was of opinion that the House ought to see that the Companies were not allowed to take possession of land without paying proper compensation. Unfortunately, he had not heard the whole of the discussion; and he desired to ask whether a Railway Company, in carrying on a line, could take part of a house or premises without paying for the whole? If they could not, he wanted to know where was the exceptional legislation. He should support the Bill.

said, that, as a Member of the Committee which had considered this Bill, he felt it incumbent upon him to make a few observations. He did not intend to go over the ground taken up by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Chairman of the Committee, but to state very briefly the reasons why he had supported the Bill. His main reason was that he believed the completion of the Inner Circle was an extremely important work. The Bill was sent to a Committee upstairs for consideration, after full discussion in the House of a certain clause which appeared in it; and, therefore, in his opinion, it was not the province of the Committee to reject the measure merely on account of that clause. Their duty was to examine in detail to what extent the clause would operate, and to limit it as carefully as possible, so that no injustice should be done. The House ought to recollect that, from the point of view of the owners of property, there was one important fact to be borne in mind, and that was that the question of the completion of the Inner Circle had been under discussion for years, and that the constant proposals to take property in the City for the purpose of completing that Circle had had the effect of bringing about a considerable amount of uncertainty in respect of the property, and the consequence was that people would not take leases, or deal with it as they otherwise would have done. That uncertainty had been very detrimental to the value of the property, and it was well that it should be put an end to as soon as possible. It had been said by the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) that they must beware of creating precedents; but, in his opinion, they must take care that all the circumstances of the alleged precedents were considered before they could be cited as precedents. If they could find another locality of the same importance and wealth as the City of London, and if they found it necessary to make a railway through the heart of it, then this Bill might form a precedent. But this Bill would not be a precedent for setting aside the 92nd clause of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, unless they could find the same circumstances which existed in the present case existing in other cases. From a Metropolitan point of view the Inner Circle ought to be completed, and the House would do well to read the Bill a third time.

said, he was afraid there might be a considerable number of precedents, notwithstanding the disclaimer that had been put forward to that effect. The circumstances of another case might not be exactly similar to the circumstances of the present case; but they might be sufficiently similar to very seriously endanger the rights of property. He did not, however, propose to discuss the Bill in detail, for he held that in an Assembly of that kind a measure of the present nature could not be satisfactorily discussed, if due regard was had to the Public Business they had to transact. If ever there was a project which ought to be brought before a Home Rule Government for the London district, it was a Bill of this character. The observations he proposed to make might be somewhat illogical; but he thought there would be recognized in them a certain amount of justice. He intended to vote against the Bill; above all things, because it was promoted in the interests of the Companies managing the Inner Circle. Those Companies required an emphatic warning from the House of Commons, for they had not consulted the interests of the public, as was intended by the Legislature when they granted them facilities to initiate their enterprize. He would not go into the unhealthy character of the conditions under which the traffic was conducted, or into any general description of the manner in which they neglected the means at their disposal to introduce proper ventilation; but he would assert that the general disregard they displayed for the interests of the public required an emphatic protest from that House. The people of London had got no public body to defend their interests except the Imperial Parliament; and if it was only for the purpose of protesting against the scandalous neglect of the public comfort shown by the Metropolitan Railway Company he should vote against the Bill.

said, it ought to be remembered that the Companies were promoting the railway for their own purposes, and that the Chairman of one, only the other day, said his railway was paying 5 per cent, and had a very handsome reserve fund. He would like to read to the House three lines from the speech of that hon. Gentleman, and then give them his name. The Chairman of the Company said—

"He was bound to say that, although they had not got all they wished, at the same time they had got an important concession, such as had never been conceded to any railway before, and it was a concession which would be valuable to all railway property in England, which had suffered from the injustice of the 92nd section of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, which injustice ought to be done away. If Railway Companies could quote a precedent of this line having power to burrow under houses, then, he believed, there would be no difficulty in other Companies getting the same power.'

The Railway Companies were anxious, as the same speaker pointed out, to construct the railway cheaply, in the hope that by so getting two miles more to complete the circle they would thus make all their property doubly valuable. Let him ask hon. Gentlemen what would be the effect of passing the present Bill. Why, the Great Western would not be content to stop at Paddington; the London and North—Western at Euston; and the Great Northern at King's Cross, if it were not for the enormous expense of coming into the City. If that Bill were passed a precedent would be established, and they would have all the principal railways running into the City, and shaking all the houses down, themselves giving but nominal compensation. This was the most monstrous attempt to set aside, by a side wind, an Act of Parliament—the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act—that had ever been made in the House. If, as the Chairman of the Company (Sir Edward Watkin), from whose speech he had quoted, and who was no other than an hon. Member of the House, had said, a precedent would be made by the passing of the present Bill, they would have many railways with their termini at a distance coming into the City to the general inconvenience, and at a general loss. He (Sir Henry Peek) was of opinion that, if the 92nd section of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act had operated so unjustly to railways, the matter ought to be met by a general Act. These Companies got a good deal last year, and having got so much, they now came for more, and expected to get it in a most unprecedented manner. An important measure like the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act ought not to be set a side in the manner now proposed, and he trusted the House would refuse to pass the Bill.

said, that having served on the Committee of last year, he now wished to state that the Bill would not then have been passed, but for the belief on the part of the Committee that the new streets would have been constructed. He was not able to support the present Bill, because he believed that the concessions proposed would simply be used as a lever to gain more power hereafter. If the money already spent in promoting Bills in Parliament had been expended upon the new streets it would have been far preferable.

An hon. Member observed, that they had been told that the promoters of the Bill were acting for their own purposes. That they quite admitted, but that House was competent to take into consideration the interests of the public; and, in doing so, they must acknowledge that the completion of the Inner Circle would be a great advantage to the inhabitants of this great city. They ought not to reject the Bill, because it contained an infringement of the 92nd section of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, more especially as they were told by the hon. and learned Chairman of the Committee, who had considered the Bill and recommended it to the House, that that section had been infringed before, and that they had made so many safeguards in the Bill that it could not act prejudicially to the interests of property owners. The Lands Clauses Consolidation Act had, on many occasions, operated prejudicially in making the Railway Companies refuse to do all the public required of them. He failed to see why, because an Act had been in operation 20 or 30 years, one of its clauses could not be infringed, when, by so doing, a great benefit could be conferred on a district. He trusted the House would support the Bill.

said, he could not resist entering his protest against the Bill as it stood. He objected to that clause which he would describe as the "burrowing" clause. He would give Railway Companies, or any other large bodies, power to purchase land, whatever its description, if the purchase were for the public good, and provided the owner were paid a fair price. He quite admitted that Railway Companies were useful agents, and so were Water Companies and Gas Companies; but there was always a matter of dividend at the end of their operations. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Robertson) had declared that Railway Companies very often had to pay for land more than a fair price; but, on the other hand, he (Mr. Byrne) said, that might have been so in the past; but he knew of cases where they had acquired property at less than the real value. He had no objection to the Companies making the proposed railway. He would give them every facility, provided they did what they were required to under the Lands Clauses Consolidation Acts—namely, take over the whole of the property with which they interfered, and use and manage it themselves. Besides those who travelled underground, there were those who travelled over ground, and the Corporation of the City of London were bound to watch the interests of the latter class in such cases as the present. As he had said, he had no objection to the Companies acquiring the land they sought for their railway, if they took it at a fair price. They came, however, with their knife, and, having taken the choice cut off the joint, left the unprofitable skeleton. He objected to that, and for the reason that, when they took the choice cut from the joint, they would not pay a fair price for the portion so taken, but only in proportion to the value of the whole. He had no doubt the Members of the Committee did what they considered was a very wise and proper thing when they agreed to a tribunal for settling disputes in these matters, when they agreed to an arbitration before an officer appointed by the Board of Trade. The effect of that clause being inserted in the Bill, it struck him, would be that the owners of land who went before the tribunal would not get a fair price. He had had some experience of these tribunals. Some people believed them to be fair; but he could not agree with that, and for this reason—it was well known that if he had a claim against a Railway or any public Company he could get scientific witnesses to prove almost anything. In cases where Railway Companies wanted to acquire land, the scientific witnesses for the Companies and for the owners could never agree as to value. The owner of the land would get, say, a dozen witnesses to value the property, and, no doubt, he would produce the three highest estimates of public men of reputation. The Railway Companies would, get estimates made by an equal number of professional men, and they would adopt the three lowest. The gentlemen whose valuations they produced to the jury were three gentlemen retained for the whole of the cases; and they would, therefore, be interested witnesses. What did the juries do in these cases? They put the two sets of valuations together, and took an average between them, and gave it as their verdict. It was only necessary to tell anyone who knew anything about these things who the witnesses were, and he would be able to inform them what the verdict was to be. This was the way these things were managed. The jury gave a verdict which they believed to be right from the evidence; but, as he had pointed out, the evidence could be no guide as to what was right. In reference to the views he was expressing with regard to landlord and tenant, they might be quoted against him hereafter—when he came to take part in another Land Bill next year. He wished it to be understood that he did not wish to see land taken from a landlord and handed over to a tenant or anyone else without a fair price being given for it. He would not like to hear them say to the landlord—"You shall sell your best field at a price proportionate to that which you want for the whole of your land." He was willing that the landlords should be compelled to sell, just as he was willing to see proprietors obliged to sell, to the Railway Companies. But they must not go and take the best field, or the best acre, and give for it only the price that would be paid if the whole were bought. He would not permit them to buy retail at wholesale prices.

said, he demurred entirely to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Playfair) as to the state of the Bill at the present moment. He had said that when the Bill had entered the House—[ Cries of " Order!"]

The hon. Member cannot address the House again.

Do I understand you to say that I have no right to say anything?

The hon. Member can only explain, with the indulgence of the House, if he proposes to withdraw the Motion.

I beg pardon, Sir; I thought I had a right to reply, having moved the Motion.

Question put.

The House divided: —Ayes 133; Noes 150: Majority 17.—(Div. List, No. 80.)

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Consideration, as amended, put off for three months.

Rathmines and Rathgar Townships Water Bill [Lords]—(by Order.)

Consideration, as Amended

Bill, as amended, considered.

said, he wished to propose the insertion of a new clause in the Bill, a clause of so reasonable a character that he did not think the House would decline to insert it in the measure. When the Bill came before the House for second reading, in the early part of the month, he had thought it his duty to oppose it; but it was suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Lyon Playfair) that the measure should be submitted to the usual ordeal—namely, to a Committee upstairs. The right hon. Gentleman thought that an investigation into the merits of the Bill could more properly take place before a Committee than before the House; and that before the tribunal upstairs, the opponents, as well as the promoters, would have full opportunity of discussing the measure. It was urged by the right hon. Gentleman that in the Committee upstairs the opponents would have ample opportunity for being heard, and giving their reasons why the Bill should not become law. Well, it was referred to a Committee, and what had been predicted there occurred. It was found that the ratepayers of the City of Dublin had no locus standi for opposing the Bill on its merits; that the Corporation of the City of Dublin, who, in an ordinary case, would have had a locus standi, had, by legislation of some time ago—whether it was wise or not he would not say—but there was no doubt that some years ago, in a Bill they themselves promoted, the Corporation of the City of Dublin contracted themselves out of any power or authority to oppose any water scheme of this kind. As a consequence of that, the Bill passed through Committee; and he (Mr. Brooks) was here now to ask the House to suspend, for a short time, the operation of the measure, in order that the House might have before it evidence not adducible before the Committee sitting upstairs. The City of Dublin and the Townships of Rathmines and Rathgar, which were promoting the Bill, were divided by a canal, and connected by various bridges. There was only separating them an imaginary boundary line. There had been sitting for some months past a Royal Commission, or, if not a Royal Commission, a Commission appointed by the Viceroy and the Privy Council, sitting in Ireland to consider the feasibility and propriety of uniting the City of Dublin, and the Townships of Rathmines and Rathgar. Their Report, it was believed, would soon be made known, and it was fully expected that it would recommend the annexation of the City of Dublin of the Townships in question. If that annexation were brought about, then the £100,000 or £150,000, which it was estimated the erection and construction of the works proposed by the Bill would cost, would be utterly lost to the ratepayers of the City of Dublin, without any corresponding advantage to a single soul living. As was well known throughout the United Kingdom, Dublin had excellent, a superabundant, supply of water. They allowed to run off, because they had no use for it, a larger amount of water every day than would supply the Townships of Rathmines and Rathgar three times over. He believed the Corporation were able to give a supply at the rate of 40 gallons a-day for every inhabitant of the City and Townships. Well, the Corporation, having the supply literally at the door of the Rathmines and Rathgar Townships, said to those places—"We are willing to give you any quantity that is necessary, at a price that shall be decided on arbitration by any tribunal the House of Commons may choose to appoint.'' Now, it might be asked—"Why, then, do the Townships of Rathmines and Rathgar object to taking this water, and why are they endeavouring to get an independent supply? "It was hardly necessary to remind the House of the jealousy which existed between rival or co-existing authorities. The Commissioners of Rathmines, who for some time had managed their local affairs with great skill and success, were unwilling to be annexed to Dublin. They were anxious that they should maintain their position of isolation. They, who had no paupers, who had their roads constructed by the City of Dublin, who had no artizans living within their boundary, who sent their poor and their sick into the City, were most anxious to enjoy the lesser rate of taxes which, by accident of their imaginary boundary, they now existed under. Well, the citizens of Dublin, he thought, might fairly complain—and here he would say that a circular had been issued to all the Members of Parliament by the Rathmines and the Rathgar Commissioners, in which they pretended to say that the opposition he felt it his duty to give was brought about by the Corporation of the City of Dublin. He entirely denied the truth of any such statement. He was acting wholly for himself, and in accordance with his duty as a ratepayer of the City, and from a belief in the economy that would be effected by the extension of the Dublin water supply and the extinction of independent, hostile, and exclusive management. The advantages that would be secured, if the course he advocated were adopted, would be so great that they ought to make a great effort to follow that course. Now, in the year 1875, a Committee was appointed to inquire into local government and taxation of Ireland. That Commit——

I understand that the hon. Member proposes to move an Amendment?

Yes.

If that is so, the hon. Member must confine himself to the clause.

said, that if he could be permitted to proceed for one moment it would be found that he was not irrelevant. The Commission he had spoken of was inquiring into the boundary of Dublin, and these Townships; and, as he had said, their Report was expected to be delivered in a day or two. The Rathmines and Rathgar Commissioners, knowing that this Report was about to issue, and that it would, in all probability, recommend the annexation, had promoted this Bill. The Rathmines and Rathgar Commissioners had promoted the Bill for the simple reason of averting an annexation; and he therefore proposed that, pending the issue of the Report of the Commission and its consideration, the operation of the Bill should be suspended for 12 months. That seemed to him a moderate and reasonable proposal. If the Boundary Commission recommended the annexation to Dublin of these Townships, everything would be settled satisfactorily; and even if they did not, all the time that would be lost would be 12 months. Therefore, he begged to move that a new clause be added to the Bill, providing that it should not come into operation until the 31st August, 1881.

Clause (Commencement of Act,)— brought up, and read the first time.

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

said, this opposition was, to his thinking, entirely unusual and unfair. The Bill had gone through all its stages in the House of Lords, and it had been submitted to a Committee. When it came from the Lords it went to another Committee upstairs, presided over by the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), and at that stage the opposition to the Bill was entirely withdrawn, and there was an agreement that it should not be further opposed. To the surprise of everybody, at the last moment, and at this stage, which was a most unusual one, they had this opposition. There was really nothing to warrant the pressure now endeavoured to be put upon the House other than the desire of the Corporation of Dublin to force unwilling Townships to do that which they did not wish to do. The hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks) had talked a good deal about an annexation which would probably be reported as desirable by the Boundary Commissioners. No such Report, however, had been made, and he had yet to learn that it would be made. The Townships were very well able to take care of themselves, and he knew they were very averse from any such annexation.

remarked, that the question raised was a very simple, but a very important one. The City of Dublin had the best water supply in the United Kingdom. There was enough to well supply the Rathmines district, through which the pipes passed, and the Corporation were very willing that the in habitants of Rathmines should have what they required. A Commission had been sitting to inquire whether the boundaries of the City should be extended, so as to include this Township or not, and the general impression was that it was absolutely necessary and certain the boundaries should be so extended. In any case, within a few months, there would be a Report from this Commission on the subject, and the question settled one way or the other. Anybody knowing Dublin would understand the reason why it was said to be necessary that the City boundary should be extended. If that were done, the Rathmines Township would be embraced within the City limits, and would, of course, be supplied by the Corporation from the present source. It was now proposed that a different water system should be established for this Township, at a great cost, which must become useless if the Township was brought within the City limits. Could there be anything more foolish, or more prejudicial to the ratepayers, than that such a scheme should be carried out, if the change indicated was to take place. The proposal that his hon. Friend (Mr. M. Brooks) made was a very fair one. He did not oppose the Bill, but simply asked the Township to wait until the Report of the Commission, which had concluded its inquiries, was published. If the Commissioners recommended the annexation of the Township, then there would be no need for incurring the enormous expense of providing a second water supply contemplated by the Bill. If the Township was not to be brought within the City boundaries, then the ratepayers, having got the Bill, would be able to have that water supply of their own. Until the boundary question was decided, he must think that it would be a most mischievous and unreasonable thing to have two systems of water supply, under the same authority, in operation, side by side, at the same time, when the existing supply was amply sufficient. That was the question raised by his hon. Friend, and, as it seemed to him, with very much reason. He must, therefore, support the proposed Amendment, which commended itself to the common sense and reason of every practical man.

said, he was not at all interested in the matter one way or the other; but he understood that the Committee upstairs refused a locus standi to the City of Dublin before them, on the ground that the Township of Rathmines was a perfectly independent body, and that the Corporation was another, and that neither had any right to interfere with the other. If the Boundary Commissioners, however, had made their Report in favour of the Corporation, they would have had a locus standi, and a perfectly good ground for preventing the Bill from passing, inasmuch as they had, no doubt, a sufficient water supply in the City to provide for the Townships as well. It seemed to him an extraordinary thing that, for the want of a few months' postponement, the City might be placed in so extraordinary a position. If the Boundary Commissioners did not report in favour of the annexation the Bill should be carried out; while, if they reported in favour of it, the Vartry system was already there, and it would be utterly useless to spend £150,000 in getting another supply.

thought everybody must feel great sympathy with Dublin in this matter. The Corporation of that City had, without exception, one of the best water supplies in the Kingdom, carried out by the enterprizing citizens there at a less cost than any other place he knew. They had a superabundance of water also, and they could easily supply this Township. Rathmines practically occupied the same position in regard to Dublin that Bays water did to London. Gentlemen of position, who desired to be outside of the turmoil of the City, took houses there with fine grounds, and lived in a state of great luxury. They were gentlemen of great enterprize, and they managed their own affairs very admirably; but the tendency of all modern legislation was to provide that people living in the immediate neighbourhood of great towns should contribute something towards the expenses of those towns. Therefore, he had no doubt that the boundaries of the City of Dublin would be extended so as to include some of those rich Townships which, at the present time, escaped the burdens that they ought to bear. It seemed to him, therefore, the Motion was judicious and right. The Corporation of Dublin had very heavy burdens to bear. The proposal of his hon. Friend merely postponed the execution of the Bill for 12 months; and as the Corporation of Dublin had not been allowed by the technical Rules of that House to make themselves heard in the Committee upstairs, he thought they should be entitled, by means of the clause, to deal with a proposition which might turn out both inconvenient and unreasonable.

said, the hon. Member (Mr. M. Brooks), in proposing that clause, had declared that his object was not to defeat the Bill. Well, if it was not, it was something very like it. He (Mr. Rodwell) might remind the House that some few weeks ago the hon. Member brought forward a Motion for the rejection of the Bill on the second reading. No doubt, the hon. Member said, with perfect fairness, that he did not bring forward the Motion for the purpose of defeating the Bill; but the question was what would be its effect, and whether it was right that the Bill should be defeated. They had heard that the matter was important to the City of Dublin; but it was also very important to Rathmines. That Township certainly thought so, for they had, at their own expense, brought forward this scheme. An important fact had been omitted from the statement of this case which ought to have been mentioned, for Rathmines had been very ungenerously treated by the City of Dublin. In 1874, the Corporation deliberately excluded Rathmines and Rathgar from the operations of their Water Bill. By that action the Township was, therefore, left quite helpless. The Corporation further bound themselves, by agreement, not to oppose any person, Company, or incorporated body seeking to obtain a Bill for any district excluded, and part of the district excluded was Rathmines and Rathgar. Notwithstanding that agreement, however, the Corporation now opposed this Bill, not only on the second reading, but on its consideration. The case had been inquired into by a Committee, presided over by the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), than whom no one could be more competent to decide on a question of water supply. That Committee had determined that the Bill should pass. He trusted, therefore, that the House would not give effect to this Motion, which was of a very insidious character, to say the least of it, and which really placed the Township of Rathmines entirely at the mercy of the Corporation of Dublin.

said, it was true the House was simply discussing a new clause; but, on the other hand, the object of the clause was a very large one. The proposition was to postpone the Bill for a year; but it was uncertain how much further that proposition might extend, and whether the postponement might not be for an indefinite period. Ever since 1863, the Corporation of Dublin had had their own water supply. Therefore, ever since 1863, the Corporation might, if they had chosen, and if Rathmines had been willing, have supplied Rathmines with water. Yet, even now, Rathmines was supplied from an impure source—namely, the Canal. The water supply in Rathmines had now become very bad; and, consequently, there was great need for a good supply in its place. The present Bill had been, therefore, preferred. It had been accepted by a Committee in "another place," and now, in almost the last stage, it was proposed to insert that clause, the practical effect of which would be to give opportunities next year for bringing in a competing Bill; and the inhabitants of Rathmines might, consequently, be subjected to another contest before they would be able to obtain their water supply. It was said that Rathmines might be made a portion of Dublin, by a Report of the Boundary Commissioners; but that could only be done by Act of Parliament, and when that Act was asked for the Rathmines people would be heard on the subject. It would surely be very hard upon them if, after passing their Bill through all the stages of the other House, and every one but this, they were to be refused the sanction of Parliament to their measure. It must be remembered that, so long ago as 1874, Rathmines was excluded by Act of Parliament, promoted and obtained by the Dublin Corporation from participating in their water supply; and, therefore, he thought a strong case was made out in the Bill. He trusted the House would support the action of their Committee upstairs, and reject the proposal to insert that new clause.

said, he had been extremely astonished to hear a right hon. Gentleman, occupying such an important position as that of Chairman of Committees, make so many grave, but unguarded, assertions. To anyone acquainted with the long contest between Dublin and Rathmines, his statement would seem like a chapter from some novel. Prom his speech it would appear that the Corporation of Dublin had been asked to supply Rathmines with water, and that they had refused to do it. But the very contrary was the fact. The Commissioners of Rathmines had refused to take water from Dublin, and had been willing to leave their ratepayers to drink the impure water that they had, rather than take pure water from the democratic Corporation. The fact was that for some years there had been a fight in Dublin over Liberal water and Conservative water. That question had been made a subject of dispute for a long time; and when the reformed Corporation came in, and the old Representatives were swept away, they were opposed in their work of improving the City very bitterly indeed. The Rathmines people would have nothing to do with the project of the Corporation, in obtaining a pure supply for the City, and held aloof from, or opposed, every thing that the Corporation undertook with that object. The struggle about the Vartry water supply was fought for several years with so much bitterness, that it nearly broke the heart of the late Sir John Gray; and, finally, in order to obtain peace, the Corporation declared that they would not object to Rathmines seeking an independent supply. He was astonished to hear the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Lyon Playfair) say that Rathmines was excluded by the Corporation from the Bill, for that surely was a very inaccurate way of representing the matter to the House. Rathmines was not included in the Corporation scheme at their own desire; and was it fair, therefore, to represent that they were excluded by the Corporation of Dublin? So far from the Dublin Corporation wilfully excluding Rathmines, the exact contrary was the case. He (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) took part in all these contests, and knew the whole facts. The Rathmines Commissioners, elected by a narrow and restricted franchise, declared that their canal supply would be infinitely superior to the Vartry supply. Now, however, they were obliged to confess that it was inferior, and that the accusations made against their own system were true. The water supplied was insufficient; the water they offered was bad, and, as a consequence, the Commissioners now came and tried to amend their ways. And at what a time? He would ask the House what position it would occupy next year, if the Boundary Commissioners reported that Rathmines should be included in the Municipality of Dublin. There was no real boundary between the two places. It was purely an imaginary one, and he would defy any visitor to Dublin to see where Rathmines began, or where Dublin ended. [Mr. MACARTNEY: The canal.] The hon. Member for Tyrone forgot that the canal was not throughout the boundary. It was really inevitable that these surrounding Townships should some day, either this year, or next year, or some 10 years hence, be added to the Municipality of Dublin. But the Chairman of Committees said that the Rathmines Township, having established a water supply at the cost of £100,000, would have a claim against Dublin for an expenditure which they could have avoided merely by holding their hands. As a matter of fact, this was simply an engineer's fight, and the only result of it would be that, the works having been begun, Rathmines would come there that day 12 months, and ask to be recouped for the money that they had expended. The object of his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Dublin (Mr. Brooks) was not to destroy the Bill. As he had said, it might happen that within the coming 12 months Rathmines would be incorporated with the City of Dublin; and he asked, therefore, upon what grounds of common sense, justice, and public policy, it would be wise to incur an expenditure of £100,000 at the present moment?

said, he knew the district of Rathmines perfectly well. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) began his speech by saying that the fight for this Bill was purely political, but concluded by saying it was purely engineering. The local authorities of Rathmines had managed their Township extremely well, and they now brought in a Bill to secure for themselves a good and ample supply of water. They were answered by the Corporation, who said—"You shall never get the power you seek because there is a chance of our being able to supply you with water;" and, under those circumstances, they opposed the Bill. He submitted to the House that there had seldom been a more unusual course than that which had been taken by the hon. Gentleman who represented the Dublin Corporation that day. It was all in vain for the hon. Gentleman (Mr. M. Brooks) to say that he did not appear as the Representative of the City of Dublin.

said, that he had no commission from the Corporation; but he had adopted the present course solely for the benefit of both Dublin and Rathmines.

said, that he spoke at the request of the ratepayers of Rathmines interested in the water which they themseves were to consume, notwithstanding that he had received that day a telegram from the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Mr. Gray), requesting him to be in his place to support the Motion of the hon. Member (Mr. M. Brooks). He had likewise received a telegram from the Secretary to the City Board, an official representing the Corporation, ordering him, in fact, to be in his place to give his support to the Motion. They had heard a great deal to-day in praise of the Dublin Corporation and its management of the City; but he had the misfortune to know that it was one of the worst managed places in the Three Kingdoms. He had the misfortune to know that so bad was the management by the Corporation of his native City, that its old name of "dear, dirty Dublin," now only applied in the sense of the heavy rates they had to pay for the privilege of having this dirty City. Nothing could be worse than the unsanitary and uncleanly state of Dublin, and nothing could be better than the excellent state of Rathmines in these respects, and nothing more satisfactory than the action of the Commissioners. He thought that when the Rathmines Commissioners had gone through all the stages necessary in order to place themselves in a position to get the supply of water they desired; when they had established their case before a Committee of the House of Lords, for there they had satisfactorily encountered their opponents—six ratepayers out of 3,000—and when they had also satisfied a Committee of that House, it was a monstrous proposal that was now made by the Corporation of Dublin, who had prevailed upon their Lord Mayor to telegraph to hon. Gentlemen of that House, upon whom he might be supposed to have some influence, to attend in their places, and say that Rathmines was not to have the water from the source they liked, but that they were to wait for another year on the chance of the Corporation of Dublin being in a position to dictate to them to take to the supply of water which they did not wish to have. He maintained that the Commissioners of Rathmines had duties altogether distinct from those of the Corporation of Dublin, and he trusted the House would not adopt the Motion proposed by the hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks).

said, that although the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Plunket) had spoken of the state of the City of Dublin generally the House would have observed that he had carefully avoided saying anything with regard to the supply of water which that City now enjoyed. It was unnecessary to add one word to what had already been said in praise of the water supply of Dublin, and perhaps the House would be surprised to hear that that very supply actually ran through a portion of the Rathmines district; the main pipes actually ran through a portion of the Rathmines district, and it would only be a matter of a few months to lay down the secondary pipes in order to supply the whole of the district with an abundance of the purest water. It did seem, no doubt, an invidious thing to oppose the Bill at this stage; but it must be borne in mind that this was no new contest. For a long time the City of Dublin appeared annually before the House, claiming powers to bring a pure supply of water into the City, and, for many years, their object was defeated by machinations to which he need not refer, except to say that those machinations seemed more of a political than a sanitary character. Owing to the energy, however, of the late Sir John Gray those difficulties were at length surmounted, and a supply of water was obtained for Dublin second to none in the Empire, and superior, in the judgment of many people, to that found anywhere else. Under those circumstances, it did appear very extraordinary that the district of Rathmines, which, in the natural configuration, really belonged to the general features of the Dublin district, should now be asking for itself a separate and special supply of water. If the House gave its sanction to such a procedure it would be sanctioning the initiation of that very condition of things to obviate which a Committee was now sitting upstairs; they would be doing for Dublin what they were trying in another way to undo for London. It was very much to be regretted that the Rathmines Commissioners should have overlooked the supply which was actually at their feet, and which required only a very small expenditure of money to enable it to be carried through the whole of their district in the most abundant and ample manner. If time were an object, he submitted that water could be supplied to Rathmines from Dublin in one quarter the time they could supply it to themselves. He knew every inch of the ground over which the new supply would have to travel; he knew there were a great many engineering difficulties to be surmounted; and he believed that it would be utterly impossible in the time specified to complete the proposed work. He believed he was justified in saying that, when the decision of the Committee which sat in "another place" was announced, it was received with the utmost possible astonishment. When he himself heard that the Rathmines Commissioners were going to the House of Lords for powers for an additional supply of water, it seemed to him one of the most extraordinary things that could be proposed, under the circumstances; it seemed so strange to go to such an extravagant expenditure. Although the Corporation, at that very late period, were taking the only opportunity which the Forms of the House afforded to state their views, it must be borne in mind that they had not taken their opponents by surprise. No one knew better than the Rathmines Commissioners that this was an old war, for it had been going on for a very long time; and it would be greatly to be regretted, on grounds of public policy, that the Commissioners should be allowed to set up an imperium in imperio in the City of Dublin. It could not be contended, for one moment, that that separate supply was requisite; and, for all the reasons he had enumerated, he felt constrained to support the Motion of the hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks). By adopting the Motion they would be best consulting the interests of Dublin and this very Rathmines district.

said, he had been induced to rise on account of the observation that the Bill was promoted upon political grounds. It might be well to inform the House that the Chairman of the body who were promoting this Bill, opposed as it was by Liberals in that House, was a stronger Liberal than he (Sir Patrick O'Brien) was, and, in saying that, he was saying a good. deal. The hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan), who was often in the habit, when he had a bad case in the House, of "abusing the plaintiff's attorney," had met them by a remark which he also frequently made—"Oh, you know nothing about the country!" If anyone had a right to say a word upon the present occasion, it was himself (Sir Patrick O'Brien), inasmuch as he was born in Rathmines. He disapproved of some of the observations of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket), and would remind that right hon. and learned Gentleman that Dublin earned the title of "dear and dirty Dublin" in the good old Tory times. Having said that, he asked if the House of Commons, in the year 1880, were going to deny to any district that water supply which it so much required? were they going to deny to Rathmines what they fought so long for for the people of Dublin? [Mr. A. M. SULLIVAN dissented.] No, he understood by the shake of the head of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan). He (Sir Patrick O'Brien) never now looked upon it with wonder. He did so originally; but when it was repeated until one was tired of it—

I must point out to the hon. Baronet that the House is now engaged in discussing a clause of a Private Bill.

said, he must thank the right hon. Gentleman for his correction. He only wondered that he had not been corrected before, and he would only now add that that Bill had been before two Committees—a Committee of the House of Lords and a Committee of the House of Commons—both of whom had well considered it. Was it to the advantage of Private Bill legislation in that House that they should disregard, upon the third reading, statements made not only in the House of Lords, but in the House of Commons? He knew there were some hon. Gentlemen who would say—"We care not what the House of Lords or the House of Commons may do—we set ourselves above them;" but he (Sir Patrick O'Brien) submitted that as long as they accepted their position, they must proceed upon their established Rules. He trusted they would not listen to the arguments of the hon. Gentlemen (Mr. M. Brooks and Mr. A. M. Sullivan), but pass the third reading of the Bill.

said, it was proposed that this Bill should be postponed until the Report of the Boundary Commission. The right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Lyon Playfair) had said it would be a great hardship to the Rathmines Township if the Bill were postponed for a year or more; but he (Mr. Gill) thought that if the matter were fairly considered, no hardship would be found to accrue from the postponement. The evidence brought before the Committee proved that if the Bill were postponed for two or three years, Rathmines would be supplied with water sooner than if their own works were commenced at once. "Water was now at their doors, whereas they would have to bring it a great number of miles. The Rathmines people were taking a dog in the manger course; they were trying to lay out a very large sum of money, and to impose additional taxation on their own inhabitants, in order to prevent the Corporation of Dublin making a small sum annually. Hon. Gentlemen might say that the Corporation were selfish in this matter; but such was not the case, for, whereas they were paying in Dublin 1

said, that as a ratepayer in Dublin, as well as in Rathmines, he should oppose the Motion made by the hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks). The Commissioners of Rathmines were a purely unpolitical body. In the past they had conducted the affairs of the Township with the greatest propriety and economy, and had earned the complete approval of the inhabitants. He considered that an unfair attempt on the part of the Corporation of Dublin to renew the opposition made to the second reading of the Bill, for it must be evident to everyone, from the telegrams which had been sent broadcast to the Members of the House, that the Corporation of Dublin were really the persons who were promoting this opposition. He believed that, at one time, when the Corporation discovered that their supply of water was not sufficient for the outlying districts, they opposed the compulsory giving of water to Rathmines and other districts; but in 1877, the Corporation having represented that they could supply Rathmines with water, articles of agreement were entered into; but afterwards, instead of being carried out, they were repudiated by some members of the Corporation. When a Bill was promoted recently by several ratepayers who were in accord with the Corporation, it was found that this very agreement, which the Corporation had repudiated, was entered into by them with the persons who were promoting the opposition Bill. He did not consider that House the proper tribunal to decide a matter of the kind; the proper tribunal was a Committee who could take evidence. It was unreasonable and unfair to expect the House to decide questions of that moment when they had already been referred to and adjudicated upon by a Committee of the House. He did not think any further time ought to be lost. The question of drainage had been postponed for four years by the Rathmines Commissioners, for the purpose of endeavouring to come to some arrangement with the Corporation to have the works done jointly, and they had been unable to arrive at any conclusion with regard to them. They then took the matter into their own hands, and what was their position now? They had been able to finish an admirable system of sewerage for the whole of the district of Rathmines. The only point really involved now was more time to be lost, and more delay to take place, and these gentlemen be prevented from making the valuable improvements which it was necessary they should make, and which would be for the general advantage of the inhabitants of the district over which they presided.

said, he regarded the question now before the House as one of principle, and it was right that they should always allow considerable latitude when questions of principle were at stake. He did not wish it to be supposed that he was referring to the principle of Home Rule, notwithstanding the fact that they had clearly before them—namely, that the Commissioners of Rathmines and the Rathmines people were asking the right to supply themselves with water. He did not dispute that these were questions which might be better understood by Home Rule Members; but he wished to point out the position in which the matter now stood in that House. It had already been pointed out that in 1861 the Corporation of Dublin obtained power to supply the district of Rathmines with water. He was much surprised, having looked into some of the Acts of Parliament, to hear the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) question that proposition. The Act of 1861 obtained by the Corporation of Dublin expressly authorized them to supply Rathmines with water. There was also the Act of 1874, which set forth the necessity for limiting the district supplied by the Corporation with water, and in that Act the district of Rathmines was expressly referred to. It contained the following Proviso, referred to by the hon. Member who last spoke (Mr. Findlater):—

"Provided, That the Corporation shall not have power to oppose hereafter any persons seeking to supply the district of Rathmines with water."

Hon. Members were told that the people of Rathmines had overlooked the grand supply of water which was at their very feet; but, on the contrary, the people of Rathmines had before them, and in Parliament, in the present Session, two Bills, one of which proposed to supply them with this very water, and that Bill was considered for six days in the House of Lords. Evidence was taken in support of the Bill; and, after a patient investigation, the other House rejected the Bill which proposed to supply this admirable water. The hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Dr. Lyons) thought that the people of Rathmines had forgotten that supply, which certainly had never touched their lips; but the House of Lords decided against the Bill that proposed to give it. Now, what had happened in that House? The Bill was opposed upon the second reading. The hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks) soughtthen, what he was again seeking that day—namely, the rejection of the Bill. It was, nevertheless, properly decided that the Bill should go to a Select Committee, and that decision was carried by a large majority. What happened next? The whole case was laid before the Committee, and the Petitioners were heard; clauses for their protection were introduced, and after the measure had been fully discussed it came down now in regular form for the third reading. That House, he ventured to think, never refused a third reading to such a Bill, except under very exceptional circumstances; and he thought that those exceptional circumstances did not exist in this particular case. The pretext now made was that certain Commissioners, who were now sitting, might make a special Report. If they were to reject the Bill upon that ground, they might as well never have these Private Bills introduced into the House at all. He repudiated altogether the notion of the question being one between Liberals and Conservatives. If it were so, it was not likely that he would be found enlisting himself under the banner of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Taylor). It was a question as to the regularity of their proceedings; and he trusted that the House would not listen to the appeal made to it, as it could have no other effect than rejecting the Bill, and reversing the decision which had been arrived at by the Select Committee. He trusted that the Bill would be now considered, and that the clause proposed by the hon. Member for the City of Dublin would be rejected.

thought it must be gratifying to the ratepayers of Rathmines, and also to the City of Dublin, that an English Member could be found to take such an interest in the question of supplying them with water. But he (Mr. Callan) did not see why the hon. Member should seize such an opportunity for making a sneer at Home Rule and the Home Rule Members. [Mr. DODDS: No, no, no!] He would accept the hon. Member's repudiation. He concurred in the expression of regret with which the hon. Member concluded his speech, that politics in any shape or form should have been imported into the question. At the same, knowing Dublin and Rathmines well, being a citizen of Dublin, and being intimately acquainted both with Dublin and Rathmines, he was aware that politics really formed two-thirds of the objection to the Bill. They were asked not to reject this Bill in the interests of the Rathmines ratepayers. They had that day rejected a Bill Which was of the greatest importance to the City of London; one, indeed, of greater importance than any measure which had come before that House of Parliament that year as a Private Bill. They rejected that Bill in opposition to the recommendation of the Chairman of the Committee who sat upon it. They would not even allow the House to consider the suggestion of the Chairman of the Committee—that an important clause, which was objected to, should be withdrawn. The House decided not to consider the Bill at all. Now, what was the real fact with regard to the position of the present Bill? There was a Chairman who was a fussy old gentleman—["No, no!"]—He did not allude to the present Chairman, but to a large proprietor of house property, who had had some personal disputes with the Corporation of Dublin, and from that circumstance had arisen all this difficulty. He was a man of large property in Rathmines, and he was obliged, in consequence of introducing personal matters, to resign the Chairmanship, leaving a more worthy Chairman in his place of Whig politics, the Board being Conservative. He did not believe, however, that politics entered largely into the question, although the Members for the University and the county were Conservatives. The real question had reference to the price of water. The proposition of the senior Member for Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks) did not go to the length of rejecting the Bill, but was simply to suspend its operation for 12 months. He (Mr. Callan) was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees, if he knew the whole of the circumstances, should have made the recommendation he had made. No doubt, it was an incontestable fact that water had been brought into the Township, and it only remained to fix the pipes in order to carry to Rathmines the best supply that could be got. As he had said, the only question in dispute had reference to the price. He thought that the appointment as Royal Commissioner, with power to arbitrate and fix the price at which the Corporation of Dublin should give the water, and at which the people of Rathmines should take it, would be quite sufficient. If an undertaking were given that in the event of the operation of the Bill being suspended for 12 months, the hon. Member for the City of Dublin would make a Motion to appoint a Commissioner to fix the rate, he believed they would avoid all this Party feeling, and save the squandering, for it was nothing else, of close upon £100,000; while, at the same time, they would give to the inhabitants of Rathmines as good a water supply as any in the United Kingdom. Were there not many water engineers, such as Sir John Hawkshaw, and other men of great repute, to whom the Township of Rathmines and the Corporation of Dublin could intrust such a mere matter of detail. If they agreed to suspend the operation of the Bill for 12 months, and, in the meantime, to employ a Royal Commissioner or an arbitrator to fix the price at which the water should be given and taken, they would save, at least, £100,000. He thought that was a practical suggestion; and if it was competent for him to move an Amendment, he would move the adjournment of the debate upon the question, for the purpose of that point being considered. He thought that was a course which would commend itself to the good opinion of the House and remove all discontent. He was surprised that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the County of Dublin (Colonel Taylor) should have spoken in discourteous terms of the telegram he had received. He (Mr. Callan) had received a similar telegram; but, instead of being discourteous, it was couched in the most respectful language—

"I earnestly request you to attend the meeting of the House to-morrow in support of Mr. Brooks' Motion upon the Rathmines Bill."

He had received another telegram from the clerk of the Water Works Committee. It said—

"In your place you are requested to support Mr. Brooks' Motion to-morrow. Your presence is respectfully requested."

What was there peremptory or disrespectful in that? He could not imagine what single expression could have given rise to the irritable observations of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the County of Dublin, unless his personal animus had clouded his usually calm and placid intellect. He thought it was desirable that the debate should be adjourned till to-morrow or Thursday. In the meantime, both parties could have a conference, so as to enable them to agree upon the appointment of an arbitrator. That, he thought, would remove all the difficulty, and tend to promote harmony among a people between whom harmony should be promoted. He therefore begged to move, if it were competent for him to do so, the adjournment of the debate.

said, he had great pleasure in seconding the Motion. It was quite evident that the object of this proposition was to shelve the Bill for conceding to the inhabitants of the Township of Rathmines the privilege of supplying themselves with water. He objected to the mode in which it was proposed to accomplish that object. The purpose of the Corporation of Dublin was to get as large a price as they could for the Vartry water, and the object of the Commissioners of Rathmines was to get a supply of water on fair and reasonable terms. It was not at all evident that they would be able to get water on fair and reasonable terms from the Corporation of Dublin; and they, therefore, set about forming a scheme of their own. That scheme was contained in the Bill now before the House, and he wished to draw the attention of the House to one of the recitals at the commencement of the Bill. It was to the effect that out of the large number of 3,000 ratepayers which the Township of Rathmines contained, only 19 ratepayers had been found who were willing to sign a protest against the scheme which the Rathmines Commissioners had adopted in order to provide themselves with a supply of water. He thought that it was a question merely of money; and it was for the purpose of preventing the Corporation of Dublin from exercising a coercive measure upon the inhabitants of Rathmines, and compelling them to take their water at a price which the inhabitants of that Township deemed exorbitant, that he thought the best mode of meeting the circumstances of the case now would be to adjourn the de bate upon the Bill, and enable the two bodies to come to terms. For that reason, he seconded the Motion of the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Callan.)

said, he had come down to the House with the intention of supporting the views of his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks); but he would now make an appeal to his hon. Friend to agree to the Motion for the adjournment of the debate. From all that he had heard upon the question, it appeared to him that the Township of Rathmines proposed to censtruct waterworks at a cost which was something equivalent to the expenditure which would be incurred if they made arrangements with the Corporation of the City of Dublin. If that were so; if they could get the water from the Corporation of Dublin for about the same price they would have to pay for the construction of their own work, it seemed to him that nothing was requisite in order to settle this difficulty, but a little time and a little patience. He confessed that he should feel much more pride as an Irishman in the Rathmines Township and the Corporation of Dublin, if they had found themselves able to settle this matter without coming to an English Parliament. It was for that reason that he had risen to support the Motion for the adjournment of the debate. He would appeal, not to his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Dublin, but to all Members who took an interest in the question on both sides of the House, to adjourn the debate, so that they might meet together and see if they could not come to some harmonious arrangement between themselves.

thought that a sufficient amount of public time had already been wasted; and he, therefore, trusted that the House would not agree to adjourn the debate. It would be highly objectionable if the practice were to be introduced into the House of having lengthened discussions on every Private Bill; and if it was to be continued the sooner they gave up the Public Business of the House the better. In respect to this particular measure, he could not discover any sufficient justification for this animated and lengthened debate. Indeed, it had been of such a discursive character that it might be well to remind the House that the question as to how far the Corporation of Dublin were competent to supply the Township of Rathmines with water had already been considered for six days before a Committee of the House of Lords, presided over by Lord Powis. In point of fact, there had been a competing scheme brought forward in the interests of the Corporation of Dublin to give the Township a supply of Vartry water, instead of that proposed by the Township authorities. Upon that competing scheme, the entire question was discussed at great length, and it was decided in favour of the promoters of the present Bill. A second inquiry, upon which the Corporation of Dublin was represented by counsel, was had before a Committee of this House. In listening to the history of the measure, as he had heard it from the imaginative tongue of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan), he feared that the hon. and learned Member had mixed up a few facts with a very considerable amount of fiction. The Corporation of the City of Dublin, in the year 1874, deliberately struck the Rathmines Township out of the limits of their water supply from the Vartry. He did not know under what circumstances that took place; but it appeared to have been done after due consideration and discussion before the Committee, which sat in 1874; because, as had already been pointed out by his hon. Friend the Member for the County of Monaghan (Mr. Findlater), there was an express clause in the Act of 1874 that the Dublin Corporation should not, if any other scheme were brought forward for the supply of the Township of Rathmines, be permitted to oppose that scheme. Subsequently, however, through the agency of a competing scheme they had virtually evaded that provision, as he had already pointed out, and had the benefit of urging on the Committee that the Vartry water supply was the more desirable for the Townships. The Corporation had a full opportunity of having their case heard on its merits before two Committees. He trusted the House would not, therefore, virtually set aside the decision of these Committees on mere assertions, which the Township authorities contended the opponents of the Bill failed to substantiate in evidence. He asked the House to consider the circumstances of the Township of Rathmines. It was not merely that they were now seeking for this water supply, but they had already obtained Parliamentary powers to construct and maintain a separate system of drainage. Notwithstanding what had been said, he thought the House would assume the ratepayers of Rathmines were in favour of the present Bill, for it was a Township presided over by local Commissioners; and everyone was perfectly aware that, before a scheme of this sort could be laid before Parliament, it must be considered with due deliberation, and notices in respect of it circulated amongst the ratepayers. Indeed, he had been informed, as a fact, that several meetings had been publicly held at which the advocates of the Corporation of Dublin, who were in favour of the Vartry supply, were heard. And yet, after all this public discussion and deliberation, the great majority of the ratepayers of the Township of Rathmines came to the conclusion that the most desirable thing they could do was to apply for their own water supply. Under all these circumstances, he trusted that the House would not sanction the principle that a Bill which had been adopted by a Committee of the House of Lords and passed the second reading here, notwithstanding the opposition of the hon. Member for Dublin, and which had since been inquired into by a Select Committee of this House, should be virtually got rid of by the insertion of a clause to suspend its operation.

thought the matter had been sufficiently threshed out. It had already been before the other House of Parliament, and it had been before a Committee of that House. It had now been discussed that day for several hours and, in fact, it would be throwing away the benefit of the lengthened discussion which had just taken place, if they were to consent to adjourn the debate or to postpone the operation of the Bill. In reality what the hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks) proposed was, in other words, to compel the postponement of the question sine die. Those who desired that the Bill should be read a third time would vote against that Motion, and those who objected to a third reading would support it. It was desirable, he thought, that the House should come to a decision at once. The Chairman of Ways and Means had given the House his views in favour of the reasonableness of reading the Bill a third time, having regard to what had taken place "elsewhere." Before they did so, however, he thought the House would like to hear a few words from the Chairman who presided over the Committee.

said, that he had been Chairman of the Committee; but the facts, as far as he was acquainted with them, were very simple. The Bill came before him as Chairman of the Committee of the House of Commons, and it came down to the Committee from the House of Lords. When the Committee assembled, Mr. Granville Somerset told them that he appeared for the Corporation of Dublin, and that they would not, practically, oppose the Preamble of the Bill. The Corporation withdrew from opposing the Bill; and he, as Chairman of the Committee, had simply to go through the clauses of the measure, and make one or two alterations. That was all he knew of the matter, and he could give the House no further information.

said, that his object in proposing the clause was to secure that due consideration should be given to the ratepayers of Dublin. He thought that that object had been attained, and, therefore, he had no wish that the time of the House should be further occupied; and he would ask his hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) to withdraw the Motion for an adjournment. Before that was done, he should like to correct a misapprehension, on the part of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the County of Dublin (Colonel Taylor), who was of opinion that he (Mr. Brooks) wished utterly to annihilate the Bill, and all the good that was intended by the Rathmines Commissioners. That was certainly not his object. If it had been, he would have proposed that the operation of the Bill should be suspended for two years. He had simply proposed to suspend the operation for one year, and his object in doing so, was to give time to the ratepayers who were interested in the matter to come to an arrangement. He hoped that his hon. Friend would now withdraw his Motion for the adjournment of the debate, so that the House might come to a decision on the Main Question.

said, that his suggestion was only made in the interests of peace, and for the purpose of promoting harmony. He had no objection to withdraw his Motion, and now let them go at it like Kilkenny cats.

The Question is, that the Motion be, by leave, withdrawn.

said, that before the Motion was withdrawn he was anxious to say that, from what he had heard previously, it appeared to him the Rathmines Commissioners were perfectly unreasonable. What was proposed in regard to this particular Bill was this. The Town Council of the City of Dublin offered to give the water at one-fourth of the rate the citizens of Dublin would have to pay. They had heard a great deal in discussing Motions for adjournment and otherwise, in reference to the decision of the House of Lords, and the inquiry by a Committee of the House of Commons. They had now heard from the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) that, in point of fact, there was no question before the Committee of the House of Commons at all. They heard no evidence, and they heard no arguments; and, therefore, their decision amounted to very little. The inquiry was more protracted in the House of Lords; but the House of Lords heard no arguments from the Corporation of Dublin, so that they were in a much worse position than the House was at the present moment. In point of fact, under a clause of the Act of 1874, the Corporation of Dublin were not entitled to oppose any Bill promoted for supplying Rathmines with water. Since that clause was inserted in the Bill a very great deal had occurred, and a Commission had been appointed to make recommendations in regard to the consolidation of the suburbs of the principal City of Ireland; and the Townships of Rathmines and Rathgar were almost certain to be included within the boundaries of the City of Dublin within a very short time. In the interests of the ratepayers, therefore, it was, in his (Mr. Biggar's) opinion, of the highest importance that the recommendation of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks) should be agreed to. He arrived at that conclusion for this reason. Suppose that this Township got an Act to enable them to supply themselves with water. What would occur? They would get plans from engineers, and enter into contracts for the supply of water, which would cost them a great deal more than the present supply would cost them. In the end the entire cost would be thrown over the whole City of Dublin, together with the expense incurred by both parties for counsels' fees, Parliamentary agents, engineers, and so on. He thought the House would agree with him that the interests of both parties would be very much injured if the present Bill were carried into operation. If he were in the position of the hon. Member for Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks) he would move to reject the Bill altogether, for he never heard a more unreasonable proposition than to set two small Townships against a great City. The proposition should not be entertained by the House. The excuse for the interference of the House in a matter of that sort was that, in consequence of the Standing Orders, certain parties were not allowed to appear before the Committee of the House. The Town Commissioners, who represented, or were supposed to represent, the ratepayers, came in for an Act of Parliament; and, even if a majority of their constituents were against them, as long as they were the local authority, they could obtain what they wanted without the ratepayers having an opportunity of speaking against it. For those reasons, he hoped a large majority would be in favour of the proposal of his hon. Friend.

would not keep the House any length of time from a division. He felt very strongly that the action of the Rathmines and Rathgar Commissioners, which the House was asked to sanction, was intended to inflict and perpetuate great wrong on the working classes and the poor of Dublin. They had heard a sneer, and, he was sorry to say, from an Irish Member, with regard to "dear and dirty Dublin," and he did not particularly admire the spirit which so often sought the applause of the House for jokes of that character. The essence of the whole matter was this—so far as he could see, Dublin was indeed dear, and Dublin was indeed hardly salubrious. There was a, frightful death-rate in Dublin; but the Corporation had their hands tied in dealing with the wants of the City by the limited area of the taxable and rateable district. The wealthy professional and mercantile people who made their money in the City lived out in these comfortable suburbs, and, while enjoying the advantages of the Metropolis, withdrew themselves from the responsibilities which they ought to bear. Dublin was endeavouring to get Rathmines within the rateable district, and the Bill which was being pressed upon the House was not a sanitary measure as it had been represented. There was no urgent want whatever for this Bill in order to supply Rathmines with the necessary amount of pure water it required. The water was there at their doors; but they declined to take it, because they wanted their special Water Bill passed as an aggressive engine against the Corporation of Dublin—against the just claim of Dublin. The City of Dublin sought to include these Townships within their boundary, to bring the property of these wealthy people within the taxable resources and under the control of the Corporation. If they passed the Bill as it stood, they would give these wealthy suburbs, or the inhabitants of Rathmines and Rathgar, who got their money out of the City, an additional argument for opposing their incorporation within the rateable area. If they wished to do all they could to continue the insalubrious-ness of Dublin, and the difficulty of the Corporation in carrying out town improvements, they would continue to withdraw from the resources of the citizens the resources of Rathmines and Rathgar, which ought to belong, and which ought long since to have been handed over to, the Corporation. Therefore, he said that the measure before the House was, in fact, an oligarch measure, directed against the good of the vast majority of the people of Dublin, and he trusted that a Liberal and thoughtful majority would not give countenance to anything which would keep up aristocratic exclusiveness and the Conservative immunity of the wealthy people of Rathmines.

said, there was an old proverb which said—"Live, horse, and you will get grass." They told the people of Rathmines—"Live and you will get water." They were to live without it as long as the Corporation chose to keep them waiting. He did not see what harm it could do the City of Dublin to give Rathmines the power to supply water to itself, and he did not see why anyone should object, provided that supply was good and sufficient. If the neighbourhood of Dublin increased in the same proportion in the future as it had increased in the past, the Corporation would have a sufficiently large area to supply from the Vartry without imposing on Rathmines the necessity of drinking Vartry water. Hon. Gentlemen who had spoken in favour of the Bill had said that they were, at present, in Rathmines drinking impure water from the canal. Were they to be allowed to go on drinking that, until it pleased Dublin to pass a Bill to give them a better supply? That was the simple question—or were the people of Rathmines, who were not willing to be included within the City of Dublin, destined to drink a certain kind of water whether they liked it or not?

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question put.

The House divided: —Ayes 51; Noes 251: Majority 200.—(Div. List, No. 81.)

Bill to be read the third time.

rose to call attention to the Report of the Select Committee of 1876 on Postal Telegraphs; and to move— the railway stations. In consequence of these recommendations of the Committee, and the various disclosures made with respect to them, the Committee of 1878 was appointed, and was presided over with great ability by the right hon. Member for the University of Edinburgh (Mr. Lyon Playfair). It would be a great pity if the result of the labours of that Committee was lost. Therefore, he ventured to think that the time of the House might be less usefully employed than in considering the recommendations of that Committee. The Departmental Committee recommended that the loss should be made good by increasing the charges. The Select Committee came to the conclusion that the opposite policy was that which should be adopted; and, without a single dissentient, they made a recommendation that the true method of making good the deficiency which had arisen was not by increasing the charges and decreasing the facilities, but by increasing the facilities, and, when the proper time came, decreasing the charges. Since then nothing had been done. His object in bringing forward this Motion was to direct the attention of the House to the various modes of facilitating the telegraphic service of the country, and to urge their adoption. After what the Postmaster General had said the other day as to the willingness of the Post Office to take up the question of sixpenny telegrams, he would principally confine himself to that branch of the subject. Though he did not think that the most feasible mode of improving the telegraphic service, yet, as the Department had taken it up, it would best serve the object he had in view if he chiefly devoted himself to that particular point.

It being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till this day.

Ways and Means

Considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

1. Resolved , That, towards raising the Supply granted to Her Majesty, the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury be authorised to raise any sum, not exceeding £1,500,000, by an issue of Exchequer Bonds, Exchequer Bills, or Treasury Bills.

2. Resolved , That the principal of all Exchequer Bonds which may be so issued shall be paid off, at par, at the expiration of any period not exceeding one year from the date of such Bonds.

3. Resolved , That the interest of all such Exchequer Bonds shall he paid half-yearly, and shall he charged upon and issued out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, or the growing produce thereof.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow ; Committee to sit again To-morrow .

The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.

The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

said, he was explaining, when the House adjourned, that the Telegraph Committee of 1876 had enunciated an important principle—that in order to make good the loss that the telegraphs were then causing to the State, the proper thing to do was not to decrease facilities and increase charges, but to increase facilities, and, at the proper time, to decrease charges. The Committee reported that they had found the wires lay idle for a large portion of their time, and that clerks were not fully occupied. Few Members had any idea of the carrying capacity of a wire, or the working power of a clerk. When the wires were taken over by the Post Office, the Morse instrument was the one in general use, and by it a good operator could transmit little less than a column of The Times per hour. It was found, however, when the Committee sat, that in Manchester, for example, the average day's work was under 50 messages per clerk, or little more than a good operator could transmit in an hour. He knew that delays would occur, and that miscellaneous messages could not be transmitted nearly so fast as consecutive matter; but, still, they could be sent at the rate of 30 or 40 per hour with the old Morse instrument. Since the telegraphs were taken over a new instrument had been generally introduced—the Wheatstone—by which paper was first punctured by clerks, and the message then passed automatically over the wires at three times the speed of a Morse operator. Besides that, the duplex system had been introduced, and by it a wire, instead of only carrying one message in a single direction, could carry one in each direction, and these two messages could be sent by the Wheatstone, so that the carrying capacity of a wire was increased to four or five columns an hour. It was obvious, therefore, that the wires could do a great deal more work now than they did when the Committee reported. Another reason why the present was a good time for a change in the direction indicated by the Committee was that a great change had taken place in the personnel of the Telegraph Department. Sir John Tilley, who had recently retired, was a very excellent public servant; but he belonged to a period long anterior to the assumption of telegraphs by the Post Office. He knew very little about them personally, and he was very properly unwilling to sanction any proposal for change, the result of which might be in any respect problematical. There were financial reasons for thinking the present a good time for making the change. The revenue from the telegraph wires was increasing, though not in anything like the rapid ratio it did during the first four or five years that the telegraph service was under the charge of the Post Office. Excluding the first year, when everything was in confusion, he found that during the four years between the 31st March 1872 and the 31stMarch 1876, the increase in the revenue from the postal telegraphs was £498,700. In the four years from 31st March 1876 to the same date in 1880, the increase had only been £140,000. In the first four years the number of messages had increased by 7,500,000; while in the last four years, notwithstanding the spread of education, and the fact that the public had become thoroughly familiarized with the use of the cheapened telegraph, the increase had only been 6,000,000. And even that apparent increase was not altogether real, for he perceived that in last year's statistics the Press messages, which had hitherto been excluded, were now included. Hence a considerable deduction must be made. He was quite aware that during the first four years the increased revenue was earned at the cost of a large increase in the working expenditure. That increased expenditure had amounted to £600,000; and during the last four years the increase in the working expenses had been cut down to some £85,000. But he ventured to question the judiciousness of the wholesale curtailment of expenditure that had taken place. They wanted some further stimulus to the telegraph system of the country. If they did not bestir themselves, they would be left behind the rest of the world. In Belgium and Holland they had an international half-franc system. In France, for half-a-franc, a message could be transmitted from one end of a department to another. In Paris, as he observed from an interesting article in that day's Times , they had greatly improved the means of commnnication by the introduction of pneumatic tubes, of which they had now over 40 miles in length, divided into a primary and a secondary system, trains running through the one every five minutes, and through the other every three. The messages through these tubes were not restricted to any number of words. So successful had this system proved that the cost of the messages had been reduced to half-a-franc, or, if written on a card, to 3 d. In speaking to the deputation that lately waited on him on this subject, the Postmaster General said it was true that sixpenny telegrams had formerly been transmitted through London, but that there were then only 67 stations; whereas they had now been increased to 400, and the number of messages had increased from 250,000 a-year to 1,250,000. But in Paris, with only 46 pneumatic stations, instead of 1,250,000, they carried 4,800,000 messages a year with a certainty, according to The Times , from which he quoted, of a large increase when the reduced tariff had had time to operate. The moral of that was, that it was much more important to lessen the price of telegrams than to increase the number of stations. In reference to the proposal to reduce the minimum cost of a telegram to 6 d ., a message of 20 words had at present about eight additional words of address, making 28 in all for 1 s . It was proposed that for 6 d ., 12 words should be sent, with a halfpenny for every additional word, so that 24 words would cost 1 s . Thus, while the adoption of a 6d . rate would afford a great boon to the public, the Post Office would not do a great deal more of extra work for the money, if any at all. As to deferred telegrams, he did not agree with the adverse position which the Postmaster General had taken up; because by allowing deferred telegrams to go at a cheaper rate, the wires could be kept occupied during time when they at present lay idle. The Postmaster General had said the Treasury would have to be consulted, and that to send telegrams for less than they cost would be to tax the general community for the benefit of those who indulged in the luxury of telegrams. But, looking to the importance of telegrams in saving time, facilitating commerce, and giving an impetus to national wealth, they ought to avoid taxing unduly those who used this means of communication. They were told that if the Treasury would sanction an immediate loss of £167,000 a-year, telegrams could be cheapened. He believed the increased revenue from the Post Office would amply suffice to bear any loss which would accrue through the adoption of the 6 d . rate. Already last year the telegraph system had earned a clear profit of Between £20,000 and £30,000; and if the increase which had marked the first three months of this financial year continued, the net revenue ought to more than cover the estimated loss of £167,000. And he would point out to the Postmaster General that considerable economies might be effected in the Department immediately under his control by the adoption of those suggestions, as to its reorganization, which had been embodied by his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Edinburgh in the Report of the Committee over which he presided. He proceeded to quote the recommendations contained in that Report, of which he said no notice had been taken; and concluded by expressing his confidence that the adoption of a 6 d . rate for telegrams could not be much longer delayed, and by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

Amendment proposed,

To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, the time has arrived for adopting the policy of 'increased telegraphic facilities and diminished charges' advocated by the Select Committee on Postal Telegraphs as 'the true method of making the Telegraph Department remunerative,'"—( Dr. Cameron, )

—instead thereof.

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

said, that his hon. Friend made a somewhat serious charge against the Department over which he presided. His hon. Friend complained that during the four years which had elapsed since the publication of the Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the Telegraphic Service no notice had been taken of that Report, and that the recommendations contained in it had not been carried out. Having carefully read the proceedings of the Committee, he wished to be among the first to offer a humble, but sincere, word of praise to the Committee for their labours, and especially to the gentleman who presided. He joined issue at once with the hon. Member for Glasgow, believing that he should be able to prove that the assertion of the hon. Member, that the recommendations of the Committee had not been noticed by the Post Office, did not rest upon a substantial basis. He would show that these recommendations had been carried out, proving his case by the best of tests—namely, the remarkable effect produced upon the postal telegraph revenue in the great increase of the receipts as compared with the increase of the working expenses. Not long after his entrance into Office he had taken the recommendations of the Committee to the gentlemen who presided over the Telegraph Department and the Engineering Department, and asked them categorically whether this or that recommendation had been carried out; and in every case the answer was that the recommendation had been attended to to the greatest extent possible in the time that had elapsed since the publication of the Report. Taking the year 1876—the year when the Committee reported—he found that the gross receipts from the Post Office were £1,287,000, and that the working expenses, including allowances for repairs and renewals, &c., were £1,090,000, leaving a profit on the year's transactions of £197,000. Passing on to the last year, ending on the 31st of March, the gross receipts in the four years had increased from £1,287,000 to £1,471,000, showing an increase in the gross receipts of £184,000. In the same period, so great were the economies introduced that the working expenses only increased from £1,097,000 to £1,117,000. Consequently, in a period of four years, when the receipts had increased by £184,000, the working expenses had only increased by £27,000, leaving a balance to the good of no less than £157,000. This increase was an increase of something like 80 per cent. After mentioning these figures, it would be unnecessary for him to utter a single additional word for the purpose of showing that the valuable recommendations of the Committee had been carried out, and that the Telegraphic Department at the Post Office was being worked with great economy and with far greater efficiency than in former years. His hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow said they had done nothing in the four years since 1876. Well, he had already shown that they had increased their profits by about 80per cent; but they had done more than this. They had increased the number of telegraph stations by 250, and the length of wires by 10,000 miles, and the progress introduced at the close of last financial year was going on during the current year even at greater speed. His hon. Friend seemed to imply that they were making no progress at the present time. Every week the Returns laid before him showed the increase in telegraphic messages compared with the corresponding period last year. The increase, indeed, had been so great in the revenue that they had not been so rash, perhaps, as to suppose that this rate would continue. This increase had been no less than 16, 17, and 18 per cent, as compared with last year. The last weekly Return placed in his hand showed that the increase in the number of messages in a single week, as compared with the previous year, was 91,000. This represented an increase in revenue of £4,500 a-week; and if it continued at that rate for the rest of the present year, it would swell the Revenue of this year by £225,000. He wanted to state to the House what was the financial position of the telegraph system at the present time. They did not assume that the remarkable increase would continue; but they assumed that their receipts would so much increase during the present year that their profit of £354,000 would increase to £450,000—and this would show a profit of something like 4½ per cent on the entire capital expenditure of the Telegraphic Service. Considering the carelessness, not to use a harsher expression, with which these telegraphs were originally acquired, which involved a payment of some £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 more than ought to have been paid, and in view of this large increase of profit, he thought no one could say that the Post Office had been slow in adopting improvements, or in adopting recommendations made to it by Select Committees of the House. Then came the important question whether there ought to be a reduction in the cost of telegrams, and, if there was to be a reduction in the price, what form that reduction ought to take. He had lately had occasion to give his best consideration to this question; and it seemed to him the fairest plan to adopt to make the people pay as nearly as possible in proportion to the work which was done for them. His plan was that telegrams should be charged on the word-rate, and the word-rate which he suggested was a halfpenny a word, including the address. He would have a minimum charge of 6 d ., so that no message would cost less than that sum; and all words above 12 would be charged a halfpenny each. They must consider the effect of this change on the Exchequer, and this was a question with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury only had to do. He was prepared to repeat the doctrine he had before laid down, that if they sent telegrams at less than cost price to any section of the community they were virtually taxing the general community for the benefit of a certain class; but, on the other hand, if they received more than the cost price, the addition was to be regarded in the nature of a tax on the internal communication of the country. The question, therefore, resolved itself into one for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider when he had any surplus Revenue to dispose of. Taking into account the necessary increase in working expenses, and extension of works, and adding to it the loss in revenue involved in the reduction, the Post Office calculated that a 6 d . rate would reduce their present profits by £167,000 a-year. The question rested not with him, but with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the other authorities at the Treasury. He was bound to say, on the part of the Post Office officials, that there was no disinclination on their part to accept a reduction in the charge for telegrams. They considered that the determination of the price was a matter not for them, but for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There was no one in the House or the country who would more rejoice than himself if the day had arrived in the finances of the country when it should be considered safe and prudent to make a sacrifice of £167,000 Revenue, and give what he felt, as strongly as his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, would be a great boon to the public—cheap telegrams.

said, that he did not doubt the sincerity of the right hon. Gentleman, and his desire to do all that he could to reduce the price of telegraphic communication throughout the country. But there was a strong feeling throughout all parts of the United Kingdom that the charge for telegraphic messages should be lowered. He should have thought that the Revenue would have been sufficiently elastic to have allowed of the introduction of the 6 d. rate. He did not think such an increase as was mentioned by the Postmaster General in the Post Office staff would be necessary. His own experience was that in many rural districts it very often happened that neither the postmaster nor clerks had anything to do during the greater part of the day; and he thought that as the country had to pay them for being at the post office, their time might just as well be utilized, and the messages charged for at a decreased rate. It was the general opinion throughout Ireland, and, he believed the United Kingdom, that something ought to be done to carry out the suggestions of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron).

said, that his only object had been to ventilate the subject, and he was, therefore, quite willing, after what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Fawcett), to withdraw his Motion.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

, in rising to call attention to the amount and incidence of the Education rate, and to move—

"That a larger proportion of the rate than at present be defrayed out of the Imperial Exchequer,"

said, that the Motion he had set down on the Paper was part of the general question of local taxation, of which highway, sanitary, and other rates also formed a part. The education rate was a heavy burden on the ratepayers; and, unfortunately, it was an increasing burden. He had taken a number of instances, in which it appeared that in the years 1876–7 the cost of education averaged 41·13 d. in the pound; in the years 1877–8 it rose to 4·59 d .; and in 1878–9 reached the sum of 4·94 d. in the pound. What he rose to ask was that a larger proportion of that rate should be paid out of the Imperial Exchequer. He did not desire that the whole cost should be borne by the country at large, as education was better left in the hands of localities, and the less centralization there was in administering the educational machinery of the country the better would it be managed. But still education was a national concern, and not a mere local question, and it was not fair that it should be wholly borne by the inhabitants of districts. There was no doubt that the ratepayers did not form a very large proportion of the population. Besides, in the agricultural districts, of which he more especially spoke, the ratepayers were suffering largely. Those districts were chiefly inhabited by tenant farmers, who at the present moment were passing through a period of great distress, and had lost money in all directions; and it appeared from the weather the country was having that that distress was likely to continue. He had been furnished by some of the farmers to whom he had referred with some statistics which he would read to the House. In one case a farmer who rented 240 acres at £234 a-year had to pay in poor rates, education rate, and other local imposts as much as £101 13 s. 6 d. , or 8 s. 5½ d. in the pound, before he put a halfpenny in his pocket. To that had to be added the land tax, paid by the landlord, amounting to £8 15 s. 6 d., so that there was a total of £110, or 9 s. 2½ d. in the pound. In another case these local burdens amounted to 11 s. l0¼ d. in the pound. It was not fair that such burdens should be borne by occupiers of land, when tradesmen, shareholders in public companies, stockbrokers, merchants, and others contributed next to nothing to educational purposes. What was paid towards the education rate by a farmer and a merchant respectively? If a farmer held 430 acres at 25 s. an acre, and expended upon it £10 an acre, that would represent a capital of £4,300. Taking the education rate at 5 d. (whereas it was on the average 5½ d .) in the pound, he would pay £10 8 s . 4 d . for the rate. A merchant with £100,000 invested in trade, and doing business in an office rated at £100 a-year, would, at 5 d. in the pound, pay an education rate of £2 1 s . 8 d ., and if he lived in a villa rated at £100 a-year, would pay £2 1 s. 8 d. more, or £4 3 s. 4 d. in all. So that while the merchant with a capital of £100,000 paid only £4 3 s. 4 d., a farmer with a capital of £4,300 would pay £10 8 s. 4 d. A correspondent of his considered that as the farmer would have to employ an extra man for weeding, crow-keeping, and such work, he would suffer a direct loss by national education; whereas the merchant would be a gainer by having an educated rather than an uneducated man to do his business. Though the education rate was on the average 5½ d . in the pound, in some places it amounted to as much as 2 s . 4¾ d ., 1 s. 10 d. , 1 s. 7¾ d. , and 2 s . 6 d. Another point was that the expense was more than the late Liberal Government calculated. By the Education Act of 1870, sec. 95, for aiding poor districts, 7 s. 6 d. per scholar was to be borne by the rates. But now the rate in school board districts was on the average 18 s . 9 d ., and in voluntary school districts 7 s. 8¼ d. per scholar in England and Wales. When the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) brought in the Education Act, he calculated that the average rate would be 3 d. , whereas it was now 5½ d. What he asked was that the school grant in aid of education should be increased in proportion. According to the Report of the Committee of Council, page 28, the income of schools from grants, as compared with rates, was as 2l d. to 63 d. ; the income from fees, 14 d. ; and from other sources, 2 d. He held that where more than a simple education was given to the children of the poor, the parents ought to be called upon to pay for it, instead of the cost being thrown upon the rates. He could not help thinking that greater facilities should be given to localities to get rid of the expensive machinery of school boards where there was a wish to adopt the voluntary system. By page 9 of the Report it appeared that while the average expense per scholar in board schools was 12 s. 10 d. , in voluntary schools it was only 5 s. 7 d. , while the education was just as good. Again, the expenditure on voluntary schools was much less than in the schools placed under local school boards, the expense being £2 5 s. 0¾ d. as against £2 15 s. 2½ d. The Government could not do better, if they wished to aid the tenant farmers of the United Kingdom, than to remit some of their rates; and it was to give them an opportunity for considering that question that he had called attention to the subject.

seconded the Motion. He agreed with his hon. and gallant Friend as to the increase of the cost laid upon farmers by the Education Act. The educational system of the country might be a national benefit; but the rural ratepayers ought not to pay so heavily for that which was not an unmixed good to them. He had no wish to retard or to depreciate the work of education; his argument was that, the rate in many parishes being more than equivalent to a 6 d. Income Tax, the farmers undoubtedly paid more than their fair contribution to the educational funds. The education rate had sometimes been said to be a tax upon landowners; but, if that was so, it ought to be levied upon them in the first instance. Again, while the farmers paid more than their proper share of the expense, they were, at the same time, not fairly represented on the rural boards; so that it often happened that one class controlled the education of a district and another found the money. He was decidedly of opinion that some plan should be adopted by which the national system of education might be supported by national funds.

Amendment proposed,

To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "a larger proportion of the Education Rate than at present be defrayed out of the Imperial Exchequer,"—( Colonel Barne, )

—instead thereof.

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

corroborated the statement of his hon. and gallant Friend, that the education rates pressed heavily upon the farmers. It had always been thought desirable that the education of a place should be locally controlled; but that advantage was gained at a most serious expense to one section of the rural community, and was as unjust as a large and partial increase of the Income Tax. That being the case, the ratepayers, and particularly the tenant farmers, had a genuine grievance, which they not unreasonably asked to have redressed. He trusted the day was not far distant when an inquiry would be made into the incidence of local taxation.

thought that the question before the House was one of the incidence of taxation rather than of education itself. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman had inquired thoroughly into the question of the grant in aid given by the Government, he would have found that the Exchequer contributed much more than its fair share of the cost of education, and that there was no country in the world that contributed so much for the promotion of education from Imperial taxation as did our own. He was glad to see that the noble Lord who had preceded him in Office (Lord George Hamilton), had been present during the debate; and he had no doubt that the noble Lord, had he retained his official position, would have been altogether opposed to schemes for increasing the grants to education. In this country the grants, which were extremely liberal, had been enormously augmented during the last 20 years, and the proportion of rates to the grants was now comparatively small. The total amount contributed from the Imperial funds for the maintenance of schools was £580,000 in 1870; now it reached £1,828,000; and the total amount from rates was £636,000. The subscriptions to voluntary schools amounted to £754,000 last year; and the children's school fees contributed more to the cost of teaching and maintenance than the rates and the voluntary subscriptions put together. The proportion of cost of education borne out of the rates in this country was only 13·4 per cent, and no country in the world which professed to educate its children taxed its people so lightly on local rates as our own. In the United States not 1 s. of the State funds was given to education; but the schools were common and open to every child. In Massachusetts, the cost per annum for each child was £6 10 s. , and 25 per cent of the taxation of the State went to pay for education. In Switzerland, a much poorer country than England, the school rates were four times as high. He confessed his surprise at what he had heard from the hon. and gallant Member for Suffolk; he had thought that such ideas were dead. The hon. and gallant Member's speech, from first to last, was a panegyric on ignorance. He said that the farmers were no better off for having educated labourers. The Scotch felt the value of education much more keenly than the English, and they paid three times as much as they in England did to educate their labourers. The education of the Scotch hind or shepherd was such, in fact, that, if they proposed to extend it to the labourers in England, hon. Members opposite would stand aghast. They would have much to do with science and skill in the agriculture of the future; and to say that it was no advantage to have educated men in dealing with complicated machinery and improved methods was out of the question; and he was amazed that any hon. Member could get up and make such a statement. In regard to the incidence of the education rate, he was not prepared to say that the landlord should not pay a larger proportion than at present; but that was a matter which hardly came within the cognizance of the Education Department. The hon. and gallant Member mentioned two instances of great hardship to farmers. One farmer, it appeared, paid £110 9 s. a-year for rates and taxes, and £340 for labour. Well, out of that £110 9 s. , the amount paid towards the education rate was only £5 a-year. Yet it was said this was the last straw that was to break the camel's back. He hoped Englishmen had learnt that there was no better investment for their money than that they expended on the education of the children of the country. The hon. and gallant Member, who represented the agricultural interest, said the farmers suffered by reason of the scarcity of the labour of children. What were the conditions of children's labour in agriculture? If a child could pass the 3rd Standard at 10 years of age that child was free to work full-time for the rest of his life. Did hon. Members want to put children to work before they were 10 years of age, before they had gained the little knowledge implied in the 3rd Standard? Mr. Barrow, who formerly sat in that House, and who was a real farmer's friend, used to say that 10 years of age was quite soon enough for any boy to be employed in agriculture, and that, even then, he ought only to work half-time. Again, Mr. C. Paget, formerly M.P. for Nottingham, introduced the half-time system on his own farm, and said the half-time labour of educated boys was more valuable than the full-time labour of boys who were not educated. They must all sympathize with the condition of the farmers at this moment; but, for Heaven's sake, let them not talk in that House of reducing their loss by keeping our people in ignorance! He hoped the hon. and gallant Member would not go to a division, as it would be a proceeding hardly creditable to the House of Commons on a question of this character. In conclusion, the right hon. Gentleman expressed a hope that hon. Members would forgive him if he had spoken rather warmly on the course which had been taken.

regretted the great disadvantage under which the Government laboured owing to the absence of the President of the Local Government Board from such a discussion. The matter was really a local taxation question, and the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had expended a great deal of virtuous indignation which was somewhat misplaced. The right hon. Gentleman had totally misapprehended the gist of his hon. and gallant Friend's speech. So far from affirming that education was of little importance as compared with agricultural prosperity, his hon. and gallant Friend had commenced his remarks by saying that education was of the highest national importance; and, this being so, he proceeded to remark that the nation ought to contribute very largely to it. Fortunately, the voluntary system of education had not yet been entirely superseded by the action of the school boards; and it was in consequence of the prevalence of these voluntary schools that the educational grievance of the country was still of a local and exceptional kind. The real grievance which lay at the root of the question was the manner which the tenant farmers were assessed in the rating system of this country. The farmer had to contribute towards the education of the children on an utterly unjust basis; and he was further injured by being deprived of the useful labour of the children whom he could formerly employ at seasons of the year when there were occupations specially suited for children. He thought that his hon. and gallant Friend was perfectly justified in bringing this question forward, and that he had not fairly laid himself open to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman.

belonged to a party in the Church which had shown in the most practical manner the importance they attached to national education. On their behalf he repudiated the idea that they were not the real friends of the education of the people. But, although he had been a great supporter of the voluntary system, he had also worked actively in the conduct of education under the school board system. The difficulty was how to adapt the latter system to the country districts. He did not go quite the length of his hon. and gallant Friend, and say that a larger share of the cost of education ought to be thrown on the national funds. Indeed, he should be sorry to lessen local interests in the schools. His hon. and gallant Friend said that the board schools cost 8 s. or 9 s. a-head more than voluntary schools; but he did not go far enough, for he might have shown that the education in the board schools was not better than in the voluntary schools, notwithstanding the extra charges. All this showed that something was wrong in the system of education carried on by the board schools.

admitted that there was a certain amount of force in many of the objections urged to the operations of the school board system in rural districts. There was no doubt, for instance, that the rate in some places was enormously high. The actual amount of the education rate was nearly £1,400,000. At the present moment there were 134 parishes in which it was at 1 s. and over; 177 in which it was below 1 s. , but above 9 d. ; and 448 in which it was below 9 d. , and above 6 d. One cause of the rate being so heavy was that in some of the districts the children were not regular in their attendance at the board schools, the result being that, although accommodation had been provided at considerable expense, the children did not earn the Parliamentary grant. The Vice President of the Council had rather hinted that landlords ought to contribute a larger portion of the rate. But, in truth, most economists considered that the entire incidence of the rate ultimately fell on landlords; consequently, he did not see how it was possible that they could pay more. But, supposing the principle were adopted that a large proportion of the educational rate should be paid out of the Imperial Exchequer, what would be the result? It would be that board schools alone would benefit—a result which he could hardly suppose was desired by the supporters of the Motion, many of whom were in favour of the maintenance of voluntary schools. He believed the agricultural interest would find, when they came to understand the meaning of the Bill which had been introduced by the Vice President of the Council, that it would really do more to remedy the evils of which they complained than almost any other proposal which was likely to be adopted. He hoped his hon. and gallant Friend would be satisfied with the discussion, and would not press the Motion.

Question put.

The House divided; —Ayes 114; Noes 36: Majority 78.—(Div. List, No. 82.)

Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

, in drawing attention to the circumstances in which the Stockport School Board had been dissolved, remarked that this matter was one of grave moment to the borough, but in a still larger degree to the cause of education; and that he hoped to extract some public statement from those answerable for the abolition of the board in justification of the act which they had perpetrated in the autumn of last year. He was at a loss to understand why a board which had been so highly praised for its success should have been dealt with in this manner. Time after time it had been cited in that House as an example, in its earlier days, of excellent work done in securing the attendance of children in the schools under its charge. Here was a notable instance of a large town deprived of its school board, and he wished to extract some reason for the course which had been followed by those who, at the time, presided over the Education Department. He knew the opinions of the majority of the town council coincided with those of the Ministry then in power. He knew also that the majority of the school board were denominationalist, and opposed to the free action of the school board system. The first body, by the statutory majority, asked for dissolution; and the latter, by a majority, performed the "happy despatch" of itself by its own consent. But he knew also the majority of both included the same political leaders; while the minority, in each case, was made up of by far the largest employers of labour, and those who were most interested in the schooling of half-timers, who were, as a class, most unpopular with first-class denominational schools. Indeed, he and his Colleague had been, several years before, requested by the school board to apply to the then Vice President (Lord Sandon) to draw forth—in which they had succeeded—a severe rebuke to the denominational schools for their refusal to receive those unprofitable scholars. The majority of the town council represented a rating in the pound of £4,580, while the minority was assessed at £6,600—who must, therefore, bear the largest portion of the expenditure. There were two reasons which might have operated in the minds of the petitioners. First, a doubt as to what might be the result of the next election; secondly, that two excellent schools, the Hanover and the British, had been offered by their managers to the board upon easy conditions, to be adopted as board schools, and this, under the terms of the Act of Parliament, would have made dissolution impossible. When that Act was passing—he meant the Act of the late Government of 1876, and Mr. Pell's Clause, giving the power to dissolve, was debated—he and others had pointed out that the Stockport School Board, so useful, and so much praised, might be dissolved; but Lord Sandon answered that the Act was only intended to apply to those which were worthless and unnecessary. But now, what he had suggested as possible, and was told was not so, had come to pass; and they would see the insufficiency of the reasons put forward, which were answered at the time, and the Department was besought, by a memorial signed by 950 inhabitants, not to dissolve the board. First, was the plea of expense; elections would cost, every three years, £280. Well, that seemed no great matter. Next, was the rate; but that was something beneath 1 d. in the pound, and the annual cost was only £750 a-year. If efficiency was secured for that, the charge did not weigh very heavily. The crowning reason was that there was a sufficiency of school accommodation; that the schools afforded places for 10,000, whereas only 8,054 places were required. But it appeared the weekly attendance was 8,492. There was, besides, some doubt about the figures, which were in part founded on estimates; and they all knew that the school age had been raised from 13 to 14, and, as he had shown, there had been neglect of the half-timers. Now, the gentlemen who were so anxious to deprive the town of a valuable institution were very pertinacious. It appeared, by the Papers which had been laid on the Table, that they telegraphed repeatedly for an interview, which the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) found to be inconvenient, but at last yielded to their importunate requests. Well, it did not appear that the Education Department made inquiry on the spot to ascertain how far the reasons enumerated were justifiable, or were answered by those who objected. Some of these he would give, others he had already given. He did not deny, if the figures put forward on the one side were undisputed, that there was a sufficiency of accommodation; but he contended that "sufficient" ought to include "suitable," and if they found, as was the case, that several of the schools were in the same street and neighbourhood, while other large districts and neighbourhoods were without schools altogether, it could not be said that the accommodation was "sufficient." It was a monstrous thing that children should, in a large and wealthy town, have to walk long distances in all weathers; and the two-mile limit ought not to be insisted upon as applicable to life in towns. Then it was shown that, even under the school board, the average payment per child had risen from 3 d. to 3⅞ d. , a rate extremely high as compared with that paid in many a large town. If the House would only consider what a tax an increase of ⅞ d. per head was upon a poor working-man who had, perhaps, four or five to pay for, it would be in a condition to compare that which had been estimated to amount to £1,700 or £1,800 a-year, with the miserable saving of £750 in the existing rate. Besides the school pence, in the better schools extravagant charges were made for books and materials. What chance had the poor half-timer under such a system, in respect of whose education the employer could only deduct 3 d. a-week? But if this was so under the board, what was to be feared whenever its controlling influence was resumed? It had been shown, besides, since the dissolution that "farming" schools had become rife; and he would refer hon. Members to the report of a trial before the County Court, from which it appeared that the managers of a school had handed it over to the master as his private speculation. Well, it seemed that this question of excessive charge had caused some little nervousness to the Ministers and "My Lords," though they would not save the only instrument which could restrain it, wrote to Her Majesty's Inspector, Mr. Lomax, informing him of the statements made, and desired him "to watch it narrowly." It was further urged upon the Privy Council that a large number of Protestant children were in the Roman Catholic schools. As an indication of the decay of religious jealousy he should rejoice in this; but if it arose from the superiority of such schools in point of moderate charge, and the insufficiency of suitable accommodation elsewhere, he should protest against it as he would, against the coercion of Roman Catholic children into Protestant schools from like causes. Parishes and districts were pointed out by name as deficient in schools. Two had been, it was true, since erected by private benevolence—he believed mainly by those who sympathized with the minority whom he represented as objecting to the dissolution. Still, the accommodation was far from sufficient in the sense he had insisted on. The "reasons" given by the Privy Council for the dissolution, in accordance with the Act of Parliament which required that they should be laid before the House, were meagre indeed, and merely stated that there was sufficient school accommodation, and that the board was unnecessary. And so it seemed that the education of Stockport was handed over to a mere attendance committee, and of Her Majesty's Inspector to "watch it narrowly." Was he not right in his Motion—"that the dissolution was unjustifiable and injurious to the interests of education?" It appeared by the Papers laid before the House that similar attacks had been made on Congleton, Macclesfield, and Stalybridge School Boards; but, happily, circumstances had saved them from annihilation, and on Stockport alone, of large towns, had been inflicted this disgrace. Three boards in rural districts, in villages whose names were not known to fame, had been, perhaps, rightly dissolved. He now, in the cause of education in the borough, in the interests of the children, in the name of the largest employers of labour, for the protection of the half-timers, asked for inquiry at the hands of the Government. That inquiry should extend to the charges for education, the number and position of the schools, the "farming" of schools, and like matters, with the view to the exercise of the power contained in the Act of 1876, inserted as an Amendment by his right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster), enabling the Government to restore the school board. Unfortunately, as a division had just been taken on a prior Motion, on the Question that the Speaker do leave the Chair, he was precluded from formally moving his Motion; but he did hope that the Government would restore to Stockport the useful institution it had lost.

said, that as he was at the Education Office at the time of the dissolution of the Stockport School Board, and as he gave a great deal of time to the matter, he should like to say a few words on the subject. The hon. and learned Member for Stockport had interlarded his observations with a great many insinuations. He had suggested that the action of the Education Department had been very much influenced by the action of various political bodies. He did not know whether the hon. and learned Member seriously made those statements; but he could only say that they were utterly without foundation. The facts of the case were very simple. By the Education Act of 1870, the school boards were established for two purposes—to supply school accommodation, and to enforce school attendance. By the Act of 1876, school attendance committees were substituted for school boards, so far as concerned the compulsory attendance of children at school. That alteration in the law was made with the concurrence of a large majority in the House. Towards the close of the discussion of the Bill, the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) moved an Amendment which was sanctioned after a long and acrimonious discussion. That Amendment provided that if a majority of two-thirds of the local authority who, in the first instance, required the school board to be established, should come to the conclusion that it was no longer wanted, then the Education Department was given power to dissolve that school board, under certain conditions. But there was one condition which was necessary before a school board could be dissolved. It was necessary that the board to be dissolved should not be in possession of any elementary school. The Motion carrying that amendment of the clause into effect was assented to by the Government; and, therefore, the law at the present time was that no school board which maintained any elementary school could be dissolved. The next Motion made on the discussion of the Bill by the right hon. Gentleman the present Postmaster General was that no school board which had enacted compulsory bye-laws should be dissolved, or should come under the operation of the clause as to dissolution. That Motion was rejected by a large majority; and, consequently, nothing could be clearer than the power given by the Act of Parliament, that the dissolution of a school board should only be allowed where it had no elementary schools; but that it should be allowed where the scheduled board was engaged in enforcing compulsory attendance. The Stockport School Board was in the position of having no elementary schools maintained by it. About the commencement of last year he was surprised by receiving a request, signed by the statutory majority of the Stockport town council, asking that the Stockport School Board might be dissolved. It appeared that the resolution had been come to by the town council by a majority of 32 to 13. Being anxious that the matter should be fully and fairly discussed, the Education Department, by his direction, sent the request to the School Board of Stockport, in order to obtain their opinion on the matter. He was bound to say that he was very much surprised when he received a communication from the Stockport School Board, in which they decided, by a majority of 6 to 3, for their own dissolution. The Education Department had previously investigated the facts of the case; but it then consented to receive deputations from each of the bodies in question. The Lord President and himself had long interviews with those deputations, and heard their views at great length. Then the whole facts were sent back to Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools at Stockport. Eventually, after obtaining the decision of Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, and after having personal communications with the majorities and minorities on the Stockport School Board, and of the Stockport town council, the Education Department came to the conclusion that this was a case in which dissolution was desirable, and, therefore, the request was acceded to. It was clear, from the speech of the hon. and learned Member, that he did not understand the position of the Stockport School Board. It had no power whatever to create or build any schools until there was a deficiency of school accommodation. He had stated that an attempt was made to hand over to them certain schools, the expenses of maintenance of which were at present defrayed by voluntary subscriptions, and these it was desired to place under the control of the board. An enormous majority of the inhabitants of Stockport were in favour of a dissolution of the board; but the remainder were in favour of the school board system. Some of these bodies wished to transfer their schools to the school boards; their object, apparently, being to make the whole of the inhabitants of Stockport pay a rate for the maintenance of their schools. It was clear to the Education Department, at the moment such a proposal was made, or attempted to be carried out, that so strong was the feeling in Stockport on the subject that the majority of the inhabitants would have at once voluntarily built schools sufficient to supply all the needs of the place. Therefore, there could not possibly be any deficiency in the amount of accommodation; and it did not appear to the Department that the Stockport School Board was in a position in which their dissolution would be improper under the section of the Act of Parliament. It was further ascertained that wherever school attendance committees had been formed in large towns, they had performed their duties most satisfactorily. Inquiries were made with regard to the working of the school attendance committees at Preston and other places, and there was no doubt that, whatever might be the difference of opinion as to the respective advantages of a school board and a school attendance committee, the latter most satisfactorily performed its duties. In Birkenhead and Preston the school attendance committees had given great satisfaction. They were maintained at smaller cost; and there was no reason whatever to infer that if the Stockport School Board was dissolved, and its duties were transferred to a school attendance committee, that there would be any diminution in the attendance. What most impressed him was the interviews that he had with the members of the school board and of the town council. The two gentlemen who most strongly supported the dissolution of the board were its chairman and vice chairman. They stated, most unhesitatingly, that, in their opinion, the school attendance committee would be as well able to carry on the duties of the school board as it was; and that, while they would have equal efficiency, they would have no greater cost. After hearing those expressions of opinion, and giving due consideration to all the facts he had mentioned, it was decided to dissolve the school board. The hon. and learned Member had alleged that this dissolution had been injurious to the interests of education. He might inform him, however, that the Mayor of Stockport, who was chairman of the school attendance committee, and formerly chairman of the school board, had written him a letter, in which he had informed him that the attendance at the schools for the first six months of the present year had increased considerably over that of the corresponding period last year; and so far from there being any falling off in the attendance, it had improved. There was one question which the Department had very carefully to consider, When the minority of the Stockport School Board came before them, they complained that the fees, in certain instances, were so high that it was not possible for the children to pay them. During the spring of 1879 there existed exceptional distress in Stockport, and there was a difficulty in getting the managers to admit children who could not pay more than a 3 d. fee, the maximum sum allowed by statute to be paid on their behalf by the Guardians. A plain intimation was given by the Department to the Stockport School Board that if the Department had any reason to believe that the fees which the managers of those voluntary schools exacted from children were more than the Guardians paid, the Department would not hesitate to make use of the power intrusted to it by Act of Parliament. Therefore, though the Stockport School Board was dissolved, special instructions were sent down to Her Majesty's Inspector that he should most carefully keep his eye upon the fees charged in various schools, in order that they might not be beyond the ability of the parents of the children. The hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that certain fees of various children amounted to 9 d. It was within his (Lord George Hamilton's) recollection that at the time the Stockport School Board was dissolved the average fee was 3¾ d. , and, until raised during the last three or four years, had been only 3¼ d. He did not know whether it was necessary for him to go further into the subject. There was one thing, however, connected with the inquiry which he ought to mention. When the minority found that all the facts they produced upon investigation turned out either to be exaggerated or capable of explanation, they took refuge in two arguments. Considering that they were advocates of non-sectarian education, and also represented the Radical party in Stockport, the first argument was rather a peculiar one. They said—"It is quite true true we may be in the minority on these two representative bodies, but our minority is richer than the majority." He could not help thinking that if the argument had any weight whatever, it ought to have weight in those districts of England where, as a rule, those upon school boards were the small ratepayers, and represented the small owners of property. The second argument raised was that if the school board were dissolved, the town would be deprived of the advantage of each denomination managing its own schools; for no clergyman and Catholic priest would be able to sit upon the town council, into whose hands the management would fall. It certainly must have been an extreme difficulty in which the minority were placed when they, as a non-sectarian body, positively produced arguments in favour of denominational education to the Department. Of course, he was unable to anticipate what Her Majesty's present Government might do in this matter. He could only say that, so far as the late Government was concerned, no investigation could have been more impartial than that which was directed to be made. For some months they felt very strongly that in questions of that kind they ought to exercise the utmost discretion and care, more especially as it was supposed that their political opinions were in favour of the voluntary school system. The hon. and learned Gentleman distinctly insinuated that the school board was dissolved in deference to the opinions of some political body. It would be quite sufficient merely to refer to the facts of another case to prove how unfounded was that insinuation, and how anxious the Department was to act with perfect fairness and impartiality. The Stalybridge town council petitioned that their school board should be dissolved, and that petition might have been at once acted upon and a dissolution ordered. But the Department requested to have the opinion of the school board of the borough, and the majority of that body did not assent to its own dissolution. A short time afterwards a municipal election occurred, and considerable changes took place in the town council. Although it was perfectly competent for the Department to have dissolved that school board upon the petition, yet a letter was directed to be addressed to the new municipal council, in order to see whether, after the election had taken place, there was still a statutory majority in favour of a dissolution of the school board. It was found that, owing to the changes that had taken place, it was exceedingly doubtful whether a majority of two-thirds of the new town council was in favour of the dissolution. The Department at once declined to entertain any further question of the dissolution of that school board. It seemed to him that that fact showed that the Department had acted with a sincere wish to forward the interests of education, and with a sincere desire to carry out the object of the Act of Parliament.

said, that the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex had said that he did not know what the present Government might do in this case, and the hon. and learned Member for Stockport had called upon the Government to resuscitate the Stockport School Board. He might say that the statement of the noble Lord was strictly accurate with regard to everything that had taken place in this matter. He was called upon by a majority of the town conncil of Stockport—that was to say, by two-thirds of that body—to dissolve the Stockport School Board. The discretion rested with him as to whether he would comply with the request or not; and, in the exercise of his discretion, he had no doubt the noble Lord felt that he was acting most in the interests of education by dissolving that school board. There was, however, something which would have weighed with him (Mr. Mundella) to prevent the dissolution of that board. The noble Lord was quite aware that the school fees in Stockport were very much higher than the average fees throughout the country. The denominational schools of Stockport had taken advantage of their practical monopoly to raise their fees to a very high figure.

said, that that was during the existence of the school board.

said, that when the hon. Member for South Leicestershire's (Mr. Pell's) unfortunate clause was under discussion in the House, the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Viscount Sandon), then Vice President of the Education Department, said that it was not contemplated under that clause to dissolve such a school board as that of Stockport. He ridiculed the notion of its being possible, and said that it was only a "worthless and very small school board which could suffer dissolution under the clause. Under no circumstances whatever, he said, could the Stockport School Board ever be dissolved. Yet one of the very first school boards to be dissolved under that clause was the school board of Stockport, which had always been held up by the Education Department as the very best school board of the country. He well remembered the Stockport School Board being held up as the model of all that a school board ought to be. Its administration was said to be most economical, and most efficient, and, altogether, it was a most model school board; yet the noble Lord, in the exercise of his discretion, had seen fit to dissolve it. It seemed to him (Mr. Mundella) that it was a very unfortunate thing that any change that should take place in a town council should result in the dissolution of the local school authority. For nine years the Stockport School Board had done good work; but when a majority was returned at the town council hostile to it, the result was its dissolution. It seemed to him a most deplorable thing that this clause of the Act should be allowed to operate in this manner. He did not mean to say that the noble Lord had in the least departed from the strict legal position in dissolving the Stockport School Board. The noble Lord was well aware that in many places where there very good school boards there were no board schools. The work of the school board in such cases consisted in enforcing compulsory attendance, and seeing that the fees were at the proper standard, that the education was efficient, and, altogether, to take care that everything in the best interests of education was regarded. All that work the Stockport School Board was doing admirably. He fully admitted that a school attendance committee might bring children to school just as effectually as a school board; but a school attendance committee had not the same powers as a school board. In the town of Stockport there were a considerable number of Protestant children who had to attend Roman Catholic schools. He said, with all candour, that he should never be a party to forcing Catholic children into Protestant schools. In his view, school accommodation must not only be sufficient and efficient, but must also be suitable. That was, it must be of a character which did not inflict pain upon the consciences of the parents of the children. Therefore, while they wished to deal tenderly with the consciences of Roman Catholics, he thought they were, in all fairness, bound to do the same with regard to Protestants. It was alleged that 300 Protestant children in Stockport were now forced to attend Roman Catholic schools. The noble Lord had spoken of a Radical minority. He did not know whether the Radicals were in a minority in Stockport or not; but, certainly, the two hon. Members representing Stockport in that House were supported by that Party. Considering that the Radical minority had sent his hon. Friends to that House, it was fair to assume that they were not quite so much in a minority as the noble Lord seemed to think. If he were called upon to resuscitate the Stockport School Board, some preliminary forms must be gone through before it could be done. Before anything could be done by him something must be done by the borough, and it must be shown, in accordance with the section of the Act of Parliament, that there was not a sufficient amount of school accommodation, or that it was not suitable, and the forms prescribed by the Act must be complied with. It did not rest with him to take any steps in this matter at all until called upon in that way. Neither in Stockport nor anywhere else should he be induced, under any circumstances, either to satisfy his Friends on this side of the House, or to gratify any Party feeling, to act contrary to the spirit of the Education Act of 1870. It must be shown that the accommodation of Stockport was either insufficient or unsuitable; and, if that were shown, then the Department would know how to deal with the case. He thought that his hon. and learned Friend had done all that was necessary to vindicate his case by bringing it before the House. The noble Lord was strictly within the law when he exercised his discretion as he had done; but he must say, frankly, that he should have hesitated long before he would have detroyed the Stockport School Board.

said, if he might be permitted, he would make an explanation. It had been stated that 400 Protestant children had been forced to attend Roman Catholic schools. He might say that that statement was investigated by the Department. The allegation was true that there were a certain number, about 60, Protestant children in attendance at Roman Catholic schools; but that did not arise from any want of sufficient accommodation in Protestant schools. The reason why those children were sent to the Roman Catholic schools was that the fees at those schools were exceptionally low; and, therefore, the parents preferred to send their children to them.

said, that he considered it his duty to mate some observations on a matter of which he had given Notice. During the latter end of the last Parliament he asked a Question of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the then Secretary of State for "War (Colonel Stanley), to the following effect:—He asked him—

"Whether it was the fact that on the 29th day of July 1879, the following charges were brought against the Lieutenant Colonel of the Antrim Artillery Militia, viz., of having, during the training of June 1879, been frequently intoxicated and disorderly; if so, were the charges investigated, and, if not, whether the right hon. and gallant Gentleman could explain the reason for its not being investigated; and, further, whether, if the charges were investigated, they were substantiated?"

Those were charges against Lord Massereene, who had lately been appointed Lord Lieutenant of the County of Louth. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the then Secretary of State for War, in reply, said that the person who had brought the charges had withdrawn them; but he further said that he was not able to give any information as to the reason of the withdrawal He (Mr. Biggar) did not consider it his duty to press the matter any further at that time. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had taken the course that he thought best, and he brought no charge against him for the way in which he had used his discretion. He had thought it his duty to bring the matter again before the present Parliament; and an opportunity would be given to the noble Lord, if the charges were proved, to withdraw from the too official position which he occupied—for, if these charges were true, it; was impossible that he could retain either position. Neither during the present Parliament, nor during the reign of the late Administration, had the noble Lord withdrawn from his official position; and, therefore, he considered it his duty to bring the matter before the Government first, and afterwards before the House. Personally, he was unacquainted with Lord Massereene, and he was speaking as one entirely free from any personal bias in the matter. It seemed to him that the colonel of a regiment held a high position, in which it was of the highest importance that his character should be unimpeachable. He would very shortly attempt to show that the conduct, from time to time, of Lord Massereene had been quite the reverse of what he had described. He did not know whether he justly estimated the duty of the Government or the responsibility of Her Majesty's Ministers; but he believed that if a charge was brought without reserve against the acting colonel of a regiment, it was, at least, the duty of the Government to investigate the charge, and, if they were found to be true, to deal with the case on its merits. If Lord Massereene were innocent of the charges brought against him, of course he would hold to his position as before; but if, on the other hand, it was found that any charges he (Mr. Biggar) might make were true, then he thought it was the duty of the Government to see that justice was done, and that the noble Lord should be removed from the position which he now held. He wished to point out the important position occupied by a lieutenant colonel, and the necessity that he should set a good example to the other officers. They knew that the Militia were only embodied for a short time, and it was of the highest importance that, during that time, training and discipline should be kept up amongst them to the greatest possible extent; and it was extremely necessary that a lieutenant colonel should set a good example to the rest of the regiment. With regard to the official position of the lord lieutenant of a county, he considered that he should be a person at whom no stones could be thrown; and, therefore, the circumstances to which he was about to allude were deserving of the early attention of Her Majesty's Government. It was desirable that Lord Lieutenants of counties should be noblemen and gentlemen, whose characters should bear the strictest investigation; and he would ask the indulgence of the House while he read a few extracts from a document relating to the charges against Lord Massereene. It appeared that his Lordship had been seen walking about the streets of Carrickfergus with his eyes black.

asked, Whether it was customary for an hon. Member of the House to make unsupported statements of this kind? He would ask whether it was decent to do so?

said, he had already stated that he was speaking ex parte. If it should be advisable to move for a Committee, he would, he believed, be able to prove every charge which he was making. There had been no opportunity of bringing these matters before the House at an earlier period of the Session. The first complaint against Lord Massereene was that he had not attended parades, and was absent during the inspection of the regiment on the 25th of June, 1879. His absence was brought under the notice of the inspecting officer, Colonel Lukin, by the officer in command. On the 25th of June, 1879, the then lieutenant colonel, and Lord Lieutenant of Louth, ordered a pair of scissors to be brought, and Lieutenant Cornwall's hair to be cut. He would read another paragraph.

"It is a fact that during the training of the Antrim Artillery, in 1875, the then lieutenant colonel, and Lord Lieutenant of Louth, drove along the public road one Sabbath day in broad daylight in a state of intoxication; and it is also a fact that, on the evening of the same day, when mad drunk at mess, he threatened to shoot one of the officers—Captain—now Major Craig—in fact, he was so drunk that he slipped off his chair."

asked what document the hon. Member for Cavan had quoted?

said, he was reading from a statement supplied to him, the truth of which he would undertake to prove. He had purposely abstained from occupying the attention of the House by reading the whole of the documents in his possession, because he did not think it desirable that long extracts of the kind should be read. On the 1st of July, 1879, Mr. Cornwall wrote to the commanding officer complaining of the outrage upon his son. In reply to that complaint, a letter was received from the Adjutant General in Dublin, stating that the matter should be inquired into; whereupon Mr. Cornwall replied that he was prepared to substantiate the charges brought against Lord Massereene. He had given a part of the charges supplied to him with reference to the conduct of Lord Massereene, which, in his opinion, and in the opinion of most people, was very injurious in the neighbourhood where, the Militia congregated. He asked the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War to investigate the charges which had been brought, from time to time, against Lord Massereene; and, if he wished, he would submit to him the whole of the dates and particulars in connection with the circumstances which had occurred. If the charges were not substantiated, Lord Massereene would, of course, continue to occupy the position which he then held. If, on the other hand, it was shown that they were well founded, the right hon. Gentleman, he thought, would only be doing his duty to allow his Lordship to retire into that private life which, probably, he would not very much adorn.

said, that he must express his extreme surprise at the manner in which these charges had been made. That an hon. Member should have omitted to read the most material part of the correspondence of which he could not possibly be ignorant, he ventured to say had never before happened in that House. The hon. Gentleman, during the last Session of Parliament, asked his Predecessor a Question with regard to Lord Massereene, and his Predecessor had given an answer which, in his opinion, ought to have been conclusive, and the hon. Gentleman had apparently so accepted it at the time, for he then took no further proceeding in the matter. A few weeks, however, after the commencement of the present Session, the hon. Member, notwithstanding the answer he had received, brought up the subject again, when he (Mr. Childers) had simply repeated the answer given by his Predecessor; and the House, on that occasion, showed itself so astonished at the course taken by the hon. Member for Cavan that he had been almost precluded from answering the final part of the Question, and, with the consent and approval of the House, he left the matter where it had been left by his Predecessor. Of the persons connected with this case he knew nothing whatever except from what appeared in the official Papers—namely, that towards the end of the month of July, 1879, Mr. Cornwell, the father of a subaltern officer in Lord Massereene's Militia regiment, wrote a letter accusing Lord Massereene of drunkenness, and making complaints against him with reference to his habits, and also referring to an act designated as a practical joke, and committed in very bad taste, by an officer of the regiment on young Mr. Cornwall in the presence of Lord Massereene. Lord Massereene had been called upon for an explanation, both as to the charge of intoxication and as to the practical joke. But he wished to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the hon. Gentleman had omitted to state that shortly after Lord Massereene had been called upon to give these explanations, Mr. Cornwall, his accuser, addressed a letter to the military authorities in Ireland, entirely withdrawing the charges which had been made. The hon. Member knew that this retraction had taken place, and yet he had again come forward in that House and brought these charges against Lord Massereene, which he knew to have been withdrawn by the person who made them, and, after reading them in detail, omitted to read the letter withdrawing them. The hon. Gentleman, in addressing his inquiry to his Predecessor in the last Parliament, had, on the 4th of March, asked whether it was a fact that on the 29th of July certain charges had been made against an officer of Artillery Militia of having been frequently intoxicated; if so, whether those charges had been investigated; and, if they had been withdrawn, whether pressure or influence had been brought to bear upon the persons concerned? In reply to that Question, his right hon. and gallant Friend had stated that the charges alluded to by the hon. Member for Cavan had been withdrawn, and that a letter had been received from Mr. Cornwall, asking permission to withdraw the charges that had been made. His right hon. and gallant Friend further stated that he had no knowledge whatever of pressure having been brought to bear upon Mr. Cornwall to induce him to withdraw the charges, and the Commander-in-Chief in Ireland distinctly stated that he knew nothing of any such pressure. It was to that withdrawal that the hon. Member for Cavan had entirely omitted to refer to-night. As to the foolish skylarking and practical jokes which had been played on Lieutenant Cornwall last year, the charge had been looked into, and Sir John Michel addressed a letter to Lord Massereene, pointing out the folly of such proceedings, and expressing a hope that nothing of the kind would occur again. With that the matter ended; the serious charge had been withdrawn. But again, this year, the same gentleman who had made the charge wrote an extraordinary letter to the military authorities, full of abuse of Lord Massereene and his officers, imputing to them unfairness towards his son, and claiming for the latter promotion, which Lord Massereene was charged with preventing. Of course, Sir John Michel could not be expected to notice charges once withdrawn and revived in such a matter; but a proper answer had been given as to young Mr. Cornwall, to whom ample justice would, of course, be done. Under these circumstances, he hoped the House would agree that this question required no further reply from him. They might trust to the impartial action of the Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, who would see that proper discipline was observed in this Militia regiment, and justice done to its officers.

I did not suppress anything in my possession that could be said in favour of Lord Massereene. I did, however, keep back a great deal that was supplied to me.

Let there be no mistake on this subject. What I said was that the hon. Member omitted to mention that after that charge had been made, and the opportunity had been given to inquire into the subject, the person who made the charge entirely withdrew it.

believed this matter had been very properly brought before the House. He was quite aware that the hon. Member for Cavan had not at his disposal so much intelligence as the right hon. Gentleman, and, no doubt, had he known as much as the right hon. Gentleman did, he would not have brought this question forward; but, under all the circumstances, he must maintain that his hon. Friend had acted most fairly and rightly in raising the question. Customs were sometimes much more honoured in the breach than in the observance; and, although it might be courteous, in consulting the dignity of the House, not to bring forward questions affecting gentlemen like Sir John Michel, still when matters were so bad, as he maintained this case was, he thought the matter should be ventilated in that House, which was the proper place for the redress of grievances. It was a matter of common knowledge also throughout Ireland that the Government was not to be particular as to those whom it chose to place in judicial or military positions in Ireland. Moreover, it certainly did not look well that the Lord Lieutenant of any county in Ireland should have been guilty of acts, not, at all events, acts of sobriety, and although practical joking might be tolerated among young men of 18 to 25, he certainly thought it was not to be expected from an officer of that kind who held high military and civil positions. He was very glad that these charges had been disproved; but, nevertheless, he thought nothing had been said by the right hon. Gentleman to show that his hon. Friend had either made false charges or exaggerated ones. The matter really stood in this way. Certain charges were brought against Lord Massereene by a Mr. Cornwall, the father of one of the officers serving under him. Those charges ought to have led, and must have led, to an inquiry. But before that inquiry was held Mr. Cornwall withdrew the charges; and the House had not the slightest evidence, or the slightest knowledge, why that withdrawal was made. It certainly was, at all events, a very suspicious thing that when an inquiry was about to be instituted these charges should have been withdrawn; and it might have been that Mr. Cornwall withdrew them under some personal influence, or under some species of compromise, in the interests of his son. Afterwards—and he was not surprised at it—under a sense of some grievance inflicted on his son, he had repeated those charges. He was not prepared to say that he would be inclined to believe anyone, whether he was Mr. Cornwall or anyone else, who first made charges, then withdrew them, and then reiterated them. At the same time, he thought that the right hon, Gentleman had been somewhat too hard upon his hon. Friend the Member for Cavan. Although it might look harsh to bring a matter up in this informal way, yet, on the other hand, he hoped Irish Members would always, whenever they had any grievance, bring it at once before the House, and have full light thrown on it, in order that they might endeavour to get some satisfaction for any misdoings or wrongdoings.

entirely agreed with the view taken by his hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Cavan had brought forward a matter of exceedingly great gravity, and had done so, as he thought, in a manner befitting the seriousness of the subject. That hon. Member was not in the habit of erring upon the side of reserve. He was remarkable for the frankness of his public utterances, and he did not think he would wilfully keep back from any case anything essential to it. He believed his hon. Friend had said all he considered essential to the charge; and he was at a loss to discover what was the justification for the attack made upon him by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. "With regard to the circumstances of the withdrawal of Mr. Cornwall's charge, he thought the general public would not be disposed to attach much importance to that fact. There were influences of various kinds that might be brought to bear upon a gentleman in the position of Mr, Cornwall. In a case like this the general public would certainly believe that charges so circumstantial, with dates, times, and places given, could hardly have arisen from a heated imagination. The withdrawal, therefore, required to be explained. The charges made were of the utmost gravity, affecting a nobleman's position of much power and dignity, and concerning the appointment of those who were intrusted with the administration of the law in Ireland. He had no hesitation in saying that, if those who controlled the Civil and Military Services in that country had a proper desire to preserve the decency and efficiency of those Services, they would, whenever a case of this kind, was brought under their notice, require that it should be fully investigated.

observed, that it was scarcely necessary for him to say anything after the rebuke administered, and so properly administered, by the right hon. Gentleman to the hon. Member for Cavan. The right hon. Gentleman had, however, confined himself to the charge as it affected Lord Massereene. But what were the facts connected with the introduction of the case to this House? Last March the hon. Member for Cavan placed a Question on the Paper with reference to the colonel of the Antrim Militia. That Question was answered, and the answer was the first intimation that he had that anything was being said about the matter. Immediately after the answer was given, the hon. Member rose in his place and gave Notice that he would, on a future day, ask further Questions, and call attention to certain matters. On that occasion the hon. Member did refer to certain charges, the date of which, with all the frankness claimed for him, he had suppressed that day. The enemies of the nobleman in question, though they had ransacked their imagination for facts, had omitted to mention that the date of this Carrickfergus offence was some time in 1874. Why, if the hon. Gentleman wished to pursue this matter, did he not disclose the name of the gentleman who had furnished him with all this information? The charges had been furnished malignantly by a disappointed ex-officer of the Militia, by a man who was at one time an officer under Lord Massereene, and who was reported by his Lordship as unfit for his position—a charge which, upon investigation, was fully borne out. He reported Lieutenant, now Major, Stone as unfit for military service; and, consequently, he was declared unfit for his post. That Major Stone now used as a vessel for his malice the hon. Member for Cavan, and brought forward charges not one of which had been substantiated. That Mr. Stone dare not, in fact, make these charges when he would be responsible for them. But protected by the Privileges of the House, he made these slanderous charges through the hon. Member for Cavan; and that hon. Member had not gone to the slightest trouble in investigating for himself. In fact, he recklessly assailed the character of an absent man. His (Mr. Callan's) own name had been most unnecessarily introduced into this discussion, and it had been stated that a brewer found money for his election. He had since that time gone through a Petition, tried by a Judge who was his political opponent. That Judge had certified that he came out with clean hands, and he gave him a certificate of character which The Dublin Mail declared very few of the hon. Gentlemen opposite would receive at the hands of an Election Judge. Why, also, had Lord Massereene's name been introduced as Lord Lieutenant of Louth? In this matter he was merely affected as the colonel of the Antrim Militia. As Lord Lieutenant of Louth he could only say that during the six months that he had been appointed he had given eminent satisfaction to both Catholics, Protestants, Liberals, and Conservatives in the county by the manner in which he had discharged his duty. In fact, his character in that county was unassailed and irreproachable. His conduct as Lord Lieutenant stood out in high and creditable contrast to that of Lieutenants in other counties. He was a strong Conservative, as bitterly opposed in politics to him (Mr. Callan) as any man could be; and yet he must say that his appointments to the magistracy did him the greatest credit. The first appointment was a man who now worthily filled the office of High Sheriff, and a Protestant; the second was the first ever made in that county of a Presbyterian, a gentleman tenant farmer, who also owned a great deal of land; and the third was a gentleman who, for 21 years, had been unanimously elected Chairman of the Board of Dundalk, and for 20 years had filled the office of borough magistrate in that town. Now, when he was retiring from the Chairmanship of the Board, he was appointed by Lord Massereene a magistrate for the county. The three appointments thus made by the noble Lord had been Protestant, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic, and he wished to God the Lord Lieutenants in other counties might make the same appointments and in the same order. If they had, there would be much more satisfaction than there was at present with regard to the magistrates in Ireland. It was said that he had remonstrated with the hon. Member for bringing forward such a charge as this against Lord Massereene. But the character of Lord Massereene was well known, and the character of the hon. Member for Cavan was well known. He did not think Lord Massereene's character would suffer by the contrast. He did remonstrate with that hon. Member for unnecessarily introducing into this matter the name of the Lord Lieutenant of Louth; and he condescended to take the trouble to explain to the hon. Member the satisfaction which Lord Massereene had given to the people of the county. It would not be Parliamentary if he were to use the expletive which the hon. Member comtemptuously applied to his protest, and spoke of the opinions of his co-religionists of the county. He observed, also, that the hon. Member, during his speech, received instructions from an hon. Member near him. He did not know whether this charge was brought at the instigation or the suggestion of that hon. Member; but, at any rate, he saw that, during the course of his speech, the hon. Member for Cavan received suggestions from an ex-official of the War Office, who, when he was in Office, did not think it unbecoming to supply outsiders with information obtained in his official capacity.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to Order. I ask your protection from an aspersion which I regard as simply abominable. I repudiate the insinuation which has been just thrown out with all the indignation of which I am capable. When I was at the War Office I supplied no one with information which would not be accessible to any member of the public; and, as to the present Motion, I did not suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Cavan any step he should take in this matter, and I may mention that when he showed me the documents on which he was about to rely—["Order, order!"]

I understood the hon. Member to rise to Order; but his object appears to be to give a denial to some statements which have been made. He is not in Order in doing that now; but after the hon. Member for Louth has concluded his remarks he can offer any explanation.

I did not anticipate that denial would be given; because, unless The Nation newspaper—with which it is suspected the hon. Member has some connection in the way of furnishing gratuitous information—unless that newspaper is at fault in reporting the speeches of the hon. Member during his election canvass, one of the principal grounds upon which he recommended himself to the votes of that constituency—["Question, Question!"] If I am not allowed to give my explanation I will pass the matter by. But one of those grounds was that the hon. Member, when at the War Office, supplied hon. Members of this House with materials for contesting the Mutiny Bill.

I have no connection with The Nation newspaper, nor have I supplied information to The Nation newspaper in all my life in regard to military matters, or anything else. I never supplied any Member of this House with any information with respect to the Mutiny Bill, neither have I assisted any Member in this House with regard to that Bill, while it was in progress through the House; and I entirely repudiate the insinuation. With regard to the statement I am alleged to have made during my canvass—

I rise to Order. I did not say, Sir, that the hon. Member—

Order, Order. The hon. Member for Queen's County is in possession of the House.

With regard, Sir, to any newspaper statement of any kind, or any report anywhere, or any statement by anybody, I have never made use of my position in the War Office to obtain information, or to communicate that to individuals outside which I ought not to have communicated. I meet that assertion with the most emphatic and indignant denial. I am perfectly prepared to admit that in past years, as at present, I have assisted friends of mine, Members of this House, in understanding documents which are obtainable by any member of the public, and which are published by order of this House and sold in King Street to anybody who chooses to buy them, and in regard to which, perhaps, my acquaintance with the official documents may have been of advantage in facilitating their labours. I never, however, communicated one single tittle of information of a kind which I could have obtained only in the War Office, and anyone who repeats that assertion after to-night is nothing but a calumniator and a villain. With regard to the present case, I wish to say that before my hon. Friend the Member for Cavan brought this matter before the House he submitted the documents to me on which he founded his case, and I gave him, as my deliberate opinion, that he had not a case. I told Mm that the documents did not make out a sufficient case to be brought before the House; while, at the same time, I assured him that I felt convinced that there was a good deal in the matter. I told him, also, that he was not in a position to bring home the charges in such a manner as to make it advisable to state them to the House; and that is the whole connection I have had with the case of Lord Massereene.

Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

begged to observe, with regard to this Estimate, that only within the last 48 hours could they have known that it was coming on that night; whereas, for himself, he did not know it until yesterday. A large number of hon. Members were under the impression, as they had not yet exhausted Class I., that that Class would be finished before those in Class II. and Class III. were taken. Now, however, they were taking a Vote in Class IV., and the result was that many of the Members who were interested in those Votes were away. He did not think large sums of money should be granted in this way, in a thin House, at half-past 1 in the morning. Under those circumstances, he thought the Government would see that it was only fair to agree to a Motion to report Progress, which he would beg to make.

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

said, he was entirely in the hands of the Committee in respect to this matter. With regard to the complaint that a sufficient notice was not given, all he could say was that the Prime Minister announced, on the previous Thursday or Friday, that Supply would be taken on the Tuesday; but, on the other hand, he felt that it was too late to go on with Supply, unless it was done with the general consent of the House. At the same time, he must beg to remind the Committee how the day had been spent, and how necessary it was that they should obtain some Votes.

said, that he did not think that these Votes should be taken at this hour.

said, that he did not propose to take any Vote upon which any difference of opinion might arise.

said, that after the first Vote, Section 2, page 299, they would come to that for the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, on which various controversial points would be raised.

An hon. MEMBER said, that one Vote had already been passed by the Committee, and he was sure that there were not five Members of the Committee who knew what the money was being voted for. At the suggestion of the noble Lord the Vote had been put from the Chair; but it was not heard by hon. Members, who had no idea of what was going on. They had expected that the Education Estimates would have been brought on; but now, instead of taking the Education Estimates, the Committee had been suddenly plunged into Class VI., Votes 11 and 12. Under those circumstances, he did not think it needed much argument to show the noble Lord that the Committee was not at that time in the position to discuss the Estimates properly.

said, that although there might be objections to take Votes upon which considerable discussion might arise, yet he thought the Committee was quite competent to deal at that time with those of minor importance. The Votes which he was now proposing to take were upon the Notice Paper; and, therefore, hon. Members could not complain that they had no Notice of the probability of their being taken.

said, that the noble Lord seemed to forget that the course he was pursuing was a most unusual one. He did not think, even in his experience of the last Parliament, that it was ever attempted to commence Supply at half-past 1 o'clock in the morning. It seemed to him that that was a course contrary to sound policy. One of the most important duties of a Member of Parliament was to criticize the Estimates. It was impossible for the Estimates to be criticized at the time when the reporters could not report what would take place.

said, that he did not think that hon. Members could complain of any want of Notice of the intention to take these Estimates; but he did think they had a right to complain of their being brought on at that hour. He had never seen Estimates brought on before at that hour of the night. He did not think that many hon. Members at all expected that they would be brought on. Many had gone away, not expecting that they would be taken. It seemed to him, therefore, that it would be better that the Committee should now report Progress.

said, that he would repeat what he had already said, that the position of the Government was that they had given up their right of taking Supply yesterday on the understanding, with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, that no Motions should be taken that evening. So far as possible, he believed the right hon. Gentleman used his influence in that Motion. As it was for the covenience of hon. Members that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had allowed the Compensation for Disturbance (Ireland) Bill to be taken last night, he thought that the Government was fully entitled to take Supply at that time.

said, that he fully agreed with what had fallen from the noble Lord. It was thoroughly understood by some of their Leaders that facilities should be given for the Government that evening.

said, that several hon. Members had stayed in the House for the purpose of discussing the Estimates. If any question arose on any particular item, then a case would be made for postponing the discussion upon it. But there were several Votes which could be taken without any discussion, and there was no reason why they should be postponed.

said, that, as it seemed to be the wish of the Committee, he would consent to Progress being reported.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow; Committee also report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

Post Office Money Orders Bill,

( Mr. Fawcett, Lord Frederick Cavendish. )

[BILL 172.] COMMITTEE.

Order for Committee read.

said, that for several weeks he had had a Motion on the Paper proposing that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. That Notice was not given with the view of obstructing the Bill, because he thought that such a Committee might make the Bill a really good one, while, without such a Reference, hardly any Amendments could free it from those objections which attached to it in its present form. But at this period of the Session it was clear that a Reference to a Select Committee would really prevent the passing of the Bill at all this year, and that was not his object. Therefore, he should not move an Amendment to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, though he did think that the Bill was not a good not a wise Bill, or that the Preamble was drawn in the way it ought to be. He thought this Bill had been opposed almost equally from both sides of the House. It was no political, but simply a Departmental measure? If referred to a Select Committee, the Bill might have had such limitations and checks placed upon it as would make it a good and practical working Bill; but this was impossible now. There seemed to be three objects to be aimed at with regard to Post Office orders. These were cheapness, ease, and safety. The mere fact of cheapness of Post Office orders to poor people would be obtained by this Bill; and, for that reason, he should certainly not take the responsibility of opposing its progress. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General, who had stated that it was preposterous that the poor man should pay 25 per cent expenses for a 1 s. Post Office order. But though the Bill proposed to make very great reduction in the cost of Post Office orders, it seemed to him that, as drawn, it would not be half so useful as if it entirely adopted the plan of the Cheque Bank. In that case Post Office orders would have to be sent back to the place where they were granted, by which there would be a great gain in regard to safety. The Bill, as now before the House, would, no doubt, to a great extent, ease the manual work of the Post Office, but at what cost? Fraud! and how much fraud he should be afraid to say. Hon. Members might be aware that a large number of Post Office orders were stolen every year. But because the Post Office orders were payable at a certain place and to a certain man, who was almost certainly known at the place where the orders were payable, a Post Office order stolen or lost was not presented for payment, and ultimately the person who bought it could go and receive his money back. If Post Office orders were payable at any place, and to any man, the case would be very different. If Post Office orders were drawn in that form, it would be offering a very great chance to fraud, and very strong temptation to many poor persons, who could not help knowing that if they got possession of these orders no person could prevent their getting the money. The other objection he had to the Bill was in regard to the suggestion of their use as a fractional currency. But he could not imagine that a professor of political economy would have favoured the idea of introducing what Americans called greenbacks. He had reason to believe the original intention of the Department, from which the Bill emanated, was that Post Office orders should be used as currency for fractional amounts. He hoped that in Committee very great changes would be made in the Bill. He should not, however, take the responsibility of opposing the measure, but would leave it in the hands of the Department; but he trusted that the Bill would be considerably amended in Committee.

said, that he did not rise for the purpose of opposing the Bill, but to draw attention to the circumstances under which it now came before the House. The second reading of the measure was taken somewhat unexpectedly, and in the absence of hon. Members who took an interest in the question, and now it was brought on in Committee at a time when it was impossible to discuss it. He would only vindicate in a few words some objections which he had to the Bill. This Bill really introduced a small currency. The Government, indeed, denied this; but certainly they were going to introduce a system of documents payable on demand. He failed to see how those could be distinguished from small notes. The right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General said that he was the last person in the world who would wish to introduce small notes; but by this Bill he was attempting to do it. The other point to which he wished to call the attention of Her Majesty's Government was in regard to the security of the notes themselves, and the certain danger that there seemed to him would arise, firstly, that there would be forgeries, and, secondly, that this system would lead to an extensive system of letter robbery. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Baring) had said that if this system came into general operation, it was certain that every letter carrier would have about him a large amount of readily convertible property. Every person who wanted money would know that if he stole a packet of letters he would find money in some or other of them. Thus a temptation would be offered for robbery which, in many cases, would prove irresistible. He was anxious to ask a question on these two points of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General, had he been in his place. He thought that he should be consulting the convenience of the House by putting these questions in a few words, in order that the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury might convey them to his right hon. Friend. The House would remember that those who would suffer by these letter robberies would constitute a much more numerous class than those who were merely deprived of their money. Several hon. Members had, on previous occasions, thought that he was unduly estimating the amount of fraud that would be likely to be committed; but the chief of the Stolen Letter Department of the Post Office had said that this system would open the door to frauds; and that, if adopted, it would certainly lead to numerous robberies of letters. The hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) stated that if they were afraid of these documents being stolen they could easily remedy that by not using them; but that did not meet the point. If a man's letters were stolen because someone else used the documents, he was put to very considerable inconvenience. Hon. Members must feel that it was not so much the small amount of money that would be stolen, but the inconvenience arising from the loss of numerous letters which would be stolen in order to get at this money which would be felt. Therefore, it seemed to him that by this system they would introduce, not only a great deal of fraud, but would probably give rise to an amount of inconvenience which really ought to be carefully estimated before they allowed the Bill to pass. At that late period of the Session it was impossible to discuss this subject thoroughly, and it did not seem to him that there was any hurry for these small notes when they had gone on for so long a time without them. He thought that it would have been better to have waited a few months longer, and to have retained the present system, instead of rushing into one which the responsible head of the Stolen Letter Department of the Post Office stated would lead to frauds and the abstraction of letters. He hoped, therefore, that the Government would carefully consider the question. He did not understand that his hon. Friend was going to make any further opposition to the Motion that Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair; and he hoped that when the Bill got into Committee the Government would bring it forward at a time when there would be opportunity for thoroughly and fairly discussing it.

said, that his right hon. Friend the Postmaster General had left the House on the understanding that it was not the intention of the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock), or of the hon. Member for South Essex (Mr. Baring) to make any objection to the Motion that Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair. At that time of the night he did not think that it was the wish of the House that he should enter into a discussion on the merits of this Bill, although he might have something to say in reply to what had been alleged. With respect to what had been said as to the time at which the Committee would be taken, he might say that it was the earnest wish of his right hon. Friend that the Bill should come on at as early an hour as possible; but until they saw the way in which Business progressed it was impossible to make any arrangement.

said, that he believed there could be no better object than that which this Bill had in view. It was most important, for the purpose of promoting thrift amongst the poorer classes, that they should be given as great facility as possible for the transmission of small sums of money, say up to 5 s. With regard to the transmission of those sums, he thought the charge of ½ d . as reasonable as could be expected; but it must be borne in mind that the poor man's difficulty in the transmission of money did not end there. He had first to look for a pen, ink, and paper, stamp and envelope; and the right hon. Gentleman would vastly increase the utility of the system if he took into his consideration the possibility of issuing a penny envelope—a poor man's envelope—a cheap envelope, including both stamp and envelope. The public were now supplied with paper documents in the shape of postal cards, and he should suggest that a similar idea should be carried on with regard to envelopes. He thought that it would be wasting the time of the House to go into these matters at that time; but he would ask the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury to convey to the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General his suggestion as to these envelopes, in order that poor people might be given the same facilities for the transmission of money which the better classes of the community now enjoyed. They all knew the advantage of being able to send cheques of £1. A shilling was the poor man's pound; and it was desirable to increase, so far as could be done, the means by which small sums of money could be sent. This subject was of especial interest to the Irish community; for there the people were very much in the habit of sending the very smallest sums of money to their families and relations in all parts of the country, and to great distances. He trusted the suggestion he had made would meet with the consideration of his right hon. Friend.

said, that he thought they ought to have an assurance from the noble Lord that, when the Bill was brought on next, it should be at a time when it could be properly discussed. There were many important questions arising upon the measure. For instance, he thought it was hardly considered how large an amount of cash would be required to be kept at the different Post Offices, in order to meet the demands made upon them to cash these notes. It was now quite impossible to go into these questions; and he was quite willing for the Bill to go into Committee, pro formâ ; but it should be on the definite understanding that it should come on at a time when they could discuss it.

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

Merchant Shipping (Carriage of Grain) Bill

Considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Resolved , That the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the safe carriage of Grain Cargoes by Merchant Shipping.

Resolution reported :—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. CHAMBERLAIN and Mr. ASHLEY.

Bill presented , and read the first time. [Bill 287.]

House adjourned at Two o'clock.