Perhaps it would be convenient for the House, if the Prime Minister would state the Order of Business for tomorrow.

Sir, in the event of the Report on the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill being concluded tonight, the Savings Bank Bill and the Post Office Money Orders Bill will be taken at the Forenoon Sitting to-morrow. Supply will be taken on Monday.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he will inquire into the conduct of the Chief Constable in the town of Mount Bellew, county of Galway, on the 16th instant, in presenting a revolver at the head of one of Her Majesty's subjects, and subsequently locking him up for some time, and then discharging him without taking him before a magistrate or charging him with any offence?

Sir, the case to which the hon. Member for Galway (MR. Mitchell Henry) refers in his Question is at present under inquiry by the magistrates of petty sessions. Until it is decided I do not think I ought to take any action in the matter. As, however, hon. Members have the Question before them, I think it is only fair to state that the facts there mentioned are not all the facts I have before me. It appears that on the 16th instant a large crowd of persons carried through the streets of the village a flaming effigy of a Crown witness who had given evidence against two men charged with the murder of Mr. Young. The constable had to interfere to check a violation of the law; and I am informed that 28 summonses were served by him. I mention that because some of the facts appear to have been left out of the Question of the hon. Member, to the prejudice of the case; and his Question gives me the opportunity of saying that when an hon. Member is about to put a Question, as to which there is some dispute, he should put forward the facts on both sides, as a one-sided statement obliges the Minister who has to reply almost to discuss them, by stating the facts which have been omitted.

The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my Question. He has informed me of other circumstances. I beg to ask him, therefore, whether the Chief Constable of the town of Mount Bellew, in the county of Galway, is justified by Her Majesty's Government in presenting a revolver at one of Her Majesty's subjects, and subsequently locking him up, and then discharging him without taking him before a magistrate?

I will call my hon. Friend's attention to this—that his Question, as put on the Paper, does not ask if the policeman was justified in doing so, and was simply, whether I would inquire into the conduct of the Constabulary? I can only say the inquiry is now proceeding; but I do not know whether the facts, as stated by the hon. Member, are correct or not. The question was not whether the man was justified or not; but whether I would have inquiry made.

I am very sorry to have to rise again; but what I want to know is, whether the right hon. Gentleman means to convey that the inquiry is being held into the conduct of the Chief Constable?

Yes, I said so.

The right hon. Gentleman says an inquiry is being made. I am sorry I misunderstood him; but I wish to ask, whether the inquiry going on before the magistrates is into the conduct of the constable, or into the conduct of the prisoners whom he assaulted?

I can only repeat, Sir, the first words I used, and which were that the case to which the hon. Member refers—the conduct of the constable—is now under consideration by the magistrates.

, in reply to the following Question which stood upon the Paper:—

"MR. ERRINGTON,—To ask the Postmaster General, If he is as yet in a position to state whether the Zanzibar Mail Contract is to be renewed; and, whether, if so, he will take care the various Companies shall have every facility for competing?"

said, that, although, the hon. Member who had given Notice of the Question was not in his place to put it, it might be convenient for him to answer it. It had been decided not to renew the Zanzibar mail contract, and this would result in a saving to the Post Office of £20,000 per annum.

I beg to present a Petition, from 127 tenant farmers of Haddingtonshire, in favour of the Hares and Rabbits Bill.

Petition ordered to lie upon the Table.

I beg to present a Petition against this Bill from Sir Thomas Gladstone, and I beg to move that it be now read by the Clerk at the Table.

Motion agreed to.

Petition read, and ordered to lie upon the Table.

, in rising to move the following Amendment:—

"That while 'in the interests of good husbandry and for the better protection of the capital and labour invested by the occupiers of land in the cultivation of the soil,' this House is ready to accept a measure which shall give effect to the principal recommendations of the Select Committee on the Game Laws, 1872–3, and while it recognizes the necessity of protecting by legislation children and others who cannot protect themselves, it is of opinion that it is not expedient to restrict or interfere with the freedom of contract between independent persons of full age, and under no legal disability, nor with the use and enjoyment of laud as they may agree,"

said, that the right hon. and learned Home Secretary had left the House under the impression for the last six weeks that he (MR. Brand) was opposed to all reforms of the Game Laws, inasmuch as he had neglected to press forward this Resolution. He (MR. Brand) was as much in favour of reforming those laws as anyone else, not even excepting the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself, which, perhaps, however, might not be saying much, only he differed from him as to the means by which that reform should be effected. As he did not wish to receive any support on false grounds, he desired to preface his remarks by giving Notice of his intention, if the Bill ever got into Committee, to move an Amendment, declaring that hares and rabbits should not be deemed game within the meaning of the Game Laws. Nothing had surprised him more than the manner in which the intentions of those who were opposed to this measure had been misrepresented. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (MR. John Bright) had asserted at a convivial meeting at the Fishmongers' Hall that all who endeavoured to frustrate the intentions of the Government in this matter were actuated either by vanity, or disappointment, or by interest in sport. For himself, he could say that he opposed the measure, not in the interests of sport, but because he believed the principle on which it was based was unsound, and would give no practical relief to the tenant farmers, and because it contravened sound principles of legislation. It was not in any way a novel measure, and the strongest argument against it was the manner in which a similar proposal was treated by the Liberal Government in 1871, and which was introduced by the late Mr. Loch, then Member for Wick, and opposed by the Scotch Law Officer of the Crown, the then Lord Advocate (Mr. George Young), who stated that the Government were unable to assent to its principle, because they did not admit that the case of landlord and tenant was at all analogous to those cases in which Parliament had interfered with the freedom of contract. No doubt, they would be told that that was the dictum of the Scotch Law Officer; but he (Mr. Brand) took it that the opinion of the then Scotch Law Officer was quite as good as that of the present Home Secretary. He thought it would be in the recollection of the House that the right hon. and learned Gentleman addressed a speech to the House, on the second reading of this Bill, which was, from first to last, a violent indictment against anyone who had the misfortune to own land. In the course of its delivery, there was a lease produced, which was read in a manner which would lead the House to believe that that was the ordinary form of contract between landlord and tenant. His right hon. and learned Friend knew very well that that was not the case. But that was not all. The landlords had been addressed in language of a threatening character. They had been told that if they did not accept the Bill they would have something much worse. He (Mr. Brand) was not a fanatic in these matters, and readily admitted that land could not be treated as other property; but Parliament had for long years endeavoured to place the relations of owners and occupiers of land on a healthy basis of free contract, and he regretted that almost the first act of a Liberal Government and a Liberal majority should be, not to apply the principles of Mr. Cobden to the devolution of land, but to revert to Protection, and to call in the State to say what should and what should not be a contract between man and man. If the principle of the Bill were adopted, he could not see why Parliament should not be called in to fix the rent, and determine the rotation of crops. He did not contend against the Preamble of the Bill; for he admitted that there was a grievance, and that that grievance must be abated; but his contention was that the grievance not only affected the farmer, but that the Game Laws were unjust and unduly severe. This Bill would not benefit the general public, and its effect, as regarded the farmers, was entirely illusory. He had, therefore, placed his Resolution on the Paper, and had been accused by the right hon. and learned Gentleman with insincerity in doing so. ["No, no!"] He took down the words at the time. "Insincere Amendment" were the words used by his right hon. and learned Friend. He was very much tempted at the time to rise to "Order," and ask Mr. Speaker whether it was in Order to accuse hon. Members of insincerity with reference to Amendments they might have. He was afraid, if he did, the right hon. and learned Gentleman would soon become more rash and impetuous in his language. As a long time had elapsed since then, he had managed to get cool, and he could only express his surprise that the right hon. and learned Gentleman should claim a monopoly of sincerity on the question. At any rate, he was in the happy position of being able to defend himself from that charge, because the opinions which he held were in conformity with a Bill which was introduced on this subject by the late Mr. Loch. He (Mr. Brand) had the honour to represent a constituency in which the agricultural labourer was enfranchised. This Bill—and it was his chief objection against it—was monstrously unjust to the agricultural labourer. If the right hon. Gentleman was going in for numbers, why not go in for the agricultural labourer? While, as between the landlord and tenant it treated these animals as vermin, there was seven years' penal servitude for the unfortunate agricultural labourer or private person who might go a few yards and take these animals. It was not, however, without great hesitation that he put the Resolution on the Paper; for he was sincerely anxious not to appear to be in opposition to the Government. Since he had had a seat in the House he had always given a consistent support to the right hon. Gentleman the First Minister of the Crown. The opinions of the farmers and of the Chambers of Agriculture, he might be told, were against him. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department knew very well that the Chambers of Agriculture were not representatives of the farmers. Those Chambers were very thinly attended; their course was generally directed by one or two of the more energetic members, and sometimes by discontented members. His experience of the farmers of the district in which he lived led him to believe that, if he went to the market town and explained the provisions of the Bill, he should get a considerable number of farmers to support him. What he could not understand was that the right hon. and learned Gentleman should have thrown aside entirely the Report of the Committee of 1872 and 1873. He believed the Bill was first printed, and that then the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the Report of that Committee. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had adopted the recommendation of a small minority of the Committee, but had absolutely rejected the recommendation of the majority. He stated, in his opening speech, that his Bill was grounded on, a certain paragraph in the Report of that Committee. The paragraph was to this effect—the Committee were satisfied that no means so efficient for the purpose of keeping down hares and rabbits could be devised as the power of the farmer to kill game exclusively or concurrently with his landlord; but the Committee did not believe that landlords were generally willing to make such a concession. But he entirely omitted to say that the very same proposal which he had brought before the House was put before the Committee. He (Mr. Brand) was speaking in the presence of several Members of that Commitee. He was sorry the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham was not in the House; for, if he had been present, he would agree that the majority of the Committee rejected that very recommendation, because they said it was utterly impracticable. The division was very remarkable. Thirteen voted against the proposal of the Government. And that was not all, for he had authority to state that one of the Members who voted in the minority did so by mistake, and his vote ought to have been in the majority. He alluded to the hon. Member for Inverness-shire (MR. Fraser Mackintosh). Five voted for the proposal and 15 against it; a majority of three to one. The names of the Liberal Members who voted against that proposal included Sir George Grey, Mr. Hardcastle, Mr. M'Lagan, Mr. Monk, and Mr. Whitbread. He could come to no other conclusion than that the Bill had been introduced hastily and without proper consideration. Something was to be done. The farmers were to be shown—whether at the expense of others, or not, did not matter—that the Liberals were going to do something for them. He believed that while the Bill was unsound in principle, and immoral in tendency, it would not benefit the tenant farmer in the least degree. The Government might, by the force of their majority, carry the impracticable proposal they had made; but it would be evaded. It said that a tenant should, under no circumstances, part with his right of shooting; but the landlord would in many cases go to his tenant and say—"If you will forego the exercise of your right of shooting on your farm I will reduce the rent of it," and the Bill would then come in to enable the tenant to cheat his landlord for the term of the tenancy. If that was not immoral, he wished to know what was. They could not prevent landlord and tenant making those bargains, unless they went further, and enacted that they would punish the making of every such contract with fine or imprisonment, and he did not think they would get a majority to support such a proposal. There was another, even more remarkable, proposal in the Bill, and that was the proposal to interfere with the power of the tenant to alienate his sporting rights to anyone else. He believed that that was a proposition which it would be impossible to carry out, for, at present, many tenants held under corporate bodies, or landlords who did not themselves shoot, and those tenant farmers let the sporting rights. How could they interfere and say that such a tenant should not alienate the sporting right for a valuable consideration to another person? A friend of his who owned land in the South of England the other day told him he had received a letter from one of his tenants àpropos of that Bill. The tenant said the landlord had always given him the sporting right with the occupancy, and that he had been in the habit of letting it to a publican in the neighbourhood for £100 a-year; but he found by that Bill he would not be able to let it to the publican, or, rather, that the publican would not give him £100 for it, because no one would give that in the case of land over which the lessor had a right of which he could not legally divest himself. What were the grounds for this measure? As he (Mr. Brand) understood, they were that hares and rabbits were destructive animals, and interfered with the good cultivation of the soil; but, having accepted that principle, the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to have gone further, and declared that hares and rabbits should no longer be protected by law. In New Zealand the farmers had lately been much troubled by rabbits, and Commissioners had been appointed to destroy those animals. Now, he thought it would conduce to the peace of landlords, and all concerned in this country, if his right hon. and learned Friend would offer his services as a Commissioner for the destruction of rabbits in New Zealand, always providing it should not be necessary to destroy them with the gun. The question closely touched by his Resolution was the proposed interference with contract, and as to that, the only defence which was offered for that interference was, that a contract between a landlord and tenant, by which the former reserved the right to ground game, was contrary to the public good. If that was the case—if it could be shown that there was no other remedy, and if the remedy was effective—then he would admit that the policy of the Government was an arguable one. But the House must remember that this was an entirely new and novel departure. If land in this country was only to be used and enjoyed according as it might affect the public profit, then the State must go further than it had done heretofore, and must enact that all owners of land must divert their parks and ornamental grounds to such purposes as might most tend to the public profit; and, on that principle, he did not see how the State could spend money on the preservation of deer or game in a Royal Park. In a letter, which he read the other day, the case was so well put that he would quote the pith of it to the House. The writer said—

"Much is made of the unanimity among tenants in favour of the Bill. What else could be expected? It would, indeed, he remarkable if the transfer of a valuable right without consideration, from a limited number of persons to a much larger body, did not command the cordial assent of the latter, though the justice of the operation might be less apparent if it were applied to themselves in favour of a still more numerous class."

The thing might spread; they might soon have a more numerous class claiming for themselves in turn what they were now about to give to the tenant farmers. Let him read to his right hon. and learned Friend these few words from that great French writer, Bastiat—

"Each class in turn says to Government—'We are dissatisfied at the proportion between our labour and our enjoyments. We should like to take a part of the possession of others. But this would be dangerous. Can you not facilitate the thing for us? You, who can take justifiably and honestly, take from others and we will partake.'"

That went near to the policy of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He contended that there was no Parliamentary precedent whatever for the interference which the Bill proposed. He might be told that the Agricultural Holdings Act, or, rather, that the proposal of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) to make that Act compulsory, was such a precedent. What that hon. Member might do was no concern of his (Mr. Brand's); but that was not a case in point, because the Agricultural Holdings Act merely gave the force of law to a custom which varied in different counties and which existed generally; and the proposal to make it compulsory did not go so far as to say that the tenant should not contract with the landlord for a value equivalent to the value in the Act; whereas the present Bill would prevent the tenant from contracting with the landlord for any pecuniary consideration whatever. It might be said that the Property Tax was a case in point; but that was not so. The State had allowed the tenant to deduct the Income Tax from the rent, on the ground, he supposed, that it was not just that he should bear the fluctuations of that tax. But whenever there was a fresh determination of the tenancy, the landlord and the tenant, of course, took into consideration all existing charges on the land. Now, in regard to the Factory Acts, the State had always refused to interfere directly with the labour of adult men in factories. As to the Truck Acts, their object was the prevention of fraud. The same thing applied to the Hosiery Act, which had been mentioned; while, again, the Irish Land Act—which came nearest in point—was restricted to tenants under £50. The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) was, he (Mr. Brand) understood, a supporter of the present Bill. He had come across some words of that hon. Gentleman which were so much to the point on the Irish Land Act that he would read them to the House. The hon. Member (Mr. Pell) said—

"Tenants of £50 and upwards, however, ought not to subject themselves to the evils of competition, nor to be overwhelmed by the consequences of bidding too high, as in the case of the smaller tenants, and he considered that it would be a positive insult to them to propose that they should come under the scale for compensation, involving the supposition that they were unable to exercise their own free will and judgment in taking a farm."—[3 Hansard , cc. 1465–6.]

His hon. Friend might say he had changed his mind; but the question really was this—were they going to say that the English farmer was in so weak and helpless a position that he must be put in the same category as the women and children under the Factory Acts? He himself knew some tenant farmers who would thank him for repudiating such a thing; and, if such a claim were made, he thought it showed a moral weakness on their part which was simply distressing. There was no practical inequality between the landlord and the tenant in that matter. When it was known that a man wished to take a farm he might make almost any bargain he chose. What did the hon. Baronet the Member for North Lanarkshire (Sir Edward Colebrooke) say on that subject in 1871, when speaking of the farmers of Scotland? He said—

"The farmers in Scotland were an independent body, and were quite capable of making a bargain for themselves."—[3 Hansard , cciv. 1580.]

The Lord Advocate of Scotland (Mr. G. Young) of that day also said—

"He would characterize the leading clause in it as a clause disabling men of great intelligence, men perfectly able to conduct their own affairs, and to manage business of great importance, from entering into such contracts with their landlords as they pleased."—[ Ibid ., 1589.]

He now came to a much higher authority—namely, the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury. The right hon. Gentleman, in one of the most magnificent portions of that great speech, which made a most powerful impression on him, said—

"No persons value more highly than we the freedom of contracts; it lies at the root of every healthy condition of society."

He wanted to know what the right hon. Gentleman said of the condition of England. He went on to say—

"The case of Ireland is an exceptional one, and the same principle could not be applied to England and Scotland."—[ Ibid ., cxcix. 348.]

He (Mr. Brand) complained that that principle was about to be contravened for the purpose of giving what would be an illusory advantage to the tenant farmer. Another point worthy of notice was, that the Bill did not protect the tenant farmer from damages caused by hares and rabbits coming from a neighbouring property. Besides, it was well known rabbits could not be kept down without getting into the woods and the burrows. He read a letter from a land agent which stated that, should this Bill pass, it would be incumbent on every landlord, who wished to keep the shooting to himself, to take into his own hands the fields immediately near the covers and preserve all the hedges around. There was, in fact, very little in the Bill, and what there was would do no good to the tenant farmer. The first objection he had to the Bill was, that it dealt only with the question as between landlord and tenant; the next, because it would not be of any good in the worst cases; then, because it would create a great deal of discomfort and discontent amongst landlords and tenants, in those cases in which cordial good feeling now prevailed; and, lastly, because in cases where its object would be attained, and it might be expected to effect good, it could only do so at the cost of an immense amount of friction and annoyance between the landlord and the tenant. Those who indulged in the luxury of preserving game would still find the means of gratifying it in the reduction of rent or giving compensation for damage. They had shown themselves often regardless of public opinion in the matter, and they would probably exhibit the same indifference to legislation. If their tenants refused terms they would very likely say to them—"You may leave your farms, and we shall find others who will take them." In a great majority of cases there was a real, cordial, good feeling between landlord and tenant. He knew, in his own experience, many cases in which the tenants reserved the winged game to the landlord, who gave them the ground game. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might say that was what his Bill did; but there was the greatest possible difference between the landlord giving a concession to his tenants and the State interfering to compel him to do so. Wherever a tenant chose to exercise his rights under the Bill without regard to the convenience of the landlord, the latter would be deprived of all his sporting rights, because no man would go to the expense of preserving winged game, if they were liable at any time to be "driven" by another party. Again, the Bill would entirely destroy the letting value of shootings. That might, in some instances, be a good thing; he would not dispute the point, because there could be no doubt there had been abuses in that respect; but under this measure, in its present shape, many cases of hardship were certain to arise. He had received two letters on this subject, from which he wished to read an extract or two to the House. One was a letter from Yorkshire, which said—

"If allowed to become law as at present printed, the Bill will be a great source of feud between landlord and tenant, and tend to destroy the good feeling that exists, and many will lose their farms so soon as they commence to kill the hares and rabbits. I will take my own case, where it will be very hard. I am one of the many, a small, but independent, freeholder. I have purchased from time to time land; it is not very valuable land, some of it adjoining the moor, and some of it moor, but it affords the best of mixed sporting. I have put plantations down here and there on it, and made it as complete for sporting as I can so small a piece. I never allow a spring iron trap to be set except by the trapper, for fear of killing foxes. The Bill gives the tenant unlimited power; he will be able to set his traps and leave them until they catch something, peradventure it may be a fox, a pheasant, a partridge, and, not improbably, his landlord's sporting dog; he will enjoy the right to have his shooting party—to kill hares and rabbits—the same day as his landlord, and may be one party will be entering a field at one end and the other come in at the other—a nice state of things—and each with equal right. Again, take the termination of a tenancy; if a tolerably good understanding does not exist, the tenant will loll every hare and rabbit on the farm, and probably introduce the greatest poacher in the neighbourhood to assist him. The result can easily be imagined where no gamekeeper is kept."

Another correspondent put his case thus—

"I have a wold farm, bleak and stony, where no wheat can be grown. In parts, the land lies so steep that it cannot even be ploughed, The farm rent is naturally very low; but the very same cause which makes it bad farming laud makes it admirable for rabbits. Owing to the recent bad seasons, I have during the last 12 months actually received more in hard cash from my shooting tenant than from my farming tenant. Now, if the Hares and Rabbits Bill should pass, I shall lose my shooting rent altogether, and I shall certainly not be able to recoup myself by any additional agricultural rent. I shall be glad if the right hon. and learned Gentleman would inform me whether he would consider it a 'confusion of epithets' if I were to call this confiscation."

He repeated again that his principal objection to the Bill was, that it dealt only with the question as between landlord and tenant, and offered no remedy as regarded the general community, to whom it would be monstrously unjust. He therefore asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman, whether he really thought it wise to persevere with a Bill which would encourage people to say that the Game Law Question was hung up for a time, and that there was no use of asking for any further reforms? The time would come when household franchise would be extended to the counties; and he should be very sorry indeed to go down with this measure to any county and ask the enfranchised agricultural labourer to support him, on the ground that the Government had passed a Bill which treated hares and rabbits, as between landlord and tenant, as vermin; while retaining all the penalties against the agricultural labourer or small freeholder who might kill one of them. That that was so might be inferred from the fact that a Select Committee seven years ago recommended summary criminal proceedings against persons poaching by day; they also proposed the abolition of cumulative penalties in Game Law cases, and they especially recommended the abolition of the punishment of penal servitude for seven years; yet none of these questions had been settled by the Government in this Bill. In conclusion, he would beg leave to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

Amendment proposed,

To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "while 'in the interests of good husbandry and for the better protection of the capital and labour invested by the occupiers of land in the cultivation of the soil,' this House is ready to accept a measure which shall give effect to the principal recommendations of the Select Committee on the Game Laws, 1872–3, and, while it recognises the necessity of protecting by legislation children and others who cannot protect themselves, it is of opinion that it is not expedient to restrict or interfere with the freedom of contract between independent persons of full age, and under no legal disability, nor with the use and enjoyment of land as they may agree,"

—( Mr. Brand ,)

—instead thereof.

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

said, that in rising to address the House upon the subject before them he had to ask their indulgence, a favour seldom, if ever, refused to those in his position—that of addressing hon. Gentlemen for the first time. He had listened with great respect and attention to the eminently able speech of the hon. Gentleman who preceded him (Mr. Brand), and, judging from its tenour, he should regret if the debate were to lose that practical character which so eminently fitted the subject for discussion; or if it should assume an aspect of unreality, by a discussion of such an abstract question as the right of the State to interfere with private contract. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department was charged with having used the language of exaggeration; but, if the charge was true, the hon. Member seemed to have caught the infection of that exaggeration. As to the real character of the Bill, his (Viscount Lymington's) own opinion was, that there was nothing in it which implied confiscation, or that interfered with freedom of contract in its real and best sense. Still less did he perceive in the character or principle of this Bill anything that could be called immoral. He would not follow the hon. Member for Stroud into the various, almost melancholy, anticipations which had been expressed as to what would be the results of the passing of such a measure; but he quite agreed with one statement which had been made—namely, that the legislation proposed, or, indeed, any other legislation whatever, could not interfere with any private arrangements that might be made between a landlord and his tenant when their relations were cordial; but his opinion was that the Bill would insure arrangements being dictated by mutual advantage, and not compulsory and one-sided as was too often the case. He did not think the right hon. and learned Gentleman would object to any such arrangements, or that the Bill would stand in their way. He did not deny that there existed, at the present time, absolute freedom of contract; that was to say, the tenant surrendered rights which were his by Common Law; but it must be remembered, on the other hand, that hitherto the landlord had the important advantage over the tenant, that he stood in a vastly superior position for making a bargain; and, besides, it had not been controverted that free- dom of contract had certainly been often strained in its practical application. They had been told, and it was, doubtless, true, that at the present moment agriculture was depressed, and that landowners were placed in a position of corresponding disadvantage; but they had good reason to hope that the previous condition of things would speedily return, when agriculture would again become as popular and profitable an occupation as formerly, so that the landlord would once more be in a position to dictate the terms to his tenants, and to impose restrictions upon them which might be detrimental to them in the pursuit of their occupation. And even if hon. Members opposite dissented from such arguments as these he did not think it could be denied that there existed, in regard to contracts relating to ground game, that which removed the chief argument for the injustice and inexpediency of interfering with such contracts. It could not be said that such contracts affected none but the contracting parties. Hares and rabbits could not be confined within any defined and limited area; and that fact became important when adjacent farms were held under different landlords, and the tenants of one had to submit to an excessive preservation of game. No doubt, the majority of landlords were honest and honourable men, who would never allow their tenants to be subjected to losses from the ravages of ground game; but hitherto, owing to the fact that the possession of land was in the hands of comparatively few persons, and that agriculture had been a profitable and popular occupation, landlords had possessed almost a monopoly of power. He (Viscount Lymington) did not grudge them that monopoly; but, unless he misconceived the purpose of the Bill, one of its intentions was to restrain the exercise and prevent the abuse of that monopoly, and to prevent unfair landlords imposing unfair restrictions. Where tenants had good landlords to deal with, the Bill would practically make no difference in any way, and it would remove the chief argument from the whole game agitation, and make the farmers themselves the leaders of the game preservers, and confer upon the landlord an actual advantage by securing him against all future claims for compensation. He observed, with satisfaction, that, so far, no direct opposition to the Bill had come from the Front Opposition Benches; but that was no more than was to have been fairly expected, inasmuch as hon. Gentlemen opposite had always claimed the support of the farming interest on the ground that they were the farmers' friends. And as for the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Stroud, he thought a far more intelligible and logical course for him to have pursued was to have proposed that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. He was of opinion that great mischief would result if the Resolution were agreed to, that the Bill would assume the form of a declaratory Act. To declare right which the occupier already possessed, but which the landlord had been in the habit of contracting him out of—a habit which, under permissive legislation, the landlord would continue to exercise in the future, and that the entire question of ground game would remain precisely in the same unsatisfactory condition in which it now stood. No answer had been given to the real argument in favour of the Bill, that it was expedient to come to a moderate settlement of the question. He would, therefore, remind hon. Members of the mischief which frequently followed the non-acceptance of a fair and reasonable compromise, such as that now offered for their acceptance. By accepting the compromise proposed in the present instance they would stifle a great agitation; but by refusing the compromise they would only postpone the settlement of the question. In the event of the settlement being postponed, they would probably leave it to be settled at the next General Election, when it would probably be made an electioneering cry by a newly-enfranchised class. Believing that the proposal was a just and reasonable compromise, and that it was based on a fair principle, he would give the Bill his most cordial support.

said, the noble Lord who had just sat down (Viscount Lymington) appeared to think that the compromise proposed by the Bill would be likely, if accepted, to settle the question. Well, if he knew the views and opinions held, and the attempts at legislation made, by the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor), he thought the hon. Member would regard the Bill as being far from meeting his idea of what a Game Law ought to be. In years gone by, he (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) might have been himself accused of being an advanced reformer on this question; but that was previous to the thorough investigation it had undergone by the Select Committee which reported upon it in the year 1873. That Report had various measures before it, including one proposed by the hon. Member for Leicester, for the total abolition of the Game Laws, and he thought the Members of the Committee would bear him out when he said that, after a most exhaustive inquiry, after the taking of evidence on the subject from all parts of the country, not only were the Committee absolutely convinced that the total abolition of the Game Laws was impossible, but they held, by a large and important majority, that such a proposal as was now made by Her Majesty's Government would be inopportune, and would be an equally false solution of the difficulty. The total abolition of the Game Laws was rejected by the Committee for many reasons. The evidence given before them went to show that foreign countries which had established the Game Laws had been obliged to re-enact them, and many farmers from various parts of the country who were examined stated that, in their opinion, the total abolition of the Game Laws would be impossible, unless accompanied by such a stringent trespass law as they believed would never be accepted by the country. He would not allude to the threat that had been held out to the effect that unless the Bill were accepted by the House worse would be in store for them, plainly pointing to a proposal for the total abolition of the Game Laws, but would remind the House that the evidence given before the Committee showed that the complaints made as to the Game Laws being a grievance were of a very limited character, and were very few in number. It would, indeed, he thought, be difficult to prove that there were many cases in which the relations between landlord and tenant were, owing to the existence of the Game Laws, of an unsatisfactory nature. The principal grievance of which the agricultural witnesses complained was that there was no easy and cheap means by which they could obtain damages for such loss as they sustained by reason of the over-preservation of game. They did not so much complain of the preservation of game as of the fact that when the right was reserved and was abused, they could not easily obtain compensation for the loss which in consequence they sustained. The Bill before the House did not meet the difficulties of the case. One of the great objections always put forward was that the law in Scotland was not assimilated to the law in England, that there was a different presumption as to the property in the game in the one country and in the other. Whenever the question had been discussed and examined, it had invariably been recommended that, as a starting point, the laws of the two countries ought to be assimilated. Another recommendation urged by the Committee, and which was not to be found in the Bill, was that an easy method should be provided for obtaining damages for loss after tenancy. Of course, when the landlord and tenant were contracting in reference to the tenancy, they could make allowance for loss in the rent they agreed to; and he maintained that it was not accurate to say at the present moment that the tenant was not in a position to hold his own with regard to his lease, because the difficulty at the present time was not on the side of the tenant, but rather with the landlord, who, it was well known, had a difficulty in getting satisfactory terms. The Bill proposed to deal simply with the law as between landlord and tenant. He asked if it proposed to do so in a satisfactory way, or whether what it really proposed to do was not to interfere with freedom of contract between landlord and tenant? The latter, he believed, would be the result, whatever was the intention of the Bill; and he put it to the House if some more satisfactory result could not be obtained by some smaller measure, without resorting to such an interference. The question raised was, whether the inalienable right to the ground game was or was not in the occupancy of the land. He understood the suggestion to be that the whole of the ground game was to pass to the tenant; and, however much he deprecated the proposal, he thought it was more logical than the taking of portions of the game out, which would be far more likely to lead to a breach of harmony between landlord and tenant. For what would happen? They would have a tenant, who exercised his right under the Bill in an exclusive manner, appointing agents to destroy the hares and rabbits on the ground. It had been shown that the provisions of the Bill in regard to the keeping down of ground game could not be carried out, except by skilled persons; and as the farmers could not afford to employ gamekeepers, the village poachers would, almost of necessity, become their "agents." Was it to be supposed that, with men of this class engaged in the fields and plantations, it would be any longer possible to preserve the winged game?—for it was out of the question that the village poacher would confine his attention to the hares and rabbits, and it would be impossible to prove that the agent was in the ground, or in the plantation, for the sole purpose of killing them. There would also be such an interference with the concurrent right which the Bill proposed to reserve to the landlords that it would soon be found quite impossible to preserve the winged game on the farms. He was quite aware that there were many hon. Members who thought this would be a lesser evil than the one which it was sought to cure, and that it would be desirable to abolish game altogether. He would remind such hon. Members that, before the Committee, a great deal of evidence was given showing the immense value of hares and rabbits as part of the food of the country, and especially of its manufacturing and working-class population generally. ["Oh, oh!"] The hon. Member might object to this statement; but it was proved before the Committee that 40,000 tons of hares and rabbits were annually consumed as food in the Northern towns of the country, and that among the manufacturing population no food was sought more after, particularly in cases of illness, than rabbit. If, therefore, hon. Members were prepared to abolish game, they must consider whether they were prepared to dispense with so large a quantity of food as that which he had mentioned for the poorer classes of the population, who, in many cases, preferred hares and rabbits to butchers' meat. It might, perhaps, be said that this article of food was really supplied at the cost of one class in the community—namely, the occupiers of the soil; but, at any rate, the fact was considered by that class and was made a part of the terms, on which they took their holdings, and it would be marked in the future by raising the rent, which had been lowered on that account. The simpler remedy, which he would suggest, was to take the history of contract as to tenancies of land between landlord and tenant out of the Game Laws altogether, and make it merely a written contract, enforcible by a civil action if need be. This would not be an interference with freedom of contract nearly so vicious as was proposed by the Bill of the Government. If freedom of contract was to be interfered with merely on the ground that hares and rabbits rendered it difficult to grow as good crops as might otherwise be produced, he should like to know where they were to stop. It was well known that timber in hedgerows was as great an interference with extensive cropping as ground game; and the next proposal might possibly be that tenants should have a right to grub up the hedgerows, for if men were not to have a right to enter into such contracts as best suited them mutually, he could see no difference between ground game and timber. He believed the Bill went far beyond what was required as a solution of the present difficulty, and he did not attach much weight to the few Memorials in favour of the Bill, because he regarded those Chambers as representing, not the general opinions of the occupiers of the land, but as the mouthpieces of a few discontented agitators among the farming classes. He believed, when it came to be discussed by farmers generally, the latter would rather be in favour of the continuance of the present harmony between themselves and their landlords than support a Bill which would disturb those cordial relations without conferring any compensating benefit.

, in supporting the Bill, said, he desired to see property protected, and to have the rights of shooting of the tenant fairly considered. He, therefore, considered that the House should view very seriously the whole matter before it rejected a measure of so much importance. With regard to the freedom of contract that so much had been said about, he might point out to the House that very stringent legislation had been directed towards the shipping interest, and there was very little regard to the principles of proprietary right and the freedom of contract. A shipowner could not deal with a sailor, a lazy sailor, on board a ship, or engage a sailor, pay off a sailor, engage an engineer, or load a ship, as he pleased. In fact, a shipper, an underwriter, and a sailor were put in a position which a landowner or a householder of this country was not required to occupy. From the year 1876, the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford North-cote) extended the interference with the rights of contract against shipowners, for in that year the right hon. Gentleman introduced a Bill showing that shipping ought to be treated in a very different way from land contracts—that was, that shipowners and underwriters should be dealt with in a very different way to landholders and householders—and in introducing the Bill, he said—

"It may be said, Why do you touch contracts of this kind at all? Well, we recognize and feel the fact that it is a very serious thing indeed to interfere under any circumstances with full freedom of contract; and where contracts are made between parties who are competent on both sides to enter into them, and where they do not affect the interests and rights of other persons, we feel that it would be wrong and contrary to sound principle to meddle with freedom of contract."—[3 Hansard , ccxxvii. 147.]

That was a clear admission that there were cases in which interference was justifiable; and he (Mr. Currie) contended that the matter of ground game was one of those cases. The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) said the tenant farmer might kill, if the contract was one which was made between two parties who could not make free contracts. With respect to that, he (Mr. Currie) should like to quote some examples of the kind of terms by which the tenants in Perthshire were bound. In one case, the lease reserved to the proprietor the game, "notwithstanding any legislative measure passed before or during the currency of the lease," the tenant renouncing all claims for damages. In another case the proprietor "reserves all game and rabbits," and this "notwithstanding any alteration or modification that may be made regarding the Game Laws." That, however, was not the way with all landlords in Perthshire. There was one, Sir Patrick K. Murray, who might be spoken of in terms of the highest approbation, in consequence of the way in which he acted, and in his lease the words were—

"The landlord reserves the game, but the tenant farmer shall he entitled, by himself, or by one person authorized by him in writing, to trap, snare, ferret, or shoot and net rabbits and hares; but there shall he no shooting between the months of April and September,"

On the Ochtertyre estate, the tenant farmers had the joint right to kill ground game. That was the very principle of the Bill; and it was, therefore, seen that elsewhere it had not been destructive of the good relations existing between landlords and tenants, or destructive of property. The tenant farmers were extremely comfortable, and the rents had not fallen off during the last years by reason of the change applied to tenant farmers. He wished to call the attention of the House to a Petition which he had had the honour to present, signed by 1,689 tenant farmers in Perthshire, in favour of the Bill. The signatories were tenant farmers, graziers, and others interested, and they asked this honourable House to grant to them the full advantages which the Bill would secure, and he believed they asked that there should be an application of it to existing leases, and he thought the Government might consider the advisability of making the law apply to leases now existing taken on a certain term—say, three or five years. The Bill ought, also, to be extended beyond arable land. It was on the low grass and on the wintering for sheep that the rabbits did the most injury. A tenant farmer should have the right to destroy rabbits on any part of his holding—arable or not. He knew many farms where there was no arable land, and the grazing was utterly ruined by rabbits. In fact, unless the Bill were made to include sheep farms and existing leases it would prove a mockery to the farmers in Scotland. Rabbits did great damage on rocky moors, and could only be killed by ferrets and shooting. If the Bill was not extended to existing leases, the present tenants would suffer more than in the past, because hares and rabbits would take refuge on quiet and preserved ground. In Scotland the tenant felt that the Scotch Education Act when it was passed altered the provisions of his contract as far as he was concerned by imposing on him the payment of half the education rate, which was a charge he had no reason to expect when he accepted his lease. Why should not the same, apply now, and this Bill be applied to the same landlords, notwithstanding existing contracts, as the Education Act was made to apply to the tenants? It had been said also there would be no more hares and rabbits if the Bill passed—that was to say, they would be injured very considerably; but he might say, in reply to that, that a farmer told him before the Election that he used to have the joint right of shooting with the landlord, and there was never a large stock of hares and rabbits. The landlord, however, took the right from him, and shortly afterwards had to complain there was hardly a hare or rabbit upon the estate. Of course, it was not the tenant's interest, under those circumstances, to keep off the poacher and preserve the hares and rabbits; but the Bill would make it the interest of the tenant farmer to be just both to himself and his landlord. Judging from his point of view, he believed the country would gain by the operation of the Bill, inasmuch as they would have more food. They would have a very much larger supply of food than they had at present. In this country they depended upon foreign nations for supplying them with more than two-thirds of what they had to eat; therefore, it was necessary to do what they could to extend the growth of our sheep for the purposes of food for the nation on small pastures, and the present Bill would apply to small pastures. He was now speaking chiefly with regard to Scotland, and he had no doubt whatever that if the Bill passed, the growth of sheep would be increased, because on the moors and the hilly places the destruction caused from rabbits was extremely great. He believed the results to be expected from the passing of the Bill were, that it would put an end to over-preservation of game, it would save a waste of food, and it would tend to the removal of poaching, with its attendant demoralization. In the words of the Bill itself, they might expect "better security for the capital and labour invested by the occupiers of land in the cultivation of the soil, "and a better chance for such occupiers to protect their crops. It would, further, assist in uniting and knitting together the hearts of men who were not always agreed as to their rival interests, and would so advance our agricultural prosperity. He thanked the House for having listened to him so patiently, and he should be very happy, indeed, to support the second reading of the Bill.

said, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department had referred to him (Colonel Ruggles-Brise) as bound to support this measure, it having been approved by the Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture, of which he was the Chairman. He certainly did not intend to vote against a measure which had been approved by the Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture; but the resolution of that body only went to the extent that they approved the Bill as far as it afforded a remedy for the over-preservation of game, and protected the crops of the farmer. To that extent he also cordially agreed with the Bill; but it went further, and not only protected the crops of the farmer, but protected them by harassing the landlords, and taking away from them much larger rights than there was any occasion for. His experience led him to the conclusion that it was extremely difficult to give pecuniary compensation for injury to crops, and, for his part, he would prefer that the tenants should say to the landlords—"Your hares and rabbits are destroying our crops. If you don't kill them we will." He asked was this the time to harass landlords? Farmers had been losing money wholesale, but landlords had lost five times as much more; and was this the time to take away from them a small privilege which gave them some satisfaction and injured nobody? He should be disposed to assent to a modification of the Bill which would enable the tenant farmer to kill ground game at certain seasons of the year. One great objection to the Bill was that it would be detrimental to high farming. It would put a stop to leases, for landlords would, if it were passed, only let on annual holdings. The other day there was a deputation from a body of agriculturists called "The Farmer's Alliance." They assumed to represent the whole agricultural community. They said there were 60 Members in the House who were members of "The Farmers Alliance;" but if six of that number were in any way connected with the agricultural interest, that was the outside. But that Association included plenty of Members of the House who represented com- mercial and manufacturing interests. He was elected by tenant farmers, and they were opposed to "The Farmers Alliance." If this Bill were to be carried out in its entirety, money compensation ought to be given to the landlords for the right of which they were to be deprived. In many cases timber did more injury than game to land. Were they going to tell landlords to take down timber? Legislation of this sort was like that of which the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke some time ago—namely, legislation which was proposed by men who were well-intentioned, and had every good quality but common sense. Several years ago he could have laid his hands upon several properties in the case of which much evil was done by the over-preservation of game; but he never heard now any complaints on the subject. What was wanted was some measure to prevent landlords letting the shooting over the heads of the occupiers. There was no necessity, he maintained, for giving the tenant the right to shoot hares and rabbits at periods of the year when they could do no damage to crops. He was under the impression, he might add, from the moment he heard the unconciliatory speech of the Home Secretary, that he would never carry the Bill this Session; but if the right hon. and learned Gentleman would give the opponents of the measure some assurance that great modifications would be made in Committee, he, personally, would not oppose the second reading.

As I entered the House, Sir, the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) was reading a letter, which pointed out the danger of intrusting the farmers of the Kingdom with the power of trapping. I wondered if it had occurred to the hon. Gentleman that at least one-third of the farmers of the country were already in possession of the right to destroy game. Had it occurred to the hon. Member that those in possession of that right had never exercised it in the way he feared would be the case with the farmers about to be intrusted with it? Was it a fact that the farmers of England had used their right, either in the annihilation of game or of foxes? As to the insinuation that the farmers would trap foxes, was it to the farmers they were indebted for blank days? Those hon. Members who are fond of the chase know that it is game- preserving squires, not farmers, who destroy the foxes, and produce blank days in the hunting field. I would also ask the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) whether, when he dilated upon the loss of food which would ensue from the extermination of ground game under the operation of the Bill, it had ever occurred to him that the farmers, who already possessed sporting rights, "were given to destroy the whole of the game? Farmers are not the enemies of sport; but they are enemies of over-preservation. With respect to the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Essex (Colonel Ruggles-Brise) upon "The Farmer's Alliance," this is neither the occasion nor the place to discuss or defend the principles of "The Farmer's Alliance," or its programme; but I will embrace the opportunity of congratulating the hon. and gallant Member upon his conversion. I was very glad to hear him express approval of the programme of "The Farmer's Alliance," an association of which he has hitherto been one of the most formidable opponents. When the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister introduced the Inland Revenue Bill, he remarked that the Malt Tax had been a familiar topic from his youth up—it is equally true of the subject now under consideration. The Game Question has been a familiar topic from my boyhood—not only that, but it has been a constant source of dissatisfaction and irritation to the occupiers of the soil. After the great effort to reform the Game Laws, by the Act of 1831, it soon became apparent that, although many of the abuses of the old system, had been swept away, they had not all been dealt with; moreover, it was soon discovered that inducements to preservation had been multiplied. To the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) is due the credit of having first brought the defects of the Act of 1831 prominently before the public. In 1845 that right hon. Gentleman obtained a Select Committee to inquire into the operation of the Game Laws; the evidence adduced before that Committee brought to light many of the evils of over-preservation. Although the inquiry led to no legislative effort, it was not without effect; the subject was invested with a new interest; reformers were strengthened and encouraged; and during all the long period which has since intervened the subject has never ceased to be discussed at meetings of agriculturists. I have stated that the Game Question has been a constant source of irritation to occupiers; I may say it has been a growing source of dissatisfaction. About 40 years ago, the Royal Agricultural Society was established for the advancement of the practice and science of agriculture. A marked advance in the farming of the Kingdom was the result. As cultivation was carried higher, it was natural that the irritation caused by the ravages of ground game should increase, and it increased in proportion as cultivation reached perfection. It must be evident to hon. Members of this House, even to those least acquainted with farming pursuits, that the highest style of husbandry is incompatible with a large stock of hares and rabbits. Many farms in the country are cultivated as highly as any garden can be; the desire of every well-wisher of our country is, or, at all events, should be, that all the farms of the Kingdom should be thus cultivated. I would ask, can garden-like culture be expected, so long as the occupier has no power over the game which prey upon and destroy his crops? I say, unhesitatingly, that high farming and over-preservation are not only incompatible, but simply impossible. The time has surely arrived when the exigencies of the country demand that the right of one man to feed his animals upon the crops grown at the labour and expense of another man should cease, and cease for ever. Five and thirty years have elapsed since the Committee I have referred to terminated its labours. During all that long period, although many private Members have attempted to amend the Game Laws, no Government, so far as I am aware, has ever attempted to grapple with the question. It is, therefore, gratifying to agricultural reformers, both in and out of Parliament, that, at length, we have a Government which recognizes the necessity of abating the evil so long complained of. The Bill before the House is not an ambitious piece of legislation, and will not, therefore, satisfy ardent and enthusiastic Game Law reformers like the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor). The Bill, however, has the merit of simplicity, and it meets, moreover, the very demand which the farmers have urged with the greatest amount of persistency. Surely, the farmers on so practical a point are judges of what is required, certainly as competent to judge as those hon. Members who urge Government to deal with the question in a different way to that proposed by the Bill. Taking hares and rabbits out of the game list, or any system of compensation for damage, is not, in their view, the fitting remedy for the evil complained of. I would ask, what does the Bill under consideration do? It simply restores to the occupier of the soil his ancient Common Law rights with respect to the destruction of ground game; it says, in effect, to the landowners of the Kingdom, that we do not propose to take away the power you possess of reserving the game upon your estates; but if you continue to exercise this power, your right shall only extend to winged game; the ground game shall belong to the man who is at the expense and anxiety of raising the crops upon which they feed. I would ask, could anything less have been offered to the farmers of the Kingdom? I will not, however, rest the case upon justice as between landlord and tenant—there is a higher view, a more public aspect of the question; but, in passing, I would ask whether, looking to the present unparalleled depression, considering the gloomy outlook the future of British farming presents, will Parliament, will the great territorial class, grudge the small concession that is asked—that the game of one man, I might say the vermin of one man, should no longer live upon and destroy the fruits of the labour of another man, unmolested? I should have been glad if the Bill had gone one step further—if it had carried out fully the principle enunciated by the hon. Member for South Northumberland (Mr. Grey) when moving the Address—he advocated "fur to the tenant, feathers to the lord." I contend that the sole right to the ground game would have been a juster arrangement than the concurrent right; but I am aware that Government would have been open to the charge that they had gone beyond what the farmers had demanded, and that would have been true in respect of a section: but the sole right to the ground game would have been in perfect harmony with the demand of another section. For instance, at a meeting of the Warwickshire Chamber of Agriculture, held ten years ago, after a long discussion, in which several members urged that nothing less than the entire repeal of the Game Laws could give satisfaction to the tenant farmers and the country generally; it was unanimously resolved—

"That hares and rabbits be the absolute property of the occupier, and that any agreements to the contrary between landlord and tenant be null and void."

Here was nothing about concurrent right; the demand was for a sole and an absolute right. Fears have been freely expressed that this concurrent right will lead to disputes and ill-feeling between landlord and tenant. Although I do not share these fears, before the Bill finally becomes law, I shall not object to see these fears removed by putting the tenant into the sole possession of that to which I hold he has a natural and a just right. If, however, the concurrent right becomes law, I cannot conceive that it will multiply the chances of dispute; but it is easy to conceive how exclusion, total exclusion, from power over the animals which feed upon his crops, should engender ill-feeling in the mind of the farmer; for the tenant of a noble Lord in one of the Eastern counties wrote to me a few days ago, as follows:—

''Game is ruining me and my large family (for I have ten children to provide for and educate), and my case is but one of many. There appear to be so many evils arise from this one bad thing (game preserving), one of the greatest of which, I take it, is the terribly hard thoughts, almost wishes, one is apt to indulge toward those above us; nor can I better explain what I mean than use the language of a friend, who, in riding to market last week, while referring to ground game, said—'William, it puts the very devil into you.'"

I have seen men grind their teeth when relating the oppression they had had to endure from game-preserving landlords and their gamekeepers. To turn, however, to a more cheerful aspect of the question—to me a far more agreeable task—when in Hampshire, three or four weeks ago, I met a respectable farmer, whom I had known from his boyhood. He began to express his hearty approval of the provisions of the Bill now under consideration; he went on to say that the Bill would make no difference to him, inasmuch as he possessed the concurrent right. I asked him. whether it worked without "friction?" a term which has been used in this discussion with respect to concurrent right. He replied that it had led to the best of feeling between himself and his landlord; that the latter had repeatedly assured him that he had had better sport all round than when he employed a gamekeeper to look after the manor. The argument as to the disputes which are likely to ensue is without foundation; the farmers themselves do not foresee the danger. I have read most of the discussions which have taken place at the Farmers' Clubs and Chambers. I have conversed with farmers from many different counties, and their opinion is that the plan will promote good feeling between landlord and tenant. This concurrent right to the ground game is no new thing; hundreds of farmers in my own county and in other counties have long been in possession of it, and I have never heard of a single instance of its producing the consequences which it is now said will ensue. Leaving, however, the question as between landlord and tenant, I would invite the House to a higher and a wider view of the subject, to look at it as it bears upon the general interest of the community. In moving the second reading of the Bill, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department expressed an opinion that one effect of the Act would be the diminution of poaching. That statement was received with ironical cheers by hon. Members opposite. I felt at the time that the statement entirely accorded with my own experience. Years gone by, many a farmer has assured me that he looked upon the poachers as his best friends; that but for them he should be over-run and eaten, up; and who could be surprised that his feeling should be engendered, when, after all his labour and anxiety, he was compelled to look on helplessly, whilst the fruits of his labour were destroyed. When this Bill has passed, when the farmer has power over a portion of the game, he will naturally feel a greater interest in and look after the whole; one consequence will be, and this from a moral point of view not the least important, poaching will decline. The professional poacher will be looked after by both farmer and labourer. In a parish where I knew that poaching greatly prevailed formerly, and where I knew the game had subsequently passed into the hands of the tenants, I wrote to the principal tenant. His reply is as follows:—

"With regard to this manor, the game has been in our hands (the tenants) for 10 years, and I only remember three cases of poaching; two only of these went before the magistrates. Of course, we have not allowed hares to increase so as to damage crops, therefore the attraction has not been so great to the poacher; but we have been materially assisted in the moderate preservation we have carried out by the labourers throughout the parish. If the Bill passes, there will, no doubt, be very much less poaching, generally, as labourers, when they know that their employers have an interest in the game, will do what they can to protect it."

Another opulent farmer wrote as follows:—

"The Government Game Bill will make no difference to me, as I have the game upon my farm; but in all cases where the game is strictly preserved and reserved, the new Bill must be a great boon to tenants, and, having formerly occupied a farm upon which the game was preserved and reserved, I am better able to form an opinion. My own impression is, there is not half the poaching where farmers have the hares, as where they are reserved exclusively by the landlord. Labourers think that farmers who keep them have a right to them; but they have no such feeling in reference to landlords. I give my men a sovereign at harvest to take care of the game, and I have not known a single case for 16 years of a man taking or destroying a head of game."

I have said that I should not rest the case upon justice to the farmer, nor shall I rest it upon this social view of the subject. There is no need that I should dwell upon the evils which spring from the practice of poaching, which practice springs from over-preservation, for I am persuaded that every hon. Member of this House recognizes the moral and social evils springing from poaching. I maintain that any law or custom which lowers the morality of a section of the community is indefensible. Further, I maintain that any law or custom which lessens the produce of the soil, or diminishes the wealth of the nation, is still less defensible. Over-preservation brings both these about. It repels capital from the soil, repels that for the lack of which our agriculture is languishing, as every landowner in the House must admit. Over-preservation not only repels capital, but it destroys capital. Only the other day, when in Wiltshire, I met a farmer in the prime of life, who informed me that he was off to New Zealand; that he had been well-nigh ruined by holding a game-preserved farm; that he was taking the remnant of his capital to a country where he should be free from such annoyance and loss. Again, a highly respectable farmer wrote to me in the spring of last year as follows:—

"I have just threshed the produce of a field of 20 acres situated near the wood, and have got barely 12 quarters of saleable wheat (100 quarters might have been expected). This loss on one field only will indicate to you what I have had to suffer from this wretched practice of game preservation."

Members will not be surprised to learn that this tenant has since quitted his farm, and invested his capital in another pursuit. What said Mr. Clare Sewell Read on this subject? Before a Select Committee of this House, he stated that—

"In a great number of cases of insolvent farmers in Norfolk, their ultimate ruin is attributable to the over-preservation of game.''

Everyone must admit that Mr. Read is a fair man, a competent witness, and without extreme opinions. Thousands of farmers have been ruined and their capital destroyed through the accursed system, and which might have been prevented if the present Bill had been in force during the past 20 years. Is there an hon. Member of this House, who has any acquaintance with agricultural pursuits, who doubts for one moment that over-preservation repels capital? I would ask what sort of tenants occupy game farms or apply for them. Are they men of standing or capital? No, such men will not look at them; and, as a consequence, they fall into the hands of men who are without the means of developing their resources. Again, take the following case:—Not long ago, I went into one of the Eastern counties to look at a farm which had been offered to a friend, and about which he desired my opinion. It was a large farm which required from £15,000 to £20,000 to stock it. The rent and conditions upon which it was offered appeared fair; but when it was announced that the game would be reserved the negotiations were immediately broken off, my friend remarking that although he had every confidence in the sincerity of the promise made by the noble owner to keep down the game, he had once been in this position under a nobleman, and nothing would ever again induce him to risk his capital upon a farm over the game upon which he had not got the control. It would be easy to multiply instances; but it must be obvious that the fear of being eaten up deters men of capital from embarking in farming pursuits. I have refrained from troubling the House with letters which have poured in upon me from all parts of the country; but their number has convinced me how wide-spread is this system of over-preservation. There is another evil connected with the system. It lowers the social status of the farmer. What can be more calculated to lower the self-respect of the farmer, than to put him under the surveillance of a gamekeeper, which is practically the case when the game is reserved. I would lay stress upon the fact that it is impossible to lower the social status of a class without a corresponding repelling influence. But we are told that, however desirable the reform of the Game Laws may be, we are on no account to touch the principle of freedom of contract. When a noble Duke introduced a Bill into the other House—a Bill which has since become notorious, the Agricultural Holdings Act—he applied the term sacred principle, or sacred rights, to freedom of contract. I rejoice that we have now a Government which is not frightened at a phrase—a Government that is not deterred by this bugbear from taking steps to prevent the present Bill from becoming the sham, the mockery, the laughing-stock which the Act in question has become. I accept the doctrine that the State is not justified in controlling or limiting freedom of contract, except it can be shown that the interests of the community will be subserved thereby; but I hold that the proposal now before the House is just one of those cases; the moral, the social, the financial welfare of the community will be enhanced by its adoption. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in moving the second reading, pointed out the various ways in which Parliament had limited freedom of contract. He showed how eminent jurists had laid down the doctrine that the question of interference with freedom of contract must be decided on grounds of public policy, and on these alone. It occurred to me that he might have carried the argument a stage further. He contented himself by showing how the State had interfered with freedom of contract to put down injurious customs. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might have cited cases of direct interference between landlord and tenant, and that upon the ground that the two parties to a contract did not meet on equal terms. Take the first case, that of the Cattle Plague Act, of which Mr. Clare Sewell Read said at a meeting of the Farmers' Club—

"The very first Act that was passed after I entered the House of Commons, in the Session of 1866, was a most direct and flagrant interference with freedom of contract. I allude to the Cattle Plagues Rating Bill. What did Parliament say in that case? Why it said that, notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, the landlords of the country should be bound to pay half the cattle rate."

Then there is the Irish Land Act. What do we find under Clause 4? Why—

"That any contract made by a tenant, by virtue of which he is deprived of his right to make any claim which he would be otherwise entitled to make under this section, shall, so far as relates to such claim, be void, both at law and in equity."

And yet hon. Members who voted for this Bill now raise the cry—"Freedom of contract." But, perhaps, the strongest case of all is the Property Tax Act. In support of the principle of this tax, Parliament enacted—

"That any contract, covenant, or agreement under which the tenant is made liable for the property tax shall be void both at law and in equity.''

I maintain that, in passing the Property Tax Act, the two Houses of Parliament virtually declared that, in making contracts, the tenant did not meet his landlord upon equal terms, and the tenant was accordingly prevented from divesting himself of his right. And surely a Parliament composed so largely of landowners as that Parliament was must be considered competent and impartial judges of the point. But if there were not a single precedent upon the Statute Book, looking at the exigencies of the present time, looking at the history of the Agricultural Holdings Act, remembering the fact that the landlords of the Kingdom—great and small—rushed to contract themselves out of the Act, I maintain that it would be time for Parliament to create a precedent. But I would ask, has this boasted system of freedom of contract, as between landlord and tenant, any real existence? It has fallen to my lot to speak upon this subject before two Prime Ministers, Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone. A deputation from the Farmer's Club waited upon the former previous to the introduction of the Agricultural Holdings Bill. I was on that occasion the spokesman of the Club. When alluding to freedom of contract, I appealed to the practical and representative men present as to whether there was any real freedom of contract, and the response was most unequivocal. On a recent occasion, I introduced a deputation to the present Prime Minister. I again appealed to the practical farmers by whom he was surrounded, and their response was no less pronounced. Surely these representative men from the various counties of England must know as well as or better than any hon. Members of this House, whether this much vaunted freedom of contract has any real existence or not. At a public meeting I attended not long ago, a Suffolk farmer in speaking of the Agricultural Holdings Act, putthe matter very forcibly. He appealed to the meeting somewhat as follows:—

"What would you think of a Parliament that took the trouble to pass a Local Option measure and left the option to the publicans?"

The speaker was certainly not very complimentary to landowners, in comparing them to publicans; but he brought out in a striking way the working of the Act in question. I would say, in conclusion, that I believe agriculture is about to enter upon a new era, if it has not already entered upon it. The future of British farming is looked forward to with no little anxiety, not only by landlords and tenants, but by the whole community. Landowners know full well how fierce is the competition by which their tenants are confronted, and that from men not hampered with game and many other restrictions under which the English farmer is placed. Landowners know that they cannot farm their estates themselves, for they have neither the capital nor the skill. They also know that no other country possesses anything akin to the great tenant farmer class of this Kingdom, either as to numbers, wealth, or intelligence; they also know that they are a reasonable set of men, and they must feel that their present demands are moderate. I trust Parliament will take a broad, unselfish, and patriotic view of the present question, and that it will pass the Bill without fettering the concession with unnecessary, selfish, or vexatious restrictions,

said, the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. James Howard) had stated that if this Bill passed the farmers would not annihilate the game, or very much reduce it; but that, on the contrary, it would be found that game would be preserved by the Bill. If that was correct, the case urged for the measure had broken down, and there was no justification for it, since the Bill was introduced for the avowed purpose of enabling the tenant to destroy the ground game. The Bill proceeded on the assumption that the tenant was made a victim of injustice at the hands of the landlord; but in what way? The tenant knew the conditions under which he took a farm. He took the farm at less rent than he would have to pay had there been no ground game upon it. That that was the case was clearly shown by the Report of the Select Committee on the Game Laws in 1873, upon which the Government had founded the Bill. The only case where the tenant could suffer was where he took a certain amount of ground game, and during his tenancy the ground game had been increased. The Report said, however, that these cases were rare—

"Your Committee have been satisfied that the practice of keeping up an excessive quantity of ground game is by no means general either in England or Scotland, and that evidence goes to show that, during the last few years, there has been in parts of the country a considerable diminution of both hares and rabbits in cultivated ground."

In that case, the farmers had the benefit. But it was said—"You landlords have no right to diminish in the smallest degree the production of food for the people." He could not imagine that the extra food, which would be produced if all the ground game in England were killed, would have the slightest appreciable effect. The whole case, then, narrowed itself to those few cases where the farmer found during his tenancy that the ground game had increased; and, of course, he (Mr. Donaldson-Hudson) did not deny that the farmer in those cases did suffer an injustice. But surely, be- cause there were a few cases of injustice, they were not justified in committing a greater injustice on an enormous number of landlords in the country. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department had said that the measure would not be a piece of sham legislation, and he twitted the late Government with introducing sham legislation in the form of the Agricultural Holdings Act. The House, however, ought to be very careful lest this Bill also should be a piece of sham legislation. Were they sure that there was nothing behind this Bill, and that there were not right hon. Gentlemen in the Cabinet who wished to bring in measures going much further? Speaking the other day at the dinner of the Fishmongers' Company, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) warned those who were so deeply affected on that subject to beware how they quarrelled with that simple and reasonable measure, lest something bigger and much worse in their estimation might come if it were unsuccessful. That seemed to indicate a desire in the right hon. Gentleman's mind to introduce hereafter a much bigger and more unjust measure than the present one. Again, speaking at Birmingham as to farm labourers, the same right hon. Gentleman said that many would like to carry a gun and go out shooting; but if they touched a hare, a rabbit, a partridge, or a pheasant, there was the majesty of the law held over them. The farmer would not be very thankful for a measure which might result in his having to share his sporting rights with many other persons. Would it not be much more straightforward at once to abolish the Game Laws, and allow everybody to shoot when and where he liked, than to use this Bill as the thin end of the wedge for first depriving the landlord, who had reserved the ground game and accepted less rent in consequence, of his just rights, and afterwards, when those rights had been divided between the landlord and the tenant, throwing them open to the general public? The object of the Bill did not appear to him to be to redress any real grievance, so much as to hand over from one class to another, in consequence of a clamorous outcry, a right which belonged only to the one. If they acknowledged such a principle, why stop short at shooting rights? Surely the same principle would apply to fishing rights. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, although he did not enjoy shooting after the labours of the Session and the exhaustion caused by his efforts against the landed interest, travelled northwards to indulge in his favourite pastime of fishing. If the right hon. Gentleman, on arriving at the river to which he journeyed, were told that he must take his chance with others, as, in obedience to the clamour of the riparian lessees of the land, the fishing had been thrown open, and if on reaching his favourite pool he found that the water was being flogged mercilessly by hundreds of lines, and that if he stood there possibly there would be danger not only of salmon, but of the Chancellor of the Duchy being caught with a hook, one might easily imagine what would be the right hon. Gentleman's feelings. In conclusion, he trusted that the House would not countenance any legislation which proposed that the landlords of this country, whom the Report of the Game Laws Committee acknowledged to be, as a rule, men who dealt fairly with their tenants, should be treated as tyrants, and that the farmers should be treated as babies who were unable to take care of themselves; and that it would reject a measure which, in his judgment, was unjust and indefensible. He should record his vote against the second reading.

said, it was his intention to vote for the second reading of the Bill, because he could not believe that it would have the damaging effects that had been pointed out by hon. Gentlemen opposite. He must heartily endorse the remarks that had been so ably made by the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. James Howard) as to the good feeling that would exist between the landlord and tenant when the Bill was passed into law. He (Sir Alexander Gordon) believed that when two persons found that it was to their interest to be on good terms they would generally manage to be so. When the Bill became law, it would be to the interest of the landlord to be on good terms with his tenant, because he would have something to get out of him by so doing. The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand), in moving his Amendment, had alluded to something that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department had said in introducing the Bill, with regard to a lease that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had quoted, and the hon. Member for Stroud challenged anyone to produce a similar lease. Well, he (Sir Alexander Gordon) held a very similar sort of lease in his hand, and which he thought would serve the purpose better. He found that after stating that the tenant should be bound to protect and encourage game to the utmost of his power, the lease went on to say that tenants should have no claim for alleged damage committed by game, which should be held to include hares and rabbits, or other wild animals. That was a clause in a lease that bound a tenant in Scotland for 19 years, and it was against such clauses as that that he protested. It was evident that it must be very depressing to any man to feel that he was bound to protect the game that destroyed his crops, and then to know that he would have no damage made good by the landlord. He liked the Bill, because it went in an entirely different direction to the Acts that had been passed with regard to game for the last 200 years. All the Acts that had been passed had been for the preservation of game, and only last year they passed a Bill for the preservation of hares in Ireland; but this Bill started in a new direction. It was for the preservation of crops, which were more valuable and useful than game or hares. He hoped, therefore, that that was the beginning of legislation of the right character, and that it would be followed up. The principle that was introduced into the Bill was practically a custom that existed at present in the county of which he represented a part. Ten years ago there had been a meeting of the farmers of that county to discuss this very question, and they practically came to the conclusion embodied in the Bill. In a greater part of the county there existed an agreement that the tenants should be permitted to shoot the ground game, and that the landlord should have the winged game, and that agreement had had a most satisfactory result. There were, however, some portions of the county where the landlord did not meet the tenant in this way; and there, he was bound to say, existed a great deal of bad feeling and hostility. As a rule, that hostility had its origin in the extreme cases of hardship and in the battues after which. 4,000 or 5,000 head of game were sold to the poulterers. In 1828, hon. Gentlemen might remember that a Committee of the House sat to consider this question, and Mr. Hunt, who gave evidence at that time, made this remark—that he very much feared if game were sold in the way it was proposed, that the landlords would come to letting the game to third parties and not to the farmers, and that the game that had lived on the produce of the farm would be sold for the benefit of the landlord. In 1828 that was foreshadowed as an evil that might happen, and now it was a common practice, so great a change had taken place in the country with regard to the question. He would only add that he was sorry to see that the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) was not in his place, for he should have liked to have reminded him of what he said to his constituents in 1869 on this question. The noble Lord said that he believed that, if landlords would let their tenants shoot hares and rabbits, they would still have as much game as they would care to shoot. If the noble Lord would only act upon that principle now, and help to pass the Bill, he would be acting with consistency. He trusted, therefore, that the noble Lord would support the Bill. He did not wish to detain the House, as he knew there were several hon. Gentlemen anxious to speak; but he did wish to bring under the special attention of the House and the hon. Member for Stroud the lease to which he had alluded.

, in opposing the Bill, said, he agreed very cordially with the spirit of the measure, and he was quite prepared to acknowledge the gravity and extent of the evil complained. He was perfectly willing to admit the necessity of legislative interference on behalf of the tenant farmer, and he believed that those who were best acquainted with the subject would be the first to acknowledge the many and great practical difficulties which attended every attempt to solve the question. But, having admitted all this, his regret was the greater that Her Majesty's Government had proposed a method of dealing with the question to which he was bound to say there were numerous and very serious practical objections. He would only speak with regard to Scotland, because he had no perfect knowledge of the circumstances affecting the question in England Or Ireland. It was right that he should remind hon. Members that there was a very considerable difference between the circumstances and conditions of Scotland with regard to this question and the circumstances and conditions which affected it in England and Ireland. In Scotland they had a mode of land tenure which was, to a great extent, founded on written contracts. He scarcely need remind hon. Members that these contracts for the occupation of land extended over various periods, and he was sure it was no exaggeration to state it as a fact that by far the greater portion of arable land in Scotland was held on leases of from 14 to 19 years' duration, and, it might be, for even a longer period. Therefore, it was important to lay before the House the fact that legislation on this subject was on very different conditions in Scotland to what it was in England. In 1877, a measure was introduced into that House by the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire (Mr. M'Lagan); and that was a measure which, he ventured to say, if it had become law in the manner in which it left that House, would have left them in Scotland very little ground of complaint. But he need hardly remind hon. Members it was entirely owing to the change made in that Bill in "another place" on the Motion of a noble Lord—not sitting on that side of the House—that the good effects and beneficial results of that measure were to a great extent neutralized. Still, he ventured to say that he was quite sure hon. Members on both sides of the House representing constituencies in Scotland would agree with him, when he expressed the view that the measure of the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire had not yet had a fair trial on its merits. He objected to the measure now under consideration of the House because it introduced a new principle into the existing state of the law—at least, so far as Scotland was concerned. He was not prepared to say that they should never introduce a new principle of law; but he thought it was not an unfair proposition to say that a new principle of legislation should not be introduced, unless they could show clearly that the existing system of legislation was insufficient or incompetent to deal with the existing evils. That part of the general proposition he took to be not satisfactorily proved. His objection to this new principle of legislation as contained in the present Bill was based also on the fact that, whenever it was introduced to deal with practical evils, it produced in operation consequences which were not very often foreseen at the time when it became law; and Scotland, in the present case, was a very conspicuous example of what he intended to convey. Unless the measure was made to apply to every existing contract, the result, because of the new principle of law to which he had referred, would be that in the case of existing leases very considerable periods must elapse before the benefits were felt; and, in fact, at the present time but a very insignificant proportion of the population would be affected by the measure. That would be a very unfortunate effect of this measure, because if they admitted that there was any grievance at all—and he would most fully and completely admit that there was—then he thought that a measure which postponed the remedy of that grievance to a long period was open to a very grave, and a very serious practical objection. He objected to this measure, also, because it took away from the agricultural tenant the present remedy he had for the evil of which he complained. It was contrary to the law of Scotland that they could have two principles of law, each tending in the same direction. At that moment the Scotch farmer who suffered damage from game was entitled to compensation by the laws of Scotland. He was not prepared to say that this method of compensation was in existence in every part of Scotland, or provided an effectual remedy; but what he desired to urge was, that there was a remedy recognized by the law in that country, and it was possible to make it a real and effectual practical remedy, and it would, if introduced, obviate the difficulty of applying a new principle to existing leases; whereas the provisions of the Bill could not be enforced without interfering with existing legislation. But the principle of compensation, as it existed under the present law of Scotland, applied to damage done by game for whatever part, and wherever that game might come from. It was a concurrent right which only affected that portion of the land which was held by the tenant under his agricultural lease. He need not remind hon. Members who were acquainted with that matter that, practically, the great damage done in. those cases was done not by ground game which really existed on the arable land, but by game coming from very large coverts existing on the farm. He thought that no right existing over the arable land which did not go into the coverts were the ground game was reared would have any practical effect on those cases where the real damage was done. Another objection to the Bill in regard to Scotland was, that the very exercise of the right conferred by the Bill would involve a certain amount of expense on the part of the individual who was supposed to be pecuniarily damaged by the existence of ground game. He need not point out that the right was to be exercised by the tenant, or by a gentleman authorized by him, and the Bill defined clearly who the agent might be. Now, a very large number of agricultural holdings in Scotland were of limited extent, and were worked by a tenant and his family, with, perhaps, a few hired servants. Nine-tenths of the small tenant farmers in Scotland did not care personally for the exercise of the right of shooting, however much they might grumble at the damage done by the ground game; but, if the Bill passed, the tenant farmer would have to exercise the right at the sacrifice of some of his own time, or he would be obliged to send this servants to do it, when they were wanted for other work on the farm, or else he would be obliged to employ a bonâ fide agent, and reward him for doing so. That reward must be real and substantial. Therefore they had this state of things existing—that the tenant must pay for abating the nuisance that had already cost him a considerable sum of money. There was another practical object which he thought was not unworthy the consideration of the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had introduced the Bill. In Scotland, a very large proportion of the rateable value on which their county and parochial rates were raised was derived at present from game rents. If that measure was passed into law, one undoubted result would be that, in low country shooting at any rate, there would be a considerable diminution in the rents paid. Therefore, if the present valua- tions of shootings were to be maintained, it would be inflicting an injustice on the proprietors, who were not receiving the rents they formerly obtained. On the other hand, if they abated the valuation on which the rates were at present charged, then the public would lose those sums now readily paid for the right of shooting. The only other way of meeting the case would be to take the difference between the valuation as it now existed, and as it would exist when the measure came into operation, and put that difference on to the tenant farmer, who enjoyed the right of shooting. That, however, if acted upon, would be unpopular and unjust. He would detain the House by referring to only one other practical question, but one which he thought the most important of all. He believed the measure would have a very unfortunate tendency to interrupt the present tenure of agricultural occupation in Scotland. He need hardly say that he believed, to a very great extent, the prosperity they had enjoyed in Scotland was due to the fact that the agreements between the owners and occupiers of the soil had been based on written contracts; and he was sure, from what he knew of the feeling prevalent concerning the Bill, that one deplorable result of its passing would be that it would tend to interfere with the granting of agricultural leases. If such a result should follow, as he had reason to believe it would, no advantages which the tenant farmer might gain would compensate him for the loss of the custom, which at present existed, of having written leases. He thought if Her Majesty's Government had adopted the principle already in existence in Scotland, which could have been applied to existing leases with perfect ease, without interfering in any way with arrangements between landlord and occupiers, they would have had an opportunity of dealing with the question on a satisfactory and permanent basis. The question was one which concerned not agricultural tenants only, but the owners and occupiers of the soil and the general public; and no measure would be either permanent or satisfactory unless it considered, in a fair and reasonable spirit, the just rights of all the three classes he had named.

said, he gave a most hearty support to the Bill, even in its present shape, as he considered it proposed the just and best way of dealing with an admitted grievance, and, therefore, avoided the alternative scheme, which was the total abolition of the Game Laws. It had been said that neither the Chambers of Agriculture nor the Farmers' Alliance represented the farmers. The truth was that they represented different sections of the farmers, and that they both gave a hearty support to the measure of the Government. He did not think it was worthy of the landlords to bring forward the plea of freedom of contract against a measure which was pre-eminently a tenant farmer's Bill. He thought this was the fairest and best mode of dealing with the question. For his own part, he would not object to the total abolition of the Game Laws, for nothing could be more painful than to have as a magistrate to decide upon charges of poaching where the whole sympathy of the people was with the poacher, no matter how bad a character he might be; but he did not see how that could be done without the introduction of a more stringent trespass law, and he thought it was well that the present Bill had been brought forward instead. The proposal to grant the farmers compensation for the injury done to their crops by ground game would never give satisfaction. Here, if the landlord and the tenant were already on good terms with each other, there was not anything to disturb the friendly relations between them; whereas, on the contrary, by removing the cause of complaint and irritation, it was calculated to promote goodwill between the two. He gave the rabbits entirely to his tenants, and the concurrent right to hares. He did not believe the Bill would injure fox-hunting, as some hon. Members seemed to think it would. He thought some restriction should be placed upon the manner in which game was to be destroyed. There was a great deal of cruelty in the practice of taking rabbits and hares in traps, which he should like to see mitigated; and he would not allow a farmer to employ as his agent any stranger, unless approved of by owners in the interest of the occupiers of the surrounding farms. If an ignorant labourer was allowed to set traps as he pleased he would probably injure foxes, dogs, or pheasants. It was desirable, therefore, that the Secretary of State for the Home Department should introduce a provision to the effect that trapping should be done underground, and it was his intention to move an Amendment in Committee, for which he besought the favourable consideration of the House on the grounds of humanity. That was one of the points insisted upon by Mr. Clare Read, at a meeting at Norwich, and there were other suggestions made on the same occasion which he hoped the right hon. and learned Gentleman would see his way to adopting—namely, a close time for hares, the limitation of the use of guns to the period between sunrise and sunset, and a restriction upon the choice of agents by the different parties. The last-mentioned point was one of considerable importance. It would be certain to lead to unpleasantness, if farmers were to be allowed to call in the services of professional poachers or rabbit-catchers of doubtful character. On the whole, he believed the Bill would operate beneficially, by doing away with over-preservation and the tyranny of gamekeepers; and, as there could be few Members who were really opposed to the Bill in principle, it would be unfortunate if the present opportunity of settling the vexed game question were not taken advantage of. In conclusion, he trusted the House would not allow itself to be influenced by the red herring of freedom of contract which was being trailed across its path by Conservative Members.

, in opposing the measure, maintained that freedom of contract was the main element with which the House had to deal. That principle had, no doubt, been interfered with in the case of minors, or persons under disability, or in the cases of mines and factories, where human life was involved, or where there was a glaring inequality between the contracting parties. The present case was totally different, and it seemed to him that interference with freedom of contract between landlords and tenants, who were generally men of good intelligence and business capacity, ought to rest upon stronger grounds than any that had yet been made out. Upon what grounds, in fact, did the entire Bill rest? He could discover none, except the recommendations of a minority of the Game Law Committee of 1872, and a few cases of hardship from over-preser- vation and these, it seemed to him, were totally inadequate for a Bill which was to apply the restriction of freedom of contract to the whole of England. He did not deny that there was a fair case for some legislation upon the subject, and the lines upon which it ought to proceed were contained in the recommendations of the Game Laws Committee of 1872 of which he had spoken. Under the operation of the Bill, he might add, the tenant would be deprived of any claim for compensation, legal or moral, inasmuch as he would be empowered to destroy those animals of whose ravages he complained.

said, he had observed that the question at issue had throughout the whole of the discussion been approached from one standpoint exclusively, that of the owner and the occupier of land. There was, however, a third party interested in the subject—the general public, the consumers of the produce of the land. The greatest manufacture in this country was that of beef and bread; it employed £400,000,000 of capital; its prosperity or depression affected every other industry in the Kingdom; and, in his opinion, the main cause of the depression of trade during the past three or four years had been the unexampled depression which agriculture had suffered from successive bad harvests. Any question which affected agriculture, therefore, was of the greatest possible importance to the rest of the community. The last speaker (Mr. Gregory) had alluded to their old friend, "freedom of contract," which seemed to have been exalted into a sort of fetish, and it was a never failing topic of Conservative oratory that the Government were attacking that solemn and sacred principle. The noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) had gone so far as to state that freedom of contract constituted the great difference between barbarism and civilization; but it must be remembered that freedom of contract was only recognized by our law and Constitution in so far as it was in accordance with public policy, the public interest being predominant in every case over private contracts. The whole principle of our legislation had been one continual interference with the right of contract. It was a mistake to say that an Englishman could do what he liked with his own; he could do nothing of the sort. He could not do what he liked with his own in those cases, for instance, in which that which he proposed to do was opposed to public policy, or in which the contracting parties did not stand on perfectly equal terms. All contracts in restraint of trade were void. If, for example, a solicitor in the City of London sold his practice, on the terms that he would not carry on his profession in any other part of the United Kingdom, that contract would be void; and since the days of Queen Anne down to those of Queen Victoria, the Usury Laws stood in the way of a man dealing as he liked with his money. Legislation had interfered with the business of mines and ironworks, between the shipowner and the seaman. If freedom of contract, therefore, was the basis of the present relations between landlord and tenant, the Government must make out a strong case before they were justified in asking Parliament to interfere with it. He admitted that the Bill created an interference with the freedom of contract; but it was an interference which was justified on two distinct grounds—first, that the contract was not consistent with public policy; and, secondly, that the two contracting parties did not contract on equal terms. In reference to a contract, the law required both those conditions to be satisfied, which they were not. And now he would ask whether hares and rabbits were a grievance or not? Some said they were a grievance, and that the Bill did not go far enough; others, however, denied that there was any substantial grievance, and thought the Bill went too far. It was a farmer's question, and he should like to know who represented the farmers in that House. Were those 94 hon. Gentlemen who voted the previous day against the repeal of the Malt Tax the Representatives of the farmers? But the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill), the very talented and able Leader of the left wing of the Conservative Party, had had the courage of his opinions, and voted for the repeal of that tax. He should like to hear the noble Lord's opinion on the question whether ground game was a grievance. The noble Lord had defended the tenant farmers in his attitude with regard to the repeal of the Malt Tax, and would, no doubt, be an authority on this question. But what he (Mr. H. H. Fowler) would like to see would be that some county Member should accept the Chiltern Hundreds, and then go down and contest the county on the principles expressed by hon. Members on the other side. There was, in fact, a real grievance which could only be done away by giving the concurrent right which was created by the Bill. But the House had been told that hares and rabbits formed a valuable article of food. But how much food did they destroy? It had been said that five rabbits consumed as much as one sheep. He thought no further answer was needed to the argument. But the Bill was demanded on the ground of justice to the occupier whose skill and capital were employed, and the results of which were destroyed by ground game, and the loss was one which could not be compensated. If the farmer's crops were ruined, the remission of the whole of the rent would not compensate him, while the labourer was deprived of his profit. It had been pointed out during the debate that it was very difficult to assess compensation for damage done by ground game. No doubt it was difficult, because, in many cases, the landlord would have to pay more than he received. Lord Beaconsfield declared that it was essential to have three profits from the land—that of the landowners, that of the capitalist, who invested it in farming, and that of labour. The present state of the law in regard to ground game got rid of two of those profits by repelling capital and destroying the produce. Capital was sensitive, and, though it was particularly wanted at the present time in agriculture, would be repelled, unless it were adequately protected. Then it was said that, at the present time, the farmer was really in a better position than the landowner, in consequence of the great depression in agriculture. But, notwithstanding those assertions, landlord and tenant were not on equal terms, because they had to bear in mind the important fact that land was a monopoly, and, unlike every other commodity insusceptible of increase. Besides, the landed interest was not alone in its recent sufferings. There had been equal depression in other industries, notably in the mining interest in Staffordshire, which he (Mr. H. H. Fowler) represented. Moreover, they ought not to take isolated years, but the average of years; and it would not be disputed that the produce and value of land had greatly increased. According to Mr. Caird, in 1770 the annual value of land per acre in this country was 13 s. ; in 1850, although that was after the repeal of the Corn Laws, 27 s. ; and in 1878, 30 s. It was, therefore, impossible to say that in the case of land the two contracting parties were on equal terms. The Bill would not affect good landlords; but legislation was not required for them, but for bad landlords. There always would be a greater demand for land, than a supply of land to meet the demand; and the farmer never would be on equal bargaining, contracting, and commercial terms with the landlord from whom he took the land. A third objection to the Bill was that it involved an interference with the rights of property. But property in game was entirely the creation of a statute. The whole of the Game Laws rested on statutory rights, and no other rights. The statute that had the right to create had the right to control and to interfere. In this case it did not destroy property; but it would remove a sense of injustice, and would regulate that property. With regard to sport, he believed the tenants of England were quite as keen after sport as were the landlords, and this Bill, by preventing the over-preservation of game, which was hostile to true sport as well as to agriculture, would secure that fair amount of sport which both landlord and tenant were fairly entitled to. He would support the Bill, because it would do justice to the tenant, because he believed it would tend to increase, rather than to diminish, the good feeling between landlord and tenant, and because he looked upon it as an adaptation of the Land Laws to the needs of a growing population. He would not pledge himself to its details; but he supported it under the firm conviction that it would give a just measure of relief to a suffering interest, that it would operate well in the in the interests of sport, and that it would strengthen the real foundations of property.

said, he had been twitted by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) with a change of views with reference to freedom of contract since the Irish Land Act of 1870. The world, perhaps, had seen some change since then; England in matters of life and business had become more complicated, and it had become much harder to get a profit out of land. The fact was, the whole Land Question in England had altered considerably since then, and property of this description was not now so valuable as it was 10 years ago. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. Fowler) had said that special legislation was justifiable with regard to land, because it was a limited article; but what would the hon. Member say if Parliament were to propose to legislate in a restrictive manner with reference to coal, because the amount of coal was limited? What would the hon. Gentleman say if Parliament were to insist upon the closing of pits, because mining was a dangerous occupation? Turning to the proposed legislation, he asked, What were they dealing with? They were not dealing with property at all, for game at present was not property. In the special subject-matter of the Bill, it ought to be remembered that they were dealing with the right to pursue an animal which, unless protection was given to it by the law of the land, would probably never be seen except in a menagerie. The law of the country gave to the occupier of the land the right to pursue these animals, and take them; and that right, which had hitherto been conferred upon the tenant, it was now proposed to confer upon two parties. He could not accede to the proposition that this was a direct interference with freedom of contract. The law at the present time made a bargain with the inhabitants of this Kingdom to this effect—that, under certain terms, protection should be given to the wild creatures named in the Bill. In years gone by, a very good reason existed for legislation of this nature; but that reason was now becoming less and less cogent. It now, as he had already said, became harder with every day that passed to get a profit from land. Whatever might be the cause of this state of things, whether bad seasons, foreign competition, or the large amount of capital which must be employed in the cultivation of land, it was quite obvious that every day it became more necessary to remove restrictions which tended to prevent the most being made out of the soil; and the reasons for such legislation were continually growing weaker. The objections which might be urged against the Bill had not been laid before him by any of his consti- tuents. They had, in fact, been ominously silent upon this subject. Fewer questions, it was true, were put at General Elections now than formerly. ["Oh, oh!" and laughter. ] At any rate, that was his experience. Well, the events of the last Election had disappointed the Members of his Party, and perhaps surprised those who sat on the opposite side of the House; and it was not impossible that questions of the sort now before them had had something to do with the result of the appeal to the constituencies. It would, he thought, be hard to deny that, after all, this measure had not some justice in it, and he had hoped his own proposals on the subject would be formulated, though without success, at different times. This question had come up time after time for years past; and he was bound to say that, although a number of palpable blots were pointed out in the legislation on the Game Laws—blots admitted on both sides of the House—nothing had been done in the matter. For instance, the pursuit of rabbits by night was no offence unless the poacher was caught with a rabbit in his possession; while the pursuit of rabbits by day was always seriously punished. With reference to the measure itself, he thought the House was making a storm in a tea-pot about it. Supposing the Bill were passed, what would follow? He himself possessed a little land, and the people who occupied it were very fond of coursing. They had splendid greyhounds and the fleetest of hares; but was he to imagine for one moment that, after the passing of this measure, the good friends who rented under him would act differently towards him or he towards them than at the present time? Still, if he found times so bad that he had to let his land to a sporting man, he confessed he should probably feel the pressure of the Act. A great many rabbits were imported from Antwerp for purposes of food, and there were numerous places in England where those who liked rabbit-shooting might enjoy it in localities where the animals could do no possible harm. He understood that this Bill—though he must say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman introduced it with a very proud look and a high stomach—was to make some little variance between landlord and tenant; still, he was willing to think that what the right hon. and learned Gentleman had in view was to remove impediments which were now put in the way of the cultivation of the land. He must say he wished they could have reached the object the right hon. and learned Gentleman had in view, and which he (Mr. Pell) had in view, by some other means, without so distinctly interfering, as many persons believed the Bill did interfere, with the freedom of contract. But if there was no other way of stopping what he believed to be an evil, he should support the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Bill until some better plan was pointed out. He did not concur with those who thought that this grievance was connected only with the over-preservation of game, because even a limited amount of game caused great injury to the farmers, and he thought none of them knew the mischief which even a limited amount of ground game did, especially in a bad season. If they could rely on the season, and be sure that the land would produce so many tons of turnips, or so many bushels of wheat, then they would know what they were after, and they could make some allowance for the game; but, under the varying circumstances, no valuer could arrive at fair terms of compensation for the mischief done by game. No valuer could tell what mischief had been caused by the season, by the carelessness of the farmer, and by the game; and what might one season be met by a £10 note, another season would have to be estimated by £100. He thought it right to speak openly on the subject; he held to the opinion that he expressed with reference to the Irish Land Act of 1870, and he could not admit the analogy which the hon. Member for Stroud attempted to establish between the present case and the Act to which he referred.

said, he must fully admit the sincerity, though he doubted the wisdom, of the course taken by the hon. Member for Stroud (MR. Brand). The hon. Member admitted the Game Laws were very unjust in many respects, and said that he did not wish to have the support of those who were opposed to a reform of the Game Laws. But those who were opposed to a reform in the Game Laws were fighting under the shadow of the hon. Member's Amendment, having withdrawn their own hostile Motions from the Paper. In his (MR. Shaw Lefevre's) opinion, he thought it was generally admitted that there was a grievance in the law as it at present stood which demanded a remedy. Seeing that, he would recommend the hon. Member for Stroud not to press his Motion to a division, but to bring forward his alternative proposal when the Bill went into Committee. His hon. Friend objected that the Government did not deal with the whole question of the Game Laws; but it did not follow that they did not think certain changes ought to be made in those laws. For his own part, he thought the Night Poaching Act too severe, and he considered the Poaching (Prevention) Act of 1861 was unjust, and ought to be repealed; but the Government did not think it wise to burden this measure with any attempt to effect a general reform, and had, therefore, dealt only with the game question as between landlord and tenant. The Government had been attacked for not adopting the Report of the Select Committee in 1873; but the House would permit him to point out that that Committee was moved for and presided over by the late Mr. Ward Hunt, and that soon after the Report was presented a Conservative Government came into power, and though it remained in Office for six years they did not deal with the question. He thought he was justified, therefore, in saying that the Report did not meet with the approval of the late Government, and that the recommendations of the Committee were impracticable. The evil had gone on ever since, and the question was now in a critical state. If, therefore, anything could be done in the interest of the farmers, they were bound to do it. He believed there was no better way of accomplishing that object than that proposed by this Bill. No one had ventured to deny the existence of the grievance. The Select Committee of 1873 reported that there was a grievance. The question was how it should be remedied. It might be remedied in several ways. They might abolish the Game Laws altogether. He was not in favour of that proposal. It would lead to unlicensed trespass, which could not fail to produce extreme inconvenience and disorganization. That was tried in France in 1789, and by Germany in 1848; but both countries found it necessary within a few mouths to re-enact their Game Laws in a modified form, to prevent that general licence which had resulted from their abolition. If the Game Laws were abolished in this country he felt convinced it would be found necessary to re-enact them in a modified form, with severe trespass laws, which would be the Game Laws and something more. That proposal, then, was altogether out of the question. The proposal of the hon. Member for Stroud was, not to abolish the Game Laws altogether, but to cut out hares and rabbits from them. What would be the effect of that proposal? It would be open to all the world to trespass anywhere and everywhere in pursuit of hares and rabbits; but, as there might still be a contract between the landlord and tenant reserving the right to hares and rabbits to the landlord, the tenant might be the only person in the world who could not kill hares and rabbits on his own farm. Such a proposal appeared so' foolish and impracticable that the House would hardly look at it. Another proposal had been mentioned by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell)—to deal with the matter by means of a severe law of damage. But, according to the testimony of every farmer witness before the Committee of 1873, that would not be a remedy for the evil. It would be impossible accurately to assess the damage, and much harassing litigation would, therefore, be the result. That mode of dealing with the question, moreover, would also be less acceptable to the landed interest than the plan propounded in this Bill, which gave a concurrent right in ground game to landlord and tenant. It was said by the hon. Member for Stroud that this was an insufficient remedy; but the proposal was not, by any means, a novel one, for it was already the practice of not a few landlords to allow the tenant to have the ground game, reserving the winged game to themselves. The Committee had reported favourably of that system, which, wherever it prevailed, was attended with success. It had given satisfaction both to landlord and tenant. What the Bill proposed was, practically, to make that plan universal. The hon. Baronet the Member for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) said it interfered with freedom of contract; but that hon. Baronet had himself introduced a Game Bill which consisted of seven clauses, every one of which was an interference with freedom of contract; while, in this Bill, freedom of contract was only interfered with once. Having cited several of the proposed enactments of the hon. Baronet's Bill, he said that if they did not constitute a violent interference with freedom of contract, he did not know what would do so. He proceeded to contend that the preservation of game, and its severance from the occupation of the land, was a highly artificial thing, and entirely the creation of law. It depended entirely upon the 8th clause of the Game Act of 1831; and if it were not for that clause, the severance of sport from the occupation of land would not be possible, and every prosecution would have to be in the name of the tenant. Indeed, the Game Act of 1831 did not apply to Ireland, which had a separate law of game trespass, providing for no reservation of game by a landlord; the result was the necessity that every prosecution should be in the name of the tenant, and it often happened that where the landlord had reserved the right of sport and instituted a prosecution in the name of the tenant, the tenant would come into Court, disavow the proceedings, and thus put an end to them. The tenant, therefore, had complete dominion over the game. This supposed defect of the law was remedied 10 years ago; but it went to prove that the severance of game from the occupation of land was the child of legislation. It was, therefore, quite open to the State to limit that severance, and to define what it should be. What this Bill did was to limit the right of sporting which could be severed from the occupation of the land; it defined it practically, by recognizing only one severance—that of winged game. This was not an interference with the rights of contract, so much as a limitation and definition of what was the subject-matter of contract. The Act of 1831 for the first time altered the presumption of law that vested game in the tenant, at the same time giving the landlord the power to reserve the right of sport over the land. It was obviously intended that the tenant should have the right of sport; it was generally believed that he would have it; but, as in the case of the Agricultural Holdings Act, landlords rushed to their law- yers and got clauses in leases drafted to reverse the presumption of law and continue the old state of things. The result was that the Act, instead of benefiting the farmers, told against them, and produced an increase in the preservation of game. Experience had shown that it was best to let the tenants protect themselves, and, therefore, the Bill adopted the course best calculated to produce contentment as between landlords and tenants.

said, there was perfect concurrence on both sides of the House in the opinion that the overproduction of hares and rabbits was a nuisance and must be abated, and they were now in council in order to consider what would be the best means of abatement. This ought not to be a Party question, but one of plain common sense; and to show that he had no thought of Party in the matter, he might mention that for many years he had waged implacable war, and successfully, against hares and rabbits on a tract of sandy, heathery woodland, from which his farms were invaded. He simply looked at this as a practical question. He regarded the question, not from a legal point of view in regard to contract, nor from any position of high political principle, but simply as a question how far the measure was calculated to effect the object in view; and he wished to discuss the plain practical consideration of whether or not the Bill was calculated to do all the good it proposed to do—and here, he must say, he rose from the perusal of it with feelings of disappointment. He had virtually exterminated the hares and rabbits on his own tract of about 2,000 acres of woodland, and upon his farms. He had done so by keeping the ownership of them wholly in his own hands, and never letting his tenants kill them, except in company with his keepers. Thus, having the responsibility, he spared no trouble, and the result was the success which he had indicated It was curious that he had not seen the Bill in the hands of hon. Members during the debate, and he had not heard it quoted from; he should therefore open it, and speak from it as his text. His objection to it was that, whereas successful legislation ought to be built on the principle of a reciprocal trust, this Bill was constructed on the principle of reciprocal mistrust—on the idea that occupier and tenant must be antagonistic and hostile to each other. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. Fowler), in his able speech, had said that he represented the third party—the consumer. Supposing a question were to arise in the district which the hon. Member represented between the mineowners and the labourers, and he (Mr. Beresford Hope) were to get up and say that both parties had been heard, but that he claimed to represent the consumers. What would the hon. Member say to that? He could not see much distinction between the two cases. His first objection to the Bill was that it was constructed on the principles of general distrust, being drawn up so as to create a condition of antagonistic properties and jarring jurisdictions. It bestowed on the tenant a delusive property in a commodity which it prevented him from using to his own comfort and for his own material benefit, by disposing of it to the purchaser who had the strongest interest in offering the most paying price for the article. Another objection was that the Bill interfered with that simplicity of machinery at which we had always hitherto aimed. It was said in the Bill that there should be equal property in ground game in both landlord and tenant. But, having created that kind of property, the Bill went on to make regulations whereby the enjoyment of the property was restricted as far as possible. In all the speeches he had heard that evening he did not think that he had heard any hon. Member systematically refer to the Bill. All the speakers had dealt with the subject in a general way. He would, therefore, venture to read extracts of the Bill to the House. The hon. Member then criticized the language of the Bill. It was absurd to give the tenant a property in the game, and then forbid his selling or letting that property. He supposed it would be said that the Legislature never intended such a law to be strictly carried out, and that the tenant would, as a matter of fact, sometimes let or sell the ground game, sub rosâ , even to his landlord. That bargain might be loyally carried out during the parties' lives; but could it be observed by executors, if the vendor of the right died, however much they might desire to fufil honourable, no less than legal obligations. We come now to the provisions of the Bill. It was said that the tenant might kill the game by his agent. Who would be the tenant's agent for the purpose? Why, speaking practically as a landowner, a conserver of game, and a destroyer of rabbits, he would tell them he believed; hat the general class of agents who would be employed by the tenants to trap the rabbits would be a village poacher on the loose; who else would accept the office of rabbit agent to a farmer? It was not a post which any man of refinement would accept. The way in which this agent would set to work would be very simple; wherever he saw a hole in a hedge he would put a snare in it, and his hon. Friend might be sure he would not be very careful to distinguish between fur and feathers, between two legs and four, in what was caught by his traps. It came to this, that the question of hares and rabbits was one of finance and of political economy; but it was also a question which went deeply into social matters, and he objected to the Bill because he believed it would interfere with that manly love of sport which was the basis of so much which was best in the English character. If they succeeded in passing it, they would bring a house tumbling about their ears they had no idea of. He was in favour of hares and rabbits legislation; but he objected to the line drawn by people who were much too wise, learned, and philosophical to think of such trivial matters as human nature or common, sense. Another objection to the Bill was that there was no regulation as to the time at which these hares and rabbits were to be killed; and the squire, with a party of his friends, might be entering one end of a field after his partridges, and find the farmer and his "agent" busily engaged in carrying out the provisions of an Act of Parliament in the same field, by snaring their rabbits. They would, of course, frighten the partridges, and he wondered what the squire's feelings would be then. If they multiplied that case by hundreds, or thousands, or millions, they would get some idea of the amount of discontent that would be created. It would not pay to set the squires and farmers against each other. It would not pay when they were coming more together now than before. [ Laughter from the Ministerial Benches. ] Yes, they were. The squire of the last century was one who would drink at the public-house; but the illiterate squire was now dying out, and they were all getting superior and very much better educated. Did anyone imagine that the squire of the last century would have been able to pass the 4th Standard? Even the new Liberalism of the modern time would feel that the Tory squire, however benighted, had at least some sense of self-interest about him, and that amount of self-interest would teach him that, with rents gone down, and with all the troubles of the present time about him, he must make himself the friend of the farmers, and get as much from them as they were able to give. Therefore, it stood to reason, in his eyes, that it could not be good policy to be put in antagonism with the tenants. There had of late been paragraphs almost innumerable in the newspapers announcing abatements of rent, and these meant that the land was not paying. It was, therefore, advisable to take steps which would unite the landowners and their tenants, and bind them together as men who, though partners in a common misfortune, would be sharers in a common prosperity. The Conservatives had been described by Mr. John Stuart Mill as "the stupid Party;" but even the stupid Party knew the difference between starvation and the certainty of having a meal. He could not for a moment admit that there was any force in the argument of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton in favour of concurrent jurisdiction over these animals, because it would simply be to create two antagonistic jurisdictions, It simply meant chaos, and nothing but chaos. He hoped the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department would listen to reason, and, taking good advice, would delay the attempt to pass a Bill of this kind through the House. Whatever legislation should be carried, it ought not to have the foundation upon which the Hares and Rabbits Bill was raised. Parliament would settle the question—Parliament, indeed, ought to settle the question—but there was no reason why this should be done precisely on the lines of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's measure. He had watched the right hon. and learned Gentleman for many years, and had seen his ideas grow, develop, and expand; and he would not do him the injustice to suppose that he was going to be re- actionary on this Bill. He hoped that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, with the eminent candour which was his distinguishing characteristic, would rise and confess himself in fault. The noble Lord the Member for Barnstaple (Viscount Lymington) had frightened the House, early in the evening, by the prediction that if they did not pass this Bill it would become an Election cry. Whenever it had been said of any question that it would become a Party cry, he had always noticed that it was in about the last Session of a Parliament; and when such a trusted Member of a Party as was the noble Lord ventured upon such an announcement, he felt himself bound to perceive that an event was looming near. In that case, probably, the cry on which the Government would go to the country would be "No hares and rabbits abated." He really did hope the Goverment would think over the matter twice, and take another Session for bringing in a more perfect Hares and Rabbits Bill before they dissolved Parliament. He trusted, whether it were so or not, that the matter would be fought out in the good humour which had marked the discussion hitherto, and that it would be acknowledged that this measure did not provide the only remedy available.

, who had the following Notice upon the Paper, which he was prevented, by the Forms of the House, from moving:—

"That, in the opinion of this House, until hares and rabbits be entirely withdrawn from the protection of the Game Laws, it is expedient that the Law should refuse to occupiers of land the right to make such binding contracts as may seem good to them with reference to the preservation or destruction of all ground game upon the land in their occupation;"

said, that it ought to be satisfactory to the right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Treasury Bench, that, at all events, the views of the unreasoning and unlimited game preservers had not been presented to the House that evening. He considered that reformers on this subject might well congratulate themselves that the House was unanimously of opinion that there was a grievance which it was desirable to remedy. Although all agreed that some remedy was necessary, hon. Members did not appear by any means so unanimous as to the best means to be adopted to bring about the object desired. He could not go quite to the length, of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Beresford Hope), who said that, without sport, our soldiers would lose their characteristic energy; because he considered that whether our soldiers and sailors were able to enjoy rabbit-shooting or not, they would still display that courage for which they were so distinguished. For his own part, he did not see that it mattered very much whether or not two or three years hence there was a single rabbit or hare left in this country. He thought we could get on very well without them; and he considered that it was perfectly unfair for hon. Gentlemen to insist upon the preservation of their sports, when it was shown that those sports were detrimental to the agricultural industry. In his opinion, sports must give way to business. He most thoroughly agreed with the Government in the attempt they were making to remedy the grievance which undoubtedly existed; but still he could not say that he liked the remedy which they had chosen. He considered that it had been too little noticed that the ground game, with which the House was now dealing, stood upon a very exceptional footing. They were not in the position of other wild animals, like stoats, and weasels, and so on; but they were especially favoured, and the question was whether that favoured condition should be continued or not, and he thought with the right hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) that that protection should now be withdrawn. He considered that hares and rabbits should take their chance with other wild animals in this country, and that they should be withdrawn from the Game List. When the withdrawal of this ground game was suggested, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department said that it was but drawing a red herring across the scent; but surely that right hon. and learned Gentleman should have conferred with his Colleagues before he made that statement, because the proposal to withdraw hares and rabbits from the Game List was an old proposal. Some of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's own Colleagues in days gone by had urged that this was the true remedy; and he felt sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with the consistency for which they all so highly respected him, would use the same word be used in the draft Report which he drew up for the Committee that sat many years ago on the question. In that Report, he recommended the entire repeal of the Game Laws, believing that the ordinary law of trespass was amply sufficient to protect the owners and occupiers of land. When, therefore, the right hon. and learned Gentleman, now suggested that if they abolished the Game Laws as far as hares and rabbits were concerned, it would be necessary, for that reason, to introduce a strict trespass law to preserve the crops of the tenant, he was at issue, not merely with inexperienced Members of the House, but with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster as well. The important question was, what view was to be taken of ground game? Were they to be looked upon as a nuisance which it was not desirable to increase, or which it was desirable to put down? And he should like to elicit from right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, whether or not they proposed to increase or decrease the quantity of ground game? For his part, he thought the quantity should be diminished, for it would be for the advantage of the country if we had much less of it; but he did not feel at all sure that the proposals of the Government would bring about that desirable result. He could not forget that for Ireland, last Session, an Act of Parliament was actually passed with the special purpose of increasing the quantity of hares and rabbits. It was supported by the most advanced section of the Irish Representatives. The Preamble said—"Whereas hares constitute an important article of human food, it is desirable that the stock should not be decreased"—or something to that effect; and so, from 20th April to 20th August, it was made a penal offence for either landlords or tenants to kill, or attempt to kill, a hare in Ireland. Legislation like that appeared absolutely inconsistent with the legislation now proposed. Moreover, there was a paragraph in yesterday's Times , which, he must confess, had thoroughly startled him; because, if it was correct, it represented that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was willing to incorporate an Amendment in the Bill for the preservation of hares and rabbits during the breeding season. At a meeting of salesmen in Leadenhall Market, a letter, purporting to be from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, was read, expressing a willingness to introduce such a provision in the Bill, not merely because it was inhuman to destroy animals in the breeding season, but because it was well known that their flesh at that period was not fit for human food.

I can only tell my hon. Friend that I never wrote such a letter.

was very glad to hear that statement from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, for he could scarcely conceive that he had done what was said. There was a clause in the Bill to the following effect:—

"Every agreement, condition, or arrangement…. which gives to such occupier any advantage in consideration of his forbearing to exercise such right…. shall be void."

Now, he wished to look at that practically. The landlord, it might be supposed, being very anxious to preserve his game, proposed to the tenant to reduce his rent, say, by £50, on condition that the latter should keep up the ground game. Was it consistent with honesty that if a tenant had kept up the ground game on his farm, and had suffered loss thereby on the faith of his landlord's promise to repay him £50 at the end of the year—was it reasonable that a dishonest landlord or his successor should be able to tell the tenant to go about his business? These were the practical meanings of the words of the clause—that the landlord, if dishonest, should be able to throw any such bargain as he had mentioned to the winds. That, he thought, was described by the hon. Member for Stroud, in hardly too strong language, as positively immoral. It was difficult to see that a bargain once made, if it came into a Court of Law, should not be looked upon as a bargain. This was, however, not the only case in which hardship occurred. Again and again people came before the Courts of Law complaining that they had been compelled by competition to enter into bargains of the kind. Take, for instance, building contracts. It constantly happened that builders entered into contracts to perform a very considerable amount of work, with the stipulation that they should not be paid until the architect's certificate had been obtained. Well, it often happened that after a builder had done a considerable amount of work, in fulfilment of his contract, because it did not fulfil the entire requirements of it, the architect refused to certify, the meaning of which was that he could not be paid for his work. That was a matter of every-day experience. If it was asked why had a builder entered into such unreasonable contracts, he would tell you that, if he did not, someone else would, because of the competition in the market. Again, it was supposed by the promoters of the Bill that it put farmers and landlords in an equal position as regarded game; but he begged to state the Bill did nothing of the kind. The landlord could deal with the game as he liked; but the case was different with the tenant. The tenant, by this Bill, was told that he was not to use his right in the way of sport. For that reservation he saw no reason whatever. If he had a concurrent right in the game, he did not see why he should not have as large a right as the landlord. He objected, indeed, most strongly to the restriction put upon the tenant by the definition of the word "agent" in the Bill. A tenant, say, had a great quantity of ground game running about which he wanted to kill; and what more natural than for him to ask a neighbouring farmer to come over and help him to kill them? But he was only to be allowed to kill by means of his paid servants, or by persons living in his household and actually resident on the land. That seemed to him to militate against the whole principle which ought to be at the bottom of the Bill—that hares and rabbits should be kept down for the public advantage—because this limitation went on the theory that it was desirable to keep them up in the interests of sport. He might also say that he felt strongly that any Bill which, was to give satisfaction to rational people ought to come into operation at the same time throughout the whole of the country. It was utterly absurd to his mind that a bargain should be a good bargain on one side of the hedge, and not on the other. Therefore, he hoped that in Committee the Government would see it fit to introduce some provision to remedy this defect. Of course, something in the nature of compensation would have to be taken account of. In an enormous num- ber of cases the compensation would be merely nominal; but, at the same time, it would be far better, as he had said, that the Bill should come into operation at the same time throughout the country.

said, he wished to say a few words on this question, which engaged almost as much attention in the House as it did out-of-doors. Although the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) had thrown some disparagement on the Chambers of Agriculture throughout the country, he could assure that hon. Gentleman that the experience he (Mr. Rodwell) had had in travelling through parts of East Suffolk with his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Barne) who now represented that district, had given him an ample opportunity of judging what the feelings of the farmers were on the Game Question. He was perfectly satisfied that the grievance was one which could no longer be trifled with, and that the farmers were determined that the evil should be put down, which had existed too long. He had himself spent nearly the whole of his life in a sporting county; he had seen the evil growing, and he was sure the day had arrived for some settlement by legislative interference. The only question, therefore, was as to the shape which the remedy was to take. He believed that the evil which did exist was owing to the excesses and selfishness of a few; for he should be unwilling to be understood as representing that the landlords, as a body, required legislative interference. Speaking from his own experience, he could say that on the greatest estates, where the finest shooting was to be found, nothing like difficulty arose; but difficulties did arise where the shooting was let over the head of the tenant to men who paid an exorbitant price for it, and who cared nothing whatever for him. The present state of things was so contrary to public policy—one man being injured by the act of another—that he did not hesitate to say there ought, if necessary, to be interference with freedom of contract. He believed the settlement of the question would be as great a benefit to landlords as to tenants, for the good landlords were suffering with the bad; and throughout the last General Election all the landlords were held up to odium and maligned by those who made it their business to set the tenants against the landlords. Now, the question was, what was the settlement to be? As for compensation, he agreed with every word that had been said against it. He believed compensation to be utterly worthless, and that, after compensation had been given or attempted to be given, the irritation would not cease. Compensation would rather slough than heal the sore. Further than that, the state of ground game ought to be such that no tenant ought to have a claim upon the landlord for it. Prevention, not a remedy, was what he advocated. If the tenants chose to destroy the game, they ought to be at liberty to destroy it, if they had taken the land for purposes of cultivation. With regard to taking hares and rabbits out of the category of game, as proposed by the hon. Member for Stroud, he thought it would be very difficult to degrade them to the condition of rats; for so long as people would eat hares and rabbits there would always be a demand for them. If they attempted to do so, they would have to introduce such a stringent law of trespass as the spirit of the day would not endorse; and it would be a great curse to have the temptation offered to the poaching community to enter upon other people's land at all times for the purpose of catching ground game. It was a striking thing to observe what unanimity there was—first, with regard to the grievance; and, secondly, with regard to the necessity for some legislative interference. He had heard no suggestion for the settlement of the question, except that which was contained in the Bill. The only objection that had been raised to it was its interference with freedom of contract. Freedom of contract depended upon the right of everybody to do as he liked with his own; but if a person did what he liked, he must take care that he hurt nobody else. Freedom of contract had been interfered with in many cases on grounds of public policy. A man could not dispose of his labour just as he pleased. He need not repeat the statutes already referred to. Would anyone say that where the landlord had an unreasonable quantity of ground game that the tenant, who suffered injustice and injury on that account, should not be relieved? Nobody denied that injury was suffered, and, therefore, he would like to hear any hon. Gentleman suggest some other remedy than that which was proposed in the Bill. Did not the Committee, over which the late Mr. Ward Hunt presided, recommend more or less interference with freedom of contract? If the Committee said that compensation ought to be given, that clauses ought to be introduced into contracts, was not that interference with freedom of contract? He was sorry to differ from others for whose opinion he had the greatest respect; but, looking at the question in all its bearings, he believed there was no other mode of dealing with it than on the principle which was contained in the Bill. He would, therefore, give his support to the Bill, subject to certain Amendments that would do away with the practical objections to it, because he looked upon it as a Bill to enable tenants to protect themselves from the injustice of bad landlords, while good landlords would be left in the same position as before. It had been said that this Bill would be of the greatest injury to sporting; and some newspapers had published letters full of ridiculous suggestions, and arguing that if the Bill passed there would be no more sport all over England. Nothing could be more unfounded; it was a libel on the tenants to say that they would interfere with the amusements of their landlords. It was always in their power to do so whenever the landlords went out shooting, for all that had to be done was to send out small parties of men in various directions to spoil the sport; but the tenants never did, and never would do so. In his own neighbourhood, the tenants thought that the Bill was not necessary, if only they had good landlords. It simply gave them the power of protecting themselves in cases in which protection was wanted. It did not follow that they need exercise the power—and, although a contract valid in law could not be made, an honourable engagement would answer any purpose. With a few practical Amendments, therefore, the Bill would be a settlement of the question, and would inflict no hardship on sportsmen. Again, it had been argued that the Bill would greatly lower the letting value of country houses. To that contention he attached no important whatever. If the value of country houses depended on the amount of game that could be raised on the estate at the expense of the tenant, the system of letting houses for sporting purposes could not be abolished too soon. It was no better than a plan for enriching the landlord it the expense of the tenant. He had no sympathy with such landlords, though t was not to be supposed that men of hat kind were very numerous. The Jill wanted only a few practical Amendments to be satisfactory; and, that being he case, he hoped that it might be read a second time without a division.

said, that some ion. Members had said that it would lave been better if the recommendations if the Committee on the Game Laws lad been adopted, rather than that this Bill should have been introduced. He would point out, in the first place, that; he late Government was in Office six years without dealing with the Report of that Committee. It was his opinion hat it would not be possible to arrange any scheme of compensation in respect of the ravages of game at this time, whether or not it might have been possible soon after the Committee had reported. In his opinion, it was not possible to measure compensation properly, If a valuation were taken as the basis, hat valuation would have to be made on two or three occasions, both when the corn was coming up and when it was growing; and he believed that it would be a most mischievous arrangement to encourage a system of valuation for compensation between landlord and tenant. Besides, there was another still stonger reason for abandoning the idea of compensation. Compensation was suggested at a time when the profits of farming were very different from what they were now; and arrangements which might have settled the question for some time, if taken up by the Government soon after the Report of the Committee, would hardly meet the case now. The whole circumstances surrounding agriculture now were very different from what they were then. It should be borne in mind that this question of game damage had become not only a question of money, but one of sentiment. With respect to the observations of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard) with regard to freedom of contract, he must say that he did not go the same length as the hon. Gentleman. He stated that freedom of contract between landlord and tenant did not exist, and was illusory. If that assertion were examined, he thought it would be found to be erroneous. It was contended by the hon. Member that when a tenant went and took a farm—a man, perhaps with £5,000 to £15,000 capital—he was not a free agent, and that he was not as much, as any other man, trying to make a bargain. If that was his hon. Friend's contention, he could not follow him. That, again, was not the only question upon which the tenant bargained with his landlord. Was the State to step in on the question of hedgerow timber; or was the State to interfere with the question of draining, or building, or with regard to rent? If men with a capital of from £5,000 to £15,000 were to lose the power to make bargains, where were they going to stop, and why should they not interfere with bargains by other persons? And, again, if a farmer was in such a position in dealing with his landlord that he required protection, in what position was the labourer who dealt with the farmer? He very much doubted whether the hon. Member really intended to use that argument. He would tell him why, for he followed his contention; and he considered that freedom of contract applied in this way—that the two parties should be free agents in the contract then made, but that there should be some means of seeing that the contract was carried out and enforced. It was there that the tenant was not a free agent. The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) admitted that there was a minority who abused the law as it at present stood. Everyone knew of cases where men had taken farms on lease with a small head of game upon them, but that that ground game had been increased against them afterwards, and that they had no practical remedy. It might be that this was only a small minority; but if it were shown that there was a minority that abused the law, then it was right to legislate to prevent such abuse. All that was to be said upon that was, that the offending minority had drawn down the punishment for its sins not only upon itself, but upon the unoffending majority. They must legislate to prevent the minority doing contrary to what was just and right. How would the Bill work in practice? It was admitted on all hands that where ground game was moderate in extent, and where the relations between owner and occupier were such as ought to exist, that there this Bill would make very little difference. He did not suppose that the occupiers of land in England were going to set to work where the game was moderate in extent to kill it down, in order to inconvenience or annoy their landlords. The relations between landlord and tenant were such that he hoped that this would not be the case, for there were a great many other questions between landlord and tenant besides that of game. The tenant was not likely, in his opinion, to set himself to work to annoy his landlord, or to sever the friendly feeling which at present existed. He did not think it was possible, whatever law was passed, to prevent bargains between landlord and tenant, where each party was satisfied with the bargain. He believed the Bill would only come into operation where a man was smarting under a harsh and unjust increase in the amount of ground game. Having said so much for the Bill, he desired to make a suggestion to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary in no hostile spirit. He did think that his right hon. and learned Friend was really overstepping what was necessary in this Bill. If they altered the law, the landlord ought to be placed in as good a position as the tenant. All that was required was that the tenant should be allowed to kill the ground game. He knew that an ingenious answer had been given to that suggestion by saying that the landlord was in no worse position since this Bill than before. But would he be in as good a position as the tenant? They could not alter the position of two parties to a bargain without making one party get the worst of it. In his opinion, it was not wise to force the landlord in all cases to preserve game. Wherever the landlord was willing to surrender the game, it was unwise to encourage him by statute to preserve. He thought that, taking a wider view, it might be said that such an interference between landlord and tenant was unwise, on the ground of public policy. It was not a desirable thing, in the interests of the community, that too much ground game should exist on the land. Anyone who understood this question must know that there was a danger of the tenant farmer keeping as much ground game as the landlord. He thought that the landlords should be empowered by law to put down ground game. He should like to know whether his right hon. and learned Friend had not gone beyond what was necessary in the Bill? He was always ready to contend that the occupier was entitled to protect himself from the ravages of ground game; but, in order to enable him to do so, the Bill gave him the sporting right. It seemed to him that that was quite a different question. He thought his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary had mixed up two things. He had mixed up the sporting right with the right to keep down the increase of ground game. He was quite ready to give the tenant the right to protect himself against the ravages of ground game; but he did not think he was entitled to be given the sporting right. If the sporting right were given to the tenant, there could be no doubt that, sooner or later, he would have to pay for it. He did not say that the payment would be obtained vindictively; but he was quite sure that if the sporting right was handed over now, at the next change of tenancy the right would have to be paid for. They could not transfer a valuable right from one man to another without incurring the necessity that, sooner or later, the persons to whom it was given would have to pay for it. Moreover, the sporting right had never been asked for by those who demanded that the tenant farmer should be given the right to kill the ground game. He very much doubted whether the sporting right had ever been asked for on the behalf of the farmers; and then, if it had been asked for, he doubted whether it ought to he given. There were many cases were complete power could be given to the farmer to protect himself against the ravages of ground game, without giving him—what would be an annoyance to his landlord—the sporting right. There were half-a-dozen ways in which ground game could be killed, some of them, very homely indeed. It was possible to leave it open to the tenant to protect himself by those means, which would be quite ample, without taking away from the landlord the sporting right. He would venture to suggest that the effect of dealing with this question in the manner in which it was proposed should be taken into consideration. It was the effect of this measure upon those questions which would arise in the future which, he thought, should be most carefully considered. If they were to deal in the future with questions affecting the land, it was necessary for Parliament to call upon landowners to make a sacrifice. If there was a feeling that the Government was dealing unjustly with landlords by this Bill, distrust would be created on the part of the landlord. He supported the principle of this Bill most thoroughly, and he entirely agreed that the tenant ought to have the power to protect himself against the ravages of ground game; but he certainly hoped that the Government would consider whether it was wise to give him that power in the manner proposed by the Bill.

said, that he begged to move the adjournment of the Debate.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—( Lord John Manners. )

said, that there would be an opportunity for discussing the principle of this Bill at another stage of that period of the Session. He thought that they might finish the debate on the second reading that night. If there should be an adjournment, when debates of this kind were going on on the 29th of July, there was certain to be a prolongation of the Session. It would be objectionable to make an unreasonable addition to the Session, and if that could be avoided he thought it would be well. He hoped that this Motion would be withdrawn, as he thought that, if he were not mistaken, the sense of the House was against it, and, on the part of the Government, he should resist it.

said, it must have been obvious to everyone who had been present during the debate that it had excited a great deal of interest, not only on that side but upon both sides of the House. They had seen, on several occasions, great competition for catching the eye of Mr. Speaker. There were still a great many hon. Members who had a right to be heard upon this subject, and who had not yet had an opportunity of speaking. He thought it would be quite reasonable that they should allow those hon. Members to state their views. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister that he knew a considerable number of Gentlemen on that side who were anxious to take this opportunity of addressing the House. They were in this position—that they could not give a vote upon this question without explaining the motives which induced them to do it. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would agree to the adjournment.

said, that he should second the appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister not to oppose the Motion for the adjournment. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had said that he would carry the measure through the House. Some hon. Members might sit in that House to support him later on in the Session, and they would then have a chance of expressing their opinions upon the Bill; but as he (Colonel Kingscote) should not be present, and yet wished to express his opinion upon the second reading, he hoped that the adjournment would be consented to.

said, that hitherto the debate had been carried on by hon. Gentlemen connected with land. They had only had one perfectly sound speech—namely, that of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. Fowler). If the debate came to an end, then it would go forth that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had been supported in his measure in a most grudging spirit. He had an Amendment upon the Paper; and he would venture to say—though, perhaps, it was his parental affection—that it was the very best Amendment that appeared upon the Paper. Some hon. Members attacked the principles of the Bill, but he did not. On the contrary, his anxiety was that the principles should have a far wider scope than at present. For his own part, as he seldom got to bed till between 3 and 4 in the morning, he was ready to sit there some hours later and discuss the Bill; but he hardly thought that the House would listen with the attention which he humbly suggested that those who wished to support the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, also those who wished to call the attention of the House to the fact that they considered the sole defect of the Bill was that it did not go far enough, were entitled to,

said, that it had been alleged on the other side that the Government sought to pass this Bill through both Houses like a dose of castor oil. But, if successful in this House, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary might be less successful in "another place." He hoped that Her Majesty's Government would allow the debate to be adjourned.

said, he hoped the debate would be continued. If, however, the Prime Minister were forced to adjourn it, he trusted that it would be resumed on Saturday, so that those who were anxious to speak at length upon the Bill might have an opportunity of beginning at 12 o'clock.

said, about 13 years ago he entered into agreements with the occupiers of his land, which contained clauses that had worked extremely well. The one was to the effect that a certain sum should be set off in the agreement for the damage done by hares and rabbits, showing the price deducted from the rent for the purpose of providing for their food. The other was a clause, by which the occupier, by giving notice, could rid himself of the hares and rabbits in consideration of paying, during the continuance of his occupancy, the sum so set off. He was extremely anxious that the debate should be adjourned, in order that the question of freedom of contract, as well as that of freedom in contract, might be discussed.

said, he could not see why the House should adjourn at half-past 12. Having regard to the late period of the Session, he thought that the Motion for the adjournment of the debate was one which, if the Government consented to it, would be thoroughly misunderstood throughout the country. They had a strong reason for dissenting from the Motion, because they had heard that the object of hon. Members opposite was to defeat the Bill by obstruction. He was delighted to hear from hon. Members opposite that this rumour was entirely false, and that there was nothing which they desired so much as to facilitate the passage of the Bill, and that the measure was to receive a considerable amount of support from the other side of the House. Under these circumstances, he did not see why the Bill should not be read a second time that night. Everybody knew that in going into Committee there would be every opportunity for hon. Gentlemen to express their opinions. Very few hon. Members who had spoken that evening had opposed the principle of the Bill; indeed, he had never heard a debate in which, upon the whole, so unanimous an expression of opinion had been given in favour of the principle of the measure under discussion. There had only been, so far as he knew, two speeches delivered that evening in opposition to the principle of the Bill—namely, the speech of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) and that of the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Rodwell); although many speakers had expressed opinions in favour of modification of the Bill generally. He remembered the late Prime Minister, when Leader of the House, deploring the effeminate habits into which the House had fallen in his time, with regard to early adjournments; and really he did not think that the hon. and gallant Member for Gloucestershire (Colonel Kingscote) need adjourn the debate simply because he desired to express his opinion, which, of course, everyone liked to hear, but which could be delivered very well at that reasonable hour. It was quite impossible for the Government to assent to the adjournment, because it would be thought that they were parties to the plan for defeating the Bill. He hoped, therefore, the debate would be continued.

said, that, being responsible for the Amendment before the House, he wished to state that, so far as he was personally concerned, he had no intention to obstruct the measure. He thought there was much reason in the arguments of hon. Gentlemen opposite in favour of the adjournment of the debate, inasmuch as although the Bill was the principle measure of the Government, and had been mentioned in the Queen's Speech, there had only been that one night's debate upon it. It was true that the measure had been before the House on the Motion for second reading upon a former occasion; but the proceedings were then limited to the speech of his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.

said, he felt it necessary to say one word with reference to a remark of the Home Secretary. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had told the House that there was an intention on the part of those who opposed the Bill to defeat it by occupying time. So far as he was concerned he had never heard of anything of the kind, and was himself totally unconscious of any such intention.

Question put.

The House divided: —Ayes 118; Noes 255: Majority 137.—(Div. List No. 86.)

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

said, he rose to move that this House do now adjourn. It was obvious that at that hour of the morning it was impossible to continue the discussion, especially after the remarks made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, who had indirectly, if not directly, charged obstruction upon hon. Members who desired another opportunity for expressing their opinions upon the measure. He was afraid that hon. Members who had but a short acquaintance with the proceedings of the House, hardly appreciated the meaning of the word'' Obstruction." But he protested strongly against the use of such a word on the present occasion. He desired to know by what right it had been made use of on the occasion of the first night's debate upon a measure of such importance as the present, which had found its way into Her Majesty's most gracious Speech? The House had been reminded that it was the 29th of July; but whose fault was it that the Business of the House was so much in arrear? Were hon. Members, who wished to express their opinions upon another occasion, responsible for the Compensation for Disturbance (Ireland) Bill, which was the great reason for the delay which had occurred? The Bill involved great principles, and many hon. Members desired to address the House upon the principles involved; therefore, it was only just and right that an opportunity for doing so should be afforded to them. It was obviously impossible that the opportunity could be given that morning, and he therefore moved the adjournment of the House.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—( Mr. R. H. Paget. )

said, the opinion of the House upon the last Motion had been so very decisively expressed, that he put it to hon. Gentlemen whether it were not a seemly act to defer to the wish of the majority? In point of fact, Motions like that just made were liable to be interpreted as devices for enabling the minority to overcome the majority. It was true that the Bill had been mentioned in the Queen's Speech; but the Government would have to be very careful of the measures referred to in that way, if it were to be accepted as a principle that there must be more than one debate on the second reading of all measures so mentioned. He would only add that there was, on the part of the farmers throughout the country, a most lively interest in the progress of this measure; and he did not hesitate to say that, however innocent might be the motives of the hon. Member who made this Motion, and however little he might have obstruction in his mind, his conduct, and that of hon. Members who acted with him, would be misinterpreted, and, in his opinion, not wholly without grounds. Had the House been more nearly divided on the last occasion, he should have not thought further of resisting the adjournment of the debate; but, after so decisive a judgment of the House, and under circumstances that would appear to implicate the whole House, and to subject its conduct to misinterpretation, he could not assent to the Motion of the hon. Member.

said, that he rose with extreme diffidence to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to consent to the debate being adjourned. It had been evident, to those who had sat out that debate, that very great interest was taken in that subject. He had seen as many as nine or twelve hon. Members on the other side of the House rise at one time and endeavour to catch the eye of Mr. Speaker. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would admit the justice of including him amongst those who had not at any time endeavoured to obstruct the Business of the House. But speaking not only for himself, but for other hon. Gentlemen around him, he would earnestly entreat the right hon. Gentleman to re-consider the decision he had announced, and to consider whether he would not really rather retard than further the progress of the measure by compelling them to go on that evening. The question raised by this Bill had excited great interest throughout the country, and there were many shades of opinion with regard to it. He did not think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had the slightest occasion to complain of anything that had taken place in the discussion. He did not think that there had been any unnecessary attempts to take up the time of the House, or to repeat arguments previously advanced; but there was a great difference of opinion in different localities, and there were different shades of opinion. There were many points upon which hon. Members wished to express not only their own views, but also those of persons who were connected with land in the localities which they represented. He knew that that was the feeling to a very large extent upon that side of the House, and he believed it also existed on the other side. That being so, he trusted that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would take into consideration the spirit in which the Bill had been dealt with that evening, and remembering that if those who wished the discussion to be adjourned were a minority, they were a very strong minority, and that pushing the Bill on would rather retard than further its progress.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had again used, as an argument for inducing the House to proceed with the discussion of the Bill that evening, the influence which he alleged would be brought to bear outside the House. He had again appealed to the great motive of his Government—"fear of those outside the House." It was to that that the right hon. Gentleman appealed, in order to settle the question with regard to an hon. Member taking his seat in the House. It was to that same motive "fear" that an appeal was made to the House to pass the Compensation for Disturbance (Ireland) Bill. And now to resist the demand to adjourn this discussion, in order to allow many hon. Members to address the House who had not had an opportunity of doing so, the right hon. Gentleman again had recourse to this motive "fear." This Bill raised questions of no trifling moment, and, in principle, affected all interests in this country. It raised questions of free contract between landlord and tenant. The principles involved in this measure were of more serious importance even than those discussed in the Compensation for Disturbance (Ireland) Bill, and he trusted that they would receive strong support from the Front Opposition Bench in resisting any attempt to force a division upon the Main Question that night. He trusted that the House would refuse to go on with the discussion that evening.

said, that he was one of 12 Members who rose at one time during this debate, and he certainly wished to express his opinion upon the measure. For this reason, when the adjournment was moved, he voted for it. He hoped that the Prime Minister would consent to the Motion, because he had always found from his experience in that House that, whenever it was moved, it was impossible for the debate afterwards to proceed when upwards of 100 hon. Members voted in the minority. He would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to yield to the demand that had just been made. He would not vote for the Motion, lest by so doing he might be accused of obstructing the proceedings; but he really thought that it would be found impossible to go on with the debate with a strong minority indisposed to continue it.

said, that he thought it was a waste of time of the House to continue the discussion at that time. It would be better for the Government to consent to the adjournment, rather than keep hon. Members listening to repeated Motions for adjournment.

said, that he begged to deny the statement that farmers were much interested in this question. He believed that if the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir William Harcourt) could poll the farmers of this country, he would find a great majority against him on this question.

Question put.

The House divided: —Ayes 100; Noes 254: Majority 154.—(Div. List, No. 87.)

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

said, at that late hour (half-past 1) it was impossible to have a fair discussion upon so important a question as that before the House. Only a few days ago he had received a resolution, passed at the Farmer's Club of the county he had the honour to represent, against the Hares and Rabbits Bill. Many hon. Members who did not share the opinion of the Home Secretary were desirous of expressing their views; and, as that could not be done in a satisfactory manner on the present occasion, he begged to move the adjournment of the debate.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—( Sir Richard Musgrave. )

said, he wished to make an appeal to Her Majesty's Government. It was, he thought, hardly fair to charge those who had taken part in the Motion for adjournment, with obstruction. However, at the moment he would not go into the matter. He wished to call the attention of the Prime Minister and the Government to the real position of the question. As they had been reminded, it was mentioned in the Queen's Speech; and hardly had it been made known, when a great deal of controversy arose with respect to it in the organs of public opinion, and before long eight Motions were placed on the Paper, six of them proceeding from the Government Benches. The second reading was moved some seven or eight weeks ago in a speech by the Home Secretary, which, whatever else might be said of it, certainly did not indicate that he considered the matter as one of small importance. Since that time much more attention had been given to the measure than it before had received; and it had, undoubtedly, caused a great deal of difference of opinion amongst a great many classes in the country. Now, that evening an Amendment had been proposed by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand), who, however, stated that he should be guided by the opinion of the House as to whether he should press the Amendment to a division. The speech of the hon. Member for Stroud was a very able one, and had been followed by one of the most practical debates that he had ever listened to in that House. Again, a great many suggestions had been made which ought to have a considerable bearing upon the decision at which they might ultimately arrive with regard to this Bill. At half-past 12 they were in this position. There was still a large number of hon. Members anxious to speak from both sides of the House, many of whom were Gentlemen who could extremely well throw a light upon the subject. No Member of the present or late Government had spoken. The hon. Member for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) had, it was true, addressed them, because he was in the peculiar position of having a Bill of his own before the House in connection with this subject. The debate was obviously unconcluded. His noble Friend (Lord John Manners), who had every claim upon the attention of hon. Members, both on account of his position and on account of the constituency which he represented, was anxious to address the House; and, no doubt, some Members of the Government, especially the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, desired also to speak. Then there were some observations which he himself wished to make, and those of other hon. Members who were anxious to express their views with regard to the measure. He thought, under these circumstances, that the Motion for adjournment had been resisted in a rather unusual manner. The Government could not but see that it was impossible to conclude the debate with any advantage that morning; and he hoped they would not force him, and those who thought with him, into an unfair position. Of course, if the object of the Government was, as he had sometimes stated, to represent those who differed from their views as being opposed to the liberty of the farmers, they could, of course, take that view of the matter, and he should be quite prepared for a repetition of the speech of June 10; at all events, that would not induce them to desist from the right which they claimed of demanding a further opportunity of discussion.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had addressed the House rather in the language of complaint. The House did not seem very anxious upon the question. At a quarter past 12, the noble Lord who sat opposite him had moved that the debate should be adjourned. That was rather an unusual course, for the House had lately been in the habit of sitting to a much later hour, and they had debated until then. Four, or perhaps six, addi- tional speeches might have been delivered, and the House might probably have come to a decision on the second reading of the Bill. It was almost childish to urge the complaint that there had been no sufficient time, or that there would be no sufficient time, to debate the Bill if they did not adjourn the debate. The right hon. Gentleman had said, truly enough, that the debate had been one of a very practical character. The hon. Member for South Leicestershire (MR. Pell) and the hon. and learned Member for Cambridgeshire (MR. Rodwell) had delivered admirable speeches strongly in favour of the Bill. But there had been some speeches delivered on that side of the House, two of which he could hardly tell whether they were for the Bill or against it. In so far as they were against the Bill, he thought they complained that it did not go far enough. The debate, as it had been described, had been of a very practical character, and many useful suggestions had been made; indeed, every suggestion that could be made. Now, with regard to the future, on the Motion for going into Committee, the principle of the Bill, and everything belonging to it, for there was little more than one clause in it which would be open to discussion, the whole night could then be given up to discussion; then there would be the discussion in Committee for, perhaps, two nights, and after that there would be the discussion on third reading, when the principle of the Bill could again be discussed. He put it to hon. Gentlemen opposite, whether, setting aside the feeling caused by two divisions, it was not reasonable on the part of the Government, at the end of July, to ask for a division on the second reading. Perhaps hon. Gentlemen might have no objection to sit into September. He was sorry that they should take a part on a question of this kind, which he thought could not be acceptable to that great class in the country whose condition they were constantly bewailing, and whose friends until then they had professed to be. Did the House recollect the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Cambridgeshire (MR. Rodwell)? He said that in his county game preserving was not so great a nuisance as it was in many counties, and yet he gave the House the impression that almost universally the farmers of Eng- land were asking that this measure, or the principle which this Bill professed to establish, should be carried into effect. He asked hon. Gentlemen who represented agricultural constituencies whether they ought to insist upon an adjournment on the 30th of July of the debate upon a measure in which so great an interest was taken throughout the country? Was it right, or just, to their constituents, or patriotic as regarded the state of feeling in the whole country, upon this question? He supposed the House would have to divide again. The first division had shown a majority of nearly two to one in favour of the second reading of the Bill. The second division had shown a still larger majority. Surely no man in that House, and no man out of it, could deny that, under those circumstances, to insist on constant divisions to prevent the debate continuing on the second reading of the Bill must be viewed throughout the country as an act which made it almost impossible for the Business of the House, at that period of the Session, to be duly proceeded with. After the statement of the Prime Minister as to the opportunities there would be for discussion hereafter, he thought the Government were perfectly justified in asking the House to divide again.

said, the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had looked only at the lateness of the Session, and the retardation of Business, in stating his objections to the adjournment of the discussion. It would seem that he and every hon. Member behind him had forgotten how much time had unavoidably been lost by the Dissolution. It came to this—were measures to be passed through the House of Commons without being adequately discussed, and were hon. Members to be heard who had a right to speak? He believed that people out-of-doors were perfectly able to take into consideration the unavoidable delay which had been caused by the interval of six weeks between the Dissolution and the re-assembling of Parliament. With regard to the comment made by the right hon. Gentleman on the farmers, he was not there to deny that they took an interest in the question; but he would say that they regarded the introduction of the Bill with astonishment, and would, therefore, think it the most natural thing in the world that the Members interested in the measure should be heard.

said, he had long been a Member of the House, but had never known an instance similar to the present. The measure having been referred to in the Queen's Speech, it could not be asserted by the Government that it was of minor importance. The Government itself had made it a first-class measure, while, practically, it had been debated for one night only. About six weeks ago they had heard a lecture from their instructor; they had been dumbfounded at the evidence of their folly, and had been allowed six weeks in which to heal their stripes. But, practically, this was the first night's debate; and when it had to run on till the legitimate hour for closing, and no Member of either Cabinet had spoken, his noble Friend, who had been in several Cabinets, moved its adjournment. He asserted, without fear of contradiction, that, by those laws of courtesy which had hitherto governed Parliament, by that principle of Government by Party which he trusted would always exist, as the best safeguard of our liberties, the Motion of the noble Lord was entitled to consideration. When the Leaders of the Opposition, after one night's debate on a first-class Government measure, asked for an adjournment; he averred that that was a courtesy which was akin to the courtesy by which he was entitled to have things he required so to be alluded to, and which, during the many years he had been in Parliament, he had never seen the Leader of the House refuse, as it had that night been refused, not to 118, or to any chance number of Members, but to the Party he had succeeded, whom he met in fair fight, and whom he was bound to respect. The Chancellor of the Duchy injuriously said that the request was made to put off a division. It was made in order that the division might be taken after adequate discussion. The Prime Minister told the House— "You can have a debate equal to a second reading debate on going into Committee." If ever there was an invitation to obstruction it was that. Every Leader of the House he had known—and he believed the present Leader of the House had not been the least eloquent upon the subject—had deprecated debates on going into Com- mittee. Such a debate in this case would let in again the hon. Member for Stroud (MR. Brand), the hon. and learned Member for Cambridgeshire (MR. Rodwell), and the unworthy Member now addressing the House, who thought they had delivered themselves of all they had to say. He protested against the word "obstruction" bring imported into the controversy. But if there had been obstruction, the obstructors were Her Majesty's Government, who were striving to obstruct the free expression of opinion in that House. As for terrorizing hon. Members by brandishing the farmers, and asking whether they would like to sit into September, little as he should like to sit into September or October, he would rather sit into September than be bullied out of the conscientious expression of his opinion by this process of gratuitous terrorizing on the part of the Government.

Question put.

The House divided :—Ayes 95; Noes 233: Majority 138.—(Div. List, No. 88.)

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

said, he rose to move that the House do now adjourn. He appealed to the Prime Minister as to whether he had ever known, in the case of a Bill of such importance, such strenuous opposition? He moved the adjournment of the House, because the country would certainly require 12 hours to consider how it was that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) had suddenly turned out to be the farmers' friend. If ever there was a Bill which ought to be obstructed it was the measure before the House. He could tell the Prime Minister that there was not one farmer in 12 who cared one straw whether the Bill passed that Session or not. Representing, as he did, an agricultural constituency, he could assure him that there was no feeling amongst the farmers with regard to tbe Bill, and that it would not relieve agricultural distress one iota. There were, however, many hon. Members who wished to speak; and he thought it unreasonable, on the part of the Prime Minister, to keep the House sitting any longer.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—( MR. Onslow. )

said, he hoped the House would hear two more speeches, and then that hon. Members would be allowed to go to bed.

was understood to say he had taken due note of the observation of the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow), who made this Motion with the support of the Front Opposition Bench, that if ever there was a Bill which justified obstruction it was the present. The right hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Beresford Hope) was, no doubt, contending for a very sacred principle indeed—namely, that of allowing a comparatively small minority sitting in the House to override the judgment of the majority. It was perfectly well known what all these Motions meant; and if all the means in the hands of the hon. Member were pushed the Government would have to give way. He thought the circumstances of the case had been most erroneously stated by the right hon. Member for Cambridge University, in what he must say was a most unacademic speech. Tantœne animis cœlestibus irœ ? Recollecting the constituency represented by the right hon. Gentleman, and with what chivalrous devotion he would brave the displeasure of the farmers, he was willing to agree to the postponement of the debate, but entirely declined to assent to his version of the Parliamentary history bearing on the question.

said, he understood that the Prime Minister now agreed to the adjournment of the debate, and that course, he thought, was rightly adopted. He only rose because the right hon. Gentleman had said he should take note of an observation made by the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow). His hon. Friend was, of course, perfectly right in making any observations he liked; but he must decline, on the part of the Front Bench and for himself, to be required to place upon his vote any other construction than that which he had pointed out. He had said, as clearly as he could, that he took notice of the statement of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) that the hon. Member wished to be guided by the sense of the House as to whether he should press his Amendment. He and his hon. Friend would be prepared to express their opinion upon the question put to them by the hon. Member for Stroud. He claimed time to do that, and, in doing so, desired distinctly to dissociate himself from any idea of obstruction.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn .

Debate adjourned till To-morrow, at Two of the clock.

Customs and Inland Revenue Bill.—[Bill 280.]

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

Consideration, as Amended

Further Proceeding on Consideration, as amended [28th July], resumed .

Clause 52 (Relief to owner-occupiers of land).

said, he had referred, on a previous evening, to the Amendment he was about to move, the object of which was to make the relief to owners of land, acting as farmers in respect of their land, extend to owners and occupiers under Schedule A. The Amendment seemed to imply that Schedule A was to be altered. But that was not the case. It was simply desired to alter two Departmental regulations relating to the Property Tax, which rested on a triennial valuation. The assessment remained in force for three years, and the object of that mode of assessment was to save expense to the country. But that arrangement was made at a time when land had always a lettable value, and it assumed that there would always be a tenant for it. It was now, however, unsafe to assume that there would be always a tenant forthcoming; and, consequently, a great hardship was done to persons owning and occupying land who had to pay Property Tax for three years on property which might have no value whatever. The farms to which he alluded had no value whatever, no rent being receivable from the tenant, and no profit being derivable there from by the landlord. The Property Tax in these cases was a tax on property which did not exist; and, therefore, the imposition constituted a great hardship, which owners might justly claim to have removed. He, therefore, begged to move the Amendment in his name.

Amendment proposed,

In page 20, line 23, after the word "husbandry," to insert the words "and section 3 of the last-mentioned Act shall be deemed to include lands assessed under Schedule A."—( MR. Magniac. )

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

said, he was afraid the Government were entirely at issue with his hon. Friend, who had not at all confined himself to cases in which farms were thrown upon the hands of the owners, but proposed that in every case an owner, who was also an occupier, should have an appeal, from time to time, in order to show that he did not get out of his farm the sum on which he was charged. Now, it was the fact that an owner of land hardly ever got out of his farm the sum charged upon him. For some time he himself had been conversant with the case of a farm which had been an owner's farm as long as he could recollect. It comprised 2,200 acres, scattered over miles in extent, and had a large expanse of woodland. It was, of course, open to the devastation of game, of which there was a great deal. The land, properly distributed, would, in the hands of farmers, produce a large sum of money, yet in the hands of its owner it produced hardly anything. This mode of occupying land was one of the forms of luxury in which the wealthy indulged. His hon. Friend would provide that every owner who had his land devastated by game should be allowed to have his assessment reduced to the sum which he actually made from the farm, so that in the case where the receipts were reduced by 50 per cent, in consequence of the manner in which the owner used it for his own purposes—for amusement and recreation in various forms—he would be taxed upon the remaining 50 per cent. But the Government could not accede to that proposal. It was absolutely necessary, if the Income Tax were not to go down, that the principle of taxation upon owners, who were also occupiers, should continue to be applied as it always had been—namely, that persons should be charged as owners at the full value at which their land might be fairly expected to let one year with another.

Question put, and negatived .

Clause agreed to .

Clause 57 (The returns of certain banking companies need not be advertised).

said, he rose to move that this clause be omitted from the Bill. The money which it was proposed to save by the clause was about £5,000 a-year, and it had been argued, in the preliminary discussion which took place last Saturday, that the clause was both an example of retrenchment, and also embodied the principle that the national funds should not be devoted to private purposes. Now, when it was argued that a bank was essentially a private establishment, with the depositors as its customers, the statement appeared to him inaccurate, inasmuch as it was inadequate. A bank was a creation by statute, and enjoyed peculiar advantages. He was not aware that anybody but the Government had asked for the change. On the contrary, he knew many people who were opposed to it. He argued that the clause was a step in the wrong direction, and that there should be an increase, rather than a decrease, of publicity with regard to banking affairs. He begged to move the Amendment in his name.

Amendment proposed, to leave out Clause 57.—( Mr. Hutchinson .)

Question proposed, "That Clause 57 stand part of the Bill."

said, he hoped the Prime Minister would accede to the Motion of the hon. Member for Halifax. The names of the proprietors of banks were most anxiously looked for every year by the customers of the banks. They were constantly changing, and without the publicity obtained by those advertisements it would be impossible for the customers to know to whom they were to look for the security of the money intrusted to the proprietors. No doubt, it was a laudable thing that the county should be saved an expense of £5,000 or £6,000 a-year; and, so far, he went with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He thought it desirable, however, that the banks themselves should pay for these advertisements; and if his right hon. Friend could see his way to imposing that small tax upon the banks he should be with him entirely. He hoped, at all events, he would consent, under the present supplementary Budget Bill, to omit this clause, and consider the matter before next Session.

said, he thought if the public could get this information, which was anxiously looked for and much valued, at the expense of the banks, it would be very desirable. He was not anxious to continue burdens on the State which ought to be removed; but it would be a great loss to the public if these Re-turns ceased to be published.

said, the suggestion of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk), that the banks should pay for the advertisements, was worth consideration; and he hoped the Government would be in a position to deal with it next Session. The banks, however, had complained that they had to make a yearly return, in addition to the return for the purpose of being advertised in the newspapers. With regard to the advertisements being given to newspapers, that secured the widest publicity. If he was not much deceived, they had always been given to the papers which had been the zealous supporters of the Government of the time. It had been the custom to distribute the advertisements as widely as possible.

said, it must not be forgotten that there were a great many banks to whom the Government of the time had given power to circulate their own notes, which were often the only circulating medium throughout a whole district. He could assure the noble Lord that whatever changes in the list of shareholders took place in the newspapers, the newspapers were searched and read as soon as an issue took place. Again, there were many shareholders who estimated their responsibility by the changes which took place, known only through this means. He knew some persons who, having seen certain changes, had sold their shares, in order to free themselves from their liabilities. He thought the banks ought to be called upon to pay the cost of their advertisements. Private banks had to advertise the names of the partners in the firm; and, that being so, much more ought the Joint Stock Banks to be called upon to do it. He hoped the clause would be omitted next year.

said, the power conferred was to advertise the shareholders in Joint Stock Banks. There was no obligation to advertise the amount of issue.

said, it was desirable that the names should be published; and he suggested that the clause should be omitted. It would be a great advantage in the case of Scotch banks.

said, he could not see any particular advantage that would accrue to the general public in Scotland by the publication of the names of shareholders.

Question put, and agreed to .

Bill re-committed; considered in Committee.

said, he wished to ask whether it was intended to make the advertisements obligatory on the banks at their own expense?

said, he believed the decision would rest with one of his Colleagues, rather than with himself. He thought, however, the Government would consider the question.

Bill reported , as amended, considered ; to be read the third time upon Monday next, and to be printed . [Bill 292.]

Kinsale Harbour (re-committed) Bill

( Lord Frederick Cavendish, MR. John Holms. )

[BILL 266.] COMMITTEE.

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That MR. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—( Mr. John Holms .)

said the Bill was one of an extraordinary character. It appeared that some 10 years ago a Harbour Board was constituted in Kinsale to make some improvements; but those improvements do not seem to have been made. It was now resolved that if the Government would advance £14,000 the Board would bring £2,000, and add it to the general fund, and then finish the Harbour of Kinsale. It appeared that £7,500 out of the £14,000 was to be a grant, and the rest was to be advanced by way of loan. He could not understand in what order of time the grant and the loan were to be made. As far as he could understand Government were to advance the grant, and then the Commissioners of Works could throw on the Government the necessity of completing the works. It had been urged that this Bill had been before a Select Committee, and therefore came before the House with an additional claim to support; but that Select Committee consisted of three Members—a junior Lord of the Treasury, and the Member for Kinsale, and a Member sitting on the Opposition Benches who could never effectually resist the other two. He would like to hear whether there was any pretence at all for this measure, which would involve the Government in a great expense.

Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House will, upon this day two months, resolve itself into the said Committee."—( Mr. Courtney. )

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

said, it was understood that £7,400 should come out of the Exchequer, and £6,000 out of the rates to be levied by the Town Commissioners. The necessity for the improvements was that the harbour was at present insufficiently protected for the purpose of landing the small boats which conveyed the fish to the steamers that brought it to England for sale. The hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney), he thought, would agree that ample Notice had been given. The Bill was read a second time on the 2nd of July, and he trusted the House would consent to its being considered in Committee.

said, he hoped the hon. Member for Liskeard would not oppose this important Bill on the very insufficient information he appeared to possess in reference to it. He had referred to the Provisional Orders taken out some years ago, and said no action had been taken upon them. The Provisional Orders, however, were taken out for the express purpose of providing for the measure now submitted to the House. He desired the House should understand that the Bill was not at all of an extraordinary or exceptional character. The Commissioners of Public "Works were empowered to make loans for the construction of piers to counties on the security of the county rates; and, in the present case, the Government only asked that the local rates should be substituted for the county rates, and that the Town Commissioners should control the man- agement of the pier. There was nothing extraordinary or unusual in that; and he would, therefore, ask the hon. Member for Liskeard to withdraw his opposition to the Bill, when he assured him that it dealt with a work of almost national importance, the benefits of which were by no means confined to Kinsale.

said, the fishery of Kinsale was of considerable importance. Being a director of the Great Western Company, he could state that they forwarded three or four trucks of mackerel which came from Kinsale every week.

said, he regretted opposition to the Bill had come from an hon. Gentleman who represented a district which, in former times, was so very much aided by legislation. The harbour would be of great importance to the public.

Question put, and agreed to .

Main Question put, and agreed to .

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to .

Clause 3 (Amendment of enactments as to security for loan).

said, he wished to ask whether there was any guarantee pledging the Town Commissioners, so that the loan and the grant might be advanced and expended simultaneously.

said, if the hon. Member would look at page 2, line 10, he would find the words—

"The Kinsale Harbour Commissioners or so far as their funds were insufficient at the cost of the Town Commissioners of Kinsale, and the said Harbour and Town Commissioners have assented to undertake such maintenance."

House resumed .

Bill reported , without Amendment; to be read the third time upon Monday next.

Railway Construction Facilities Act Amendment Bill

On Motion of Major NOLAN, Bill to amend the Railway Construction Facilities Act, ordered to be brought in by Major NOLAN, MR. MITCHELL HENRY, and Captain O'SHEA.

Bill presented and read the first time. [Bill 293.]

House adjourned at Three o'clock.