asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether, in accordance with his assurance to the effect that every consideration would be shown, in cases in which indulgence was proved to be necessary, to the persons liable for payment of Crown Rents and other charges, he would state what instructions had been given to the officials charged with collection of the same; and whether he would lay Copies of such instructions upon the Table of the House?

Sir, as regards Crown and tithe rents and loan charges, I think the hon. Member will see that nothing beyond general instructions could be given to the collectors to show indulgence where it could be proved to be necessary. Each case will have to be considered on its merits, reference being made to the Treasury when necessary. As regards Income Tax in Schedule A on agricultural lands in Ireland, which are let to tenants, instructions have been issued that the Tax due on the 1st instant shall be taken from the landlords on the actual rents received, supplemental lists being furnished by the landlords, from time to time, of subsequent receipts on account of rent, on which the collectors will receive the duty until such time as the full charge is accounted for. As the instructions, of which I have given the purport, are not categorical, but are in the form of a correspondence with several Departments, I do not think it would be desirable to lay them on the Table.

, who had a Motion for a Select Committee to inquire into the financial and general Administration of India, appealed to the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India to consider the whole question, in order to see whether he could not, consistently with his duty, allow a Commitee of the House to be appointed, or accept the Motion of the hon. Member for the Haddington Burghs (Sir David Wedderburn) for the appointment of a Royal Commission. It was long since any Committee had examined into the affairs of India, and there was a strong feeling that such an examination would be a public service. He regretted his inability to bring forward his Motion, because he believed that an evening devoted to Indian debate would be of advantage at the present time; but, as regarded the decision, he did not regret it, because he felt that was in the hands of the noble Marquess rather than of the House.

seconded the appeal of the hon. Member for the City of London, and intimated that he was ready to accept any inquiry the noble Marquess might propose.

intimated that at the first opportunity he would bring on the Motion standing in his name to move for Copies of the Correspondence found at Cabul between the late Ameer, Shere Ali, and the Russian authorities in Turkestan.

expressed the hope that another day would be provided him for discussing the question of the Transvaal insurrection.

urged the importance of measures being taken for the prevention of floods, in accordance with his Motion.

I shall be very happy to give my most respectful attention to the appeals made to me by the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. R. N. Fowler) and my hon. Friend the Member for Haddington (Sir David Wedderburn), with regard to the subject to which they intend to invite the attention of the House this evening. I think that the most convenient plan would be that, after I have had time to consider the question, a Question should be addressed to me in this House, when I should be prepared to state as fully as possible what my view on the subject is. With regard to the appeal by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon) and the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Magniac), I think I need hardly point out, in the present state of Public Business, that the great delay that has taken place in the discussion on the Address in answer to the Speech from the Throne, and in view of the other important subjects to which the Government have to call the attention of the House as early as possible, it is not in my power, especially in the absence of the Prime Minister, to give any pledge whatever on the subject. We are well aware of the great importance of the subjects mentioned by my two hon. Friends, and I am sure the Government will be disposed to afford them every facility which may be in their power to bring forward the questions in which they are specially interested; but, till we can see our way more clearly, I do not see it would be possible for me to mention a day when it would be convenient for those questions to be considered. I need not remind the hon. Member for Bedford that the Government have themselves proposed to call the attention of the House to the question of the prevention of floods, and that we will give all reasonable facilities to the hon. Member to place his views before the House.

Motion agreed to.

expressed his surprise and regret that the Prime Minister should yesterday have thought it his duty to make a speech calculated to inflame, as it had done, the prejudices of certain hon. Members against the Representatives of Ireland, and everything connected with Irish interests. There was not a particle of foundation for the right hon. Gentleman's assertion that his hon. Friend's Amendment was an insult to Her Gracious Majesty, to the House of Commons, and to the common sense of the country; at most, it was an error in the form and wording of the Amendment. Certain powers and an organized force were at the command of the Government; and all that the Amendment asked was that the employment of this force and those powers should be suspended for a certain period in enforcing evictions, pending the discussion of the Land Measure which the Government had announced its intention of introducing. The sole object the Representatives of Ireland had in view was to serve the cause they represented, and not to promote obstruction. As if the attempt of the Prime Minister to raise prejudices against the Irish Liberal Representative Party were not sufficient, the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland and the Leader of the Opposition added their voices, boasting of their loyalty to the Sovereign in an extraordinary and uncalled for manner. Nothing could be more certain than this—that if no precaution was taken such as his hon. Friend proposed the unjust landlords of Ireland, knowing that their power was to be broken, would take advantage of the Coercion Act to clear their estates of objectionable tenants, and so render the subsequent Land Act, so far as they were concerned, a dead letter. The Amendment had his (Mr. Molloy's) approval, and he should vote for it.

said, he yielded to no one in the desire to promote the passing of those great measures of redress that were so necessary for the welfare of Ireland; but he believed he could not more effectually impede those measures than by rising to discuss them on the present Amendment. There was a deeper and graver issue before them than that involved in the Amendment of the hon. Member for Longford. That issue was one involv- ing the question of their Parliamentary conduct and their relation to the Business of the House, and it was fraught with consequences which might bring disaster to Ireland. For many nights past they had been engaged in discussing the Address on the Speech from the Throne. Every question affecting Ireland mentioned in that Speech had been discussed with great—he would not say inordinate—length, and, as an Irish Member, he must acknowledge that every facility had been given to Members from Ireland for the expression of their views. This was how matters stood when the hon. Member for Longford invited them to discuss his impracticable proposal. He did not wish to bring any charge against any Members of that House; but the charge to which he was about to refer was public property. If it was unfounded, hon. Members should consider that he was doing them good service in giving them an opportunity of meeting it with a full denial. The charge in question was based upon the belief that the discussion now proceeding was not that full and fair discussion on which the theory of representative Government was based; but a discussion carried on for the purpose of retarding and delaying measures which were obnoxious to certain Members of the House, but which the House had resolved to consider. He yielded to no Member in his jealousy of coercive measures; and it was with great humiliation and sorrow that he approached the consideration of a proposal for the suspension of liberty and of the Constitution in his country. But the course which hon. Members opposite were taking was likely to prove a greater and more permanent danger to the welfare and dignity of Ireland than the step contemplated by Her Majesty's Ministers. By the proceedings of those hon. Members, the freedom of debate enjoyed by minorities was endangered, and that was a right especially valuable to a country whose Representatives must always be in a minority. He maintained that the delay of Public Business was likely to be very hurtful to a country having many grievances requiring redress; and that the conduct of some Members, if persisted in, would alienate the friends to whose support Ireland must look for the measures which her people desired to obtain. The attitude of those Members was also calculated to cause such a feeling of resentment in England as would lead to the postponement of the great reforms which Ireland needed. If hon. Members opposite had any doubt about this, let them cross the floor of the House and ask the Representatives of the great popular constituencies of England what was the state of public feeling in the country. He would have hon. Members bear in mind that the course which he had described was being pursued at a time when there was a great and earnest desire among the English people to find out the grievances from which Ireland suffered and to remedy them. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had spoken of Constitutional action. Well, no hon. Member could be permitted, under the pretext of Constitutional Parliamentary action, to use the freedom of Constitutionalism for the destruction of the Constitution. Every Assembly was supreme over its Members. Could the hon. Member doubt that the House would vindicate its claims to existence at whatever sacrifice of custom or tradition? Did the hon. Member think that the people would stand tamely by while the House of Commons, with its glorious memories, was rendered impotent and was degraded? What, he asked, must be the end of all this? What power of resistance did the hon. Member for the City of Cork rely on? That hon. Member seemed to ignore the fact that behind the majority in every Legislative Assembly lay the power of compelling and coercing the minority, and that behind the authority of Parliament lay the whole power of this great country. Unless the hon. Member was able to overthrow that power, what could he expect but defeat? There had never been a time when prudence, moderation, and good sense were more likely to lead to the passing in that House of measures of improvement for Ireland. He believed no greater disaster could happen to his country than if, through the action of its Representatives, its power was wasted and its best hopes destroyed. Yet this would, he believed, be the result of the conduct of hon. Members opposite if they persevered in it. He felt it his duty to oppose the Amendment of the hon. Member for Longford, because it was the manifesta- tion of a policy calculated to create exasperation and bitterness of feeling, to alienate Ireland's friends, and to lower the dignity of her people in the eyes of the civilized world.

said, the speech of the hon. Member afforded an exemplification of the saying that if an Irishman were to be attacked there never was wanting an Irishman to do the business. He (Mr. Gray) was of opinion that the speech of the hon. Member, who was such a stickler for Order, was in its essence disorderly, as it did not refer even remotely to the Amendment before the House. He had deliberately charged Irish Members with wasting the time of the House; but there was no foundation whatever for such a charge.

I brought no charge against hon. Gentlemen; but I said it was a general belief.

distinctly heard the hon. Member use the word "charge." The hon. Member also said that he yielded to no one in his jealousy of the introduction of coercive measures. But jealousy was a vague phrase. Sometimes it implied affection, sometimes the reverse. If the jealousy of the hon. Member meant hostility, he had taken a peculiar mode of showing it on a recent occasion, when he abstained from voting on an Amendment directly challenging the Government on the question of the proposed imposition of fetters on the Irish people. If the hon. Member had delivered the speech which the House had just heard in the county of Kerry, he would receive a very clear intimation as to whether the people of Kerry considered him a true Representative of their interests or not. He had heard his hon. Friend's speech with pain, for he well recollected that on his first election the whole force of the popular Party was exercised in his favour. Though the peasantry were driven, sometimes two days' march, surrounded by cavalry, to vote for his opponent, they, notwithstanding, at the risk of life and property, voted for the hon. Member. Mothers came out on the roadside and held up their little children to bless him. For, though he was himself a landlord and the representative of a family owning some 75,000 or 76,000 acres, he was looked upon as the advocate of the popular cause and the champion of tenant-right. He did not think the hon. Member's change of place in that House was calculated to induce others of the Irish Members to follow his example. He was quite willing to attribute to the hon. Member every desire to act conscientiously. He would ask him to give others of the Irish Party credit for like motives. He could say from personal knowledge that he and those with whom he acted had no desire to impede the course of legislation. They should, however, offer an uncompromising resistance to the coercive measures of the Government, and should go to any lengths in that opposition. They would find a precedent for that course in the action taken by the Prime Minister on the Divorce Bill, upon which the right hon. Gentleman had spoken about 90 times, with a copiousness which no one could hope to equal; and the present was an occasion when the Irish Members would be justified in following that example, and moving as many dilatory Motions as the right hon. Gentleman had done. He and his Friends were, he considered, much more intimately acquainted with the opinions and feelings of the Irish people than other Members of the House, and they more thoroughly represented the tenant farmers. The matter before the House was to them one of vital importance. They were sent there by helpless men, whose cause, in a question of life and death, they pleaded. If the hon. Member realized as keenly the feelings of the people as they did, he would pursue a different course, and would not talk so glibly of the rights of majorities. As to the Amendment before the House, which had been styled unconstitutional and disloyal, what did they ask? Simply that the Naval, Military, and Constabulary Forces should not be employed for the purpose of enforcing evictions. They were asked what was to become of the landlords? Did they propose to send them to the poor-house? He thought there was a misconception. They did not propose to deprive the landlords of their rights, but simply of their extraordinary remedies. They wished, in fact, to place the landlord on the same footing with other creditors. If the landlords had those extraordinary means placed at their disposal they would wreak their vengeance on their tenants. The Prime Minister had said that a sentence of eviction was equivalent to a sentence of death; and they were thus pleading on behalf of the lives of the tenant farmers of Ireland. How could they adopt any other course when, as they believed, the lives of men, women, and children depended upon the course they took? He had had no intention of speaking; but the hon. Member's speech had constrained him to do so, and when he spoke he always said exactly what he thought, though he feared it was hopeless to expect the Government to reconsider their determination. It had been said, and truly, that the present condition of things was unprecedented. It was most important to bear in mind that the present movement was a movement from below. It had been initiated independently of the Catholic clergy, and was even now, to a large extent, independent of them. In the history of Ireland no movement before had been carried on independently of the Catholic priesthood. The present agitation had even been discouraged by them; not because they sympathized with the British Government—far otherwise—but because they were ministers of peace. But if they attempted to check the movement they would be powerless; and, therefore, he warned the Government that coercive legislation would be productive of more serious and dangerous consequences now than it ever had been before, because the influences of religion would not have the same restraining power over the people. His hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had been much misunderstood in his recent speech, in which he had simply repeated former declarations. He had simply said that if the present movement destroyed landlordism—which was its object—it would end in the legislative independence of Ireland. He did not mean by that statement that all connection between the two countries should be severed; but that, while making its own laws, Ireland should still be subject to the Government of the Crown.

I have to call the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that he is not confining his observations to the Amendment before the House; that Amendment is of a very limited scope, and relates to the employment of the Naval, Military, and Constabulary Forces of the Crown in Ireland. The hon. Member is now diverging into the general question of the legislative independence of Ireland.

said, that after the remarks of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell), he thought he might refer to the subject. He knew that a former agitation in Ireland for fixity of tenure, when it seemed likely that the Government would grant it, was broken up by the Fenian organization, because it was held by the Fenian Party that fixity of tenure would make the Irish farmers loyal. Had fixity of tenure been conceded in 1870, he ventured to say that there would not be any revolutionary propaganda in Ireland now; and if fixity of tenure were now granted, he was satisfied that in five years there would be no revolutionary propaganda, but simply a loyal movement for local self-government, which the Government might then very safely give way to.

intended to trespass upon the time of the House for a few minutes only, while he explained his reason for the vote he intended to give on this occasion. He had voted in favour of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork City because he disapproved the proposal of Her Majesty's Government, in the existing state of affairs in Ireland, to make coercive measures precede any clear and distinct scheme of remedial legislation for that country. That question, however, was not then before the House, and, no doubt, there would be ample opportunity for discussing it when the Coercion Bill was brought in. With regard to the present Amendment, he could not agree with many Members on his side of the House that it showed any intention of obstruction, or that the speeches which had been made in its favour showed any obstructive spirit. He fully recognized that on a question like this, which must affect the whole future of Ireland, the subject ought to be exhaustively discussed by the Irish Members. But, though that was his opinion, still it was not his intention to vote for this Amendment. He could not understand how any English Radical Member could vote in favour of such an Amendment. His objection to the Amendment was, not that it was intended as an insult to Her Majesty, but that, according to his view, it proposed to give too great a dispensing power to the Executive. He could not help re- membering that in the time of James II., that Monarch made such use of the dispensing power that the country had in the end to dispense with him. Nevertheless, he maintained that hon. Members had a perfect right to discuss this subject at length. In the present state of Ireland, it was a mere truism to say that the country was in an unsatisfactory state. But what was the practical effect of the present law? During the first half of last year the number of evictions was enormous; and while the Americans were endeavouring to feed the famishing people of Ireland, the landlords were doing their best to profit by the destitution of their tenants by driving them away from their lands. Now, evictions had decreased enormously during the last quarter of 1880. To what was that due? Did any man doubt that it was owing to the action of the Land League? He did not approve everything that had been done by the Land League, and he regretted very much the outrages that had taken place in Ireland; but he could see no proof that the hon. Member for Cork City, or the other leaders of that Association, had been in any way connected with those outrages. It had been sought to prejudice this question by spreading the belief throughout England that the Land League were responsible for the outrages that had been committed. He did not believe that they were. As far as he understood the matter, the Land League were doing their very utmost to put down these outrages; and he could not conceal from himself the danger that might arise if the Association were to be suddenly put an end to by coercive means. In that case, there would be the danger that the number of outrages would largely increase, and that open agitation would be succeeded by that curse of Ireland—secret associations. If the Land League were to be put down, there would be no hold upon the people of Ireland, who, by excited secret agitators, might take upon themselves to enforce their views by numberless outrages. It was, however, possible that if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland were, before introducing the Coercion Bill, to bring in some measure in the nature of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, much good might result. There were in Ireland two camps—there was on the one side that of the vast majority of the Irish people, and on the other that of the landlords and of those who lived by landlordism. If before any Land Bill was brought in, and during the discussion, which must be a long one, on the Coercion Bill, the Government allowed the landlords to have at their backs the whole power of the Crown to carry out evictions, there was not the slightest doubt that they would greatly envenom the question, and envenom the feelings of Irishmen. He would make the suggestion—but he did so with very little hope that it would be listened to—that before a Coercion Bill was brought in there should, if they could not have a Land Bill, be some Bill creating a sort of truce between the opposing camps in Ireland. If it were a question of any indemnity to the landlords for what they might lose, he was certain that the people of England would willingly vote that indemnity. He hoped the Chief Secretary for Ireland would take this suggestion into his consideration; for if he did not, he (Mr. Labouchere) was certain that the policy now being pursued would perpetuate instead of putting an end to the differences existing in Ireland.

supported the Amendment of the hon. Member for Longford, which he regarded as embodying a very moderate proposal. The Government were asked, not to abolish, but merely to suspend, the system of eviction for a time. Eviction was a system not known in England. Judges of County Courts in England often suspended their judgments, and gave debtors the benefit of more time to pay their debts. His contention was, that the landlords in Ireland should be placed on the same footing with English landlords as far as eviction was concerned; for he could see no reason why a law which existed in England should be suspended in Ireland merely in the interest of the landlords. As far as the speech of the hon. Member for Kerry (Mr. Blennerhassett) was concerned, he had no doubt that the hon. Member meant as well as any other hon. Member in the House; but it was to be feared that he was influenced in his opinions by the fact that he was a landlord. He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had spoken a little "off the book" in saying that the Military, Naval, and Constabulary Forces were alone avail- able for carrying out the law. Of course, those forces were available for performing particular duties; but he failed to see the grounds on which either soldiers or sailors should be employed in executing or assisting in the execution of processes of eviction. As far as the business of the Constabulary was concerned, it was, as he understood it, to protect life and property, and in the detection of crime; but the facts showed that the Constabulary were, to all intents and purposes, soldiers, and that while they were going on with their military exercises crimes, which they ought to have detected, were committed with impunity. He would venture to suggest that the condition of the labourers of Ireland should receive the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. Ireland did not want any Coercion Bill, but a complete Land Bill, to enable her to become prosperous and happy. Her condition at the present moment was different to what it had ever hitherto been. Religious difficulties had been entirely settled, and her people had become organized and united, and were determined to have justice and fair play, which had been too long denied to them. He believed three-fourths of the people were in favour of legislation in the direction of the "Three F.'s," and all Ireland in favour of a peasant proprietary in that country.

said, that although he could not, in the present state of feeling in the House, vote for the Amendment, he greatly sympathized with the spirit of it. He could not vote for it, because it had been so injudiciously pressed that the course adopted delayed the introduction of the Land Bill, and permitted evictions to go on at an accelerated ratio—a state of things which tended to throw the country into revolution. He believed that there were many English Members who would gladly support Her Majesty's Government if they brought in a Bill to stop evictions until the settlement of the Land Bill. He did not refer to tenants who were able to pay and who would find it better and more convenient to pay than to be turned out; but he did refer to the vast number of poor tenants who were unable to pay. If evictions were allowed to be carried out in the case of these poor people, it would be a disgrace to the Government and the country. He earnestly wished that the Government would act on that suggestion; but, at the same time, he feared that they were so wrapped up in their own conceptions that they were perfectly impenetrable to the advice of those non-official persons who were aware of the true condition of the country. He had not the slightest sympathy with a great deal that was said by hon. Gentlemen on the other side, and who, whether intentionally or not, had done more to injure the cause of the Irish tenantry than could possibly be stated in words. He would not use the word "Obstruction" as to their conduct, because they denied that; but he thought the tactics of what was called a policy of exasperation were, of all others, the least calculated to obtain justice for Ireland. But he did not the less blame Her Majesty's Government for concealing their intentions—for not letting the Irish people know what they meant to do by their Land Bill. Having once fixed on a purpose, he supposed they imagined their credit was at stake, and they would not yield. With respect to the Amendment of his hon. Friend, an interpretation had been put upon it which it did not deserve. What he believed it meant was, that wholesale evictions should be stopped pending the consideration of the Land Bill. Was not that a reasonable thing to ask? He could not, as he had said, vote for this Amendment, because he thought it was unwise to irritate the House by the course which had been adopted. When, however, they came to consider the Coercion Bill, he would be found as strongly protesting as any hon. Member could against the application of coercion without the production of a remedial measure. Within the last three weeks the Government had been putting in force the power they already constitutionally possessed. They had awakened from a sort of lethargy, and the effect was that within three weeks the condition of the country had greatly improved. For his part, he believed that if they put into operation the powers they already possessed they might drop their Coercion Bill altogether. If they took that course, he could only say it would save hon. Members opposite from adopting a course which would not add to the reputation of the House, and might tend to exasperate the country. Instead of their Coercion Bill, why should they not at once bring in their Land Bill? If the Government, having suddenly awakened, found themselves possessed of a treasury of law by which they could restore order where there was now disorder, why should they not apply that law vigorously, and proceed with their remedial measure?

said, that the Prime Minister, last night, had attributed to the supporters of the Amendment of his hon. Friend a desire to pursue a policy of Obstruction. The object they really had in view in continuing the debate was to show the House and the country that there was no necessity for a recourse to coercion. The Amendment was directed against the carrying out of evictions. Those evictions would be conducted by the magistrates, who were landlords. The stipendiary magistrates were as unreliable as the local, and, indeed, were nearly all related to, and naturally and for interest were drawn into sympathy with, the local justices. To illustrate the violence in which officials indulged, he had but to refer to the arrest of one of the officials of the Land League. Fifteen or 20 gentlemen were sitting round a table in their room, when sub-constable Knox rushed in with his sword drawn to effect the arrest. What was the meaning of such an outrage, and would it, he asked, be for a moment tolerated in this country? The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had stated that when, in 1833, Mr. O'Connell found himself obliged to move an Amendment to the Address, he did not protract the debate, and there was no unnecessary interruption of the Public Business. The insinuation, so far as the supporters of the Amendment was concerned, was obvious. He could not admit that it was well-founded. The means of action at the disposal of O'Connell were very inadequate to the object he had in view. If O'Connell enjoyed the political advantages which politicians now enjoyed, he would have left very little to be done by his hon. Friend the Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell). He might, in passing, remark that all through these debates the Solicitor General for Ireland had done everything in his power to blacken the character of his countrymen. Last night, the hon. and learned Gentleman repeated his statement that the Land League branches exercised an illegal coercive jurisdiction. They exercised no such jurisdiction. They never attempted to bring people before them; what they did was to arbitrate between parties who were willing to bring matters before them for settlement. He challenged the Solicitor General for Ireland to show that, in doing so, the Land League branches had exceeded their legal and constitutional rights. The Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Longford presented very important considerations for the attention of the House. The Naval and Military Forces of the Crown were public forces—the common property of the people of the Three Kingdoms. Their legitimate employment was to arrest invasion and maintain the authority of the Crown abroad. The police force was distinct in character and duty from the military; but it happened that the police force in Ireland had acquired a military organization, and therefore the Amendment protested against the constabulary being employed to make war upon the people. The dead-lock which had been brought about in Ireland had been occasioned by the refusal of Parliament to listen to the constitutional expression of the wishes of the Irish people. Parliament had disregarded their demand; and now the people of Ireland had struck against the payment of rack-rents—an event against which Her Majesty's Government had been warned by the then eloquent Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), who, he was sorry to say, was now the silent Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Speaking with a due sense of his responsibility, he (The O'Donoghue) called upon his countrymen to resist the attempt to extort rack-rents from them; not to be moved by the menaces of those who threatened to draw the sword on them, to be of good heart in the conflict, and to enter upon it trusting in the justice of their cause. They all knew that in France and America the public forces were employed to maintain order, but they were wielded by the representatives of the nation for the benefit of the nation; while in Ireland they were used by the representatives of a class for the benefit of a class, to enable them to carry out their selfish designs, and, in many cases, to plunder the people. He protested against the prostitution of the public force in order to carry out the will of a selfish oli- garchy. It had been suggested by hon. Members that Ireland should wait and see what the effect of the proposed remedial measures would be. If the Government had announced their intention to suspend evictions, they might have waited; but the Government appeared only anxious to place additional force at the disposal of the exterminator. The hon. Member for the City of Cork moved, an Amendment against the principle of coercion; and little faith could be placed in the sincerity of the man who, having voted for that Amendment, was still prepared to leave the means of exterminating the people in the hands of the Irish landlords. Dreadful as the consequences might be, they felt they had a duty to discharge to the honour as well as to the interests of Ireland, which were at stake, and they would urge the people by every means in their power to resist the extortion of rack-rent.

I deny that the Irish Members are chargeable with Obstruction in supporting this Amendment. It is the right of all the constituencies to state their views to the Government before they take a step which cannot be retraced. At the same time, I feel that in doing so, especially after the speech of the Prime Minister, they subjected themselves to a great amount of prejudice and interruption. The question before the House comes to this—the relations between landlord and tenant are such that the Government ought by every means to discourage evictions; whereas, if this Amendment be rejected, the necessary result will be to encourage them. If the powers of eviction are suspended, the landlord will still have four distinct and separate remedies. He will be able to eject on title, and by that process the tenant will be entitled to claim for disturbance and for improvements. Then there is an action for debt. The third remedy will be by distress for one year's rent; and, fourthly, the landlord can serve on the tenant a summons in bankruptcy, which is largely resorted to in Ireland. I feel bound to say that a large portion of the time—styled by the Premier "precious"—of the House has been, I will not say wasted, but certainly consumed by the Members sitting on the Treasury Bench and on the first Opposition Bench, in adroit attack and defence of their re- spective policies during their respective Governments of Ireland. A deal of special pleading was exhausted, and, no doubt, considerable ability displayed. But it struck me that the real merits of Ireland were lost sight of in these discussions. What matters it to Ireland which of the two great English political Parties may be in fault or in default? We—Irishmen—look to Parliament for legislation, and it suffices to say that we have not got what is required, as is proven on the admission of the present Administration now framing Radical Land Reform, and admitting the present necessity for other vital measures of Reform. What is Ireland's case? Ireland is almost purely an agricultural country—except in the North there are no manufactures. What is the condition of home agriculture? Without going into detail I may refer hon. Members to the Report of Messrs. Pell and Read, which has appeared some months ago, as to the condition and prospects of home agriculturists. Nay, farther, refer them to the Report of Mr. Griffin, Secretary of the Board of Trade, wherein is set forth the fact that in England, in 1880, some 812,000 acres of land were in fallow—fallow he adds by courtesy, for these lands were full of weeds and dirt, in fact, neglected and out of cultivation, and there was a steady diminution of stock, especially of sheep, in England. But without appealing to statistics in detail I need only appeal to the personal experience of hon. Members of the House—landlords throughout England and Scotland—to testify to the great agricultural depression existing, and to the allowances or reductions in rental they are obliged to submit to. If, then, this be so in a rich commercial country with large centres of population, extending a sort of town park value to holdings, what must the condition be of a purely agricultural community under the same conditions of agricultural depression without any commercial adjunct to assist the population? I will just glance at the position of landlord and tenant in Ireland, and touch lightly on the history of rental. In the commencement of this century, or rather towards the end of the last, it was stated by Mr. Flood, in the Irish House of Commons, that the rental of Ireland was only about £4,000,000 sterling including non-agricultural lettings. During the Penin- sular War the rental was pushed up apace with war price of products, or rather in advance of them, to some £9,000,000 sterling, which was about the figure in 1814 and 1815. Then, upon the Peace Proclamation a panic similar to the present occurred—contracts could not be fulfilled, and general agricultural distress supervened. What was the remedy proposed and enacted? We all know it was Protectionism; and under protective duties upon farm produce, rental was sustained and bolstered up until 1846, when cheap and abundant labour, and a large population, with competitive letting of land, further enhanced rental. Well, the Famine period brought Free Trade legislation, and yet no compensation or equivalent was afforded to the tenantry for the vital interference of Free Trade principles with contracts based upon Protectionism. From that period to the present the gradual development of the principles of Free Trade took place. A few years ago we experienced the sharp action of foreign competition as to cereal crops; but still, stall-feeding enabled the tenants to meet rental by the high price of ordinary meats. But within the last two or three years the development of the import of live stock, and of meat preservation processes, has struck away the last plank of the tenant farmers, and they are met by universal Free Trade action. And all this time, rental—which in 1846 touched £12,000,000 sterling—was further pushed up to £15,000,000 sterling in 1880. This is the short history of rental in Ireland in globo. Let us just glance now at the present position of the tenant farmer interest under these repeated raisings of rental. Rental is portion of the margin between the cost of production and the price of produce. The cost of production has risen since 1846 between 100 and 200 per cent in reference to manual labour alone. Well, then, as to the price of produce. First take cereal produce. Wheat is now worth about 40 s. per bushel, ordinary home grown, and this will not pay. When railway and steamboat transit is fully developed—in five or six years hence—home wheat will not fetch 15 s. per barrel of 20 stones. Well, wheat has gone out of cultivation, and barley is the staple crop now of tillage farming in Ireland. Well, barley is at present unsaleable, and the price is 5 s. per barrel of 16 stones less than in 1879—that is, 30 per cent less. As to produce, I am in a position to say that in quality and quantity the crop is worse in many districts than in 1879, and there are 37,000 acres of barley less in Ireland in 1880 than in 1879. The proof of the depression lies in the fact that within the last 30 years Ireland has 1,250,000 acres less of cereal crops, all that area of the surface having gone into pasturage. With this lesser of scientific husbandry, have cattle and sheep increased? On the contrary, I find a steady and enormous diminution this year of all the lower animals. It appears by the official statistics of 1880 that there has been during the last 12 months a diminution of sheep of nearly 500,000, in cattle a diminution of 146,000, of which 67,000 were milch cattle; in pigs a diminution of little less than 500,000 in two years. Upon the entire of the official Return appears the fact that there is a diminution on every single item of the lower animals, including poultry, to the extent of 1,250,000 head of animals. Such, then, is the position of the tenant farmers of Ireland. The stock diminished to a startling amount, showing the loss of capital, and lower prices for their grain, with indifferent quality, and, save with oats and potatoes, a lesser quantity. On the other hand, we have an enormous rental, forced up for years past to the figure of £15,000,000 sterling. Then we have the sharp universal foreign competition from favoured climates, and produced by foreign farmers paying no rents and little taxation. The country, then, is over-rented, not merely by landlords locally and partially, but generally and universally by the foreign meat and cereal competition. I regret to be obliged to say that the land classes in Ireland are heavily indebted under all the circumstances. The landlords are heavily encumbered—many of them to the extent of 75 per cent of their incomes—they are but nominally owners, and are not in a position to make substantial reductions in rental equal to the exigency of the case of the tenant farmer interest. The indebtedness of the landlords is only exceeded by that of the tenantry. The tenants are indebted to the landlords for the past three years, during failure of crops and low prices of produce; arrears are outstanding, and landlords have, in many instances, discounted the tenants' bills, which are now being renewed in the banks. Secondly, the tenants are indebted to the shopkeepers for food, groceries, clothing, &c., and manures, and the local traders have been obliged to discount their bills to meet the demands of the wholesale merchants; and, thirdly, the tenants for their own working capital have been obliged to raise amongst themselves funds upon bills, making often three sets of bills, running and renewing all the time, at the expense of the tenant farmer. Of course, it is impossible for farmers so circumstanced to meet their engagements. The situation, then, was this—landlords were indebted to the necks, and tenants were likewise hopelessly involved, that not one bad season could have a feather weight to lighten. It would take years of goods harvests and of good seasons to extricate them. The tenants had their Land League as well as the landlords—there was a struggle for existence now going on—there was social war, civil revolution. There were outrages, no doubt, which all men deplored; but the grand and real outrage was the non-payment of £15,000,000 of rental—the non-payment of rental that in many cases was impossible of realization, and in all cases involves the absorption of tenant interests and property. If this rental of £15,000,000 could be paid, and were paid, the outrages would be all condoned, and we would hear nothing about it. There was not the slightest notion of any insurrection or rising of the people against the Queen's Government in Ireland—it was a myth and a delusion. It was encouraged or bruited about merely to give colour to the drafting of troops over to Ireland, and to cover the true and real design which was to employ the military forces, the naval ones, and the police as special bailiffs and rent-warners to collect exorbitant rentals. Would coercion or ejectments raise the produce or lessen the cost of production? Certainly not; and it was not sought to employ 12,000 Constabulary, 28,000 military, and, I suppose, a large naval squadron on the sea coasts, to collect the £15,000,000 rental arrears besides. It was alleged that there was a "reign of terror for landlords;" but Government sought to establish by coercion a "reign of terror for tenants." "Rent, or your liberty," was the motto of Government. We have tenure in villeinage in Ireland in 1881. Your own history can tell you of the results of tenure or villeinage in England centuries ago, and how outrages prevailed, and how they were put down. It was first tried to do so by coercion, but it failed; and then came the real remedy. What was the condition of England centuries ago, when its surface was in an aboriginal condition unsurpassed, like that of Ireland of to-day? [The hon. and learned Member then read from Macaulay's History the striking description of the relative position of the Saxons and Normans after the Conquest, and the gradual fusion of the two races and languages, and proceeded]: The animosity of race existed between Norman and Saxon greater than at present in Ireland between Celt and Saxon, or Catholic and Orangemen. "Do just take me for an Englishman," was a common expression of a Norman gentleman. "I am not an Englishman," was an ordinary remark, for a couple of centuries. The descendant of that Norman was proud of the English name, and justly so. What brought about this beneficent change? History tells us that it was copyholdism that enfranchised the ancient British tenantry. What was copyholdism? It was fixity of tenure and fixity of rent, and it was under such occupying proprietorship that the face of England was changed from its rude aspect to its present smiling landscape. If their ancient feudalism had its privileges, so had the British tenantry their compensatory equivalents—namely, copyhold tenure. It is no answer to say that such tenure no longer exists, because it has been enfranchised and purchased up. Pass Ireland through the phase of copyholdism likewise. Why should Irish tenantry not get the benefit of the British institution of copyhold? No trace of it is to be found save in the Ulster custom. Lord Devon, in his Report, called it an "embryo" copyhold, and he recommended that it should be stifled in its birth. Continental history tells the same tale—namely, the magic results of occupying ownership; no other incentive will be sufficient to stimulate such radical improvement and reclamation of the exigencies of foreign competition, make double produce if not double price. All I ask is that the same thing should be done for Ireland. The hon. Member was proceeding to discuss the system of land tenure in other countries, when—

The hon. Member has been for some time discussing the Irish Land Bill, and he is now approaching the discussion of the Continental land system. I am bound to point out to the hon. Member that these matters have no reference to the Amendment now before the House, and I must call upon him to address himself to the Amendment.

I bow to the ruling of the Chair; and I will proceed at once to another branch of the subject. A demand for the legislation which I desire in Ireland has been made 50 years ago by the Irish people. I will not, however, go further back than the Land Act of 1870.

I rise to Order. I appeal to you, Sir, whether the hon. Member is obeying the ruling of the Chair?

The hon. Member is certainly not addressing himself to the Question before the House. The hon. Member for Longford has moved an Amendment to the Address, and the hon. Member must address himself to that Amendment.

I will bow, of course, to the decision of the Speaker; but I am just coming to the Amendment, which lays down the principle that ejectments for non-payment of rent should not be encouraged. Now, may I ask, are the people making demand for radical Land Reform? An English lawyer has just published a bulky pamphlet, filled with the edicts, suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and penal enactments of the last 50 years, which ought to bring a blush of shame to the cheek of any English statesman. For the past 50 years the Irish people had been making demands for Land Reform year after year, in season and out of season, until their hearts had grown sick with hope deferred. In 1870 I myself was one of a deputation sent over on behalf of Ireland to remonstrate against the inadequacy of the Land Bill—now Land Act. At our interview, as spokesman for Leinster, I pointed out to the then and now Premier how any measure of a merely penalizing character, and not touching tenure or preventing eviction, could never meet the re- quirements of the then situation. I pointed out how competitive lettings of land and rack-renting would still be enabled to flourish whilst the peasantry decayed. Who was right events quickly developed. The Duke of Leinster led the assault, and others followed. In 1871 landlords doubled, trebled, and quadrupled Griffiths' valuation as rental over unfortunate tenants, and it was at once exhibited unmistakeably that the Land Act was inoperative to preventrack-renting. Tenant Defence Associations sprung up all over the country. National Conferences were held, and Irish M.P.'s brought in Land Bills to Parliament. In 1874, Mr. Butt, as Leader, introduced a Land Bill, and brought the state of the tenantry before Parliament. In the following years—1875–6–7–8–9—Bills were also introduced, and the position of tenantry brought forward with great ability by the Irish Party; and the demands of the tenantry were forwarded in detail in Mr. Butt's Land Bill. But it was all to no purpose; not only were the Bills rejected by enormous majorities on each occasion, but even inquiry by Select Committee or by Royal Commission was refused. After the late General Election and change in Government, the present Ministry brought in and passed through the House of Commons the Compensation for Disturbance Bill. Government declared this Bill to be imperatively necessary for the protection of the scheduled districts of Ireland. Yet when it was thrown out of the Lords the responsible Ministry let six months pass by without the least effort to protect or sustain the tenantry of these districts. The people were abandoned by the responsible Government of the day to their fate, and they are censured for endeavouring to protect and sustain themselves by a legitimate organization. The people had for years made legitimate demands—what it is now admitted were bonâ fide by the Government gang—to legislate in the direction demanded. After seven or eight years of demand, we are now to have hurried legislation for coercion, and no time for Land Tenure Reform. Ten years ago the present Premier was fully aware of the Irish problem, as it is termed. He has had nine or ten months of Office to prepare a measure, and yet he has no Land Bill; but a Coercion Bill or Bills are ready cut and dry. I tell the right hon. Gentleman that if he seeks to ignore the Land Question now, and only apply coercion, he will plunge Ireland into a state of anarchy, of despair—nay, desperation. The feudal element of the Empire has, alas, been too strong for the cause of justice, and the Irish people are again to be sacrificed as of old. But Government has not done with us yet; and if they seek to suspend the Constitution let them commence with Parliament before the ages of the civilized world.

, on rising to support the Amendment, said, he felt bound to enter his protest against the curious misconception of the Prime Minister with regard to its purpose. The right hon. Gentleman denounced that Amendment as being almost an insult to the Crown and the common sense of the House of Commons. There was no insult whatever either to the Crown or to the right hon. Gentleman himself in proposing that the laws ordaining evictions in Ireland should remain suspended under present circumstances, and pending the time necessary for the passing of a remedial measure. The power of eviction for the non-payment of unjust rents stood justly condemned in that House; and all that his hon. Friend the Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) did in asking that, during a limited period, the Queen should direct the exercise of force and military power to be placed at the disposal of rack-renting landlords for the purpose of facilitating evictions to be suspended while the Legislature was engaged in the consideration of the best mode of improving the Irish land tenure system, was justified by the fact that Resolutions quite as absurd had ere now been submitted to the House by the Leaders of the Liberal Party. His hon. Friend was also justified by the course taken by the present occupant of the Office of Home Secretary with regard to the punishment of juvenile offenders. That right hon. and learned Gentleman had issued a Circular to all the magistrates in the Kingdom, telling them not to execute the existing law by which juvenile offenders could be sentenced to the demoralizing associations of an ordinary gaol. His hon. Friend the Member for Longford, being able to quote opinions expressed by Members of Her Majesty's Government, that the land system of Ireland stood foredoomed, asked Her Majesty's Government and the House of Commons to declare that the existing evil law of land tenure and eviction in Ireland should stand as practically obsolete until the introduction of a better system; and, forsooth, a Colleague of the Home Secretary, a Colleague who approved the conduct of the Home Secretary, denounced his hon. Friend as offering an insult to the Crown. That was an instance of the gross injustice and scandalous unfairness with which the action of the Irish Party was being treated by Members of that Liberal Party who were the advocates, not only of reform, but also of rebellion in almost every country in the world. He (Mr. O'Donnell) was painfully moved and shocked by the statement of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government yesterday, when he endeavoured to prevent Irish Members from urging the claims of their constituents, by informing them that they were speaking to no purpose, and that they knew they were speaking to no purpose. Until the hope of reconciliation with England was at an end, he was prepared to incur odium among devoted friends of Ireland in his endeavour to persuade the Irish people that their welfare, their future prosperity, their legitimate independence could be fully reconciled with connection with Great Britain, and with co-citizenship with the other members of the Anglo-Irish Empire. He spoke, therefore, on the present occasion, as one sincerely desirous of seeing, even so late, the foundations laid of a permanent reconciliation between the much-injured, the long oppressed, and the cruelly-deceived people of Ireland and the Government of this country. The Government proposed to enforce the ordinary law which they themselves declared was unworthy of being maintained. The Government proposed to lay no obstacle in the way of eviction even at this crisis. He ventured to say to the Members of the Liberal Party that never did a sense of discipline in any Parliamentary Party run the risk of betraying a Party into such deploreable error as would a blind obedience to the policy of enforcing the ordinary existing law in Ireland prior to the introduction of any remedial measures. It was the unanimous opinion of the Irish Party, not only of what might be called the extreme section of the Irish Party which rallied under the Leadership of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), but also of the Irish Liberal Members who sat on the Ministerial side of the House, and who were supporters of Her Majesty's Government—it was the opinion of such non-Home Rule Liberals as the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell), that if you insisted upon the enforcement of the ordinary law, if you insisted on placing at the disposal of the landlords of Ireland the military and police force in Ireland for the purpose of enabling them to use their last opportunity of clearing away tenants, the result would be dismal and disastrous to Ireland in the first place, and finally to England. He (Mr. O'Donnell) was no admirer of the Land Act of 1870, and he fully recognized the objections which were taken by Sir John Gray, in that year, to the provisions of the Act. He was satisfied that the Prime Minister was honest in his desire to put an end to the present land system in Ireland; but he was entrammelled by a House of Commons which sympathized with the landlords. The right hon. Gentleman had disregarded the warnings of that day, which were insisted upon by Irish Members; but 11 years after, that was to say, last year, when the crisis in Ireland was not so acute, the Government recognized that that Act was a failure, and that there was the greatest danger that the landowners would make an unfair use of their power under the ordinary law, and on that ground it pressed the Compensation for Disturbance Bill on Parliament. Now, whatever might have been the need last year for protecting the Irish tenantry, it was infinitely greater this year. Last year the head of the Government calculated that some 15,000 evictions might probably be the result of the unscrupulous use of their power by the Irish landlords. If, last year, 15,000 tenants were in debt to the rack-renting landlords, he believed that there were now about 200,000 agricultural families in Ireland incapable of paying their technically lawful, but not morally lawful, debts to the landlords. They had heard much of the magnificent harvest of last year; but if it had been much more magnificent than it was, it would not have filled up the deficit in the coffers of the Irish tenants pro- duced by so many decades of rack-renting and so many seasons of agricultural failure. Under the ordinary law, there was nothing to prevent landlords from turning out those families on the bleak roadside in the mountainous districts of Ireland, even on a night of sleet and snow and cutting wind such as brought the sense of misery home to the richest and most comfortable families in London. The Government was not only renegade to all the principles of Liberalism, but it was going to carry out the execution of that impossible, detestable, and inhuman law, which had never been condemned on an Irish platform more vehemently than it had been condemned by the leading orators of the Liberal Party. But, supposing the Government carried their Coercion Acts, it should be remembered that the landlords, never in a very amiable mood towards the tenants, were not exceptionally so disposed towards them at present. A powerful section of the Irish landlords had proved itself unworthy of confidence; but still he (Mr. O'Donnell) did not lay all the blame for their inhumanity on that class alone. Even such a bitter enemy of the Irish race as Mr. Froude had declared that the action of the Union had taken away from the landlords every incentive to fair dealing with their countrymen, and placed before them no higher object than passing a luxurious existence in London, at the cost of a fearful amount of cruelty and of eviction to their despised tenantry. He (Mr. O'Donnell) did not deny that many of the landlords themselves had been sorely pinched by the present revolt of the tenantry, and reduced to the very door of starvation by that land system of which they were such active agents. But the English Government had taken from the Irish landlord every reason for acting as a patriot and as a man. It should not be forgotten that the tenants had been reduced to a state of misery over and over again; and he feared that too many of that privileged class might be expected to carry out their legal powers to the utmost extremity during the next three months, while Parliament might be engaged in considering a new Land Bill. If the Government had brought forward a Resolution binding the House to proceed at once to the question of remedial measures for Ireland from day to day, such an announcement would at once have paralyzed the Land League. But, notwithstanding their declaration that "Force is no remedy," they, on the contrary, addressed the landlords in the clearest terms, to the effect that they were about to give them one last chance of wreaking their vengeance upon their revolted serfs who had bearded them on the high road. They determined to proceed with coercion, and deliberately proposed to increase all the facilities at their command for the purpose of enabling the desperate landlords of Ireland to make a final clearance of those tenants whom, after the passing of the Land Bill, they would not be able to remove from the soil. The Government offered this temptation to the Irish landlords, and the gigantic clearance which would result might exceed even those of the famine years. But did the Government affect to misunderstand what would be the reply of the people? Did they not understand that their action would justify the Irish peasants in dying scythe and pike and blunderbuss in hand behind the cabin which was to be levelled by the crowbar over their heads, rather than go out to starve on the roadside in inclement weather, without hope from a Liberal Ministry. If assassination and murder were committed in Ireland, if there were to be a hundred Ballycoheys, if landlordism, in its expiring moments were with its dying breath to avenge itself on the serfs who were about to become freemen, the responsibility of all these outrages would be on the head of a renegade Liberalism. Her Majesty's Government offered temptations to the Irish landlord to pick the pockets of the Irish tenantry; and if they were not responsible for the consequences under the tribunals of the unreformed law, they would be responsible under the tribunals of a reformed law, and before the universal conscience of humanity. The right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devonshire (Sir Stafford Northcote) last night taunted the hon. Member for the City of Cork with speaking as the Representative of a power in opposition to the Crown. The hon. Member for Cork was, indeed, the Representative of a power—a mighty power in Ireland. He was president of 15,000 men, amongst the most quick-witted and courageous in the world, who were ever placed in opposition to any Government; but, in mentioning such a power as being in opposition to the power of the Crown, the right hon. Gentleman was guilty of the most unjustifiable infraction not only of the courtesies, but the duties of Parliamentary debate. The object appeared to be to attach a taint of treason to the Constitutional action of the Irish Members. The hon. Member for the City of Cork represented a power only in the morning of its growth. The Irish nation was a power. But it was a power which would not readily offer opposition to the Crown, unless the Ministers of the Crown proved traitors to the Sovereign by not doing justice to a people who were ready to be reconciled. Nothing could be more odious than the attempts which had been made to widen the situation. The Irish people were anxious to conduct their agitation within Constitutional limits; they were anxious to leave out of the question, and to treat with becoming deference, the whole considerations which might attach to the relations between the Sovereign of Great Britain and the Sovereign of Ireland. The Constitutional position of the Home Rule Party was that the Queen of Great Britain was also Queen of Ireland—that was the tradition on which they acted, and which they had received from their forefathers, from the greatest statesmen and lawyers of either Kingdom. But because they were seeking to redress the evils of the people, and went so far as to say that the Queen of Great Britain should reign also as Queen of Ireland, and not act merely through her Ministers as mouthpieces, an English statesman, even far inferior to the present Prime Minister, ill-discharged his duty to the Constitution when he endeavoured to persuade the Irish people that the Irish statesman who came forward with large demands for Irish reform was, in virtue of his character as a Reformer, a power acting in opposition to the Crown. The Irish Members were a power in opposition to the Conservative Party—in opposition, it might be, to the Liberal Party. But neither Conservatives nor Liberals ought rashly to bring the name of the Sovereign into Party contentions or disputes. He believed that the debate was to conclude that evening; and though he did not expect any formal apology for the misrepresen- tations which had been showered upon the Representatives of Ireland, still he hoped that even yet it might be acknowledged that they had laboriously endeavoured to place the Irish case from the Irish standpoint before the British Members of the House of Commons, and that the few remaining hours of that debate might not be used to envenom disputes. The Irish Members were prepared for anything that might happen, though the axe might await them in the Lobby. They would not shrink. Hon. Members must be very ignorant of Irish history if they imagined that the English axe had ever proved an obstacle to the Irish nation. The failure of the English Government to crush Irish patriotism had proved that their axe and gibbet and their scourge had totally failed to break the spirit or quell the resolution of the ancient people of Ireland; but though, as he had said, the axe were waiting for Irish Members in the Lobby they would not shrink from their duty; and Her Majesty's Government knew right well that there was no axe in store for the Representatives of the Irish people. No English Government dared to harm a hair of their heads. Any measure of coercion that they might apply to the Representatives of the Irish nation would but make their power ten-fold greater; and from the prison in the lock Tower, or from a prison in the Tower itself, although they were compelled in idle ostentation to mount the steps of the Traitor's Gate, the power of the Irish Representatives would be irresistible; their voice would be able to pass across the grates and bars to the Irish nation, in every clime, on both sides of the Atlantic—from the great cities of England to the great cities of America, and far into the hearts of the Colonies in the Pacific Ocean. He still hoped at the last moment that the Government would think over once, twice—nay, thrice—before they carried out the menaces and threats which had been showered not only upon Irish Representatives, but also upon the Irish people. He would conclude with a story which he had recently heard from an Irish tenant farmer, who had said that if his landlord evicted him and he submitted, he had nothing to do but starve; ruin and death were inevitable; but if he resisted, all that could happen to him would be that he would be thrown into prison, where the Government would, at least, be bound to give him food and shelter. He hoped the Government would not push the Irish tenantry to such an extreme that it would be their interest to follow such an example in breaking the law.

expressed his fears not only that the rejection of his hon. Friend's (Mr. Justin M'Carthy's) Amendment would lead to a great clearance of tenants, but that there would be a terrible resistance to eviction on the part of the Irish peasantry. The Amendment did not propose to interfere with the landlords' rights to procure their rents; its object was simply to provide that during a short time, pending the passing of the Land Bill, which would wholly or partially do away with their power, they should not be able to use the forces of the Queen in order to carry out their evictions. It was most desirable that some measure should be brought in to deal remedially with Ireland; but there appeared to be some opinion connected with Dublin Castle that a little more blood-letting was necessary. Hopes had been held out to the people of speedy relief from the oppression of landlordism; and, by the encouragement they had given to those hopes, the Members of the Government were equally responsible with the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) for the present land agitation. He held that the Government would be perfectly justified in declining to assist in the perpetuation of a wrong for which they were preparing a remedy, especially as it was only too certain that while the landlords in Ireland were clearing out their tenants so that the Land Bill when it came should not affect them, the landlords in Parliament would be delaying that measure by every means in their power. The Government, by their own confession, had 26,000 troops in Ireland, which, with the 12,000 Constabulary, made an army of 38,000 men. Why was such an enormous force required in Ireland, where no one could pretend that any symptoms of an armed rebellion existed? It was to uphold not, he contended, the Queen's Government, for that had never been exercised in that country, but the most selfish, cruel, and rapacious oligarchy which had ever imposed its yoke on the neck of a people. In the struggle which was being carried on the Irish Members and the Irish nation were fighting the battle which had been fought in nearly every European country; they were fighting the battle of an oppressed people against their oppressors; and in spite of the powerful army which the Government maintained in Ireland, in spite of coercion, and in spite of the coalition of Liberals and Conservatives in that House against them, he was confident that the cause of the people would triumph.

contended that the Amendment of his hon. Friend (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) was nothing more than a modified form of the Eviction Bill which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland introduced last year. The main ground on which it was to be defended was that, the moment a Coercion Bill was passed, the landlords would avail themselves to the utmost of their powers of eviction before the Land Bill was passed. In 1869 they did so when the Land Bill of 1870 was looming in the distance. The landlords were now threatened with reforms of a larger character than were suggested in prospect of the Act of 1870; and it was, therefore, reasonable to suppose that the landlords would follow the same course they followed 10 years ago. Until this agitation sprang up in Ireland the evictions used to be carried out in a wholesale manner, but since then they had considerably decreased in number; and the Motion of his hon. Friend, following the principle of the Compensation Act of last Session, merely asked that they should be restrained pending the settlement of the Land Bill promised by Government. His object was not that the rights of the landlords should go entirely unprotected by the law; it only meant that Parliament should express its opinion that they ought to be slow to avail themselves of their full rights. He knew it was unconstitutional in its form; but whatever might be the little technical error which rendered it such might easily be amended. It was objected to this view that the Crown had a right to grant, and ought not to withhold, the assistance of force in order to compel the rights of subjects; but the student of history must know that in the reign of Charles I. the House of Commons resisted this right in order to prevent the Army being used unfairly. It was clear that, so far as the intentions of Her Majesty's Government could be ascertained, their coming proposals must have the effect of abrogating more or less the power of the Irish landlords; and he would ask whether it was reasonable that the landlords should be entitled to exercise, to the fullest extent, their rights of eviction during the intermediate period with the assistance of the Naval, Military, and Constabulary Forces. He hoped the speeches of the hon. Members for Sligo and Cork would make it perfectly safe for the Government to lay down, as a general rule, that the Constabulary and the police need not be used on the occasion of evictions. If he believed that the officers of the law would be beaten and murdered in the execution of the law he would not support the Amendment. As he understood the movement, they did not rely on violence, but on the united opinion of the entire people. He felt intense pain, as did his hon. Friends, that a great and good cause should be marred by violence of speech or act. The Report which was about to be issued by the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, but which was not yet published, rejected the idea of fixity of tenure, but admitted that the rents were high, that a revision for the purpose of reducing them was necessary, and that provision should be mede against their being raised in future. He believed that if the Government would accept the proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for Longford, and thus give expression to English public opinion against any undue exercise of the right of eviction, the public opinion of Ireland would co-operate with them; and it would be possible, laying down as a general rule that as long as violence was not used to the officers of the law, and armed force would not be brought in to terrify the people into submission, to carry out the processes of the law without any fear of violence. By resorting to unnecessary force, the Government were playing into the hands of the extreme Party, and they were silencing the mouths of those—not an increasing number—who still hoped against hope that it was possible for Ireland to be happy under the Crown of England. They were playing into the hands of men who wanted to keep Ireland in a perpetual state of turmoil, and who wanted to obtain separation from England. Even concessions of Land Reform would not stop the present agitation, and he should be sorry if they did, because experience had shown that it was only by agitation that other reforms could be obtained. It was only when the landlords saw their rents endangered by the continuance of the agitation that the present remote prospect of Land Law Reform came into view. Before it was undertaken they saw the proposals for remedy in the present state of affairs contemptuously rejected without discussion by both Liberals and Conservatives. It was the duty of every Irish Member to take part in and sustain this agitation, at the same time doing all he could to restrain its abuses. The farmers of Limerick formed a phalanx which coercion would not break down. There was no word, act, expression, or placard which could be alleged against any farmer or body of farmers in his constituency which violated either the letter or the spirit of the Constitution. If the agitation were maintained in the spirit he advocated it must ultimately triumph. He believed it possible to accept the Amendment without danger and without fear of violence; and, therefore, he gave it his hearty support.

said, he did not rise with any intention of prolonging this debate by entering into the main question before the House; but a statement had been made which ought not to pass unnoticed. In the course of his speech, introducing this Amendment to the House, his hon. Friend (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) alluded to the employment of the military and police in serving notices to quit at Drumlish, by a most respected Nobleman in the County Longford, Lord Granard, in terms that were not perfectly fair and proper. Lord Granard's name having been mentioned in connection with what was, undoubtedly, an unfortunate circumstance, it was only fair that one, at least, of those who knew him well should openly bear testimony to the fact that there was not a landlord in Ireland more deservedly beloved and respected than Lord Granard. He (Mr. Errington) had known him in his various capacities, as a resident landowner devoted to his property and tenantry, as a magistrate, as a Chairman of Poor Law Boards; and his duty in these various capacities had always been done in a way to win the respect and affection of his neighbours. During the last two years his devotion had been unremitting, and, at a considerable sacrifice of means and an entire sacrifice of time, to promote measures both public and private, for relief rendered necessary by the distress. It would be a slur on the people to say that the relations of the tenantry with Lord Granard were not as they always had been, of the most grateful and friendly description. There was another point also of a satisfactory nature to which he wished to allude. He meant the conduct on the occasion in question of a priest who was present. He believed it was due mainly to the Christian and manly behaviour of the parish priest under difficult and dangerous circumstances, amid the great excitement that prevailed on the occasion, that, if not bloodshed, at all events serious disturbance, was avoided. His name should be mentioned here. It was the Rev. Father Conefrey, P.P. of Drumlish. The House would agree that his conduct was that at once of a good priest and a brave man. As to the connection of this episode with the main question, the House would hardly consider the fact that even so kind and indulgent a landlord as Lord Granard was reluctantly compelled to invoke civil and military aid to preserve order was hardly a logical reason for suspending the employment of such forces throughout the country. With respect to the observation of the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray), that the land movement had passed beyond the Catholic clergy, he would only point out that it was supported by them while it was maintained within perfectly just limits; but it had now passed beyond that point. ["No, no!"] Whatever the result might be, of this he was confident—that in the future they would show themselves, as they always had in the past, ministers of peace, opposing any movement, however popular, as soon as it went beyond the strict limits of justice, of religion, and of honour. The power of the clergy might not be so great as it was in times past; but it would not pass away entirely so long as it was exercised in the best interests of the people, and in the maintenance of order and tranquillity.

said, he might save time by announcing a determination to which he had come with the object of meeting the views of some of his hon. Friends. Certain objections had been taken to the form of the Amendment which had not occurred to himself, and about which, if it were convenient, he should still be disposed to argue. It had been said that the Amendment pointed to something like unconstitutional action, or to what had been called a dispensing power to be intrusted to the Government. No such purpose was in his mind in framing the Amendment. But some of his hon. Friends were under the impression that the object they wished to attain could be better brought before the House if the form of the Amendment were to be changed; and he, therefore, wished to ask permission to withdraw the Amendment in its present form. If any hon. Member chose to put the matter in a better form, he should be happy to give that hon. Member his support. With regard to the observations of his hon. Colleague (Mr. Errington), he (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) had said nothing of Lord Granard inconsistent with what he believed everyone who knew him would be willing to endorse. He asked permission to withdraw the Amendment.

Is it your pleasure that the Amendment be withdrawn?

I wish to ask a question, Sir, upon a point of Order. If the Amendment is withdrawn, will it be in order to introduce a modified Amendment in the same spirit before the Amendment of the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Dawson) is submitted to the House?

I understand that the Motion before the House is that the Amendment be withdrawn. I hardly think the House will consent to that course. The Amendment has now been debated for two nights, and it is only at the last moment that the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) allows that he has heard very few arguments in support of it. [ Cries of "No!"]

I never said anything of the kind. I only withdraw the Amendment in deference to the opinion of some of my hon. Friends.

That really comes to the same thing. The hon. Member admits that the arguments against the Amendment are so strong that it has been misapprehended, and that he is obliged to withdraw it. He tells us that, to a certain extent, it is disavowed by hon. Members who act with him. Nevertheless, it has been debated for two days, and it is only at the last moment that the hon. Member wishes to retreat from his position. I think that the House ought really to come to a decision with regard to it.

The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland has entirely misinterpreted the words of my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend does not, in the slightest degree, desire to retreat from his position; but he has merely said that some of his hon. Friends would prefer to see the Amendment in a different form.

The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) having already spoken to the Question before the House, has exhausted his right of addressing the House.

May I ask, Sir, for a decision in regard to the point which I raised a short time ago?

In answer to the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) I have to state that when a Member, having moved an Amendment, desires to withdraw it for the purpose of bringing up another Amendment, that course, by the indulgence of the House, may be allowed; but the Amendment so brought up should not differ substantially from that originally proposed. If it does so differ, it could not, with regularity, be put from the Chair.

said, as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was not content that this Amendment should be withdrawn, and another substituted for it which might gain a few more votes, he should make no apology either to the Government or the House for rising to speak on behalf of his constituents, who were deeply interested in the question under discussion, and who supported him in his conduct respecting it. The Irish Party included young men of great ability and perseverance. He was not a young man himself; but this he would say—that he believed some of that young Party would hold a very high political position in their own country when some of the right hon. Gentlemen who sneered at his (Mr. Biggar's) expression regarding them would fill not highly honoured graves. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to be in a great hurry; but they were mistaken if they thought their clamour would either curtail or confuse his remarks. In fact, he was at all times quite careless of the patience or impatience of hon. Gentlemen, or of their opinion of him or anything he said, so long as he felt he was doing his duty. Nothing could be more injudicious than the conduct of the Government in the matter of coercion; and so much impression had that action made upon the mind of Ireland that if there were a General Election to-morrow he did not believe that the Liberal Party would obtain half-a-dozen votes in the whole country. Her Majesty's Government had done nothing for the tenantry of Ireland. They introduced a Compensation for Disturbance Bill last year; but if it had been passed into law it would have done nothing.

I rise to Order. I wish to know if it is in Order for the hon. Gentleman to discuss the Bills brought before the House by the present Ministry in the last Session of Parliament?

As far as those measures are relevant to the Amendment before the House the hon. Member is in Order.

thanked the right hon. Gentleman for his decision. He could not see how any hon. Member could imagine that the Bill of last Session was not pertinent to the question now before the House, that question being whether the landlords of Ireland should get the assistance of the police in carrying out English legislation in Ireland. The Compensation for Disturbance Bill particularly related to the question of evictions. He condemned the proceedings of the hon. Member for Kerry (Mr. Blennerhasset), who, prior to the General Election, promised to give support to the hon. Member for the City of Cork, but had now withdrawn it. As for himself and his hon. Friends, he urged that they were only exercising the legitimate functions of a minority in pressing their views on the majority. He repeated, he did not wish to waste the time of the House; but he desired to show that it would not be wise to intrust the extra powers proposed by the Government to the hands of certain of the landlords and their agents. He did not denounce all landlords; there were many good landlords even among those who had appealed to the right hon. Gentleman; but there were a great many bad ones, and they could not be trusted with coercion. He rejoiced that now the tenants all over Ireland, irrespective of religion, were united in favour of the principles of the Land League. The statements made in the declaration by the 36 Cavan magistrates were not to be depended on; and there were, at least, two forgeries in the list of names. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Kilmore (Dr. Conaty), a diocese which covered the greater part of the county Cavan, said he felt it his duty to challenge their statements, and that he failed to discover the existence of terrorism in the county. That was the opinion of a gentleman who had a better opportunity of knowing the state of the county than the magistrates. In making a charge of misconduct against certain magistrates of Cavan, he did not mean to include all, or even a majority, of the landlords of the county. There were some who were bad enough, though, perhaps, not so bad as some in Mayo and Kerry, for they cleared the land of the people and put cattle in their place. The Government, therefore, were not justified in leaving such power in the hands of the magistrates. It was contrary to the declaration of the Chief Secretary when he said he would not be a party to tyrannical measures carried out by unjust men, unless they were accompanied by other measures which would control them. But now the right hon. Gentleman allowed these magistrates full swing, and, in addition, he proposed to introduce a Coercion Bill. In conclusion, the hon. Member stated that every tenant farmer in Ireland was united in support of the principles of the Land League, and in attempting to do his duty he knew that he would have the support of his constituents.

said, that he looked on the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) as a protest against the Government proposition to enforce upon Ireland laws which were most unjust; and, therefore, he should support it. It was his duty to protest against the attempt to make Her Majesty's Speech a recommendation of renewed coercion for Ireland. He appealed to Liberal Members opposite to remember that the Compensation for Disturbance Bill was passed last year by acclamation in that House—["No!"]—it was only opposed by certain landlords—and this Amendment was merely an indorsement of the prin- ciple of that Bill. The result of the failure of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill was that the Government were obliged to flood Ireland with troops; and thus it happened that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who had previously expressed his dislike for repressive measures, was now one of the first to demand the passing of a Coercion Bill. Law and order were, no doubt, very popular words in England; but in Ireland, what had been implied by those words ever since the Union but cruelty, oppression, and the gallows? The Government had now two Irelands to deal with, the one crushed and downtrodden, asking only for justice; the other in America, rich, prosperous, and rebellious, craving nothing, biding their time to strike the blow of revenge. He warned the House that the time might yet come when England's treatment of the Irish, people would prove the weak point in England's brightness and England's glory.

said, that he should extremely regret to interfere with the conduct of Public Business by the House; but he should be still more sorry not to raise his voice against what he believed to be the mistaken policy of the Government towards Ireland. He could not congratulate the Government on the union of Whiggery and Toryism, by which the just complaints of the Irish people were being ignored. The Liberal Party asked them to shut their eyes and open their mouths and see what the Premier would send them. The House ought to consider, however, what would be the probable results of the coercive policy which they contemplated applying to Ireland. If the right hon. Gentleman had been more communicative, and had accompanied his remedial measures with a temporary measure of coercion, the House would not now have been in an uncomfortable position. By his Amendment his hon. Friend (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) asked the House to comply with a very plain and straightforward demand. He denied that the feudal system had been established for Ireland. It would have been better for Ireland if it had, for the landlords enjoyed all feudal rights of trusteeship over the land, and did not fulfil any of the feudal duties, which also belonged to them, towards their tenants. The question between Ireland and England had been greatly misunder- stood. What the Irish people wanted was to get rid of eviction, not only because it pressed heavily on the tenant, but because the law in Ireland should be made the same as the law in England. In this country a law of distress existed which was a sufficient guarantee for the landlord's rent. Landlords might surely be content with the Law of Distress, and not insist upon having that of eviction also, which was unknown in England. A great deal, he might remark, had been said as to the Land League and its objects; but hardly any defence had been made of its design to prevent the exaction of exorbitant rents. They had a right to demand that the government of Ireland should be in the interests of the Irish people. That debate not only affected Ireland, but England also, and the whole Empire. It was impossible for the Irish Members to permit the Government to legislate on the Land Question so long as they preceded their land measure by measures of coercion. They could not allow their hands to be tied behind their backs. The Irish Members were bound in duty to their country and their consciences, and in accordance with the principles of Radicalism, which animated many of the Members among whom he sat, to protest against coercion, even at the risk of offending that House, and raising a hostile cry against themselves throughout the country. He never would consent to the landlords of Ireland being, at the present day, permitted to carry out evictions as they had done so unfeelingly in former days. English rule had made Ireland poor, and a thorn in the side of England. He would ask leave to refer to a pamphlet, recently published by an Englishman—Mr. Spencer Jackson—entitled, Land Monopolies in Ireland, which gave a list of landowners in Ireland who possessed more than 5,000 acres. Most of these landowners were English Noblemen, or connected with English noble families, and had done nothing to advance the prosperity and happiness of the Irish people. But it was not the men, but the system which was to blame. It was stated, in that pamphlet, that since 1848 those landowners had evicted 246,000 families from their homes. That represented 1,000,000 driven from the land of their birth. The reason was not that they had been unwilling to pay their rent, but that they had not wherewith to pay. That House had never taken into consideration the whole question of land tenure in Ireland. He would draw the attention of the House to the Returns lately issued by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Those Returns showed that in County Clare—the county with which he was connected—during the period between January 1, 1880, and November 30, there were no cases of murder, none of manslaughter, none of firing at the person, none of assault upon the police, none of aggravated assault, none of delaying of bailiffs and process-servers, none of taking and holding possession of land, none of killing, cutting, or maiming of cattle, and only one of firing into dwellings. This county had been organized by the Land League, and its peaceful state was an excellent proof to all but Tory Members that where unjust laws were not carried out quiet and order prevailed. He was ready to vote for every possible Radical measure for the English people; and he trusted that hon. Members opposite would show an equally liberal spirit, and try to solve this question of land tenure, not by coercion, but by a measure of justice.

, who spoke amid considerable interruption, said, that an hon. Member had accused the Party with which he acted of having, during the last Session, caused the illness of the Prime Minister; but he could assure the House that there was no Party that felt more sincere sorrow when the Prime Minister was indisposed than the Party to which he belonged—the Home Rulers. The hon. Member was proceeding in obvious terms to condemn the action of the House of Lords in rejecting the Compensation for Disturbance Bill of last Session, when—

said: I must remind the hon. Member that the Question before the House is the Amendment of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy).

said, he had risen to support that Amendment, and he only wished to show the prejudicial effect which the rejection of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill by the House of Lords had produced.

I must again ask the hon. Member to address himself to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Longford. At present he is not doing so.

bowed to the decision of the right hon. Gentleman. He had been endeavouring to address himself to that Amendment, and he was sorry if he had been guilty of anything irregular. He supported the Amendment; but while doing so he felt that there would have been no necessity for it if it had not been for the action of "another place." He also supported it, because he believed it was not unreasonable, considering the present serious crisis in Ireland. The hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold) had said that tenants ought to perform the contracts into which they had entered. But he (Mr. Gill) believed that contracts which had been obtained by physical or mental terrorism would not be regarded as contracts by a Court of Equity. And what terrorism had not been brought to bear on these unfortunate people, who signed contracts which Her Majesty's Government were now going to enforce with all the powers at their disposal? These contracts had been signed with worse than a dagger presented at the breast of the tenant—they had been signed under the conviction that the workhouse or the emigrant ship was the only alternative if they were not signed. He thought that the Irish landlords could well afford to wait. They had rack-rented their tenants for generations, and received enormous amounts of money to which in justice they had no right; and if they did not now obtain a small portion of their rents, it would be only a small repayment of the vast sums which they had already received. They had obtained their entire rents, when in many cases other creditors did not get a penny; while, again, in the matter of the income tax, they had been exceptionally favoured, seeing that they had for the past 27 years failed to pay income tax, which they ought to have paid, to the average amount of £135,420 per annum. A vast number of the evictions, for the execution of which the assistance of the police and the military was given, were evictions of poor people who found it utterly impossible to pay the present rents. There had within the last three years been an enormous decrease in the value of the potato crop in Ireland, together with a very large falling-off in the number of milch cows and pigs, the domestic animals of the poor man. Great poverty, therefore, existed, and hence the inability of the tenants to pay their rents. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had said the other day that it was dishonest on the part of the Land League to try, as they had done, to lessen the value of land. Now, he (Mr. Gill) denied that the League had ever tried unduly to lessen the value of land. They had only sought to bring it down from an exaggerated value to its real value. As for emigration, it was one of the greatest evils from which his country had suffered; and he trusted that, so far from being promoted, by aiding landlords to evict, it would be checked by the remedial measures about to be proposed.

felt that to give a silent vote on this question would be, on his part, a great dereliction of public duty. He represented a county every acre of which was scheduled under the Relief of Distress Acts, and which contained a population of thousands of tenant farmers, many of whom were of the very poorest class. It was a county which in one generation had lost half its population by eviction, carried out against the public interest by the armed force of the Queen; and he knew those tenants were now in such a condition that, unless some hope of relief and some immediate measure of protection against the power of the landlords were held out to them, the state of affairs in that county would soon become extreme and important. He denied that the Irish Members, in the action they were taking, were retarding the application of remedial measures to Ireland. What they were endeavouring to do was to prove that there was greater urgency for the salvation of the people than for the application of restrictions to their liberty; and he believed the action of his hon. Colleagues would be approved by the humblest and most oppressed tenant in Ireland. The Amendment was characterized as an unconstitutional proposal. It was, however, a recognized Constitutional principle that the Government should, when the public interests demanded it, override the law; and Parliament, on due cause shown, never hesitated to grant them a Bill of Indemnity. The exercise of the Royal Prerogative in favour of criminals sentenced to death, was a similar instance of the law being overridden. Surely the quality of mercy, which England's greatest poet said became the Monarch better than his Crown, might be exercised as properly in the case of Irish tenants as in that of the most abandoned murderers; and surely an appeal for the exercise of what was ever a Divine attribute could not justly be stigmatized as an "insult to the Crown." The Irish Members did not intend any insult to the Crown, but merely wished to move the Crown to exercise its Prerogative of mercy. If this request were refused, the peasants of Ireland, who now read the proceedings of Parliament with keen interest, would conclude that there was no hope for them, and that the reform of their grievances was postponed to the distant and indefinite future. In such a case, the power which the Irish Members might wield in Ireland for the purpose of keeping the people within the Constitution would be taken out of their hands. He solemnly warned the House that the result of their taking such a course as was proposed by the Government would be to drive the humblest and the least educated of the Irish people out of legal and Constitutional courses. It was pitiable to see the great Liberal Party in the second year of its existence in such a predicament; but he warned them that, no matter how many Arms Acts they might enact, they would never prevent an Irishman finding a weapon to practise an act of vengeance when he thought he was driven to it by the severity and tyranny of his oppressors. Mr. Justice Fitzgerald, in his Charge, said the amendment of the laws was a subject for the consideration of the Legislature. The learned Judge, by that remark, indicated to the Legislature that statesmen would make a great mistake if they regarded this question solely from a lawyer's point of view. It was unnecessary to bring science or philosophy to bear upon this question; it was sufficient to appeal to common sense. The Irish people were in the utmost depths of misery. Of what avail was it to them that there had been a good harvest? The harvest in Ireland had fallen far short of what the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland imagined, and it had not made much difference in the position of the Irish tenantry. The Irish tenantry were up to their necks in debt; and was it to be supposed that they would postpone the payment of their tradesmen's just claims until after those of the landlords had been discharged? The truth was that the landlords had taken one-half, and, in some cases, two-thirds of the produce of the lands, and thus the tenant had been left without the means of maintaining himself and his family. Dealing with the action of the Land League, he maintained that that association had done their best to maintain order in Ireland. The number of evictions which had taken place in the last quarter of last year was smaller than in either of the three preceding quarters, and that he attributed to the peaceful operations of the Land League. If the Government refused now to hold out to the people any hope that they would be kept in their homes, the situation would be truly desperate. He protested against the Prime Minister and the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India endeavouring to silence the Irish Members. He had profound, he would say unalterable respect for the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and he would be an ungrateful Irishman did he not acknowledge the great services that the right hon. Gentleman had rendered to his country. He appealed to the generosity of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government to consider the difficulty of their position—to consider that the Irish Members were there pleading for the lives and liberties of their own people in the midst of a foreign population. They might, indeed, consider themselves exiles in that House. It was far from their intention to insult the Crown, or to lead any section of the Irish people out of the ways of order and Constitutional reform. They hoped that even now the Government might appreciate the situation in Ireland, and, by exhorting the Crown to exercise its Prerogative to secure justice to the Irish people, would secure their being still kept in Constitutional courses, so that through this troubled period their country might pass into one of prosperity and peace. He hoped the House would bear these things in mind, and ratify the Amendment of his hon. Friend.

said, he had no intention of occupying the time of the House for any lengthened period; but, like his hon. and eloquent Friend who had just addressed the House (Mr. Sexton), he was anxious on this occasion not to give a silent vote. In supporting the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy), he wished to place on record his protest against the assumption—he might say the charge—made by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister that his hon. Friend the Member for Longford had no better reason and no higher motive for the introduction of his Amendment than of delaying the introduction into the House of Commons of the Irish legislative measures of the Government. Those who knew the full meaning and even the deadly meaning of eviction in Ireland would be the veriest cowards unless they endeavoured, by every means in their power, to urge upon Her Majesty's Ministers some measures to avert the dread of evictions in Ireland during the next three or four months. He could quite understand that the majority of the Members of that House, schooled in the policy of coercion, felt extreme impatience and annoyance that the Irish Members should occupy the time of the House in discussing these measures. But although that feeling of annoyance and impatience was manifested in the House, and was arising throughout England, the Irish Members were conscious of this—that there were thousands and tens of thousands of the poor peasantry of Ireland who were watching their proceedings with keen and passionate interest, because they were anxious to avert the dread hour of coercion. The House had been told in the course of the present debate that the number of people threatened with eviction in Ireland might be counted by thousands. The number of persons actually evicted and restored to their holdings as caretakers last year numbered 5,000. He had listened, last year, with the most profound interest to the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, when, in the debate upon the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, he described the exact position of the caretaker in Ireland. The caretaker had no further claim, right, or hold upon his farm. He was there in the position of a serf, and he could be turned out at a moment's notice. He should like to ask the House in what position would these 5,000 tenants find themselves unless there were something to stay the coercing power of the landlords? It was all very well to say that no great powers were likely to be exercised by the landlords within the next few months; but, if they were to learn anything from the teaching of the past, they knew that the power might be exercised in a harsh and remorseless manner. He intended to support the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Longford. The principle of that Amendment had already been fully and entirely conceded by Her Majesty's Government, for the Compensation for Disturbance Bill of last year was nothing more than a Bill to restrain and temporarily arrest the power of eviction. He had not the slightest hope that the Amendment of his hon. Friend would receive a large share of support from English and Scotch Members; but he wished it to be borne in mind by the House that when the Land Bill of the Government was added to the long list of Irish legislative failures, that they sitting on those Benches would be able to point to the fact that they had indicated the proper course to take, and that the large majority of the House blindly refused to follow it.

Question put.

The House divided: —Ayes 37; Noes 201: Majority 164.—(Div. List, No. 5.)

Original Question again proposed,

"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, to thank Her Majesty for the Most Gracious Speech which Her Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."

Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—( Mr. Dawson, )—put, and agreed to.

Debate adjourned till To-morrow.

, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the manner of Voting in the Election of Members of Parliament for the Universities of Scotland, explained that the object of the Bill was to carry out the recommendation of the Royal Commission which lately sat in reference to the Universities, and which recommended that the manner of voting for Members of Parliament should be assimilated to the manner of voting for the Chancellor of the Universities. In addition to that, the Bill provided that all graduates should become members of the General Council at the time of their graduation.

Motion agreed to.

Bill to amend the manner of Voting in the Election of Members of Parliament for the Universities of Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. PLAYFAIR, Mr. JAMES CAMPBELL, Mr. ORR EWING, and Sir DAVID WEDDERBURN.

Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 69.]

Educational Endowments (Scotland) Bill

On Motion of Mr. MUNDELLA, Bill to reorganise the Educational Endowments of Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. MUNDELLA, Mr. GRANT DUFF, and Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL for SCOTLAND.

Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 65.]

Irish Land Act, 1870 (Notices to Quit)

Return ordered, "of the number of Notices to Quit served in the respective years from 1871 to 1880, inclusive, as shown by the stamps issued of the denomination required for such notices according to the provisions of the Land Act of 1870."—( The O'Donoghue. )

House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before One o'clock.