, who spoke in support of an Amendment which stood on the Paper in his name, to the effect—

"That no Bill for the Protection of Life and Property in Ireland will be satisfactory which does not include protection to the tenant in cases where it can be shown to the satisfaction of a court of justice that the tenant's rent is excessive, or that he is unable owing to temporary circumstances to pay it,"

said, that since he moved the adjournment of the debate three days ago there had been a certain amount of disturbing element in the consideration of Irish matters. For his own part, he should, in speaking on this important measure, endeavour to keep strictly within the lines laid down by the Prime Minister, and to discuss it within the limits of "reason and usage;" for he was not one of the Members who, as the Leader of the Opposition seemed to consider, objected to those limits as something intolerable. In looking at all measures of importance that came before the House, a Member had to consider them on their direct and immediate merits, and with a view to their ultimate consequences. By ultimate consequences he meant the possibility of a vote involving the fate of the Government. The present Government was a Coalition Government. It had got into power owing to a union of the forces of the Moderate Liberals and of the Advanced Liberals. Last year, on a very important issue, the Moderate Liberals were not true to the association. When the fate of the Government was at issue the Moderate Liberals deserted the Government, and went over to the natural enemies of the Government who sat on the opposite Benches. We Radicals—[ Laughter ]—yes, he knew that it excited the smiles of some hon. Members that anyone should call himself a Radical. He was one, and he believed there were several others in that House. They were so fully convinced that it was most desirable to maintain the present Government in power till many important measures were passed, both for Ireland and England, and they owed so large a debt of gratitude to the Prime Minister for having done more than any other man to put an end to the baneful Government which existed a year ago, that, for his part—and he thought he might speak for many others on that side of the House—although they might not agree to some particular measure proposed by the Prime Minister, yet, if they were told that his tenure of Office was in any way endangered by their voting against such a measure, they would at once subordinate the minor to the major, and give up their own convictions and vote for that measure. But the present was not one of those cases. In this case any Radical Member might give effect to his private convictions, without the slightest chance of endangering the Government by doing so, for, in the course the Government were now pursuing, they had the inestimable advantage of the support of hon. Gentlemen sitting opposite. Everything that was said by the Prime Minister had been received with rapturous cheers. One Gentleman after another on that Bench had got up and rained down blessings on the Prime Minister and the Government. [An hon. MEMBER: When?] If the hon. Gentleman would emancipate him from the Standing Order which did not allow him to refer to previous debates he would tell him. It was possible that the hon. Gentleman himself might not be ready to rain down blessings on the Prime Minister's head; but he was a Member of the Party which was led by the Front Opposition Bench, and the House would not deny that he was strictly accurate in what was, to a certain extent, a figure of speech. Although he (Mr. Labouchere) was a genuine supporter of the Prime Minister, he did not intend to follow the example of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and to rain down blessings on his head that evening. Indeed, he occupied a somewhat singular position. He was returned there as a Radical by a very advanced constituency; and, to his surprise, he positively found himself there almost alone, with his Colleague (Mr. Bradlaugh), as an advocate of Conservatism in the real, though not in the Party, sense of the word. He appeared in the House that evening to defend one of the most ancient, most hallowed, and most time-honoured institutions of this country. He was there to defend the institution which went by the name of Habeas Corpus, and which had existed, according to Hallam, from the first records of English law. For centuries attempts were made by Monarchs to rob us of that inheritance; and for centuries Parliaments, and even the Barons, whose descendants sat somewhere in that House, defended the right of the people to Habeas Corpus. Only once since that right existed had it been suspended in England; and now that the House of Commons was called upon to suspend it in Ireland, he, for one, would unhesitatingly vote against the proposal as not being at all justified by the condition of that country. He fully admitted there might be occa- sions when it might be necessary to suspend the Habeas Corpus, as when a country was actually in revolt and civil war was imminent; but no one pretended that such a state of things existed at present in Ireland. Every hon. Gentleman would, he thought, admit that all the questions which came before the House respecting Ireland were essentially local questions. To those questions he applied one general rule—namely, the locality ought to be supreme within its limits. Differences of opinion might exist as to the unit of locality; but probably no one would deny that Ireland was a sufficiently large unit to form a locality of its own. He was ready to admit that Englishmen had many virtues, but they were somewhat intolerant; and they were curiously intolerant when any country under their rule ventured to have the same virtues as themselves. There was nothing which they valued so highly as the right of self-government; and yet when Ireland asked for self-government in local matters, they regarded the demand as being something monstrous and intolerable. Let the House suppose for a moment that Ireland were larger than England, and that in a Parliament sitting in Dublin the English Representatives were in a minority. Did anyone mean to say that they would accept the position of Irishmen legislating for them on matters regarding the tenure of land in England? He was certain that they would not; and he was not prepared to admit that English Members had the right to legislate regarding the tenure of land in Ireland, except to register the opinions of the majority of the Irish nation. It was asserted, and pretty well admitted, that the cause of the Chief Secretary bringing in his Bill was the action of the Land League; but he would ask whether the objects of that League were not essentially local? It wished to alter the tenure of land in Ireland. Would it in any way destroy or loosen the Imperial bond which united Ireland to England if fixity of tenure existed in the former country, or if a tenant was called upon to pay rent by Griffith's or any other valuation? The question was essentially local, and he held that the locality was supreme in that matter. They had been told that the Land League did not represent public opinion in Ireland. But how were they to judge of public opinion except by the voice of the majority of the Representatives; and it could not be doubted that the majority of the Members from Ireland agreed in the main with the programme of the Land League. Therefore, they might truly say that the public opinion of the majority of Irishmen was in favour of the Land League. He did not think any Member of the Cabinet would say that if Ireland were left to herself the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant would be the Minister for Ireland. He remembered that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in an able speech, said that if Ireland were removed 2,000 miles out to sea, short work would be made of the landlords. [Mr. JOHN BRIGHT dissented.] At all events, the right hon. Gentleman said something like that. It might be said that never were a people more closely united to attain a particular end than the Irish were united at the present moment. He was in the House, sitting beside Mr. Roebuck, when the question of the Irish Church was under discussion. A Gentleman on the opposite side described that Church as an institution which was loved and adored by all Irishmen. Mr. Roebuck said—

"If I were a Conservative, I should not take that line. I should say that the Irish Church is a garrison; we occupy Ireland by force; and, as long as we do so, it is a mistake to weaken the garrison by giving up the Church."

Well, the Irish landlords were now the English garrison. The speech of the Chief Secretary the other night, though exceedingly able, was very unfair. The right hon. Gentleman began by parading the outrages, with the rhetorical object of prejudicing public opinion. No doubt, he was not taking the accounts from the newspapers; but he had selected the most sensational outrages, and dwelt upon them in the most sensational manner. He went into all the details of "carding." Of course, they all regarded that as an horrible thing; but one outrage of that sort could hardly be brought forward as a charge against a nation. The right hon. Gentleman urged that it was absolutely necessary to pass this measure quickly; but he must remember that there were such things as Standing Orders, and that hon. Gentlemen opposite would be able to delay the Bill for a considerable time. The practical object of the Bill was to put a good many of their constituents in prison; and it was really taking a too Arcadian view of human nature to suppose that hon. Gentlemen opposite would not use, and even misuse, every Standing Order of the House to prevent the passing of such a Bill. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to have thought, in pleading urgency, that the Irish Members would act like the "silly dilly dilly ducks" which came to be killed when they were called. It was not at all likely, however, that they were going to do so. Although he should not abet Obstruction, yet he thought that on such an occasion as this Irish Members were perfectly justified in using, and even abusing, every Form of the House in order to prevent the passing of the Bill. As to the Returns of outrages, they had been made up of Reports submitted to the Chief Secretary, who had necessarily been unable to investigate all the cases. The Reports had come from magistrates, most of whom were landowners, and from police constables; and they knew in England how to judge of constables' evidence. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, he believed it was the experience of most London magistrates that they had a certain amount of distrust of policemen's evidence when it was unsupported. The Returns showed the constables and the magistrates had agrarianism on the brain, and that they had put down to that cause what he was convinced the House would see could not be properly put down to it. The first case in the published Returns was that of James Redmond. It appeared that—

"A portion of the front wall of an old, unoccupied thatched cabin was maliciously thrown down, in consequence of which the roof fell in. The owner of the cabin also holds a rood of land from a man named Rigley, who some time previously offered the injured person a reduction of 10 s. a-year in his rent if he would give up the land, which he refused."

The landlord, Rigley, was made amenable for this outrage; consequently, it was a case of a landlord outraging a tenant. In another case of agrarian assault, the injured persons were Margaret Lydon, Patrick Whalem, and Bridget Whalem. It appeared that—

"A dispute arose about the possession of a small plot of ground. John Lydon assaulted the injured persons."

Yet in the very next case John Lydon appeared as the injured person, because he was assaulted at the time of the above dispute by his own wife. This was obviously a little domestic difference between a husband and his spouse, yet it was converted into two separate outrages. Nothing had caused greater indignation in England than the houghing and maiming of animals; but it must be remembered—and it was no honour to Ireland—that it had been for many years a habit in that country to cut and maim cattle. [ Laughter. ] He could understand that laughter; for hon. Members came down to the House with the object of passing a Coercion Bill, and would not even look at the Returns. The Returns showed that every year for a long series of years there had been a number of cases of cuttings and mamings of cattle. Dean Swift complained of the existence of this practice in his time, and jeered his countrymen, asking them whether, like Don Quixote, they looked on a flock of sheep as an army? One case was thus described in the Returns—

"Ten sheep missing. Supposed to have been maliciously destroyed by being driven over the cliffs into the sea."

Why, somebody might have stolen the sheep, or they might have fallen over the cliffs themselves. Yet this was deliberately inserted in the Returns as a case of killing, cutting, or maiming cattle. Then there was a case of intimidation thus described—

"A party of men came to Tighe's house at night, and warned him that they would kill him unless he gave up a meadow which he bought."

The next case was one of injury to property, because "the same party, before leaving, broke Tighe's window." That was perfectly ridiculous. Case 147 was put down as an assault on a man named Mockrea, by Joseph and Margaret Connolly. Evidently there might have been a dispute, but it was supposed to be on account of a friend of Mockrea's, who was a process-server, having prosecuted a relative of Connolly in January last; that was to say, 10 months ago. He asked seriously whether there was any exaggeration in his assertion that in compiling these Returns the magistrates and constables must have had agrarianism on the brain? In case 110, Mr. Walsh was fired at on the road when returning from his lodge by four men, but was not injured. Then 111 was the case of the same Mr. Walsh, who, when fired at, immediately dismounted from his horse, and while doing so was struck with a stick and knocked down. Surely those two were one and the same assault. He appealed to the Prime Minister's own sense of fairness, after the sample outrages he had given, to look into them himself, and not be influenced by the mere general statement that there had been a great number of outrages, making up a grand total. They found hundreds or more of those outrages of much the same character; and there appeared to have been a deliberate intention to make the most of every single outrage. Unfortunately for the Chief Secretary's contention — though he would not do him the injustice of supposing that he regretted it—the outrages, to a great extent, ceased after the first Return. They had a Return of the first 14 days of January, and what did he find? Let them remember that Ireland was the country which they were told at the commencement of the Session was in so terribly disturbed a state that not only property, but life, was insecure, and that was the main reason why that coercive policy was adopted. Well, during those 14 days in January there were no murders, no manslaughter, no cutting or maiming; there were four cases of attacking houses, two of firing at the person, one assault endangering life, and one aggravated assault. [An hon. MEMBER: And no convictions.] There were about 5,500,000 inhabitants in Ireland; and it must be remembered that the police unquestionably put down agrarian as outrages all offences which were in any way, however remotely, connected with land. Land was, moreover, the only industry in the country; and he defied them to find 5,500,000 human beings under any other Government in the world who could show in 14 days so good a record as that. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was quite equal to the occasion—he gave up the outrages. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that there were no outrages, so to say, now; but why, he asked, was that? It was an additional argument in his favour, because it showed that a terrible intimidation must exist to hinder those outrages. That was the purest assumption on the right hon. Gentleman's part. They had the fact that there were no outrages, and the right ion. Gentleman said he would tell them why that was the case. "The Irish are, in the first place, frightened of me and my Bill; and, in the second place, they are frightened at the Land League; it is organized now; it would inflict such fearful outrages on any person who dared to dispute its mandates." And how did the right hon. Gentleman prove that? Se really did not know. His own impression was that the Land League exercised a great authority in Ireland, and he would admit that in all those great popular movements there were some people who lagged behind. The Land League brought them into the fold by the threat of a social ban called "Boycotting;" or, as the Prime Minister had happily described it, "exclusive trading." They knew the Irish to be a genial and social people, who especially disliked being cut by their friends; and he believed that the fear of being excluded from all intercourse with their friends and being able to take part in a great national movement induced a great many of them to be obedient to the mandates of the Land League. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary regarded exclusive trading as a moral sin. That was the right hon. Gentleman's view, but it was not his. However, the right hon. Gentleman said he did not think that exclusive trading was a crime, and that he would not legislate for it. But as the outrages had ceased, for what was he legislating according to his own argument? Why, he was suspending the Habeas Corpus Act to put an end to that exclusive trading. In 1846 Sir James Graham, in the Government of Sir Robert Peel, brought in a Coercion Bill. One whole day was occupied in discussing whether the Ministers should obtain precedence for the Bill even for one day; and on looking into Hansard, he found that Sir George Grey, Lord John Russell, Mr. Cobden, and many other Gentlemen took the line on that question which was taken by the Irish Members in the present case. The Bill was brought forward on the 30th of March; the discussion on the first reading lasted seven days; and among the Obstructives on that occasion appeared the honoured names of John Bright and Richard Cobden. The minority who voted against that Bill on the first reading was 125, who were by no means exclusively Irish Members. The debate on the second reading lasted six nights. They seemed to be giants in those days, for now they were horrified at one night. There voted against the Bill 292 Members. The Government on that occasion found themselves deserted by their Friends, who voted against them in such numbers that the Government had to resign. He would be sorry if that should be the fate of the present Ministry. Sir Robert Peel admitted that in bringing in a Coercion Bill it was necessary to establish that there existed, both as to the frequency of the crimes and, above all, as to the character of the offences committed, a necessity for some extraordinary measures. Now, Returns had been then placed in the hands of Members which gave a totally different aspect to affairs as they at present existed. There was no separation in the Returns for agrarian and other kinds of crime, as Sir Robert Peel thought that would be confusing. They were for the year 1845, and he would compare them with the Returns for 1880. In the former year the number of cases of injury to property was 410, while in the latter it was 506; but, of course, that number included the broken pane of glass. In 1845 the number of cases of firing was 138; in 1880 it was 70. In 1845 the number of cases of attacking houses was 483; in 1880 it was 22. In 1845 the number of cases of firing into houses was 134; in 1880 it was 98. In 1845 the number of cases of sending threatening letters was 1,944; in 1880 it was 1,750. He did not attach much importance to this item, however, because it was absurd to call the sending of threatening letters an outrage. If the sending a threatening letter was an outrage, he had been outraged in his life as much as the entire body of Irish landlords. Yet he had peacefully pursued the even tenour of his way, without calling upon the Prime Minister to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act for his protection. In 1845 the number of cases of incendiarism was 508; in 1880 it was 504. In 1845 the number of cases of assaults endangering life was 777; in 1880 it was 535. It was, however, important to observe that the average of such cases of assaults during the last 10 years was 542; and, therefore, the number in 1880 was actually seven below the average number. In 1845 the homi- cides and murders were 139; and in 1880, 69; whereas the average of murders and homicides for the previous 10 years was 82, or 13 more than the number in the last year. The right hon. Gentleman had said that this Bill was directed against three classes of the community—against the miscreants, against the blackguards, and against a third class whom he veiled in the obscurity of a foreign language. [An hon. MEMBER: Dissolute ruffians.] The right hon. Gentleman implied that these blackguards and ruffians constituted the leading members of the local Land Leagues. Did the right hon. Gentleman know that a very large number of the most respectable shopkeepers were members of the local Land Leagues; and that in the South and West of Ireland the chairman of most of the local Land Leagues was a priest? They might differ from the priests in matters of faith; but no one had ever asserted that their lives were not pure and honest, and he was surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman say these men were dissolute ruffians and blackguards.

I am sure the hon. Member does not wish to misrepresent me. If he heard or read my speech he would have found I said nothing of the kind.

said, he had heard that speech and read it, and the remark of the right hon. Gentleman would lead him to give himself the additional pleasure of reading it a second time. He thought the right hon. Gentleman did speak in that sense. But although the right hon. Gentleman implied that the suspension of the Habeas Corpus was only aimed at dissolute ruffians and blackguards, yet later on in his speech he showed that this measure was directed against the leaders of the Land League. Now, he was sure the right hon. Gentleman would not for a moment say that all the leaders of the Land League were dissolute ruffians. He knew that there were men connected with the League who, although they might not agree with them, were as honourable as any man in that House. And what did he hear when the right hon. Gentleman came to that part of his speech in which he frankly told the House what this Bill was? He heard the abominable and hideous doctrine of constructive treason. He found that men were to be cast into prison because of something said at a public meeting which might be twisted as a recommendation, to someone else to violate the law. But even that was not enough. The right hon. Gentleman was not satisfied with having this power to use against anyone who spoke according to his convictions in Ireland, but he sought to make it ex post facto. In his view, that was a monstrous proposal. The right hon. Gentleman told them that the law would not only deter for the future, but that gentlemen must consider very carefully every word that they had already spoken, and that if such words could be brought within the limits of constructive treason they might find themselves in prison for 18 months. The right hon. Gentleman had called this a Protection Bill—[An hon. MEMBER: A Liberty Bill.]—but he ventured to say that history would give it its true designation of a Coercion Bill. The right hon. Gentleman was very indignant when someone said he was going to punish the innocent with the guilty, and he defied anyone to prove that assertion. He accepted the challenge of the right hon. Gentleman. What was the Habeas Corpus? The Habeas Corpus was a possession, a property. That eminent Conservative—Dr. Samuel Johnson—had said that the one advantage which the inhabitants of this country had, as compared with the inhabitants of other countries, was that we had the Habeas Corpus as a guarantee against arbitrary arrest; and he (Mr. Labouchere) said that when the Government were going to deprive the whole Irish nation of this guarantee they did necessarily punish the innocent with the guilty. Lord Macaulay said James II. wanted to get a repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act, as it was natural a tyrant should. Hallam said that immunity from arbitrary imprisonment was a fundamental and absolute right not conferred by Habeas Corpus, but secured by Magna Charta, if not earlier. The argument in favour of coercion was invariably the same. They were always told it was not aimed against the innocent; that, on the contrary, it was intended to protect the innocent from a few desperate and reckless men. These arguments were used by Sejanus when he proposed in the Roman Senate the law of Majestas; and they were also used in the French Assembly when, after the Orsini attempt, it was proposed and carried to give the Emperor power to banish any man without trial. The right hon. Gentleman said that one proof that this Bill was urgently required was that the number of persons under police supervision in Ireland had increased; but the truth was that that number had only increased 10 between November and December. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson), in the course of a recent speech, gave some details regarding this question of police supervision and protection. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said he had a friend living quietly on his estate in Ireland in the belief that no single one of his tenants would do him harm. Walking out on one occasion, this gentleman was met by a policeman, who expressed surprise that he had not asked for police protection. On the gentleman saying that he saw no necessity for such protection, the police officer said that while it was probably true that of 200 people on the estate 199 would do him no harm, the two hundredth man might, and, therefore, he ought to ask for police protection. He did not, of course, know whether the policeman was acting as an agent provocateur; but he certainly said that in his view the landlord ought to have the protection of at least two constables. The right hon. and learned Gentleman in his speech went on to say that he could not understand any landlord accepting such an escort except as a last resort, because nothing could be much more unpleasant than for a peaceful and law-abiding man to be placed in a position of the kind. An expression of opinion of the kind was somewhat surprising coming from such a quarter; because he had always understood that the great ones of the earth—Monarchs and Princes included—were always fenced round by police protection when they ventured abroad. There being a difficulty in obtaining evidence against persons suspected of crime, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had substituted for such necessity a provision under which any man might go secretly to a magistrate and give information against his fellow-citizens, on which information they might be deprived of liberty. As far as he was personally concerned, he should much prefer that no arrests took place in Ireland rather than that men should be taken into custody on the strength of statements made by secret informers, whom he regarded as the lowest, vilest, and most contemptible of the human race. He would not believe one word they brought to him, and most assuredly he would not act upon it. The right hon. Gentleman said he would take care that no one was illegally arrested. But in whom did he place the power, and from whom did he receive his information? He received it from the camp of the enemy—from landlords, from magistrates (most of whom were landlords), and from police constables, who were under the control of both classes to a very great extent. As an illustration of the bitterness with which the Irish magistracy regarded the Land League, he need only refer to the course taken by the Chief Justice in Ireland. If conduct such as that of Chief Justice May was to be expected from the head of the Irish magistracy, what was to be looked for in the case of some wretched stipendiary. Every hon. Member would remember that Chief Justice May, in open Court, made such references to a case which was pending, but had not come to trial, as caused him later to feel ashamed of what he had said, and to retire from the trial which came to an end in Dublin on Tuesday last. As another reason for supporting the Government, they were told that an effect of passing the Bills would be to procure juries who would convict prisoners brought before them. That might or might not be the case; but, as far as as he was concerned, he was unable to understand how it could be the business of the Executive Government to take care that juries always convicted. His noble Friend the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had complained that Her Majesty's Government did not follow the unusual and wicked course of packing the jury which had recently heard the State Trials in Dublin—[Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL dissented]—but he thought no stronger proof was to be found that Irish jurors might discharge their duties without danger than the fact that no harm had come to the two dissentient jurors who were known to be in favour of convicting the traversers. Furthermore, he had noticed that since the conclusion of the trial that much-maligned man, Mr. Davitt, had upheld the perfect right of those two men to determine on taking any course which they could reconcile with their consciences. Another reason that had been urged in support of the present Bill was that the Land League had established what were called land courts; but, as a matter of fact, these courts were courts of appeal from denunciations made by members of the League, and therefore offered what he could not but regard as a kind of rude justice as between individual members of the League and suspected persons. It could not be denied that this Bill was deliberately brought in, not for the purpose of suppressing outrages, for there were no outrages; not for the purpose of suppressing exclusive dealing, for the right hon. Gentleman had said he would not legislate against exclusive dealing; the whole object was to enable landlords to collect their rents. The view which was held in Ireland—the people of that country being essentially an honest race—was that the tenants had a certain proprietorial right in the soil, but the English law denied that right in every shape; and, further, as in the case of proceedings under the Encumbered Estates Act, enabled, even encouraged, "landgrabbers" to proceed on the principle of rack-renting by advertising properties for sale, and holding out as an inducement to purchasers that such properties were capable of an increased rent. Feeling had changed in reference to this matter in recent times; and he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the opponents of Ministers were acting on precisely the same lines which he followed in reference to the Compensation for Disturbance Bill of last year. Then the Conservatives denounced Ministers for attacking the sanctity of contract, and now Ministers denounce the Land League for the same thing. It was clear from the Report of the Land Commission, which, owing to the kindness, he could not say indiscretion, of the right hon. Gentleman, was published a day or two back, that in the minds of some Members of the Commission there was an opinion in favour of tenant right; and, therefore, he could not but think that the Land League were justified in asking that there should be a truce, as far as coercion was concerned, until Parliament and the country had been afforded an opportunity of knowing the nature of the proposals in the direction of Land Law Reform which the Government meant to bring forward. Exclusive dealing, or "Boycotting," as it had come to be called, instead of having been, as some persons thought, invented in Ireland, was about as old as the world, and almost universal. In Scotland there was a social ban; and if a man did not agree with his Kirk he was excommunicated. What was that but exclusive dealing? Then, again, there were election cases in this country where if A and B did not vote in accordance with the wishes of a great man they lost his custom; and was not that exclusive dealing? In the management of estates in Ireland there was a species of "Boycotting," as absurd regulations were laid laid down, and tenants who broke them were turned out of their holdings. Well, after all, would this Bill effect a remedy for the grievances which existed? The right hon. Gentleman said it would; but they had had at least a dozen Coercion Bills, and though they made matters quiet for a time they were no real remedy. Other Bills of the sort followed, and the people remained very dissatisfied. In Ireland there was but one of two policies to be pursued—coercion, or satisfaction. They could not halt between those policies. They should consider the geographical and political relation between the two Islands, and give satisfaction to the Irish. He would go further, and say they should give some sort of measure of Home Rule to enable them to manage their own affairs, or they would have to pass Coercion Bill after Coercion Bill for Ireland. No doubt the Chief Secretary would not withdraw his Coercion Bill, and he would be supported in his policy of coercion by the majority of the Liberal Members. But there was one point on which there was not unanimity among those sitting on the Government side of the House, and that was that the Chief Secretary had not accompanied his Bill with some clause giving protection to tenants. There was a strong consensus of opinion among the Radical Members that such a clause should be inserted; and, if so, it would not meet with obstruction from the hon. Gentlemen from Ireland who opposed the Bill generally. There was a class of landlords in Ireland who regarded themselves as, and they were, to a certain extent, a kind of beneficent providence to their tenants, but who were very angry if their rents were not paid. He had talked to a good many of those gentlemen, and very worthy people they seemed to be, and some of them said that they would get rid of their tenants before the Land Bill became law.

May I ask the hon. Member to name the landlords?

said, he would follow the example set by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and decline to mention names. There was another class of landlords who bought their land in the Encumbered Estates Court, and who looked upon the transaction as a monetary speculation; and there could be no doubt that they would consult their own interests, and take advantage of the pressure of the Land League being taken off to evict every tenant from their estates, as they could do so for non-payment of rent, without compensation. The noble Lord asked him to name a landlord. He would not name any landlord with whom he had a private conversation; but he would, as a specimen, give him the name of one landlord. He alluded to Lord Dunally, who owned 21,000 acres in the county of Tipperary, and who wrote a letter which appeared in The Dublin Daily Express of the 21st instant. It would be remembered that many landlords had been in the habit of making what they called rules for their estates, which they said were rules in the interest of morality and decency. In that letter Lord Dunally said that at a meeting of the Dublin Land League, it had been said that he always made a daughter who succeeded her parents in the possession of a farm pay him half her fortune. That assertion was, he said, based on the fact, in one case, that of an old couple living on their holding, their daughter being about to be married, offered him £20 to be allowed to live with her parents. He did not in general allow a second family to live on a holding; but in this case he assented; and the £20 was paid. In another case a son wished with his two children to live on his parents' farm, and offered £20 for leave to do so. Lord Dunally assented; but the House would be glad to hear "that he never received the money." Another case was named in which similar leave was given, and a sum of £20 paid for the permission. Now, he challenged any hon. Member to produce any document of the Land League more outrageous, he would say more infamous, than that letter. He was not bringing a general charge against the Irish landlords. No doubt many would fulfil their duty; but here was a case of a landlord with 20,000 acres in Tipperary, and, no doubt, there were many such as he was. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, in the names of the thousands, the millions almost, of Radicals in England who believed in him as a cardinal article of their faith—did he not remember what took place little more than a year ago?—did the Conservatives support him then? No; they said he was an inspired maniac. Did the Whigs support him? No; they intrigued against him. And what happened? The right hon. Gentleman turned his back upon London, upon the Conservatives, and upon the Whigs. He appealed to the nation, and the nation registered the verdict which had placed him in his present position. It was in the name of those men—men who were most anxious to have full justice done to Ireland, who did not believe that it was possible that justice could be done if the Coercion Bill were not accompanied by some sort of security that it would not be abused by the landlords—that he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman and to his noble instincts to give to the occupiers of the soil in Ireland, if he went on with this wretched Coercion Bill, which he was sure the right hon. Gentleman hated as much as any man in the House, that small modicum of justice which would protect them from those who for centuries had not known what mercy was.

It is impossible for me, Sir, to express the regret I feel in finding myself compelled to take the course which I intend to do on this occasion. Since I have been in this House, it has been one of my most pleasing duties to take part in promoting every measure which has been introduced for the benefit of the Irish people. There are many hon. Gentlemen from Ireland, new to the House, who may not have personal knowledge of the course I have taken on Irish affairs; but there are others who have, and who can tell them that I habitually acted with such men as the late Mr. Maguire, Sir John Gray, Mr. M'Carthy Downing, and my lamented Friend the late Sir Colman O'Loghlen. I have supported, I believe, every proposal emanating from hon. Gentlemen from Ireland intended for the benefit of their country. I saw lately a list of Irish Bills which had been introduced by Irish Members, only two of which had passed this House. I voted for every one of those measures; and I may add that I myself presented to the Sovereign a Petition praying for the release of the Fenian prisoners. I also supported the Motions made from time to time here for that purpose. No man will doubt then, I hope, my sympathy with the Irish people, and with their just claims, or the sincerity of my feelings, when I say that my position at this moment is one of the deepest sorrow to me. But, painful as it is, I have a solemn duty before me; and, after the fullest consideration of the circumstances, I have no doubt what that duty is—namely, to support the cause of law and order. Not only is that the first duty of a Government, but it is, in my judgment, the best, the surest, and the necessary means for insuring a careful consideration, and the removal of Irish grievances. The House has been treated to a very facetious speech by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere); but he has been more facetious than fair, more humorous than consistent. The hon. Member said he was a Radical, and at the same time a Conservative, because he was here as a Conservative to support the most ancient and most cherished property of a Briton; whilst, on the other hand, as a Radical, he testified his value for that property by protesting against the Motion before the House. But the hon. Gentleman followed up that statement by another. He said if the question before the House were one of throwing out the Government or not, if upon the issue depended the existence of Her Majesty's Government, he would give up those cherished convictions of his, give up what he holds to be the cause of liberty itself, and surrender all, everything, in order to keep Her Majesty's Government in power. What consistency is there in that position? Two such discordant sounds cannot be made to harmonize. It is very easy for an hon. Member to come here and ventilate a principle of theoretical politics, which nobody denies or doubts; but that is no solution of a practical difficulty, not the way to deal practically with a practical and pressing evil. No man on this side of the House, and no hon. Member on the Opposition Benches, I believe, but must contemplate the proposal before the House with regret and pain. I give credit to hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side for cherishing personal liberty as much as we do on this side. We can all imagine the possible dangers which beset society when deprived of those safeguards which the Constitution and our Statute Law have given us. But I have to choose between two policies. I have to choose between an irresponsible authority that subverts the liberty we cherish, and the responsible Government which is amenable to the law as well as to the public opinion of the country. I have, on the one side, a body of persons who, combining together for the accomplishment of a great and noble object, pursue a course which supersedes and defies the law, which deprives society of its legal safeguards, and subjects it to their irresponsible will. I have, on the one side, the League which issues its mandates, and under whose influence, whether intentional or not, loyaland law-abiding subjects have had their rights invaded and trampled down; and, on the other, the responsible, Constitutional Government of the country, charged with the duty of protecting and maintaining those rights. I have, I say, to choose between these two powers; and I do not hesitate to say that I would rather trust myself to the legally constituted authority of Her Majesty's Government, who are answerable not only to the law which they have to uphold, but to public opinion as well, and who can be called to account for every act they do—a Government, moreover, composed of men whose character has been tested by long years of public service. The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) referred to some of the cases in the Returns. Those cases show inaccuracies and errors, no doubt; but three or four such instances do not affect the enormous mass reported, against which the hon. Gentleman has not a word to say. I cannot admit, either, the position taken up by some hon. Gentlemen from Ireland. Indeed, it is too great a demand upon our credulity, when they affirm, and ask us to believe, that the outrages and lawless acts in the Returns are either exaggerations, or inventions of the police, or concoctions of the magistracy. Making allowance for exceptional cases of class prejudice, I cannot believe that the magistrates of Ireland are so obtuse or so base as not to investigate honestly the cases that come before them, and that they would wilfully, deliberately, and wickedly suggest and report cases of wrong done for which there was no foundation. Yet this is what we are asked to believe, both of the magistracy and of the police. But it is not, after all, so much the cases of outrage taken by themselves upon which Irely, or even on the Charges of the Irish Judges, as the fact of the enormous influence which, the Land League has exercised, and the consequences arising from the manner in which it has exercised that influence. That Association, in its inception, was perfectly lawful. It might have exerted a beneficent influence. It might have enlightened public opinion in England, which required to be enlightened. It would have enormously strengthened the hands of the Government by so doing. Consider of whom the Government is composed. First, there is the Prime Minister, a statesman who has shown more courage as well as capacity in dealing with Irish questions than any other statesman who has preceded him. He is seconded by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and we know his high sense of justice and what his feelings have always been towards Ireland. We have the Chief Secretary for Ireland, whose sterling character and ability we all know. These right hon. Gentlemen, and others whom I could name, out of the Cabinet as well as in it, are known friends of Ireland and friends of freedom. A Government so composed ought to have had a chance; but no such chance has been given it. They were no sooner called to power than the Land League was set in motion, and, instead of helping and strengthening the Government, it did everything, whether intentionally or not I do not pretend to say, but it did everything calculated to embarrass them, and it succeeded at last in making government in Ireland, by the ordinary course of law, impossible. Had the League taken a different course, had they acted with wisdom and modera- tion, they would have rendered inestimable service to Ireland. As it is, they have brought Ireland to a condition for which they are answerable, and they have no right to complain if recourse is now had to the only means for restoring the authority of the law, which their own action has set aside. Their whole system, either by themselves, their emissaries, or their branches, has been one of coercion. They have no right, then, to complain of coercion. But what the Government proposes is not coercion. It is protection for the law-abiding citizen against the coercion and tyranny of those who defy and supersede the law, and who have established a system of terrorism which no Government worthy of the name could tolerate. Why was not the murder of Lord Mountmorres denounced at the time by the League? Why was not the murder of poor young Boyd also? The League should have lost no time in condemning these foul deeds, and have warned the people against such acts or any breaches of the law. But what took place? Some of the leaders in their speeches, it is true, made allusion to these murders; but their allusions were worse than if they had kept silence. They told the people that it was unnecessary for them to shoot landlords, because they had the League to vindicate their rights—that, in short, it was inexpedient to commit murder. That was the sum of their denunciations; not a word of reprobation for the moral crime. Had these leaders denounced the murders, as they ought to have done, there would have been no outrages; all England and Scotland, every Liberal in both countries would have been with them, and they would have been a tower of strength to their country. But they were silent, or they spoke, as they should not have spoken, in a way that did not tend to discourage men from acts of violence. At a late period—indeed, a few weeks ago—after matters had come to such a pass that the Government could forbear no longer, we heard some feeble denunciation of what had taken place. I read a manifesto issued by the League, proclaiming the impropriety of the course taken with regard to murder and breaches of the law. The hon. Member for Northampton, perhaps, will take the evidence of this manifesto as proving that there were outrages. If there were none, or none of a serious kind, they would not have been referred to in the manifesto. Pick holes in the Returns as you please; but let hon. Gentlemen answer me this question, What is the origin of the term "Boycotting?" Is it true, or is it not, that Captain Boycott could not get a labourer to take in his harvest, because no one dared serve him save at the peril of his life? That he had to get labourers from a distant country under a military escort? Is that true, or is it not? Take the case of Mr. Bence Jones, a gentleman who invested capital and spent it well in the country. It has been attempted to get up an outcry against him, as I have heard insinuations against poor Lord Mountmorres to neutralize the detestation felt for the deed and the sympathy for his family. Take the case of Mr. Bence Jones's cattle. Is it true or not that his cattle were followed to Dublin, and that a Steamship Company dared not take them on board in order to carry them to Liverpool? If these are facts, what do they show? I put them in place of all the Returns, and far above them, as proving an organized system of terrorism and coercion, under which the commonest rights of the subject were wrested from him with impunity, because the helpless victim of an irresponsible tyranny. Such a condition of things no real friend of Ireland would wish to see prolonged one hour beyond what could be avoided. I know that hon. Gentlemen who are members of the League are patriots; but I regret that they did not take the course followed by Mr. O'Connell. He denounced every man who committed a crime as a traitor to his country and his cause; but Mr. O'Connell was a great man. I say these things with the deepest regret, for some of the hon. Gentlemen who have taken the course they have done are Gentlemen whom I have respected, and with whom I have acted on Irish questions in this House. But can any man seriously suppose that trust can be put in the denials of these outrages, and in the attempt to explain them away? Making due allowance for exaggeration and inaccurate Returns, it is impossible that any man of sense could have read of what has been been going on in Ireland for the last six months without seeing that the law there is, to a great extent, insufficient and inoperative. The hon. Member for Northampton made something like a joke of the argument that this Bill was introduced because, among other things, it was impossible to procure convictions. I agree with him that it is not the duty of the Executive to see that convictions take place in the Courts of Law; but it is the duty of the Executive to see that justice is administered, and if the ordinary law fails to meet the demands of justice it should amend or add to that law even by a measure of special or exceptional stringency. Trades unions were referred to as an analogous case; but when some of the members of these unions were led into excesses, what did we do? We passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act to meet the case, and that put an end to the excesses. Nothing more was necessary, because men, knowing that they had the protection of the law, were not afraid to come forward as witnesses, and juries were not afraid to convict. Can hon. Members from Ireland lay their hands on their hearts and say that this is the case in Ireland? I do not charge the Irish people with being addicted to crime, and I agree with the hon. Member for Northampton in the eulogium he passed upon them; but there have been agrarian outrages, cruel assassinations, maiming of cattle, barbarous acts against landlords and tenants, and not a man has come forward, or dared to come forward, in order to bring the offenders to justice. I have here a Return of last year's crime, and I find that of 2,590 agrarian offences, only 83 were brought to justice. What do these figures show? Strike off some hundreds if you like; but you have remaining an enormous bulk, and out of the whole number only 83 are brought to justice. Is a man to be murdered, and, although the murderer is known, no man dare come forward against him? Is a man to have his house broken into, and be beaten with sticks, and have his furniture smashed to pieces, his hay scattered over the fields, or burnt, and his cattle maimed, while such is the state of terror in those parts that there is not a person who could, with safety to himself, come forward and give evidence? The hon. Member for Northampton spoke very lightly of what, using the Prime Minister's phrase, he termed "exclusive dealing." You may call it by what name you please; but to refuse to deal with a man, to refuse to supply him with the necessaries of life, to refuse to serve him, or allow others to do so, to shun him even in the Temple of Worship, to refuse to sit beside him, and to treat him as a "leper," is a condition of things utterly intolerable, and, to my mind, one of the very worst forms of human wickedness. It is asked, how will a Coercion Bill meet such evils as these? The Coercion Bill will make men feel that they can go to bed without having loaded revolvers or pistols beside them, and without the fear that their house will be broken into by an armed band. The people addicted to these practices will know that they must give them up, or leave the country. People will know that there is redress at law for injury done. Witnesses will not be afraid to come forward, nor juries to convict. A labourer or a tradesman will know that he may serve whom he pleases, and that no one will be able to prevent him. Terror will cease, and men will be able to pursue their lawful avocations in peace. The wrong-doer only will be in dread. He will dread to incur the risk of breaking the law. The hon. Member for Northampton referred to the present land tenure in Ireland. We have, somehow, not been successful in dealing with this question. For upwards of 40 years there have been attempts to deal with it. It has always been my opinion that the introduction of the English system of land tenure into Ireland was a mistake. It was opposed to the social habits and traditions of the people; and those who possess the land have not succeeded in reconciling them to it. I go to the whole extent with the hon. Member for Northampton on this subject. In the matter of the land, I think it is a question entirely for the Irish people to determine for themselves, as I think it is in all matters relating to purely Irish local affairs. In Irish affairs I have always acted and voted upon this principle, and in accordance with the opinions of the Irish Members. My hon. Friend says if the issue of the debate turned upon the displacement of the Ministry he would not take the part he has done; he would vote for the Ministry, however much he disapproved the measure; but I say that, bad as I believe the state of things to be in Ireland, much as I believe some measure of the kind proposed to be necessary, I would not support it but for the confidence I have in the assurances of the Government that it is their intention to bring in a Land Bill which will deal thoroughly and conclusively with the Land Question. I do not believe in coercive measures simply; I do not believe in coercion as a remedy for a great grievance; and if the Government had not given the assurances they have done, that it is their intention, at the earliest moment possible, to bring in a great, comprehensive, remedial measure, I would not be here to support them. It is upon that condition that I give my support to their policy. I believe the Government have made out a case. I think that the knowledge we have from the ordinary sources of information, both public and private, apart from the assurance of the Government, is enough to satisfy every reasonable man that the state of things in Ireland is intolerable. Hon. Gentlemen say—"Look, within the last few days there has been a great change. During the first 14 days of January there were 287 agrarian outrages; since that time there have been only a few." And they point to that as a reason why this measure should not pass. I consider that to be a reason why it should pass; because, if the bare idea that Government has determined to put a stop to lawlessness has been sufficient to lessen it, not to proceed would be to show weakness, and restore and give a fresh impetus to disorder. It is said that since this proposal has been before Parliament the League has issued its mandate, and outrages have ceased, or have lessened. If that be true, I ask, why did they not issue their mandate before? Why is their mandate powerful now, and why was it powerless a few months or weeks ago? I make all allowance for enthusiasm and for the exasperation of men witnessing, or suffering under, great wrongs; but it is the duty of the leaders of a great movement to tone down those feelings and keep a check upon the use of intemperate language and upon the excitement of their followers. They should remember the people they are dealing with. The Irish are a suffering race. The condition of the West of Ireland is truly appalling. It makes one shudder to think that under any civilized Govern- ment there should be such misery, such poverty, such utter helplessness. The poor people in those parts bear their troubles with a marvellous patience; but they are, on that account, difficult and inflammable material to deal with. Their condition makes them so. They would not be human if they were otherwise. Their leaders ought, therefore, to have been careful not to stir up hostile feelings and excite bad passions among them. It is impossible that the Government of England can allow the laws any longer to be set at defiance, or permit a state of things to continue, under which the Queen's Writ cannot run, and a process-server cannot perform his duty. The hon. Member speaks of liberty. Liberty does not belong to one section of a community only, it is the birthright of all. It cannot exist without law, there can be no freedom without order; and when the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Labouchere) invokes the sacred name of "liberty," he should remember that it is the first condition as it is the greatest treasure of civilized society. It is our duty to cherish it, and not suffer it to be trampled under foot by any section of the people. For these reasons, but with the deepest regret—and hon. Gentlemen opposite will believe me when they know what I have done on Irish questions, as I shall be prepared to do again—I feel bound to support Her Majesty's Government. I shall support them because I have confidence in them; and, if we have confidence in the Government, we must trust them. In the present crisis it is of the utmost importance that we should do so. The Government should be strengthened by the support of the whole Liberal Party, because this support is absolutely necessary if we expect them to carry hereafter effective remedial measures for Ireland. Let our ranks be broken, allow the Government to rest in any appreciable degree upon the support of the Opposition, however sincere that support might be with regard to the measure now before the House, and we shall weaken their hands with regard to the remedial measures which they have promised. We shall place them at a disadvantage from which no efforts of the Liberal Party will be able to relieve them. Let us show ourselves now a united Party, and the Government will be, hereafter, in the hands of their own natural supporters. They will then be able to produce a Land Bill for Ireland which no landlord interest or Party combinations will be able to resist; and a true remedy, let us hope, will then have been found for the grievances of that hitherto unfortunate country.

had heard the speech of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) with great pleasure, and he felt sure it would be received with satisfaction by a larger circle outside the constituency of Northampton when public opinion in England and Scotland came to be enlightened upon this subject. That was the first time he had known the hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon) taking a course hostile to the interests of Ireland. He denied that the Land League were responsible for the outrages. From the very first they had discouraged them. The hon. and learned Member had reminded them of O'Connell's saying that the man who committed a crime gave assistance to the enemy. He did not know how many public meetings he had attended in Ireland, and he had heard that statement made so often that he felt inclined to say the people had not the smallest intention to commit any crime whatever. The hon. and learned Member challenged them to defend "Boycotting," and he rested the case entirely on the case of Captain Boycott, who had the credit of introducing a new word into the English language. Captain Boycott was an agent whose conduct made him extremely unpopular. The people "Boycotted" him—in other words, they refused to take his money in exchange for their labour. That was a course they were perfectly justified in taking, and when he saw them take it he rejoiced at it. The hon. Member for Northampton alluded to the position of Irish Members in that House. They could not but feel that it was exceptional, peculiar, and painful. Ireland was the only country in the world with representative institutions whose Representatives were utterly powerless. The result was a state of things unparalleled, and which could not be paralleled in any country enjoying a popular form of government—the majority of the Irish Members in favour of one policy, the Executive Government determined to carry out another by resorting to brute force. The right hon. Gentleman, with a high hand and in utter contempt for the franchise of the Irish people, overruled their Representatives, and showed that he was more influenced by the word of one English Member than by the appeals of 20 or 30 Irish Members. How did they sustain their statement that coercion was unnecessary? By reference to the Paper of the Government itself. According to that document there were in 1880, 8 murders, 7 assaults on the police, 17 cases of overholding of an agrarian character, some 13,000 or 14,000 threatening letters entrusted to the Postmaster General for delivery, 215 cases of injury to property—which might include anything from the blowing up of a house to the wrenching off of a knocker—101 cases of cutting, wounding, or maiming cattle, and 67 cases of firing into houses. The spokesmen of the Government had done their best to make the list look as formidable as possible, and, as presented at first, it was calculated to produce a most erroneous impression on the minds of ordinary readers. A description was given to the House of what was near being a tragic event. A father and daughter were sitting in their drawing-room after dark, when suddenly a bullet crashed through the glass and the window-shutters and lodged in the opposite wall. That was how the story was varnished up for the House of Commons and the gullible British public by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland.

I never referred to it, good, bad, or indifferent.

I have the most distinct recollection that the hon. and learned Gentleman did.

I have no recollection of having referred to it, but I shall refer to it.

said, he would, of course, accept the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman. The House had been reminded that night that that outrage had been denied by the police, and the police were straining their eyes into every case which might appear to have the quality of outrage. These men were stimulated by self-interest. They knew that every man who had no eyes for incendiary fires or no ears for seditious words would be likely to end his career as he had begun it, in the capacity of full private. But, looking at the Paper of outrages, would anyone who called himself a Liberal say that it furnished the Government with a justification for depriving the Irish people of their liberties, and placing their persons at the mercy of the police and a partizan magistracy? Suspending the Constitution would not help them to procure evidence unless they used the power of arrest as a means of torture, nor could they coerce the decision of juries, as they seemed anxious to do. In the two last cases of the suspension of the Constitution, the Government had the excuse that there were then in Ireland persons who had come from America for an unlawful purpose, and it was said that the suspension of the Constitution would, if did not compel the departure of these men, enable them to be seized. There was no excuse of that kind now, so that all they would be able to accomplish by their interference with the public liberty would be to render impracticable the carrying on of a lawful and Constitutional agitation. It was unjust in the highest degree for any English Government to hamper or prevent Constitutional agitation; and for a Liberal Government to do so was a violation of the Liberal creed, and perfectly inconsistent with the professions of those who were the backbone of the present Ministry. In a very interesting work by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, called Young Ireland, he found in a note a passage which, as it would apply to the present state of things, he would read.

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

proceeded to quote a passage from Young Ireland with reference to the Repeal agitation in 1843, to the effect that in England critics were agreed that the distress, however serious, could not be helped by agitation, and that, on the contrary, the first step towards improvement was to be taken by renouncing agitation once for all. The wisdom of this counsel was subsequently tested when commercial depression fell upon England, and the manufacturers of the North formed the Anti-Corn Law League. In a country where there were a thousand wrongs, no redress was to be obtained except after agitation. Like the milkman who went on watering his milk till his customers cried out, the Government continued to blunder till the people rose against them. That was Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's view of the situation in Ireland in 1843. Now, the present Government were unquestionably the political heirs of Mr. Cobden, whose most trusted Colleague was now a Cabinet Minister, and it was certain that they derived considerable strength from that fact. The Government and the country could hardly have forgotten the energy with which Mr. Cobden propagated his principles by means of great meetings and unceasing denunciations of those whom he deemed responsible for the evils he combated. And yet, in their method of procedure, the Anti-Corn Law League and the Land League were identical. Mr. Cobden and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) held up the landlords of England to the odium of their countrymen; and, in like manner, the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) charged the Irish landlords with making and maintaining laws that enriched themselves and impoverished the people. In a speech delivered in London, in 1843, Mr. Cobden pointed out that the landlords of Great Britain were largely responsible for the existing distress, and argued that when prices were low the tenant farmers had to stint themselves to pay their rent, while, when prices were high, the operatives had to spend too great a proportion of their wages on necessary food. No one could suppose that such a state of things was natural; but all would inevitably conclude that the laws of wicked men had been substituted for the wisdom of God. During bad seasons the landlords

"Revelled in a bloated and diseased prosperity, and when the people were suffering raised their rents from the capital of the trading community or the farmers. Shame upon the landlords and their order unless they rescued themselves from that degrading dilemma!"

Again, he might quote from speeches delivered by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to much the same effect. Speaking in London, in 1845, the right hon. Gentleman, whom he was glad to see again in his place, plainly fixed the responsibility of distress on the proprietors of the land, and used the following words:—

"Although the great and powerful may not regret those who suffer mutely and die in silence, the recording angel will write down their patient endurance and the heavy guilt of those by whom they have been sacrificed."

In another passage, the right hon. Gentleman, after reminding his hearers that their forefathers had refused to be the bondsmen of Charles I., asked whether they themselves were content to be the bondsmen of the landed aristocracy. He could quote also from the speeches of the lesser stars of the Anti-Corn Law League, whose language was more rugged, more suggestive, and more unmistakeable. He had done enough, however, for his purpose to show that during the Anti-Corn Law League movement there was great excitement in the country; great meetings were held throughout the country; violent speeches were made; but there were no State prosecutions, no unjust arrests of innocent men, and no proposal to put the liberties and the lives of the English people at the mercy of an exasperated magistracy. Groundless charges were brought against the leaders of the Anti-Corn Law League; and similar charges, founded in malevolence, were made against the leaders of the Land League. So high did the feeling run during the Corn Law movement, that Sir Robert Peel, in that House, charged Mr. Cobden with holding him up to assassination. The hon. Member for the City of Cork, then, must not be surprised that he was the object of misrepresentation and false accusations. But, after all that was said and done, the cause of the Anti-Corn Law League triumphed, and the policy of Mr. Cobden had superseded the ancient and disastrous régime of landlordism. It was true that occasionally the Tory Party had got the direction of public affairs; but that had been owing to accident, arising from the attempts made by the Liberal Party to accommodate itself to the nominal Liberalism of Whiggery. Nevertheless, upon the strong places of the Constitution the people had got that hold which would never be relaxed, and which would soon result in complete possession. The Land Leaguers, too, hoped that their time of triumph would come. Meantime, they protested against their Constitutional agitation being suppressed by any Government, and especially by a Government professing the principles, and certainly enjoying the fruits, of the Cobden agitation. They might be told remedial measures were in store. That was no answer. They could not tell what they were. They might be inadequate; if they were inadequate, that Bill would prevent them agitating against their inadequacy. But, come what might, those who represented the Irish people would use every means at their command, public and private, to rescue Ireland from the hands of the landlords; and in the conflict which might await them they would look with confidence for the support they had a right to expect from the people of England and Scotland. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, as spokesman for the Government and the landlords, had displayed a bitterness which he had never seen equalled by anyone occupying his position. His tone and language had given a personal character to the whole of the proceedings. It was perfectly understood how that came about. A few isolated landlords, the perpetrators of legalized robbery, had, under the pretence of requiring protection, been running up to Dublin and pouring their foul calumnies into the Chief Secretary's ears. The Irish Members treated the words of the Chief Secretary as valueless, because they knew the sources of his information. Of his own knowledge the right hon. Gentleman knew nothing about Ireland. His statement that the Land League held the people in a state of terror, was utterly opposed to the fact. The Land League was in profound sympathy with all the people, save the landlords and the wretched blackguards who had been employed to deprive the people of their liberties. The result, however, would be that the Coercion Bill would become law, and, owing to the half-hearted policy of the Government, there would be no chance of carrying a good measure of Land Reform through the other House, where the territorial element was predominant. Nevertheless, the Irish people would struggle on. The action of the Government—the introduction of the Coercion Bills—so far from depressing their spirits, had raised them. They relied on the justice of their cause. They had the great Irish people at their back. There was nothing wanting to the national strength—nothing wanting to complete the national array, and they looked for sympathy to the lovers of freedom throughout the world.

said, he deplored the position in which a large section of the Irish tenants had been left by the failure of the Disturbance Bill last Session. There were many things in the action of the Land League which he disapproved, and he had little confidence in the leaders of the League. Mixed up with the evil which the Land League had done was at least thus much good—that it had kept those people in their farms. No doubt, many evictions were suspended either by the tenants being re-instated as caretakers or by the decrees not having been enforced. No doubt, many had retained their homes by the kindness of the landlords; but in most instances that result was obtained by the state of public opinion. But it might happen that the present state of feeling in Ireland would die out, and then those tenants would be liable again to be evicted from their holdings. If, however, the Government had given indications of what their Land Bill was to be, the excitement would have subsided. The House ought to consider the position of the tenants whom the Compensation for Disturbance Bill of last year was designed to benefit. The Government, and every Member who voted for that measure, were bound to see whether some means could not be devised, and some provision added to the proposed Land Bill, whereby those tenants would, at any rate, be placed on as good a footing as they would have held if the Compensation for Disturbance Bill had become law. He had seen an extract from the resolutions arrived at by the Catholic Hierarchy at Maynooth. They expressed confidence in the present Government, but expressed a fear less the passage of a Coercion Bill should make it more difficult for the Government to pass a satisfactory Land Bill, if not in that House, at least in "another place." He thought that statement well worthy of the consideration of the Government.

intended to vote in support of the measure introduced by the Chief Secretary. His chief reason for taking this course was that the state of Ireland was intolerable. Irishmen might well exclaim—

"Alas! poor country,

Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot

Be call'd our mother, but our grave."

The statistics of crime, so often referred to, gave, in reality, no adequate impression of the state of the country. It was not the number of outrages committed that had to be considered, but the amount of terror that had, by means of them, spread over a great proportion of the country. There was a tornado of terrorism exercised by the Land League over the people, which made honest men afraid to do their duty, or even to pay their just debts. They had heard too much about coercion in connection with the Government measures. Protection was the better term to apply to the steps contemplated by the Ministers—protection from the coercion of the Land League. As long as so mischievous an organization as that ruled the country there could be no repose, security, or comfort for the great majority of the people, and he hoped that the Bill which the Government was now introducing, though they had been somewhat late in bringing it forward, would alleviate the evils from which Ireland was suffering. They had reached a crisis in the history of Ireland when it behoved the right hon. Gentlemen composing the Ministry to act like statesmen. The only fault he had to find with the otherwise manly speech made by the Chief Secretary in introducing the Bill was that portion in which he said he was sorry he had ever entered Parliament, because he was now placed in so responsible and difficult a position in regard to Ireland. That was not, to his mind, the kind of language for a great statesman to use. Let the Government act with a firm hand, and they would have nothing to regret or to fear. What was wanted to restore tranquillity to Ireland was good and kind government, with firmness and justice; whilst resident landlords, enterprize, improved agriculture, and revived manufactures would tend to make it rich and prosperous. But the existence of the Land League rendered all such things impossible in the country, and that would be so as long as it exercised its present power over the people. The whole history of Ireland had been one of constant revolution and disturbance, caused by an attempt to govern it in a way not fitted to the people of the country. No people were so easily governed as the Irish, if they were only governed in a proper way and under a suitable Constitution; and there was no country so difficult to govern as Ireland, when it was in the hands of an organization whose object was to stir up strife and to incite the people to rebel against law and order. Believing that the Bill of the Government would do something towards restoring peace and security to that country, he would give it his cordial support.

rose to support the Amendment, when—

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

went on to observe that, admitting for the sake of argument that Ireland was in a bad state, a good and efficient remedy should be promptly applied to that state of things. But he indignantly protested against coercion as a remedy. A good Land Bill, and not coercion, was the proper remedy to be applied to Ireland. It would be a wise and statesmanlike course to bring in remedial measures at once, before any attempt was made to coerce the country. The state of Ireland was to be attributed to bad legislation in the past. The case made out by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was incomplete and unconvincing. The statement of the right hon. Gentleman, which was delivered with so much bitterness and with such bad taste, was founded upon mere official figures. The number of offences that had been committed in Ireland during the past year was fully accounted for by a series of bad harvests, and he was afraid that things would be little better during the remainder of the winter. The existence of the Land League showed that the people of Ireland were determined to protect themselves. The passing of this Coercive Bill would irritate the people, and make them despair of obtaining justice from England, and would compel them to take the law into their own hands. He should feel himself perfectly safe under this Coercion Bill if its administration were in the hands of the Chief Secretary or of the Lord Lieutenant; but the fact was, that it was the minions and understrappers of the Government who would really exercise these extraordinary powers. Even at this moment they were threatening the people of Ireland what they would do to them when this Bill became law. The fact that the Bill was proposed to be retrospective was a proof of the wickedness of those who introduced it. He thought all the lessons of history showed that a coercive policy must inevitably lead to recklessness and disorder, in which people who were coerced would stand up to protect what they deemed to be their rights. In former days it had not infrequently happened that physical protests against coercion had proved successful; and he therefore urged upon Her Majesty's Government to try remedial measures before proposing to resort to coercion, in order, if possible, to restore in the minds of the Irish people a feeling of confidence that the British Parliament had an earnest desire to redress their wrongs. The Party to which he belonged had been called agitators and obstructives; but he would remind right hon. Gentlemen opposite that they had themselves agitated to obtain Office, and it was by virtue of agitation they now occupied places on the Treasury Bench. The Members of the Opposition were agitating to regain Office; and even the Members of the Fourth Party were agitating for Office, and hoped some day to get it. The Irish Members were actuated solely by the desire to benefit their country. They were not agitating for Office, which they did not desire, and they dare not accept the humblest appointment from the British Government. A large body of the Irish electors had assisted the present Government to accede to power, in the belief that their wrongs would be remedied; but in this hope they had been grievously disappointed, and the effect was to be seen in the fact that at every by-election, since the General Election, neither the Government nor the Conservative Party had dared to run a candidate in opposition to the nominee of the Laud League Party. The hon Member was proceeding to condemn the ventilation of the House, and to explain how he had been taken ill, and wanted to go abroad for his health, and how his constituents requested his attendance at meetings throughout his county during the Recess, when—

said, the remarks of the hon. Member had nothing to do with the Question before the House. He must ask him to confine his speech to the subject of debate.

explained that he was only illustrating what coercion was. Again he called upon the Government to be wise in time, to bring in a remedial measure before it was too late, and to leave coercion to stand by until the occasion required it. This he said, that whether the Land Bill happened to be a good Bill or a bad Bill, the Irish people, having shaken hands over the religious question, were united; they were more, they were actuated by motives which would lead them to help themselves, and they all knew the old motto, that people who helped themselves received assistance from above. If the Bill were not a good one, he would suggest to the people of Ireland to form a Land Company, as had been done in Birmingham for political purposes; to buy land wholesale and sell it retail, thus securing the freehold for large numbers of persons. That would be a perfectly legal combination, and only the landlords would lose by it.

said, he must again call upon the hon. Member to speak to the Question before the House.

said, he could only add in conclusion that, on behalf of the people of Wexford, he protested against coercion being applied to Ireland.

said, he desired to give some of the reasons which compelled him to support the Government Bill. It was with no pleasure, but, on the contrary, with the greatest reluctance, that he would give his vote for so exceptional a measure. But if only one-half of the case presented to the consideration of the House by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland were well-founded, it would more than justify the course that right hon. Gentleman intended to take; and they would have good reasons for adopting exceptional legislation to put an end to the reign of terror in Ireland, to the outrages which had been so lamentably frequent, and to destroy the malignant power of the unwritten code of the Land League. All the efforts that had been put forth to minimize the prevailing evils had utterly failed. The Irish Members had met the facts of the right hon. Gentleman with empty declamation, but with no reasoning or substantial effort to disprove them; and he had, in fact, heard no refutation of the charges set forth in the indictment of the Government. Even the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) conveyed to his (Mr. Williamson's) mind the impression that he did not give the House absolute truth, but only truth cramped and qualified in eloquent harangue. The hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), in his speech on Tuesday evening, dealt in threats and in assumptions regarding his own vast influence in Ireland, but did not adduce one single solid argument against the necessity for this protective legislation. He spoke, indeed, apologetically for the peasant who committed the crime of maiming poor dumb animals, and suggested that diabolical crime in Ireland ought to be judged by a different canon from that prevailing in other Christian lands; and he (Mr. Williamson) was astonished to hear re-echoed sentiments akin to those once expressed in that House, not vehemently condemning, but only expressing a preference for the maiming of cattle to the shooting of landlords. When such apologies for crime were uttered in that House, what could they expect from the poor peasantry over whose minds hon. Members wielded, as they boasted, so vast an influence? The hon. Member for Tipperary threatened the House with the enmity of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and in the same breath threatened that priesthood unless they yielded unswerving allegiance to the behests of the Land League. Happily, there were priests and priests. Some of them were agitators; others were law-abiding, like many of their flocks. But the hon. Member told them that they would look in the direction of Washington if these measures were carried into effect. If the hon. Member, in making that statement, meant it to be believed that the American people had any love for the Irish nation—especially for Irish demagogues—he was seeking to impose on the credulity of the House. It was true that there was an Irish-American population in the United States, which undoubtedly sympathized to a certain extent with Irish agitators; but that section was intensely disliked and distrusted in America, and the appeal to Washington was as ridiculous as it was puerile. Although he should have liked to have before him the outlines of the projected remedial measures—those which were to deal with the Land Ques- tion—there was this argument in favour of first dealing with the measures for the protection of life and property—namely, that the Government could not be charged with having been influenced by the reign of terror in Ireland to prepare remedial measures of a sweeping character with reference to the occupancy of the soil. Yet, as he was not aware of the character of the projected Land Law Re-forms, he must discharge his conscience with respect to the measures now under consideration by saying that it was only because he believed the Land Bill would be of a thoroughly liberal and satisfactory character that he could vote for coercive measures taking precedence. Hon. Members representing Home Rule constituencies, he was persuaded, did hon. Members sitting on that side (the Liberal) of the House very great injustice in imputing to them disclination to grapple with this question in a thorough and complete fashion. It was a pure assumption on their part to pose in the attitude of the only true friends of Ireland and the only Irish patriots. His conviction was that among the Home Rule agitators were to be found at this moment the very worst enemies of Ireland. Their aim seemed to be to thwart and prevent all useful legislation in this country, and he took this as an indication that they were pursuing ulterior ends, such as the separation of Ireland from this Kingdom under the cloak—[ Cries of "Order!"].—of the Land League agitation.

I rise to Order, Sir. It would be interesting to young Members, who have not yet had much experience in debate, to know if it is permissible to read speeches? I shall be glad to have a ruling on that point.

Allow me to say I am not reading—["Order, order!"]—

The hon. Member must confine himself to the Motion before the House, which is a Bill dealing with the Protection of Person and Property in Ireland; and a speech cannot properly be read.

said, he was endeavouring to explain the reasons on which he entirely assented to the introduction of such measures, and he endeavoured at the same time to add that he did so with the greatest reluctance, and only in the expectation and hope that a very ample remedial measure of Land Reform would be introduced. He also took the opportunity of telling hon. Members on the opposite side (the Home Rulers) that they had done a very great injustice to other hon. Members in saying that they were the only well-wishers of Ireland and the only true patriots. He did not think he had gone beyond that point, and he hoped they would allow him to deal with the question as well as he possibly could. Let not Irish Members conclude that he was in favour of a tinkering land measure. Nothing but a sweeping measure was adequate to the emergency. Nothing would suit the urgency of the case—but (1) security of tenure; (2) fair rents; (3) absolute property in improvements and right of sale; (4) adequate measures for the creation of a peasant proprietary; and (5) the reclamation of waste lands. [ Cries of "Order!"]

The hon. Member is now discussing the Land Bill, which is not now before the House.

said, that if he was out of Order to touch on this question, he should submit to the ruling of Mr. Speaker; but he wished to discharge his conscience on this matter. He hoped the Government would introduce a sweeping measure of Land Reform, and it was only on that condition that he could support the coercive measures now introduced. It was his intention to support the Government in the course they now proposed to take.

said, he believed that every point of the Chief Secretary's speech admitted of refutation. The right hon. Gentleman had been guilty of unintentional unfairness to himself personally in referring to the speech he made at the Castle Island meeting. The Government knew what he did say, for the Government Reporters were present, and he took pains to secure their accommodation. The impression produced by the reference to that speech was, that he was, to a certain extent, responsible for the alleged increase of crime. Instead of that, he made every appeal he could to the people to abstain from illegal action. He implored them to abstain from everything which could bring them into collision with the authorities; and knowing that there had been some recent cruelties in the neighbourhood, and having heard, on what he believed to be good authority, that a man's life was in danger, he went so far as to name that man, and to urge everyone not to shoot him, and not to injure him, and not to injure anything belonging to him; and he had reason to believe that this appeal saved that man's life. He also urged the people to abstain from attempting to injure any landlords, and to confine their action to what was legal and Constitutional. The Chief Secretary argued that crime was greater now, with a population of 5,000,000, than it was in 1844, with a population of 8,000,000;but he ignored the figures for 1845, 1846, and 1847, when crime was higher than in 1844, while he produced the impression that in 1844 it was exceptionally high. The outrages numbered 8,000 in 1845, 12,000 in 1846, and 20,986 in 1847, compared with 5,600 in 1880. The right hon. Gentleman did not show the real significance of the Returns for Ireland by comparing them, with those for other countries. The latest complete Judicial Statistics were those for 1879. In Ireland there were 22 murders, compared with 71 in England; for these offences 51 persons were apprehended in Ireland, compared with 30 in England; and 21 were committed for trial, compared with 26 in England. The total number of indictable offences in Ireland was 8,089—including 650 threatening letters—and the number of persons apprehended was 5,138, compared with 52,447 offences and 23,658 apprehensions in England; so that in Ireland the offences were fewer in proportion to the population, and the apprehensions bore a higher proportion to the number of offences, than in England. The offences committed in Ireland, agrarian and non-agrarian, were moderate in number compared with those in England and Scotland. Yet coercive legislation was not proposed to be applied to those parts of the United Kingdom. Passing from the more heinous to minor offences, the cases of cruelty to animals which had been referred to were in Ireland 1,465, while in England, for an equal population, there were 2,065. The cases of firing into dwellings, shooting at and doing bodily harm, were in 1879, 181, while in England they amounted to 1,754. The burglaries and cases of housebreaking in Ireland were 209, while in England they amounted to 2,930. The cases of arson and wilful burning in Ireland in 1879 were 257, while in England they numbered 1,180. In Queen's County, in 10 months there were only 5 cases; three of those being the sending of threatening letters, while in Durham, in 1879, there were 6; in Hereford, 5; in Lincoln, 6; in Huntingdon, 7; in Bucks, 7; in Devon, 10; in Hampshire, 11; and in Shropshire, 23. The Returns of the right hon. Gentleman would not bear investigation. During the last 50 years there had been no fewer than 48 Coercion Acts, and there was no Minister who had been connected with so many of them as the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister. He would figure as the Coercion Premier. They found themselves now in 1881 in precisely the same position as they were in 1830, more than 50 years ago. Then, as now, coercive legislation was proposed for Ireland; the leader of the Irish people was under prosecution; the hastily drawn up indictment was surrendered count by count, and the indictment itself found to be worthless. Then, as now, the occupants of the Front Opposition Benches cordially supported Ministers in their coercive measures, and the Ministers proposing those measures, protesting that they were not to their taste, promised they would be supplemented by remedial measures. Then, as now, coercive measures were carried, but remedial measures were not. The debates of 1830 would furnish useful reading at the present time. Lord Althorp observed that he by no means intended to say that the only policy which Her Majesty's Government were to pursue was to repress agitation by force. Having firmly repressed seditious conduct, they would then show the people of Ireland that there was every disposition to redress their grievances. What became of the fine promises of Ministers? That which would become of the promises of Ministers to introduce remedial measures this year. Conservatives would never allow them to pass remedial measures. When the time came, those men who were now so anxious to gag the Irish people would be the first to use every Form of the House to prevent the progress of the remedial proposals of the Government. Sir Robert Peel, in 1830, said he should be ashamed of himself if he did not cast into utter oblivion all Party and political differences, and expressed a steady determination by all means in his power to support the King's Ministers in all extremities; he would support them in all their proceedings, and should they make any slips he would put the best construction upon their conduct. Sir Robert Peel went on to say he would listen with favour to any proposals of a conciliatory nature coming from the noble Lord; but they must be proposals doing justice to all parties. That was almost identical with the language of the present Leader of the Opposition. But there was one good and honest Liberal in the House in 1830, who, perhaps, had done as much for the English people as any Minister—he meant Mr. Hume. Mr. Hume said he regretted that Ireland had hitherto been governed by force, and he had, in consequence, hailed the accession of the present Ministry, in the hope of their acting on the principle of conciliation; but they had been guilty of acts of which every other Ministry would have been ashamed. Mr. Hume further said he denied that it was in the power of Mr. O'Connell, or any man, to agitate a great country unless that country was filled with discontent from reasonable causes. He (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), when he said the other night that when they began these coercive measures they did not know where they would end. They would get on an incline where they would no longer be able to control their own movements. In 1831 the Government of the day passed a Coercion Bill, and were compelled also to pass another in 1832, and similar measures in each of the two following years; and so the record of Irish legislation went on from year to year, almost without intermission, down to the present time. He might remind them that the Coercion Bill of 1831 was immediately followed by two outbreaks, which completely showed its futility. What guarantee had they that the same thing would not occur again? He seriously feared that his apprehensions might be realized, and that the people might seek channels of action that would lead to the most deplorable consequences. What fact could more strongly condemn British policy in Ireland than the reduction of the population from 8,000,000 in 1844, to 5,000,000 in 1880? That diminution was caused by the fact that the people had been placed at the mercy of the most inhuman and the most unscrupulous men who had ever existed. He believed, indeed, that all the evils of Ireland were traceable to the baneful influence of the privileged landlord class. To that influence, and not to the action or the progress of the Land League, he attributed the increase of crime during the past year. The House would be able to judge for itself of the increased harshness of the landlord, when he stated that in the first quarter of last year there were 1,167 evictions; in the second, 1,355; in the third, 2,158; and in the last—the quarter during which the Land League was fully developed—only 316. The Reports of agrarian crimes showed uniform increase during the whole of the year; but the fact was that the outrages naturally went on increasing for some time after the highest number of evictions had been reached, and did not, therefore, diminish in the last quarter of the year. While he was on the subject of outrages, he wished to mention that the threatening letters that were received in Ireland were certainly not all written in that country. His belief was that the majority of such letters were concocted in London. He knew of one glaring case of that description, and the letter was sent to a lady, whose whole life had been one continual act of charity, and against whom the only imputation that could be made was that she had fed and clothed starving children on the immense estates of Lord Lansdowne. He, himself, had received several such letters that had been posted in London. That very day, before coming to the House, he had received one, for the postage of which he had to pay 2 d. It began, "Mr. Arthur O'Connor," and the opening sentences were so vile, so foul, and abominable, he would not outrage the decency of the House by reading a single word of them; but it was all pure Saxon. In the second paragraph, the writer went on to say—

"If Parnell did not support you with the money which he cheated the Yankees out of you would be starving, as Stanley kicked you out of the War Office, where you were a messenger, or something of the kind. You are the lowest of all the low-lived Irish blackguards, and you had better hold your charity-school tongue or I will send a circular regarding you to all the Members. I shall leave the envelope open, so that anyone may see this."

He would, further, observe that in 1831, when the state of Ireland presented a parallel to the present situation, Major Warburton, a resident magistrate in Ireland, and an Englishman, bore testimony that the destitution produced by turning persons out of their land when they had no other means of subsistence was a very great source of crime. Having quoted other authorities in support of his argument, the hon. Member complained that the English Press had worked up the minds of the English people against the people of Ireland and their Representatives. The Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, he alleged, had, the other night, spent an hour in bringing a railing accusation against the Irish nation, and had also manipulated figures so as to cast aspersions upon them. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to suspend the Constitution, and to place the liberties of every man in Ireland at the mercy of any unscrupulous magistrate who might have a grudge against him. On what grounds, he asked, was the Constitution to be suspended in his county (Queen's County), where there had been only two agrarian crimes in 12 months? There was no county in England as free from crime of every description. Every single grievance which had been redressed in Ireland had been redressed after keen, persistent, and determined agitation. When the people of London pulled down Hyde Park railings in their agitation for Reform, no Coercion Act was brought in to repress them. The Government might arm themselves with whatever coercive powers they pleased; the Irish Members were determined to exercise their Constitutional rights as citizens outside of that House, and also to assert their just rights as Members of Parliament.

Sir, I should like, with the permission of the House, to address a few words to it on this question before the debate comes to a conclusion; and first, I must say, which I am sure every Member of the House will believe, that I am very sorry that after being for 37 years a Member of this House I have not lived to see the time when a recourse to restrictive or coercive measures for Ireland has become absolutely unnecessary. During that long period there have been several measures of this kind—not exactly like this, but having the same general purpose—and I think I may say that there is not one of those measures that I have felt it my duty to support. I think there must have been one at least, or more than one, which I did not oppose; but, generally, my disposition was to give a fair opposition to measures which I could not, under the circumstances, approve of. Now, I am of opinion, looking back over that period, that there was not one or those measures that was not, at the time, necessary. I never for a moment disputed that the Government were necessitated or obliged to bring in some kind of measure of repression under the facts that were stated to the House, and which we all knew to prevail; but I complained that the Government did nothing else but that. There was no admission even of grievances, and there were no promises of any attempted remedy, and, therefore, I felt myself at liberty either to oppose, or not to support, the propositions brought in by the various Governments connected with the evils to which I have referred. Now, hon. Members who sit in that part of the House (the Opposition) will not deny, I think, for a moment, that I have for 30 years past not only admitted the wrongs and grievances of the Irish people, but that I have on many occasions, and on more public occasions probably than any other Englishman connected with public affairs, urged upon the landowners of Ireland, and upon the people of England, remedies which I thought necessary for the grievances of the Irish people. I may, in some confirmation of it, relate a little incident that took place just outside the door of the House of Commons a very short time before the late John Martin, the Member for Meath, finally left this House and died. He met me at the door and he came up to me. I had never spoken to him before in the House, and he said—"I want very much to shake hands with you." I was rather surprised, but I gave him my hand. He said—"I have watched your public career from the first, and I never knew you say a single word or do a single thing that was insulting to my country;" and he added—"I want to shake hands with you and thank you for it." And then, in a manner which was sad to mo, but in a sense amusing, he said—"But, after all, I know that you are my enemy." [Mr. BIGGAR: Hear, hear!] It shows, at any rate, I think, the honesty of Mr. Martin and his sympathy with an Englishman who, as he thought, had always been willing to do justice to his country. Now, I was not content during the whole of those years with the statesmen with whom there was no specific but force, and I hold just the same views now. If this Bill were brought in, and if it were not known, and were not promised, that there would be accompanying that Bill, and in the same Session of Parliament, a large measure of remedy for the grievances of the Irish people, which are admitted, I should not be sitting on this Bench now, or be a Member of this or any other Administration connected with such a proposition. It is not my intention to enter into the figures which have been so freely used on both sides of the House with regard to the state of Ireland at this moment. I must leave, as I do leave with perfect confidence, that question as it was left by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. There can be no man in this House more informed on this matter; and I undertake to assert that there is no man in this House more anxious to place the exact and unexaggerated figures before the House. I shall, therefore, not go at all into the figures which have been quoted. I might, if it were necessary, refer to the various statements of the Press in Ireland and England, which, if there has been exaggeration in any particular, still I doubt not, in the main, have given a fair description of the condition so far as their reporters could discover it. I might refer to the private letters which I dare say almost every hon. Member of this House has received. I think I have received more letters during the last six months from Ireland than, perhaps, in the whole course of my political life; and they have not been only from landowners, but from farmers, shopkeepers, and persons connected with manufacturing trades, and from some persons whose occupations I cannot precisely describe—persons living upon their means—and from all these letters there comes but one story as to the deplorable state of the country. They do not all ask for a Bill of a restrictive character. They do not condemn the agitation in some cases, or the remedies which they thought were necessary; but the main tone and the main contents of these letters are such as to make me satisfied that the condition of the country during the last two or three months has been drifting on from bad to worse. Many of us know that in past times we have had in parts of this great City many refugees, some from Russia, some from France, many from Italy, and so forth; we have now a new class of refugees—those who have come here from Ireland. I asked a gentleman one day, whom I met, how it happened he was here. He was a proprietor of land in Ireland—not to a very great extent—and he was an agent, I believe, to a considerable extent. I asked him what had brought him here; and he said—"Well, the fact is I am a refugee;" and not long afterwards I received a note from him, in which he said he had been intending to go over, but in consequence of the accounts which he had heard of the special hostility to himself, the intentions with regard to himself, to his life, he had been implored by his wife and family to remain for the present in England. [ Laughter from Mr. BIGGAR.] The hon. Member for Cavan smiles and laughs. Nothing appears to give him more pleasure than the narration of facts of this kind. I confess I think the subject is one which requires to be treated and considered in a very different spirit. Then, if I shut out the figures, to which I will no more refer, if I shut out the writings in the Press, and the private letters, and the refugees, who are amongst us, I might turn to the admissions of the leaders of this great movement in Ireland—the demands and declarations of the leaders and promoters of what is called the National Land League. They tell us that the law of Parliament throughout Ireland is suppressed. That is a statement they not only lay before the House, but of which, in some sense, they boast. They boast, it may be, of their power—I doubt if it is their wisdom or their patriotism. They say that the Association with which they are connected is supreme; and one hon. Gentleman told the House the other evening that if under this Bill, if it should pass, any single man were arrested, the immediate result would be that the whole payment of rent throughout Ireland would be absolutely put an end to. Now, if that be not a very serious condition of the country, I am at a loss to know what can be so. I am not a great friend—no friend at all, but a great enemy—to the landlord system of Ireland, and have been so ever since I knew anything about it. Since 30 years ago I took the pains, on two separate occasions, to travel with a most informed Irishman throughout nearly all the counties of that country. I have since, from that time to this, condemned the state of land-owning in Ireland and the state of land tenure; and I agree with hon. Gentlemen opposite that it is impossible to look for a future, tranquil and prosperous in that country, till this great question is fairly grasped and dealt with by the Imperial Parliament. But I am not going to contend at all for the illegality of the Land League. If you like, we will consider it perfectly legal, as it is on the paper and in its resolutions. I am not about to call that in question. A learned Judge decided otherwise, and I will not dispute his dicta; but what I maintain is, that the results are illegal and evil, in a certain direction, to the last degree. The hon. Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue) spoke about me this evening. I am sorry I was writing upstairs at the time and did not know he was referring to me, or I should have been here to listen to what he had to say. As it is, I understand that the hon. Gentleman made several quotations from speeches of mine delivered about 30 years ago. [The O'DONOGHUE: Two speeches.] Two speeches. I thought it was more—speeches delivered 30 years ago, in connection with an agitation which I was then associated with—that of the Anti-Corn Law League, for the abolition of what was called Protection, but what was in point of fact, whenever there was a bad harvest, a periodical famine for the poor people of this country. The hon. Member wanted to show that the two cases were parallel, and that in point of fact our League did the same sort of thing, not only in its constitution, but in its effects, as the League with which he has lately become connected. I venture to say that the only likeness there is between them is in the name, which I suppose they have stolen from us. [The O'DONOGHUE: You denounced the landlords.] From 1839 to 1846 our agitation was continued. We held as many meetings, probably, as was stated the other night to have been held in Ireland by, I think, the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), He was complaining that public meetings were suppressed in Ireland, and yet he stated that 450, I think it was, had been held there by the Land League during the last two years. I do not know at once bow this passage is to be reconciled with that; but I say that from 1839 to 1846 no man ever heard any of the recognized leaders or lecturers or speakers of the League say anything that was calculated to bring people to disobey the law and to do violence towards their neighbours. If your League had been conducted as our League was, I should not have opposed you. I would, on the contrary, have sent you a subscription, and I would have been one of your members. Does anyone suppose that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Villiers), who was then the Parliamentary Leader of the agitation, ever uttered the observations and the menaces which we have heard from the Bench during the present Session? Can anyone find out in the public speeches either of my late Friend, Mr. Cobden, or of my own, any passage which leads to the condition of things which not only exists in Ireland, but which is boasted of and is supported constantly by the voices and with the approbations of the hon. Gentlemen whom I see opposite? There was strong language used. I am not a bit ashamed of strong language, and it is sometimes even very necessary. I recollect a passage in a speech of one of our Friends, the late Mr. Fox, who at one time sat on this side of the House as Member for the borough of Oldham, in which he said—

"The Corn Law is the harvest of Death as well as of the landowners; and monopoly saith unto corruption, 'Thou art my brother.'"

That was a strong expression, though it was true, too; but it did not stimulate any man to violence. We had branches all over the country, just as the Irish National Land League has, and active men in every district, in the boroughs, and in many of the villages in the counties; but it was never said that any single person connected with these branches carried on the sort of practices which have become common with your branches—[The O'DONOGHUE: What, Sir? What practices?] The hon. Gentleman says "What?" We have heard lately a good deal about Land League Courts. Were there any Courts in our time? During a portion of the time when our agitation was conducted there were a great many incendiary fires in the East of England, particularly, I think, in the county of Suffolk. But all we did with regard to these was that we asked Parliament to grant a Committee of the House to inquire into the cause of them—[The O'DONOGHUE: And who refused?]—to inquire into the cause of them; and no single word of ours, in the House or out of it, or any single line written in our accredited organs—our newspapers—ever stimulated for a moment any crime either of that or of any other kind. [Mr. SEXTON: Nor have we.] If that be so, one is driven to the conclusion that your population is less indisposed to crimes or offences of this kind than our population. It is, and it has always been, my wish in everything I have said about Ireland for 30 years past never to cast the slightest stigma, the slightest slur, on the character of her people. I could spend a few minutes speaking of their virtues; and I believe when there are vices and errors, and offences and crimes among them, they arise rather from the condition into which those who should be their superiors have brought them, than from their own hearts. No, Sir, with us, in our agitation, there was no language of menace, no teaching in favour of any crimes; there was no outrage, there was no terror. I call to witness every man who remembers the time that our speeches, strong as they might be, condemnatory as they might be of the law we condemned, hostile as they were to the landowners by whom it was supported, still our speeches were always conceived in what I call a noble, a moral, and an elevating tone, and we directed the people to their own political efforts and to the ultimate justice of Parliament for the remedy of the grievances of which we complained. But what, Sir, is it that these Gentlemen have done? They have, in my opinion, to a large extent, demoralized the people whom they profess to befriend. Sir, we have heard a voice which has passed through the counties of Ireland, telling every tenant not only that his rent is too high, which, in many cases, may be true, but that he is at liberty to fix his own rent—that is, his own price for something which he has bought; and that, if he likes, and if he finds the condition of his family is such that it would be convenient and agreeable to pay no rent at all, then he is at liberty to pay no rent. ["No, no!"] I am not stating anything here which any man on the face of Great Britain and Ireland can fairly contradict. Why, I had a letter the other day from one of the most respected men in Ireland, I believe, and he told me that when his rents became due, some rents were paid; but a number of the tenants wished that he should give a receipt for only one-half the money which had been paid. You know perfectly well what was the meaning of that, and what was the purpose of it. It was that this paper, with a lie on it, might be presented to your friends of the Land League Committee, and that, being so presented, they would be spared from the menaces, the terror, and, it might be, the outrages to which they would otherwise be subjected if it were known that they had paid the full rent. I have no liking for high rents. I am not an Irish or an English landowner; therefore, I have no personal interest in the matter. My sympathies are all with the Irish tenantry, and I would do anything that lay in my power to improve their condition; but to improve their condition the very last thing I should think of doing would be to destroy their honest feeling and sense of honour. I could tell hon. Members opposite, the hon. Member for Tralee, who has attempted to tarnish the fairfame of the Anti-Corn Law League, that if his Association had been conducted on the same principles, and with the same regard to law, I should have been glad to see it, as I believe it would have been, successful all over Ireland, and I should have rejoiced in the ultimate triumph which it would have achieved. [An hon. MEMBER: It will succeed.] Now, there have been two or three speeches about which I should like to say a word or two. The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), at the beginning of the evening, interested and amused the House in a speech that was, in many parts, interesting, and, in some parts, amusing. We had also—I think it was yesterday; but the days are becoming so confusing that it is difficult to recollect whether it is Wednesday or Thursday—we had what I might call a vivacious and powerful speech, if it had been all right, from the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Joseph Cowen). He reminded me of a neighbour of his, Lord Ravensworth, then Mr. Liddell, who, when in this House, was a very fluent speaker. I recollect his making a speech, and I was sitting with, a Member from the North, who said to me, pointing to Lord Ravens worth—"He makes a very good speech, if you do not listen to what he says." I thought of that when I was listening to the speech of the hon. Member for Newcastle. Nothing could be more ready, nothing more fluent, than his language; and I was only sorry that there was not something more in it that was worth listening to. I can conceive of circumstances in which all that he said would have been worth listening to; but not in the circumstances in which we are placed, for there was a great deal said by him, and by the hon. Member for Northampton also, about the oppression and the tyranny of the Government. The oppression described by the hon. Member for Newcastle was that the Government were anxious that Parliament should do, as speedily as possible, what the Government and what Parliament believed to be a necessary duty. Yet he insisted upon it that every hour taken from private Members was an oppression to those private Members and an injury to the country. If the Government had proposed that the House should only meet twice a-week, then he might have said that the country suffered, if the country would suffer, of which I am not sure. But if the House were engaged honestly and perseveringly in its duty, it does not matter to the country whether it is my proposition, or yours, or any other hon. Gentleman's which is before you. If it be worth discussing and considering and passing into law, surely Parliament is doing its duty to the country. Then we are taxed with the tyranny of which the hon. Member for Northampton spoke, when he told us of the tyranny to be inflicted by this Bill upon the people of Ireland; but the hon. Member knows perfectly well that, on former occasions, there have been times when similar enactments have been put on the Statute Book, and not a man in 100 of the Irish people knew of their existence. A law of this kind becomes a tyranny in the hands of tyrants; but in the hands of men who are liberal and just, it may be a law of protection and of great mercy to Ireland. ["No, no!"] Who dares to say—[ Cries of "We do!"]—whodares to say the contrary, and say it honestly? Who dares to say that he cannot look and see the truth across the narrow strip of water which separates Ireland from Great Britain, and see men sitting here who have not devoted their lives to the cause of freedom? [ Cries of "Some of them!" and "Not Irish freedom!"] Some hon. Gentlemen say—" Not Irish freedom! "Well, in the 50 years just passed, Ireland has made great progress in freedom, and it has made that progress by the constant desire to do the Irish people justice on the part of those who sit on this side of the House. I am glad to know and to believe that the people of Ireland themselves, when the frenzy of the moment shall have passed away, will come to the same conclusion. I take it as one of the things most cheering in this disturbed state of Ireland that all the figures of the magistrates, whom you blame, and of the police, whom you distrust, have not been able to show more than the death by violence of seven or eight people within the last year. That shows how great strides the Irish people have made from the barbarism of 50 years ago, and I take comfort in believing that, notwithstanding the present time of trouble, there is visible in the Irish people throughout an improvement which those who are not acquainted with their condition now, but who were acquainted with their condition 50 years ago, would hardly think possible. The wages in Ireland are double, nay, triple, what they were 50 years ago. All over Ireland people are better dressed, and, with certain temporary exceptions, better fed, than they were 30, 40, or 50 years age; and notwithstanding all that we see, and all that is true and to be regretted in the condition of Ireland, the population of that country are far superior in condition, and intelligence, and civilization than in the days when I entered this House. I say that no man can doubt—at least, I will not appeal to the reason or conscience of any man who can express a doubt that it is a great and grievous trouble to Members of the present Administration—[Mr. BIGGAR: Oh, no, not the slightest.]—that they have felt themselves compelled to submit a measure like this to the House of Commons. It is only under a solemn sense of duty, from which it is impossible to shrink, that we ask the House to support us in a measure of restriction—restriction, as we believe, to the few, and I have no doubt, as it will be exercised, a measure of mercy to the many. This Bill will only be temporary. Many persons, not so scrupulous as we are on these matters, will say that it ought to be continued for a longer period than the 1st of September next year. [An hon. MEMBER: For ever.] No, not for ever. We hope the disturbing elements will only be temporary, and that the measure, therefore, will only be temporary. I trust that the Land Bill, when it comes before the House—and the sooner this Bill is disposed of the sooner the Land Bill will be on this Table—will be a great and a comprehensive measure, and that it will be a durable monument, worthy of the memory of this Parliament and of the Administration of which my right hon. Friend near me is the head.

said, the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Bright) to his political career as a proof of his devotion to the cause of Irish freedom was one which would go straight to the hearts of millions of the Irish race at home and abroad. But as one of those upon whom the right hon. Gentleman could not fix responsibility for any of the troubles that had taken place in Ireland, he was anxious to say that, not wit standing the impressive speech with which the right hon. Gentleman followed that appeal to his own great career, he was determined that his attitude in this debate, as an Irish Representative, should place him above even the suspicion of a compromise with coercion. The right hon. Gentleman commenced his speech by a comparison between the Corn Law League, with which his name was so honourably identified in history, and the National Land League of Ireland, and he was good enough to say that if the National Land League had maintained their organization in as peaceful and Constitutional and legal a manner as he and his Friends had conducted the Corn Law League, he would have inscribed his name on the list of members, and would have sent them a subscription. He was certain that the right hon. Gentleman was sincere in making that declaration; but did he not recollect an agitation in the history of Ireland as great as his was, conducted in as peaceful and Constitutional a manner as his was—the agitation conducted by that great champion of moral force, Daniel O'Connell? How many Englishmen possessing the right hon. Gentleman's influence said to Daniel O'Connell, "You have wisely walked within the lines of the Constitution; you have commended yourself to the sympathies of English Liberalism; put our names on your list of members, and be kind enough to accept our subscriptions?" The right hon Gentleman had made an appeal to history which was of a two-sided character. He had followed the path of the Prime Minister, who in a recent speech referred to Daniel O'Connell as an example of a leader whose movements they should endeavour to emulate; but neither the Prime Minister nor the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster now told the House that notwithstanding Daniel O'Connell's Constitutional and peaceful method of agitation, he nevertheless found himself denounced as an abettor of assassination, was dragged through the mire of a Police Court, and made the victim of a hired Press in Dublin, paid by official money supplied by a Liberal Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The Liberal Viceroy to whom he referred was the late Lord Clarendon, and the newspaper scribe whom he hired to vilify the Young Ireland Party was a man named Birch, who published a journal called The World. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] The Prime Minister incredulously shook his head. The right hon. Gentleman would find in the Police Records of Dublin the proofs of the accusation, and an acknowledgment by the criminal himself. [Mr. GLADSTONE: O'Connell is dead.] He was afraid that as they did not possess the tranquillity of a debating society, they were not in a frame of mind to settle the question of a date. He simply adhered to his statement, and he should be glad to discuss the matter with the right hon. Gentleman, or anybody else, at a time when they should have an opportunity of calmly testing the accuracy of what he said. How did the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster himself fare in his peaceful and Constitutional agitation in connection with the Corn Law League? How was he described? The right hon. Gentleman told the House the language the League employed was calculated to enhance respect for the law rather than to provoke acts of insurrection. That was not the opinion which the right hon. Gentleman's contemporaries formed of the language used by the League, for no less a person than Sir Robert Peel accused Mr. Cobden of being an abettor of assassination. Although not an old politician, he (Mr. O'Connor Power) could recollect a time when many of the English newspapers described the right hon. Gentleman as a Revolutionist and Communist of the deepest dye. No matter how careful those charged with a great National movement might be, it was not only possible but probable that at certain stages of that movement they would be implicated in charges of this kind, with just as little foundation in fact as the accusation levelled at the head of the right hon. Gentleman when he was arousing the mind of the English people against Protection. The right hon. Gentleman certainly touched the sympathies of the House when he called upon them to consider the fate of the newly-arrived refugees from Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to have come across two or three Irish landlords who had fled from their country and sought refuge in the solitude of London from the outrages of their wicked tenants. But the right hon. Gentleman only noticed one-half of the case when he shed a tear over their fate. He might go through this country, and through the large towns of England and Scotland, and he would find not one or two persons flying from the tyranny of the tenantry, but an Irish population of nearly 2,000,000, who were refugees flying to these shores from the tyranny and injustice of the vicious land system which prevented them from acquiring an honest and comfortable subsistence in their own land. He was not surprised that the right hon. Gentleman had dealt in so light and easy a manner with the speech of the senior Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). He (Mr. O'Connor Power) had said when that speech was delivered that no man on the Ministerial Bench would be able to answer it, and he had watched anxiously for the Minister who would attempt to do so. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had made no attempt to answer it. He was a prudent man. He was not only patriotic, but as wise and prudent as he was patriotic; and, instead of answering the conclusive speech which the hon. Member for Northampton delivered in the early part of the evening, he preferred to throw a veil of humour and banter over it. The speech, as yet, remained unanswered, and it would re- main unanswered at the close of the debate. The right hon. Gentleman said that coercive laws could only become despotic in the hands of a despot, and tyrannical in the hands of a tyrant. His (Mr. O'Connor Power's) theory was that no Minister was so good, or so wise, or so patriotic as to be fit to be entrusted with irresponsible powers; and if the Bill which the Chief Secretary for Ireland was endeavouring to introduce into that House was introduced, and was ultimately carried out, he and the Viceroy of Ireland would be entrusted with the greatest measure of irresponsible power which could possibly be placed in the hands of an individual—namely, the power of arresting such men as they chose to regard as dangerous to their government or their system of laws, and of keeping them in prison for a period of 18 months without arraigning them or bringing them up for trial. For the encouragement of the Irish Members, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster reminded them that the life of every one of his Colleagues had been a long struggle for freedom. He was pertinently interrupted by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), when his hon. Friend said—"Not for Irish freedom." The right hon. Gentleman himself was a remarkable exception, which proved the rule that public men in this country had too often sought to build up their reputation as statesmen, not by promoting freedom in Ireland, but by abridging whatever little freedom they possessed. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, last year and the year before, was the greatest political agitator on the face of Europe. He was the great apostle of liberty, the one great champion of the principle of nationality and freedom, and, in that sense, his life might be described as a struggle for public freedom. But where had the Prime Minister created an agitation in order to arouse public feeling or sympathy in favour of the victims of tyranny in Ireland? When, at the beginning of the last Parliament, one of his Irish Bills, having been passed by a respectable majority in that House was thrown out in "another place," the Prime Minister treated the matter as being only an Irish one. Had the right hon. Gentleman been fighting for the freedom of Greece or Bulgaria, and if he had been thwarted in a similar manner by the Whig Gentlemen behind him, and by the Tory Noblemen in "another place," he would never have taken his defeat so calmly, nor have consented to sit down quietly under the rebuff. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster went on to refer to the wonderful progress that Ireland had made in political freedom during the last 50 years; but how had that freedom been achieved? Not by patience and by yielding obedience to the law; but by rebellion, by conspiracy, and by Fenianism. He was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman had talked so much about the material improvement of Ireland. It was a gross fallacy. Ireland's improvement, materially, had been so slight that it was not worth referring to as an example to guide them in the legislation of the present day. Here and there, in rarely-fortunate places, might be found evidences of improvement; but he could assure the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the Prime Minister, and the Chief Secretary, who, notwithstanding the responsibilities of his position, had not yet been able to make himself acquainted with the exact material condition of Ireland, that hundreds of thousands of the population were still steeped in poverty and clothed in rags. If he, who knew the condition of these people, were to allow the statement of the right hon. Gentleman to go unchallenged, the House and the country would be deceived as to the extent of the misery and poverty of the Irish people. Whatever might be the sins of the Land League, he thought they ought to endeavour to ask themselves, before they consented to exceptional legislation of this kind, whether the resources of the ordinary law had really been vigorously employed. He had already said that he was not responsible for any of the outrages that had been committed in the course of this agitation; but he did not wish anyone to suppose for a moment that he did not in the heartiest manner sympathize with and support the recognized objects of the Land League. The object of that body, as recited to the House by the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) from its official programme, was to make the cultivators of Ireland the owners of their own land, and to accomplish that object by honourable means —not by force, conspiracy, or revolution, but by means of honest purchase, when adequate facilities should have been supplied to the tenants by Act of Parliament. Under these circumstances, he held that the Chief Secretary had not made out a sufficient case to induce the House to consent to the introduction of this Bill. He had himself excepted threatening letters from the list of serious agrarian outrages. To his (Mr. O'Connor Power's) mind, threatening letters were valueless, and the reason he thought they ought to be totally excluded from consideration was that to get at the real offenders the right hon. Gentleman would have to arrest some of the landlords and their agents, who had not been wanting in industry to write these letters and post them to their own addresses. Excepting threatening letters, there had been some 1,295 agrarian offences of a serious character. The right hon. Gentleman had a police and military force of between 40,000 and 50,000 men. He had all the magistracy not only united with him in a desire to maintain the supremacy of British law, but united with him in upholding the rights of the landlords; and, nevertheless, the right hon. Gentleman came down to Parliament and said it was impossible to maintain law and order in Ireland unless they armed him with the powers of a despot, and enabled him to imprison whomsoever he pleased. Thus, in order that some 1,300 offenders might be punished, they were to put it in the power of the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary to crush and imprison a nation of 5,000,000. Supposing that the Corn Law League had not been kept within the bounds of legal action—supposing that the Government of that day saw that, owing to the eloquent speeches of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and others, recourse was had to illegal practices, what would the Government have done? It would not have waited until the League had violated the law, and brought the country within a measurable distance of civil war, but would have summoned Parliament to consider what were the grievances that gave force to such a mighty national movement, and would have called Parliament together to remedy the wrongs from which these grievances sprung. The right hon. Gentleman, and those who were inclined to accept his view of the state of Ireland, must necessarily be guilty of casting very great aspersion upon the character of the Irish people. The greatest aspersion that could be thrown upon the character of any people was to say that they were not capable of civil government, and that they were unfit to live under a Constitutional system. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had substantially made that statement to-night, when he had described Ireland as being in a condition in which coercive legislation was imperatively required. Those who had had an opportunity of studying the Irish character, not only in the present day, but in some of the most difficult periods of the relations between England and Ireland, entertained no doubtful opinion of the justice-loving character of the Irish people. Those who had read the history of the country would recollect the testimony which Sir John Davis, Attorney General for Ireland under Henry VII., when he said that there was no people on the surface of the earth that loved equal and impartial laws more than the Irish, or would be more amenable to those laws if they were brought within their scope and influence. The real method of pacifying Ireland was to be found in the removal of agrarian wrong, and not in arming the Executive with exceptional power for the prevention of agrarian outrage, which, admitting for a moment the promises of the Government, was like lopping off the branches of a decaying tree, instead of striking at its roots, and was also a further illustration of the invariable policy of English Parliaments to deal with Irish matters in a hand-to-mouth fashion. In regard to the statistics laid before the House by the Chief Secretary, in numerous cases the same offences, committed by the same persons against the same individuals, were repeated; and, consequently, the grand total of agrarian outrages assumed the dimensions which really took away the breath of the House, when the Chief Secretary made his opening statement the other evening. He protested against the manner in which the Chief Secretary made that statement. The right hon. Gentleman assumed a dramatic attitude throughout. He could not congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his elocu- tionary powers. He achieved a magnificent failure; and, when describing some outrage committed on a farmer by persons supposed to be instigated by the Land League, he said they fired at him through a window—and the right hon. Gentleman paused to add that they did it through a long gun. He reminded the right hon. Gentleman that harrowing pictures might be drawn from The Police News of brave English "gentlemen" kicking their wives to death and beating their children in the most revolting and cruel manner. He urged that more mischief than good would be accomplished by involving the innocent in a punishment which was intended only for the guilty. As it had been before so it was now. English prejudice stood in the way of Irish reform; and the Prime Minister, in the speeches he had made, had done much to fan and inflame the passions and prejudices of his countrymen against Ireland. He regretted that the attention of the House had been drawn very considerably away from the real question before it, which was the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Dublin (Dr. Lyons). Not only ought not the Chief Secretary to obtain leave to bring in this Bill for the coercion of the people of Ireland, miscalled "A Bill for the better Protection of Person and Property in that country," but, in the words of the Amendment, "precedence should be given to remedial legislation." He would ask his hon. Friend the Member for Dublin how many of Her Majesty's Ministers had attempted to grapple with that proposition since it had been submitted to the House? Not a single Minister on the Treasury Bench, and not one of their immediate supporters behind, had thought it worth his while to approach that question. It was a proof that they had not been treating the House of Commons as a deliberative Assembly, or they would have taken up the matter under deliberation, and endeavoured to show how it was they had not fulfilled their promise, if coercion was necessary, of accompanying coercion with remedial legislation. He held that the case of the Chief Secretary had utterly broken down, and that it had been conclusively proved that coercive legislation might be put on one side altogether, and remedial legislation introduced. They had not taken that course; and consequently the House was likely to be involved for several weeks, and probably several months, in the task of instructing Her Majesty's Government as to the best way of governing a people whom they knew and represented, but whom, he was sorry to say, Her Majesty's Government did not yet understand. There was never yet, yet his judgment, a people engaged in a more justifiable struggle than the struggle in which the people of Ireland have been engaged during the last two years for the purpose of effecting a reform in the Land Laws. It was true, no doubt, that crimes—abominable crimes—had been committed; and whoever would bring the perpetrators of those crimes to justice, and to speedy justice, would receive his hearty gratitude. He had no sympathy with crime; but he would make no compromise with coercion either in the House or out of it. But even at that hour he would ask Her Majesty's Government to pause before they entered upon a policy which all previous history and experience in Ireland showed could only instigate to rebellion, stimulate the spirit of revolution, and do still more to postpone the day for which true Irishmen and true Englishmen were ardently looking forward, when the strife of centuries might be brought to a close, and Ireland be made prosperous and happy, under a Government and a Parliament of her own, still united with the people of this country in every great struggle for the improvement of humanity.

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

did not think that the debate ought to be closed at so early an hour, and hoped that it might be continued for some time longer.

also hoped that the House would consent to go on with the debate for a short time longer.

said, he had no objection to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

said, he had only moved the adjournment of the debate because he thought that the House might be somewhat fatigued and indisposed to continue it. Personally, he was quite prepared to say a few words even at that late hour. The more he heard upon the matter the more satisfied he became that the whole question before them really resolved itself into this—Had they confidence in Her Majesty's Government, or had they not? Had they confidence that Her Majesty's Government would place the right Bill in the right place, and bring before Parliament the measures that were necessary for the pacification of Ireland along with their remedial legislation? If they had, then the only question was which should come first—remedial legislation or coercion. The object of the Amendment was to give preference to remedial legislation; and the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) found great fault with them for wandering away from that question. He (Mr. Fowler) wished to grapple with it, and he repeated that the real question was whether they could trust Her Majesty's Government when they told them that they really required these powers in order to deal with the present condition of Ireland. He believed that their supporters could trust the Government, because they knew that they hated and detested coercion, and reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was necessary. At the same time, they believed that remedial legislation was necessary. He heartily agreed with them; and although they had not told the House exactly what they were going to do, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) had told them that they were to have a really strong, powerful, and comprehensive Land Bill, which would satisfy all who had at heart the good of the people of Ireland. Were they to trust this statement, or were they not? ["No!"] Hon. Members opposite said that they had no confidence in the Government. But the House had, over and over again, shown their confidence in the Government by their votes; and he failed to see what was to be gained by all these dry and dreary discussions, in which the same things were repeated over and over again. It always came back again to the same question—whether they could or could not rely upon Her Majesty's Ministers. The hon. Member for Mayo asserted that the debate had wandered from the real object at issue; but the hon. Member and his Friends had certainly wandered a good deal more than anybody else. They had raised many points that had nothing to do with the Amendment; and there had been, for instance, many comparisons drawn between the crime of England and of Ireland. It was said that there was more crime in England than in Ireland. He sadly confessed that the allegation was true. They all knew that it was so, and that the social crime of Ireland had always been less than the social crime of England. He admired the character of the Irish people in this respect; but there had always been this great distinction—that when the land of Ireland was touched the Irish people never shrank from any outrage in order to vindicate what they considered to be their rights. That was the difficulty to be dealt with at the present moment. They had not yet satisfied the Irish people about the Land Laws, and they were still struggling for reform; but, as the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) told them, there was a great deal more behind it, and the desire was to get rid of the landlords of Ireland in order to make the independence of the country the more easy to be obtained. All the talk about the difference between crime in England and crime in Ireland was entirely beside the mark, because, after all, it was not a question of any comparison of that sort; but the real question was, what was the condition of the country at this moment? Was it not the fact that a reign of terror existed in Ireland? That was what was before them. In point of fact there was a reign of terror, and the only law observed in Ireland was not the law of Parliament and of the Queen, but the law of a secret, and, he would add, a vile conspiracy. That was the condition of things which had been placed before them by the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. Hon. Members opposite asserted that what the Chief Secretary said was not correct, but was much exaggerated. What they had to say was that they believed the statement of the Chief Secretary, and that they were prepared to give him their votes. All this talk, therefore, about the difference in the state of crime amounted to nothing. They had a Land League in Ireland creating a reign of terror. In England men were able to go where they liked and do what they pleased, and they were able to enforce their rights. But in Ireland, if a man sought to enforce a particular kind of right, he was subjected to the secret dictation of men who went about threatening his life, firing into his house, and committing all those evil deeds which hon. Members opposite admitted to be so very wrong, but declined to do anything to stop. He should like now to say one or two words as to what, in his opinion, was the true cause of the present condition of things. He admitted to hon. Members opposite that there was a good deal to be said in favour of the people of Ireland, and that there were grounds for their feeling a detestation of England. He acknowledged that the history of Ireland had been a sad and a gloomy history, mainly owing to the cruelties of the English Parliament in past centuries. No doubt, this country had systematically destroyed the trade of Ireland, and had done everything she could to damage and destroy the Sister Kingdom. He admitted all that. He admitted, also, how frightful the confiscation of land had been in times past. He admitted, further, that the penal laws with regard to the Catholics of Ireland were a disgrace and discredit to a civilized country. There could be no doubt about it. And all these things showed that there was some reason for the feeling of the people of Ireland with regard to England. But did they justify the present condition of affairs and form a reason why it should be allowed to continue? Such a conclusion would be ridiculous and absurd. They had admitted, and did admit, that the people of Ireland had good cause for her hereditary hatred of England; but it was not the present Parliament that was to blame, but generations long passed away. He was sorry to hear hon. Members opposite speak slightingly of the legislation of modern times. This Parliament had already been engaged in trying to do justice to Ireland; and they would have been discussing the Land Bill now if the Irish Members had not been so persistently obstructive in their proceedings. But what he had said before, and what he felt very strongly, was that nothing would justify the present lawlessness that existed in Ireland. Nothing could justify the foul and vile conspiracy of which he had spoken. Those who were concerned in it seemed to forget that he who set a stone rolling never knew where it would go or where it would stop. In discouraging the people from paying rent and doing their lawful duty, they seemed to forget the effect their speeches must necessarily have on men ignorant and even more exciteable than hon. Members opposite themselves. It was disappointing, after all the concessions which had been obtained for Ireland by men like the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy, to find such a small amount of gratitude. Indeed, there seemed to be a feeling on the other side of the House that hon. Members on that (the Liberal) side were incapable of doing anything honestly for Ireland. The way in which hon. Members opposite had interrupted the speech of the Chancellor of the Duchy showed that they entertained that feeling. But they were entirely mistaken. The Liberal Members were as anxious to help Ireland as the Home Rule Members were. The only question was how they could do it best. The Irish Members wanted to do it one way; the Liberal Members were of opinion that it would be better done in another. Instead of fighting like a deliberative Assembly they were engaged in something that was much more like a big school fight—using physical weapons rather than reason and argument. It was not that the supporters of Her Majesty's Government liked coercion any more than the Irish Members did; but they could not acquiesce in the horrible condition of lawlessness which prevailed in Ireland, and they were determined to see law and order re-established. When that was effected they were perfectly willing to consider the Land Laws with the view of amending them. He believed that it was necessary to place the tenure of land upon a different footing if they were to have a better state of things in Ireland. But the sooner they got rid of the system of Obstruction which was now resorted to the sooner would they be able to proceed to remedial legislation; and he did not believe that any true friend of Ireland would encourage hon. Members opposite in the course they were pursuing. Did they suppose that the Parliament of England would per- manently allow this state of things to go on? It was impossible; and those who encouraged the people of England to become irritated upon the question were neither the true friends of England nor of Ireland. They ought to deal with the matter as intelligent men, and not as excitable debaters. They ought to consider what the real wants of Ireland were, and not try to bolster up what might have been said in other places. If hon. Members thought that England and Ireland ought to be separated, let them bring forward a Motion for the Repeal of the Union. That, however, was not the question before the House now. They had the promise of a Land Bill; let them proceed to discuss it as rapidly as possible. The Irish Members said that coercion stood in the way. Who was responsible for that? It was the men who had established this secret conspiracy. They were responsible for it, and not the poor and ignorant men who followed their lead.

I rise to Order. Is the hon. Member in Order in charging hon. Members with conspiracy?

called upon Mr. W. FOWLER to proceed.

said, it appeared to be a question of terms. Hon. Members said there was no secret conspiracy. Well, then, was there an open conspiracy?

An hon. MEMBER: No; only agitation.

thought that what was going on in Ireland was a conspiracy against law and order?

I rise to a point of Order. Is the hon. Member justified in saying that any Member of this House is guilty of a conspiracy against law and order?

The hon. Member for Cambridge is in possession of the House, and is entitled to proceed. If the hon. Member had made any allegation that was irregular, it would have been my duty to call him to Order.

, in resuming, said, that it was not the poor deluded men who followed the lead who were so much to blame, as those who originated the conspiracy, or whatever hon. Members opposite might choose to call it. The leaders, the founders, and the originators of the movement were those who were really to blame, and it was they who were standing in the way of a Land Reform, because they had created the terrible state of things which existed in Ireland by reason of their illegal machinations. That was the cause which had induced Her Majesty's Government and the Parliament of England most reluctantly to say that they must deal with the question of order before they dealt with the question of the Land Laws. He felt that they were in a great crisis; and he appealed to hon. Members opposite, if they were open to any appeal, not to stand in the way of the reforms which they themselves said were so important and so essential to the future welfare of their country. Let them go to business, and not waste their time longer in wrangles and disputes. He believed they would find that the present Parliament was well disposed to deal with the question of the land. They were not going to have any half-and-half measure of Land Reform, but they were told they were to have a real measure; and Conservatives and Liberals, he was glad to say, were joined together in supporting it. ["Oh!"] It was perfectly true. The Conservatives and Liberals of Ulster had joined together in a common programme for the benefit of the land of Ireland; and hon. Members opposite were standing in the way by obstructing the discussion of the measure. The Parliament of England was strong enough, and was determined that its will should be carried out. They knew it must be done, and it would be done. He could trust right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, for they had to deal with men whose antecedents they knew, and who had been the friends of freedom all their lives. No hon. Member opposite was so ignorant of history as not to know that the Prime Minister had always been the friend of freedom. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had told the House that "it was all a question of how these things were handled." For his own part, he hated with his whole soul any law that was opposed to freedom; but it was the men who were responsible for the state of things in Ireland who had rendered such a law necessary. He trusted the present debate would end without any more of those unseemly wrangles that had occurred within the last few days; and, having entire confidence in Her Majesty's Government, he should give his vote in support of the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman.

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

Debate adjourned till To-morrow.

said, he had promised the hon. Members who had some Amendments to propose to this Bill that he would give ample Notice of going into Committee thereon; and as he scarcely felt that sufficient Notice had been given, he would not proceed with the Bill that evening.

Committee deferred till Thursday next.

thought the House should have some explanation with regard to this very important Bill. It was, in his opinion, rather a strong order to ask that the Bill be read a second time without any explanation whatever being afforded. He was perfectly ready to admit that the question was one which required to be dealt with immediately. Her Majesty's Government had introduced a Bill dealing with the matter in "another place," and the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Magniac) was quite right in bringing forward his measure in the House of Commons; but it was altogether another thing to pass the second reading of a Bill of this important character, without having any explanation from its author of the provisions which it contained. It was desirable to know to what extent the hon. Member would like the Bill to apply, and what modifications he would be prepared to accept in Committee if the Bill were read a second time that night. Again, he would like to know how it was intended to deal with the various classes of land; whether middle and higher lands would be charged, and at what rates? Then there were the obstructions caused in some rivers by mills, canals, &c. All these were points of serious importance, and he was quite certain they could not be properly discussed at that hour (12.30). If it was the intention of his hon. Friend that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee, and if he could persuade the Government to send it to a Select Committee together with their own Bill, the position would be different, because he held that the more information which could be obtained with regard to matters of the kind, the better. His hon. Friend had, as a member of a deputation in connection with this subject, set before the President of the Local Government Board a clear and decided case that legislation was required; and the right hon. Gentleman had replied that, at an early opportunity, he would introduce a Bill dealing with the evil. That Bill had been introduced, and his hon. Friend the Member for Bedford had also brought in a Bill upon the subject. The pressing necessity of dealing with the question was so absolute, the floods having already done an infinity of mischief to the best class of land, to towns, and to various other interests, that he asked his hon. Friend both to explain the Bill and the course he intended to pursue with respect to it.

said, this matter, which was, no doubt, a very important one, had been much considered in that part of the country which he had the honour to represent, and had also been the subject of allusion in the Queen's Speech. He thought, therefore, the House should be informed by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board whether the Bill, for which a second reading was asked, was likely to interfere with the measure introduced by Her Majesty's Government in "another place?" He would be the last to oppose any remedy for the grievous state of things caused in many parts of the country by the overflowing of rivers; but he had not expected that a Bill of such importance would be brought in at that hour of the night. Very few hon. Members interested in the question had any idea that this would be the case; and for that reason he appealed to the hon. Member for Bedford to allow the Bill to stand over till some more opportune time. Her Majesty's Government having introduced a Bill dealing with the subject in "another place," it certainly appeared somewhat inconsistent that a private Member should also bring a Bill of the same character before the House. No doubt, the Bill of the hon. Member for Bedford was important, and would probably do a great deal of good. At the same time, it was quite impossible to consider it properly at half-past 12 o'clock; and he would, therefore, ask him to defer the second reading to a more convenient moment.

said, his object in asking for the second reading of the Bill that night was in order to place it in such a position as would be most convenient for referring it to a select Committee together with the Bill which he understood would come down from the Lords, supposing that the Bill should be passed in "another place," and be sent down for consideration. Without criticizing the other Bill, he had made himself acquainted with its provisions, some of which appeared to him less preferable than those contained in his own Bill, and vice versâ. But he did not think any measure would satisfy the country unless it was referred to a Select Committee, in which it could be considered with greater care than in that House. It was a Bill full of detail and questions affecting private interests of bodies that in the course of the last 500 years had been created by Acts of Parliament. He felt sure it would be the desire of the House to submit the various questions of private interests to the full and fair consideration which they would receive at the hands of a Select Committee.

I do not rise for the purpose of offering any opposition to the second reading of my hon. Friend's Bill. He has devoted a great deal of time and attention to this subject, and is himself a very competent authority to speak upon it. The Government, at the solicitation of a deputation of which my hon. Friend was a member, have introduced a Bill upon this subject in "another place," which, looking at the state of Business in this House, I think was the best course to pursue. I trust it will pass the House of Lords and come down here; and it is my intention, as at pre- sent advised, to move that it be referred to a Select Committee, for the purpose of carefully considering its clauses. Now, the proposal of the hon. Member is, that his Bill also should be referred to the Select Committee. In saying that I have no objection to the second reading of this Bill, I must couple it with the request that he will not press it to any further stage before the Government Bill, now in the other House, is discussed here. I hope my hon. Friend will be a Member of any Select Committee that may be appointed for the consideration of that Bill, and that I shall, in any case, have the benefit of his assistance in passing it; but I cannot now enter into any engagement with him with respect to referring his Bill to a Select Committee. But my hon. Friend will be able to move any provision of his Bill as an Amendment to the Government Bill, whether it goes to a Select Committee or not. As I am desirous that a question of such importance should be settled in the present Session, I am only afraid that if we attempt to ride two horses at once we may come to the ground between them; and that is my sole reason for abstaining from giving my hon. Friend any undertaking at present.

said, he only wished to get a Bill passed that Session. He should do all in his power to further the passage of a good measure, whether it was his own or that of the Government. He had, on a former occasion, given way with regard to this Bill, in order to facilitate the Business of the House, and he trusted that it would now be read a second time.

said, he rose for the purpose of moving the adjournment of the debate. It was then 20 minutes to 1 o'clock, and it was utterly impossible at that time to begin a discussion upon a Bill of such magnitude as the present, and to go through a debate on the second reading with anything approaching a second reading discussion. Her Majesty's Government had taken the subject into their hands, and had introduced an important Bill into the House of Lords, and the discussion which would take place there would be of great advantage to the public in dealing with the question. There was also a Private Bill before the House, which, when considered, he ventured to think would be found of an objectionable character—that introduced by the Thames Conservancy Board with respect to the River Thames. It was a matter of surprise that the Government had not found themselves in a position to include in their Bill provisions relating to the River Thames. Taking that into consideration, together with the fact that few hon. Members had any idea that the Bill of the hon. Member for Bedford would be taken that evening, he thought the House would see the advantage of adjourning the debate until such time as they were in possession of the Government views upon the subject, and the course likely to be taken with regard to the Bill relating to the River Thames.

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

I hope the House will not accede to the Motion of the noble Lord. The noble Lord entered the House after the discussion of this Bill had continued for some time, and is probably not aware of what has taken place. Hon. Members opposite were, I think, perfectly justified in asking that the Bill should be placed in a position to be referred to a Select Committee. Everyone has agreed that no inconvenience can possibly arise from the second reading; and I can assure the noble Lord that he will have, in the course of the present Session, every opportunity of considering its provisions. Everyone knows there are other Bills on the subject, and that it will be an advantage to the Committee to have their provisions before them.

complained that a Member could not ask a question about a Bill brought in at that time in the morning without some Member of the Government getting up and charging hon. Members with a desire to obstruct. If any other Member but the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had made such a charge he would probably have taken more serious notice of it; but, under the circumstances, he thought it might be passed by. The question was, whether this Bill should pass the House without any discussion at all at 1 o'clock in the morning? Nobody had supposed that the discussion would come on, and it was quite by accident that anybody was there who had ever considered the Bill, or had had any knowledge of the subject-matter of it. He did not understand that the proposition made by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board was that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. He should like to know what the proposal was if it was not that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. He did not understand the observations of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, because he had just stated that the only object for reading the Bill a second time was that it should be in a position to be referred to a Select Committee. If there was no such intention, then what was the good of putting it into a position to be referred to a Select Committee? Before the House decided the question, he should like some Member of the Government, or someone who was in charge of the Bill, to say whether the Bill was to be referred to a Select Committee or not. If it was, he did not see any very strong objection to reading it a second time for that purpose; but if it was not to be referred to a Select Committee, he should certainly support his noble Friend in resisting the second reading at that hour without any discussion at all.

said, that, under the circumstances, he should not press his Motion; but he had been perfectly serious in the proposition he made. He might be permitted to explain that he represented a constituency several parts of which bordered on the Thames, and were greatly damaged by floods, and he certainly had no idea that the Bill would be brought in that night. He thought that the charge of Obstruction made by the Home Secretary was decidedly uncalled for; but, under the circumstances, he would not press his Motion to a division.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

wished to know, whether the Home Secretary or the President of the Local Government Board was right? Was the Bill to be referred to a Select Committee or not? Because the conduct of himself and his noble Friend would depend upon that.

The hon. and learned Member for Chatham seems to believe that there is a discrepancy between my statement and that of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secre- tary. I said that I would not object to the second reading of the Bill. The hon. Member who has charge of it (Mr. Magniac) said he wished to have it read a second time, in order that it might be in a position to be referred to the same Select Committee as that to which the Government Bill might be referred. I said, upon that, I would support a second reading; but I would reserve my judgment in regard to further action. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, repeating the words of the hon. Member who moved the second reading of the Bill, said he agreed that the Bill should be placed in a position for reference to a Select Committee.

said, the question was simply this—the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Magniac) said if the Bill was read a second time he should be prepared to refer it to a Select Committee. On that understanding, he had no objection to that course.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday next.

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it had been in the hands of hon. Members for some time; and he wished to explain that the measure had two clauses, with one object. In the reign of Henry VIII.—when, apparently, it was considered that Ireland was in a barbarous condition, and that it should be civilized by a course of dinners at the Inns of Court in London—a Bill was passed which this measure proposed to do away with. Leave was given in 1859, by a majority of 56 in a House of upwards of 300, to introduce a Bill for a similar object; but it was not proceeded with in consequence of a circumstance that sometimes happened unexpectedly—a General Election—and the parties interested retired into private life. Since he had had the honour of a seat in the House he had twice introduced a Bill on the subject; but Notice of Motion under the half-past 12 Rule had prevented his going on with it. There was no Notice of opposition to the Bill; but, seeing that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin was about to rise, if the right hon. and learned Gentleman objected he would be prepared to propose that the Bill should be read a second time, and then to name a Committee and give time for it to be considered.

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

said, he hoped the second reading of the Bill would not be agreed to. His right hon. and learned Friend the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) had left London that night for Ireland; but he would take the course which he knew that his right hon. and learned Friend intended to take. He did not propose to raise a long debate at that time of night; but he wished to state exactly how the matter stood. The hon. Member who moved the second reading said he would have no objection to some postponement, in order that the matter might be referred to the Benchers in Ireland. But there was no reason for any postponement for that purpose, because he had in his possession a letter from the Secretary to the Benchers of King's Inn requesting him to oppose the Bill. A similar letter had been sent to his right hon. and learned Friend the late Attorney General for Ireland, who had left London entirely under the impression that the Bill would be resisted by the Government. This matter had been before the Benchers in Dublin again and again—in 1874, in 1878, and he believed, also, only a few days ago, when the Secretary was, as he understood, directed to forward to the Irish Executive resolutions in favour of resisting that proposal. It was an old practice that required students at the Irish Bar to eat a certain number of dinners in London, and that practice had been found to work very beneficially. The Benchers thought that it should be maintained, believing that its abandonment would have a prejudicial effect. He had practised for some time at the Irish Bar, and he never heard the system complained of. It had been found most useful for the younger men preparing for the Irish Bar to come and spend some time in London. They only came for four terms out of twelve; and it had been found that, among other advantages, it had led to valuable study in London, where it was very desirable that the students should have an opportunity of studying the English law as it was taught there. The ground upon which he requested the Government to assist him in resisting the Bill was that it was the unanimous opinion of the Benchers, who were the custodians of the interests of the Bar in Ireland, that the Bill would be very injurious if it became law. They had requested him and the Irish Government to resist the Bill; and, therefore, he trusted that they would not assent to the second reading. If it was now read a second time it would come by surprise to all who opposed it, because they were entirely under the impression that it was the intention of the Government to resist it.

wished to understand what it was the right hon. and learned Gentleman wished to preserve to Irish law students. Perhaps he had informed the House that it was the privilege of eating a certain number of dinners. Well, there was nothing more enjoyable than a good dinner in London, unless it was a good dinner in Dublin; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke as if by the consumption of beef and mutton there was to be swallowed a vast amount of legal lore. If the Irish students were asked to attend lectures in London, he could understand, and might even support, the opposition; but what advantage was there to a student coming to London by the night-mail, going through his dinners as fast as he could, and speeding back to Dublin? He had heard this question debated before. The practice was said to promote genial intercourse. That he could understand. He was for promoting genial intercourse; but he was astonished at the right hon. and learned Gentleman supporting that relic of barbarism. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had been a lecturer on law himself, and he knew that the reason of this practice was the idea of training Irish barbarism to learn the manners and dress of the English people. Yet he had come there to say that the Benchers in Ireland desired to continue the practice. Would he inform the House what for? If he could feel sure that the Irish students would get some legal instruction in London he would support the opposition. But he objected to the maintenance of this absurd law, which compelled students to come to London to eat so many dinners, and then to go back to Ireland, knowing nothing of learning, nothing of the law which was so admirably taught in London; but, perhaps, knowing what they ought not to know or see in London or anywhere else.

I do not precisely see the reason upon which this regulation is based. I do not know that the eating of dinners at the English Bar is of any great service. It may be; but I do not precisely see what is the advantage to the Irish barrister of eating these English dinners, and I can quite conceive that there is considerable expense in coming here for that purpose. I think that what the hon. Member (Mr. Callan) suggested was fair, that if the Bill was read a second time he would give an abundance of time for representations to be made from Ireland; and to any persons in Ireland who might be opposed to it to bring their objections before the House for further consideration. I cannot see that there is anything that need prevent us from reading the Bill a second time; but it must be distinctly understood that, in assenting to that, we reserve our power to take another course in Committee, if we find anything between now and then to make that necessary; and I now suppose there must be reasons against the Bill, or hon. Members would not have such strong feelings as they have about it. The reasons are not given to-night, and I cannot see how we can oppose the second reading, although we reserve our power.

could not see, in what had been said from the Front Opposition Bench, a scintilla of argument in favour of the present system. No doubt, the Benchers in Dublin and the late Attorney General for Ireland thought it should be maintained; but he thought the House would consider it upon its merits. It simply amounted to a heavy fine on Irish students, and he would remind the House that they had more than once petitioned against it.

said, he understood that there was a very strong feeling among Irish Members in favour of maintaining the system; and he should like to know whether the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, who was in the House, would give the House the reasons which had induced the Government to differ from the right hon. and learned Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench?

It may be my misfortune on this occasion; but I am myself one of the Benchers. I have not had the opportunity of formally communicating with the Benchers in Ireland. But I have received from the Under Treasurer the Resolutions which have been mentioned, and they are of the most absolute character. They are a repetition of what has been resolved by them over and over again, and laid before the House, in 1872, in 1874, and in 1878.

Which way did their opinions go?

Against any change.

wished, before this matter was decided, to say that this requirement for Irish law students to spend a portion of their time in London, the only object being to eat a certain number of dinners there, was regarded by a very large number of people in his country as an insult to the Irish nation. He had certain knowledge of the fact. The custom against which he protested had come down from a time when the Irish people were regarded as barbarians, and when it was considered essential for the learning of law, or the learning of anything else, that Irishmen should come over to England to get some notion of civilization, of art and science, in London. There were schools of law existing in Ireland at the present moment perfectly capable of preparing students for the Profession. What was gained by requiring those students to come over here? Certainly, no good. They came over for a holiday, knocked about London for a short time, and then went back no wiser in law than when they came, and, he feared, not better men. As he had said, the arrangement was regarded as one dating from ancient times, and, as to the Benchers and their opposition to any interference with it, the fact was they were not a reforming body. They would perpetuate the arrangement if they possibly could. The spirit of reform was not amongst them; but if hon. Members would go to the law students of Ireland and ask their opinion on the matter, he would be bound to say they would tell a very different story.

said, he had not the honour to be a Bencher, although he had great respect for those who were. He had, however, had some experience of the Irish Bar, and he thought he could give the House the opinion of the great majority of gentlemen there engaged. He believed the great majority of Irish barristers would vote unanimously for the second reading of the Bill.

only wished to say one word on the matter. It had always appeared to him to be a great injustice that gentlemen studying for the Irish Bar should be obliged to spend a portion of their time in London in order to study what they could study equally well in Dublin. He looked upon it as a sort of penalty inflicted on Irish students. Ireland had produced some of the most distinguished members of the Bar, and when they considered the great attainments those gentlemen brought to the Profession in Ireland—advantages derived from their great University—he thought they might well adopt the proposed reform.

did not think the view taken of this matter by the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. T. D. Sullivan), that the existing arrangement was an insult to the Irish nation, was the right view of the question. That was the first occasion, he believed, on which the subject had been brought before the House in the long catalogue of so-called Irish grievances. It had struck him as somewhat curious that the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, with all the various cares and anxieties of his present position on him, and the numerous reflections which had been cast upon his past and present policy staring him in the face, had managed to take upon himself the conduct of another Department of State and to usurp the functions of the Law Officers of the Crown. He (Mr. Warton) would not say what he thought of the right hon. Gentleman's conduct; but, as a Member of the English Bar, he had certainly felt a little of—he would not say what—when he observed the course taken by the Chief Secretary. He knew the right hon. Gentleman's power in Ireland, still did not believe that he was quite omniscient, or that he was the right officer of the Government to rise on such a subject as this. The opinions of the Law Officers of the Crown, and those who had held that position in the former Government, ought to be taken before the House came to a conclusion on this subject. From the statement of the Solicitor General for Ireland it was clear that the Irish Benchers had remonstrated every time it had been sought to pass such a measure as this, and he thought that some respect ought to be paid to the opinion of those gentlemen. [An hon. MEMBER: The Benchers are not the Bar.] No, it was true the Benchers were not the Bar; but the Benchers kept the Bar in order, and sometimes even the Irish Bar required keeping in order. The gentlemen at the Bar ought to obey their superiors, and the Benchers who unanimously protested against this Bill ought to be obeyed in the present instance. The hon. and most learned Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton), who was interrupting him, had made use of a peculiar expression in his speech. He had said that the unanimous feeling of part of the Bar was in favour of this alteration. No doubt, also, those who objected to it were unanimously against it; but that kind of argument or expression was hardly of a legal character. The subject was one of importance, and seriousness; and, especially when they heard these inflammatory statements about insult to the Irish nation, it was incumbent on them to keep their heads clear in considering it. The importance of discipline was manifest, and when they saw that there was not a single voice raised amongst the Irish Benchers in support of the alteration they should be careful how they interfered with the existing state of things. It was not for them to sneer at eating dinners. They ought to resist the measure in deference to the Benchers, for it was for that body and the Law Officers of the Crown alone to decide and to resist it also, because of the moment at which it was brought in. No one had expected the Bill; even the Chief Secretary had not known what was taking place which it was brought in. The right hon. Gentleman could make up his mind rapidly, in a moment of time, on a matter that did not at all concern him.

wished to save the House from a waste of time. Looking at the spirit in which his proposal had been, received, he was sorry that he had made it; but, in order that there should be no division, would it not be well to put off naming the Committee until that day month? If that suggestion were not accepted, and the House was forced to proceed to a division, and if the measure was read a second time, he would fix the Committee for to-morrow.

said, he had no right to speak again; but perhaps the House would grant him indulgence for a moment. He would not put them to the trouble of dividing, as he knew he should not succeed; and, under the circumstances, he would not resist the suggestion of the Chief Secretary, it being understood that the course to be pursued subsequently should be left quite open. It was not a very usual practice on Bills of this kind to agree to a second reading under such circumstances, still he should not object further.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday 24th February.