said, he would appeal to the Government to reconsider the decision they had arrived at. The clause proposed that the Board of Works should advance the money from the Treasury for the purposes of reclamation or improvement of waste or uncultivated land and other works of agricultural improvement. The Amendment proposed to substitute the Land Commission for the Board of Works. He submitted that the Board of Works, a Board which stood condemned for incapability and mismanagement, was not a proper institution for carrying out important works of this character. It must necessarily follow that questions, grave and weighty, would arise from time to time in the working of the whole Bill with regard to the desirability of allowing Companies to purchase tracts of land in certain districts; and it was absurd to suppose that a body like the Board of Works could be trusted in regard to the decision of those questions of policy. But he might be told that it was not the Board of Works that would have to decide questions of policy, but that such questions would be decided by the Treasury. He did not think, however, that the Treasury was a proper body to decide questions of this character. What had been one of the chief grounds for believing that no Bill containing the "three F's," or no Bill establishing a peasant proprietary, would remove one of the chief evils of the Land Question in Ireland? It had been because there existed in the West of Ireland—in three or four of the Western counties, and in a few other counties—crowded districts where the tenants were settled in such numbers on poor and small holdings that it was utterly impossible for them to make a decent subsistence and to pay any rent at all. That fact had been vouched for by everybody who had studied the Land Question on the spot. They had the evidence of both of the Royal Commissions on this point. They had the evidence of Major Robertson and Professor Baldwin, the two Assistant Commissioners, who were appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the state of the poorer and smaller tenancies of Ireland, and more especially in those districts in which they had been told no measure could satisfactorily settle the Irish Land Question which did not in some way make provision for those small holders. After the Famine and at other times lands in many of the Irish counties were cleared of their popu- lation, and the people who had been cleared from the richer land sought refuge upon the poorer and more barren portions of the country. They had reclaimed the bogs and brought in the hill side, and they had been allowed to stay upon their little holdings, because at the time of their settlement the land on which they located themselves was absolutely worth nothing. They had made that land worth something, and since then the landlords had placed a rent upon the holdings such as the people were not able to bear, partly by reason of the excessive nature of the rent. Professor Baldwin and everybody else—he believed that hon. Members on both sides of the House had pointed out that something must be done for these small tenants, that they could not live where they were, and that it was absolutely necessary to give them some opportunity of settling down on holdings of a larger area than they at present occupied. There were in Ireland 360,000 holdings of a value of less than £8 per annum, and, he believed, something like from 200,000 to 250,000 which were valued at less than £4 per annum. Hence it followed that much of the misery which had been the chief cause of periodical famines and periods of scarcity in Ireland was owing to the fact that large numbers of the people were crowded upon small holdings which were absolutely insufficient to afford a living to such poor families. There were, undoubtedly, contrary opinions as to the best way in which this evil could be remedied. Some advocated emigration, and others advocated migration. He did not wish to go at any length into the question of emigration, because it was connected with a separate and distinct clause of the Bill. However, it came incidentally into this clause, because the clause seemed to have been pitchforked into the Bill for the purpose of providing an alternative scheme to that of emigration. In other words, the Government seemed to have relied on the Bill for the purpose of trying what could be done in the way of migrating families from the poorer districts to better holdings. But if they started by giving this duty to the Board of Works they would deprive the clause at the very outset of all possible chance of success. He did not wish at the present moment to enter into any discussion or to make any observations in regard to the nature of the clause itself, but rather to draw attention to the fact that it was proposed to hand over this power to private Companies instead of establishing a public body to undertake these beneficial operations of improvement. That, however, was a matter which would come on for discussion upon later Amendments which were lower down on the Paper. But he would say that no matter what the case was, the object was generally to improve land in Ireland which was capable of improvement, and to give employment and the means of living, perhaps by excessive labour, to the smaller tenant farmers living on the land he had described. The Board of Works was an institution which was already exceedingly overworked. It had, it was true, at its disposal a staff of engineers, and it had been said that they could not give the working of this clause to the Land Commission because the Land Commission had no staff of engineers at its disposal. He agreed to the highest and fullest extent that it was desirable that the Commission, if it was to undertake the duty of carrying out the clause, should have skilled and scientific help at its disposal; but what was to hinder the Committee from inserting power in the clause, or bringing in a new clause to give the Land Commission power to avail itself of the services of the engineering staff of the Board of Works, or of the department generally of the Board of Works, for the purpose of carrying out the engineering and mechanical works that might devolve on them in giving full effect to the clause? He submitted that if the Board of Works was to be brought in it must not be brought in as a prime mover—that questions of policy, questions of setting the machinery in motion, and what persons should be entitled to be brought under the provisions of the clause, were not questions to be decided by the Board of Works in the first instance, but should be decided by the Land Commission in the first instance, subject to the approval of the Treasury itself. By all means let the Board of Works be used as an instrument, as it was an engineering body, and had a skilled staff of experts at its disposal. Let it by all means be used for the purpose of carrying out the details which might require its aid; but do not let the Board of Works be introduced into the Bill as an imperio in imperium, because if they did that they would upset the whole principle of the Bill, which proposed that there should be a ruling authority in Ireland to decide questions of importance in regard to the land. He contended that they could not separate the clause from the rest of the Bill. If the clause was to be used at all, questions would come up as to the way in which they were to deal with the smaller tenants in the West of Ireland, and it was impossible that the Board of Works could have sufficient weight and knowledge to enable them to deal with such questions. He therefore trusted that Her Majesty's Government would reconsider their decision, and that they would substitute for the Board of Works some such body as the Land Commission, which was alone capable of directing the future policy of the country upon these matters.

remarked, that this was one of the most important questions involved in the Bill. He entertained a hope that the reclamation of waste land in Ireland would be able to provide considerable employment throughout the country, and by that means afford a prospect of remedying, to a considerable extent, the prevailing distress. Under these circumstances, he thought it right to address a few words to the Committee with respect to the machinery proposed by the Bill. It appeared to him that they would entirely nullify and destroy all chance of the clause being made effective, and of insuring that the reclamation of waste lands should take place in Ireland if they intrusted the matter to the Board of Works. How had the Board of Works up to the present time administered the functions intrusted to them in Ireland? He did not wish to make any personal attack upon the members of the Board which was foreign to the administration of the Board, and he was content to take things as they were. As the Prime Minister had been pleased to observe, the Board of Works was really under the control of the Treasury. At any rate, they had been under the control of the Treasury up to the present time, and he did not care to inquire whether the faults connected with their administration rested with the Board of Works itself or with the Treasury. He would, however, remind the Committee that at the present moment there had been two Departmental Committees appointed to inquire into the control of the Board of Works, one of which was presided over by Lord Lansdowne, and the other by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) and the late Member for the County of Carlow (Mr. Kavanagh), both of which reported adversely to the administration of the Board, and both were of opinion that it was not desirable to intrust the work of reclamation to the Board of Works at all. Therefore, they had the Board of Works arraigned and condemned so far as being intrusted with the reclamation of land was concerned. The Report of the last Committee had been before the House since 1878, and right hon. Members who now sat on the Front Opposition Bench had promised, from time to time, ever since that Report was presented, that the whole of the administration of the Board of Works should be re-organized, and that there should be a new constitution of that Department. But, like most Parliamentary promises, although those two Reports had stood on record since 1878, nothing in the world had been done, and, having had nothing in the world done, they were now about to hand this most important matter of the reclamation of the waste lands of Ireland over again to the control of the Board of Works. Even supposing that the Board of Works up to the present time had worked effectively, and had not stood condemned by these two Departmental Committees, he should say, having regard to the structure of the present Bill, that the Board of Works was the worst body they could possibly intrust with the work of reclamation. Under a previous part of the Bill which had been already assented to by the Committee power had been given to authorize large purchases of property by the Land Commission. It would be necessary, in the purchase of these properties, that the Land Commission should buy a quantity of uncultivated and waste land, and it might experience some difficulty in disposing of it to the tenants of adjoining property unless they executed some works of drainage or reclamation upon such land. Under these circumstances, why should they have such a cumbrous system as that which was proposed to be established by the Bill?—namely, one Board purchasing land that must necessarily be reclaimed, and another Board dealing with the matter of reclamation and the question of drainage. He would ask the attention of Her Majesty's Government, without entering into any controversy at all as to the past demerits of the Board of Works, to the question whether these powers and functions ought not necessarily to be intrusted to the Land Commission? What were the Land Commission to do with large uncultivated tracts of land when they purchased property in the West of Ireland? Was it not the first part of their business that they should have the means of reclaiming and putting it in order for the benefit of the country? What was even more necessary would be found in an Amendment a little later on, which was intended to be proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), who knew very well what would probably be the mode in which the matter would be dealt with—namely, by the reclamation being carried out by the tenants themselves. Everyone who had studied the evidence given before the Bessborough Commission would be aware that no small portion of that evidence dealt with the question of reclamation, and it was abundantly pointed out that the reclamation of land could alone be made beneficial by the tenants of the property—that the small tenants and men of that class were alone the men who could execute the works. Every single witness, landlord as well as tenant, had actually declared that the reclamation of waste lands by private Companies was a perfect chimera, and one which it was utterly absurd and impossible to give effect to. Under these circumstances, he would ask Her Majesty's Government, before they finally proceeded to vote upon the clause, to consider whether the duty of authorizing and superintending advances could not be transferred from the Land Commission to a body which, without entering into its merits or demerits, had mismanaged and destroyed all the beneficial operation of the "Bright Clauses" of the Land Act of 1870.

said, he firmly believed that Her Majesty's Government, in putting this clause into the Bill, intended that it should be a beneficial clause, and were thoroughly genuine and honest in that intention. His faith, however, had been very rudely shaken In the Board of Works. If he wanted to tell the Committee all the opinions that he had formed about the Board of Works in Ireland, he should not know where to begin. Outside the circle of Dublin Castle there was not a single man, woman, or child who had the slightest confidence in the Board of Works. That was the opinion of almost every Irishman of every class and shade. To give the Committee an idea of the mode in which the Board of Works conducted its business—he could give lots of ideas, but he would only state one fact. He believed that the Board of Works had had to advance money upon two-thirds of the property in Ireland. He did not think that that was at all an exaggeration. But would it he believed that the Board of Works had never yet kept a record of titles? He knew a case in which a landlord had had 10 loans in 1870, and 10 times did the Board of Works desire his title to be investigated. Was a Department which carried on its business in that way a fit Department to intrust with these new and important duties? The Irish Government had no control whatever over the Irish Board of Works. The Irish Government might be extremely anxious to carry out a particular policy in relation to the land of Ireland; but they found themselves thwarted over and over again by the Board of Works, under the control of the Treasury and Sir Ralph Lingen. He wished to point out that the Board of Works had been twice investigated, and twice condemned. The Government had constantly expressed their intention of reforming the Board of Works; and if it was to be reformed at all, it would be better to reform it before they gave it these new and important duties. It was certainly idle, while they declared that it was unfit to discharge the duties already devolving upon it, to intrust to the Board of Works new and important duties; and then reform it in another year. It was acknowledged by all parties in Ireland that the First Commissioner of Works was not able to perform his present duties satisfactorily, and that he ought to be superannuated. At the time of the recent distress the country ran the danger of famine, because Colonel M'Kerlie, not from any fault of his own, was quite unequal to the work which fell upon him. So far as the Land Commission was concerned, it was to be a pre-eminently judicial body; and he doubted very much whether a body intended to be pre-eminently judicial ought to be intrusted with functions of this nature. Nothing, however, was more calculated to reduce the clause to a nullity than the course taken by Her Majesty's Government with regard to the Board of Works.

I have endeavoured to gather, as far as I can, the feeling of the Committee; and I own, with great regret, that I see a disposition to support this Amendment, because it is a matter upon which the Government cannot change their ground, and I will give the Committee absolute reasons why the Government cannot do so. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) has made a most ingenuous speech upon the subject. He fairly alleges that the misdeeds of the Board of Works are misdeeds of the Treasury, and he says that the Treasury are totally unfit to manage this matter—that is to say, that the Treasury are totally unfit to control the expenditure of public money.

No.

But that is the whole question. Some other body is to be appointed to do it.

I did not say that.

If I have misquoted the hon. Gentleman, perhaps he will explain?

I did not mean that the Treasury should not control the amount of money to be authorized. What I said was that the Commission should have the conduct of the policy of recommending the Treasury to advance the money, and not the Board of Works. I do not wish to take the matter ultimately out of the hands of the Treasury.

The hon. Gentleman, from time to time, is one of the most ingenuous men I know. Every now and then comes from the lips of the hon. Gentleman some of the most ingenuous declarations; and the hon. Gentleman in this instance did fairly let fly at the Treasury, and I think justly, because it is on the Treasury that the sins of the Board of Works ought to be charged. There is no mistake about that. The hon. Gentleman now seems to think that he is completely master of all the machinery of government, and that he understands it from its inception upwards. That, however, is not the fact, and he must be content to take the assurance of some of those who know what the working of the machinery is. If the Treasury is bad, it is your duty to improve the constitution of the Treasury; but if you are merely to take over the functions of controlling the Public Expenditure, then this House would lose its security and its usual means of checking the expenditure of public money. What is the declaration of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill). He says that the Irish Government ought to be intrusted with the making of these advances.

I added, with the concurrence of the Treasury, in the words of the Amendment.

I understood the noble Lord to say that the duty was to be discharged by the Irish Government alone.

Concurrently with the Treasury.

But what is the use, if the Treasury are to have no means of forming a judgment upon the merits of the case? We should then have to make a Board of Works in the Treasury; we should have to equip the Treasury with a set of engineers who should survey and overlook the Board of Works. The Commissioners would suggest the policy, and the Treasury would be the judges of the amount of money required. But how are you to separate the policy and the amount of money? If the Treasury say that they would not allow more than one-half of the sum you ask, what becomes of the policy and judgment of the Commission? And if the Commission are to fix the amount, then what becomes of the control of the Treasury and of this House? The Board of Works is nothing but the arm of the Treasury, and if you regard the Treasury as unfit for its duty, it is exactly like saying that the Foreign Office is not fit to settle a foreign question; and, therefore, you will take such questions out of the hands of the Foreign Office and place them in the hands of the Home Secretary. If the organization of a particular Department is bad, amend it; but do not suppose that you can improve the administration of Public Offices by throw- ing them into chaos. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) says it is quite unnecessary, and that it is a principle of this Bill that all matters relating to the management of land in Ireland should be under one Public Department. The hon. Gentleman must excuse me if I say that he is entirely wrong. He seems to forget that this clause is nothing in the world except the extension of very large statutory powers now in existence; powers so large that when I look at them I seem hardly to know how they are capable of being still further widened. Yet all of those powers are powers exercised under the control of the Treasury by the Board of Works. Then, what do we come to next? That a public authority in Ireland has been inquired into and condemned. And the noble Lord comes down upon us with his own incomparable knowledge of the state of Ireland, and declares that there is not a man in Ireland outside Dublin Castle who has any confidence in the Board of Works. He says, further, and this is a most important part of the case, that the Board of Works has been condemned by two Executive bodies who have inquired into it. The Board of Works has, I believe, been censured in a former inquiry specially in reference to the execution of works made by the Board on the responsibility of the Government. But that has nothing to do with what this clause proposes, because, under this clause, the Board can do nothing of the kind; and, therefore, that condemnation is of no effect whatever, so far as the present case is concerned. The Board of Works, under this clause, is to advance money to the parties who are willing and desirous to do these things, and that is just the function in which they have been engaged for the last 30 years. And now let us see what Irishmen, whether in or out of Dublin Castle, think of it in that capacity, because here is a Report, signed as lately as the 20th June, 1878, by Lord Crichton. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: A Government official.] Lord Crichton was a Government official, and that, of course, entirely deprives him of any weight, or of the confidence of the noble Lord. Still, the noble Lord surely requires to know why it was that this Government official—this guilty man—gave his opinion in this particular sense, for it was just as open to him to have given it in any other sense, had lie so chosen. But it is not only with Government officials that we have to deal. Here is another Gentleman, Mr. Arthur Kavanagh, I believe he is an Irishman, and I rather think he is a person of some authority. I never heard that he resided in Dublin Castle. Then there is Mr. Mitchell Henry—is he tainted with the poison derived from Dublin Castle? There is also Mr. Fremantle, Master of the Mint—a most able man—not a man of our political Association, but an able, a very able, and distinguished public servant. Lastly, there is Mr. Herbert Murray. I am not quite certain that I can except him altogether from the taint of Dublin Castle; but, at any rate, I believe he is one of those who have been there. What do these fine gentlemen say when they are describing acts for purposes precisely analogous to those which are embraced in the present clause—namely, the business of advancing money to parties desirous of executing agricultural improvements? And in their official Report they say—

"The success of these acts is unquestionable. No legislative measures for Ireland have ever been more freely taken advantage of, and from no measures has the country probably derived greater benefit. They have been the means of securing, within the last 30 years, a capital expenditure of £3,000,000 in agricultural improvements, and of enhancing the value of landed property without involving any loss to the Exchequer. The successful working of these Acts must, in a great measure, be attributed to the Commissioners of Public Works. The administration of them has been liberal and judicious, and we think that it reflects much credit upon the Board."

I think, after this, we shall have no more condemnation of the Board of Works; but I have heard one or two speeches to-night which make me think that what is really in view is to get rid of this principle of control altogether, and to substitute for it a principle of expenditure by the Government. [Mr. BIGGAR: Not at all.] I did not refer to anything said by the hon. Member for Cavan; but I have heard one or two speeches which have led me to surmise that that is so. We shall not agree to set the Government in motion for a purpose for which, in our opinion, it is quite unfitted. That would be a very great mistake. We shall endeavour to occupy a position in which the public funds may be made available, by way of judicious advance, for the purposes of this Bill, but only after the matter has been tested and ascertained by a Body armed with a competent staff of experienced agents, and fortified for the purpose of its duties by a long experience. But, instead of that, the proposition on the other side is that, while we are charging the Land Commission with the enormous duty—first of all, of the judicial administration of the law between landlord and tenant; secondly, with this most complex and difficult operation of the purchase and re-purchase of property; and, thirdly, with the superintendance of any measure that may be adopted with regard to emigration, it is also proposed that they shall charge themselves with the work of making advances to landlords and tenants. I say "tenants," because that is a matter which has been pressed upon the Government, and, so far as it is in their power, the Government will be glad to accede to such a proposal. But we cannot consent to put this duty upon the Commission; for, if we did, the consequence must be that the Commission, appointed for purposes wholly different, laden with charges and responsibilities of quite another character, and having no instrument suited for such a purpose as this, must immediately create another Public Establishment by the side of the Board of Works to overlook and superintend all these arrangements, notwithstanding the fact that the Board of Works has already a number of officers engaged in precisely similar work—for you do not propose to dispossess them of the work which they are now doing under the existing Act of Parliament. It is quite impossible for the Government to listen to a proposal of that kind. We should be very glad to listen to any reasonable proposal; but I think the Committee will not be surprised at the resolution which I have announced. I hope that hon. Gentlemen who are now in the House heard the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), who bore testimony on this point, as I have no doubt the right hon. Member for Westminister, who sits next him, would also do. [Mr. W. H. SMITH: Certainly.] It is very difficult to get over the force of testimony thus rendered by Gentlemen who found their opinions and knowledge upon experience long gained in the Public Service. Therefore, I must adhere, and adhere firmly, on the part of the Government, to the clause as it stands, so far as this part of it is concerned.

said, he thought that, although the Prime Minister had in some degree stated his points very fairly, the right hon. Gentleman would have done well if he had promised some inquiry into the character of the Board of Works. The Prime Minister had said that, no doubt, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer could give them some important information. He (Mr. Healy) hoped the right hon. Gentleman would get up and do so, especially as he had been over to Ireland, in 1879 or 1880, in company with the then Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), about this very Board of Works. It was a misfortune for Ireland that the late Conservative Government went out of Office when they did, because they were pledged to deal with the Board of Works, and had promised that an officer should be appointed specially responsible to Parliament to represent the Board of Works in this House, and that officer would, he believed, have been Lord Crichton. The condition of affairs was so bad, that the right hon. Member for North Devon and the then Secretary to the Treasury went over specially to make a Report. The present Prime Minister now said that the Government were unable to take this matter out of the hands of the Board of Works; but would he promise that some inquiry should be made as to the way in which the Board of Works was managed? In the course of a debate which took place in 1879, the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) gave the character of Colonel M'Kerlie, the Chairman of the Board, showing that the Board had kept no minutes for nearly 14 years, that there were no minute-books in existence, that Colonel M'Kerlie was one of those men who ought not to be at the head of any Department, that he insisted on the smallest letter on the most trivial business passing through his hands, that he insisted on doing everything himself, and that he did not possess that power which was so essential to public men—of making use of other people. The Prime Minister, in his remarks to-day, had set great value upon the Report signed by Lord Crichton, Mr. Mitchell Henry, Mr. Fremantle, and other distinguished gen- tlemen; but would not the right hon. Gentleman, when insisting on the importance of one part of that Report, set an equal value upon the remainder? What was it that Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson said in his Report in 1879 with regard to Colonel M'Kerlie? Why, that Colonel M'Kerlie was in a position of great difficulty, because the Board which he had to superintend had had so many additional duties placed upon it which rendered it utterly impossible for them to be efficiently carried out. That there were so many complaints was to be attributed mainly to the fact that the Commissioners had been excessively reduced in number, as two of them had been taken away—one of them having died, and the other having been appointed to another office—and the Treasury of the day, on the occasion of a vacancy occurring, refused to allow it to be filled up. The work of the Board had increased so enormously that it was impossible for two Commissioners to do it properly. That was the condition of things in 1879; and what had been done since then? They were promised by the late Tory Government that Lord Crichton should be made officially responsible in this House for the Board of Works; but now the present Government and the present Chief Secretary were allowing the Board of Works to come into this Bill. The fact was, that the Chief Secretary was in a condition almost of blind ignorance as to the existence of these complaints against the Board. The hon. Member for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) had admitted that he was inclined to believe that the Chairman of the Board had been anxious to do everything himself and not to allow assistance. But that was not the sort of man to whose charge should be handed over the working of the Irish Land Bill, so far as establishing a system of peasant proprietary was concerned. He (Mr. Healy) was perfectly ready to agree with every word of the Report read by the Prime Minister when it spoke of the Acts in question, and said—"From no measures has the country probably derived greater benefit." But then it should be remembered how very few Acts of Parliament had been passed which were of any use to Ireland, except the Irish Land Act and the Irish Church Act, and the legislation of quite modern years. And the fact was, with regard to the Land Act and those other Acts which the Report referred to, that even Colonel M'Kerlie could not prevent, by any arrangements he might make at the Board of Works, the spending of £3,000,000. He did his very utmost to strangle every application that was sent in, and if £3,000,000 had been spent over a long series of years, Colonel M'Kerlie was not to be thanked for it. What was it that the hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Shaw) had said in 1879? Why, that he knew in his own county of farmers borrowing money at 6 per cent rather than go to the Board of Works to get it for 4 per cent, on account of the red-tapeism which prevailed there. The hon. Member added that he had done everything in his power to induce these farmers to be more careful of their own interests, but without success. He (Mr. Healy) would say, let them give poor Colonel M'Kerlie a retiring allowance, and let him go about his business. He had done the State some service, but he was an old man now, and it would be well to let the old man go and to put a new one in his place. Under any circumstances, he (Mr. Healy) hoped the Government would have a searching inquiry made into the condition of the Board of Works and into its personnel—an inquiry which would be likely to give some satisfaction.

wished to point out that many of the most important recommendations of the Report that had been referred to had been acted upon. As to the complaint that there were only two Commissioners upon the Board of Works, he wished to remind the Committee that there were now three. With regard to the anything but encouraging references which had been made to the long services of Colonel M'Kerlie, he would ask anyone who had studied the Report of the Public Works Commission, and who knew anything of the great task imposed upon them last year by the measures taken for the relief of distress, to say whether they had not discharged in the most praiseworthy manner the heavy duties imposed upon them?

I was not aware, Sir, that the question of Colonel M'Kerlie's services or the general management of the Board of Works would be brought forward to-day, and I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Mem- ber for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), who has taken so large a part in dealing with these questions, and who went to Ireland with me, is not now in his place in the House. He would have been able to speak upon the subject much better than I can do. The hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) has told us that I went over to Ireland in the autumn of 1879 with my hon. Friend with a view to consider what was to be done and how the Board was to be re-organized. That is not quite correct. I was in Dublin, and my hon. Friend went over also. He did not go with me, but he was over at the same time, looking at various Departments, and especially, no doubt, into this question of the Board of Works. I had several conferences with him upon the subject, both with reference to the general conduct of the business of the Board of Works, and especially as to the pressure put upon it, and apprehended at that time, in consequence of the distress. Undoubtedly, we were of opinion that it was our duty to do all that could be done in order to strengthen the Board; and it was found impossible that that special work could be done without some additional assistance. But with regard to the general character of the Board, I think the step taken previously of promoting Mr. Roberts to be Assistant Commissioner, and subsequently Commissioner, was a most important step. No doubt, if more duties are to be thrown on the Board, it is necessary to take care that there is full strength to discharge them. With regard to Colonel M'Kerlie himself, I feel that I must take the opportunity of protesting against the language which has been used with regard to that distinguished public servant. I know he has sometimes attempted to do more than was possible for one man to do, and I know he has sometimes brought himself into disfavour, not unnaturally, with those who are making applications for public money, owing to the great care and caution with which he has guarded the interests of the fund he had to lend. If that is a sin, it is, I think, a sin which is for the benefit of the country, and sinning is more commonly on the other side. No doubt, the Board ought to be continually watched and strengthened, so as to enable it to perform its duties properly; and I am sure there will be no indisposition on the part of the Treasury to recommend a proper liberality of treatment. As to the object of the Amendment now before the Committee, I must say I think we should be committing a very grave administrative error if we did not make use of the machinery we have—strengthened, it may be—already in use in the Board of Works. They are cognizant of the subject—they have a well-trained staff, and are capable of dealing with it. To attempt to set up two pieces of machinery side by side for the performance of what is practically the same work would be altogether useless and misleading, and, in my opinion, it might lead to serious consequences.

said, he thought this was scarcely a good opportunity for discussing the character of the Board of Works—whether it did its work efficiently or not, and whether it required any re-construction. The proposal of the clause was merely to add one other function to the Board of Works in the matter of recommending the Treasury to advance public money, and enabling the Board of Works to investigate the security offered by anyone who attempted reclamation. He had been delighted to hear the Prime Minister say that advances might probably be made, not only to Companies, but to tenantry. That was a most important concession. As to the Board of Works, he thought there could be no question that it did require reform to make it efficient. It had been agreed for a long time by both political Parties that that should be done. He did not agree with the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish) that the Board was strengthened merely by making an Assistant Commissioner into a Commissioner. It was true that a particular individual was promoted; but then his time was thoroughly taken up in the work before, so that there was no real increase of strength. The fact that there were only two Commissioners before was a distinct violation of the Act of Parliament, and the appointment of a third, when that appointment only amounted to the promotion of a man whose time was already fully occupied in the work, did not improve matters or strengthen the Board in any way. It was not correct that an Assistant Commissioner had been appointed, and there could be no doubt that the Board was greatly overweighted. In England, the Board of Works was a very agreeable ornamental Department; but in Ireland the Board performed all the great functions of the Government, and all those duties depended upon a very small staff. When the Board was appointed, its duties were, in comparison, hardly anything; but it had never been strengthened, and the result was that the Board had broken down on many occasions. There had never been a greater waste of money than over the measures taken with respect to the relief of the famine. He opposed the policy of the Government before, and he opposed it now; and if there was any credit due to the Board—and he admitted there was credit due for the manner in which they discharged their functions—that credit did not appertain to the head of the Board, but to the other members of the Board, and especially to Mr. Roberts. However, the Board did want looking into and strengthening, and he urged the Prime Minister not to throw fresh duties on the Board until it was strengthened. The announcement that money would be advanced to tenants would mean a great boon to the people, and he trusted the Committee would not continue the discussion on this particular question.

said, that he had endeavoured to induce several proprietors of land to join him in undertaking work for repairing certain damage which had been done by a back-water at the confluence of the Nore and the Dinan in Kilkenny, and they all refused because the Board of Works was in bad odour, and they would have nothing to do with it.

said, he adhered to his opinion that the Board was the proper body to perform the duties which were in the 2nd clause of the Bill, with regard to reclamation. But he must admit that one suggestion which the hon. Member for the City of Cork had made deserved the consideration of the Government and the Committee. He did not think it could be denied that there would be great utility in having a central body, as suggested by the hon. Member, which would take a bird's-eye view of the whole country with regard to agriculture and to reclamation. He should be very sorry to take from the Board of Works the duty of seeing that the security for the money ad- vanced was satisfactory, and equally sorry to take away from the Treasury the right to decide whether an advance should be made. He also thought the rules laid down in the 2nd sub-section with regard to advances were very wise; but, at the same time, he thought it would be possible to bring the Commission into operation without interfering with the authority of the Treasury or the powers and duties of the Board of Works, and he would suggest that the Commission might with advantage be empowered, in the first instance, to recommend that any scheme of reclamation should be taken up. If the words "on the recommendation of the Treasury" were inserted after the words "Treasury may," that would be as much as the hon. Member for the City of Cork would ask; and the effect of that would merely be that a Company, desiring to start a scheme of relamation and wanting an advance, should submit their proposals to the Commission, who would then decide whether the advance asked should be recommended or not. That would not interfere with the authority of the Board of Works or with the powers of the Treasury, which he should wish to maintain. This suggestion was strengthened by the fact that money was to be advanced to tenants for reclamation purposes, many of whom would be already in connection with the Commission, and of whose character and solvency and general circumstances the Commissioners would be the best judges. Colonel M'Kerlie had one fault—he attempted to do too much, and whenever he thought it right to spend money, he always advo-vocated it strongly and warmly; and the hon. Member for Kincardineshire, who sat on the Committee for improving Harbours, would remember the firmness with which that gentleman advocated certain improvements.

said, that, as far as his experience went, the Board of Works were not open to the charge of inefficiency, but deserved great credit for the manner in which they acquitted themselves during the crisis of 1870, when a tremendous strain was thrown upon then without any increase of staff. They had to deal with something like 10,000 applications for loans. He had taken out a loan, and at no stage of the transaction had he had any reason to complain of unnecessary delay. It should be remembered that the Board had an amount of experience and machinery such as was not possessed by any other body in Ireland.

said, he did not know a great deal about the Board of Works; but he knew something about the Ulster Canal, for which for many years the Treasury and the Board of Works had allowed £1,200 a-year A Committee which inquired into the matter some years ago, recommended that the grant should be discontinued and the land sold for grazing purposes; but the Board of Works and the Treasury insisted on throwing away £1,200 a-year, which might be much better employed in some other way. Then £200,000 had been spent on the Ballynamore and Ballycollin Canal by the Board of Works, and not a single penny had been got out of it. These were two cases of the mismanagement of the Board, and he maintained that the Land Commission was the proper tribunal to deal with land questions. The Commissioners would be well acquainted with all matters connected with land; they would have surveyors and engineers all over the country, and could easily get reports from those officers. The Government had better not give away money wholesale, but should use the machinery they were about to create instead of a body which had been held to be inoperative.

asked whether, in view of the additional labour to be thrown on the Board of Works, the Government contemplated any reform or re-constitution of that body?

No; our intention is that the Establishment shall remain, but will be made adequate to its duties as occasion may require.

thought reform was needless, as the whole thing would be swept away in a few years.

There are several Amendments on the Paper which, if passed, will have the effect of preventing advances being made to public Companies for the reclamation of waste lands, and restricting them to tenants or occupiers. If hon. Gentlemen will allow these Amendments to remain over for the present, I will make a proposal of a more extended nature in a new section to be introduced after sub-section 1, when we reach that point.

said, there was a very important Amendment to which the right hon. Gentleman had not referred. It seemed to him preposterous that public Companies should be allowed to borrow money.

The only Amendment which seems to be different from that of which the right hon. Gentleman has given Notice is that to which the hon. Member for Cavan alludes, and I do not know whether that is to be proposed. If it is not, then I will call upon Mr. Corbet.

proposed, in page 17, line 17, to leave out the word "companies," and insert "tenants or occupiers." The statement, he said, of the Prime Minister tended very much in the direction the hon. Member desired; but he would like to omit the second part of the Amendment, and simply propose to leave out the word "companies."

I must point out that if the hon. Gentleman leaves out "companies," without filling in anything, it will form nonsense; and he must be prepared with words to complete the sense.

said, he would propose to omit "companies," and insert "persons hereinafter mentioned." The evidence of Professor Baldwin, and everyone else who had spoken on the subject, showed that money lent to capital for reclamation had always ended in disaster, and that the only occasions when money had been spent on reclamation had been when the money had been given to labour. Nothing would open the door to abuse as giving the money to Companies, or more tend to separate, instead of unite, labour and ownership.

said, he could not see that any good could be done by continuing the discussion after the statement of the Prime Minister, although he thought this was the proper point at which to consider this question. Under the circumstances, he would appeal to the hon. Member to withdraw his Amendment.

said, it was a difficult thing to say on what terms Companies should be allowed to borrow, and that was not touched by the Amendment; but it was another question whether Companies should or should not be allowed to take up reclamation. The reclamation of land by any body was in itself a public gain; and if Companies chose to enter on the enterprize of reclamation they would in a great many cases effect good. There were several Amendments later on for imposing conditions on Companies as to how they should deal with land, so that they might not be in the position of having reclaimed the land to a great extent with funds provided from the public purse, and be able to then turn the land to their own aggrandizement. He hoped the Amendment would not be pressed.

said, it was all very well to say that good results would follow from reclamation by Companies; but these Companies would be floated in London very much by swindlers, and the result would be thoroughly disastrous to all the persons concerned, and no benefit to the public. It would keep the land from the people who ought to improve it—namely, the bonâ fide occupiers; and the Companies would try to plunder all the parties interested in the land.

I am very surprised at the extreme jealousy hon. Gentlemen show with regard to the operation of this clause. The intention of the Government with respect to it is, I believe, exactly what hon. Members of this House would wish it to be. It is said that in Ireland there are millions of acres of land not now cultivated; moderate calculations say that there are at least 2,000,000 of acres. I have undertaken, when speaking on one or two occasions in public, to assume that there was only 1,000,000 acres that might be profitably cultivated. Now, who will cultivate this land? It is obvious that if the present proprietors have not done it up to now, they can hardly be expected to do it in future. Who is to do it? The tenants who surround any large district of uncultivated land might add somewhat to the farms which they hold; that would come in under the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman the First Minister has proposed to insert in the clause. But there may be a case where there are 5,000 or 10,000 acres of land that somebody, for a certain sum of money, might obtain possession of. A Company could do it, probably. For my own share, I do not think I should like to invest in it. But if a Company undertook to do it, it would be able to do it with profit. Individuals certainly could not; and the clause provides that the Company must expend one-half the sum before they can come to the Treasury to borrow any portion of it. Suppose there were 10,000 acres, and it would cost £5 an acre. [An hon. MEMBER: More.] An hon. Gentleman says that is not enough. Suppose, then, reclamation would cost £10 an acre. That would be £100,000 to put in proper order that particular district of the country. Then, when one-half of that money had been raised and spent—£50,000—the Company could come to the Treasury and ask for another £50,000. Of course, the £50,000 that had been expended would go far towards making the security good for the £50,000 it was intended to borrow. When the whole was done, the question is—What should be done with it? No one, surely, is of opinion that the Company would keep 10,000 acres of land in Ireland, and cultivate it as a great farm? What the Company would do, as a matter of course, would be to endeavour to sell this great piece of land in farms of such size as would meet the wants of the Irish farmers; and I should suppose that the Treasury, if such a thing was not certain without their interference, would ask, before advancing money—"What do you intend to do with the 10,000 acres of land when the reclamation is complete?" And they would say, as a matter of course—"We intend to divide it into farms varying from 10 to 50 or 100 acres, and to sell it in such a way as would be most profitable to the Company; and when the thing is wound up we shall be paid." By this means, occupying owners will grow up. Now, that seems to be exactly what hon. Gentlemen opposite have always been clamouring for as regards this question of reclamation. Who is to do it? No private individual would do it. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was not likely to do it. Who will do it, if you have not capital in Ireland? You may have men more generous and more enthusiastic in matters of this kind than in England, and they may undertake to do the work; but it can only be done in some degree by individual tenants, whose farms adjoin the unreclaimed land, and by Companies which may be formed for the purpose. I do not suppose the Board of Works or the Commission would themselves take 10,000 acres, and go through the whole process of reclaiming it. If they did, it would be for the purpose of dividing it into farms, just as a Company would undertake to do. Therefore, it appears to me that hon. Gentlemen from Ireland who object to this are objecting to the very plan by which there is any probability that any considerable portion of waste land in Ireland will be reclaimed. The clause which the Prime Minister proposes to add to this sub-section is this—

"That the Treasury may authorize the Board of 'Works to make advances for like purposes"

—I suppose like purposes for which Companies would be probably formed—

"to an occupier of land when satisfied that the tenancy or other security which he may have to offer, is such as to secure re-payment of principal and interest within such a number of years as the Treasury may fix, or when the landlord joins the occupier in giving such security."

I do not think it is possible to add any words to the clause or to do anything more comprehensive, and, at the same time, more simple or likely to be more useful than that which the Government intend. Then, why should we have long discussions, hindering the progress of the measure, upon a matter upon which we are all agreed? I venture to say that hon. Gentlemen opposite might allow the clause to proceed, seeing that the Government is perfectly willing to do everything that can be done rationally, and with any hope of success, for the reclamation of waste land.

said, the right hon. Gentlemen had proved their case. He had pointed out that there were two descriptions of waste land which could be reclaimed under the operation of this clause, and of the sub-section which the Prime Minister proposed to add later on; he had pointed out that there was the waste land lying adjacent to the present holdings, which the tenants could take in and reclaim under the provisions of the sections; and then the right hon. Gentleman had shown that they had large tracts of laud which were not in the occupation of any tenants, and which the adjoining tenants could not readily take up. With regard to the large tracts of land, they objected to the clause not so much because Companies were likely to avail themselves of the power given them in the clause of borrowing money, but simply because they feared that Companies would not so avail themselves. The fact was, they regarded this clause, apart from the section which the right hon. Gentleman had just read, as entirely illusory. It had been proved over and over again that land could not be profitably reclaimed in Ireland by the action of public Companies, and the right hon. Gentleman asked them—"What, then, do you propose?" He proposed that some means should be found for the purpose of allowing the labour of the country, which existed in such abundance, to get upon the land standing in need of that labour; and they believed that in that way, and in that way only, could they make the waste and semi-waste laud, which the right hon. Gentleman had estimated at 2,000,000 acres, available for the public benefit. They did not believe, firstly, that the Companies would take advantage, to any great extent, of this clause; and, secondly, they did not believe if the Companies did take advantage of it, that their operation would be beneficial or profitable, or such as was calculated to encourage other Companies to come forward and try the scheme. He had placed an Amendment on the Paper, which he did not see now. He presumed it would stand in the New Clauses. It was an Amendment to leave out Clause 25, and substitute for it the clause he had placed on the Paper. His clause, according to his opinion, suggested a simple way in which the kind of land they proposed to deal with by allowing public Companies to borrow money in respect of its reclamation, might be made available for the benefit of the country. It was true, it might necessitate the establishment of some body for the purpose of looking after the matter. He supposed permission might have been given to the Commission; but it appeared the Commission was not to have such power. Perhaps it was not too late to give the power to the Board of Works. If they did give the Board the power of purchasing reclaimable land, and of allotting it amongst small tenants or labourers, or surplus labouring population in Ireland, in the manner prescribed by Professor Baldwin, they would be working a very beneficial change as regarded this uncultivated land. A clause authorizing the Board of Works to advance money to public Companies must be entirely illusory and fail to satisfy the necessity of the case; in fact, the present clause would be valueless. He regarded the sub-section which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had just read, as the most valuable part of the clause, though its provisions were entirely apart from the end the clause had in view. As to whether the Amendment should be taken to a division, perhaps, under all the circumstances of the case—as the Prime Minister had offered them such a concession—they might refrain from taking a division, and go into the further question which had been raised by the subsection which the Prime Minister intended to move.

said, he hoped they would be able to get rid of this discussion without a division. The Amendment to be proposed by the Prime Minister had entirely altered the value of the clause. Perhaps public Companies might not be willing to undertake the reclamation of land in Ireland; but if the work would not pay public Companies, he did not see how it could pay Government, or any Board of Works, or any other machinery provided for the purpose. It was not certain that Companies would not set about the reclamation of waste land in Ireland. He was in the City the other day, and saw the prospectus of a public Company being floated for the express purpose of reclaiming land in Ireland. He refused to go into the office for fear he might be tempted to embark in the enterprize. One saw so much nonsense now-a-days in the public prints in the shape of public Companies that he was bound to be careful. He, however, did not despair of the reclamation of the waste land in Ireland. They ought to be satisfied with the present discussion, and proceed to the next point.

said, if they had an energetic and prosperous tenantry and small proprietary in Ireland, he did not see why the tenants should not be able to form Companies for the reclamation of waste lands.

congratulated the Government on at length taking in hand, in a practical way, this important question. The Prime Minister knew perfectly well that from 1814 to 1847, by a series of Reports of Royal Commissions and of Select Committees, and in various ways, the reclamation of waste land had been strongly urged upon Parliament and upon successive Governments. Lord Devon's Commission reported strongly in favour of reclamation, and Sir Richard Griffith, in letters which he (Sir Eardley Wilmot) held in his hand, urged upon the Government the importance of this subject. He had himself been a party to a Bill with similar objects, which was introduced into Parliament in 1875 by Mr. John George Macarthy, who had devoted much time and labour to the subject of reclamation. That Bill he held in his hand, and it proposed to give temporary aid to the proprietors of lands, and to encourage them to bring the waste land into cultivation. The present Bill proposed to make advances to public Companies for the same purpose; and, though he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) that the shareholders in them could not anticipate large dividends from the enterprize, yet on the whole he regarded the clause as one calculated to advance the agricultural and general prosperity of Ireland.

, in moving, in page 17, line 19, after "land," to insert "agricultural buildings," said, the Amendment was merely a verbal one, and his only object in moving it was that the tenant should not be precluded from getting money from the Board of Works for necessary agricultural buildings.

said, before this Amendment was put, he would like permission to insert in line 19, after "waste," "semi-waste." There was a great deal of land in a semi-waste condition, and he hardly considered the words of the clause in this matter sufficiently expressive.

said, he thought the addition of the words quite unnecessary, because waste was merely a question of degree. The object of the hon. Gentleman was fully accomplished by the use of the word "waste."

asked if the Government thought it necessary to put into this clause anything concerning the reclamation of the foreshores?

said, he would insert the word "foreshores" on Report.

asked leave to withdraw his Amendment.

said, that before the Amendment was withdrawn he might move that after "waste," the word "unprofitable" should be employed.

remarked that this was also covered by the present words of the clause.

said, he did not object to the introduction of the words "agricultural buildings."

did not quite understand how the clause would read if the proposed words were inserted. What did the hon. Gentleman mean by agricultural buildings?

said, he meant by agricultural buildings, agricultural buildings.

said, "the erection of agricultural buildings," was, perhaps, what was wanted.

suggested that the difficulty might be got over if the Amendment were altered so as to read "or any other works including agricultural buildings."

contended that his Amendment was perfectly intelligible.

regarded the introduction of the words as quite unnecessary.

said, the hon. Gentleman might, perhaps, waive the point, considering how comprehensive the words of the clause were.

said, he hoped the Government would agree to the Amendment, because "agricultural buildings" were not now specifically included. He had had some experience in the administration of Acts of Parliament, and he did not doubt that at some time when this Act came to be administered, it would be ruled that agricultural buildings were not included.

thought the words now used were sufficient. Suppose they put in "agricultural buildings," what would they do with roads and other matters which were obviously agricultural matters?

said, that, according to his knowledge of the derivation of words, the word "agriculture" would not include buildings, and therefore he would respectfully suggest to the Prime Minister that he should adhere to his acceptance of the Amendment. The introduction of the words could do no harm, but would assuredly make things clear and save controversy hereafter.

pointed out that the Companies now engaged in agricultural improvement were largely occupied in building. He was fully persuaded the clause would include buildings.

in moving, in page 17, line 19, after "land," to insert "reclamation of foreshores," said, this Amendment would meet the view of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan). All who were acquainted with Ireland knew that there was a large quantity of foreshore, which was quite capable of being utilized.

said, he was aware the question was not as simple as it might seem at a glance, for there would necessarily arise out of it some questions as to the Government right to foreshores. This Land Bill, or any other Land Bill, would only partially settle the Land Question unless they could, by the industry of the people and by measures such as this, add a county or two to Ireland. He believed they could add a county to Ireland by the reclamation of interior waste lands; and he had long thought they might add a considerable area to Ireland if they could get the consent of the Crown—reserving and protecting in all reasonable way the rights of the Crown—to the reclamation of the foreshores. There was a large field in Ireland for useful enterprize of this kind. At a time when a neighbouring State was laying out millions of money in reclaiming their foreshores, we might very properly try, by our independent enterprize and industry, to do something to imitate, on a small scale, the industry and enterprize of the Dutch Government. He knew the question was beset with certain difficulty; but he would ask the Prime Minister whether he could not, consistently with the preservation of the legitimate interests of the Crown, take some steps towards the reclamation of Ireland's foreshores?

called attention to the successful embankment, drainage, and sale of the Crown shores which had been carried out in Holland, and noticed that the Crown had already obtained 6,477 acres by reclaiming the foreshores of the Humber at Sunk Island. This land produced £13,196 annually, or about 40s. and 8d. an acre. It was very desirable that a large quantity of the foreshore about Dublin Bay on its north and south shores should be reclaimed in the same manner as was already done with the portion embanked between the Dodder and Merrion. There were about 3,000 acres available. The work would be quite as successful as the enclosing of the foreshores of Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly had proved.

said, the clause as it stood left it open to the Crown to carry out any schemes of reclamation it thought proper, and to make such conditions as would protect its own rights. He did not think the object of his hon. and learned Friend would be attained by the adoption of the Amendment, although he hoped the Amendment would be accepted, because it was a very useful one.

said, they would do well to include seine words of this nature. He would suggest that the words introduced should be "or foreshores or waste lands."

We have passed that now. The Amendment may be moved on Report.

said, he had risen just now to propose an Amendment of this character, but the Chairman had informed him that it could be more properly brought on at a later stage of the Bill. He heartily thanked the Prime Minister for assenting to the proposition.

said, that before they left this question of foreshores, he wished to express a hope that the Government would favourably consider the question of allowing them to be sold to public Companies on reasonable terms. In the estuary of the Shannon there was a large amount of waste land. Some land in the estuary of this river had been reclaimed, but there was still a large quantity which could be reclaimed with advantage. The public Companies would be able to do this; in fact, it was about the only work of reclamation that they could undertake. There was a Mr. Drinkwater now engaged in reclaiming the foreshores of the Fergus River, in the estuary of the Shannon, and he (Mr. Parnell) had been told that this gentleman had paid a large sum for the purpose of being allowed to enter on the work.

said, the Amendment he had on the Paper was of extreme importance, and it was to enable the Board of Works to make advances for the construction of roads, railways, or tramways, required as feeders to main lines of railway communication. In the West of Ireland the principal railways were, in some instances, 50 and 60 miles away from the agricultural portion of the country, and the inhabitants were perfectly ready to make lines of very light railway in these districts if they could get facilities for doing it. It was impossible to express to the Committee the difficulty of obtaining advances of public money for this purpose. Railway Acts were extremely expensive and cumbersome, and, unless something in the nature of his proposal were done, the people who cultivated the land in the extreme West, where there were no railways, would continue to find it impossible to get their crops to market, and would be placed at a great disadvantage in competing with their more favourably situated countrymen. His proposal, if adopted, could do no harm, as the works he contemplated would all be subject to the approval of the Board of Works and the Treasury. It was only where these two bodies were satisfied that the works could be profitably executed that they would be allowed.

said, he wished to take the Chairman's opinion on a point of Order. This was a Land Bill, and the hon. Member was seeking to insert a provision in it for empowering the construction of railways. Could such a proposal be entertained?

I must confess that, with the hon. Member who has just spoken, I think this Amendment is altogether outside the scope of the measure. If it were a question of lending money to existing railways for the reclamation of land, we should know what we were about; but that is provided for by Acts now existing, and for which Railway Companies give their debentures. And if, on the other hand, it is a question of lending money for reclamation for purposes of agricultural improvement, we know where we are; but it is nothing of the kind. The proposal is indefinite as to whom we should have to deal with and as to what the works might be that, though I do not discourage the endeavour to deal with the matter; and, though I think that such a measure as the hon. Member proposes might be useful, I fail to see how it could come in here.

Before the hon. Member moved the Amendment, I thought the proposal was in connection with the reclamation of land—that these railways and tramways were for the purpose of giving facilities for such reclamation. That, however, does not appear to be the case, and, in the large sense in which the hon. Member has moved the Amendment, no doubt it is outside the scope of the Bill.

said, he had no objection to the Amendment being taken in connection with reclamation. He was absolutely certain that unless something of the kind he proposed were done the West of Ireland would continue to be in the deplorable condition in which they now found it. He hoped it would be remembered that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had prevented, or, at all events, done all in his power to prevent, the greatest improvement that could be effected in the condition of the poorest people in the West of Ireland. Of course, now, with the Government and the Irish Representatives against him, it was no use pressing the Amendment. Her Majesty's Ministers, seemingly, did not entertain the intention of improving the people of the West of Ireland in the spirit in which alone that improvement could be effected. This Bill, as it now stood, would do very little for these unfortunate people. Their pauperism would continue—it would remain the scandal to England and to Europe that it now was. Parliament would do nothing to assist these miserable people out of their wretched condition. No private Companies would assist them. What private Company would come forward to reclaim land in the West of Ireland under existing circumstances? Why, none in the world. No attempt had yet been made; but, if his Amendment were accepted, the people in particular localities, a long way from railways, would, with the assistance of the landlords, only too gladly make light railways and tramways, and add the reclaimed land to the agricultural wealth of the country. He only asked that facilities should be given to them for obtaining advances of money to assist them in carrying out objects which the Prime Minister himself admitted to be highly advantageous. This Amendment was on the point of agricultural reclamation, and he was exceedingly sorry that the right hon. Gentleman could not accept his proposal.

said, he looked upon the Amendment as connected with reclamation. In Galway County—which he represented—for instance, one of the uses of a light railway, or tramway, would be to transport the limestone which would be necessary in carrying out reclamation. Without such a road or railway there could be no reclama- tion. The roads that at present existed were looked after tolerably efficiently; but it would be advisable to have such an Amendment as this in the Bill, because their main object ought to be to increase the general resources of the country, and, unless they had cheaper means of communication, they could not do that. There were hundreds of miles of country in the West of Ireland which, at present, were unsupplied with railway communication, although it was just the district which required it most.

said, there was no doubt in the world that the narrow-gauge railways and tramways could do a great deal in Ireland; but the question was whether these works could be promoted in a Land Bill dealing entirely with the matter of agriculture? As hon. Members who had advocated railways of this description knew perfectly well, he had been their stout ally when they had brought forward their proposals.

regretted that the hon. Member for County Galway had not received more support front the Irish Members. It certainly did not look well for the Irish Representatives to raise points of Order on proposals for carrying out improvements in Ireland. The Amendment might not be quite in Order, but he should like to see its object effected.

I must say that it is not competent for this Amendment to be put, or for hon. Members to discuss it, when—according to what has just fallen from the hon. and gallant Member for County Galway (Major Nolan)—its object is to bring about the construction of hundreds of miles of railway. I only allowed the Amendment to be put on the understanding that it was to apply to railways on the estates where particular reclamations were being effected—to railways considered necessary for the purposes of reclamation. As the discussion is going upon the question of railway construction in the ordinary sense, the Amendment cannot be put.

I would call the attention of the Committee to the words of the Amendment. They are—"including roads, railways, or tramways, required as feeders to main lines of railway communication." It seems to me that the mere reading of the words shows they are out of Order.

said, in answer to what had fallen from the Chairman, he wished to disclaim any idea of suggesting that under this Bill they should make a railway 200 or 300 miles long.

said, he did not wonder at the Committee refusing to support the Amendment, seeing that the Irish Members themselves threw cold water on it.

said, he had not mentioned the word "railway," because he had wished to avoid going into a matter that was doubtful. His intention had been to call the attention of the hon. Member for Galway to the spirit in which the Prime Minister had received his proposal. The right hon. Gentleman had felt the force of the objection on the ground of Order; but he distinctly sympathized with the object which the hon. Member for Galway had in view. He (Mr. O'Connor Power) would suggest to the hon. and gallant Member, in view of the reception his Amendment had received—the opposition to it having been mainly on the ground of Order, and its principle having been approved of—that he should re-cast it, restricting it to reclamation works, and bring it up on Report, when he had no doubt it would receive the support of the English and Scotch, as well as the Irish Members.

said, he wished to say, in answer to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Galway—

There is no Question before the Committee.

I will put myself in Order.

I call upon Mr. Gladstone, who has an Amendment to propose.

I rise to move the words which I promised the Committee to propose to the effect that the Board of Works may make advances to occupiers of land when satisfied that the security is such as to secure the repayment of principal and interest, or even when the landlord joins the occupier in giving such security. There are two branches to this proposition, and the later one—when the landlord joins the occupier in giving the security—was a recommendation made by a Departmental Commission that examined into the case for the Board of Works. As to the other case, under the former law, when the interest of the tenant was not so far recognized by law as to become a regular marketable commodity, it was proper, probably, to confine the advances to tenants to cases where there was a definite term of a considerable number of years unexpired in the lease. Now the case is different. First of all, there is the definite interest of the tenant in the holding; and, secondly, there may be a statutory term; and, under these circumstances, in many cases the tenants will be in a condition to offer a really good security for the purpose of an advance. That, of course, will have to be examined, and, under these two heads, I think it is well to make a proposal of this kind. It would not have been desirable to introduce it into the first part of the clause.

said, he did not rise to discuss the policy of the Amendment; but he wished to ask a question as to repayment, as he observed that the right hon. Gentleman had adopted different words in this Amendment to those in the 3rd sub-section. In the 3rd sub-section it was set forth that the money should be repaid in accordance with the provisions of a previous Act; but in the Amendment the money was to be repaid according to the discretion of the Treasury.

The reason is this. If money in this way is to be advanced to an occupier of land, the only possible way in which you can do it is to leave the matter to the discretion of the Treasury. In the 3rd sub-section we are dealing with positive interests which, like those of the landlord, are permanent in their character. There is no difficulty in such a case to refer to the provisions of an Act which deal with loans made on the security of permanent interests. But in the case we are now dealing with it is obvious that the tenant's interests may be of a very limited and varying character, and that the advances may be small. I think the way we propose is the only way of doing the thing if it is to be done at all.

said, this was a very valuable Amendment, and went in the direction of one that he had himself put on the Paper; but it would be more effective, and was a great improvement on his proposal.

said, he agreed with the hon. and learned Member (Mr. C. Russell) that the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman was a wise and acceptable one, and he hoped the Committee would adopt it. But there was one point on which, he thought, it fell short, and it was this. He was not sure whether he interpreted the Amendment rightly, but, if he did, no money could be advanced except to a person already in possession of some land. That scheme was admirable so far as it went; but it avoided one important part of the question of reclamation, because, as had been pointed out by various authorities, there was a large quantity of labour in Ireland which was quite capable of being applied to the reclamation of land—labour not from the farm, and not of people who were in the occupation of land. He had been trying to find in the Blue Book, Professor Baldwin's allusion to this before the Land Commission; but he had not succeeded. His recollection of the evidence, however, was sufficient to justify him in saying that Professor Baldwin pointed out several instances where labourers had had small pieces of unreclaimed land given to them either at no rent or a very small nominal rent, and, having managed to exist for the first year on borrowed money, or in some other way, had in time rendered the land valuable and capable of yielding them a subsistence.

said, the lion. Member was in error. The persons he proposed to give employment to would have no interest in the reclamations that would be made.

said, that as far as he understood the Amendment, it seemed to him very reasonable; but, at the same time, he thought the Government should have put a proposal of this sort on the Paper. The Amendment, as also the clause to which it related, were very important, and the Committee should not have been kept in the dark with regard to it. He would appeal to the Government for the future to put their Amendments on the Paper at least a day before they intended to bring them forward.

The greatest efforts have been made by the Government to put their Amendments on the Paper. When the hon. Member comes to have charge of a great and complicated measure to which there are no fewer than 1,500 Amendments—Amendments which are put down from day to day—he will appreciate the difficulty of the present position of Her Majesty's Government. It was not an easy matter to examine the many Amendments proposed, and to make those proposals which seem to us to be necessary with regard to them.

said, that, in justice to his hon. Friend (Mr. E. Stanhope), he would point out that this was an Amendment which could only be moved by Her Majesty's Government. It was an Amendment making a charge upon the public funds, and therefore was one which could only be moved by a Minister of the Crown. His hon. Friend surely was justified in complaining that an Amendment of this kind, which could only be moved by a Member of the Government, had not been duly put down on the Notice Paper.

said, that the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), which was somewhat similar to that of the Prime Minister's, had been on the Paper for a week. The Amendment now proposed simply used different and more effective words to give effect to the same object as that stated by the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk. The Committee could not be said to have had this Amendment in any way hurriedly presented for their consideration.

wished to say a word in justification of what had fallen from his hon. Friend (Mr. E. Stanhope). The Committee were adopting a novel principle, because money was to be advanced on the tenants's interest in his holding, and that interest the Government had said, over and over again, they could not define. Under these circumstances, the Committee should have had Notice of such an important Amendment as this.

said, that if this Amendment was to be applied only to tenants in occupation of waste land, it would do very little good indeed. There was lots of waste lands, at present, in which no tenant had any interest. If the Government insisted upon this interest, they would be doing very little to put the waste lands into the possession of the Irish people.

was not surprised that the suggestion of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) should have attracted some attention. He agreed with the hon. Member that unless some provision were made that would invite unemployed labourers to apply themselves to the reclamation of waste land, reclaimable lands would never be reclaimed, and the danger of periodical famine in Ireland would never be removed. There was an Amendment further on in the name of the hon. Member for Dublin, the object of which was to enable the Land Commission to buy lands for the purpose of tempting farmers in the crowded districts to cultivate them. That would cover the whole matter. No doubt, the hon. Member for Galway had done well in calling attention to this matter; but, if he had seen the Amendment lower down, he would have known that there was ample time to provide for the case he had in view.

said, the Board of Works ought to be enabled to lend sums of less than £100, otherwise the small tenants might not be able to derive benefit from the advances. Would the Government give the Board of Works power to advance small sums?

said, that under the Relief of Distress Act loans of £40 were granted. He would point out, in answer to the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), that the Companies who would engage in the work of reclamation would find it to their interest and advantage to employ labourers of the kind referred to, and, no doubt, they would do so.

wished to know what security they would have that the improvements would be carried out when the money was advanced? Was the money to be given in advance before the improvements were effected or after? He should be glad to know in what position the Treasury would stand in the case of a tenant who had borrowed money for the improvement of his tenancy, had subsequently broken the statutory conditions of his lease, and upon whose interest in his holding the landlord, under the Act, had the first lien for unpaid rent? In such a case, who would have the first claim, the landlord or the Treasury? He agreed with the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. E. Stanhope) as to the disadvantage they were under in not having this Amendment—which was by no means so simple as it looked—printed on the Paper. The Committee should have had an opportunity of seeing it in print, and of giving it the careful consideration it deserved. At the same time, there was some force in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister on this head.

The question is a very reasonable one. I do not know that we have a right altogether to exclude improvements; but we must look not to them, but to the value of the securities. One guarantee that improvements will be effected is the interest the tenant has in his holding.

I cannot help thinking that that is taking rather a sanguine view of the matter. There will be a great temptation to men to undertake works that seem at first sight—until tested—very likely to yield profit. I understand that these tenants are not to be subject to the conditions that Companies are to be subject to, and that it will not be necessary, before they receive an advance, that they shall have expended some amount of money themselves. The money is to be advanced directly the Treasury are satisfied that the tenants have sufficient security to offer. We know what the outcry against the Board of Works has been; and if there is any hesitation on their part to advise the Treasury, or any hesitation on the part of the Treasury to accept the suggestions made to it, they will be called narrow-minded, and will be accused of preventing that which is in the interests of the people of Ireland. These words require very careful consideration before they are adopted by the Committee.

I do not think the primary business of the Government, in these cases, is to look at the value of the improvements. We do not inquire whether the tenant's works are works that must necessarily answer. What we ask is whether the tenant can offer us a security of such a substantial character as to warrant our making the advance. That is the principle upon which all these offers to landlords and tenants have been made. Heretofore it has always been done on the very firm and solid interests of the landlord, or on the interests of the tenant that could be stated to Parliament, such as a given unexpired term of a lease. Evidently, the business to be done must be done on the credit of the Treasury. No one can see what the value of the tenant right will be, and I do not see my way to define it in an Act of Parliament. We must leave the Treasury to its own responsibilities as to any rule for making advances.

But who will have priority of claim? Will the Treasury take priority over other advances—over other debts?

I apprehend that that will certainly be so.

I think that, as a matter of practice, it is customary for the Board of Works to make itself satisfied that the works have been carried out before the instalments are paid over to the landowner. It is found to be a most necessary and useful rule, because, otherwise, money which is borrowed for one purpose, may be spent on another. Unless this condition is insisted on in connection with advances of all kinds, I am afraid that misappropriation will arise.

thought it was necessary that some solid security should be given to the Treasury.

said, he must protest against the plan adopted by the Government of moving Amendments of a most important character on such very slight Notice. Before they considered an Amendment, two things were necessary. First, that they should get the actual words of it. Now, if Amendments were showered upon them in this way, it was a difficult thing to get possession of the words of a proposal. After this, it would be a necessary qualification for a Member of Parliament to be able to write short-hand, otherwise they would not be able to get on. If he had not been able to write very quickly, and if he had not heard the Amendment read out three times—first by the Chief Secretary, then by the Premier, and lastly by the Chairman—he should not have been able to gather, even in the imperfect manner in which he had gathered them, the phrases of the Amendment. And the next step, after getting the words of an Amendment, was to understand them. The very moment an hon. Member commenced to comprehend them, the hon. Member for Sussex (Mr. Gregory), the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), or some other hon. Member, rose and pointed out a difficulty. He did not suppose that all hon. Gentlemen present cared to understand the words. He did, however, and had watched every word of the measure with the intention of understanding it, if possible. There was a point upon which he was not clear, and upon which he should like to have some information. There was a section of the Bill which provided that there should be no advance, even to a Company, before part of the money had been expended. Supposing that the money had been expended, and supposing that, at the same time, a baronial guarantee had been given, what security would the Treasury get from the Company?

We will look carefully into the conditions on which such advances are to be made to tenants, and it will be our duty to suggest words to meet the difficulty the hon. and learned Member anticipates.

Did I understand the right hon. Gentleman just now to say we are not to look to the value of the improvements, but to the value of the securities, so that the Government may be safe? The Prime Minister said, afterwards, that the Treasury were to have a prior claim over other creditors. I would ask, then, what is to become of the landlord, if his security is to be subsequent to the tenant's liability to the Government?

said, the existing Act would deal with such cases.

asked whether they could not manage to persuade the Governent to postpone this matter? He did not wish to meet the question in any hostile spirit. He had carefully examined the Amendment in the hands of the Chairman, and found there were two alternatives in it. One was that the Government might advance the money if the tenant produced sufficient security; and the other was that the Government might advance the money without any substantial guarantee at all if the landlord joined in the security. The result of that might be that the Government might advance money, though the landlord was directly opposed to the expenditure. That was an extraordinary position to put the landlord in. They had admitted in Ireland that which up to now they had never admitted, and what was not admitted in England—namely, that the tenant had an interest in the soil. This being so, surely the two persons who had an interest in the land should co-operate. If there was to be a Government advance for effecting permanent improvements, surely the two partners in the concern should concur in the arrangement, especially as it appeared that the Treasury, as a creditor, was to have priority of claim for payment. The tenant might have only a fleeting interest in the soil—he might be here to-day, and gone to-morrow. There was always a substantial security so far as the landlord was concerned, but this was not so in the case of the tenant; and yet they proposed to give him an advance, absolutely irrespective of the consent of his partner with a more permanent interest. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) was afraid the matter had not received from the Government that deep attention which the importance of the subject required. That the occupier, who might break his contract at any time, should have as great a right as the owner of the fee-simple, was a remarkable thing.

The noble Lord has repeated his argument over at least 10 times. It is said that what we propose is novel in principle, and that there is no precedent by which to sustain it. The noble Lord must have entered the House immediately before he made his speech; otherwise, he would have been aware that the principle of making advances to occupiers is already recognized in our law, and that the questions with regard to the relative positions of the landlord and tenant, and the degree at which it is right to insure that the works are intended to be, or have been begun to be, executed, are dealt with in our law, and that the only change now made is with regard to new interests. New interest having been defined on behalf of the tenant, it seems reasonable to extend the principle already well established to those interests. I fully admit that we shall have to apply to this clause the same principles of justice as to the bona fides of the tenants that we have applied in other cases. I mean the principles applied in the case of the Act of 1847, passed in consequence of the Famine. It was provided in that measure that a tenant might become a borrower from the Government for improvements; but the lease was liable to forfeiture on breach of conditions.

said, he had not yet received an answer to his question.

The hon. and gallant Member is mistaken in supposing that the limit of £100 would apply to this clause.

said, he thought the point to which the Prime Minister had addressed his observations was hardly clear yet. If the improvements contemplated in the Amendment were to be such as would add to the letting value of the land and improve the security, no one could have any objection. He should be pleased to see money advanced to the tenants for the purpose; but they could not disguise from themselves that the tenant might borrow to make improvements which would not add permanently to the value of the land. Money had never been advanced to the tenants of England to enable them to improve the letting value of their land; but where English tenants were in difficulties he should be glad to see it done. There should be some direction to authorities in the Amendment to the effect that where money was lent to a tenant for improvements, those improvements should be of a permanent character, and not such, for instance, as would run out by a severe course of cropping or careless treatment of the land. He trusted the latter part of the Amendment would be accepted by the Committee, for the landlord would be a most proper person to judge whether or not the improvements were desirable and proper. The very fact of his joining in the security would be a guard against the borrowing of money by a tenant for a visionary purpose.

said, the Premier had given the noble Lord credit for repeating his argument over many times, and had proceeded to answer the argument advanced. He (Mr. Warton) was, no doubt, to be blamed for not having repeated his question several times, for, as a punishment, no reply had been vouchsafed him. What he wished to know was this. Why did the Premier propose to make advances to the occupier on terms so very different—so very much more favourable—to those allowed to a Company? Why should the Treasury advance money to a mere occupier, with no restriction whatever as to a single farthing having been spent?

said, there need be no difficulty in the minds of hon. Members as to the character of the improvements. "Improvements," in Ireland, were well known to mean works which added to the letting value of the holding and were suitable to it.

I should like to ask the Government whether there is any precedent in which advances have been made by the State before any work at all has been done?

said, that the manner in which the thing was done at present was this. The State authorized advances to be made; this was carried out by the Board of Works, and a memorandum was required from the person borrowing, setting out the title to the holding, the work to be done, and the money value of the work. That was tested by an engineer of the Board of Works, who reported whether the memorandum was substantially correct, and if it was the advance was authorized by the Board. According to the present practice in Ireland, the advance was made in five parts. As soon as one-fifth of the work was completed, a report to that effect was made out by the person to whom the advance was to be made. The work so executed was examined by the engineer to the Board of Works, who reported whether the work was properly executed pursuant to the requirements and the memorandum. On receipt of that report, if favourable, one-fifth was advanced, and the same process was repeated in regard to each successive fifth.

Will the same system be adopted under this Bill?

Yes; the arrangement will be such as to suit the ordinary requirements of the Board of Works.

said, he would move to amend the pro- posed Amendment by leaving out the word "or," and substituting "and." By this it would be necessary for the landlord to join the tenant in the security. He considered it monstrous to force on the landlord improvements that he might not want, and which, in fact, he might consider detrimental to the letting value of the estate. A tenant might, for his own purposes, wish to carry out improvements which would alter the character of that part of the landlord's estate, or wish to carry out a system of drainage which would not fit in with the drainage of the adjoining land. They said the landlord had a joint interest in the land; why, then, should he not have a joint interest in the improvements to carry out which money was to be advanced by the State?

We propose that there shall be two conditions under which the tenant can obtain an advance for improvements. One is when the landlord joins the tenant in giving security, and the other is where the tenant himself gives a sufficient security. The one method is entirely agreeable to the present law, and only a new extension is given to it; the other is as to the grants made on the security of the landlord and tenant. The noble Lord's proposal is to give the landlord an absolute veto, and that we cannot accept.

wished to know whether the improvements would include the erection of labourers' cottages?

wished to know whether the words "such security" had any reference to what went before?