asked the Vice President of the Council, Whether he has taken into his consideration the proportion of two out of nine governors, as provided by the scheme dealing with Shaw's Hospital now on the Table of the House, for the representation of the public on such governing bodies as contemplated by the Government in the Educational Endowments (Scotland) Bill, and what course he will take in the matter?

In answer to my hon. Friend, I beg to state that the Educational Department have no respon- sibility whatever in any of the schemes passed by the recent Scotch Educational Commission. Those schemes are referred to us as a matter of courtesy, and we have always given out best advice. With respect to the latter part of the Question, as to what course was contemplated by the Government in regard to the Educational Endowments Bill, I have to inform him that we have nothing at all to do with the matter.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the Commission appointed to consider the question of the coast defences of the Country have yet reported; if not, whether he can state when the Report may be expected; and, whether the Report when made will be published?

In reply to my hon. Friend, I have to state that no such Commission has been appointed; but that an official Committee—Naval, Military, and Civil—presided over by Lord Morley, the Under Secretary of State for War, is steadily investigating the defences of commercial harbours. Their Report will be a very valuable one; but I cannot now say when I expect it to be completed, nor could I, under any circumstances, undertake to lay the whole of it on the Table, as much of it, from the very nature of the case, must be strictly confidential.

asked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether there is any intention to reduce the Dockyard establishment at Gibraltar?

In 1876 the entry of trade boys or apprentices taken from the spot to some of the principal trades was commenced with a view to their eventually taking the place of some of the highly-paid artificers sent out from the Home Yards. The period of agreement of the latter has now expired, and as the boys have completed their time and become men, arrangements have been made for the return home of those sent out from the Home Yards. This is being carried out in accordance with a Report recently received from the captain in charge at Gibraltar. The Reports from several officers are now before the Board; but, to the best of my knowledge, no Lord has had an opportunity of considering them, and the matter has made no official progress whatever.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Papers relating to the negotiation of a Commercial Treaty between Great Britain and Spain will be laid before Parliament during the present Session?

I doubt whether the negotiations will have sufficiently advanced to allow the Correspondence on the subject to be laid before Parliament during the present Session without injury to the Public Service.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is true that Mr. Clifford Lloyd refused to take as bails for Mrs. Coleman, a farmer, named Thomas O'Donnell, who is rated over sixty pounds per annum, and a man named James Baulton, the owner of house property in Kilmallock; and, if so, if he will state why he did refuse substantial bails like those and commit the woman to prison?

, in reply, said, he had obtained information from the Constabulary as to this matter. He was informed that it was not the case that Mr. Clifford Lloyd refused to take for Mrs. Coleman the joint security of T. O'Donnell and J. Baulton. T. O'Donnell did not offer, and in the case of joint security it was necessary that both should be qualified.

asked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether the committal of the aged woman Margaret Coleman to prison for six months, in default of finding bail, by Mr. Clifford Lloyd out of Petty Sessions, was not a direct contravention of the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act, and therefore illegal? He wished further to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether, before a decision was given in such a case, there should not have been two magistrates present, and not one?

, in reply, said, that the acceptance and refusal of bail was within the ordinary powers conferred on magistrates, but was not subject to the provisions of the Act referred to. With respect to the sentence of six months' imprisonment said to have been passed on Mrs. Coleman, he was informed that she was net sentenced to that imprisonment, but that the magistrate committed her to gaol merely in default of her finding bail, and that she was detained there a day or two until the bail was obtained, and she was then released.

Was it not in contravention of the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act that she was committed for six months?

admitted that it would have been wrong for the magistrate so to decide a case of prosecution for a specific offence; but, as he had already explained, the woman was not convicted of an offence, nor was she committed for six months.

Was she not distinctly sentenced to six months' imprisonment in default of finding sureties? Was that not in violation of the Act, and should not two magistrates have been present, if such a sentence was to be pronounced?

I have already pointed out that she was not sentenced to six months' imprisonment. No doubt the hon. Member is correct in saying that two magistrates should have been present in a case where a person was committed; but, as I have said, this was not a committal for six months.

I should wish to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether it is not the fact that three respectable persons offered bail for Mrs. Coleman whilst she was before the magistrates, and that they were refused?

I do not think such bail as the hon. Member refers to was offered; but I am unable to say, and cannot answer the Question without Notice.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether by the Treaty between Austria and Servia the following articles are exempted from all duty on entering into Servia:—1. Machinery of all kind and agricultural implements; 2. All railway materials, plant, and rolling stock; 3. Coal; whether by "the Most Favoured Nation Clause" between this Country and Servia of 1880, British goods of these denominations would not have been equally exempt from import duties into Servia; and, if he would explain why Her Majesty's Government have foregone advantages which British trade and industry might have reasonably expected to derive from the possession of these privileges at a moment when considerable enterprises for national development are contemplated by the Servian Government?

asked, Whether there exists in the Foreign Office any Telegram, Memorandum, Despatch, or other document relating to the discussion with the Servian Government on the duties on iron and steel, dated between the 22nd June and the 14th of July; and, if so, whether such document or documents can be laid upon the Table?

asked, Whether, under existing treaties with Servia, coals, Railway iron, and Railway materials are admitted into that country free of duty?

The Question of my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine) contains the answer to the chief portion of the Question of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock. All railway materials and coal imported from Great Britain into Servia are admitted free of duty. As regards those articles, Her Majesty's Government have not, therefore, as the noble Lord supposes, foregone any advantages to British trade and industry. As regards machinery and agricultural implements, in which, from their nature, but little trade with this country is done, Her Majesty's Government have consented, as I have already informed the noble Lord only on Tuesday last, to make certain concessions on condition that the duty on woollen and cotton yarns, in which this country is much interested, is reduced from 8 to 5 per cent. In reply to the Question of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, I may state that the negotiations were conducted almost entirely by Mr. Gould and M. Marino- vitch, whose permission will be asked' consents, there will be no objection on the part of Her Majesty's Government to lay on the Table the private correspondence on the subject.

Where it is stated in the Despatch of Mr. Locock that coal, iron, and railway material could be introduced into Servia, duty free, from Great Britain?

It is not stated in the Despatch of Mr. Locock. The noble Lord will find that, in the Treaty between Austria and Servia which has been laid before the House, coal and railway material and rails are exempted; and we obtain the advantage of the clauses in respect of those articles by our "Most Favoured Nation Clause" in our existing Treaty with Servia. I may also point out that we likewise obtained advantage of the optional, ad valorem or specific duties obtained by the Austrian Treaty, and by our "Most Favoured Nation Clause."

Coal and railway material are mentioned as being exempted in the Tariff annexed to the Austrian Treaty. Agricultural machinery is also mentioned as exempted. There are three or four exemptions. Now, how does it happen that the exemptions, which apply to coal and railway material, do not extend to agricultural implements?

Because there is a declaration between Austria and Servia. If the hon. Member wishes me to give chapter and verse, I shall be glad if he will give Notice of the Question. The reason is that these are articles to which exception was taken, and which Austria claimed as goods in the nature of Frontier traffic, and under the head of Frontier traffic is included agricultural implements. We objected all along, through a large Correspondence, to these articles being included under the head of Frontier traffic. By the concessions we have made on that point we have obtained a reduction from 8 to 5 per cent duty on woollen and cotton goods.

asked Mr. Attorney General, If his attention has been drawn to the forty-second section of "The Telegraphs Act, 1863," under which the Companies constructing Telegraphs over streets were made liable for all damages and costs arising from default of their servants, public bodies having control over the streets being saved harmless; and, whether the Telegraphs were not transferred to the State subject to the liabilities imposed upon the Companies?

, in reply, said, the Question was closely connected with two Questions which he had attempted to answer formerly. When the telegraphs were transferred to the Postmaster General, there were no express words rendering the Crown liable to be placed in the same position as the Companies. Legally and technically it could not be so, for the Crown could not be subjected to an action for wrong. But local authorities need be under no apprehension as to their responsibility for injuries arising from accident. If an accident should arise, the consequences would fall upon the Postmaster General. The public bodies were responsible for seeing that the telegraph poles were erected in proper positions, so that they might not be likely to cause injury to the public, and any dispute between the local authorities and the Post Office might be referred to arbitration. But when the poles were erected, the Postmaster General took charge of them; and he, without question, would legally answer that the Crown could do no wrong. But as he could not allow the local authorities to interfere with the poles when they were once erected, he had the correlative duty of seeing that they were properly maintained; and, if injury arose, it had been admitted that compensation could be claimed. In substance, it rested with the public bodies only to see that the poles were properly erected in the first instance.

understood from the answer that, in the event of accident arising from the breakage of the wires suspended from house to house in London, and erected prior to the transfer to the Government, or erected since by the Postmaster General, damages arising from such accident would not fall upon the local authority.

said, the inference was right in substance as to the wires of the former Companies, or those erected by the Postmaster General; but there might be private wires that the Postmaster General had nothing to do with. But as to the wires he took from the Companies or had erected since, as far as he (the Attorney General) could see, the public bodies in whom the streets were vested would not be liable.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, in consideration of the opposition to the Provisional Orders dealing with Endowed Institutions in Scotland now on the Table of the House, and which there is no opportunity for discussing, he will withdraw these Orders until after the discussion on the Educational Endowments (Scotland) Bill?

said, as a Member who was much interested in one of the Provisional Orders, he asked the Prime Minister whether it was competent for him, or for the Secretary of State for the Home Department, to take any such course as proposed in this Question; and whether it was not the statutory duty of the Secretary of State, after he had approved of, to sign such Provisional Orders, to be laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament?

, in reply, said, he thought the second Question contained substantially the answer to the first. The laying of the Orders on the Table was an absolute statutory duty, and the withdrawal of them was a stop that could not be undertaken on account of any temporary difficulty. Consequently, the answer to the first Question would be in the negative.

asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he has had any correspondence with the Government of the Cape Colony on the proposal that the Colonial Office shall resume the direct control of the administration of Basutoland; and, if so, whether he will inform the House if any conclusion on that subject has been arrived at?

, in reply, said, the Correspondence on this subject would be found among the Papers, which had been presented to the House, and would probably be distributed this week.

wished to ask, Whether the Government would give facilities for the discussion of a Motion of his which now stood first for the 2nd of August, relating to a question of greater importance than the Land Law (Ireland) Bill? The Motion declared that all trade within the limits of the British Empire ought to be free.

said, he was not aware that the Government were in the possession of facilities to give. Before they could give them they must be in possession of them.

Am I to understand that, if the Land Law (Ireland) Bill be finished before the 2nd of August, the Government will not take that day for their Business?

No, Sir; I by no means said anything of that kind. It is a very good rule for a Government to give no answers to Questions depending upon a hypothetical basis.

In the event of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill being concluded before the House rises this evening, is it the intention of the Government to take Supply afterwards?

Yes, Sir.

Is it, then, the intention of the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) to go on with his Motion respecting Tunis?

If the Government take Supply before 10 o'clock, I will bring my Motion on; but not if the Land Law (Ireland) Bill goes beyond that hour.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention had been directed to the case of a man, charged at the Wandsworth Police Court with birds-nesting on Wimbledon Common, and fined £4, or in default committed to prison for 21 days?

, in reply, said, that within the last hour his attention had been directed to the matter, and he had sent to the magistrate to ask for an explanation.

asked when the Army Estimates would be taken?

I do not think they will be taken next week. I understand from the Secretary to the Treasury that the Civil Service Estimates are still more in arrear.

I understand the Navy Estimates are still more in arrear?

was understood to say that was so.

said, he hoped the Education Estimates would not be taken without two or three days' Notice.

said, he should be able to give Notice.

said, that early next week he would ask whether there was to be an Indian Budget?

said, that the Report on the Land Law (Ireland) Bill would be taken at 2 o'clock on Tuesday next, in the event of the Motion with respect to the Transvaal being closed on Monday night.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If he had received any information with regard to the execution of the sentence passed on Midhat Pasha?

said, that within the last 48 hours they had received no further information from Lord Dufferin on the subject.

said, in view of a telegram of peculiar significance published that morning, and which seemed to point to an almost immediate decision in regard to the sentence passed at the recent State trial in Constantinople, he must plead the urgency and gravity of the case if he trespassed upon the time of the House for a few moments, and would, if neces- sary, conclude with a Motion. The case was, shortly, this—One of the most noted figures in European politics, a statesman of the highest antecedents and reputation—["No!"]—at least, for an Eastern statesman, had been tried in a way notorious to the House, and his life at that moment was trembling in the balance. He did not say that Her Majesty's Government could bring any more pressure to bear on the Porte than they had done with reference to the subject. He was aware of the delicacy and difficulty, probably the impracticability, of any Government putting pressure upon the Sultan, except in the way of friendly intercession, which, so far, had had no effect. He, therefore, now wished to elicit from the House its opinion in reference to the recent trial and the action of the Turkish Government with respect to it; and he had reason to believe that such an expression of opinion would have the best possible effect at Constantinople. Midhat Pasha, after passing a distinguished official career, became Governor of Bulgaria, which he found overrun with brigandage, and in such a state that the revenue could not be collected. In a few months he put down brigandage, caused the revenue to be collected, and, under his rule, Bulgaria became one of the most prosperous Provinces of the Turkish Empire. One of his most persistent opponents was the Russian Ambassador. Midhat was doing everything to revive European confidence in Turkey, and as that did not suit Russian views General Ignatieff became his most persistent enemy, and intrigued against him——

rose to Order. He submitted that the hon. and learned Member was asking the House to give an expression of opinion upon a Motion for Adjournment which was placing the House in a false position; because it was precluded by its own Forms from given an opinion on that subject on a Motion for Adjournment.

said, that, as the House was aware, the only question on which the judgment of the House could be taken on the Motion for Adjournment was whether the House should or should not adjourn.

said, he would make his observations very brief. Subsequently Midhat Pasha became Governor of Bagdad. It was said by some that Midhat Pasha was a poor man, and, therefore, presumably an honest man; by others that he was a rich man, and, therefore, presumably a corrupt man; and he was sorry to say that a very high authority—the Prime Minister—had given expression to the latter opinion in an article he published. This, however, he knew—that though the revenues of the Provinces he governed passed through Midhat Pasha's hands, he returned from each of them a poor man, in one case not having sufficient funds to pay his own and his retinue's travelling expenses, and in another not being possessed of £500. Afterwards he became Grand Vizier, and his famous Constitution elicited from Liberal politicians everywhere praise and admiration, and it was no fault of his that that admirable scheme did not become an Organic Law of Turkey. He failed in his efforts to reform the administration, and to turn corrupt misrule into good government. Subsequently, both in Syria and Smyrna, he carried out the same principles of administrative reform. He was, undoubtedly, a party to the deposition of the Sultan; but it was widely believed that he was no party to his death, if he did not die by suicide. The Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had admitted that the Report of the Medical Commission was in favour of the opinion that the death was caused by suicide. Dr. Dickson, the physician to the English Embassy at Constantinople, joined in that opinion, and had assured him (Mr. M'Coan) that after the most careful examination of the body he was clearly of opinion that it was a case of suicide. But what happened at the so-called trial? Why, that two of the doctors, who had, as Commissioners, certified that it was a case of suicide—Marco Pasha and Dr. Castro—actually at the trial gave evidence to the effect that, in their opinion, death had been caused by murder. Such evidence was worthy of the tribunal before which it had been given. In a reply to a Question put by him, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had stated that the President at the trial had been formerly an employé of the Municipal Police at Constantinople, and he had himself positive knowledge of the corruption of the man when he held a judicial position. He had also evidence, though not so direct, that this same person had continued to be one of the most corrupt judicial functionaries in the service of the Porte; and also evidence, less direct still, that the other members of the Court which tried the State prisoners were of no whit better character. No European community, therefore, would hang a dog upon the finding of such a tribunal. He knew that Her Majesty's Government could not interfere directly, and that an unofficial or indirect appeal on the part of Her Majesty's Ambassador might have no effect; but he was proud to know that no other opinion in Europe could have such an effect on the Porte, or in the Palace, as that of the House of Commons, because it was thoroughly understood there that such opinion reflected that of the country, and so influenced the action of the Government. He begged to move the adjournment of the House, in the hope that such opinion would be expressed on behalf of an innocent, distinguished, and falsely-condemned statesman.

seconded the Motion.

said, he would not follow the last speaker in criticizing the trial that had taken place at Constantinople, a trial which he thought would not be considered satisfactory in this country. He would not make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government to interfere in regard to the trial; but he would remind him that on more than one occasion the interference of the British Government had saved the lives of men who had been condemned to death in Turkey. He trusted that the Premier would see his way to take some steps to bring the influence of Her Majesty's Government to bear upon the Porte, with a view of, at any rate, reducing the sentence passed on Midhat Pasha. He was a man of what was called a very liberal mind, and had discharged his duties in a remarkably impartial manner, and with much enlightenment, considering the difficulties under which he had had to labour. He ventured to suggest that the Premier would be doing a graceful act in using his great influence on behalf of this unfortunate man.

said, it was remarkable to notice the intense interest taken in Turkish Pashas by hon. Gentlemen who had lost no opportunity hitherto of denouncing them. The trial had by no means been so unfair as was represented, and the evidence against most of the accused was very strong. Everyone sympathized with Midhat Pasha, who was a great statesman and patriot, and it would be a most unfortunate thing if the trial resulted in his death. He doubted, however, if there was any danger of that. The present Sultan was a most humane and kindhearted man—and neither Midhat Pasha nor the other two Ministers who were condemned with him were in danger of execution. He thought the question might be safely left to the discretion of Her Majesty's Government without any formal expression of opinion by the House. It would be most unfortunate if any representations were made on behalf of the other condemned Ministers, Mahmoud, Damat, and Nouri Pashas, who were openly corrupt, and were guilty of almost every possible offence against the interests of their country and of civilization. It would be a matter of rejoicing if they could be brought to justice. It would be better if representations were made diplomatically by the Government without the direct interference of the House; and, although the influence of the British Government was much less than it used to be, he had no doubt they would have due effect.

I do not know that much advantage would be gained by a prolongation of the discussion. In answer to the appeals made, especially by the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), I think I can state very briefly what is a very simple matter—namely, the limits of action laid down for us, and the fact that we have not scrupled to act within them. Those limits were necessarily narrow. I was sorry to hear the hon. Gentleman who made this Motion introduce statements of so pointed a character respecting the individuals who have been called upon to conduct the inquiry. He may be quite warranted in all he says; but it is perfectly impossible that we can know that, and it is perfectly impossible, in justice to those individuals, to go in this House into the circumstances of which he speaks. If the trial be bad, an attempt to re-try the case in an Assembly of this kind, with the view to an ex- pression of opinion on the definitive merits of the case, would likewise be open to much objection. The real state of the case is this—have we a right of intervention in a matter of this kind? Clearly we have none. I use the words "right of intervention." But there are considerations of policy and humanity which have, on various occasions, led to representations, more or less formal, which are in the nature of interference with private affairs; but which are grounded on a sincere and dispassionate anxiety, in the first place, for the general principles of humanity and justice; and, in the second place, for the interests of the great Power in whose counsels you appear to intervene. Unquestionably, though we have no power to pronounce a final sentence on the nature of the proceedings in Constantinople, there has been a public opinion in regard to these proceedings both in Constantinople and Europe generally such as to make us believe that it would be greatly for the interest of the Sultan of Turkey were he moved to pursue a humane and liberal course. Recognizing these facts, we have not scrupled to act upon them. So early as July 4 instructions were sent to Lord Dufferin to use the least obtrusive, but, at the same time, the most confidential, direct, and effective means to make the kind of representations which we desired to be made. Lord Dufferin has, I think, with as much tact and delicacy as are in the possession of any man, and with, at the same time, as much good feeling and zeal, acted readily upon these instructions, and has, to the best of his power, made representations in the general sense I have described. We have no doubt whatever that a lenient and a considerate course will give satisfaction to the enlightened opinion of Europe, and will be greatly for the interests and peace of Turkey. Having said that, I think I had better add no more. I see no advantage in implicating or attempting to pass judgment on anyone. We have stood on the purely general consideration I have described; and I believe the House will be disposed to think, on the general statement I have made, that, without any special merit on our part, we have discharged our duty.

said, he was sure the House had listened with satisfaction to the humane and generous observations of the Prime Minister. He trusted his hon. Friend the Member for Wicklow, having elicited such an expression of opinion, would be content, and not push his Motion to a division. He entirely sympathized with him in the course he had pursued. It was desirable that the British Parliament should have an opportunity of recording its opinion of the very exceptional proceedings under the name of law that had recently taken place at Constantinople. Midhat Pasha was a distinguished Turkish Pasha. He had served his country ably and honourably in the highest offices the Sultan could confer. He had proved himself to be a friend of England and of progressive principles. He (Mr. Cowen) had the privilege of his acquaintance, and he could confirm the high character that the hon. Member for Wicklow had given him. He recognized the delicacy of the position, and he could appreciate the difficulties that the Premier had referred to. To interfere with the action of the Turkish Courts—however they were constituted—might be regarded as trenching upon the freedom of an independent State. If representations were made in a too emphatic way they might be resented by the Sultan, and have the very opposite effect that was designed. This was a possibility which they should all bear in mind, and of which the Government, no doubt, were conscious. They should remember also that it was impossible for the House to review the proceedings of the Constantinople tribunal. They might have their opinions; but they were not, and could not, be informed of all the details. But, still, admitting all this, the English Government had on other occasions interceded with foreign Rulers on behalf of fallen statesmen or popular leaders. There were many instances in history where there had been such friendly interference; and they had, therefore, the warrant of precedent for doing what was now suggested. He trusted that the Government would—with all the energy that they felt themselves justified in using; but, at the same time, with the necessary friendliness—intercede on behalf of Midhat Pasha. The Prime Minister had said that instructions to that effect would be sent to Lord Dufferin, and the House and the country would feel satisfied that any appeal by him would be supported by a man of great ability, high character, and of generous spirit. Having called attention to the subject and made this representation, he would advise that the matter should be allowed to rest in the hands of Her Majesty's Government.

asked leave to withdraw the Motion.

wished to say a word or two. He sympathized with the object of the Motion, because he did not believe in capital punishment for political offences. He was glad to hear the expressions of the Prime Minister; but he thought that while he was making his speech he might have added that it would give him great pleasure if the Sultan would intervene on behalf of several subjects of Her Majesty in Ireland, who were suffering, not for political offences, but merely on suspicion.

proposed a new clause, providing for additional payments to clerks of the peace and other officials, in respect of any duties imposed upon them by the Bill.

The clause of the hon. Member for Waterford County (Mr. Villiers Stuart), dealing with the state and condition of labourers' dwellings, is rather for a Public Health Act than for a Bill dealing with the Land Laws, and is, therefore, outside the scope of the Bill.

regretted exceedingly that it should be so; but, of course, if it were ruled out of Order, there was nothing for it but to submit. Sanitary inspection was most important, and one of the leading features of any Bill for the improvement of Ireland; and a want of sanitary conditions caused a great waste of the health and strength of the people. He would only add that the clauses already passed were, of course, very valuable, but they did not cover the whole of the ground by any means.

asked if that part of the new clause which had reference to the erection of labourers' dwellings was out of Order?

I understand that all these clauses of the hon. Member hang one to the other and run in sequence. They are, therefore, out of Order.

then proposed the insertion, after Clause 18, of the following Clause:—

said, he was afraid that the object the hon. Member had in view was foreign to the purpose of the Bill. The provisions after which the hon. Member proposed to insert his clause did not contemplate the erection of cottages for agricultural labourers for any fixed or specific period, but enabled the farmer to provide proper and suitable tenements for such labourers as he employed. The Amendment of the hon. Member proposed to locate the labourers, and turn them from the condition of labourers into tenants; and, if it were followed out to its consequences, the result would be this, that when the farmer got a statutory term of 15 years, the labourer who happened to be employed at the time for the farmer would also get a statutory term for his dwelling, and, instead of being one of a migratory class, would be continued for 15 years, and possibly even for successive periods of 15 years. It seemed to him that it was quite impossible to accept the Amendment, and therefore he trusted that the hon. Member would not press it.

said, that, in order to secure something for the labourers, decided action should be taken on this clause, because it was melancholy that the unfortunate labourers should have to go from three to four miles to their work, and he thought that the Government should require something to be done for them in this respect. There was no desire to place them where they were not required; but it was important they should live on the farms where they were at work.

said, he was not going to discuss the details of this clause; but he certainly hoped that the hon. Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue) would press it to a division. The hon. Member's way of improving the condition of the labourer might not be his own; but, unless the Committee determined to do something, the labourer would certainly be left out in the cold. They must remember that the labourer in Ireland was in this position—he was created by the landlords, and from the laws of entail and from the impossibility of selling small plots of land, there was no inducement offered to the labourer to save his money for the purpose of purchasing a small plot of land or a house. It was an axiom that the Irish labourer would only save to purchase a house or a plot of ground—something that he could see. A labourer was willing to pay for the house or plot of land, and if he had been able to do that during the last 50 or 100 years there would have been a considerable number of them with plots and houses. They were under a debt to these strong men, and they ought to try and do something for them. Very little had been done hitherto. Several propositions were on the Paper, and he hoped the Government would accept some of them. The clause of the hon. Member for Tralee, although he did not assent to all its details, contained in it something which would do the labourer good.

said, he did not yield to the hon. and gallant Member who had just sat down, or the Mover of the clause, in his desire to benefit the labourer. But this was an Amendment which he could not vote for. It was a mistake for the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) to suppose that the effect of the Amendment was to provide cottages or facilities for the building of new ones. [Mr. O'SULLIVAN: It provides labourers with cottages.] That was not so. He could quite understand that it might be quite necessary to have some protection for the labourers as against small farmers; but he wanted to point out that the effect of this clause was not to provide them with cottages, but to fix the working population in definite places, although the claims of the labour market might call them somewhere else. This Amendment would be most disadvantageous to the working classes. It would be objectionable to those having a small quantity of land, instead of taking their labour to market, to be fixed on a small holding. He quite agreed in the desirability of providing increased facilities for the acquirement of proper houses on the small holdings, and he also agreed in the necessity of controlling the terms on which the farmer let the land to the labourer; but this clause would neither effect the one nor the other, for it would fix and limit the supply of labour.

said, he thought the object of the Government clause was that where the farmer brought labour to the farm, he should provide accommodation for that labour. That, he thought, was the humane intention of the Bill. But he thought it would be right to place some restrictions upon the relations of the employers and the employed. He thoroughly sympathized with the labourer, and he was sorry to say to the Committee that the clause which he had on the Paper would be excluded from their consideration. In that clause he offered improvable ground on which to labour, and in that lay his hope for the relief of the labour market, which, at the present time, was overstocked.

said, he hoped that the hon. Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue) would not press his Amendment. He objected to the fixity of tenure to the labourer. The farmer was only allowed to build a certain number of cottages. If these got into the possession of two labourers, who turned out to be idle and drunken men, and unable to do his work, if he left them on his land he would have no means to build cottages for any other labourers, and he would be perfectly at the mercy of these men when they knew that they had fixity of tenure. They might act in a different way if they knew that the farmer could turn them out.

observed, that if the labourer got drunk, and was unable to work, as was suggested by his hon. Friend, the clause gave the tenant power to dismiss him. He did not think that there was anything in the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman who talked about the clause binding the labourer down to his holding. There was nothing to bind him to his holding in it.

said, he did not like to offer any decided opinion upon any question with regard to the labourer, for it seemed to him to be a very complicated and difficult question; and it was exceedingly difficult to know what effect certain provisions would have. But with regard to the statement of the hon. Member for Tralee, it seemed to him that it was a proposition in which he coincided—namely, that the party who supplied the allotment should not be the landlord but the tenant. The tenant farmer was more likely to know the amount of labour that he was likely to require than the landlord was for him; and, as a commercial speculation, for a landlord to build cottages, it would be perfectly unprofitable, and would not re-imburse him for the outlay. Therefore, in his opinion, the two parties who ought to come together in this matter were the tenant and the labourer. This clause had been unfairly criticized with reference to the statutory term. The principle embodied in this Amendment was very much embodied in the Bill with regard to the holdings of farmers from landlords, because in this clause there was a statutory term for 15 years, and a particular rent; but in the case of certain misconduct of the labourer, the arrangement should cease and determine. They had a similar provision with regard to the holdings of farmers and landlords. If a farmer committed a breach of statutory conditions, he would lose his interest in the holding; so that it seemed, in principle, the two cases were equal. He did not mean to argue that it was a sound principle that there should be such a thing as a statutory term. It seemed to him that this was a very reasonable clause.

said, he had a clause to propose which deserved the serious attention of the Committee. They had given power to the tenant to enable him to purchase his holding under certain conditions. They had also given power to the Court to purchase properties under certain conditions, and he now asked that under certain circumstances they should allow the landlord to get the Commission to purchase his holding from him. He had amended this clause on more than one occasion. He had endeavoured to simplify it as much as possible by trying to deal only with holdings that came under the statutory conditions which had been imposed. He proposed that when the tenant had asked for a reduction of rent, and statutory terms had been imposed, the landlord should be able, through the Commission, to sell the holding. Looking at the Bill as it now stood, if it became an Act, it would inflict upon many landlords gross injustice. It would reduce rents where hitherto they had been fair and reasonable. It would place the landlord in a totally different position to that which he had ever held before. In 1870 any proposals of this kind would have been met by a corresponding compensation, and he, therefore, ventured to ask that this very moderate amount of compensation, which he now proposed, should be awarded to the landlords. What was the great cry of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on the Opposition side of the House? Their great cry had been that there were 660,000 tenants in Ireland who were entitled to become possessors of the soil. He saw the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) in his place opposite; and would he for one moment get up and say that his great object had not been to enable these tenants to become the possessors of the soil which they now occupied? Hero he was offering them another opportunity of purchasing their holdings from the Commission. He proposed to give the landlord an opportunity to sell at a fair and reasonable price to the Commission. The right hon. Gentleman to whom he had alluded had argued this question; but it had been still more strongly argued by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), who had said that his great object was to get the estates of the landlords by fairly paying for them. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) saw the difficulties that would be raised by the Prime Minister as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the way of the acceptance of this proposal; but when they came to this House and asked for a Bill of this kind they were bound to look at all sides of the case. He ventured to say that he had put the present case fairly before the Government, and had argued reasonably enough that where the landlord was un- fairly damnified by this Act, they were bound to compensate him; and he asked them to do that by giving to the tenant an opportunity of purchasing from the Commission a holding at the instance of the landlord. There was something beyond all this to which he wished to call the attention of the Committee. He would point out to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), who was so thoroughly acquainted with all these matters, that this Bill, in its present form, was likely to do very serious injury to the proprietors of small holdings. In the Act of 1848, where they asked people, whoever they might be, to purchase the land in Ireland under the Encumbered Estates Court, they gave the purchasers a title, and enabled them to raise the rents. Many of them had laid out the whole of their capital; and now, when it was proposed to lower the rents, they would be reduced to a point of starvation. What was a fair thing to do under the circumstances? Why, to purchase the property, and to enable people whom they had inveigled into purchasing the land to give it up. If they did not do this the Act would prove a gross injustice to all the small proprietors in Ireland. He would appeal to the Irishmen he saw around him, whether what he said was not really the case? The large properties in Ireland were let at a much lower rent than the small ones, and the reduction would not be so great in their case, so that, in all probability, the Bill would not bring ruin to the proprietors of the larger properties. He would appeal to all those interested in the welfare of Ireland, whether he was not right, and whether, if the Bill passed in its present form, they would not be really expropriating from Ireland the class of small proprietors? If this Amendment were not accepted, what would the Court do? They would take the opinion of the land agents as to what was the value of the property, and the large properties would rule the small ones. The small properties would be found to suffer very materially, and many of their proprietors would be ruined. It was because he believed it was neither the wish nor the object of that Committee to drive out of Ireland the very class of people which, by the Act of 1848 they established there, that he brought forward this proposal. His clause was a moderate, fair, and reasonable one, and he appealed to the Committee to support it.

In the very last night of the debate we have a very important clause submitted to us, which, if adopted, would entirely change the nature of the Bill. I cannot imagine the suggestion of any clause which could have been more important, because its effect would be to impose upon the State the compulsory purchase of any estate a landlord might wish to sell. [An hon. MEMBER: Not the estate, but the holding.] Well, it comes to the same thing, because the holdings constitute the estate. The clause would apply to all holdings and to every estate the tenant or the landlord of which has applied to the Court, and the holding has come under statutory conditions. In all those cases the hon. and gallant Member proposes that the landlord shall have the power of compelling the State to purchase. That might go to an extent which, it appears to me, might be exceedingly disadvantageous. What we have do neup to this point is this. We have stated that the Government, or the Land Commission, may come in and purchase estates or holdings for the sake of selling them to the tenant. This is a very different matter. The proposal before us is that the State must purchase from the landlord, and may sell to the tenant; and the final result of that undoubtedly would be that the State would become a very large landowner, probably the largest permanent landowner in Ireland. I do not think that would be an advantageous result. The State steps in for the purpose of facilitating both sides agreeing to the purchase of the property by a tenant, and the tenant is allowed, all parties being agreeable, to purchase the fee-simple of his holding. But that is a very different thing from the landlord being able to make the State buy the holding; because there is no security whatever that the State, subsequently, will be able to sell to the tenant. The State may, therefore, as I say, become the largest permanent landowner in Ireland, if this clause is adopted. The hon. and gallant Member justifies that on this ground. He says the clause would not apply to large properties. Well, I am not at all sure that would be the case. I am not at all sure that large landowners would not take advantage of it; but whether they would or would not, the hon. and gallant Member justifies it on the ground that small landowners would take advantage of it, because, he says, this Bill would reduce them otherwise to starvation point. What right has he to suppose that? The Bill merely contemplates that the holdings should be sold at a fair rent. Why should we throw on the tribunal, which is to fix a fair rent, the slur that it will reduce the rents in the case of small holdings to starvation point? There is no reason whatever to say that. I think this Bill will be justified by what will happen, and I think the final result of the measure, within a few years, will be that the landowners of Ireland, small and large, will be better off than they are at this moment. Therefore, there is no reason for the State to step in in this way. I hope the Committee understands the exceeding width and importance of this clause, which we are asked to pass on the last night of the Committee on this Bill—a cause the effect of which, in all probability, would be to make the Government—that is, the taxpayers of the Three Kingdoms—by far the largest landowners in Ireland.

said, it was perfectly true, as stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, that the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had moved one of the most important Amendments that could possibly have been brought forward on this Bill. In considering this Amendment, he could not help recalling some of the phases through which it had passed. It did not altogether owe its origin to this side of the House. It had been put down in very much the same form—he thought in almost, if not quite, the same words—[Sir WALTER B. BATTTELOT: Not quite.]—in almost the same words by the hon. Baronet the Member for the Eastern Division of the West Riding of Yorkshire (Sir John Ramsden). The Amendment had been put down with a tremendous flourish. It was put down shortly afterwards by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Honeage), and that hon. Member had succeeded in running the Government to a division in which they had only a majority of 25. Encouraged and elated by what was almost tantamount to a victory, the hon. Baronet (Sir John Ramsden) put on the Paper a similar Amendment at a later stage; and they had every right to believe, from conversations that had taken place, that this was the great rallying-point of the Whig Party—that the Amendment was to be supported by the entire strength of the Whig Party, which was, in all likelihood, to put the Government in a minority if they resisted it, and which was also, as far as they could understand, to be supported by independent Members from Ireland. That was some time ago. But the division on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby had a most extraordinary effect, and had led to some extraordinary incidents. A Circular was issued by the Birmingham Caucus, warning the Whigs that their conduct in regard to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby had been such as to bring on them the censure of the Liberal Party, and that if they persisted in this evil course of bringing forward Amend- ments to which the Liberal Government could not assent, they would have no chance of being again retured to Parliament in the Liberal interest. The effect of that on the hon. Baronet and his Friends opposite had been surprising. The Whigs had seen clearly enough that the effect of the Bill would be to plunder certain classes, and their desire had been to offer some compensation. But where was the Whig Party now—where were the unfortunate and miserable Whigs? He did not see one—he did not see a single one of the gallant 35 who followed the hon. Member for Great Grimsby into the Lobby. He saw the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings), who was not altogether unconnected with the Birmingham Caucus, and he offered him his humble congratulations upon the success which had attended the celebrated Circular—on the effect that it had produced on this Whig coterie. The Whigs had abandoned their Amendments; they had run from the battle. It was to be hoped that, like those who fought and ran away, they would "live to fight another day." Now, the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was left alone in his glory to move this Amendment. Its principle was such that if it had not been for the Bill—if it had been proposed by itself—it was not such as his hon and gallant Friend would have brought forward. The Committee had, to a certain extent, abolished a great many of the rights of ownership, and what they might call the amenities of ownership. Before the measure was brought in, a man had rights and privileges which, in the event of the measure passing, he would no longer possess. Hon. Members opposite said that the Bill would not place the landlord in a worse position than he was in before. Well, as to the actual collection of rent he was not sure that that would not be so; but there were other privileges and rights connected with the ownership of property besides the mere collection of rent. There was the right and privilege of improving land and spending money on it, of separating farms and adding to them, of erecting farm buildings or taking them away, or of converting them to other purposes. All these rights the landlord had now, but they would vanish when the Bill passed. They had taken away these rights, which were as sub- stantial as anything they had given to the tenant, and they reduced him to the position of Shylock, to whom they would give nothing but what was in the bond. The landlords replied to them—"Now, you say you deprive me of part of my property, and I call on you to take the whole." That was the principle pursued in all railway legislation which was effected for the benefit of the community. They said to a Railway Company that proposed to take a portion of a person's property—"You shall not take a part without the whole." ["No, no!"] Well, he ought to have some knowledge upon this question. He had had some experience with regard to it, because he had succeeded in defeating a Bill which proposed to subvert that very principle. The whole principle of railway legislation had been that a Railway Company had no business to spoil a man's property unless they were prepared to buy the owner out. ["No, no!"] Yes; it was absolutely so, and all the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex asked was that they should deal in the same way with the Irish landowners. They were not legislating for the benefit of the Irish landowner, they were legislating with the object of securing peace in Ireland, and for benefiting the people of Ireland; and if, for that object, they interfered with private rights and the privileges of private landowners, they must be prepared to pay the penalty—they must be prepared to purchase them out altogether. There was nothing he would look on with greater fear and alarm than seeing all the Irish landlords bought out. It seemed to him that the Government wished to leave the Irish landlord in the odious position of being a rent-charger—of having nothing to do but to exact a tax from the people of Ireland, and simply because they dared not come in and take that duty upon themselves. They were making the landlords the buffers between the Irish people and themselves, and it was that that his hon. and gallant Friend wished to avert. If the Government chose to initiate legislation of this sort, and, without compensation of any kind, to plunder individuals, he would say to them—"Face the mob you have excited yourself. Take the responsibility of collecting the rent yourself, and do not throw it upon a class whom you refuse to protect." The ob- ject of the Amendment was to bring before the Government the real responsibility they had taken up in this matter. There were many landlords in Ireland who had devoted their lives to the improvement of their land and the advancement of their tenants. ["Oh, oh!"] Yes, there were many of this kind in Ireland; but they would not be prepared to stop in the country one hour the moment they were deprived of the power of doing good, and the moment they were placed in the odious position of being merely tax-gatherers. The Amendment was one which would not have been proposed had it not been for what had gone before. Remembering what the landlords had done in Ireland, he was prepared to assist his hon. and gallant Friend in endeavouring to protect them from the hateful position into which it was now sought to place them.

said, he did not propose to follow the noble Lord opposite (Lord Randolph Churchill) through all the details of his interesting, although somewhat excited speech. It was a mystery to him how the noble Lord was able so frequently to work himself up to such a pitch of excitement. What was the grievance? When the statutory condition was seriously contemplated it would be found simply to mean that the Court was to fix a fair rent for a fair period. He could not understand how the noble Lord could take such an exaggerated view of the hardship on the landlord of having that fair rent fixed. The Amendment involved the adoption of an altogether new principle not hitherto to be found in the Bill, because, up to this moment, that part of the measure dealing with the sale of estates was entirely voluntary. The estates were to be purchased where the landlords were willing to sell, and where the Land Commission was willing to buy, the Land Commission, however, having first ascertained that the tenants themselves were willing to purchase. How was the new principle sought to be justified by the hon. and gallant Gentleman? He put his point very clearly, and it was this—that under the operation of this Bill the rents of the small landlords of Ireland would be reduced to what was called starvation point. What did that mean? Were the words "starvation point" used as synonymous with the words "fair rent;" because, if they were not, how was the starvation point reached? All the Court would have to do would be to fix a fair rent. What was the next stage of the argument? This proposal was supposed to be for the benefit of the landlords, but how was it to benefit them? Did the hon. and gallant Gentleman suppose that the purchase of an estate upon a rent which he described as at starvation point would satisfy the landlord? If all that it was worth was to be given, and if the value was as was described by the hon. and gallant Member, how was the small landlord to benefit? He left the hon. and gallant Member, when he came to address the Committtee, to explain this. The hon. and gallant Gentleman could only hope that by the machinery laid down in this clause the small landowner might get more than his estate was worth; because, unless that was so, no benefit at all was conferred upon the small landowner. He would point out that this clause did not provide at all for tenants being willing to purchase. All that was necessary to satisfy the conditions of the clause was that the Land Court should buy at the instance of the landlord. The Land Commission might in that way be asked to buy up many, and those the most unsuitable, estates in Ireland; and, therefore, he submitted that the proposal was faulty in principle and would not serve the purpose the hon. and gallant Member had in view.

There can be no doubt that the objections raised to the clause moved by my hon. and gallant Friend, both by the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. C. Russell), are objections of a clear and substantial character, and I have no doubt that my hon. and gallant Friend is perfectly conscious of the fact. At the same time, there are two sides to this question, and I think my hon. and gallant Friend has done well in bringing the matter before the Committee in the form in which he has introduced it. Let me remind the Committee of what has been said on former occasions as to this question of compensation. I will not allude to speeches made 10 years ago, when we were told that some of the things now proposed were of such a character that they could not be recognized, because they would give the landlord claims to compensation which it would be inconvenient to deal with. But even in the discussions on this very Bill itself we have had expressions of a general character from the Prime Minister, in which he has used such language with regard to compensation as implied that the matter was one he did not decline to consider on principle, but which he would put aside until he saw during the progress of the Committee whether any case for compensation could be made out. We have always held throughout these discussions that it was quite possible on a principle to come before Parliament and say—"Now, by this legislation you have inflicted a serious blow on the landlord class, and you have done that for a purpose that you consider to be of national importance; and if you do, for the purpose which you consider to be of national importance, injure a particular class of society, it is but reasonable that some compensation should be made to them." Well, if that is so, you come to the difficult question, how is the compensation to be assessed, and how is it to be discovered what the compensation shall be? The suggestion which has been made by more persons than one, by persons sitting in different parts of the House, and which is embodied in the proposal now before us, is this—that instead of attempting to assess compensation in particular cases, you ought to allow the landlord, when he feels himself to be aggrieved by the measures you have adopted, to compensate himself by selling that property which he is no longer able advantageously to hold. There are a great many classes of cases in which the landlord will undoubtedly be the sufferer, and will have a claim against the Legislature which has made him a sufferer. No doubt, the man who holdst he handle of the whip looks upon a whipping from a different point of view to the man who feels the lash; and Members of this House, no doubt, look upon the results of this measure in a different light to the unfortunate men who have done the best they can, and who have made great sacrifices for the improvement of the country in which they live. These landlords will have to suffer considerable inconvenience and loss—a loss which must be measured not only by the direct loss they sustain in consequence of the reduction in the amount of their rents, but indirectly by the apprehension which must necessarily arise through the power of Parliament of further reducing their position and income by future legislation in the same direction. It does not seem an unreasonable proposition that a landlord who finds himself in this position—that on the one hand he will be odious to the country and his tenant as a mere rent-charger, with no power of executing improvements; and on the other hand finds himself deprived of the income he has enjoyed, and who is left subject to heavy burdens that he is not able to bear, and who will always remember that he was encouraged to invest his capital and take up these burdens by the State and by Parliament itself—it does not, I say, seem unreasonable that a landlord so situated should feel his position to be a very unfair one. It is not at all unnatural that he should desire to be relieved from that position. Then comes the question of policy. Is it desirable that you should compel men in that position against their will to remain on their properties? Then comes my hon. and gallant Friend's proposal. No doubt, that was met by most serious objections. It was met by this great objection in practice—how is the Commission or the State to manage if the whole or the greater part of the land of Ireland is presented to them for purchase, and they are compelled to take it? My own suggestion, however, would be that the difficulty might be got over by giving the landlord the option of selling his property at a price which, while it would save him from utter ruin, would offer him no undue inducement to sell. Take the judicial rent as your basis, and give a limited number of years' purchase—say 20 years. By so doing you surely would not tempt the man to sell. You should give that kind of relief that is given in the Money Market, if I may use the illustration, in a time of panic when you suspend the Bank Act. When people find that they can get money at 10 per cent, they are not so anxious to run after it. The knowledge that they can get it gives relief. I admit that this clause, taken by itself, while it is valuable as enabling my hon. and gallant Friend and those who agree with him to state their case, and point out what the difficulty in principle is, would require a good deal more pressure before it could form any legislative measure; and, look- ing at the circumstances in which we stand, I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will not think it necessary to call upon us to divide. ["Oh, oh!"] I do not understand what hon. Gentlemen mean by that expression; perhaps they call for a division. But I have expressed my own opinion that the clause contains in itself the recognition of a principle which Parliament ought to be slow indeed to infringe, and that is, that when you sacrifice the interests of a class for what you consider a general benefit, you ought to be called upon to make compensation. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, perhaps it is one of those principles which is going out of fashion, but it is one for which I have some respect. It is, perhaps, the remnant of an old prejudice, but some of us think it is the remnant of an old principle. I should be sorry to see it entirely abandoned. Though I could not support the clause as it now stands, I think it does contain a germ of a principle that it is desirable to recognize.

If, as has been said, Parliament is about to invade the property of the Irish landlords, this question of compensation becomes a very serious one indeed, and one concerning which, if we are prepared to deal with it at all, we ought to speak in most decisive terms. I certainly, in that sense, see no advantage that can be gained by following the course of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and telling the hon. and gallant Baronet behind him that, though his proposal contains a very important principle, he ought not, in the circumstances, to press it. If, in truth, the principle of the clause is an important one, we ought not, as a Government, to be content to get rid of it on the strength of a few sentences of fair words, which will bear no fruit whatever. That, at any rate, is not my idea of dealing with questions of property. I remember—and I do not suppose many hon. Members will have forgotten—the period at which the late Government actually confiscated the property of the owners of advowsons in Scotland, by giving them, in the shape of compensation, a price which bore no relation to the market price of their property. We, in 1869, having to deal with the holders of advowsons in Ireland, provided that every one of them should receive the full market price of his property. This we held to be the true principle on which the compensation should be based; and this is the principle on which we hold that the question should be approached on the present occasion, if approached at all. I do not hesitate to say that I look upon this matter as vital to the Bill; and I am determined, as far as I am personally concerned—and I think I can, speaking for my Friends near me, say that they share in my determination—that, in doing our duty to the several classes in Ireland who are immediately affected by the Bill, we shall not forget the duty we owe to the nation at large. If these classes, either or both of them, have a just claim to compensation in consequence of the manner in which their interests will be affected by this Bill, we are bound, as a Parliament, to give it to them; but, if not, it is our determination, as it is also our obligation as a Government, to offer a firm resistance to any claim to compensation that may be put forth on their behalf, and not to palter with the matter by setting forth stories about possible coming evils. This claim for compensation has been too often urged. At the time of the Corn Law agitation an immense advantage was conferred upon the Irish landlords, and they were compensated by a very heavy charge upon the Public Treasury. On various other occasions, from time to time, claims for compensation have been urged upon that patient and enduring creature, the public of this country; but, in my opinion, those claims have never yet been made good in reason and in argument, nor, in my opinion—for that matter—has a much more plausible case been set forth than the one which is now before the Committee. I do not hesitate, with regard to that case, to say that if it can be shown, on clear and definite experience at the present time, that there is a probability, or if after experience should prove that, in fact, ruin and heavy loss is likely to be or has been brought upon any class in Ireland by the direct effect of this legislation, that is a question which we ought to look very directly in the face. But what I contend is that there is no such case before us at the present time, and that the Member of this House who votes for compensation as now proposed must vote against his convictions, in that there is no case under this Bill for claiming compensation. In the year 1870 the claim for compensation, though occasionally mentioned in the course of the debates, did not take any substantive form; but there was a great deal more to be said at that time in support of claims for compensation than there is now, because, in 1870, there was this fact patent that by the law of the land anterior to the passing of the Bill and the making of the Act, improvements on the holdings which were made by the tenants were the property of the landlords, and by the Act of 1870 that particular property of the landlords became distinctly and undeniably the property of the tenants. Therefore, in 1870 there was, at least, a primâ facie case for compensation. We, I may say, did not believe in the existence of a real case for claiming compensation. We believed—and our belief has been borne out by experience—that the Act of 1870 in the aggregate of its operations went to improve, and not to depreciate, the value of the property of the landlords. Upon what ground at the present moment, therefore—and I am not speaking of anything that experience may hereafter develop, as to which I have my own opinions and expectations—is it that, having regard to the proposed legislation now before us, compensation is to be demanded? If it is to be demanded, according to this clause, because a judicial rent and statutory terms are about to be established, all that I can say is, that a judicial rent can only be fixed, and statutory terms can only be established, according to the judgment of a dispassionate and impartial judicial body who will have to decide between man and man according to facts proved before them. I admit that it is unusual, and requires very strong and exceptional circumstances to justify the passing of an Act of Parliament which contemplates the fixing of a judicial rent; but I deny that it is an injury to any one class in particular. Why is it, or can it be, an injury to the landlord to have fixed a fair rent; and, if such a fact could be possible, why is it not an injury to the tenant? If you are to compensate the landlord for having fixed a fair rent, which may, in certain cases, be a reduced rent, why should you not compensate the tenant when it is perfectly possible that the fair rent fixed by the Court may be an increased rent? No man can say, at the present moment, in how many cases this will happen. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), than whom there are few men more qualified to speak on this subject, has distinctly indicated his opinion that many of the absentee landlords have, as it were, compounded for the fact that they were absentee landlords, and performed the duty pertaining to such landlords by giving their tenants the benefit of low rents. As I then stated, my opinion was that the operation of the Bill would, in many cases, have the effect of raising the rents, and thereby creating discontent. I quite agree that if Parliament were to pass a law providing that rents in Ireland should be universally reduced to Griffith's valuation, that would be a fair case for compensation; but in the present case, the State, on the ground of policy, on the ground of humanity, and on the ground of general utility, interfered with private property. No one can doubt that at one time the State endeavoured to fix wages; but no one, as far as I know, has ever heard that compensation was ever claimed from the State for persons whose wages were so reduced. This, I take it, was a much stronger case than the one now before the Committee. The State has again and again, as hon. Members know, limited the access of employers of labour to the labour market, and has made labour comparatively dear by means of that action; but employers of labour did not on that account come to this House and make and lodge a claim for compensation. I am quite sure that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who has recently addressed the House was well intended as far as landlords are concerned. I cannot refrain from saying that I still feel the greatest doubt whether, in the course which he has taken, he has conferred upon them any favour. I would be bold enough now to repeat in effect what I said in 1870, which was that I then believed—the result having justified my expression of belief—that in a moderate but, at the same time, perfectly appreciable degree the effect of the legislation then proposed has been to raise the capital value of estates in Ireland, as far as the landlords are concerned. I may repeat that Her Majesty's Government entertain the same hope as far as this Bill is concerned. I do not now propose to enter into the question of whether the action of the Court in fixing a judicial rent may not, upon the whole, lower the rents rather than raise thorn, in its first operation. It is perfectly possible that this might be so, and I have no doubt that such a result is largely anticipated on the other side of the House; but if, in its first effects, the action of the Court has that tendency, then all I can say is, that it is perfectly within the probabilities of the case that its ulterior tendency in giving confidence, in producing harmony between landlords and tenants, and in bringing about a larger development of the productive powers of the soil may be to repay the landlords for the incidental mischief of the Act twofold or threefold. Why, I would ask, is Ireland to be doomed for ever to that state of things in which there should be such an absence of confidence, and such apprehension of danger impending, as that no one will be willing to invest their capital in land in that country, upon terms more nearly approaching to the settled state of things which we enjoy in this country. Without presuming to attempt to determine the future relations of the judicial rents to the present rents, I will only say that I, for one, shall be bitterly disappointed with the operation of the Act if the property of the landlords in Ireland does not come to be worth more than 20 years' purchase on the judicial rent. In this hopo I probably have with me the sympathies of Irishmen themselves. They have naturally a feeling for their country, and do not wish to lag behind in the race of civilization. I believe, therefore, that no legislation, however liberal to the tenant, can be really satisfactory unless, in all the relations of social life, it is favourable to the joint interests of all the classes concerned in the great matters which we are endeavouring to settle.

said, he merely wished to remark, in reference to one observation which had been made, that advowsons in Scotland never had a commercial value; and that it, therefore, could not be said that in the transfer of advowsons in that country property of commercial value was transferred from one person to another.

, said, he had only one fault to find with the speech of the Prime Minister, which was that it had no reference to the proposed clause. He could only suppose that the right hon. Gentleman had made his speech in anticipation of something that was likely to be said in "another place." As far as he could understand it, the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had given no hint as to compensation, but had left it to the Committee to do no more than discuss the terms of the clause before it. It seemed clear that the Prime Minister looked forward to the perpetuation of landlordism in Ireland; but, as he (Mr. O'Connor) believed, the main advantage of the Bill would be that it would enable the Irish tenants to elbow landlordism out of the country. He did not admit that the Bill went as far as he could wish; but, as its tendency was in the direction he had indicated, it was, to some extent, satisfactory. The hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell) had pointed out that the effect of the clause might be to throw a large quantity of land on the hands of the Commission, who might, perhaps, be compelled to buy at too high a price, and, therefore, injustice might be worked upon the tenants. The first of these objections was met by the provision that the purchase should not take place until a fair rent had been fixed and the tenant secured in his holding. He admitted the force of the observation that the effect of the clause might be to put a large quantity of land into the possession of the Commissioners; but this arose from the fact that while the purchase of the land from the landlords was compulsory, the letting of it to the tenants was optional, as far as the tenants were concerned. That, however, would not prove an insuperable barrier to the working of the Bill, if the Government would provide that the holdings should only be purchased if the tenant was willing to buy them at the price fixed by the Commission, and to make such other provisions as would bring about a joint proprietorship between landlords and tenants in the soil.

said, he had always held that the landlord system should, as far as possible, give way to the tenants; but he admitted that the landlords were entitled to compensation. The Prime Minister spoke of this clause as simply a mat- ter of compensation to the landlord for imaginary wrongs; but he could find nothing in it to compensate a dispossessed landlord. No matter whether the rent was fixed fairly or not, the Bill made a material change in the condition of the landlord with regard to the soil. It took away from him certain distinet and very substantial proprietorial privileges, and reduced him to the level of one merely dealing with a tenant for rent. He approved of that; he was glad that the Court could step in between the landlord and the tenant; but still it did reduce the landlord to a level much below that which he had previously occupied. The landlord was therefore fairly entitled to say—"You have altered my position altogether. You have done this probably for the good of the country; I admit that, but you have changed my social status and taken away what I have always believed to be my rights, and you ought to allow me to go out of the land, and you ought to buy it from me." He did not want to do injustice to the landlord any more than to the tenant; but they had to consider, above all things, just now the condition of the Irish tenants, and the prospect of forming a peasant proprietary in that country. For that reason he was anxious that as many landlords as could be induced to leave their land should do so as soon as possible; and he would support any proposal for enabling the Government to get possession of the land and to form a peasant proprietary upon it. He should be false to the purpose he came to the House to serve if he did not support every proposal which endeavoured to bring a larger quantity of land under the control of the Government, in order that they might plant a peasant proprietary upon it; and, therefore, he should support the Amendment, although he did not often find himself in sympathy with the advocates of the landlords' claims.

said, he could not think that the hon. Members for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) and Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) expressed the real opinions of the Irish people upon this point; and certainly they were not acting in their interest. The Committee was now at the last stage of a Bill which admittedly would confer immense benefits on the occupiers of land in Ireland; and that Bill, whether effective or not, was framed upon certain principles—the principle of voluntary sale of their property by landlords, and the principle of voluntary acquisition of the same by the Commission. His hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) brought forward this clause at the last moment to establish a totally different principle; but he did not think it was just, because he could not admit that the landlord who had let his land at a fair rent was injured to the extent of 1d. by this Bill. Therefore, he should oppose the Amendment; but how stood it with Members representing popular constituencies in Ireland? The Prime Minister had said he could not accept this Amendment, which would vitally alter the whole structure of the Bill—no Government could; but the hon. and gallant Member proposed to put the House in the position of endangering and imperilling the Bill by an Amendment which, however good in itself, was incompatible with the Bill, and which the Prime Minister and the Government—without whom the Bill could not be carried—stated would be fatal to the Bill if accepted. For these reasons he had not the slightest hesitation in predicting that public opinion in Ireland would support those who supported the clause in opposition to the Amendment.

remarked, that the arguments which had been advanced exactly illustrated the principle upon which this Bill had been conducted. The Prime Minister said the clause provided compensation, but there was not a word about compensation; and then the Prime Minister, having mis-named the clause, said whoever voted for compensation voted against the Bill. If the clause meant compensation, and if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) supported it, and proposed merely to take 20 years' purchase, the Prime Minister contended that 33 years was the proper period. He said that was the average price payable for land in this country; but that was a very startling assertion. There was a great deal in the argument of the Prime Minister in which all must agree, because he did not think anyone could contend that the mere establishing of a Judicial Court to arbitrate between the landlord and tenant and fix a fair rent constituted in itself any claim on the part of the landlord for compensation. But what was the object of establishing this Court? It was not to relieve the tenant from the excessive pressure produced by excessive demands for land. The object was, according to the words of the Act, to enable the tenant for the time being of every holding to sell his tenancy for the best price he could get. That was to say that whilst, on the one hand, the Bill deliberately took from the landlord the benefit of the market price, it did so in order to hand over to the tenant something that did not belong to him to enable him to get the full benefit of the market value of the commodity. And it was distinctly admitted that there would be cases where the tenant would sell something which he had neither acquired nor created nor bought. The Bill deprived the landlords of the market price which excessive competition had produced, because they were few, and gave it to the tenants because they were many, and that was the great fault of the Bill. The Prime Minister was very sanguine that the creation of this tenant right would produce tranquillity from one end of the country to the other, and had alluded to the condition of Ulster. He did not know that Donegal was in a more satisfactory state than the rest of Ireland, or that the Ulster right existed in a less degree there than in any other part; but the real reason why the North of Ireland was in a better condition than the rest of the country was that the manufactures absorbed the surplus population. If any hon. Member assumed that because the North of Ireland was more peaceable and quiet, and that the relations between landlords and tenants there were better than in other parts, that must not be attributed merely to tenant right, but to a number of circumstances which did not exist in any other parts of the country.

said, he regarded this as a most important Amendment, and one which could not be disposed of hurriedly. It was well worthy of the consideration of the Committee, for it contemplated a class of men with small means and heavily mortgaged, who could not afford the possible reduction which the Court might inflict. The hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell) said—"Oh, but his rent must have been too high if the Court reduces it to starvation point." Not at all; he might have let his land, as men sold coal and iron, at the best possible price; and the Court might compel him to reduce the rent. But he might be heavily mortgaged, and utterly unable to live if the rent was reduced; and the object of this Amendment was not, perhaps, to give the "upset" price in the market, but to give him something by which he could leave his land, with all the staff he had been accustomed to, and possibly find a happier home in some other country, where he could set himself up in some other walk in life with the remains of his property. The Amendment was a golden bridge for the retreating landlords, and was one which was quite necessary; for there would be many serious cases of people who could not afford to have their rents reduced. The hon. and learned Member for Dundalk had said high price meant high rent; but the tenant need not buy at all. He would have got his rent fixed, and it would be a case of caveat empton.

wished to bring the Committee back into the regions of common sense, and said, if the Court established a fair rent which was greatly less than the tenant had been paying, that was simply the redressing of a wrong; but he believed that in many cases the interposition of the Court would lead to the raising of the rent. It was assumed by some hon. Members that the principle of the Bill was confiscation of the landlords' property. He denied that, for he believed the principle was the restitution to the tenant of the right that was acknowledged in 1370. The hon. Member for the City of Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had expressed his anxiety to see the landlords elbowed out of Ireland. He had no great anxiety to see them elbowed out; but he had a strong objection to their being elbowed out with their hands in the pockets of the State. There were plenty of people outside the State who would be willing to invest their money at 5 per cent if security was given and peace was restored to Ireland. It was asserted by Irish Conservative Members that the landlords were being wronged; but he repudiated that, for what was being done was a return to the position of right between man and man. He was willing to accord the landlords full and fair rents, but he was not willing to go beyond that; and he knew that if this Amendment was passed it would place the Government in a most embarrassing position, and would lead to their occupation of great tracts of land. He entirely agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk that a greater injury to the tenant could not be effected than by the State becoming owners of land. On all these grounds he opposed the Amendment.

observed, that if the clause did not mean competition he could not tell what it meant; and he would advise his hon. Friends on the other side below the Gangway to hesitate very much before they consented to this Amendment. He would like to ask the hon. and gallant Member who made this proposal whether he made it in the interest of the tenant or in the interest of the landlord? He knew that the hon. and gallant Member would be disposed to act in favour of the landlords; but he would advise the Committee not to accept the Amendment unless the hon. and gallant Member so modified it as to provide that if a landlord bought, he should do so on terms agreed to by the tenant.

said, that what animated the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) and an immense proportion of the Irish people was a desire to see the system of landlordism in Ireland abolished. He believed the landlords had been as much the victims of the legislation for Ireland as the tenants; and he would support the clause if it gave compensation. He did not believe it did; but he would pay the landlords well in order to restore the agricultural land to the working occupiers. If the price were an exaggerated price, it would be well repaid by the increased development of the land. If there was a compulsory purchase a handsome price must be paid, and conversely; but to make this clause practicable the tenant must be willing to buy and the landlord must be willing to sell. In that case he would compel the Court to buy the holding; and there was nothing in that to outrage the principles of commerce, there was nothing to warrant the Prime Minister in being frightened at the amount of compensation; and if the Amendment was modified by the hon. and gallant Member, he thought it might be acceptable to the Committee. At all events, he believed it would meet with acceptance by the people of Ireland on account of its sound policy.

said, he was averse to asking the Government to charge themselves with a quantity of land; and he suggested the insertion in the clause, after "Commission shall," the words, "after being satisfied that the land can be sold without loss to the State."

observed, that land in Ireland would become more valuable after this Bill was passed, and advised the Government to accept the Amendment.

said, he had been pressed very much to insert in the clause a proviso that if the Commission purchased the property the tenant or someone else should purchase it from the Commission. To that he had no objection; but he must join issue with the Prime Minister on his remark that whoever voted for the clause voted against the principle of the Bill. There was nothing in the Bill which would be outraged or violated by his proposal. The Prime Minister himself had proposed that the market price should be absolutely abolished so far as the landlord was concerned, and that the Commission should regulate the price. Therefore, he maintained, the Prime Minister ought to vote for this Amendment. When the Slave Trade was abolished, the right hon. Gentleman thought it nothing that this country should give £20,000,000 for compensation, and this clause, although it did not amount to compensation, amounted to the right which the landlord ought to claim when deprived of the rights and amenities he had possessed. Something ought to be done to enable him to get rid of his property on fair and reasonable terms. He should be prepared to modify the clause as suggested, and he asked the Committee to support what he considered a fair, reasonable, and just proposal.

said, he thought the clause an eminently fair one, for he thought a man whose property was seriously affected by the Bill had a right to ask for an opportunity of getting rid of property which had been wholly changed in its nature. At the same time, accepting in good faith the statement of the Prime Minister that the proposal was in vital opposition to the principle of the Bill, and not desiring to throw any obstacle in the way of the Bill, he would not vote for the proposal.

said, he thought the remedy should be the same for the tenant as for the landlord; and if the Commission were to be forced to buy holdings where the rents were reduced, they ought to be required to buy a holding where the rents were raised.

moved to insert the following Clause after Clause 22:—

In the first place, from what the hon. Member has said, I have no doubt he understands this proposal himself. I give the fullest credit to the hon. Gentleman for understanding it. He has gone through a deal of trouble—he has taken immense pains, and shown how much the public will lose by it. They will lose £6 15s. for every £100, spread over three years.

No; not unless the State has to pay £3 10s. per cent for the money.

They will not?

No; with all due respect to the right hon. Gentleman. If the condition of the market would admit of the Government borrowing at 3 per cent, they would not incur any loss. And, perhaps, if I were permitted to explain——

I think I have gathered at least one definite and intelligible statement—the hon. Gentleman has not destroyed my impression in that respect—but I may venture to say that there is no part of his statement that I am able thoroughly to comprehend. I do not hesitate to say that nothing but the most minute actuarial calculation could possibly establish the proposition he lays down. With regard to certain statements of fact which I can detect in this Motion, it appears to be founded on two propositions—first, that the public can reckon on borrowing at an average rate of 3 per cent; and, secondly, that the administration of the money, the reserving of proper balances, the transmission of it to different quarters, and the collection in minute sums at a multitude of points from the people, is an operation which will cost just nothing at all. On these two propositions the proposal rests. They are both of them totally inadmissible. The established fact of borrowing by the public is that it cannot be done for less than £3 5s. per cent. And we know very well that some margin for the keeping and collection and borrowing the money for making the advances is absolutely necessary. I do not hesitate to say with regard to that 5s. per cent, left as a margin—I do not hesitate to say that, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I heartily wish, in a pecuniary point of view, that I were rid of the whole concern, and I should be glad to see the hon. Gentleman himself or anybody else take it off our hands. It is a very considerable financial difficulty which we are undertaking for great political and social objects; but a proposition of this kind, that we should borrow at a rate which we know does not exist, and that we should advance and recover the money which we borrow without charge, is altogether unsound. There is, undoubtedly, an element of good sense in giving encouragement to those who are desirous to pre-pay, and if you want to do it, it is really the simplest thing in the world—you have only to make them an allowance of so much per cent. I am quite willing to look into this; but I can assure the hon. Gentleman, seriously, that he might as well have introduced his proposal writ out in sanskrit letters, for we should know just as much about it.

I may say that my proposal is founded upon an actuarial calculation that has been very carefully prepared. I will send the right hon. Gentleman a copy of it.

I shall receive it with the greatest interest.

Would the right hon. Gentleman accept the proposal if I were to insert at the commencement the following condition:—

"That when the condition of the money market will admit of it, without causing loss to the State,"

"When the condition of the money market will not admit of the full allowance of ½ per cent being made to the purchaser without causing loss to the State, the Court may make an allowance such as would not cause any loss to the State."

moved, in page 18, after Clause 25, to insert the following Clause:—

This is a question of great importance and of great complication; but the hon. Member will find that in all cases when you take compulsory powers, and endeavour to act upon people against their will, it requires the greatest care, involves a multitude of details, and compels the expenditure of a great deal of the time of Parliament. Under these circumstances, I ask whether, at half-past 12 o'clock, on the 32nd night of this Committee, we are to be asked to sit here through Saturday? Shall we have a Sitting on Sunday? Shall we go on on Monday oversettiug the whole of the arrangements for next week? Is the Report also to be conducted on the same principle of ventilating every imaginable scheme that the ingenuity of hon. Members can devise? Or are we not to address ourselves to the humbler purpose of closing these discussions on this rather wide subject? That is the view to which we incline; but whether or no we cannot introduce such clauses as this at this time. At this period of the Ses- sion it would be wholly impossible to entertain them.

Under these circumstances, I am ready to withdraw my clause, hoping to bring it forward at some other time.

The next Amendment, which stands in the name of Mr. Parnell ("Commission may purchase and sub-divide certain land"), was substantially negatived in an Amendment moved by Dr. Lyons. I, therefore, rule it to be out of Order. The next Amendment stands in the name of Mr. Lever ("Facilities to Companies for purchase of waste lands, &c.") I should like him to explain wherein it differs from Clause 25, except in the substitution of the Land Commission for the Board of Works.

said, that if the Attorney General for Ireland could assure him that the object he had in view was already secured by the 25th clause, he should not propose the clause which stood upon the Paper.

said, the purpose in view was entirely met by the 25th clause, providing advances of money for any agricultural improvement.

The next Amendment on the Paper, which stands in the name of Mr. Dawson ("Poor Law relief "), cannot be put. Its object is to repeal section 10 & 11 Vict. c. 31, and that is already repealed by 25 Vict. c. 72.

said, a portion of the section in question still remained unrepealed, and that related to the giving of out-door relief to people in Ireland. If ever it pressed hardly upon the people of Ireland, it pressed hardly upon them now. It was very hard that a man who was struck down by misfortune should be prevented from getting out-door relief, and should be compelled to go into the poor house and break up his establishment. All he wanted was that any man who only possessed half an acre should be able to get out-door relief in Ireland in times of temporary distress, just as was done in England.