I wish to give Notice that on Monday next I shall move certain Resolutions relating to the procedure of the House, and the appointment of Standing Committees to deal with Bills of a certain class in lieu of Committees of the Whole House. I will not attempt to read the Resolutions, which run into some details, but will place them at once upon the Table, and I have no doubt they will be in the hands of hon. Members to-morrow morning.

, in rising to move—

"That the Letter of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, informing the House of the arrest of Messieurs Parnell, Dillon, O'Kelly, and Sexton, Members of this House, he referred to a Select Committee, for the purpose of considering and reporting whether any of the matters referred to therein demand the further attention of the House,"

said, he was sorry that a Motion so important as this had not been intrusted to a Member of more experience than he had on the precedents which should guide the House in a matter of this kind; but it appeared to him that the course which the House had invariably taken under circumstances somewhat similar was so plain, that he hoped they would have no difficulty in agreeing to the Resolution which he had read. In one respect the case was almost unprecedented. The only precedent which he could discover was the first arrest of the hon. Member for Tipperary last year. He was not aware that up to that period any Member of the House had been arrested by Her Majesty's Executive under a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Up to a comparatively recent period all suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act contained a provision exempting Members of the House from its operation; and he believed the Act which was passed in 1848 was the first which did not contain a provision of that kind. But although no such exempting provision had been included, he believed that since 1848 no Member of the House had been arrested under a suspension of the Habeas Corpus until last year in the case of the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon). Therefore, in searching for precedents he was driven to seek the cases which were most analogous to the present one. He found that very frequently Members of the House had been arrested on criminal charges of various kinds, and that, up to a comparatively recent period, the practice had been to refer the question of the arrest to the Committee of Privileges. The most recent precedent was the case of Mr. Whalley, a Member of the House, who was committed in 1874 by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn for contempt of Court. It had been the custom to refer all such cases to the Committee of Privileges. Mr. Whalley himself proposed that course; but the Prime Minister of the day (Mr. Disraeli) pointed out what was undoubtedly the fact, that the Committee of Privileges was not a convenient body to refer the question to, and that a Select Committee was preferable—a view which the House unanimously adopted. Numerous cases of the same kind as Mr. Whalley's were to be found in the Journals of the House; but into these he did not think it worth while to enter. Up to the present time the House had been very jealous of the liberties of its Members, and exceedingly careful to guard them; and although it had invariably happened of late years that the Report of the Committee supported the imprisonment of the Member whose case was brought under the notice of the House, yet he was not aware of any precedent for the refusal of the House to take cognizance of the arrest of one of its own Members, and carefully to investigate all the facts in order to preserve their ancient privileges and legal rights. All the more, there- fore, did he expect that the House would take cognizance of so serious a matter as the arrest of four of its Members; and it was well known that the number would have been considerably larger but for circumstances over which the Executive had no control. The limits of the discussion of this question being very narrow, he was well aware that he could not debate the general policy of the Government with regard to its administration of Ireland, or even the general policy of the Act under which the arrests now in question had been made. He should endeavour, therefore, to confine himself to the question at issue, and make out a primâ facie case for the referring of the question to a Committee to inquire whether the Government were justified in arresting a considerable number of their political opponents in that House. In doing that he thought he would be justified in quoting from the speeches of Ministers, who were responsible to the House for the passing of the Act under which the arrests were made, in order to show the pledges which they gave to the House, and the manner in which those pledges had been violated. He should also quote from some of the speeches made immediately prior to and since the arrests, in order to show the justification which responsible Members had endeavoured to make out for the action they had taken; and he should also show from quotations that the construction which they put upon the speeches and acts of the Members who were imprisoned was not the natural and proper construction. The subject was one on which the true light could be thrown by recalling the statements of Ministers rather than by mere vague declamation. His contention was that the Protection of Person and Property Act had not been used, with reference to the arrest of the four Members of Parliament in question, in the manner in which the Government undertook that it would be used, when they induced the House to pass a measure placing the liberty of every Irish Member of Parliament at their disposal, the moment he reached Irish soil. It would be remembered that the Chief Secretary for Ireland declared that the Act was aimed against "village tyrants and dissolute ruffians, who were few in number and known to the police." The right hon. Gentleman also said—

"If this Bill is passed we shall be bound upon our honour to satisfy ourselves that in the case of all arrests there is reasonable suspicion. We shall act in the full, and clear light of public opinion, on and under the eyes of a Parliament of a free and Constitutional country—a Parliament not slow to criticize and punish the conduct of those of its servants who transgress their powers."—[3 Hansard, cclvii. 1228.]

Again, he said that—

"Holding the harvest and not paying rent is not one of the offences against which this Bill is directed."

The hon. Member is now reviewing certain debates which took place on a Bill last Session. The Question before the House is one of Privilege, raised on a communication made to the House by me; and the hon. Member is wandering from the Question.

said, that, of course, he would at once bow to the ruling of the Speaker; but he thought what he was endeavouring to show was relevant to the position that he had taken—namely, that Her Majesty's responsible Ministers had given the House, during the passage of the Act, certain specific pledges, upon the honour and faith of which the House placed the liberty of the Irish Members at their disposal. They had, in the carrying out of those powers, violated the spirit of the Act, and violated the pledges on which they obtained it. He was endeavouring to show, by reading the extracts, that a breach of faith with the House had been committed, and that the privileges of Members who were arrested on account of that breach of faith had been violated. He therefore regretted he was not allowed to read them. He might be permitted, however, to quote a very remarkable extract from a speech made by the Head of the Government. First, however, he would read the Warrant under which the four Irish Members had been arrested. The Warrant stated that they were arrested—

"On reasonable suspicion of being guilty of a crime punishable by law—wrongly intimidating divers persons to abstain from doing what they have a legal right to do—namely, to apply to the Land Court to have a fair rent fixed."

Now, the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government stated that the Land League could not be touched by the Coercion Bill, except as far as they fell within the very stringent definitions in the Bill, according to which no one could be arrested but upon reasonable suspicion, "and the reasonableness of that suspicion might be challenged on the floor of the House." That was what ho now challenged. Those who were to be arrested were defined to be principals or accessories to a crime punishable by law, being an act of violence or intimidation, or exciting to an act of violence or intimidation.

I beg pardon of the hon. Member and of the House; but I think, as a matter of convenience to the House, it is well at once to raise a question of Order. As I have understood, it is not competent for the hon. Member to discuss the policy of the arrests, or the propriety of the proceedings with regard to them. He has just told us that he proposes to bring under consideration the question as to the reasonableness of the suspicion under which these arrests were made. I think it would be greatly for our convenience if it were understood, not whether the hon. Member is justified in bringing that subject under the consideration of the House—for I should be the last person to deny he has a right to do so—but whether this is the occasion on which to raise it.

said, he was sorry the Leader of the House did not explain what he meant. There was a claim that the Privileges of the House had been violated by the arrest of the Representatives of four constituencies—by the misuse of an Act of Parliament—a misuse which, in their opinion, had been prompted by a desire to get rid of political opponents. Did the Leader of the House venture to suggest that evidence of that fact was to be kept from the House? How, then, could breach of Privilege be shown unless they could show that the Government had falsely and fraudulently arrested Representatives of Imperial constituencies, in order to prevent formidable political opponents appearing in that House?

submitted that, of all questions of Privilege recorded in Constitutional history, this had scarcely a precedent. Was it to be contended that important evidence bearing upon the violation of Privilege complained of should be withheld? What his hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) wished to show was that, in carrying out the Statute, the Statute was not only strained, but broken.

said, he understood that the Leader of the House had raised a point of Order, which, if confirmed, would prevent the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray] from going into the merits of the case. As one of those who suffered imprisonment under the Coercion Act, he desired to protest against the point of Order raised by the right hon. Gentleman; and he called upon him, and the Government of which he was a Member, to allow his hon. Friend to fully and fairly open the case, and to state in return upon what evidence, in virtue of what acts and speeches, they were accused not only of inciting persons not to pay rent, but also of treasonable practices. The accusations were too serious, the consequences had been too painful, for the public opinion of Ireland, or, he ventured to hope, for the public opinion of Great Britain, to permit a question like this to be shelved in the evasive and cowardly manner suggested by the Prime Minister.

The point of Order I understand to be this. The hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) was good enough to wait upon me on this matter to-day, and I informed him that if it was desired to raise the question of Irish Administration, or of the manner in which the Land Act was carried out, he would not be entitled to do so under a Motion of Privilege; that I considered he was bound to confine himself to the Question of Privilege solely. Of course, it is open to the hon. Member, as I informed him, to raise all these points at the proper time, but not under a Motion of Privilege. He may move an Amendment to the Address to the Crown, or he may select an opportunity hereafter, when he thinks proper. But he is bound, on a Question of Privilege, to keep very closely to the Question.

said, he understood the ruling to be that it would be outside the Question of Privilege to show that in the arrest of four Members of that House the Privileges of that House had been violated by the fraudulent application of the Coercion Act. He asked, could they not show that in the case of these four Members the law had been violated, public faith broken, and the Privileges of the House destroyed?

, resuming, said, he hoped he need not say that he really and sincerely desired to keep strictly within the proper bounds. He could well understand the desire of the Premier not to allow him to make that particular quotation. The effect of the Speaker's ruling was that he would not be permitted to quote the solemn pledges which the right hon. Gentleman had given, and which he reiterated on subsequent occasions. He left him his triumph of having suppressed it. He left the House to judge of his appreciation of the promises under which he obtained the Act, and his very manifest desire that his words quoted from Hansard should not be laid before the House. He might say that the right hon. Gentleman stated distinctly—and the words he uttered could have no other meaning—that the Act which he succeeded in inducing the House to pass would not apply to the particular crime—if, indeed, it were a crime—-which was charged against the hon. Member for the City of Cork and the others in the Warrants, and for which they had been put in prison. Within three or four days after the arrest of the hon. Member for the City of Cork and the other Members, the Government themselves recognized in what a false position they had placed themselves by that Warrant. They saw that on the face of it the Warrant was a sham, if not illegal, as he (Mr. Gray) believed it was, and they supplemented it by another Warrant handed to the prisoners in gaol, charging them with treasonable practices, of which there was not a tittle of evidence. They were told by the Government that no Members of Parliament were included in the number of those persons who were to be arrested under the Act. No speech had been made by these Members after the passing of the Act different in character or stronger than those which they had made before the passing of the Act, and while the Premier was giving those pledges; and yet he put them in prison, contrary to the pledges under which he obtained the passing of the Act. He would not quote anything further from the speeches of the Prime Minister, neither would he quote from the statements of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in which he said that a law of this kind became a tyranny in the hands of tyrants, but that, administered by men such as now sat on the Treasury Bench, it would come as a been and a blessing to men; but when some Members on the Irish Benches ventured to challenge the generosity which proposed to take powers to imprison any man in Ireland upon suspicion, the right hon. Gentleman rose and said—''Who dare to question this statement of mine?" How dare they question the bona fides of their intention to administer this Act in accordance to the pledges they gave? The result, so far as these Members were concerned, was that four of them had been put in prison, and Warrants issued against a large number of others. They also knew that the votes of three Irish Members ejected from Office some eight years ago the Government which now sat upon the Treasury Bench, and ho could well understand that a nice calculation might have been made that possibly three absent votes might be very desirable upon a division—the votes of three absent men who would vote against the Government. Ho could, therefore, well understand why the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster might ask him how dare he venture to make such a statement as that—how dare he challenge the administration of the law in Ireland or the treatment of his brother imprisoned Members? But there were a number of men who ventured to challenge the administration of the law, and state that the Act had not been administered in accordance with its own terms, not to say its own spirit. He did not know whether the Prime Minister would object to his quoting from some of the speeches which he made during the Recess, and in which he justified the arrests now in question. He was very anxious, if he was within the limits of Order in doing so, to show that the pledges under which the Act was obtained had not been kept; that the right hon. Gentleman made charges against these Members of the House now in prison which were capable of being refuted by quotations from the speeches of these men themselves. In that celebrated oration which the Prime Minister made at Leeds on the 7th of October, he said that the hon. Member for the City of Cork— this was a specific charge against an individual—and a small band of his friends were preaching the doctrines of public plunder, and he stated that he could sustain that on demonstrative evidence—that was to say——

I must point out to the hon. Member that he is reviewing at large the conduct of the Government, and is, therefore, exceeding his rights.

said, he was not at all pretending to review the general conduct of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman had made charges against individual Members as a justification for the individual arrests. He did not at all desire to review the conduct of the Government in arresting 500 men in Ireland; but what he did desire to review was the conduct of the Government in arresting four Members of the House, and the justification which the right hon. Gentleman gave for his action in arresting the four Members. The right hon. Gentleman stated at Leeds that their immediate object was rapine. The hon. Member for the City of Cork had, he said, opened up and preached a new and enlarged doctrine of public plunder; and subsequently, in his speech at Liverpool, on October 27, after the arrest, he said that the policy of the hon. Member for the City of Cork was that the rental of Ireland of £17,000,000 should be reduced to £2,000,000 or £3,000,000. How were these results to be carried into effect, ho asked? By intimidation. Those were the doctrines which he attributed to the hon. Member for the City of Cork, and which he set forth as a justification for arresting him. He (Mr. Gray) was desirous to quote the real doctrines of the hon. Member for the City of Cork, as set forth in his speeches, to show that, so far from advocating any doctrine of that kind, he advocated a totally different doctrine.

I am bound to say that the course the hon. Member is new taking is irregular. He is really wandering very wide of the Question before the House. The Question before the House is one of Privilege; and the House expects, upon a Motion of Privilege, that hon. Members should adhere very closely to that Question, and not wander from it. What happened is simply this—a communication had been made by the Irish Government reporting to the Speaker the imprisonment of certain Members of this House; and upon that communication the hon. Member is undoubtedly within his right in raising a question of Privilege. But in travelling beyond that Question the hon. Member is abusing his right.

was quite willing to bow to the Speaker's ruling; but he regretted that, by closing his mouth at the present moment, it might have the effect of postponing for a long time the consideration of the questions which he desired to bring before the House—a postponement during which the imprisoned Members would still remain incarcerated. He regretted that the decision of the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair precluded him from showing, by speeches made by the arrested Members, that the Prime Minister was mistaken with regard to their utterances, and that, instead of having advocated a violation of the law, they advocated the reverse of that. The Prime Minister stated in a speech at Liverpool that the various points he made at Leeds against the arrested Members had not been answered, and that, not having been answered, he appealed to all persons to assist him in maintaining law and order. But the speech in which the Prime Minister made his points on the 7th of October was completely answered in a speech delivered at Wexford on the 9th of October. The words of the Act under which the arrests were made were peculiar. To justify an arrest there must have been an inciting to an act of violence or intimidation, an interference with law and order being a crime punishable by law. Now, suppose those charges were proved against these Members in a Court of Law, of what crime would they be guilty? He found that by an Act passed in 1875 relating to trades unions, with a view of making the penalties against them less severe, every person who compelled any other person to abstain from doing an act which he had a legal right to do, or who used violence or intimidation against such other person, was liable to a penalty not exceeding £20, and to be imprisoned for a period not exceeding three months. If the four Members who had been arrested on suspicion had been tried before a jury and found guilty the utmost punishment that could have been awarded against them was an imprisonment for three months. But they had already been four months in prison for being suspected of being guilty. Would the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—whose services to Ireland in the past could never be forgotten notwithstanding his recent actions—continue in the face of that fact to cry out in virtuous indignation—"Who dares to think this Act will be administered in a tyrannical manner?" Would he state it was not a tyrannical administration of the law for the Government to give a man longer imprisonment for the mere suspicion of a crime than he could receive if found guilty of that crime? In consequence of the ruling of the Speaker, he could only say, in conclusion, that he believed if the House consented to refer this question to a Select Committee the Irish Party could place on record the incontrovertible evidence which he was now prevented giving. If the House should refuse to take cognizance of the arrests of Members of that House, and should refuse to refer this subject to a Select Committee, it would be departing from immemorial precedent. He was aware that the hon. Gentlemen who had been imprisoned were Irish Members, and perhaps the precedents of English Members might not be considered applicable; but he hoped the House was still jealous of its dignity, and that it would not allow several of its Members to be arrested without, at least, taking some steps to ascertain whether those arrests were legal according to the terms of the Coercion Act, and whether they came within the spirit of the Act, because he contended that if the arrests were carried out in opposition to the pledges on which that Act was obtained an unequivocal breach of Privilege had been committed. It was all the more important that the inquiry sought for should be granted, because the hon. Member for the City of Cork was not merely a Leader of a considerable Party in that House, but he represented the popular opinion of a great portion of Her Majesty's Dominions. He appealed to the House, therefore, not lightly to reject his Motion, which was intended to guard the rights of individual Members. They should guard those rights all the more carefully, because they belonged to a Party in the House which was in a minority, and was accordingly defenceless. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Resolution.

, in rising to second the Motion, said, that, in his opinion, his hon. Friend the Member for Carlow had made out a strong and reasonable case in its favour. His hon. Friend did not ask the House to declare at once that a breach of Privilege had been committed. They desired to institute an inquiry into the circumstances. All these circumstances justified the course taken by his hon. Friend, and would justify the House in yielding to the Motion. He would ask the House to remember that this was a case which might strictly be called absolutely without precedent. The only precedents that came at all near to it would justify the House in following the course it was now asked to take. But no absolute precedent existed in the history of this country of a great Prime Minister arresting and imprisoning without trial some of his most obnoxious political opponents. They were about to make a precedent in the course they would take that evening. If the Motion were refused they would establish this precedent—that a Ministry might at any time, under the powers of a special Act of Parliament, arrest four or five, or even 20 or 25 Members of Parliament, and imprison them without trial, or without any intention of bringing them to trial, and that that was not only not a breach of Privilege, but could not even be argued to be such a breach of Privilege as would make it right that the House should inquire into it. Did either Conservative or Liberal Members of the House consider that a condition of things which should be established? If so, then he certainly misunderstood the ideas of Constitutional liberty which hitherto existed in the minds of English Members. That the Government might have suspected the imprisoned Members of the House to be men likely to disturb the country did not touch the question before the House. The sole question was whether the Privileges, not of Members only, but also of the constituencies, had been invaded by the arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, without trial, of Members of the House, They had been told by the Prime Minister that night, speaking on another topic, that the House was not likely to be a qualified tribunal for deciding a question then before it, giving as his reason that whenever the question arose the Members exhibited extreme impatience and emotion. He (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) feared that on this Irish question the House exhibited, instead of extreme emotion, too great an amount of indifference to be a satisfactory court of appeal. It was a question of constituencies that was now under consideration. Many times had they heard from the Treasury Benches indignant complaints that the constituency of Northampton should be deprived of half its representation without sufficient reason. How differently the Ministry spoke when the question became an Irish one. Unless they held that fortunate and favoured Northampton had rights belonging to an order totally different from the rights of Cork, Tipperary, and Roscommon, they must admit that the policy which deprived those three Irish counties of half their representation might, at least, be an invasion of the Privileges of the House, and might form grounds for inquiry before a Select Committee. He should have thought that the mere fact that three or four Irish Members of Parliament had been arrested and put in prison without trial would inspire the House to make instant inquiry as to whether their Privileges had or had not been invaded. The conduct of the Prime Minister, in objecting to allow the citation of his speeches in disproof of the justification which he claimed for the arrests, was enough to add one other element to the reasons given by his hon. Friend (Mr. Gray) in support of the Motion for a Select Committee. He would, however, ask the House to accede to the Motion, if only on the ground that a very serious question had been raised as to whether a breach of Privilege had been committed.

Sir, the speeches of the two hon. Gentlemen have undoubtedly abounded with charges of great severity against Her Majesty's Government; and there is, at least, one proposition of which I can take notice, and with which I can express my agreement. I agree with them that the arrest of four Members of this House under the Act for the Protection of Person and Property in Ireland is a matter of the utmost gravity, and one which hon. Members of this House are perfectly justified, and may feel it from their points of view an imperative duty, to bring under the notice of the House and make it the subject of Motions, either for inquiry or of direct accusation. These concessions I freely make; but, having made those concessions, I am bound to say I cannot consent to reply on this occasion to any one of the accusations made against us. They certainly are very strong accusations, and they descend to imputing the utmost meanness. They answer a double purpose, because the hon. Member who made the Motion contrived, while imputing to me the most disgraceful meanness, to pay a very considerable compliment to himself at the same time. He had prepared so formidable a weapon by dint of his great ingenuity and power, that I, when I got an inkling that this weapon was about to be discharged against me, pretended to have in view the Order of the House—hypocritically had in view the Order of the House—when my real object was to avert the tremendous and crushing effect which was to result from the charge brought against me. Now, Sir, in my opinion, the whole speech of the hon. Member, with very slight exceptions, and the entire speech of the Seconder—though they consisted of matter of the gravest importance—consisted of matter wholly beyond the legitimate scope of the present debate. They were entirely upon the merits of the present administration of Ireland, so far as the administration of Ireland had to do with the arrest of the four hon. Members. This is exactly the matter which I understood you, Sir, I think, five times, by very distinct declarations from the Chair, to exclude from the purview of the present debate. I wish it, therefore, to be clearly understood that I do not in the slightest degree dispute the importance of the subject-matter raised; but I entirely decline to go into the charges made on the present occasion, because I believe if I did enter into them I should be violating the Rules and Orders of the House, and the distinct rulings which you, Sir, have given from the Chair. I will just notice this Motion within the limits of what I con- sider to be legitimate discussion. The Act of Parliament intrusts Her Majesty's Government with large and exceptional powers, entirely beyond the usual operation and spirit of the Constitution. An exceptional power to put in prison for a limited time without bringing to trial, but for a period according to the discretion of the Government within the statutory limits, of persons whom they judge and shall declare to be reasonably suspected of having done certain things, has been granted to the Government, and it appears to me a most judicious and proper thing that the Act should require that notice of the imprisonment of any of its Members should be given to the House. The Members of this House are the servants of this House. They are to be protected in the discharge of their duties, and are to be at the disposal of this House for whatever services the House may think fit to require. It is, therefore, obviously necessary that when imprisonment of this kind takes place, it should be brought to the notice of the House. But, as I understand the hon. Gentleman, though he was entitled to follow precedent as far as he could, he was not able to adduce one. He had not adduced a single precedent applicable to the case as an authority for raising, in any form, the question as to the merits of the proceedings under which the Members of this House have been imprisoned. In former instances, the question had been directed entirely to the form of proceeding; and if the hon. Member had moved to refer it to a Committee to consider whether the proceeding in the present case was within the power and provisions of the Act of last Session—as, for instance, whether the Warrant was in due form, or whether the proceedings were in due form. [Ironical cheers.] Very good; I am much obliged to that description of assistance which is rendered by the jeers of hon. Gentlemen; but I will, with their permission, endeavour to continue my explanations. They would have been acting in conformity, if they had taken a course of that kind, to ascertain clearly whether the proceeding was within the powers of the Act, and conformable to its provisions—they would have been taking a perfectly regular course, and I should have made no objection to the appointment of such a Committee, because I conceive, on the contrary, that perhaps it may be not without advantage that when an act of this kind takes place the House should make an investigation of that sort. So it appears it was done in the case of Mr. Whalley. The House determined to satisfy itself whether Mr. Whalley had been committed for contempt of Court by the Lord Chief Justice, and whether the Lord Chief Justice was doing an act which, by the law of the land, he was entitled and empowered to do. All the precedents appear very much to support this view, and they have been of a purely formal character, because the references were made to a Committee of Privileges—not to a Committee of Inquiry. Hon. Members have spoken of privileges on this occasion; but there is not a word of their speeches which would enable anyone listening to them to gather in what way it was that the privileges of the Members of this House had been invaded. They say that the pledges of the Government, given in speeches during the time when the Act was under the consideration of the House, had been violated. Sir, of course we deny that, and I hope we shall confute that charge when it is made at the proper time and place. If it were perfectly true, that would be no breach of Privilege. There can be no breach of Privilege in applying to a Member of this House the provisions of a law which is applicable to his case, and the whole question touching Privilege on this occasion cannot by possibility go beyond that point which was jeered by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), to ascertain whether the provisions of the Statute have been complied with. Now, the very proof of what I have said is this—that I find in the proceedings in these cases, usually when a Committee has been appointed—for example, in the ease of Mr. Long Wellesley—the Committee is instructed to deal with the case, and to deal with it on the very next day, in the nature of a purely formal and technical inquiry. The cases that are before us are the cases of Lord Cochrane in 1815, and Long Wellesley in 1831, both of which were before the Committee of Privileges. The hon. Gentleman has quite omitted—he has been as defective in this part of the case as he has been superabundant in what I shall call the disorderly part of his statement—to mention that in two of the five cases no Motion whatever was made for a reference to a Committee. There was no Motion in the case of Mr. Dillon last year, and there was no Motion made in the more important case of Mr. Smith O'Brien in 1848.

A Motion was made, but the Government refused it.

I am not charging the hon. Member with stating what was incorrect. I am merely noticing that he omitted an important part of the facts of the case. Now, the hon. Gentleman professes to follow the Motion in the case of Mr. Whalley; but even in that case the Motion was made purely for a formal purpose. It was a Motion to examine whether Lord Chief Justice Cockburn had been justified in his action; whether ho was acting within the exorcise of his legal powers; and in not one single sentence is there a scintilla of evidence to show that the House has ever dreamt that the application of an Act of Parliament to a Member of Parliament, or the known law of the land to a Member of Parliament, could by possibility be made the subject of inquiry as a broach of Privilege. It is a new doctrine, and, indeed, if Privilege is to be set up as a reason why Members of this House are, as a body, to be exempted from the general obligation of obedience to the law incumbent upon Her Majesty's subjects—an obligation in which they, beyond all others, are bound to set an example and fulfil—I make this concession in the case of Mr. Whalley, that the terms of the Motion acceded to by the House did not distinctly and clearly explain the extremely limited nature of the object in view, because the question was referred to a Select Committee for the purpose of considering and reporting whether any of the matters contained therein demand the further attention of the House. It is quite evident, I presume, that under those words the hon. Gentleman would be justified, and would be enabled, if the House granted a Committee, to bring before the Committee the whole policy of Her Majesty's Government, and the propriety of their action in this case. Now, that is what we contend cannot possibly be raised on the matter of Privilege. The question of Privilege must be confined to our obedience to the provisions of the law. When the hon. Gentleman chooses to make any Motion for inquiring upon a proper occasion and opportunity, we shall be ready to meet him in argument, and in considering with him in what way the House is to be put in possession of the merits and the whole proceedings of Her Majesty's Government. But not now. This is not the proper occasion for entering into that matter. It would only tend to throw Public Business into confusion were we to allow to be dealt with as matters of Privilege those which are, in fact, matters of policy. I should be most willing to accede to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman if he had confined himself to the objects which he formally had in view—namely, the ascertaining the strict regularity—and I care not how strict he is in that investigation—of the proceedings of the Government. I must oppose the Motion made by him in terms which undoubtedly go very much beyond that object, and supported by a speech which goes beyond it altogether, and introduces matter which he will have ample opportunities of dealing with on other occasions, but which, on the present occasion, is wholly irrelevant and inappropriate. On these grounds, I am compelled to oppose the Motion of the hon. Gentleman.

said, he was sorry that the Business of the House should be taken while everybody was otherwise engaged. He thought the answer of the First Lord of the Treasury itself almost a breach of the Privileges of the House. He understood the Prime Minister to state that when the Government had the formal power to imprison Members of the House, that power could not be called in question. If this were so, the Prime Minister would be empowered to arrest the whole of the Irish Representatives, though it was absolutely notorious that he was keeping them in prison in order that he might prevent them from entering the Voting Lobby. In addition to the Coercion Acts, there were other Acts under which Members might be imprisoned. One Statute enabled magistrates to arrest those whom they suspected merely, and under that Act, if the Government had a number of magistrates subservient enough, they could arrest the whole Irish Representation and keep them in prison for a year without bail; with a docile magistracy, and a docile majority, the Government could throw into prison as many Members as they pleased. According to that contention of the right hon. Gentleman, the House would not be allowed to go into the merits of the case. If that contention were true, all he could say was that the whole Constitution of both countries in its most essential parts was absolutely at the mercy of any Minister with a docile majority. The right hon. Gentleman could throw any political opponents into prison without touching the Privileges of the House. Of course, there were differences in the various cases. The arrest of the four Irish Members was different from the arrest of the five English Members by a Royal personage, whom the right hon. Gentleman resembled. It was true that the Irish Members had waived their right of raising the point of Privilege upon the arrest of Mr. Dillon; but then the Government had promised to give them an early day for the discussion of the question. The Prime Minister's plan was this. As soon as the Irish Members attempted to raise a discussion on this matter, he would bring in his gagging Resolutions. He would wish the Government to understand that they did not, in the slightest degree, consider the exposure of coercion in Ireland essential. The Government might gag them if they pleased, and so attempt to evade responsibility; but he thanked God that the Irish were no longer dependent upon the goodwill of the people of England. There were 23,000,000 Irishmen throughout the world, and they meant to make use of the international power they had thereby acquired.

said, the Prime Minister had met the Motion of his hon. Friend in a very quibbling and unworthy manner. The right hon. Gentleman's argument amounted to this—that if the Warrant under which a person was arrested was made out in proper type and on proper paper, then no inquiry could be made into the merits of the case, though the Act might have been put into operation from corrupt motives. It was notorious in England and Ireland that the real reason for the arrest of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) was not the offence imputed to him, but a speech delivered at Wexford, in which he tore the statements of the Prime Minister to tatters. The fact of it was the Prime Minister was a very vain old Gentleman, who did not care to meet on the floor of the House a political opponent of the calibre of the hon. Member for the City of Cork for fear he would expose his sophistries and explode his windy orations. It might be very convenient for the Government to use the Coercion Act for the purpose of putting political opponents out of sight; but, in his opinion, they had put themselves in a very awkward position by not answering specifically the charges of corrupt motives brought against them.

The hon. Member is charging the Government with corrupt motives. The Question before the House is the narrow one of Privilege. If the hon. Member desires to raise the whole question of the conduct of the Government, he should do so on the Address, or on another occasion.

said, he did not intend to bring any further charges against the Government; but, at the same time, he held it was contrary to the Privileges of the House that political opponents of the Government should be arrested under cover of an Act of Parliament which did not really apply to them. That was notoriously the case with the hon. Member for Tipperary, whose offence was that he would not allow himself to be made the catspaw of the Prime Minister. He did not think the Government deserved much credit for the manner in which they had met the Motion of his hon. Friend.

said, that, according to the Prime Minister, the arrest of Members of Parliament was not to be distinguished in injury from that of other subjects of Her Majesty. With regard to the Warrants under which the Members in question were arrested, he said in some cases these were double-barrelled, charging those accused not only with inciting the people not to pay rent, but also with treasonable practices. It was clear from this that the hateful and morally murderous policy of suspicion which was launched upon the country by the Coercion Act was the policy of the Government at the present moment. The Prime Minister would tolerate no inquiry into the administration of the Coercion Act whatever. But oven on the restricted ground as to whether the law was applicable to the case of the Members of Parliament who had been arrested he ventured to challenge the conduct of the Government. What became of their declarations that the Coercion Act was designed to strike at the "dissolute ruffian" and the "midnight marauder," and to operate against the difficulty of obtaining testimony? As one of those who spoke in the light of noonday in the presence of the Government and the presence of the public, had he not the right to say that such an Act was not applicable to their case in respect to deeds and speeches? It was again and again repeated in the debates on the Coercion Act that it was an Act against secret crime; and he contended that it was not in any moral and ordinary sense applicable to acts of which ho and his hon. Friends had been accused. As to the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Carlow, he ventured to say that it was framed in a manner which ought to have commended itself to the considerate attention of the Government. The Irish Members had been recklessly charged with Obstruction. Had they chosen they might have brought forward this Motion in a form which would inevitably have led to a long debate—namely, as an Amendment to the Address; but they had given the Government the option of at once granting the Select Committee, and so saving the time of the House The right hon. Gentleman declined to take that course. It was evident the Irish Members were to have no satisfaction upon the present occasion; it was evident that the conciliatory spirit displayed by the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) had been thrown away upon the Government; it was evident that it would be farcical to attempt to approach in any degree to-night the minds of the Government on this great national question. He should not put himself in the position of earning the rebuke of the Chair, and it only remained for them to take the course indicated by the Prime Minister, and that was to bring forward their Motion on the Address to the Crown, and to insert in it a full statement of the reasons why they had been charged not only with agrarian offences, but with treasonable practices. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: Hear, hear!] From the somewhat grim assent given by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, it was evident that the right hon. Gentleman was prepared, in the event of an Amendment being proposed to the Address, to attempt to vindicate the cruel, evasive, cowardly, and unconstitutional policy which he had pursued in Ireland. If so, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would tell the House why, in the case of the hon. Member for Cork City and his associates, he had resorted to the powerfully brutal but contemptible instrument of the Coercion Act instead of the Constitutional remedies which were at his command—remedies most suited to the men whose speeches had been delivered in the hearing of the Government, and whose actions had never been hidden from the light of day—and that he would repel, if he could, the statement universally made in Ireland that the arrest of the Irish Members had been dictated by the cowardice of the Government collectively, and by the vanity and rancour of the Prime Minister personally. He would expect the right hon. Gentleman in words to carry out the intentions he had avowed this evening by pantomime.

observed, that the "suspects" might be divided into two classes—the authors of the "no rent" manifesto and the instruments of it. If all were to be liberated well and good; but he could not admit that the mere fact of men being Members of that House established their claim to exceptional treatment. He should like to hear some explanation of the "no rent" manifesto. Was it issued in consequence of the threat from America of the stoppage of supplies? [Cries of "Order!"]

The hon. Member is travelling beyond the Question, which is that of Privilege. I must call upon him to confine himself strictly to that Question.

said, he merely wished to have some explanation of the "no rent" manifesto. The "suspects" now consisted of two classes—the persons who were the authors of that manifesto and the instruments of it; and he was endeavouring to elicit from hon. Gentlemen opposite an explanation of that document. The fact of a man being a Member of Parliament only increased his responsibility, and the humblest subject of the Crown had the same right to his liberty as the highest Member of that House.

said, no one who supported the Motion of the hon. Member for Carlow desired to draw a distinction between the "suspects." They believed that not a single man who was detained in gaol on suspicion ought to be kept there. Some of them, he might remind the House, were arrested before the "no rent" manifesto was issued. It would be as well if the House bore this in mind, as even the Members of the Cabinet did not appear to be aware of the fact. He was willing to admit that the Coercion Act was applicable to Members of Parliament as well as to anybody else; but he believed that if a Committee were granted, it could be shown that there had been a gross misuse of power on the part of the Government; but he supposed that, as this was the case of Irish Members, the Liberal battalions would be much more faithful to their Leader than they had been when the case was an English Member. At all events, he hoped the Attorney General for Ireland would inform the House what the offences were for which these hon. Members were imprisoned. His contention was that the Warrants for their arrests did not disclose any offence which was punishable by law.

said, the present state of the House showed in how different a manner questions affecting Irish and English Members were treated. They appeared to view with complacency the incarceration of four Irish Members; but if an English Member was deprived of his right of sitting there the whole country was up and demanding explanations. Nothing indicated more emphatically the difference between the two countries, and the interest which was felt in them. He regretted very much that a Liberal House of Commons in the nineteenth century should be found to pass laws which were a disgrace to the person proposing them and the Parliament passing them. As to the question of Privilege, he would observe that in the case of Mr. Whalley, the right hon. Gentleman said it was within the privilege and the duty of the House to inquire whether the Lord Chief Justice had not overstepped the statute law. The House of Commons lowered its prestige by allowing Members to be apprehended on suspicion, incarcerated in places like horse-boxes, and gazed at by visitors through the bars of a cage as if they were wild animals in a menagerie. Surely some explanation was due to the House for all this. In order to illustrate the slight grounds on which suspicion could be built up, he might state that when he went to Carlow to address a meeting of his constituents, the Inspector of Police waited on him and asked him whether he intended to hold a Land League meeting. He sought in vain to obtain from the Inspector and the Sub-Inspector an explanation of this impertinent and supercilious inquiry; but a constable afterwards came to him and said he might speak to him if he would say nothing against the Prime Minister and the Land Act. That constable only acted in the spirit of the Government that inspired him. But was not the right hon. Gentleman as open to criticism as any other man? No doubt, if he had ventured to criticize the acts of the right hon. Gentleman he would have been placed in the position which other hon. Members now occupied. The House had given the Government exceptional powers of a wide, indefinite character; but, nevertheless, there must be reasonable suspicion of breaking one of the known laws of the land. The great privilege not only of a Member of Parliament, but a common citizen, was that he should not be illegally imprisoned; but, he asked, where was the reasonable suspicion on which the "suspects" had been incarcerated? He could not but admire the British Constitution, but he and his Party certainly did not share its advantages. The right hon. Gentleman was constantly invoking precedent, and they had gone from precedent to precedent, and were narrowing down until their very liberties were imperilled. If a law such as this was passed for England, it would not be tolerated. This ought not to be a question of Party or nationality—it was a question affecting the prestige and liberty of the great House. If they were to allow the Cabinet to do us they liked, or if they were to allow the Prime Minister to exercise the personal government which he now wielded, and which had not been exercised in any country, or by any autocrat—if they were to allow the Bench of Ministers to exercise a power which no Stuart or dynasty that had been abolished had ever exercised, then the privileges and liberties of every individual Member of the House were seriously threatened. If four English Members had been imprisoned by methods which wore worthy of the Star Chamber, there would have been an outcry throughout the whole country. A Liberal Ministry wore not only destroying the liberties of Ireland, but were sapping the foundations of the boasted liberty of England.

I must remind the hon. Member that he is going beyond the Question before the House. If he desires to raise the larger question he must do so at the proper time.

said, he would only add that it was not legal that four Members of the House should be held in prison merely upon the caprice of the Members of the Government. It was the Irish Members to-day, but the case of the Irish Members might be that of the English Members to-morrow. He hoped that the Committee would be granted, so as to allow the Government, if it could, to clear itself in the face of Ireland from the charges brought against them; and if not to brand it, so that it might descend from the high position it had once occupied into one which was never surpassed by the most autocratic Government that had ever existed.

said, the Irish Members were much restricted in speaking on this question, as it was to be discussed merely as a question of Privilege; and he and some others were beginning to doubt whether there were any privileges at all. It used to be thought a privilege of Members of Parliament to be tried before being imprisoned; but this privilege had now been lost by Irish Members of Parliament as well as other people. Without any trial three Members of the House were at present detained in gaol from the service of their constituents, and the number would be six if the opportunity had been given to the Chief Secretary of arresting certain others who were, however, better employed elsewhere. There was not a Member of the Irish Party whose liberty was not in the hollow of the right hon. Gentleman's hand; and, therefore, he (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) would like to know what privileges they had left? The privileges of Irish Members had hitherto been attacked; but now the privileges of all Parties were alike in danger, whether Conservatives, Whigs, or Radicals, from the present Government, and therefore the question ought not to be regarded too much from a Party point of view, for they would each find their own turn coming if they did not oppose to the utmost the tyrannical measures of the accomplished political seducer at the head of the Government. He hoped the House would consent to the matter being referred to a Select Committee.

reported Her Majesty's Speech, made by Her Chancellor, and read it to the House.

Sir, I cannot but feel that the somewhat exciting prologue to the Session of 1882 we have teen lately witnessing makes my task in speaking the opening words of the first act a somewhat more than usually difficult one. I must ask, therefore, a double allowance of that indulgence I have heretofore so often seen generously extended to those who are passing through their political novitiate; and on the present occasion especially do I ask the indulgence of hon. Members opposite, for if one-half of the denunciations that have been launched at Her Majesty's Ministers are well deserved, I, indeed, must be a rash and misguided young man to undertake my present duty, and thereby signify my entire acquiescence in their policy of the past, and my unwavering determination to support its development in the future. Since the 27th of August last year hon. and right hon. Members opposite, in a manner that reminds me of the ancient Ephesians, have never wearied of crying out—''Great is the iniquity of the Radicals! Confusion to their incomprehensible and unprecedented policy!" and have never ceased proclaiming the consequent critical state of the affairs of the nation. I have no desire to deny the existence of a crisis; but I believe its gravity may be measured by the amount of fair play and free scope that can be secured for the working of the Land Act of last Session, to the ultimate benefit of all classes in Ireland; and, secondly, by the amount of real hearty desire to do right because it is right, and of honest determination not to sacrifice the right to what may seem the Party expediency of the moment, which is bought by men of all Parties to assist the elaboration of those New Rules by which the procedure of this House is henceforward to be governed. The first subject to which I have to refer is free from all elements of Party controversy—Her Majesty's gracious announcement of the marriage of her youngest and last unmarried son, His Royal Highness the Duke of Albany. That Prince has not chosen his occupations amongst the exciting and stormy pursuits of military or naval life, but among the quieter ways of letters and science, and in the advancement of the moral, social, and educational welfare of the people. He has already given signal proof that he intends worthily to follow in the footsteps of his illustrious Father. That he should have chosen as his partner and helpmate in these objects a Princess of such accomplishments and such firm and high character as the lady with whom he is about to be united must be the cause of the most hearty congratulation by every loyal subject of the Queen. I am sure I speak the universal feeling of the House when I wish him all happiness and prosperity. Our Royal Family, in all its Members, shows itself ever ready to meet and fall in with the Constitutional changes and requirements of the country over which it presides, and ever ready to use its influence, connections, and opportunities to further the true interests of the nation. But lately Her Majesty's touching Message to Mrs. Garfield, when, after long weeks of lingering pain, death at last crowned the work of the murderous bullet of the assassin, and the respect paid by the British Court to the memory of the President so cruelly snatched away, have served to knit closer and closer those bonds of sympathy and good understanding which exist, and I trust may ever exist, between this country and that great nation our kinsfolk across the Atlantic. We are always extolling the pre-eminent excellence of our British form of government, and boasting of our Constitutional and Limited Monarchy, surely it is at once ill-considered and unworthy to grudge the Members of our Royal Family the means to support them and our dignity in a fitting manner amongst their compeers. I hope that, should a Vote be proposed at some future time in connection with this auspicious announcement, hon. Members who usually raise opposition to such Votes may be induced—though they may feel bound to express their opinions—not to press their opposition to a division. Most happily Her Majesty is able to announce that the most perfect peace and cordiality continue to prevail in her relations with all foreign Powers. In Greece, the cession of Thessaly by the Porte has been carried out peaceably and in good faith. It cannot, I think, admit of doubt that the firm attitude displayed by this country in the matter of Montenegro had a most cogent influence in bringing about this satisfactory result. I know the objection is frequently urged that Greece has not obtained as much as was given by the Treaty of Berlin. The only validity that this objection has proceeds from a misconception of the Berlin Treaty. That Treaty gave nothing whatever, but merely invited the Porte to make certain concessions to Greece; and for long it seemed as if this invitation would remain unheeded—thanks, however, in no small measure to the good offices and exertions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen), effect has now, to a great extent, been given to that invitation. Greece has had her territory increased by one-third; she has thus acquired a larger area than that won by Germany from France after a terrible and bloody war, and finds her boundaries now extended to their ancient limits in her most glorious days of old. It would be affectation to deny that the state of Egypt gives cause for anxiety, and I cannot but feel that the greatest caution and reserve should be used by all Parties in referring to the affairs of that country at the present time. I must, however, remind the House that the Anglo-Franco control was not established by the present Government, but by Lord Salisbury in 1879, who, at the same time, refused to admit Germany, Austria, and Italy to any voice in Egyptian affairs. I note, however, in passing, that those Powers, in conjunction with Russia, have within the last few days made an identical representation to the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs on the subject of Egypt. I do not for a moment wish to cast any doubt on the expediency of the dual control established in 1879, or on the benefits which have accrued from it to the Egyptian people; and this is not the time to discuss whether any other arrangements would have been preferable and more beneficial; but I do wish to lay the greatest stress on the fact that the dual control was distinctly a part of the policy of the late Ministry, and that they must be prepared to take their share of the responsibility of its maintenance at the present crisis. In my opinion, our interests in Egypt are few and simple, and may be included under two heads—first, security for a permament free passage of our ships of war and marine through the Canal; and, secondly, the growth in freedom and prosperity of the Egyptian people. It seems to me, at least, that any policy that could possibly tend to a permanent occupation of Egypt, or part of it, by this country, must at once be scouted as involving infinite and impossible responsibilities, and at the same time weakening, in the most alarming manner, the strength of our position in India. At present, we occupy that great triangular country, girt on either side with the ocean, on which, at least, we are and ought to be supreme, and on its base defended by the practically insuperable natural barriers of the mighty Himalayas. Once established in Egypt, the insular character of our position in India would be gone for ever, and we should offer to any enemy at any time an easy and almost indefensible point of attack. The evacuation of Afghanistan has been completed with the exception of the small corner of Pishin, I believe to the great and general satisfaction of the people of India. The Ameer, Abdurrahman, has succeeded in consolidating his turbulent Kingdom, and has shown himself to be possessed of marked ability, though it may be early days to form a final opinion of his capacity as a Ruler. It is impossible to award too high praise or give sufficient thanks to Lord Ripon for his exertions and success in carrying out his difficult task, both with regard to this evacuation, and to the repeal of the Vernacular Press Act. I trust that this last proceeding may please also many hon. Members opposite, when I call to mind the indignant and powerful protest made by the Duke of Buckingham, when Governor of Madras, against the first enactment of this impolitic law. The financial pressure caused by the heavy and unforeseen charges of the Afghan War compelled the Government of India to cut down its expenditure with the most unsparing hand. The £1,500,000 intended for allocation to famine insurance were absorbed. The progress of all Public Works were arrested, not only of extraordinary, the productive ones—that is, railways and irrigation—but even of works of the most ordinary necessity, as roads and sanitary improvements. The surpluses of Provincial Governments were called for, and all progress material and moral received a rude check. Under the present peaceful state of the country these restrictions have been removed—a succession of good harvests has done much to repair the losses and sufferings of those terrible famine years from 1876 to 1879. The Revenue is steadily increasing, and, favoured by the high credit of the country, the Indian Government have raised loans within the limits of Parliamentary sanction for the completion of Public Works in progress, and the commencement of new ones likely to prove remunerative. Works recommended by the Famine Commissioners, and likely to largely avert the evils of future deficient harvests, have also been initiated. In a word, the condition of our Indian Empire can be spoken of without a drawback as being in a state of high and increasing prosperity. In South Africa the Transvaal has been thoroughly pacified. Some difficulties arose about the ratification of the Convention, which it was sought by the Boer Leaders to make conditional; these pretensions were of course inadmissible. Such a ratification must be all in all or not at all. The Convention was, however, at length duly ratified by the Re- presentatives of the people, and I trust for long years to come our Colonists in South Africa may have peaceable, friendly, and prosperous neighbours in the Boer Republic of the Transvaal. In Basutoland, a most careful and just award of that experienced, efficient, and trustworthy public servant, Sir Hercules Robinson, and accepted as such by the Natives, has been repudiated by a small section of them. Hostilities have not broken out as yet; but the condition of affairs cannot be described as satisfactory. The deposed King of the Zulus, Cetywayo, is to visit this country during the year; and I sincerely trust it may be found possible to materially ameliorate his condition. His punishment has been altogether incommensurate with any faults he may have committed. It was surely natural that he should struggle to defend his country against the attacks of the foreigner to the best of his ability. I will appeal to my hon. Friend the newly-elected Member for the North Riding of Yorkshire (Mr. Dawnay) as to his character as a man. I am sure that his verdict, based on intimate personal acquaintance, will be a very favourable one. While in the Estimates some reduction will be found in the Votes for the Naval and Military Services, I fear any great reduction in the total expenditure must not be expected, and this, in a great measure, on account of the great expenses connected with the administration of the law in Ireland, and with the endeavour to restore that country to quiet and peace. The negotiations for a New Commercial Treaty with France have been long protracted; and though, no doubt, still further delayed by the Ministerial crisis in that country, the House may, I think, rest assured that no Treaty will be concluded which is not at least as advantageous to this country as the old one, and that indisputably so. I mean so distinctly of equal advantage that the question shall not be capable of debate in that particular. Undue expectations have been formed as to the increase of Revenue. I believe I am correct in stating that, according to the most recent calculations of the best authorities, the Revenue is likely to do little more than just meet the estimated expenditure. It is, however, indisputable that the trade of the country is making rapid strides in improvement; and the explanation must be sought in the fact that depression and improvement in trade are not accompanied pari passu by fall and rise of the Revenue, but that the changes in the Revenue follow at some interval the changes in the state of trade. On the whole, considerable improvement may be stated to have taken place in the condition of Ireland. The evil there is too grave and too deep-seated to be healed, as it were, by the mere touch of the magician's wand; it was not to be desired that its surface alone should be skimmed over, and it was to be expected that the first symptoms of healthy action at the bottom of the wound should be attended with more active inflammation at the surface. Rents are, to a great extent, being paid when determinedly pressed for; juries are being found willing to convict, and evidence is being obtained against the perpetrators of agrarian crime. The Return of outrages for the month of January, eliminating threatening letters as of small account, is somewhat lower than that of the corresponding month of 1881, and this must be regarded as distinctly satisfactory when the circumstances of the two periods are considered and compared. In January, 1881, the cessation of the payment of rent was almost general, and attempts to enforce its payment were almost as generally abandoned; the country was in high state of expectation of relief to be obtained from Parliament, and so, altogether, the inducements to outrage were few. In January of this year, on the other hand, the most strenuous efforts were made to enforce the payment of rent, in most cases attended with success, and the Government has aided and supported these efforts with all and every means in its power; and, again, everything that can be conceded has been already given. The inducements to outrage were, therefore, far greater. The Land Act has worked well, though it must be admitted the reductions of rent are greater than was anticipated by many, though I think the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant was not amongst these sanguine persons. My belief is that the attacks so lavishly made on the Sub-Commissioners will be found impossible to sustain, and the justice of their decisions in the vast majority of cases will be most decisively established. The passing of the Land Act naturally incited the more extreme Land Leaguers to renewed efforts to strengthen their tottering organization. They made a determined effort to secure the adoption of a national "no rent "programme, the danger of which, and difficulty of overcoming if effectually carried into operation, both the Duke of Wellington and Lord Beaconsfield long ago foresaw. In that effort they have signally failed. The tenant farmers were not to be tempted by problematical advantages held out to them, but preferred to make sure of the bird they held in their hand. The fact of the Land Act becoming law, so to speak, cleared the decks for action; and the Government found themselves justified, when the necessity arose, of making vigorous use of the extraordinary powers granted them by Parliament in the commencement of last Session. It is most deplorable that so many Irishmen and Members of this House should be suffering confinement; but I think, in their soberer moods, they must recognize they have but themselves to thank for their position. When men are convinced it has become their duty to rebel against the constituted Government of the country, they must be prepared to endure with patience the consequences of non-success. I hope my words have given no offence to any hon. Member from Ireland. I wish to pay every respect to the honesty of their intentions; but I cannot refrain from putting it to them, as able and sensible men, whether it really is the best way of proving Ireland would be better governed by a Parliament of her own, in which they would take a leading part, to bring, seemingly in sheer wantonness, disgrace, discredit, and paralysis on this Parliament, of which they are already Members. Nor can I refrain from suggesting to members of the Irish Land League that our sympathy and fellow-feeling for the cause they represent would be infinitely increased if, instead of being satisfied with a mere repudiation of these abominable murders, outrages, and mutilations of men, women, and poor dumb animals, we found some of the power of their organization—some of its considerable funds—employed in the determined suppression of these dastardly crimes, and in aid of the production of the necessary evidence to convict their cowardly perpetrators. It is said hon. Members in yonder quarter of the House intend to move a long series of Amendments to the Motion I am about to make. I appeal to them to act on this occasion with some moderation, and to spare us and themselves the pain of seeing in the commencing weeks of the present Session a repetition of the similar weeks of last. A Bill for the creation of elective quinquennial County Councils to relieve Quarter Sessions of much of their non-judicial work, and a Bill dealing with the Municipal Government of London, are to form the piece de résistance of the Ministerial programme; but the more detailed consideration of these I cannot do better than leave to my hon. Friend beside me (Mr. Firth), who has devoted so much of his time and talents to the subject of local government. This I am the more induced to do, because, while Scotland will share the benefit of any financial relief, it will not be possible to extend to us any change in the form of county government during the present Session. In the Bankruptcy, Corrupt Practices, and Rivers Conservancy and Pollution Bills we meet old friends crushed out by the stagnation of Business in former Sessions. I trust that the Resolutions now to be brought forward with a view of facilitating the progress of Business will save them from again meeting a similar fate. It is regrettable that some noble Lords and right hon. and hon. Members should have already adopted as their motto—

"Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat shall mew, the dog shall have his day."

I hope this attitude is in no small measure due to the exciting effects of country air, and that the atmosphere of this House, loaded as it is with the sobering influences of the traditions of centuries, will be so far calming as to induce them to give a fair and honourable consideration to the proposals of the Government. No attempt is intended to deprive minorities of their legitimate rights; and, should any proposal of the Government be fairly proved in debate to have any such effect, I believe I am fully warranted in saying any Amendments to remedy so undesirable a result would be received in the most conciliatory and friendly spirit. The announcement that the Criminal Code will be proceeded with must be received with universal satisfaction. It would be regrettable, indeed, that the labours of those learned and distinguished men who originated and framed that Code should be lost. The Government have, I think, by their acts shown that the public is not likely to be deprived of a good measure, because suggested by political opponents. In this House the Criminal Code will be closely and honourably associated with the name of Sir John Holker. We must on all sides regret the absence from amongst us of one who had gained our warmest confidence by the manly and straightforward manner in which he always expressed his views, still every Member of this House will share with the public and the Legal Profession the feeling of gratification so generally and justly entertained that the Prime Minister, taking no heed of former practice, has, on behalf of the public, endeavoured to obtain from amongst the ranks of distinguished political opponents the presence on the Judicial Bench of one so able and so competent as the late learned Member for Preston. The important question of the Patent Laws is also to be dealt with. Scotland is to have an Entail Bill which must not be taken as denoting finality of legislation in regard to this subject; but only a temporary measure conceded at the desire of all parties in Scotland to tide them over till the time when the whole matter may be thoroughly dealt with on equal terms for the Three Kingdoms. Scotland also receives her much-needed Educational Endowments Bill, and Wales a Higher Education Bill. Even at the risk of trespassing too long on the time of the House I must enter one final and very warm protest against either the question of Ireland or the question of the Rules of Procedure for this House being treated as matters of pure Party politics, over which Party advantages are to be lost or won. They are questions of far too grave a nature for such treatment. In the one may be heard the voice of a nation crying for relief—it may be she knows not what she wants or how the relief may best be given; but the cry proceeds from her agony, and our duty as a nation, and the dominant nation too, is to find the satisfactory and efficient means of relief and apply it without delay. In the other, the whole power and honour and dignity of this House is concerned—the question is whether it is to perform those vast consultative, legislative, and executive duties of which it has become year by year more and more the focus, or whether it is to show itself unworthy of itself, and unworthy of the confidence of the electors who chose its Members and intrusted to them the care of the national interests. These are no questions to form the basis of struggles between inns and outs. The nation will weary, aye, is wearying, of being the sport and plaything of contending Parties. The time has come for united action on the part of those, whatever be their Party—and they are confined to no Party—who dearly love the ancient name and honour and traditions of this Assembly. Let them arouse themselves and try to come to an agreement, and there is no fear but success will crown their efforts. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving—

"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, to convey the thanks of this House for the Most Gracious Speech delivered by Her Command to both Houses of Parliament:

"Humbly to thank Her Majesty for informing us that Her Majesty has given Her approval to a marriage between Her Son Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, and Her Serene Highness Princess Helen of Waldeck and Pyrmont; and that Her Majesty has every reason to believe that this will be a happy union:

"Humbly to assure Her Majesty that we rejoice to hear that Her Majesty continues in relations of cordial harmony with all Foreign Powers:

"Humbly to thank Her Majesty for informing us that the Treaty for the cession of Thessaly to the Greek Kingdom has now been executed in its main provisions; and that the transfer of sovereignty and of occupation was effected in a manner honourable to all concerned:

"To thank Her Majesty for informing us that, in concert with the President of the French Republic, Her Majesty has given careful attention to the affairs of Egypt; and that Her Majesty will use Her influence to maintain the rights already established, whether by the Firmans of the Sultan, or by various international engagements, in a spirit favourable to the good government of the Country, and the prudent development of its institutions:

"Humbly to assure Her Majesty that we learn with pleasure that the restoration of peace beyond the North-Western Frontier, together with continued internal tranquillity, plentiful seasons, and increase of the Revenue, have enabled Her Majesty's Government in India to resume works of public utility which had been suspended, and to devote its attention to measures for the further improvement of the condition of the people:

"Humbly to thank Her Majesty for informing us that the Convention with the Transvaal has been ratified by the Representative Assembly, and that Her Majesty has seen no reason to qualify Her anticipations of its advantageous working:

"Humbly to assure Her Majesty that we share Her Majesty's regret that, although hostilities have not been renewed in Basutoland, the Country still remains in an unsettled condition:

"To thank Her Majesty for informing us that the Estimates for the Service of the year are in an advanced stage of preparation, and will be promptly submitted to us:

"Humbly to thank Her Majesty for informing us that Her Majesty's communications with France on the subject of a new Commercial Treaty have not been closed; and that they will be prosecuted by Her Majesty with a desire to conclude a Treaty favourable to extended intercourse between the two Nations:

"Humbly to assure Her Majesty that we rejoice to learn that the trade of the Country, both domestic and foreign, has for some time been improving, and that better prospects are opened for the classes immediately concerned in agriculture, although the public Revenue has not yet exhibited an upward movement in proportion to the increased activity of industry and commerce:

"Humbly to thank Her Majesty for informing us that the condition of Ireland exhibits signs of improvement; that justice has been administered with greater efficacy; and that the intimidation which has been employed to deter occupiers of land from fulfilling their obligations, and from availing themselves of the Act of last Session shows upon the whole a diminished force:

"Humbly to thank Her Majesty for informing us that we shall be invited to deal with proposals for the establishment in the English and Welsh Counties of local self-government, together with financial changes applying to the whole of Great Britain; that a measure will be submitted to us for the reform of the ancient and distinguished Corporation of London, and the extension of Municipal Government to the Metropolis at large; and that measures will again he laid before us concerning Bankruptcy, the repression of Corrupt Practices at Elections, and the Conservancy of Rivers and Prevention of Floods:

"Humbly to assure Her Majesty that our careful consideration shall be given to these measures and others which may be proposed to us.

"And we earnestly trust that the blessing of God will attend and guide our deliberations."

Sir, I have the honour to second the Address which has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend (Mr. Marjoribanks). In doing so, I do not propose to trespass very long upon the kind indulgence of the House; but I may unite with my hon. Friend, and with other hon. Members of this House, in the expression of our interest at the announcement contained in Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech, that it is the intention of the Duke of Albany to ally himself with a Princess of the ancient House of Waldeck. Sir, I am sure that I shall be only echoing the universal intention of this House and of the people outside, if I say that we shall give to the noble Princess a cordial English welcome; and, further, that we regard with the utmost satisfaction the prospect that through this august union there will be transferred to the English Court the many fragrant personal and domestic virtues by which she has already endeared herself to every member of her distant home. Sir, it cannot be doubted that where, as in this matter, there is so apt a conjunction of excellent qualities, we shall have another illustration added to those already repeatedly given by the English Court, of the union of high public position with unstained domestic felicity. Sir, the House will also receive with satisfaction the announcement that cordial relations continue to exist between Her Majesty's Administration and the various Powers on the Continent of Europe. The maintenance of such an entente cordiale intimately affects the welfare of all these Powers, as, with the development of commerce, national prosperity is becoming increasingly dependent on the preservation of international confidence. In South-Eastern Europe the ratification of the Treaty for the cession of Thessaly to Greece, following the closure of the Montenegrin Question, removes a danger to European peace, the magnitude of which could only be measured by the conflicting interests of three Great Powers. The effect of the Treaty will be to increase the Hellenic territory by one-third, and to approximate the boundaries of modern Greece to those of that ancient Greece, the institutions, the arts, and the literature of which have had so profound an influence in moulding the history of mankind. Crossing the Mediterranean, the House will be glad to note that the influence of this country in Egypt will be directed to the maintenance of existing rights, so far as such rights are consistent with the welfare of the Egyptian people. Where so many and such varied national interests are involved, it may be hoped that, however else they may conflict, they may be able to unite in procuring for that unhappy country a prudent development of such of its institutions as are for the public advantage, and a strengthening of those securities for good government and for public order which have so long been notably wanting to the Egyptian people. It is specially satisfactory to notice the hopeful tone in which Her Majesty is able to speak of the present aspect of affairs in her Indian Empire. With the removal of anxiety as to its North-Western Frontier, and with the improvement of its Revenue, it may be hoped that that distant part of Her Majesty's Dominions has taken a new departure on the path of prosperity and of progress. Sir, I think that the repeal of the Vernacular Press Act is cause for much public congratulation. The alleged necessity for such a measure constituted a grave and, as I think, an unjustifiable reflection upon the loyalty of the Indian people. Even if such loyalty were open in some places to suspicion, it were better—as was pointed out in 1878 by the Duke of Buckingham, then Governor of Madras—that there should be free outlets for the expression of Native opinion, and full opportunity through the Press of testing its under-currents, than that it should be, by a measure of this kind, thrown back upon sullen submission or secret conspiracy. In addition to these practical disadvantages the Act was a grave infringement of Constitutional rights previously granted to the Indian people, in that it placed the control of their Press in the hands of an unfettered Executive alone, and thus, as was forcibly indicated by the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) when the Act was under discussion in this House, it swept away the securities against tyranny which were provided by the ordinary judicial tribunals of the country. Of our Colonies Her Majesty has not said very much. Perhaps that may be taken as an indication that they are in that condition of prosperity and peace which is most conducive to their welfare. As to the ratification of the Convention with the Boors of the Transvaal, whatever difficulties there may be in other matters respecting it, all Englishmen will unite in satisfaction at the knowledge that we have now greater security for the good treatment of the Native races than we have ever before possessed. Although the French Treaty is, at the present moment, unsettled, at any rate we have the assurance—which Freetraders will greatly value—that under no circumstances will Her Majesty's Government set its hand to a retrograde Treaty. Sir, the condition of Ireland is still such as to cause the greatest anxiety to all who are responsible for the government of that country. It is satisfactory to note that Her Majesty is able in Her Most Gracious Speech to say that she finds ground for hope in the present aspect of affairs. It would, indeed, be cause for dismay if the work of the last Session of this Parliament in the passing of the Irish Land Act had been productive of no useful fruit. That Act may be regarded as a heroic effort to bring the Irish Land Law into closer accord with that welfare of the people, which, after all, is the true end of all justifiable government. It is a matter of happy augury that nearly 70,000 Irish tenants are anxious to take advantage of its provisions; and we may not unreasonably hope that when, through the action of the Courts or by private arrangement, those tenants attain an easier and an assured position, they will become centres of security for the maintenance of order and for the well-being of society such as have never before been known in the history of that country. Whatever may be the difficulties of the present situation, it is not to be forgotten that they have largely resulted from inequitable laws; and in dealing with such difficulties we cannot wisely forget that whatever fortune may come to England through the future, the destinies of Ireland are also hers; and that, joined together by a natural position which cannot be changed, it would be not merely good statesmanship, but practical wisdom, to settle, as soon as may be, some comfortable conditions for our joint existence. If we of each nation, in regarding the other, remembered the words of the poet—

"Be to her virtues very kind,

Be to her faults a little blind; "

the attainment of such a modus vivendi ought not to be difficult. Some of the measures of which we are promised the introduction are of the first importance. The Criminal Code Bill, on its former introduction in 1879, secured a large share of public approval both within and outside the walls of the House of Commons. It constituted the first and only serious attempt hitherto made towards codifying any branch of English law, and, having been submitted to the critical examination of a Commission upon which sat the ablest and most experienced of modern jurists, it was presented to the House in the most authentic and complete form. The passing of such a measure would result in the removal of a cumbrous and technical procedure, and in placing in the hands of the people that accurate knowledge of the law which they are supposed to possess, but which is now in some matters so difficult to attain. The law itself, too, may receive useful modification. At present it is full of needless distinctions and bristling with inconsistencies; whilst as regards even the highest of crimes it is so unsatisfactory, and sometimes so unjust, that it is only enforced in a small percentage of cases, and so the deterrent object of punishment is defeated. When, in addition to these reforms, we have enacted provisions giving greater security for the proof of innocence, and have extended to persons accused of crime the right of appeal possessed in civil cases, the Legislature may turn its attention to the codification of the rest of our law—at once the most difficult and the most necessary of all legal reforms. The Prevention of Floods Bill is anxiously awaited by many thousands of persons who suffer from the present state of things; and the necessity for a reform in our Patent Laws is universally admitted. At present we are levying a tax of more than £100,000 a-year upon the brains of our people. The classes who work our machinery, and to whom opportunities of invention are most frequent, find their stimulus gone where the tax is prohibitive; and even where invention is made, the advantages are oftener with the capitalist than the inventor to whose skill it is due. When the cost is largely reduced, and when before the grant of a patent some competent authority has guaranteed its novelty and its utility, we may expect to find an impetus given to English invention which is now so especially necessary in order to maintain our manufacturing predominance in the face of severe competition. The commercial community is awaiting with anxiety the introduction and discussion of the Bankruptcy Bill with which my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is so closely associated. Where the agency of the law is invoked to enable a man to modify or escape from his contract obligations, there ought to be satisfactory guarantees that such release will not be granted except upon such well-defined conditions as shall secure the creditor's interests, and, whilst just to the unfortunate, shall be severe to the fraudulent debtor. It was supposed that these ends would be secured by the provisions of the Act of 1869, whereby full control was given to creditors; but the result has shown this confidence to be misplaced, and the liquidation and composition clauses of the Act have been turned into gigantic engines of fraud, as the Reports of the Comptroller in Bankruptcy show the number of English insolvents is no longer controlled by the state of trade; and there is a rapidly-spreading opinion amongst some classes that with such easy methods of escape as the Bankruptcy Laws now afford, it is foolish to pay debts in full. A new system, to be satisfactory, will retain as as far as possible the absolute control of the creditor, but will provide such official oversight as shall be an adequate guarantee against fraud either in bankrupt or trustee. There remain two important measures of Local Government, to which I may be permitted briefly to allude. The first is a scheme of county government for England and Wales, which, if carried, will probably illustrate in a new department of our national life the advantages of representative self-government. If the working of such a scheme prove successful, we may hope that it will be extended to the rest of the Three Kingdoms, so that all may be equally brought within the sphere of advantageous law. The other measure to which I would ask leave to allude is, in the opinion of many Londoners, the most important of them all. For 45 years English Governments have uniformly hesitated to confer on the Metropolitan area those elementary rights of self-government which were, in 1835, conceded to the smallest towns in the Kingdom. The grounds of such hesitation may be found in the strength of some of the interests affected, and in the complexity and magnitude of the problem to be solved. At last, a powerful Administration has given us ground for hope that reform is coming; and, whatever shape such reform may take in detail, it can scarcely be doubted that in its general principle it will be in accord with the wishes of the inhabitants of the Capital. Speaking with a somewhat wide experience of every part of London, I may be excused if I say that I do not know any public question upon which there exists such practical unanimity as upon this; and whether the measure proposed should take the form of the constitution of a new, or the extension of an old authority, is immaterial, if only it contain the necessary principle of the direct control, by representative authority, of all matters of administration and all matters of expenditure. During long centuries of the past, the ancient Corporation of the City was distinguished by the skill with which it preserved and strengthened its own municipal institutions. The framework of those institutions has survived to our day; and if, by extension over the surrounding area, there were to be infused into it a new, and pure, and vigorous municipal life, we might have a result satisfactory in itself, and satisfactory also in that it preserved the continuity of the historic life of the Capital. In advancing such a measure the Administration would, I think, have the scarcely divided support of the millions of London, irrespective of Party, and irrespective of class, and would earn for themselves the lasting gratitude of the Metropolis of the world. Sir, I beg to second the Motion of my hon. Friend.

begged to move the adjournment of the debate.

observed, that an admirable speech had been brought to a close sooner than most Members of the House expected, and certainly earlier than most of them could have wished; but, at that hour, of the night it would be unfair to ask the right hon. Gentleman to proceed with the discussion.

said, that before the Motion was put he should like to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he could lay on the Table any Papers relative to Mr. Errington's mission to the Vatican?

said, he could not produce any Papers, because there were none. Mr. Errington had not been sent out by the Government, but had gone to the Vatican on his own responsibility, without appointment and without salary. He believed that Mr. Errington had been the means of communicating information to the Vatican; but there had not been in any sense a mission sent out by the Government.