in rising to call attention to the defective manner in which the Law requiring the publication of the lists of Dormant Funds in Chancery is carried out, found grave fault with the manner in which the Chancery Office furnished, or rather failed to furnish, the particulars of sums of money in their possession. The law required lists to be made public every three years, and to be issued in alphabetical order—neither of those directions were attended to. Human ingenuity could hardly have devised a method of publication more adapted to conceal the information which was in the possession of the office than the authorized version of dormant claims put forth by the Paymaster in Chancery. In the meantime, the money of the suitors was being used for purposes from which they derived no benefit. The Court of Chancery did sometimes, in cynical language, decide how some of this money, which did not belong to it, was to be used; for instance, the language used when it handed over £1,000,000 belonging to suitors to be expended on the Palace of Justice—

"A million of money standing to the account of securities purchased with the surplus of the interest arising from securities carried to the account of moneys placed out for the benefit and better security of the suitors of the Court of Chancery!"

said, they had had a very amusing speech from his hon. Friend on this subject, which he had also brought forward on the 10th of March last year, and he had not much varied his description on the present occasion. The accounts referred to had to be published every three years, and the last publication had taken place on June 25, 1881; and, therefore, the next publication would be immediately after September 30, 1883. When the debate took place last year, he had to admit that there had, no doubt, been neglect in not publishing those accounts in proper time, and the course the debate took was that he promised then that there should be perfect accuracy, and that every despatch should be made. No publication had taken place since the Motion of last year. It was impossible to give all the details asked; but sufficient details would be given for all practical purposes, and any respectable person making a claim to funds in Chancery would get every facility for establishing his right. Since 1852 one-half of the claims had been made by three firms of solicitors alone, and he expected this was a scheme of certain persons who wanted to know too much, in order to base their claims upon information furnished. He would renew the promise previously made that everything would be done within reasonable prudence to give all the information required.

said, that he believed the regulations already made afforded such information as the public could fairly demand; and there could be no doubt that a trade was carried on by certain persons in regard to these funds in the Court of Chancery against which some protection should be afforded.

said, he thought the Attorney General had rather evaded the question raised by the hon. Member for North Shropshire, which was not as to the frequency with which the lists were made out, but rather that, when they were made out, they were useless. At present only experts could understand them; whereas if clear and proper lists were provided much trouble and expense would be saved to suitors, and this should be done, notwithstanding that a readier means of obtaining access to funds would diminish those means which might be devoted to the provision or accommodation of future Law Courts. It was only fair, however, that for the large number of suitors interested in this question more ready means of obtaining information about those funds should be provided.

rose to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether Her Majesty's Government are aware that, in August last, Mr. Watermeyer, Chief Magistrate of Griqualand East, acting as Commissioner for the Cape Government, formally annexed the Amaxesibe Country, a portion of Pondoland, to the Cape Colony; whether, notwithstanding the protest of Umquikela, the lawful Chief of Pondoland, the annexation of this territory was preceded by the introduction of Cape Colonial Troops; and, whether the hostilities that have now broken out are not the result of these acts of aggression? In putting the Question, the hon. Member explained that Pondoland stood in the same relative position to the Imperial Government as Zululand, and its paramount Chief Umquikela stood in the same position as Cetewayo stood a few years ago. Our first connection with that country was in 1844, when the Governor of the Cape, Sir Peregrine Maitland, made a Treaty with the then paramount Chief of the country on behalf of the Imperial Government. Under that Treaty the Governor undertook to re- cognize the rights of the Chief to certain territory, the boundaries of which were fixed. This Treaty continued in force from 1844 till 1878, when they came to the memorable administration of Sir Bartle Frere in South Africa. Complaint was then made that the Native Chief had failed to observe the conditions of the Treaty by not carrying out the Extradition Clause, and on that pretext the representatives of the High Commissioner took forcible possession of the territory of Pondoland, erected a fort on the coast, and sent Colonial troops there. Now, it might be very desirable that we should have a fort on that part of the coast, and he had no complaint to make of that action if it was done with due consideration to the just rights of the Natives. But what Umquikela, in a protest he had made against these acts of aggression, complained of was that we dealt with an inferior Chief, passing over his rights as superior Chief, although hitherto we had always professedly been on amicable terms with him. The result was, as we now saw, a small Native War going on in that portion of South Africa. He was very much surprised at the course which the Government at the Cape had taken in Pondoland, because it seemed diametrically opposed to that which they wished to take in other quarters of their Borders. He hoped the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies would be able to give the House some information on the questions which he had raised.

said, he rose with considerable reluctance to trespass for a few moments on the attention of the Committee. There was no one more regular than he was in attendance upon Committee of Supply, and he was always anxious to take part in the discussion of the Estimates. But when he and his Friends sitting below the Gangway on that side of the House found hon. Members below the Gangway on the opposite side of the House taking every occasion to prolong discussion upon the Estimates, and making no secret that their object in discussing each separate item referring to Ireland was not so much to criticize the Estimates as to cast obloquy upon Her Majesty's Government, and especially upon his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, then he confessed that they felt considerable difficulty in taking their proper part in the discussion of the Estimates. At the same time, he thought it was only fair towards the Government that they who had hitherto been silent in discussing the Estimates should warn the Government in a friendly manner that there was a considerable feeling of discontent and dismay in the country at the large increase of the Estimates year after year since the present Government came into Office. Perhaps it would not be out of place for him to allude to the coming Estimates, for he feared very much that they would find there was also an increase for the year 1883–4. He was afraid that the Government would find, when the next General Election took place, that one of the greatest dangers they would have to contend against would be the cry that they had not observed economy with regard to the expenditure in the different Services of the country. In reference to the Vote which was now before the Committee, there was no doubt that a Supplementary Vote of £40,000 for the cost of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges in Ireland did require more explanation than had been given to the House the other day by his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland. He thought that the House ought to have laid before it some Paper or explanation as to whom the enormous additional sum of £15,000 in the shape of fees to counsel had been given. He believed that in Ireland, as well as in England, there was a large legal staff which was regularly provided for in the Estimates, and he should like to know to whom these fees went? It was stated, he thought by his hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), that perhaps there might have been an additional 100 cases; but in the event of there having been 100 additional cases for which this additional £15,000 was charged, it would appear that a fee of £150 had been paid in each case to the legal gentlemen employed. "What he wanted to know was whether these fees went to the present staff? At all events, he thought they ought to have some explanation of the matter, because they all knew there was always a tendency of fees to counsel increasing to an enormous extent. He had not risen with any desire to prolong the discussion; but he thought that the Committee was entitled, and especially that the Liberal Members who sat below the Gangway were entitled, to some explanation of the large increase which appeared in the Supplementary Estimates. He had therefore risen to call attention to this matter, and he could assure the Government he did so in the most friendly spirit towards them, because he believed that if they did not check this enormously increasing expenditure, they would have to answer for it before the country before very long.

said, there was one item in the Estimate in regard to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had omitted to give the Committee any information. He referred to the item of £15,000 in regard to "Prosecutors, &c." He should like to know what "Prosecutors," and especially "&c," meant? It would be interesting, he thought, to know what that amount included, and whether any portion of the remuneration went to informers and Crown witnesses; and the reply of the right hon. and learned Gentleman might perhaps throw some light on very important matters, especially the manner in which the services of these persons had been made available in some of the recent prosecutions in Ireland. He invited the attention of the Committee also to the description of evidence that had been resorted to in reference to prosecutions such as those of Mr. Harrington, Mr. Davitt, and Mr. Healy. It was bad enough for a man to have to defend his words in a Criminal Court; but in Ireland a man had sometimes to defend himself against words that belonged not to him but to some police reporter. He thought there was nothing that indicated better the odious character of the system of espionage that was practised against public speakers in Ireland than the fact that, although he believed no Press man had ever been injured in Ireland in the discharge of his duty except by the police, no professional shorthand writer could be got for love or money to undertake this duty. The duty was discharged by policemen who had dabbled a little in Pitman's shorthand. They managed to take down about every third word a man uttered, and then they strung them together with words the man never used at all. The policeman in Mr. Healy's case swore to the report in The Freeman's Journal being a full and exhaustive report of all that the hon. Member said in his speech; but Mr. Healy exhibited in Court a copy of The Leinster Leader, containing a really full report of his speech, which covered three columns in that paper as contrasted with one column and a half of The Freeman's Journal. In Mr. Harrington's case, the police reporter broke down so calamitously that the County Court Judge who confirmed the sentence was actually obliged to base his decision not upon the evidence for the Crown, but upon the evidence of a gentleman who was called for the defence, and who proved that the report of the police reporter was a tissue of falsehoods from beginning to end. That was the sort of fair play that the political opponents of the Government received in Ireland just now—a sort of fair play from which he had to some extent suffered himself. When the right hon. Gentleman opposite made some strong references to him (Mr. O'Brien) last night, he could not, of course, on the spur of the moment answer for everything that might have appeared in the newspaper with which he was connected; but that day he had had an opportunity of glancing through a file of the paper, and if the House would bear with him for a moment—although it might be a little irrelevant—he thought he should be able to show, confining himself to mere matters of fact, that the right hon. Gentleman had not been quite as just to him as he expected others to be towards himself. The right hon. Gentleman stated that he (Mr. O'Brien) had held up to execration four persons, three of whom were afterwards killed or murderously assaulted. The inference was one which he disdained to notice further. As to Mr. Burke, the first of the gentlemen mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, as far as he could recollect, and as far as he had been able to search through the files of United Ireland—and, of course, he had not been able to do so very exhaustively—his name was never mentioned in United Ireland until after his death; nor was there the most remote personal allusion to him, unless the paragraph about "rats in the Castle cellars" might be supposed to point to him in particular. [Cries of "Hear, hear!"] He heard some murmurs in reference to that article. It had been admitted in that House by the late, and, indeed, he believed by the present, Attorney General for Ireland, that that paragraph was simply a rough comment upon a declaration made in that House by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, that "until the Irish Government was re-organized"—he thought he was quoting almost the exact words of the right hon. Gentleman—"there could be no hope of permanent tranquillity in Ireland."

I must interrupt the hon. Member to say that, in the remarks I made in my speech a week ago, I especially omitted that passage.

If the hon. Gentleman refers to me, will he kindly give me the means of verifying what he means, because I do not admit the words he has quoted?

said, that at that moment he had not time to lay his hands on the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman. He was quoting from a report of the right hon. Gentleman's reply to a question of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy); but he would say nothing further in reference to Mr. Burke. As to the reference to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), he fought him fairly—more fairly than the right hon. Gentleman had fought him. He (Mr. O'Brien) had never struck a foul blow at any man. As to Mr. Field, the only allusion that was ever made to him in United Ireland was in one paragraph, not so much blaming Mr. Field as asking what would have been thought of a Catholic juror who handed down from the jury-box a note to Mr. Michael Davitt, instead of a Protestant juror handing down a note to Mr. Norris Goddard? If that was ferocity, he was at a loss for a term to characterize the frame of mind of the right hon. Gentleman last night. As to the right hon. Gentleman himself, he thought that in a less hasty moment the right hon. Gentleman would admit that any allusion that was ever made to him was a not unkindly one, until, in his speech at Hawick, he threw in his lot once for all with the enemies of Ireland, and until he held up newspapers and speeches of persons who, perhaps, had feelings as well as he had, to execration as part of the machinery of murder—as moral murderers. He was willing to let his countrymen judge, and they were the only judges, as to the description of speaking or writing which came nearest the description of moral murder. So far from his having any personal animosity to the right hon. Gentleman, he was amazed that such an idea should have entered the right hon. Gentleman's head. He had never seen the right hon. Gentleman, to his knowledge, until he saw him a fortnight ago in that House, and the only feeling that he entertained towards him was admiration for him as a literary man, and a sincere hope that he would bring into practice, as a Minister, the principles of freedom that he had so eloquently defended in his books. He was obliged to the House for having permitted him to make this statement. He had only to add that, in the discharge of what he deemed to be his duty to those who sent him there, he should never be irritated into saying—he hoped consciously, at all events—anything unjust to any man; nor would he be intimidated from saying whatever the interests of Ireland, which with him were supreme interests, demanded, not against an individual, for he had no grudge against particular men, but against the system which individuals from time to time administered in Ireland. He turned from that subject now to the case of Mr. Davitt and Mr. Healy. Those gentlemen, he believed it was admitted, had committed no offence that could be brought within the comprehensive scope of the Crimes Act, which was a sort of omnibus Act of all the crimes in the calendar. They had done nothing that any man more modern or more respectable than the Judges of Charles I.'s time would ever have ventured to pronounce an offence. They were punished, not because of anything they said or did themselves, but because, although they had not even heard of it, Policeman Cox was shot in Abbey Street, Dublin, the night before their speeches were delivered in Carlow and Navan, and also because Mr. Field was stabbed in Dublin a few nights after. The Chief Secretary himself—he happened to have that reference—immediately after these occurrences, admitted that the outrages in Dublin were not of an agrarian character. The right hon. Gentleman, in reply to a Question put to him, said—

"I must ask hon. Members to consider that it is important to hear in mind a distinction between the general state of Ireland and the special question of violent organized crime in Dublin."

Sir, the hon. Gentleman has made an explanation, and it is upon that part of his speech that I rise to comment. I propose to make a counter explanation in answer to the hon. Member; and I trust, fox the sake of the public time, that no one will think it worth while to carry on that part of the controversy. The statement made by me last night was that the editor of United Ireland had been reckless in not observing the effect of certain articles—in not discontinuing those articles. The hon. Gentleman has challenged me to produce the substance of those articles. I will produce them in the shape of a few short passages.

What I have referred to to-night was the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman last night, that I had held up to execration, and put their lives in danger, four persons in Ireland.

I have not the materials, I admit at once, that will enable me to go into the attacks of United Ireland upon my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). All I can say is, that when my right hon. Friend was being exposed to the hourly danger of assassination, leaders were constantly appearing in United Ireland taunting him with gross cowardice for surrounding himself with policemen, and sitting armed in his study. That formed a particular class of article which this paper published, and the passages themselves are so numerous that if I were asked to supply the House with the whole of them it would require a copious Blue Book to contain them. I now pass on to the case of Mr. Burke. I did not refer to the celebrated passage about "Castle rats." The first passage I referred to was one which began with "Down with the Bastiles." Then came a most objectionable article in United Ireland, issued on the 4th of May, but bearing the date of May the 6th, under the heading "Disestablishing the Castle," which contained this passage—

"But the money it spends, and the favours it distributes, and the foul toads who use it as a cistern to knot and gender in, are just the things which make the harmless travesty of Viceroyalty an offence and scorn in the eyes of Irishmen. The money is the wages which the tribe of Castle shopkeepers take for smearing over their shop fronts and their souls with announcements of their shame."

"The toads are the gang of alien officials who nestle in the snuggeries of the Castle like so many asps in the bosom of the country. Down with the whole bundle of rottenness and imposture."

"Silence and veneration is demanded by the religion of English rule, and we bow before its sacred symbol—the gallows. Not often, even in the bloodstained records of Ireland, has there been a tragedy more pitiful, more horrible, than that of which Francey Hynes was the victim…A jury presided over by a Judge who from the commencement of the trial to its close did not even attempt to conceal his indecent longing for a conviction. It was not enough that his charge should be a speech for the prosecution. By nod and smile throughout the trial he emphasized each scrap of evidence that seemed to tell against the prisoner: by shrugs and deprecatory gestures he made light of the defence. Such things are good for a Judge to do; they are dangerous for a journalist to mention—a journalist who has but the one poor excuse of truth. Need we speak of the 'terrible' exposure that followed? Judge Lawson, in a tempest of virtuous indignation, decided that jury-packing and jury orgies were subjects too sacred for public comment."

"The fabrication of the jury, the indecencies which preceded the verdict, and the even grosser judicial indecency which succeeded it, wrought up public indignation against the whole iniquitous proceedings to an unparalleled pitch. The foulness of the trial, too, set people examining the evidence, the vital point of which was the disconnected ejaculations of an almost speechless man in the throes of death. The result was a perfect agony of belief that a boy in the blossom of youth was being done to death, not only by foul means, but in utter innocence."

"So Marwood got his orders, and on Monday morning executed them—with more credit and humanity than functionaries higher up in the hierarchy of Government—by the rope. The poor youth who, at 23, was called out to die for Judge Lawson's dyspepsia and his jurors' headaches, died firmly and tranquilly."

"The jury was as shamefully concocted, its partizanship was indecent, and the evidence was evidence upon which an English jury would not hang a dog."

"Once the word is passed to 'convict murderers,' a Metropolitan, Protestant, and loyal jury, under the eye of Mr. Norris Goddard, may be trusted to know a murderer when he sees him, without splitting hairs about particulars.…What is even more aggravating than a patent murder machine as a system of government is the Pharisaism which shelters the achievements of Mr. Goddard's pals under the venerable name of tithe by jury (sic,) and decries as a foe to public justice whoever cries out on the imposture."

"The incident of Mr. Field passing an affectionate billet-doux from the jury-box to Mr. Norris Goddard may be quite as innocent as Mr. Pickwick's 'Chops-and-tomato-sauce' communication to Mrs. Bardell; it only shows that, as a qualification for a Green Street juror, billing and cooing terms with a political partisan like Mr. Goddard is a different thing from the remotest suspicion of relations with a political partizan—say, Mr. Davitt. Why not, indeed, flirt with the chief organizer of the landlord faction in open Court, when one of his subordinate officials was thought good enough to take service on a life-and-death jury before?"

"Again, it is notorious that the English system invites crime. The English Government has no business here."

"That is crime for the present in Irishmen which will be quite other when Ireland is mistress of her own fortunes."

"Mr. Trevelyan's speech on the Distress Question last night will probably have made him the most hated man in Ireland. Among Irish Members Mr. Forster begins to appear a man of sense and feeling in comparison. The Castle poison has turned the blood in the Chief Secretary's veins to gall. His speech last night was a Local Government Board Circular in its most insolent style, translated into an oration of studied callousness and bitterness."

"Except on the Irish Tory Benches, where Mr. Trevelyan is now the darling of the hour, his speech was received with nothing short of horror."

said, he need not inform the Committee that it was not his intention to trouble them with extracts from articles in the English Press in reference to Leaders of the Irish Party, which would undoubtedly parallel, without the justification, the extracts which had just been read from one of the organs of Irish opinion published in Ireland. He would, however, remind the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Se- cretary of the fact, which was probably present to his consciousness, but which he strangely omitted in his explanation, that it did not remain with the Editor of United Ireland to single out the action of a certain juror and his relations with a notorious agent of the prosecution against the Irish people. The incident of the friendly exchange of confidence between the juror and Mr. Norris Goddard was related in every daily journal in Dublin, and for days and days before any notice was taken of it in the columns of United Ireland, and it was then already the subject of common conversation and common reprobation from one end of Ireland to the other. That fact was just as well known to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, if he knew anything about affairs in Ireland, as it was to any Member of the Irish Party. He must also beg to correct an impression which was apparently in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman as to the view taken of his recent speech. He had quoted from private letters from the most peaceable, most tranquil, and the most non-political pastors in Ireland, with reference to the action of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. He received last night from a rev. gentleman, whom he never knew to take any part in politics before, a letter in which the name of the Chief Secretary was coupled with the name of a certain Mr. Cromwell, with whom Ireland was too unfortunately familiar. Though he must hold, in common with the Irish Party, the Chief Secretary fully responsible for his speeches and his acts, and the consequences of his policy, he could not close his eyes to one fact, that the present Chief Secretary held a very different position from that held by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). He was was aware—and he wished to give the right hon. Gentleman all the benefit of the extenuating circumstance—he was aware the present Chief Secretary was excluded from the Cabinet; he was aware that he was, so to speak, only the instrument, and not actually a Colleague and co-partner, of those who had formed the policy that was now torturing Ireland. On the other hand, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) was a Cabinet Minister, and took part in the formation of the policy he carried out. He (Mr. O'Donnell) certainly thought that some share of that obloquy which had fallen not undeservedly upon the Chief Secretary should be borne by the responsible Heads of Her Majesty's Administration who shrank from exposing in the House of Commons to the criticism of the Irish Members the real authors of the Irish policy. Nothing could be more cowardly, nothing less in keeping with Constitutional policy, than that the Government should keep back from their responsible position in the House the men who were carrying out the Government's Irish policy. Earl Spencer was sheltered behind the immunities of the House of Lords, while the Chief Secretary was put forward to act as Envoy of the Cabinet. As the right hon. Gentleman had taken certain functions upon himself he must bear the responsibilities of his choice. They were indisposed to make the only Member of the Irish Government of Ireland who was present—the Chief Secretary'—responsible for all the acts of his Colleagues; still, as he had previously said, he could not condemn too strongly the cowardly and miserable policy which withdrew from the criticisms of the Irish Members the real agents and active authors of the detestable policy of provocation to crime which was now being pursued by Her Majesty's Government in Ireland.

said, he desired to ask two questions. [Murmurs.] He was sorry hon. Gentlemen opposite could not contribute to the debate anything but inarticulate sounds. After having heard the deliberate quotations of the right hon. Gentleman to prove the charges, the dreadful charges—

rising to Order, asked if the right hon. Gentleman's remarks had anything to do with the Estimates?

said, he was simply referring to the quotations which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary made to warrant the dreadful charges which the right hon. Gentleman had made against the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien). He (Mr. Dawson) contended that the remarks were such as would appear in any English journals under similar circumstances, and would receive no condemnation from the British public, much less form the ground for such terrible charges as those the right hon. Gentleman had brought against the hon. Member for Mallow. [Murmurs.] He wished the hon. Gentlemen who murmured and indulged in inarticulate sounds would rise in their places, and show the cause of the faith that was in them. He challenged the Prime Minister, notwithstanding his powerful expression, to show sufficient reason why the hon. Member for Mallow should be convicted of inciting to murder. He (Mr. Dawson) did not want to say anything about the verdicts that were found in most of the agrarian murder cases in Ireland; but he did desire to say that in England it would have been utterly impossible, no matter how clear the guilt of the prisoner was, to get a verdict in such a case as Hynes's, if the conduct of the jury had been the same. The evening before the conviction, the jury in Hynes's case was given in charge of a sub-officer whom the Judge accepted in place of the High Sheriff. At the hotel the jury played billiards, smoked, and drank in the smoking-room; they moved about the corridors riotously, and some of them walked into the room in which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. O'Brien) happened to be sleeping. They might have walked into a dozen rooms, and had conversed with hundreds of people, for aught the Committee knew. He would be borne out by his legal Friends from Dublin, that recently in Tipperary, whilst the learned Judge had retired, the jury left the box for refreshments, but did not leave the precincts of the Court. The Judge, upon his return into Court, held that the jury by that act of dispersion had themselves abandoned the commission intrusted to them, and he discharged them, and swore a new jury. Apart from the question of the guilt of Hynes, he (Mr. Dawson) maintained that in consequence of their proceedings the night previous to the conviction, the jury found an illegal verdict. Hynes might have been guilty, but, according to law, he was illegally convicted.

asked the Attorney General for Ireland whether there was any check upon the employment of counsel in Ireland, or upon the fees they received? In England there was an officer appointed by the Treasury to tax the fees; £29,300 appeared to English eyes an enormous sum to be paid in fees, and he was sure the Committee would be gratified to hear that some check was kept upon them in Ireland.

said, he was glad the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Thompson) had given him the opportunity of saying now what he should have said at a later period, in reference to the question of counsel's fees. There was, he thought, some misconception as to what occurred last night, when the question was raised by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). He (the Attorney General for Ireland) did not say last night that the £15,000, which was asked for in the present Vote, under the head of "Counsel's Fees," was asked for exclusively in reference to cases which had come into Court in consequence of the passing of the Crimes Act. He said if the Crimes Act had not been passed, the original Estimate would have been inadequate for the demands of the year. But he pointed out that the Crimes Act had been the cause of a very considerable part of the legal expenses of the year. That was a matter which must be perfectly obvious, when the Committee remembered that there had been, up to the present time, more than 20 exceedingly important murder cases, tried under the Crimes Act, tried in a venue different from that in which they would otherwise have been tried, and tried, under circumstances involving the greatest difficulty, complexity of evidence, and demanding the assistance of the ablest counsel whom the Crown could get. Those cases were quite exceptional, both in their circumstances and in the expense attending upon them. It would be borne in mind that in the year 1881–2 the expenses which were actually incurred under the head of Fees to Counsel were £20,500. The Government now asked for a Vote of £29,000 for the same purpose; that was an increase not of £15,000 but of £9,000. The whole of the increase was not for fees in criminal cases; £2,000 of it was for fees in civil actions, which were brought against the Government and which had to be defended. As to the keeping of a check upon counsel's fees, and the mode in which prosecutions wore conducted, he desired the Committee to understand the matter thoroughly. There were in each county two regular standing counsel, who were instructed by the Crown in every ease. The fees of these counsel were paid to them by the Crown Solicitor, under the supervision of the Attorney General, and also under the check of the supervision of the Treasury. The fees were fixed on an ordinary scale. They were not large, because the average fees for all the counsel engaged in the Assize Courts were 11 guineas in each case. If two counsel were employed in one case, that might seem a considerable amount; but it was not exceedingly startling. There were cases, of course, in which special fees were paid. Those special fees had to be given in particular cases, cases of great difficulty, requiring more than ordinary attention on the part of counsel. Special arrangements were in every case made upon the official responsibility of the Attorney General. The Attorney General for the time being had to give his sanction before any special fee could be paid; and before they gave their assent the Treasury looked, with great care, into the particulars of the case, to ascertain whether they warranted foes to counsel of an exceptional character. He could assure the Committee that there had been on the part of his Predecessor (Mr. W. M.Johnson), and there was, on his own part, the most close inspection of the fees and an anxious desire that there should be observed the strictest economy in the matter. It would, he was sure, be considered very poor and paltry economy, if every care were not taken to secure competent efficiency and to obtain the services of the most competent counsel the Government could command. He was not able to give, with any correctness, the number of the cases heard in Ireland in which counsel appeared. Many cases had not been sent for trial; but he believed he was correct in saying that about 4,000 or 5,000 cases were sent for trial every year, of which about two-thirds went to the Sessions, and about one-third to the Assizes. Those cases were conducted in the way he had described. He endeavoured to show that he and the Treasury had not been able to decide upon a more economical arrangement consistant with efficiency than the present.

said the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had made out a case against himself. The right hon. and learned Gentleman stated last night that less than 100 cases had come under the Crimes Act, and he had not now denied it. He had also said that £13,000 instead of £15,000 was alone spent on the prosecutions under the Crimes Act. He had not risen in sup-port of the views of hon. Gentlemen on the Irish Benches opposite, but rose strictly from an economical point of view. They ought to know how much of this money had been spent for prosecutions under the Crimes Act, in order that they might arrive at something definite as to the amount of money spent in each case. If they took £10,000, and there were less than 100 cases, that would give something like £100 in each case. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman had made his case really worse, for there were £15,000 for prosecutors. As he understood the right hon. and learned Gentleman, those prosecutors were, in point of fact, barristers who were employed by the Government.

said, he had never made any statement to that effect. The expenses of witnesses bound over to prosecute were formerly defrayed by the Grand Juries from the counties; but now they were payable by the State, and these were what appeared in the accounts as "Prosecutors."

said, there were also £15,000 set down for the prosecuting witnesses, and an item of £10,000 for general law expenses. He did not understand what those were, but he took the figures for fees at £10,000; and even if he put the number at 80 that would mean £125 in each case for counsel. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had said that a great many of these cases were simply cases in which only 11 guineas were given to counsel. If that wore so, the fees upon the 20 cases of murder must have been something perfectly portentous; and it was upon that ground mainly that he agreed with a great deal of what hon. Gentlemen opposite had said as to the economical aspect of the question.

said, he desired to ask the Attorney General for Ireland one or two questions with regard to the amount paid to counsel. He wished to know how much the trial of, say Francis Hynes, cost the Crown in the shape of fees to the prosecuting counsel, for solicitors and Crown prosecutors? Could the right hon. and learned Gentleman give any detailed information regarding any one of the trials—the trial, for instance, of the two Walshes, who were sentenced to death, and one of whom was executed, while the other was sent to penal servitude for life? He wished the House to be informed as to the very great unfairness displayed between the way in which the Crown accused and prosecuted prisoners, and the way in which they defended them when paid for the defence under the provisions of the Crimes Act. That Act provided where prisoners were brought from one county to another by a change of venue the Crown were to pay the expenses of the witnesses and the expense of defending the prisoners so removed. A number of prisoners were taken to Dublin from all parts of Ireland accused of murder, and many of them were afterwards found guilty and executed; but they were defended by junior counsel. Why was that? Was it because the Crown refused to pay senior counsel, or because the Crown had bought up, by this lavish system of expenditure, the services of all the valuable senior counsel in the country? He did not care which case the right hon. and learned Gentleman took; he might take the case of the men who were found guilty of the Maamtrasna murder, or of the murder of the Huddys, or the case of Francis Hynes, or either of the Walshes. He should be glad to know how much the prosecution of one of these cases cost the Crown; how much was paid by the Crown for the prosecution, and how much for the defence? He was aware that in the case of Francis Hynes the Crown had been asked for £250 for his defence; but, as far as he knew, they had, up to the present time, refused to grant that amount. Hynes' solicitor was told that the Crown would not provide senior counsel, but that they would give a fee for junior counsel not exceeding £3 or £4. He had informed the Attorney General of that fact nearly two months ago, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman had promised to investigate it; but he (Mr. Parnell) did not yet know the result of the investigation. How much did the prosecution to death of Hynes cost the Crown, and how much did they pay for his defence? If the Crown had paid anything for the defence of Hynes, then the right hon. and learned Gentleman might take some other case In these murder eases prisoners had not been able to obtain the services of senior counsel, because of the formidable array of the ablest legal counsel prosecuting them; and, therefore, they had been defended only by junior counsel. The persons convicted of the Maamtrasna massacre were defended by two junior counsel. The persons convicted of the Huddy murder were also defended by two juniors. He wished for some explanation of these circumstances now that the Committee was asked to pass this swollen Estimate, on the ground that it was necessary for the administration of justice in Ireland that this enormous sum should be spent. He wished to know whether it was true that the Government had spent their money only on one side; and, in consequence, would prisoners have any chance of proving their innocence?

replied, that he could not state the cost of the Hynes trial, and said he was not one of the counsel engaged in the case, and was not then Attorney General. But with regard to the other prisoners' counsel in murder cases, under the Crimes Act, where a prisoner was unable to procure counsel, his expenses and those of his witnesses wore defrayed by the Crown. In that direction there had never been any complaint; and in addition to that, in every case, whether under the Crimes Act or not, where a man was on trial for murder, it was the practice in Ireland—though he believed it was not in England—not only to assign counsel for the defence of the prisoner, but to provide a fee for such counsel. That was a matter of rule in Ireland in the case where a prisoner was unable to provide counsel for himself. It was obvious that there was no extra expense put upon a prisoner, so far as the fee of his counsel was concerned, by reason of his being removed from one place to another; and as the representatives of the Crown carefully scrutinized all cases in order to ascertain whether the prisoners had means or not, they were satisfied that in most cases the prisoners had not sufficient means to provide counsel. What happened in Hynes's case was this—the first solicitor who appeared for Hynes informed the Crown Solicitor that there was a subscription fund of £100, which would be abundant for Hynes's defence. After- wards, however, the solicitor was changed; and, speaking to Mr. Morphy in reference to the defence, he said—"I suppose you are going to provide counsel." Mr. Morphy replied that he had no power in the matter, as it was for the Judge to assign counsel. No application whatever was made, either to the Castle authorities or to the Attorney General, in reference to the fee for Hynes's defence. Hynes had counsel for his defence, and there never had been any complaint from him or anybody else.

asked whether the Judge assigned counsel?

said, no application was made either to himself or to the Judge. As to other cases, although it was unusual and to a certain extent against the fixed rules, two counsel were assigned. Whenever an application was made, and they were not paid in accordance with the ordinary rule, they were paid what the Attorney General thought was a fair and reasonable, but not an extravagant fee. That fee was accepted without any complaint on the part of those who received it, and in each and every one of these cases where two counsel were remunerated, they were the two counsel selected by the prisoner's solicitor without any suggestion from the Attorney General. It did so happen in one set of these cases there were two junior counsel—nominally junior counsel—but both of them were men of very great experience in criminal cases. In the other case, there were two stuff gownsmen engaged; but they were men of the highest eminence, and were just as competent as any man in silk to conduct the defence. Again, in another case, one was a senior and one was a junior in the technical sense of those terms; but in each case the prisoners were provided with the means of having the counsel whom they wished, and the fees for those counsel were provided by the Crown without any complaint.

said, this being a matter of figures, it required calm consideration. He did not think the right hon. and learned Gentleman had got out of the difficulty in which he had been placed. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) had said the fees were not enormous; but that had led him into a greater dilemma, because that required him to prove where the rest of the £15,000 went to. If only £11 had been paid in some of these cases, something must have been done with the residue; and he thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to state the names of the gentlemen who had received these fees. On his own argument, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was committed to the dilemma as to how he got rid of a number of the payments. Could not he state to whom he had paid fees which went beyond all reasonable limits?

asked whether some of this money had not gone to the payment of informers? He wished to know whether the consideration and reward for these informers was not concealed under this Vote?

said, he was sorry to take up the time of the Committee; but he must submit that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not answered the point which he had brought before him. In fact, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had evaded the question. The question he had brought before the Committee, and to which he had invited the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, was the discrepancy between the cost of prosecuting the prisoners and of defending them. He had asked for some particulars relating to the trial of one of these prisoners either in Dublin or in any other part of the country. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had not given the Committee a single example; he had excused himself on the ground that in regard to Hynes's case he was not the Attorney General. But there had been other cases of a similar character which had happened since he had been appointed Attorney General, and of which he ought to be able to give some details. He had admitted that in almost every case where counsel were employed for the defence of prisoners they had been junior counsel faced by a senior counsel, and, in some cases, by the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, as well as by experienced Queen's Counsel, who were receiving heavy fees. There was another point to which he desired to call attention. In the Crimes Act there were two classes of payments provided by the Crown for the purpose of defending prisoners; fees to Queen's Counsel in the 1st section of the Act—that which provided for the trial of cases of murder by a tribunal of Judges without a jury; and fees to counsel for defending prisoners accused of murder, in addition to the cost of defending prisoners where the venue was changed. But the Government had refused, in such cases, to pay the expenses incurred by the solicitors for the defence in inquiring into the case in the locality itself. As he understood the matter, the Government had offered to pay the expenses of the solicitor while present in Dublin, or in the district to which the venue was changed, during the trial; but they refused to pay the expenses incurred by the solicitor in working up the case, and making the best legal inquiries he could in the district. He submitted that it was just as important that the case, for the purpose of defence as for the purpose of prosecution, should be properly inquired into in the locality. The case of the man Corry was an example. He was lately charged before Mr. Justice Harrison and a special jury in Dublin, composed of 11 Protestants and one Catholic, and was acquitted. The Crown evidently believed in the guilt of Corry, because they held him in prison for many months; postponed his trial from time to time, and, finally, brought him before a special jury in the City of Dublin, and selected a jury so carefully that they ordered 46 Catholics to stand aside. He was acquitted, for which he had to thank the fact that Mr. Justice Harrison tried him. He (Mr. Parnell) had the profoundest conviction of the innocence of the prisoner, and, out of a fund he had the control of, he had paid the costs of an investigation into the case by a solicitor. There could be no doubt that the investigation the solicitor had set on foot, the measurements he had been able to take, and so forth, had helped materially to bring about the acquittal of this innocent man, and save English justice in Ireland from the stain of sacrificing innocent life in that country. If this money—£20, he thought it was—had not been advanced, the man's life would most probably have been sacrificed. He submitted, therefore, it was fair that all the reasonable expenses of solicitors for prisoners in these cases should be paid by the State. If a man was not able to pay the expenses of counsel and solicitor while the case was being investigated by a jury, how could he afford to pay for the necessary preliminary investigation which had to be carried on to enable him to establish his innocence? In view of the charge now made upon the national funds in respect of prosecutions, the Government ought in fairness on the other side to give persons—innocent, at any rate, until they were proved guilty—small sums to enable them to acquit themselves, if possible, of the charges brought against them. He hoped the Committee would have some indication from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland as to how he intended to manage this matter for the future, so as to enable pauper prisoners to properly prepare their defence in grave cases of life and death.

said, he was surprised that the Attorney General for Ireland did not seem to think that the question just put to him demanded a specific and categorical answer. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would repeat, for the benefit of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and other Gentlemen interested in this matter, the particular point on which they desired information. Why was it that the Crown thought it necessary to give large and extravagant fees, and to employ an extensive array of senior counsel in prosecutions, and contented themselves with giving small fees to juniors for the purpose of defending prisoners? The right hon. and learned Gentleman had dealt very largely in generalities in this matter. [Cries of "Divide!"] If hon. Members were under the impression that he was going to finish one minute sooner in consequence of cries of "Divide!" they were very much mistaken. It was now pretty generally understood that they were to have a Saturday Sitting; and he was willing to remain in that House to any hour until, at any rate, his mind was satisfied, however it might be with hon. Members who kept up such a boisterous interruption this evening. He trusted the right hon. and learned Gentleman would not allow his mind to be diverted by the several incidents which had occurred from the questions which had been put to him during the discussion on the Motion for a reduction of the Vote. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he had been asked to stand up in his place and say whether he believed that Mr. Harrington had intimidated the farmers of Westmeath who had returned him to Parliament during his imprisonment. He had been asked whether he could defend the treatment Mr. Harrington had received from the Governor of Mullingar Prison. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had also ventured to address an appeal to the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say whether, even allowing that the language which had been used by Mr. Healy was too strong for the circumstances of the case—which, however, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did not admit—he did not consider the time had come when the hon. Member could be allowed to take his place in the House, and when his constituents could be permitted to have the advantage of his assistance in the discussion of affairs in which they were interested. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did not wish, even for the purpose of giving a retort to the hon. Baronet opposite and other boisterous Members, to repeat the views he had already expressed to the House; but again he asked—and he should avail himself of all the usages of the House to obtain an answer—why these bloated fees were given to counsel for the prosecution, whilst such small sums were given to junior counsel for the defence?

said, he did not rise for the purpose of unduly protracting this discussion, but with the object of reducing it to some practical result. He confessed he differed from his hon. Friends around him in their accusations against the Government of extravagance in the employment of Crown Counsel. His impression was that that part of the case had been satisfactorily met by the statement of the Attorney General for Ireland. The Treasury were too wide awake on both sides of the Channel to allow either the Attorney General for England or the Attorney General for Ireland to indulge in any extravagance in this matter; and from whatever experience he had had of the observation of criminal trials in this country, he could say that, as a rule, these gentlemen were very much underpaid. But the particular point on which he believed his hon. Friends were entitled to information was this—the Attorney General for Ireland had stated that the fees given to counsel employed in the defence of prisoners were fixed fees, and that he (the Atterney-General for Ireland) was unable to interfere in enlarging those fees. This was precisely the point against which, he thought, a protest ought to be made. He did not see why, since it was the primary object of the Crown to investigate cases impartially, counsel employed on one side should be more highly feed than those employed on the other; and he should like to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman who was responsible for the fixing of the paltry limit of £3 3s. for the defence of a man accused of a capital offence. This was the gravamen of the charge of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) that someone was responsible for fixing the amount of the fees, and that they were not adequate for securing the defence of persons supposed to be implicated in such grave crime. He was glad to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman speak in such complimentary terms of Mr. Teeling and Mr. Adams; but those terms had not been more complimentary than the gentlemen in question deserved. But was it for those gentlemen to incur the odium of defending prisoners in such cases as those with which they had to deal for such paltry fees? It might be the responsibility lay with the Judge; and if the Attorney General for Ireland was able to wash his hands of that responsibility, at any rate it was to be hoped that he would be able to bring some influence to bear on those whose duty it was to fix the fees to get them to raise them to a reasonable amount.

said, hon. Members had misunderstood what he had said. What he had stated was that there was a fixed sum to be paid counsel for defending prisoners, which sum could not be exceeded unless with the special sanction of the Attorney General for Ireland. It was a printed Treasury Rule. The fixed sum was not to be exceeded except in cases of special difficulty and importance, when the Attorney General for Ireland had power to increase the fees. He had increased the fees in cases in which he had considered it reasonable to do so—in cases where the counsel had had important and arduous and difficult tasks to perform for the benefit of the prisoners and the interest of the public. The hon. Member (Mr. Parnell) had assumed that the Crown Counsel received large fees, and the defending counsel small fees; and that he would explain. He had given the average of fees to Crown counsel; and as to the others, although he was not able to state the fees he had given in particular cases—there being no Return made of them—in many instances higher fees than those fixed had been allowed by him, and certified for in the ordinary form. To prevent a misconception in the matter, he must say that they were not dealing in these Votes with what had taken place under the Crimes Act merely, but with the entire of the legal prosecutions in Ireland for the whole year.

said, that the more they looked at these figures the worse would the attempt of the Government to account for them appear. In all Ireland the number of practising barristers was only some 200.

400.

Well, they would say 400. He was speaking of those who lived exclusively by their Profession. The sum demanded was £29,300—almost £30,000—which would give £150 apiece to all the practising barristers in Ireland, supposing the Crown engaged them all. If half of them were employed it would amount to £300, and if only 50 were engaged it would amount to £600, and so on. They were entitled to have from the Attorney General for Ireland some specific figures showing how much the barristers had received, how many had been employed, and how much the right hon. and learned Gentleman had received himself. Before they voted away public money, they were entitled to know how it was spent. He wished to know whether it was true, as the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) had suggested, that a great deal of this money had been spent in suborning witnesses and paying informers?

said, that two gentlemen who had been mentioned—Messrs. Teeling and Adams—and who were known very well in that (the Irish Opposition) quarter of the House were, although only juniors, ornaments to the Irish Bar. He (Mr. Dawson) had had some opportunity of knowing that these gentlemen, at any rate, had not received the missing thousands. They had only had a few guineas, and the Irish nation would very naturally ask—"Where did the thousands go to? Into whose individual pocket—to smoothen whose promotion?" While the poor peasantry of Ireland were absolutely starving, it was an outrage on the country to have unaccounted for in this way thousands upon thousands of pounds. In justice to his own high Office the Irish Attorney General was bound to give them the names of those people into whose pockets these thousands had gone. [An hon. MEMBER: The pocket of the Land League.] He (Mr. Dawson) should be glad if the Land League were responsible, and were in a position to account for this money of the Government in a creditable manner. The right hon. and learned Gentleman should show into whose official pockets had gone all the money. If it was undenied it had been spent for scant value—if it was undenied that it had gone into the pockets of those who were not entitled to it, it would make the conduct of officials distrusted and doubted.

said, he had to complain of the unstatesmanlike manner in which the Government were discussing this Vote; and also of the manifest discourtesy and obstinate silence of the Chief Secretary and the Attorney General for Ireland, in regard to specific inquiries addressed to them from that (the Irish Opposition) quarter of the House. He would presently refer to these inquiries, and insist, as far as he could, upon having an answer. In the meantime he would state that, after all that had been said about the payment of barristers in Ireland, the question was a very simple one. The fact was that with the multiplication of well-paid officers in Ireland, and the annual inflation of this charge for legal expenses, the Government had accomplished a complete system of the moral debauchment of the Irish Bar. At one time or another the Government got at every man with a fat fee, or a well-paid office. [Ironical cheers.] He supposed that hon. Members who cheered so much had been got at already. It had come to this in Ireland—that whether the number of barristers practising in that country was 200 or 400, it was impossible for anyone in a political case to get a barrister whom he could trust. It reminded him of an election contest he was once en- gaged in at a town in Ireland, where he found that the other candidates had bought up the two attorneys in the place, and there remained not so much as an attorney's clerk available for his instruction. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had pointed out that the expenditure of a small sum of money in making inquiries had resulted in the acquittal of an accused person; and he had asked whether the Government were prepared to promise, or give any similar assurance, that in very grave cases, where the lives of men were in danger, they would provide a small sum of money for the same purpose. And what reply had they obtained from the Government? They had been met with silence—not one word had been spoken. Yet hon. Members who had listened with obvious inattention to the course of the debate, and who interrupted him with cries of "Divide!" must understand that this question would have to be discussed that evening or to-morrow, and of these two occasions hon. Members could take their choice. Who could tell what was covered by the term "prosecutors," or how many bribes wore included under that head? Were the Government prepared to make any declaration of policy upon the cases of his hon. Friends the Members for Westmeath and Wexford. The Government had received from the farmers of Westmeath as stern and severe a rebuff as they had just received from the Government of France in the case of Mr. Byrne. They had accused Mr. Harrington of intimidating the farmers of Westmeath, and upon that charge he was found guilty by the magistrates and sent to gaol. Their blind policy, however, had produced the opposite effect to what might have been expected; the farmers of Westmeath replied to the charge against Mr. Harrington by saying that they were not intimidated, and they returned him as the Representative of the county. But although Mr. Harrington was now lying in gaol in Galway, he was a moral victor over the Government who had imprisoned him. The Prime Minister had repeatedly acknowledged in that House that if there was one Member who could compete with him as the student of agrarian reform, that man was the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). But the Whig Party, he said, had struck a blow against their support in Ulster by seizing on this moment to imprison the most active and effective man that Irishmen ever sent to represent them. He again invited the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to declare whether he would stand narrowly and unintelligently upon the sentence passed by the magistrates upon these Members, or whether, having regard to the question of policy involved in their imprisonment, he would cause them to be released, and so put an end to this disgrace to the Administration in Ireland.

The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) made a speech yesterday which I confess interested me very much, and in which he took occasion to remark, one after another, upon the cardinal points of our policy in Ireland; and to that speech I should certainly have replied almost as soon as the present discussion came on, were it not that my attention was necessarily diverted by the speech of the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien). At this stage of the evening I shall not speak at the same length as I otherwise should have done; but I am quite prepared to answer, categorically, the questions which the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) and the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) have put. The hon. Member for Sligo, repeating the question of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), asks whether the Government will be prepared to bear the expense of some such preliminary inquiry as was made in the case of the man who was tried on the alleged charge of murder and acquitted. The hon. Member, who advanced money in the case in question, must remember that no such custom exists in England, Ireland, or Scotland, as the Crown generally undertaking the defence of persons accused of crimes. The Crown only provides them with an attorney and counsel in capital cases. But in Ireland, in consequence of recent legislation, when the venue is changed, the Crown undertakes the expenses of the criminals during the trial; but further than that I do not see how the Crown can go, for in no part of the United Kingdom does it pay the preliminary expenses incurred by the fact of a person being put on trial. The hon. Members for Sligo and Galway have questioned me with regard to the imprisonment of the hon. Members for Wexford (Mr. Healy) and Westmeath (Mr. Harrington), and have asked whether the Government was prepared to release them. Sir, the policy of the Government with regard to what are ordinarily called prosecutions for speeches in Ireland is very simple and plain, and I will in a few words endeavour to describe what that policy is. The Government are very unwilling to prosecute for speeches, and have shown their unwillingness to allow speeches to pass without prosecution when they did not think it absolutely necessary for the public safety that an opposite course should be taken. It is a curious and significant fact that all the cases in which people have been interfered with for words spoken in Ireland come within an exceedingly short space of time. On the 13th of August there was one isolated prosecution under the Crimes Act, and with that exception all the nine cases in which persons have been brought to account for spoken words occurred between the 22nd of November and the 22nd of December last. I do not assume that what I say is convincing to Gentlemen who have raised this question; but it is right that I should state to the Committee the motives which actuated me. About the time referred to agitation began again in Ireland which the Government regarded as very dangerous. They endeavoured to keep their minds closed against that idea as long as it was possible to do so. But they came to the conclusion that there was a determination to excite and agitate people for purposes which the Government could not possibly admit, and that such agitation would once more take the country out of the influence of law and order, and would reproduce the state of things which existed at this time last year. The Government considered that it was their bounden duty to take such steps as would put a stop to this agitation or bring it within proper bounds, and in consequence of that they engaged in five prosecutions for intimidation under the Prevention of Crimes Act. Among these were the prosecutions of the hon. Member for Wexford and Mr. Harrington. The Government came to the conclusion that there was a primâ faciecase against Mr. Harrington; the words used by him amounting, in their judgment, to intimidation, and that of an extremely dangerous kind. After speaking of his inquiries into the condition of the farming class in the district, Mr. Harrington said—

"And I tell the comfortable farmers of Ireland that if they don't throw themselves into this movement they will have to face a movement which they have never had to face before. The labourers' agitation will be directed against them."

asked if that would not amount to a constructive admission that the speech was one inciting to unlawful acts?

I know that is the view of the hon. Gentleman; but, by refusing to give bail, the inference is that he thinks his speech was one he was perfectly justified in making, and one he is ready to make again. The hon. Gentleman, in fact, said so. The Government, however, on the other hand, thought that the speech was an extremely dangerous one in its effects. [Mr. PARNELL: The whole speech?] I alluded to the words which were brought before the notice of the Court. It was said the Government ought to let Mr. Harrington out of prison because he had become a Member of Parliament; and that they ought in the case of Mr. Healy to remove the necessity of his giving bail as a preliminary to his release, because he is a useful Member of Parliament. In so doing, the Government would be doing an injustice to the men who had not the advantage of being Members of Parliament; and I cannot understand the principle on which we would be acting. The Government were extremely sorry that it had to proceed against anyone for what they said publicly. They, however, considered they were bound, in the interests of the public safety, to prosecute these hon. Gentlemen amongst others. The fact of a man being a Member of Parliament is in itself a double reason why he should refrain from using such language as that in question.

asked if the Committee were to conclude that men were to be punished for what other men said? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary said the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) was punished in consequence of what Father Delaney had said. The right hon. Gentleman said—"We are not punishing Harrington for the exact words he used, which, indeed, were very wild; but we looked to other things said throughout the country." They punished the hon. Member; but they had not the courage to punish the rev. gentleman whose speech was too bad for the right hon. Gentleman to read. Did the right hon. Gentleman ever hear of Joseph Arch, who had carried on the agricultural labourers' agitation in England? Did he punish Joseph Arch? Did he put him into gaol? Dare he do it?

said, that, in reference to the case of Mr. Harrington, he had, perhaps, a peculiar right to say a few words. Mr. Harrington was his Colleague in the representation of Westmeath, and he (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) was with his hon. Friend on the platform, and heard the speech in question from beginning to end. It was not for one passage, but for one single word in that speech, that Mr. Harrington had been sentenced to two months' imprisonment; and Mr. Harrington had been imprisoned upon the strength of a forced and Governmental construction put on that one single word. He (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) challenged a denial of his assertion. It was on the word "agitation" that the whole prosecution against Mr. Harrington turned. Mr. Harrington had said that the whole force of the labourers' agitation would be turned against the farmers if they did not, in a day of distress, try to open some employment for the labourers. It was felt at the time that the labourers of Westmeath, and, indeed, of the country, were in a state of destitution; and Mr. Harrington appealed to the generosity and the good feeling and the gratitude of the farmers to help the labourers in their day of distress. Mr. Harrington said the labourers were founding an agitation some time before, for the redress of their own grievances; but, he added—

"I took no part in it; I did not join it, because I do not like those class movements. But I tell you that unless you do something for these poor people, to whom you owe so much, the force of this agitation will he turned against you."

said, that before the Vote was taken he desired to point out to the Chief Secretary that it appeared to him that, under the Crimes Act, the Government could, if they wished, pay all the expenses and costs of the person who was placed on his trial. The section of the Act which enabled them to do this was that which provided for the change of venue. It was as follows:—

"Whore an order is made under this Act directing a change of venue, the proscribed Crown Solicitor, or other prescribed official, under the direction of the Attorney General, shall provide, where necessary, for advancing money for enabling the person to be tried, and the witnesses required for the defence of such person to attend the trial."

said, his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had read the text of the Act, and had asked for a reply from the Chief Secretary. His hon. Friend ought to remember that the speech which the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) made yesterday against the policy of the Chief Secretary had only just been answered by the Chief Secretary; and that, consequently, he (Mr. Parnell) could not expect his present speech to be answered by the right hon. Gentleman until to-morrow. That was one satisfaction the Irish Members had. They could not be accused of treating the Chief Secretary cruelly, for the right hon. Gentleman was sure to come up smiling 24 hours after time. He observed that the Government did not intend to give any further explanation with regard to the case of Mr. Harrington. For his part, he thought the Irish Members might very well leave the case of Mr. Harrington alone. It seemed to him that the intention of the Government in prosecuting Mr. Harrington was a kindly one towards the National League. Down to the present it was undoubted that the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) was the leader in a special sense of the tenantry of Ireland. Of course, the hon. Gentleman was in a general sense the National Leader, but in an especial sense he was the leader of the tenantry of Ireland. It was suggested that the case of the agricultural labourers was neglected by the National League; but now, thanks to the Government, the agricultural labourers had been provided with a leader. Mr. Harrington was emphatically the leader of the forthcoming agitation for bettering the condition of the agricultural labourers. Mr. Harrington had been cast into gaol, subjected to every insult, clad in the convict garb, and ordered to perform the basest and meanest duties that it was possible to cast on a convict; and all because he said to the farmers of Westmeath—

"You ought to pay a fair day's wage for a fair day's work to these agricultural labourers, who have helped you so much in times gone by."

said, he wished to ask the Government to postpone this and the three other Irish Votes until the Afternoon Sitting to-day, as he believed it was the intention of the Government to take a Saturday's Sitting. It was very late to discuss an important Vote of this kind; but he feared that, as the Vote had been put, the only course he could take was to move to report Progress. He had been in hopes that if the Vote had been postponed by the Government, together with the three other Irish Votes, the Committee might then have gone on with some of the subsequent Votes which would not have required much discussion. He begged to move that Progress be reported.

said, he thought the hon. Gentleman had made a little mistake in thinking that the other Votes would not be much discussed. He had not the slightest objection to stop there till 6 o'clock in the morning, and he should certainly oppose a few of the Votes.

said, he should decidedly oppose the Vote for the Land Commission, which was the largest Vote in the whole of the Civil Service Estimates, being taken at a quarter past 2 o'clock in the morning. This was a Vote evidently provocative of discussion, and one upon which he should claim his right to speak at a time when his remarks could be reported. He did not wish to press the Government not to take other Votes as to which there was no contention. He was not speaking from an Irish point of view only; but he thought there were probably many Votes in the series as to which there was no contention in any part of the House, and as to which he should not have the slightest objection. He objected, however, to this particular Vote being taken now, and it would be well that some arrangement should be made for it to stand over.

said, he knew how strong was the dislike which was generally felt by the Committee to a Saturday's Sitting, and he thought it might be more convenient to the House to sit up to a late hour this morning in order to discuss these Votes, than that the House should be put to the inconvenience of sitting again on the Saturday; but if the Committee insisted that this Vote should not be taken at this hour, he did not think it would be possible for the Government to insist upon it. He should therefore be prepared to accede to the application to withdraw this and other Irish Votes upon which a long discussion might take place, and then propose that they might go on with the remaining Votes until they arrived at one upon which there was contention.

wished the Government to postpone two or three of the other Votes also. A good many hon. Gentlemen, he said, had gone away who had wished to express their opinion upon some of these Votes. There were only two or three Votes left, and as there was to be a Morning Sitting today he thought they might as well be postponed.

said, the hon. Gentleman had himself just stated that he was ready to sit up to 6 o'clock in the morning. He thought it would be more convenient for the Committee to go on until about the usual hour.

urged the Government to postpone this Vote, as it contained a good deal of contentious matter.

replied, that there were peculiar reasons, which he hoped the Committee would accept, for not postponing this Vote. If it were not proceeded with, he himself would be put to very great personal inconvenience, because an important meeting of the Danubian Conference was to be held to-day, at which he was obliged to attend. It would be exceedingly difficult for him to be in the House and at the Conference at the same time; and, looking at the peculiar character of the situation, he hoped the Committee would take the Vote, and allow him to offer any explanation on any of the points involved. He thought there were some points which he had anticipated, and he hoped he might be allowed to offer explanations now.

said, he should be very sorry to put the noble Lord to any inconvenience; but still he thought that if the Committee had to vote such a large sum of money as this, the personal inconvenience of the noble Lord could be set against the question of the enormous additional sum of money which they now required. He would be glad if the noble Lord would explain how £16,500 in the Vote given could have been spent on telegrams, and he would remind the Committee that they had already voted a large sum in excess for telegrams in another Vote. This was an enormous sum they were asked to pay; and there was also another sum of £9,730 for "Special Missions." He was not aware what "Special Missions" there had been. They had had no particulars whatever, and no explanation had been made to them why Special Missions had been sent. An explanation on these points was due to the House. He did not intend to obstruct this Vote. If it would be inconvenient for the noble Lord (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) to come down to-morrow, hon. Members would not be unreasonable and insist upon his coming, for the simple reason that they themselves would be obliged to be present. He trusted, however, that the noble Lord would enter somewhat into detail as to the enormous sum they were now asked to vote.

said, that, no doubt, this £16,000 was a large excess for telegrams, though he supposed it was in connection with Egypt and the East. It was necessary that a large number of telegrams should be sent; therefore, he did not quarrel with the item. But as to this £9,730 for Special Missions, they should have some explanation to show whether or not the charge was legitimate. One item he would have to ask an explanation of was this—"Expenses incurred in Moscow in anticipation of the Czar's Coronation, £320." He supposed this expense was incurred through a house being taken for Her Majesty's Representative when it was expected that the Czar's Coronation would take place last year. This seemed to have been rather a reckless proceeding; and the explanation, no doubt, would be, that when they had to send a Special Mission on an occasion of this sort, they had to take time by the forelock and hire a house. This would lead him to suppose that they were going to send a Special Mission to the Czar's Coronation; and, on these grounds, he would oppose the item. As to these Missions, he knew it was the rule or habit of Her Majesty to send some special Representative—some Nobleman—as a species of glorified beadle to take part in Coronation ceremonies at Foreign Courts; but he saw no reason why the House of Commons should allow it to be done at the expense of the country. In the present case, we had a great Embassy at St. Petersburgh, and there was no reason in the world why our Ambassador there should not represent Her Majesty at the Coronation of the Czar. It was merely the love of spending money, and the love of Gentlemen sitting on the Treasury Bench, whoever they might be, of following bad precedents which brought about these Special Missions. To his mind, the inauguration of the President of a Republic was a far nobler thing than the Coronation of an Emperor. ["Oh!"] Well, everyone could enjoy his own opinion—the hon. Alderman opposite (Mr. R. N. Fowler) was entitled to take another view of the matter if he chose. The hon. Alderman, if he liked, could go to Russia as the special Representative of the City of London, and, no doubt, would not only be a worthy Representative of the City of London, but a fine Representative of England. So far as he (Mr. Labouchere) was concerned, he objected to these Special Missions. No one could say why they were sent. As he had said, we had an Ambassador at St. Petersburgh; therefore, they wore only sending coals to Newcastle by despatching one or two, or perhaps half-a-dozen, Noblemen as a Mission to the Russian capital. He intended to move the reduction of the Vote, and wished to have a distinct understanding from the noble Lord—first, whether there was to be a Special Mission this year to Russia; and, secondly, whether, if there was to be one, it would not be well for them to have the expense charged beforehand, instead of having it in a subsidiary Estimate as they had last year? The House would then be able to say whether the charge was a proper one or not. Do not let the Government come to them and say—"The thing is done now—you must pay the money." He begged to move that the Vote be reduced by the sum of £320.

said, he saw, in connection with this Vote, that in the Appropriation Accounts just returned to Parliament, last year there was a saving of £1,700, which was explained by the fact that a charge usually attached to the Embassy at Constantinople had lapsed during Lord Dufferin's Special Mission to Egypt. He (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) wished to know if a diminution corresponding with that of the Vote would take place in the grant for Lord Dufferin?

desired to be informed whether anything was included in the Vote for the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Errington) and his reported Embassy?

asked whether this would be the whole of the Vote for Lord Dufferin's Mission, or would there be a Supplementary Vote?

said, he must apologize to the Committee for taking the Vote at this late hour (2.30 A.M.); but, as he had explained, he had to attend a meeting of the Conference to-day, and it was for the convenience of the Members of the Conference, not for his own convenience, as the hon. Member for Guildford suggested, that he desired to dispose of the matter without being put to the necessity of coming down to the House again. As to the most important point which had been raised—that of the telegrams—he had been permitted the other evening, when the telegrams in the earlier part of the Estimates were in question—that was to say, the telegrams sent by the Foreign Office as distinguished from those sent to the Foreign Office—to make an explanation, because he had felt that the two items really came together. He had satisfied the Committee on that occasion, he thought, that the matter had received very careful attention, and that this great increase—and in this he was supported by his Predecessor in Office—was entirely owing to the condition of affairs in Egypt, and that when the special increase was separated from what might be called the ordinary expense of the Office in the matter of telegrams, it would be found that there was really no increase at all. There was a good deal of discussion on the matter, and, no doubt, it deserved the very close attention of the Committee. He now came to the point raised by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere)—a point on which he had quite anticipated that some questions would be asked. The circumstances as to the change now made were accurately stated by the hon. Member. As the Committee were aware, preparations had been made for the Coronation of the Czar at Moscow; but, for reasons which it was unnecessary to enter into, that Coronation was postponed. Preparations were made by every great European Government which intended to be represented; and, as the hon. Member had said, it was necessary, in the matter of house accommodation, under the circumstances, to take time by the forelock. The sum in the Estimates represented the payment made for the hire of a house, and a fine to the owner for breaking the contract when it was suddenly found that the Coronation was not going to take place. He (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) could, if necessary, furnish the hon. Member with the exact items. Then he came to the point on which the hon. Member wished for some explanation—namely, as to what it was intended to do in regard to the Coronation which was going to take place this year. It was a fact that there was going to be a Special Mission, and he was in a position to mention a circumstance which he believed would be well received by the Committee, the House, and the country, and that was that the Special Representative of Her Majesty would be His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. He need not remind the Committee that the Duke of Edinburgh was well fitted, personally, to discharge the duties that would devolve upon him, and that, owing to his close relationship with the Imperial Family of Russia, he would be singularly welcome in that country, both to the Imperial Family and to the people. As to the expenses of Lord Dufferin's Mission, it was to be explained that there was a careful set-off against everything which had been allowed to His Excellency for his Special Mission to Egypt. In regard to all those allowances and circumstances which remained the same there had been no special charge whatever. Only those items had been charged in which there had been actually an increase of expense; therefore, on the whole, there had been no increase at all in those matters which were found usually charged under the head of the Mission to Constantinople. He had all the items before him; but he hardly thought the Committee would care to have them. He only thought it right to explain to the Committee that there had not been anything like the smallest attempt at anything like running up a double bill or charge; but that everything had been carefully looked into. As to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk), it was impossible for him to say whether or not any further charge would have to be made in respect of Lord Dufferin's Mission, because the exact duration of the Mission—how long he would remain in Egypt, when he would return to Constantinople, and so on—was a question which would depend on the course of events in Egypt. At this moment it would be rash in him to undertake to say that there would be no further charge; nevertheless, he need not remind the Committee that Lord Dufferin's Mission to Egypt was a temporary one, and that there was no intention of requiring him to remain permanently in the country. Sir Edward Malet was the ordinary Representative of Her Majesty in that country; and he, with Lord Dufferin, had discharged all the duties which had devolved on the Mission, and there was every intention on the part of Her Majesty's Government to continue their confidence in him. A question had been put as to the Estimate of last year—whether the amount of saving had been properly accredited?

said, that, perhaps, he had not been sufficiently clear. What he desired to know was, whether there would be a saving in consequence of Lord Dufferin's Special Mission to Egypt this year, in the same way that there was a saving of £1,747 in connection with the Special Mission of Mr. Goschen to Egypt or Constantinople last year?

said, he thought he understood the point—whether the saving had been properly accredited? Assuming that he took the question properly, he answered in the affirmative, although the circumstances of the two cases were different. The right hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) had not been a member of the Diplomatic Corps, and the whole circumstances of his Mission were matters of special and peculiar arrangement, and a great number of items had to be considered. He (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) was in Constantinople on another Mission at the time the right hon. Member for Ripon was on his; therefore, the circumstances of the cases were fully fixed on his memory. He trusted the explanation he had given would be satisfactory.

said, the noble Lord had not referred to the matter to which he (Mr. Dawson) had drawn attention—namely, the reported Embassy of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Errington).

said, it had been repeatedly stated by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board that he knew nothing of such a Mission as that suggested; therefore, it was unnecessary to touch upon the matter further.

said, he thought he was justified in bringing forward the question of the telegrams for which £16,500 was charged under this Vote. The item was described as consequent on the state of affairs abroad, and they had passed a somewhat similar Vote for the Foreign Office. In the present item, however, was included a sum in connection with the Legation at China, which was partly repayable out of the Indian Revenues. He had no notion how that was, and he would ask for information as to whether India had been consulted at all in the matter, and whether she had consented to pay anything? He was not sure that the sum was not connected in some way with the opium trade. It appeared to him to be an extra, and he should like to know whether India would some day be told that she must pay some portion of this Vote without being in any way consulted by Her Majesty's Government? That sort of thing had been done before. He really thought that he and others who were interested in this matter had a right to demand some explanation of how it was that India was called upon to pay a portion of this sum.

said, he had on a former occasion given very full information with regard to the sum in the former Vote to which the hon. Member had alluded. He admitted there was a slight error in the words employed, which ought to have been "abroad generally." With regard to the further point raised in connection with the Legation to China, this charge, which had been on the Estimates of the last two or three years, would be renewed for the same period. Hon. Members might be assured that the matter had received the most careful examination.

said, he was not in that wild state of excitement which the noble Lord anticipated because the Duke of Edinburgh was going to represent Her Majesty at the Coronation of the Czar. He objected to anyone going, whether Duke or otherwise. They had a Gentleman already at St. Petersburg, who, if he was able to conduct diplomatic business, was equally able to carry out the tom-foolery about to take place. They had refused to give the smallest pittance to the thousands of men who were starving in Ireland; and, at the same time, they were asked to grant an enormous sum for the purpose in question, which amounted to an insulting and wasteful attack on the pockets of the taxpayers of the country. The noble Lord had not replied to one of his questions—were they to have on the Estimates the amount which it was anticipated the journey of the Duke of Edinburgh would cost; or were they to be told that the money must be paid because it had already been expended? There were many Gentlemen who, had they known that the Vote would be taken so late, would have remained to oppose it; and he thought that advantage ought not to be taken of their absence. If, however, the Government thought otherwise, he would like to take the division at once.

said, in answer to the hon. Member who had just sat down, he thought it impossible that the Vote for this Mission could appear on the ordinary Estimates of the year, because the circumstances which determined the decision of the Government had only recently been arrived at. The Mission was a matter concerning which an accurate Estimate could not 37et be formed; but he was bound to say that he did not anticipate any greater expenditure of money being incurred by the fact of the Duke of Edinburgh attending the Mission than would be incurred if it had been confided to any other Nobleman. It must be borne in mind that there were peculiar circumstances in connection with the present case. The great importance attaching to the occasion, and the intimate alliance existing between the Royal Families of the two countries, were circumstances in which the Government believed that they were acting in conformity with the feeling of the country, and in conformity with precedent, in sending a Special Mission on the conditions proposed to assist at the approaching ceremony. That being so, he thought that no fitter person could have been chosen than His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh.

said, he hoped that the proposed Mission would not cause any unnecessary charge to be thrown upon the people of this country. It was true that a relationship existed between the Duke of Edinburgh and the Czar of Russia; but when such relationships existed, those invited, as a rule, were very willing to pay the expense connected either with a wedding or any other ceremony. For his part, he regretted that we should have indulged in this ridiculous expenditure. The noble Lord said that the relationships between this country and Russia were of a very important character; but he was sorry to point out that notwithstanding all this, we did not get on very well with the people of the latter country. There was in England a very great prejudice against Russia, and he was bound to add that there was amongst the people of Russia a great prejudice against us. As a protest against the expenditure, he should be glad to vote for the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Northampton.

asked for information with regard to the charge of £75, which appeared on page 37 of the Estimates, as gratuities to two Naval officers employed on the Sfax Commission. He had already asked a question on the subject. As he understood, a large amount of British property was destroyed at Sfax, and a Commission of officers had been appointed by France and Italy to inquire into the circumstances. But he also understood that as soon as the investigation seemed to involve the conduct of the French soldiery, the French Associate closed the Commission, stating that he would not allow any inquiry to be made which reflected on the honour of the French Army. The Investigation Commission was, therefore, no Commission at all; and he now asked whether there was any estimate of British loss; if so, how was it arrived at, and had the French Government consented to pay any indemnity for such loss? He had endeavoured to obtain some information on the subject from the Predecessor of the noble Lord, who, however, was not remarkable for the readiness with which he communicated or volunteered information; and he now asked the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he was in a position to furnish the desired information? Of course, if it was inconvenient to reply to the question at the moment, he would defer it till another clay.

said, he would do his best to answer the question on Notice.

said, the Committee would, in his opinion, do well to obtain information with respect to the Special Mission to assist at the Coronation of the Czar. If he understood the noble Lord, there would afterwards be submitted to the Committee what might be called an Estimate—that was to say, after the Coronation had taken place, and this interesting family gathering had been brought to an end. Now, it seemed to him that to apply the term Estimate to money that had been already spent, and which the Government, without any previous explanation, said must be paid because it had been spent, was to make a strange use of words.

said, he admitted the inconvenience of Supplementary Estimates, and the remark applied not only to this particular Supplementary Vote, but to all of them generally. It would, no doubt, be desirable that every item of this kind should be brought forward only once in the year. At the same time, he did not think there was any greater objection to the present charge than that which applied to all Supplementary Estimates. As already explained, it was not possible to insert it in the regular Estimates, because the decision of the Government was only arrived at a few days ago.

said, he thought the Estimate might be issued in amended form. They had a similar Paper issued when the Government came into Office. Their Predecessors had prepared the Estimates, and the changes made at the time necessitated alterations in the Estimates. On that occasion the Prime Minister caused an amended Estimate to be inserted in the Estimate already issued. That year there was an amended form of a particular Vote, and he could not understand why there could not be an amended form issued as a separate Paper—Class V., Vote 1, Diplomatic Services, which would enable the Committee to come to a decision with regard to that branch of the Service, not in a Supplementary Estimate, but in due course, when the Vote in question came on in the regular Estimates.

said, he did not want to raise any objection to the Vote, but merely rose to put a question to the Government as to their intentions regarding subsequent Votes. He wished to ask if the Government would consent to postpone Vote 3, Class VII., and also Vote 3 in the Revenue Department?

said, if it was found there was any serious objection to those Votes, the Government would not press them now. Perhaps, however, the hon. Gentleman would raise the point when the Votes were reached.

said, he found that this Vote was—

"For the commutation of Annuities payable to the Duke of Norfolk; the Lord of the Manor of Taynton; the Minister of the Lutheran Chapel, lately in the Savoy; and the Keeper of St. Swithin's Gate, Winchester; and of a portion of the Annuity due to the heirs of the Luke of Schomberg;"

said, the annuity to the Duke of Norfolk was granted so long back as the time of Henry the Eighth. The Treasury was under an obligation to pay the annuity. The Duke of Norfolk, however, consented to commute it, so that the Treasury were enabled to buy it up and redeem it for a certain number of years. The sum in respect to the Manor of Taynton was very small indeed, only 30s. The allowance to the Minister of the Lutheran Chapel, in the Savoy, was £38, and was granted a long time ago out of the Consolidated Fund. They had been able to redeem the annuity at the rate of 10 years' purchase. The annuity to the Keeper of St. Swithin's Grate, Winchester, was £2 8s. 2d. The case of the Duke of Schomberg was certainly more serious. The annuity originally was £4,000 a-year. £2,616 of this had been redeemed at different times, and of the remainder it was now proposed to redeem £72.

said, he thought they could allow the money to the Lord of the Manor of Taynton, to the Minister of the Lutheran Chapel, and to the Keeper of St. Swithin's Gate. He should move, however, that the Vote be reduced by £3,948, which was the amount payable to the Duke of Norfolk, and the heirs of the Duke of Schomberg. He need not enter into any details as to the reasons why he proposed this reduction.

asked if the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would inform the Committee what was the nature of the grant made to the Duke of Norfolk in the Reign of Henry the Eighth, and whether it was a portion of the spoliation of the property of the Church which the present Duke of Norfolk, who belonged to that Church, was still enjoying?

said, there were two grants, one of £40, and the other of £20. The first was granted by Henry the Eighth, and the second by Richard the Third.

said, it was really surprising what the Government thought they could get at this Sitting. This Vote was in respect of arrears of fees duo to the Duke of Norfolk—for 14½ years at £60 a-year. The Prime Minister told them that nothing was put down in these Supplementary Estimates but what was absolutely necessary. The Duke of Norfolk had waited 14½ years; surely he could wait a few days more. If he (Mr. Labouchere) remembered rightly, there was a certain thing called the Statute of Limitations, under which no one could claim a debt above seven years old. He was glad to see the Law Adviser of the Crown present, because, perhaps, that hon. and learned Gentle- man would enlighten his mind as to whether the Duke of Norfolk had got a legal right to this money. Certainly, the noble Duke had not got any moral right to it. He (Mr. Labouehere) intended to take the sense of the Committee, no matter what explanation of the Tote might be given.

expressed his surprise that the Financial Secretary had not given some explanation on this matter. Would the hon. Gentleman state whether any of these fees paid on the installation of the Kings of Saxony and of the Netherlands referred to the Garter, and what the fees were to which the Duke was entitled?

wished to know how it happened that this demand had been in arrear for 14 years? If the Government had had some dispute with the Duke of Norfolk as to his legal or moral right, the Committee might as well strengthen the hands of the Government and clear away this tax upon the public pocket. It was a most melancholy picture that the Committee should be engaged at this time of night in considering a matter of this kind; and he thought they would be acting the part of discreet legislators and guardians of the public purse by adjourning the Committee and re-assembling at 12 o'clock.

said, there was no intention to press the next Vote, and explained that these installation fees were not involved in this Vote. These fees were given to Counts or Earls on their installation.

begged to repeat his question as to what the creation fees were—what was created, and who was created, and why should the Duke get these fees more than anybody else?

said, the fees were not paid by any person. On succeeding to his title, the Duke became entitled to the annuity granted to his Predecessor. It represented the old Third Penny, which was given to every Earl on his taking charge of a country.

thought there was no doubt that the Financial Secretary knew what these fees were; but he did not believe anybody else had the vaguest notion, except that the Dukes of Norfolk and the Earls of Surrey had received, since the time of Richard III., a sum of £60 a-year. He held that those families had received quite enough, and that the fact that they had received this money so long was sufficient reason for putting an end to the payments. These fees were utterly untenable in every sense, and he strongly protested against the doctrine laid down by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He should have thought that the hon. Gentleman, who was a good Radical, would have argued that if the country was not legally bound to pay these fees it should not pay them; but, on the contrary, the hon. Gentleman said—"It would be unhandsome not to pay money to the Duke; let us do it. Let us make merry Knights for the sake of the Duke of Norfolk; he has no legal right to this money; but let us give it to him." That was not his idea, and he should maintain his opposition.

said, these fees had not been demanded for 14 years, and this was simply a Vote for the arrears. The fees would be demanded henceforth.

asked the Solicitor General what remedy the Duke of Norfolk would have if this money was not paid?

replied, that he had not gone deeply into this matter; but he imagined the Duke would have a remedy by a Petition of Right, in the same way as any other person to whom a debt was due from the Crown.

wished to know when the demand was made for 14 years' arrears, and why the Government, when the Crown was already in negotiations with the Duke of Norfolk for the commutation of other existing annuities, did not seize the opportunity of commuting this annuity?

It is the same annuity.

wished to know whether the Statute of Limitations applied or not?

said, it would not apply.

thought the Committee were not in a position to refuse this Vote, as the figures were manipulated.

said, the hon. Member was apparently unaware of the power of the Committee. The Treasury could not pay this amount without the sanction of the Committee.

thought the extravagant terms on which the commutation had taken place justified the Committee in not paying anything for which they were not fully and legally responsible.

said, this was a Vote which must provoke lengthened comments, because of an item of £15,200 for retirements and re-organization in the Department. This was so large a question that from selfish motives he must decline to enter into it; but he hoped the Financial Secretary would agree to postpone Vote 3, as, in the absence of the Postmaster General, it was hardly fair to go on with that Vote.