said, he was under the necessity of asking the Committee to agree to postpone this Vote, because it was desirable, in the public interest, that time should be given for the Local Government Board to consider and for the Government to announce the decision they arrived at in the case of Mr. Elliott, a servant of the Board. Mr. Elliott was a rate collector in the service of the South Dublin Union, and in that capacity he held office under the Local Government Board. The greater part of a year had passed since the auditor of the Local Government Board in Dublin discovered that, in his capacity as rate collector for the Blackrock Commissioners, Mr. Elliott had misappro- priated moneys to the amount of between£2,000 and£3,000. Of course, if the ratepayers of Blackrock and the Commissioners were willing that their money should be misapplied, he would not ask the Committee to interfere; but what he did ask was, that the official who had committed this misappropriation of public money should be dismissed from the service of the Local Government Board, and deprived of his position of rate collector. It appeared that the misappropriations had extended over a series of years, and for some months the Commissioners had been holding private inquiries, and had been endeavouring to realize the assets of Mr. Elliott, in order to make good the deficiency of public money which had been discovered. The Lord Lieutenant had asked the Commissioners whether their attempt to realize Mr. Elliott's assets had been rendered necessary by any misappropriation or malversation of money on his part? Up to the present moment the Commissioners had not returned an answer. They were continuing their private inquiries. Neither Earl Spencer, as Viceroy, nor himself, as a Representative of the public, asking for information, in that House, had been able to obtain any satisfactory explanation from the Commissioners. It was not necessary, for a moment, to point out how desirable it was that the purity of the Public Service should be maintained in Ireland, especially in regard to the character of officials intrusted with the collection of public money; and the President of the Local Government Board had himself admitted that if an officer was untrustworthy in one capacity, it must be assumed that he would be dishonest and untrustworthy in all. The Chief Secretary, when the matter was mentioned the other day, named the 23rd instant as the day upon which he would explain the course the Local Government Board proposed to take in regard to Mr. Elliott. They had now reached the 22nd, and he should like to hear if the material for enabling the Government to arrive at a decision had yet come into the hands of the Chief Secretary, and, if not, how soon such material might be expected? As the question was one of principle, affecting the whole character of the Public Service, and the nature of the terms upon which trusted officials would be allowed to continue to hold their offices, it would be for the convenience of the House and of the Department if the Vote were postponed until the decision of the Government was announced. If the decision of the Local Government Board should be such as they had a right to expect, discussion on the Vote would be greatly shortened; but if, on the other hand, it were unfavourable, or unjust, it would be necessary for him to go into the case of Mr. Elliott at length, and with a particularity of detail which he would otherwise desire to spare the Committee.

said, they would all cordially agree with nearly all the hon. Member had said, except that in the present stage of the investigations he was unwilling to declare confidently that Mr. Elliott had misappropriated the public money. He thoroughly agreed with and approved of the canon the hon. Member had laid down—although there were not many occasions on which he did agree with him—that where a public servant had proved himself to be untrustworthy in matters connected with Public Business, he should not be continued in the Public Service. He could hardly accede to the proposal of the hon. Member to postpone this Vote in order that they might await the reply of the Blackrock Town Commissioners, for this reason—that the hon. Member and he were perfectly at one upon the action which it would be necessary for the Local Government Board to take, if that reply was unfavourable to Mr. Elliott. The long and the short of it was this—it appeared to him a very simple case, either that Mr. Elliott had misappropriated the public money, or he had not. Defalcations of this nature were very simple to ascertain. If he had, he would not be continued in office by the Local Government Board—if he had not, of course they should take no notice of his conduct. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had no reason to doubt, from his (Mr. Trevelyan's) previous action in matters to which he and his Friends had called attention, that if a charge of malversation or fraud was proved against a public servant, however slight the sum of money concerned, he had invariably acted with rigour. The case of Mr. Byrne was as strong a case as could possibly be brought for- ward. Mr. Byrne had, by gross irregularities, to say the least, put into his pocket the sum of a few shillings, and, in consequence of having done that in his private capacity, he was deprived of a position which brought him in £1,200 a-year of the public money. Painful as his (Mr. Trevelyan's) duty was in the matter, he felt that his course was perfectly clear. On that principle he had acted then, and on that principle he should act now. Undoubtedly, if he did not fulfil his intentions in this particular, the hon. Member would have a right to complain, and to call him to task. He thought the Blackrock Commissioners had not shown a proper sense of the gravity of the position. If their ordinary meetings were not sufficiently frequent to enable them to consider this matter promptly, they ought to have met specially to consider it. He had every reason to believe that on the 23rd instant the Government would have the Commissioners' final answer. If they did not get a final answer, he should certainly he prepared to take extraordinary means, because the circumstances were extraordinary. He hoped, after that statement, hon. Members would allow the Vote to proceed.

pointed out the importance and seriousness of the case. The short sketch which had been given of it by his hon. Friend had been practically corroborated by the Chief Secretary. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman would not admit the actual charge—that a public officer, who was supposed to have been guilty of misappropriating large sums of money, was at present retained in his position. The facts more than suggested the idea that someone connected with the Local Government Board, who had supervision over this gentleman, had not performed his duty in such a manner as to make Mr. Elliott responsible for the acts of which he had been accused. Upon the actual facts of the case, the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend were agreed. The right hon. Gentleman said the Blackrock Commissioners were acting in a sluggish way, and he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) thought the right hon. Gentleman would agree with him that their action in the matter ought to be stimulated. He had not the smallest doubt as to what the intentions and inclinations of the right hon. Gentleman were in regard to it. The right hon. Gentleman had always distinguished himself by the rigidity of his judgments upon improper conduct such as this, and in all offences against the public morality by officers in the Public Service; but the right hon. Gentleman, being President of the Local Government Board, asked the Committee to pass the Vote for that Department before he had declared his ultimate decision upon a most important question of policy. That demand was most unreasonable, and it was made more unreasonable by the right hon. Gentleman reiterating the statement that he expected to be able to announce his decision on the 23rd.

No, no.

That is what I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say.

The Board have called a meeting for the 23rd. I suppose we shall get their answer on the 24th. Suppose they give very clear proof that there was no suspicion of defalcation, or, on the other hand, suppose they thoroughly admit that there was malversation, in that case the matter might be settled in two or three days; but suppose there are still delays and doubts, the Local Government Board would then be entitled to take action of their own. The probable action we should take would be to call upon Mr. Elliott for an explanation.

said, the impression in Ireland was that the Blackrock Commissioners were determined to keep Mr. Elliott in his office, at all risks and at all hazards, by every possible means in their power. He thought the Committee ought to insist on retaining its control over the matter, by postponing the Vote until it had been decided. That was the single point between his hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman, and there ought not to be two opinions about it, for his hon. Friend had proved to the hilt that the House of Commons ought to retain this power. The only objection of the right hon. Gentleman was, that there were well-known principles which guided the action of the Local Government Board in such cases, and the Committee would be justified in assuming that the course the Board finally took would be the proper one. No one had a higher opinion of the right hon. Gentleman than he had; but, under the circumstances, he hoped his hon. Friend would press his objection to a Division.

said, he desired to make a few remarks upon the Vote generally. There was no doubt an opinion, gathering in all quarters and increasing in volume and size every day, that there must be some radical change in the administration of the Irish Poor Law. He, for one, was inclined to attribute the existing undesirable state of things very much to the action of the Local Government Board, who always displayed a narrow-minded spirit in administering this Vote, and he was satisfied that the present workhouse system worked most unsatisfactorily in the case of the really deserving poor.

expressed a hope that the hon. Gentleman would postpone his remarks upon the general question until the Committee had disposed of the case of Mr. Elliott.

said, he had no objection to do so; but it would be absolutely necessary that he could refer to the defects of the present Poor Law administration in Ireland before the Vote was disposed of.

wished to point out that no Motion for the postponement of the Vote could be made. When the Vote had once been put from the Chair, there were no means of proceeding in the way suggested by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). What the hon. Member would have to do would be to induce the Government to withdraw the Vote. As he understood the issue between the hon. Member and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, it was that the House of Commons should not lose its control over the Vote until it was assured what action the Department intended to take. But what was at present in doubt was not the action of the Department. That had already been fully explained by the Head of the Department; but what was in doubt was the action which might be taken by the Blackrock Commissioners. If the Vote were deferred, it would only be because there was some uncertainty in that respect. He thought the statement of his right hon. Friend on the part of the Local Government Board was perfectly plain and clear, and the course now suggested to be taken was not only inconvenient, but displayed a certain amount of distrust in the bona fides of the Head of the Department. It was practically contended that the Vote ought to be withdrawn until that distrust was removed; but he failed to see why any distrust whatever should be felt.

said, he had not expressed any distrust of the Chief Secretary. What he had said was, that he had no doubt the right hon. Gentleman entertained proper ideas of his duty in the matter, and would be prepared to deal with it rigorously; but he had pronounced no opinion as to the steps which ought to be taken with regard to compelling the Blackrock Commissioners to come to an early decision on the subject of the alleged defalcations, and that in that respect he had displayed a want of energy. The right hon. Gentleman himself, in the course of his remarks, had neither directly stated nor hinted that he was prepared to act with such energy as to compel the Blackrock Commissioners to come to a decision at once.

said, the explanation of the hon. Gentleman was to the effect that he was perfectly satisfied with the bonâ fide intentions of the Chief Secretary in dealing with the case on its merits; but, of course, the steps to be taken must depend upon the action of the Blackrock Commissioners. If they reported against Mr. Elliott, of course he would be removed from the Public Service. His right hon. Friend had distinctly assured the Committee that unless all suspicion of defalcation was removed from this public officer, he would at once be informed that his services would not be retained. After a declaration of that kind, and having informed the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) what would be the action of the Local Government Board, he trusted the withdrawal of the Vote would not be persisted in.

said, he was obliged for the explanation the Secretary to the Treasury had given on the point of Order—namely, that the postponement of the Vote could not be moved. It was, however, all the same to him (Mr. Sexton) if it were decided that the Vote itself should not be passed at the present moment. He thought the argument of the hon. Gentleman was a somewhat specious one. The right hon. Gentleman said the Local Government Board were committed to the principle on which they would act, and that nothing remained but to ascertain the facts to which that principle was to be applied. Now, he (Mr. Sexton) thought there was something more than that to be considered. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of "defalcation" and "fraud;" but he (Mr. Sexton) did not feel quite sure that he and the Chief Secretary would attach to the word "defalcation" the same meaning. If Mr. Elliott, in the course of a few years, had collected moneys from the Blackrock ratepayers and had given receipts for them, and instead of lodging such sums to the credit of the township in the bank he had put them in his own pocket, and used them for his own purposes, even if he had not forged or falsified any entry or receipt, if he retained in his own possession the moneys of the township and appropriated them to his own use, and was unable to make them good when called upon, he would, in the opinion of hon. Members, be guilty of defalcation. He did not know whether the Chief Secretary so understood defalcation. What was the course which the Blackrock Commissioners had taken? They had made themselves partizans. They had referred the case to a Committee who were carrying on a private investigation. They had converted themselves into a Committee of Liquidators in regard to Mr. Elliott, which they certainly ought not to have done; they had taken over his stocks and shares and houses, and they were now engaged in a vain and futile attempt to realize the amount of his defalcations. There was, therefore, no reason for postponing a decision on the case. Indeed, it ought to have been given long ago. The public proceedings of the Commissioners already revealed the fact that Mr. Elliott owed them £2,600, and that they had only been able to realize from his assets £1,300. That was the broad and glaring fact—that after all Mr. Elliott's assets were realized, £1,300 still remained due to the Commissioners. What more was there necessary to prove defalcation? Was not the fact abundantly proved? What was the meaning of this delay and this shilly-shallying on the part of the Local Government Board? The Local Government Board and the Lord Lieutenant were the only parties who remained unconvinced. The Lord Lieutenant had allowed half-a-year to go by without action, and the Blackrock Commissioners for weeks and weeks had withheld a reply to the question of the Local Government Board whether there had been defalcations or not. He, therefore, felt no confidence that the authorities had the power, even if they had the will, to drag a truthful answer from them; and he certainly had no confidence as to what the result would be if the House of Commons gave up their control over this Vote. This was the only Constitutional occasion for raising the grievance, and as the right hon. Gentleman refused to answer the direct question put to him, he (Mr. Sexton) felt that he had no alternative but to resist the Vote. If he sacrificed the present opportunity, however shameful the ultimate decision in regard to Mr. Elliott might be, he would have surrendered for 12 months the right of raising the question. As they were, in a few days, to have the answer of the Blackrock Commissioners, no practical inconvenience would result from deferring the Vote.

said, that, after the speech of the hon. Gentleman, he could not consent to postpone the Vote. The hon. Gentleman had given a colour to the transaction which compelled him to take issue with him regarding the action of the Irish Executive. In the first instance, the hon. Member put a Question upon the Paper containing several important allegations. The Irish Executive referred it to the Blackrock Commissioners, stating they were aware they could not call upon them officially for an answer, but that as it concerned the honour of one of their officers they ought to reply. The Commissioners sent a letter answering the questions categorically, and in the course of their letter it was stated that they had been endeavouring to realize the assets of Mr. Elliot. That was the first intimation which the Irish Executive had implying that Mr. Elliot had been guilty of defalcation. The Commissioners then wished the Government to wait for the Report of a Committee which was then sitting; but as the Report of this Committee did not appear likely to be forthcoming, the Government thought it better to call attention to this statement about the realization of the assets, and to ask what was the meaning of it, and what had been the conduct of Mr. Elliot, in regard to public money, that it should require the Commissioners to realize his assets? That letter was now before the Blackrock Commissioners, and was the letter to which the Government now awaited reply. They had decided that, if a proper answer did not come, they would act on the information they had already received, and call upon Mr. Elliot to explain. He did not understand how the Government could have acted in a more rapid manner. Unquestionably, in doing what they had done they had broken through the usual rules which guided the action of independent Departments. Instead of waiting until the case was brought before them, they had put it forward themselves, and had insisted upon having an answer to the specific charges made against Mr. Elliot. With regard to the course which the hon. Member wished the Local Government Board to take in reference to this Vote, he must ask the hon. Member what it implied? There were a large number of Votes in the Estimates which concerned the salaries paid in various Departments, which had an enormous amount of business to do. But take the Department of the Local Government Board in Ireland. There had been no time in which, in the House of Commons, the proceedings of Public Departments were so carefully watched, and there had been no time when so many controversies were pending between certain persons and the Department. For instance, the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) was taking a great interest in the action of a Board of Guardians in Donegal. A letter of his (Mr. Trevelyan's) was now before that Board, and whatever the answer to that letter might be, he should have to take some action upon it. There was no period when they could not find a subject of pending controversy between private Members of the House and the Local Government Board, with regard to nearly every Public Department; and if they consented to tie up this Vote because a certain controversy was pending, in a few days they would be asked to tie it up on account of another. Therefore, when they approached the consideration of the Vote again, some other pretext would be put forward for putting it off; it would be said that there was some other question to be settled, which hon. Members wished to have settled in a particular way. No good object could be attained by deferring the present Vote, because he had already explained, in the clearest manner, the line of action the Local Government Board intended to take.

said, that as he understood it would not be in Order to postpone the Vote, it would simplify matters if he were to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £1,000.

Does the hon. Member make that proposition?

I have no wish to interfere with the action of my hon. Friends.

said, he would appeal to his hon. Friend not to interpose at present. As the Government were disinclined to give way, it was desirable that a distinct and definite understanding should be arrived at. When this matter had been fully discussed, there would be nothing to prevent his hon. Friend from making his Motion. He (Mr. O'Connor) wished to say a few words in answer to the Chief Secretary. When the Secretary to the Treasury addressed the Committee, he confined himself to the difference of opinion between the Irish Members and the Chief Secretary as to whether the Vote should be postponed or not. The Chief Secretary seemed to entertain the same view they did as to the principle upon which the charges against Mr. Elliott should be decided; but the conversation which had since taken place showed that there was even an element of uncertainty as to whether the Chief Secretary and the Irish Members really did agree upon the important question which had been raised by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). He distinctly challenged the right hon. Gentleman to give his idea of what constituted defalcation.

I quite agree with the definition of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) on that point. Defalcation is a definite crime, and it has been extremely well put by the hon. Member.

said, he might, then, assume that his hon. Friend's idea was satisfactory, and a correct definition. What his hon. Friend insisted upon was that defalcation meant the withholding of money by a rate collector, even though he might have made it good afterwards. That was his hon. Friend's definition; and, therefore, it had already been proved that defalcation had occurred. The whole action of the Chief Secretary dated from the time the Blackrock Town Commissioners were attempting to realize the assets of this gentleman; and, therefore, it was admitted on all sides, according to the interpretation of his hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman, that defalcation must have taken place. His hon. Friend had accused the Commissioners of sluggishness, and he joined his hon. Friend in reiterating the charge, and in applying it to the Government as well. Elliott was a rate collector of the South Dublin Union, and, therefore, immediately under the control of the right hon. Gentleman. If, therefore, the Chief Secretary had no power over him as collector for the Blackrock Commissioners, he had perfect power to dismiss him as collector of the South Dublin Union; yet, though the right hon. Gentleman knew Elliott's position for two or three months, he had taken no action whatever. The right hon. Gentleman knew, at least, two months ago that there was a primâ facie case of defalcation against this man, according to his own definition of that offence, and the officer was directly at the disposal of the right hon. Gentleman.

Not two or three months ago. I had no knowledge of the matter before the Question addressed to me by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). That was the first occasion on which the attention of the Local Government Board was called to the matter.

The Local Government Board had knowledge of the essential facts at a date long anterior to my Question.

said, he thought it was perfectly clear that for two or three months, at least, this man was retained in a position under the control of the Local Government Board, although a primâ facie case of defalcation rested against him. Elliott held two positions—one as rate collector of the South Dublin Union, which placed him directly under the control of the right hon. Gentleman and the Local Government Board, and the other as rate collector for the Blackrock Town Commissioners. Therefore, as rate collector for the South Dublin Union, he could be dismissed at any moment by the Chief Secretary, although, as collector for the Blackrock Commissioners, he was, of course, independent of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman had, however, fully accepted the canon that an official who misconducted himself in one office thereby incapacitated himself from serving in another; and, therefore, if Mr. Elliott had been guilty of defalcation in connection with Blackrock, he ought not to be retained for the South Dublin Union. It was an admitted fact that the charge of defalcation against this gentleman had been brought indirectly before the attention of the Local Government Board months ago, and even two months ago in the House of Commons; and yet the right hon. Gentleman asked his hon. Friend to give up the only Constitutional means he had of questioning the propriety of retaining this man in the Public Service by allowing the Vote to pass, and thus removing the matter from the supervision and control of the House of Commons before the right hon. Gentleman gave his decision finally upon a most important question of principle, which could only be raised in connection with the Vote. He thought it was utterly unreasonable for the right hon. Gentleman to expect them to forego their right to pronounce an opinion upon this important question; and he therefore thought that his hon. Friend was justified in pressing the point.

said, he had no wish to interrupt his hon. Friends in this interesting discussion, and he hoped the question might be brought to an issue between the Treasury Bench and the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). He had risen, however, to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £1,000, in order that he might be in a position to make a general statement as to the working of the Poor Law in Ireland, and the treatment of sick, aged, and infirm paupers, especially lunatics, whose condition was the most pitiable of all. The general feeling throughout Ireland was that the institutions known as workhouses were rapidly degenerating into cesspools of crime, vice, laziness, and hereditary pauperism, instead of being suitable asylums for those who had a legitimate claim upon society for support. What they in Ireland wanted was that these workhouses should be made vastly more strict and penal in their administration as regarded the idle, worthless, and dissolute classes, and that they should be made more useful and humane for those who had a legitimate claim upon the community for support and assistance. According to a Return which had just been presented, the total number of inmates in the workhouses was 56,572; and the Committee would be astonished to hear that 20 per cent were described as able-bodied persons. He thought that was a fact well worthy of attention. The number of men whose misconduct was sheltered within these institutions was not only very large, but absolutely monstrous. Many of them were brought up in pauperism; they went out of the workhouses for a short time, but invariably returned again; and when asked what it was that brought them back, they said that they had come to regard it as their old home. Even men, who had gone out as soldiers to India, on their return to Ireland reentered the workhouses. They had been so accustomed to lead an idle, worthless life, that the moment honest toil and honourable labour become irksome, they returned to their old home, although it might appear extraordinary that they would desire, of their own accord, to return to short rations and uncomfortable accommodation. He presumed that a disinclination to work was at the bottom of it, and that after a very short time they relapsed into habits of idleness. Out of the total of 56,000 inmates, 12,000 were entered as able-bodied. As the figures were taken in the winter—namely, in February, 1883—of course, that would indicate a time of year when the weather was severe, and a good many people were out of work; but, at the same time, during the winter in question there was abundance of food to be obtained, and, therefore, the one fact would counterbalance the other. He strongly objected to the way in which the workhouses were made to shelter vice and profligacy. The number of women of bad character who inhabited them was perfectly astounding. Out of 30,000 women in the workhouses, 20,000 were returned as the mothers of illegitimate children. He believed that by far the great majority of women who visited these institutions were women of bad character; and he was of opinion that in cases of such gross immorality the ratepayers ought not to be bound to provide for them in the way they were provided for now. He felt that some stronger obligation of the law to throw the burden of these illegitimate children upon the fathers was necessary; and there ought to be some provision to prevent the pauper class from constantly converting the workhouses into a refuge in the winter, and going out of them in the summer. In the Northern workhouses the number of women of bad character who made use of them was very extraordinary; they went into them only for a few days. He remembered a case in connection with the Belfast Workhouse where one of these women was reported to have been an inmate of the workhouse 57 times. Persons of that class were called "revolvers;" they were kept and maintained at the expense of the public, and they treated the workhouses simply as lodging-houses. He complained of the laxity and want of vigour displayed in the administration of the Poor Law in Ireland. Idle people were allowed to frequent the workhouses, and to throw themselves on the rates, without any attempt being made to discriminate between their cases and those of the deserving poor. He had spoken of the large number of able-bodied persons who became inmates of the workhouses. A few years ago he visited the South Dublin Union, and noticing a powerful man passing into the house, he asked who he was. He was told that he was a pauper, who was engaged in some manual work in the workhouse, and that he had never been out of it during his life, although he was 45 years of ago. He asked if there were many more men in the same position, and he was told that there were many who had never been out of the workhouse, but who had been born, bred, and reared there. He thought there could not be a more striking illustration of the evils of the system than the fact that persons were allowed to grow old in the workhouses, and to become a burden all their lives to the ratepayers, many of whom were in circumstances very little above pauperism themselves. He believed the hospitals of Ireland were very much behind what they ought to be, although they had made considerable advance; and with regard to the religious institutions in many of the workhouses, they had the assistance of religious persons who undertook the care of the children. He was sorry to say that they had not had very much assistance from the Local Government Board in that direction; and, indeed, as far as his experience went, he never remembered the Local Government Board doing anything whatever for the benefit of the poor. He complained, further, of the want of classification. Young persons were constantly placed in the common room with idlers and criminals. There was no other room they could frequent; and although the deserving poor were invariably treated with scant courtesy, he thought that some such provision ought to be made for the aged poor as that which was made in France. In France, when an aged person fell into poverty, and was unable to provide for himself, the State undertook to make provision for him. The principle acted upon was that these persons had a right to relief unless they had brought their pauperism upon themselves by vice or laziness. When once a man fell into a condition that he was no longer able to help himself, he ought to be supported at the expense of the State. Then, as regarded pauper lunatics, there was much room for reform. Their condition was more distressing than that of any other class. There were 1,800 of these lunatics who were inmates of the workhouses. Their treatment was a matter upon which more than one Commission had reported. He remembered a person who gave up the best part of his life to visiting these institutions, and in trying to do something for the benefit of his fellow-men, finding one of these poor idiots chained to a pillar.

In what district?

said, the incident he referred to occurred in the county of Clare some years ago, and the condition of the lunatics who were inmates of the workhouses generally was such as to call for immediate attention and reform. There was a wide distinction to be drawn between the lunatics in the county lunatic asylums and those in the workhouses. No institutions in the Kingdom were better managed than the Irish county asylums, and he had known frequent cases in which persons had been recovered from what was supposed to be a perfectly hopeless state of lunacy. The provision, however, which was made for the lunatics received in the Irish workhouses was most defective. There was no attempt whatever to cure them, and they were left to live their wretched lives in a hopeless state of imbecility. Of course they were harmless, because if a pauper lunatic attempted a crime he was at once transferred to the county lunatic asylums. He came next to the instruction given in the Irish workhouse schools. According to the last Return, which, however, was not very recent, there were 42 teachers engaged in instructing the children in the workhouse schools, the whole of whom were un-classed and uncertificated, notwithstanding the ready means provided by the law for ascertaining the capability and qualifications of these persons to tecah. He thought the matter was one for inquiry at the hands of the Local Government Board, who had a right to see that no unqualified teacher was appointed. They ought to refuse their sanction to such appointments; but he was sorry to say that he had witnessed in his own district the slowness of the Local Government Board in dealing with proved cases of incapacity. Where the teacher was incapable of performing the duties required of him, the Local Government Board ought to come forward and imperatively put an end to his employment. As to the inspection of the workhouse schools, it was of a two-fold character, and consequently came to nothing. The inspection of the school building came under the Poor Law, whereas the inspection of the educational qualifications of the children came under the National Board. The Inspector of the National Board went down to inspect the schools; but he had no authority to enforce his orders, and therefore the standard of education was below par, and the condition of the children was one of entire neglect; because there was no authority whatever, either direct or indirect, to enforce a better state of things. Very numerous complaints had been made to the Local Government Board, but without effect. If the inspection of the workhouse schools was was not to be an absolute farce the Inspector ought to have power to enforce his orders. As he had said, the inspection was of a two-fold character. The school buildings and materials, and the condition of the children were under the Local Government Board, whereas the educational arrangements were under the National Board; and the result of this two-fold inspection was that the interests of the children were altogether neglected. No doubt, the great defect in the Irish workhouses was that the children were brought up in idleness from the very first day they entered the house; and hence it was found that, even in the case of men who had served the Queen with distinction, it was almost impossible to make them respectable members of society, and they consequently returned to what they regarded as their home. Some of the children were occasionally employed in picking a few weeds, or in some of the minor branches of agricultural labour; but there was no pretence of teaching them any industrial work whatever. The children were brought up in idleness, and this idleness acted upon them in a most deplorable manner, owing to the associations among which they were thrown. There was only one corridor and one recreation ground, and the morals of the children were corrupted by requiring them to mix with able-bodied paupers, whose whole life had been spent in vice and immorality. It was impossible to keep the whole of the pauper inmates of a workhouse in the same building without some contamination; but in the Irish workhouses there was little or no classification at all. He had watched the matter himself and had inquired into it closely, and he was prepared to say that there was no real classification whatever. He was only talking the other day to the manager of one of the reformatory schools in Ireland. That gentleman spoke of the satisfaction and pleasure his work gave him, when he found that many of those who passed through his hands were brought to a better state of mind and became useful members of society; but he added, that of all the classes which came under his hand, the most difficult to deal with, or inspire with any sense of self-respect, were the pauper criminals. When the children were hired out to farmers for a month or two in the summer time they were lost sight of, and nobody seemed to care what became of them afterwards. The Local Government Board had given statistics to show the number of children who had been hired out to farmers in that manner; but there was no con- fidence to be placed in them. The children themselves were sent out recklessly—hired out for short periods to persons who had no interest in the children themselves, and who could not be expected to place them in such a position in life as would make provision for their future. The Vice President of the Local Government Board not long ago told a Royal Commission that out of 300 children sent out from the South Dublin Union 78 per cent did not return. The right hon. Baronet the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) asked the witness what reason he had for supposing that that 78 per cent of the children were doing well; and his only explanation was that as they did not turn up at the workhouse it might safely be presumed that they were going on all right. The right hon. Baronet asked if it were not equally possible that this 78 per cent, in regard to whose future such confident hopes were entertained, might be in prison; and this gentleman representing the Local Government Board, after having made a statement that 78 per cent turned out satisfactorily, was bound to confess that his whole reason for believing they had become good citizens was that he knew nothing whatever about them. That showed the extent to which the bigotry of officialism would descend in order to bolster up a bad system. He did not wish to press the Committee further. The House had been saved from an infliction from him on the same subject last year by a "Count-out." He had now had an opportunity of laying the matter before the Committee, and he trusted they would turn their attention to this great social question. He believed that so long as they required these poor people to be brought up in a common life with adult paupers the consequence would inevitably be that they would become criminals. What he wished and hoped was that, sooner or later, the Government would take up the question of the reform of the workhouse system in Ireland. If necessary, he trusted that a Royal Commission would be issued, so that they might get at the bottom of the Poor Law question. The feeling was very strong in Ireland that something ought to be done. They did not ask the Treasury for anything; but it was their own money which they proposed to spend in bettering the condition of these poor people. Surely they ought to be entrusted with the expenditure of their own money.

Does the hon. Gentleman move the reduction of the Vote?

Yes; by the sum of £1,000.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £108,544, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Local Government Board in Ireland, including various Grants in Aid of Local Taxation."—( Mr. Moore. )

admitted that the administration of the Irish workhouses was not satisfactory; but he could not altogether agree with the hon. Member in the charge of immorality which he had brought against the female inmates of workhouses. He was well aware that there were many young men in the workhouses whose moral character was not irreproachable; but the vast majority of the women in the workhouses were old women who were there through poverty, against whom no reasonable charge of immorality could be brought. The hon. Member had cited an instance of a Union in the North of Ireland—in the county of Tyrone; but he should be sorry to take that Union as a criterion, as it was well known that that was the most immoral part of the country. It must be borne in mind that these workhouses were the only refuges for women in Ireland who were forced to betake themselves to them for a time; and it was unfair to draw a conclusion of general immorality from a single instance. There was, however, another offence which was, to a great extent, perpetrated in connection with the Irish workhouses—namely, the practice of smuggling whisky into them. Friends who came to visit the pauper inmates constantly brought whisky with them. It was also a fact that many of the employés in the workhouses were persons of objectionable character; and, owing to the introduction of whisky, and a neglect of duty on the part of the officials, no doubt scenes of drunkenness did take place. He was glad to find that in the South of Ireland, at any rate, the introduction of nuns as nurses into the workhouses had caused a beneficent change in the morals of the inmates. It was a practice which could not be too highly recommended and too warmly advocated, and he urged upon all the Boards of Guardians in Ireland the desirability of securing the services of nuns as ordinary nurses. He had no doubt it would remove a good many of the very discreditable scandals which were not un-frequently brought to light in Ireland. A very important question had been raised by the hon. Member in regard to the manner in which the children in these workhouses were brought up; but although the teachers employed in the workhouse schools might not have received class certificates, he did not think that any serious charge of incapacity could be brought against them. He had seen a number of workhouse children in a variety of places who had been remarkably well educated as far as reading, writing, and arithmetic were concerned; but he complained of the absence of technical education. The children were taught to read and write, and so on; but the idea of teaching them a trade never appeared to enter the mind of the Local Government Board; and when they went from the workhouses the only employment they were fit for was that of farm servants. All the deserving boys went out as farm labourers; very few of them going into the cities, and the girls were either sent into the country as farm servants or into the towns as housemaids. He thought the workhouses in Ireland were institutions which afforded excellent facilities for the establishment of technical schools. If these young lads were taught trades which they could turn to account after-wards, it would go a long way towards defraying the expense of their maintenance in the workhouses, because they would be learnt how to occupy a very useful future life, instead of being con-signed to the miserable fate of a farm servant until they could scrape some money together to take them away to America or one of the Colonies, there to be nothing more than hewers of wood and drawers of Water. It was an undoubted fact that children who were brought up in the workhouses had a direct stigma attached to them. They were neglected by the Guardians, or by the Local Government Board, who really directed the actions of the Guardians. Their technical education was altogether neglected. They were taught nothing but to read and write, and nothing was left for them but the most menial occupations when they left the workhouse. He thought the subject of the technical education of the children in the Irish workhouses was really most important; and he was of opinion that the Government ought to take it in hand, and that the Chief Secretary, as President of the Irish Local Government Board, and those gentlemen who acted with him, should take into consideration some scheme for the technical education of these children which would give them a better chance of future success in life.

said, he agreed with the last speaker as to the bad state of technical education; but he desired to express his opinion that a great deal could be done by the Guardians as the law now stood in Ireland. Where the law was at fault was in not empowering the Local Government Board to act where the Guardians would not act. It was very well known that the Guardians had power to board out the children, and boarding out had been found to be the best way of disposing of orphan and deserted children from the workhouses. But what were the facts of the case? In more than one-half of the Unions of Ireland the Guardians did not board out a single child; but they kept them in the workhouses in the state in which the hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. Moore) had described. That was the fault of the Guardians, who had full power to board them out. He thought the hon. Member had misunderstood the evidence of the Vice President of the Local Government Board before the Commission of which he (Colonel Colthurst) was a Member. The evidence of Mr. Robinson was to this effect—that, as far as his experience went, where the boarding out system was practised the results were invariably good, and the children in many cases had been adopted by the families to which they were sent. He did not know any reason why the system should not be adopted in every Union in Ireland. As to industrial training, it was difficult to carry it out in the small Unions; but he saw no reason why there should not be Poor Law Schools in Ireland as well as in England, where the children could be col- lected and taught trades. In the large Union of North Dublin some years ago, a real attempt was made to give industrial training to the children; but the master—a man of great experience—told him himself that, in spite of all he did, he never wished to see a child placed in the workhouse. There could be no doubt that boarding out was the proper thing to do. It stood to reason that if they were boarded out among the people from whom they sprung, they would be restored to the condition which Providence intended them to occupy. He hoped his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary would at least do what he could to give effect to some of the suggestions which had been made by the hon. Member for Clonmel. Among other things, he would ask the Government, when they dealt with the question of Union rating in Ireland next Session, to give effect to the recommendations of the Committee, so as to give unadulterated Union rating, and not the Union rating proposed in the Bill submitted to Parliament two years ago, in which the administration of outdoor relief was excluded from the operation of the Bill. If his right hon. Friend would give a satisfactory answer on that subject, he might spare him (Colonel Colthurst) the necessity of bringing forward a Motion which stood in his name for Friday.

expressed a hope that the Chief Secretary would answer the questions which had been brought before the Committee in the valuable speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Clonmel (Mr. Moore). He (Colonel Nolan) only proposed to discuss the workhouse system in connection with one particular point. Of course, his hon. Friend knew a good deal about the poor, having paid considerable attention to the subject, and having brought in two or three Bills to remedy the position of children in workhouses; but he thought that there had been one omission in all the speeches which had been delivered upon the question—namely, that no one had gone into the question of pounds, shillings, and pence. Special education and training for workhouse children, together with looking after them when they left the workhouse, would be a very excellent plan if they had unlimited funds to draw upon; and he believed his hon. Friend had brought in a Bill to make provision for deaf and dumb children, by which they were to be sent to institutions specially provided and paid for. No doubt they would be liberally treated and properly looked after there; bnt they would become extremely expensive to the Unions, and he hoped that in any scheme which might be put forward, and any pressure that might be placed upon the Chief Secretary, the question of the ratepayers would not be altogether neglected. At the present moment the rates were exceedingly heavy; and he had no desire to rush hastily into any project which would largely increase the rates. He thought that was a point which it was quite possible to reconcile with the good administration of the workhouse system. He did not think that many of these children would be better off if they had more opportunities for learning a trade. He did not agree with the hon. Member for Ennis (Mr. Kenny), or the hon. Member for Clonmel, that their employment as herds or farm labourers was bad work for these children. On the contrary, he thought it was proper work for them in the agricultural districts. The great bulk of the community in those districts had to herd stock, or attend to farming operations; and he did not see why these children should not be put out to the same occupation in an agricultural community. Certainly, they ought not to be made pets of, or put in a better position than the children of people who managed to keep out of the workhouse. During the last six or seven years, instead of increasing the industrial schools in Ireland, the Government had limited them. That was not the policy of the present Government alone, but in their action they had merely followed the policy of their Predecessors. Six or seven years ago it was announced that no contribution from the Treasury would be given except to certain existing schools; and the Government had carefully limited the contributions which they gave even to existing schools. He had himself applied for an industrial school in Clifden—at least, he had been made the medium of communication on several occasions between the district and the Government; but he was sorry to say that, although that district was very much in want of an industrial school for boys, the necessary assistance had been re- peatedly refused by the Government. He thought if the Local Government Board would extend the system of industrial schools in Ireland, a great many of the objections which were now urged by different Members would be met. Not only might they extend the system, but it was also desirable that they should change the law. The law which at present existed was absolutely absurd. It was necessary that a child should commit some offence, even if it were only begging, before he could be sent to an industrial school; and it was perfectly well known that the solemn farce of committing a child for some trifling offence was frequently gone through in order to get him admitted into one of the existing industrial schools. He did not think it right that the committal of a crime should be a qualification for admission to an industrial school, and he regretted to say that it was exactly the same in regard to the lunatic asylums. Criminal lunatics were sent to the county asylums, but other lunatics were not; and perfectly harmless lunatics suffered in consequence. He was strongly of opinion that this foolish rule ought to be abolished. There was one point in which he differed from the hon. and gallant Member for the County of Cork. (Colonel Colthurst)—namely, that the Local Government Board should have power, in an ordinary case, to override the decision of the Guardians. Of course, if there was a case in which religious prejudices had been allowed to operate, or a pauper had been unfairly treated in regard to his religion, the Local Government Board should have power to demand explanations, and even to override the decision of the Guardians. But for the decisions of a Board of Guardians, who, as a general rule, looked after the finance of a district, to be overridden by the Local Government Board, sitting at a great distance from the Union, was absurd, and would be so great a reflection upon the Guardians, that he hoped no Government would adopt the suggestion. There was another point in which he should like to receive an explanation from the Chief Secretary, and it had reference to the possibility of Ireland being visited by cholera. He trusted that precautions would be taken to prevent the spread of disease, and he hoped Parliament would not be allowed to break up before hon. Members were told exactly what was intended to be done in Ireland. Had the Local Government Board any policy in regard to the rural workhouses? Did they intend that the cholera patients should go into the workhouse hospitals, or be placed in detached hospitals? He was in favour himself of having them placed in detached hospitals as far as possible. He believed that in many cases it would be a good policy to erect temporary buts at a distance from the Union Workhouse, and such temporary huts could be so arranged as to prevent the affection from being communicated through bad water or otherwise, and thus of reducing the chance of the disease spreading to a minimum. He should be glad to know from the Chief Secretary what it was intended to do with the hospital question? What he was afraid might happen was this—that if the cholera visited Ireland, many clever letters and minutes might be written with the object of throwing the responsibility upon the Guardians, and of avoiding the responsibility themselves. He did not care who was responsible—whether the Local Government Board or the Guardians—but his idea was that if the cholera came into the country it must be met by some Central Body, who would be in a position to obtain every kind of knowledge and information, and the Local Government Board would certainly be the best Body for such a purpose. What he would propose to the Local Government Board, in reference to the rural districts, was that they should have one or two temporary hospitals. He would not say what kind of hospitals; but they ought to be cheaply erected, as the expense would be a serious matter for consideration. The merest hut would be quite sufficient. He thought a model ought to be erected at some central station in Dublin, and that some mechanic should be told off, who knew how to put the buildings up. There were more than 160 Unions in Ireland, and if they were required to go to the expense of erecting temporary hospitals, probably nothing might be done by the time the emergency arose. What he asked was a very simple matter, which would cost the Government very little. The cholera might not visit Ireland after all; but if it came a little nearer, he hoped the Government would make some arrangement of that kind; and, therefore, he trusted that the Chief Secretary would answer the question he had put.

wished to put a question or two in regard to this Vote; but before he did so he would express his regret that the hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. Moore) had moved the reduction of the Vote before they had exhausted the discussion on the subject introduced by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). He thought the feeling on that side of the House was that his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary should withdraw the Vote for the present; and if it was impossible to do so, that the discussion would be allowed to go on fairly upon its merits, so that the Irish Members should retain their control over the very unpleasant issue which had been raised. He was sure his right hon. Friend would not misunderstand him. He did not put it as a question of confidence in the Irish Executive. He thought there was no man in that House who had the slightest doubt that the Chief Secretary was actuated in all these things by the highest and most advanced standard of official honour, and any decision arrived at by him would command the confidence of the House. But he wanted to tell his right hon. Friend—he did not know whether his right hon. Friend was aware of it—that there was growing up in the House, as well as in other quarters, a distrust of the permanent Irish Executive; and he should be sorry that any question should arise which should put hon. Members in conflict with the right hon. Gentleman himself, or with Lord Spencer. He thought the time was arriving when the action of the permanent Irish Executive would be exposed to the very serious criticism, not only of the House, but of the country. Let him take the case they had heard tonight. He knew nothing whatever of the case; but here was a man charged with defalcation—in England they would call it embezzlement. Whether the man was guilty or not he did not know—he knew nothing about the facts of the case—but he was charged with having appropriated the public money, from time to time, during a period which extended over a series of years. When the fraud was found out, the deficiency amounted to between £2,000 and £3,000; and a certain body of Commissioners in Ireland, adopting a course of action which, in England, would be regarded as compounding a felony, still retained the services of the defaulter, and proceeded to realize his assets. No prolonged discussion of the matter was needed. By return of post it would be known—aye or no—whether this collector had those rates or had paid them to the authorities, or whether he was short in his accounts; and if he had retained them for 48 hours beyond the proper time, he ought not to be allowed to remain in the Public Service. He would say no more than to suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should postpone the Report on the Vote until the decision of the Government could be made known, so that not only the Irish, but the English Members, might have a full discussion if they were not satisfied. He desired now to ask for a few items of information as to what he might call the extraordinary amount of this Vote. He could not help contrasting the Irish Local Government Board with the Local Government Board in England. The English Local Government Board had to deal with 25,000,000 of people; the Irish Local Government Board with 5,000,000. In England the highest official, after the President—who was a Cabinet Minister—was a Permanent Secretary, at £1,500 a-year; but in Ireland there was a Vice President with £2,000, a Medical Commissioner with £1,200, another Commissioner with £1,200, a Secretary with £900, and an Assistant Secretary with £600. The difference between the cost of the permanent staff in England and Ireland was almost inappreciable, although the amount of the work done in England was at least three times as much. The time had arrived when attention should be called to the growing extravagance of the Irish Administration in all its parts. He would now take another point. In Ireland there were 14 Inspectors, while in England there were 23; but look at the disproportion in the amounts about to be voted for the personal and travelling expenses of these gentlemen. In England 23 Inspectors took £4,698 as their expenses, while 14 Inspectors in Ireland required £4,020. Then, if he came to the salaries of the Medical Inspectors, in England 3,520 Medical Officers cost £143,000, while 1,064 Medical Officers, or about one-third in Ireland, cost £74,000. The same thing prevailed through all these Irish Votes; and, in his opinion, the whole Irish Administration was economically and financially, but he hoped not morally, in an unsatisfactory state.

protested against the statement of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) that he had stepped in between the Committee and the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). He thought nobody could have gone further than he did, seeing that on three occasions he had broken off his speech and discontinued his statement, in order to allow hon. Members an opportunity of going on with the previous subject. Even when his hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) made a last appeal to the Chief Secretary to postpone the Vote, he positively waited in his seat for a reply. The complaint, therefore, of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton had no foundation whatever.

said, that the moment the reduction of the Vote was moved all chance of the withdrawal of it was put aside. He wished to thank the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) for the frank and effective speech he had delivered. In a few words he had applied the common sense of an English Member to the narrative he (Mr. Sexton) had given to the House, and he had swept away the cobwebs with which the Chief Secretary sought to cover the case of Mr. Elliott. He hoped the suggestion of the hon. Member would be adopted, and that the Report of the Vote would be postponed until the decision of the Local Government Board was made known. In the meantime he hoped the Chief Secretary would rigidly insist upon the principle he had laid down being carried out—namely, that the Executive should suffer no further delay to take place in eliciting the real facts of the case; and if they found that this officer had appropriated the money of the public that they would remove him at once from the public service. So far the case rested entirely with the right hon. Gentleman. He quite agreed with the several speakers who had recently addressed the Committee as to the neglect of the industrial training of children in the Irish workhouse schools. Indeed, industrial training was neglected in all the primary schools in Ireland, although there was no country where it was so much required. It was of no use to depend upon those whose duty it was to provide the rates, because a good many of them were in very little better condition than the paupers themselves. No matter how urgent the need for reform, they must always consider it as an equation they had to deal with; and however desirous they were of improving the administration of the Poor Law they must take care that the financial burden was not made too heavy a load for the ratepayers to bear. There was another matter in relation to the management of workhouses, to which he wished to call attention. He referred to the decency of religious worship, and the religious training of the young. He had more knowledge of the South of Ireland than the North; and in his opinion, where the Catholics had a controlling power on the Boards, the interests of the Protestant minority were wisely and generously cared for; but in the North of Ireland, where the Catholics on the Boards were in a helpless minority, the treatment given to Catholic adults and children was far different. In the case of the Newtownards Workhouse, there was a Protestant chaplain, and the Protestant and Presbyterian inmates had religious instruction and worship provided for them. But there was no Catholic chaplain, and the consequence was that the children were put out of the school into a yard while religious instruction was given to the rest; and at night in the dormitories, when the Protestant and Presbyterian children were going through their prayers, the Catholic children were locked outside the door until the operation was over. It often happened that, on leaving the workhouse, the children were placed with Protestant masters, the result of which was the complete uprooting of their religious faith. He submitted that the Local Government Board ought to apply themselves to this question of providing for the religious instruction of youth and the common decencies of religious worship. In the same Board, although the Rubric of the Catholic religion required decent order for the celebration of Mass, the base economy of the Board was such that the priest was obliged to celebrate it with an old table furbished up as an altar. The Local Government Board had power, if they were inclined to exercise it, to provide for religious worship in the workhouse schools and for the decent religious instruction of the young. He wished, next, to say a word as to the action of the Local Government Board in dealing with contested elections under the Poor Law. At a contested election at Drumcliff, in the county of Sligo, it was reported to the Board that the candidate who obtained the largest number of votes, in defiance of the law, went to the houses of two of the voters and took possession of the voting papers which had been left by the police, which he kept in his possession for 24 hours. It was an illegal act for which the law provided a penalty. The right hon. Gentleman told the House that because the gentleman in question had a majority of votes sufficient to seat him on the Board of Guardians the Local Government Board had not interfered. No matter how great the majority was which that candidate obtained, he ought not to have been allowed to sit on the Board, as he had committed an illegal act, for which the Local Government Board ought to have prosecuted him. It was no answer to say that the defeated candidate could have brought an action against him. The Department charged with the conduct of the election was the Department which ought to have taken the initiative. He asked the right hon. Gentleman upon what ground of common sense he justified the action of the Local Government Board in refusing to interfere, and in refraining from exacting the full penalty for such an offence? In the case of another contested election, it was proved at the inquiry held by the Inspector that forged proxy papers were issued. The Returning Officer distinctly reported that forged papers were sent in to him, and there had been needless delay in reporting upon it. Before the debate closed, he hoped the Chief Secretary would explain whether the Local Government Board were exercising their powers in finding out how the proxy papers came to be forged, so that the forger, whoever he might have been, might be prosecuted and punished. Turning next to the Gweedore evictions, he wished to point out that 200 men, women, and children had been recently evicted on the estate of Mr. Wybrant Olpherts, in some cases for one, and in others for two years' rent, and were allowed to lie in the ditches for three days and three nights; and although he was contradicted in that House, he had the authority of the parish priest for saying that it was not until the fifth day that the relieving officer came with some vehicles to take the unfortunate people to the workhouse. For the purpose of embarrassing the tenants, the landlord took his proceedings in one of the Superior Courts, and by so doing materially added to the amounts due. The same relieving officer filled the double office of relieving officer and gombeen man, or seller of meal, exacting from the poor people who were driven to the verge of ruin the highest rates. He would like to know whether that was a combination of officers that the Local Government Board were pre-pared to tolerate; and whether the man who supplied the people with meal at excessive rates should be the same man who was to represent a public Department in relieving them the moment they were turned out-of-doors? The law allowed six months for redemption. These poor people had crops in the land from which they were evicted, and their only hope lay in selling those crops and redeeming their holdings within the statutory six months, by scraping enough together to satisfy the demands of the landlord. In order to watch the crops which were growing in the ground it was necessary that some member of the family should be left on the spot. The Legislature allowed that the persons evicted might get four weeks' outdoor relief; but the evicting landlord, being also Chairman of the Dunfanaghy Board of Guardians, refused to accept a motion to that effect. The Board refused, in the first place, to give any outdoor relief, and even went farther, and decided that no wife should be admitted to the workhouse unless her husband was admitted also, thereby preventing the poor men from taking care of their holdings during the period when they might be redeemed. The law said that the husband might remain outside for the purpose of watching the farm, and seeing that the crops were not destroyed; but the Board of Guardians made themselves the instruments of the tyrannical will of the landlord, and said the husband must come in also, and leave the farm unattended, or the wife and children would be turned out on the roadside to starve. What happened? When a motion was made to give four weeks' relief to these unfortunate people, Mr. Wybrant Olpherts, this evicting landlord, taking advantage of some quibble which the right hon. Gentleman had endeavoured to explain, ruled that the motion could not be put. He accused the Local Government Board of being supine and neglectful in the discharge of their duties. He contended that when the poor people in Ireland, driven to despair and penury, were unable to meet their engagements, by reason of oppressive rents, the least the Local Government Board could do was to compel their own officials to act impartially, and neither allow the gombeen man to be the relieving officer, or the evicting landlord to preside at the Board of Guardians, with power to refuse the dole which the Guardians were willing to give.

concurred with his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton)in thanking the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) for adding to the charge they had made against this Department regarding Mr. Elliott the force of his deserved reputation in the House. He had risen now, however, upon another point, as he presumed it would be convenient for the Chief Secretary to reply upon every question that might be submitted to him. He hoped, when the right hon. Gentleman came to deal with the case of Mr. Elliott, that he would be able to give assurances that it would be dealt with not only justly, but promptly. The subject to which he desired to call the attention of the Committee was the working of the Labourers' Act of last year. A Committee was at present engaged in investigating the operation of that Act; and although it had only sat for one day, and there were only two witnesses examined, and those two witnesses officials of the Department—its Vice President and Legal Adviser—the evidence given established every demand which had been made for the amendment of the Act. Their claims that the matter should be promptly dealt with, and dealt with at the Autumn Session, were irresistible, after the evidence given before the Select Committee. They had the broad fact admitted that, while a labourer could only be expected to pay 1 s. a-week, or £2 12 s. for his house and plot, that house and plot would post the Guardians £100, or £5 7 s. 6 d. a-year. Thus they had the astonishing fact that these cottages could only be built for the labourer on the condition that the ratepayers of the district paid more than half the sum annually which they had cost. What had been the result? A question was asked in the Committee that day, not by an Irish Member, but by the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. S. Buxton), which showed a startling result. Evidence had been given by the Vice President of the Local Government Board that the Act had been confined in its operation to the two Provinces of Leinster and Munster, and there had not been a single attempt in the Province of Connaught to carry out the provisions of the Act, nor in the Province of Ulster. The hon. Member who put the question naturally remarked that it had been stated in evidence that the labourers of Connaught were in a much worse plight than in any other Province, and the reply was, "Certainly." Therefore, the only deduction to be made from the facts was that this Act for the relief of the labourers had not once been carried out in the Province in which it was most required. He believed that the representation he made would be corroborated by every Member of the Committee.

rose to Order. It was not in Order to discuss the evidence given before a Committee that had not yet reported.

That is so. Such a discussion is out of Order. If the Committee has not reported, the hon. Member is not entitled to refer to the evidence before it.

said, he was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have felt it his duty to stand upon a technical point as to the propriety of bringing these facts before the Committee. He had been simply anxious to point out one or two facts with regard to the position of the labourers in Ireland upon which the operation of the Labourers' Act could be discussed. He was also anxious to discuss the subject on the present occasion, which was probably the only opportunity that would present itself. He had no wish to add to the already heavy burdens on the shoulders of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ire- land; and, considering the time that this discussion would occupy, he should certainly not exceed the limits of propriety. In accordance with the ruling of the Chairman, he should not, of course, refer to the evidence given before the Committee, but would merely put the Committee in possession of facts which were matters of notoriety. It was perfectly well known that as long as the Government continued to charge this high rate of interest the Labourers' Act would be a dead letter. He would submit this point to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary.

rose to Order. It had always been considered contrary to the courtesy due to a Committee of that House that a subject should be taken out of their hands and made a matter for discussion in that House before the Committee had reported. It was a rule of courtesy which the House had always observed during the many years he had occupied a position in the House, and he hoped it would continue.

said, there was scarcely anything he would not do for the hon. Member who had just spoken, except vote for a Motion which he had dropped for some years. He would reserve the observations he was about to make until the Committee had reported; but he would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to put the Committee in possession of facts that were within his knowledge, and to controvert his statements if he found them to be incorrect. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it was not a fact that, up to the present, not a single house had been built under the Labourers' Act of last year? He asserted that this was the case, and that, perhaps, very good reasons could be given for it. He also asked him to controvert this statement—that a large number of the Unions in Ireland re-fused to carry that Act into operation, because they considered that the expense of doing so would be excessive; and he would further ask him to state whether or not it was correct that a large number of the Unions which had carried their schemes so far as to have obtained the signature of the Local Government Board and the sanction of both Houses of Parliament—whether he was not strongly of opinion that a large number of Boards of Guardians, although they had carried the matter to the final stage, would not go to the expense of putting their schemes into operation? As a matter of fact, the Boards of Guardians shrank, owing to the excessive cost imposed by the Government, from applying for money to carry out a work which had been sanctioned by both Houses of Parliament, and the consequence was that a large number of houses would not be built which would have been built had the rate of interest been less. What did that mean? It meant that the 12 months which had elapsed since the Labourers' Act was passed had been to a large extent wasted, and that another 12 months would be wasted likewise, because, as the hon. and gallant Member for the County of Cork (Colonel Colthurst) would know, with regard to the practical operation of the Act, that notices under the existing law must be published in the months of September, October, and November. The initiatory step was to publish the notices in those months, and unless those notices were so published no further steps could be taken with regard to the erection of cottages, not only with respect to this year, but also with respect to next year. But was it not a fact that the Chief Secretary could not controvert the statement which he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) made most positively—namely, that all the probabilities pointed out that not a single Board of Guardians in Ireland would publish any notice during the months of September, October, and November, and that all the facts pointed to not a single cottage being built, either this year or the next, in consequence of such notices not being given? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary knew the cause as well as he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did. The cause was that the people of Ireland could not imagine that the Treasury would be so extortionate, or that the Treasury would be so foolish, as to charge a rate of interest which practically prevented the carrying out of an Act upon the necessity of which all parties were agreed. That being so, the people of Ireland expected further legislation; they had a right to expect it, and it was the expectation of that legislation which suspended and paralyzed the operation of the Act. He could assure the Committee that if new legislation was not brought in the Act would practically remain a dead letter. Owing to circumstances which he dared not allude to, a great and extraordinary opportunity had occurred to Her Majesty's Government of giving that prompt legislation which was necessary for the carrying out of the Act. If Her Majesty's Government were to bring in an amending Bill during the Autumn Session, which had been promised, to deal with points on which there was unanimity of opinion, he felt sure the Bill would pass through the House without any opposition, and that it would become law in time for the different Boards of Guardians throughout the country to carry out the Act this year. Finally, he most earnestly urged the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to take the matter into his favourable consideration, so that the Boards of Guardians might proceed with their work; and, still more, that the labourers who, at the end of the Autumn Session, would, in all probability, be added to the political forces of the country, should feel that their grievances had impressed themselves on the mind of the Government, and that the Autumn Session would bring them practical relief.

said, he should only detain the Committee for a few moments while he made some remarks upon a single point. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) in the course of his speech had made one observation with reference to a part of this Vote, which he (Colonel Nolan) was unable to agree with, and which he thought required an answer. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton had spoken of that portion of the Vote which related to the Medical Department as being too high, as compared with the amount expended in England under the same head. He thought, however, that the hon. Member had been led into a mistake, so far as this item was concerned, by the difference in the manner in which the Votes of the two countries were framed. As a matter of fact they were drawn up quite differently. The items of the medical portion of the Vote relating to Ireland were drawn up under one or two heads, whereas in the English Vote they were spread out under several heads, and it was that circumstance which he believed had misled the hon. Gentleman. If hon. Members would look at the Irish Vote it would be seen that the total amount for medical purposes was £96,400; and if they took the English Vote, including registration, it was £33,854. He did not know why it was, but the medical expenditure under the same Vote was £143,500.

said, he had not alluded to the Medical Vote at all. He had referred to the salaries of the Medical Officers, cost of drugs, &c., and compared them with the corresponding items in the English Vote.

said, he still thought the hon. Gentleman had fallen into an error, because the Irish Vote undoubtedly included a number of extraneous items. There was, for instance, to be taken into account the expenditure on public vaccination, and travelling expenses in connection with the Medical Department, which were not charged in the same way in the English Estimates. The only fair mode of comparison was to add up all the English medical items and all the Irish medical items and then consider the balance; to deal with them in any other way would only lead to needless dispute. The hon. Member would find he was correct in stating that the whole of the Irish medical items were £96,000, and that the whole of the English medical items amounted to £33,854, adding, as he had before mentioned, the registration charge, which it was only fair to include. The proportion was, therefore, as three to one between the Irish and English Votes. It might be said that the Irish population was one-third of the English population; but he thought that the Medical Service of a country should be to a certain extent regulated by area, and that it should not rest upon population alone. There was another consideration to be kept in view in comparing the Medical Votes of England and Ireland. Ireland was the poorer country of the two, and amongst the reasons why she was poor was the fact that almost all the great public establishments, the prisons, dockyards—in fact, most of the good things out of which the people could earn money—were in England. Finally, although in respect of this Vote he would allow that primâ facie the Irish people were better off than the English people, yet, for the reasons he had advanced, he contended that they enjoyed no undue superiority.

said, the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had called the attention of the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee to a very important point in connection with the Catholic children in one of the Northern Irish Unions. He might also mention another Union in which the Board of Guardians had persistently refused, up to within the last few weeks, to do their duty in this respect. He rose for the purpose of saying that if these things occurred in the various Unions it showed the necessity of giving some power to the Local Government Board to deal with matters of this kind. He thought his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) was not quite fair in his strictures on what he (Colonel Colthurst) had said on the subject. He did not say that the Local Government Board were to over-ride the Boards of Guardians either in England or in Ireland; but he did think that some Central Body should have the power of redressing the grievances of any helpless class of people who had not the means of redressing those grievances themselves. He thought that the Local Government Board should have the power to compel the Boards of Guardians to bring up Catholic children in the manner desired; and he had always regretted that his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary did not use the power which he undoubtedly possessed in the direction indicated. If the right hon. Gentleman were to supersede Guardians who did not do justice to the Catholic children in the workhouses, he believed that it would have the effect of remedying the evil complained of, and that the power would only have to be exercised once or twice.

said, he quite agreed with the hon. and gallant Member for the County of Cork (Colonel Colthurst) that it was desirable that the Local Government Board should possess the powers necessary to compel Boards of Guardians to do their duty with respect to Catholic children in workhouses. There were several Boards of Guardians in Ireland who were not disposed to act properly towards the poor; and it was a fact that those Boards of Guardians were mainly composed of persons belonging to the class who were against the people—that was to say, they were mainly composed of landlords and agents. It would be well, under such circumstances, that the Local Government Board should use its powers impartially, and that, if the powers which they at present possessed were found to be insufficient for the object in view, further powers should be given. He maintained, however, that at present the balance of opinion in Ireland was that the Local Government Board exercised the powers vested in them in an arbitrary and despotic manner, and unduly hampered Boards of Guardians in the discharge of their duties. He was of that opinion himself; it was the result of his own experience, because, when he was a Poor Law Guardian, he had often been involved in controversies with the Local Government Board, who were constantly interfering with and overthrowing the work of the Nationalist Guardians. If the Guardians wanted to change their rules, the Local Government Board was sure to send down an order to prevent their doing so. The case of the Cork Board of Guardians, he believed, had engaged the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. On a recent occasion a matter of importance was brought before that Board, and it was proposed by the Guardians to institute a necessary reform in connection with the administration of out-door relief. It had been found that the question of out-door relief was becoming very important, and more pressing year by year, and that it was impossible, under the system in force in Ireland, to keep anything like an adequate check upon the relieving officer. The amount of out-door relief in the Cork Union was increasing at the rate of £2,000 or £3,000 a-year, which so alarmed the Guardians that they appointed a small Committee to consider the matter and report to the Board the advisability of altering the existing arrangement. He remembered that, after many days of labour, the Committee brought in an important Report which was submitted to the Board, and adopted by them unanimously after two days' consideration. The Local Government Board were then asked to give their sanction to the recommendation of the Committee; but they refused to do so, without giving any adequate reason. Memorials were addressed to them asking them to reconsider their decision in the interest of the ratepayers; but they refused to agree to the proposal. He said that the Local Government Board unduly exercised their powers on the occasion he had referred to. There were several other cases of a similar character which he might draw attention to; but he would abstain from so doing, because he had no desire unnecessarily to prolong the present discussion. With regard to the industrial training of children in workhouses, which the hon. and gallant Member for Cork County had just alluded to, the question was perhaps of more importance than any which could be brought before the attention of the Committee on that Vote. Unquestionably, it was impossible to train these children properly in the workhouses, the Guardians having no facilities for giving them an industrial education, because there was no power to compel pauper children in Ireland to learn any particular trade. Even if a boy were put to a trade in an Irish workhouse, and he desired at the end of a week or a fortnight to give it up and lead a life of idleness, the Board of Guardians had no power to make him go to work; they were obliged to let him have his own way, and the result was that the boy grew up to become a burden on the community. He believed, then, that if increased powers were given to the Boards of Guardians in Ireland, the desire of the hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. Moore) would be met, and a large number of boys taught to earn their living. In that way the able-bodied men, whom, under the existing system, it was impossible to keep out of the workhouses, would no longer be found seeking admission. If those men had, in their childhood, been sent to some school altogether removed from the evil influences of the workhouses, he believed they would have become useful members of society instead of what they were, merely burdens on the ratepayers. Unfortunately, the people he was speaking of constituted a very large class, of whom it might be said that, whenever they were not in the workhouse, they were in gaol; and he believed that until Parliament gave facilities to board out children, or to purchase and endow schools for the industrial training of pauper children, this unfortunate state of things would continue. There was another matter to which he should like to call the attention of the Committee, and that was the position of able-bodied women in the workhouses in Ireland. The Guardians had it in their power to separate fallen and abandoned women from those who were innocent and virtuous, and this was done in a number of workhouses, although it was neglected in others. Now, he said there was no reason why the Local Government Board should not insist upon the Boards of Guardians throughout the country carrying out the rule of separation; and he believed that if it were done it would at once put a stop to the demoralization amongst women which went on in certain workhouses in Ireland. He complained that the Local Government Board exercised their powers in a manner which was not conducive to the interests of the ratepayers, and which did not lead to the Boards of Guardians having any confidence in the Local Government Board. Let the Committee consider a case in connection with the Kinsale Workhouse which occurred a short time ago. It was proposed that nuns should be introduced into the workhouse for the purpose of taking charge of the hospital, and a resolution was unanimously carried by the Board of Guardians to that effect; but the Local Government Board refused to sanction the arrangement unless a separate building was erected for their accommodation outside the workhouse; though there was ample room within the building, as would be seen when he stated that the Kinsale Workhouse was built for 600 inmates and only contained 120 at present. He would like to know why one rule was made for the workhouse he was referring to, and another rule for the workhouse at Cork, where the nuns had been admitted and had given satisfaction to everyone? It was clear that the Local Government Board had no reason but an imaginary one for refusing to admit the nuns in the first case he had mentioned. He had had some experience himself of the powers of the Local Government Board; and he thought that the way in which they performed their duties generally, with regard to the Poor Law, was extremely objectionable. Further, he contended that some rules should be laid down both for the guid- ance of the Department, of Boards of Guardians, and of the Auditors, When some of the best men in the land were thrown into prison on suspicion by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), at that time Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, it was found necessary in some cases to relieve the families of many of those men; and resolutions were passed in the usual manner, at several Boards, authorizing the Guardians to give 15 s. or £1 a-week for that purpose. The Local Government Board had those resolutions before them; they never made any objection to them; they did not object to the amount of money voted, nor did they give the Guardians the slightest intimation that they were likely to be surcharged for any portion of the item of relief in question. But when the auditing of the accounts had taken place, the Guardians unexpectedly found themselves surcharged to a very considerable amount. In Cork Union the sum was not very large; but in Middleton Union the Chairman was surcharged to the amount of £44. A resolution was sent to the Local Government Board, asking that the influence of the Department might be used with the Auditors to have the surcharge remitted; but the Local Government Board answered that it was not in their power to influence the Auditor. He (Mr. Deasy) was surcharged for a small sum himself. He believed, then, that they had no influence with the Auditor; if he had known at first as much as he knew then, he would have allowed the Sheriff to proceed against him for the recovery of the money claimed. When all the Poor Law Guardians had paid the amount with which they had been surcharged, on account of the families of "suspects," the Local Government Board thought it expedient to exercise that power which before they had disclaimed, and they actually induced the Auditors not to surcharge certain gentlemen be-longing to the Orange Society on account of other matters. What had occurred in Cork Union was a case in point. A gentleman, a member of the Orange Lodge and well known to the hon. and gallant Member for the County of Cork (Colonel Colthurst), was surcharged for having given relief to persons who were not legally entitled to receive it; he knew at the time he gave the relief that it was given illegally; he knew that it was distinctly laid down as unlawful, and that the Auditors could surcharge him with the amounts. But the Local Government Board having interfered in his behalf, the surcharge was not enforced. Their action in reference to that affair showed that the statement that they had no control over the Auditor was not true. He would give another instance in support of his argument. Three Governors of the Cork District Lunatic Asylum were surcharged £33 by the Government Auditor, which they refused to pay; and, although the Middleton magistrates gave a decree for the amount, the surcharge was not enforced. Those gentlemen were, of course, Orangemen. He ventured to say that the Local Government Board would do well to lay down some rule for the guidance of Boards of Guardians in the administration of the rates, so that they might know when they were acting legally or otherwise. It was monstrous that the Local Government Board, which had the resolution of the Board of Guardians in question before them week after week, should have left those Guardians to act in an illegal manner, without informing them of the fact. If they had had any notion that the relief they were giving was illegal they would have adopted some other means; but the Local Government Board gave them not the slightest intimation that their action was illegal. There was another matter of great importance, and that was the way in which the pauper lunatics were treated in the lunatic wards in the workhouses in Ireland. He did not think any question more important, because of the helplessness of these people, could occupy the attention of the House. Harmless lunatics were invariably sent to the workhouses, and there was practically no provision made for them. There was a kind of classification; but it was not at all what it ought to be. The nurses knew nothing about the treatment of such people, and there were no doctors whose profession it was to attend them; and, on the whole, the chances of their recovery in these workhouse wards, to say nothing of comfort for them, were hopeless. In 1879, a Report was presented by, he believed, a Select Committee appointed by the late Conservative Government, which recommended that certain workhouses in certain districts should be set aside altogether for the treatment of these unfortunate people. There was no reason why that recommendation should not be carried out, because the workhouses in some parts of the country—Kinsale, for instance—were not filled to one-seventh, or even one-tenth of their capacity. If that plan was adopted, these poor people would be treated properly, and he had no doubt there would more cases of recovery than otherwise. It was one of the most disgraceful things conceivable that these people should not be properly treated, but should be huddled together with no proper provision being made for their treatment. This was a matter which he would ask the Chief Secretary to consider, for it was really one of great importance. He did not wish to say anything on the subject raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) as to cholera patients, except that it was of great importance that hospitals should be provided for them. In the City of Cork there was a hospital set aside for cholera patients should an epidemic break out; but that was not the case in Bandon and other places in the county, and should there be an epidemic in Ireland, no provision having been made for the treatment of the patients, results of a serious nature would follow. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would consider the few points he had ventured to place before the Committee, and particularly that with regard to the pauper lunatics. There were several other matters to which he would not now advert; but he could not avoid reference to the appointment of Inspectors under the Explosives Acts. The Boards of Guardians had to pay these Inspectors; but the Inspectors were appointed by the magistrates of Petty Sessions, who got one of their own friends to apply for the office, then appointed him, and no sooner was he appointed than they raised his salary; but the Guardians had to pay; and, should they refuse to do so, all the magistrates had to do was to make an order on the Treasurer of the Union, who should regard such an order as a first charge on the balance to the credit of the Guardians, and if there was no balance at the time the order was presented, he was bound to pay it out of the first monies received by him. He referred to this matter, because much irritation had been caused to the Cork Guardians by the manner in which these Inspectors had been appointed, and their salaries increased. They knew that this had been done in the interests of a class; and if the Local Government Board permitted the injustice to continue, they would forfeit altogether what little confidence the Irish people had in them. He did not wish it to be understood that he objected to the Local Government Board as a Central Controlling Authority. It was absolutely necessary to have some such Central Authority; but what he did object to was that in the last three or four years, particularly in Unions where Nationalist Guardians held the balance of power, the Local Government Board had increased their authority in an objectionable manner. He hoped the Government would lay down some rule which would check the action of the Department; if they did, they would find that the Boards of Guardians throughout the Southern counties, and particularly if the Election of Guardians Bill then before the House was passed, would do their duty fairly.

said, the remarks of the hon. Member (Mr. Deasy) were very interesting in several particulars, and not the least to him in the sentence with which the hon. Member concluded. Standing on the threshold of the discussion of this Bill, to which some little time had been devoted, he must earnestly express the hope that it would become an Act that Session; because if it did, not only would great benefits be conferred on the Irish people, but some of the most critical and intricate controversies to which allusion had been made would be closed once and for ever. The hon. Member had discussed at some length the questions started by other hon. Gentlemen; but towards the end of his speech he referred to the position of the Explosives Acts, and to the inefficient manner in which they were carried out. It was impossible for him to come provided with papers and statistics for all these points, and he had no time to inform himself as the discussion went on; but upon this point he remembered that the Local Government Board had considerable powers, and that complaints had frequently been made—in private, he must say—of the expensive character of the Inspectors under the Explosives Acts. He should be glad to receive hints from non. Gentlemen, and to confer with them either in private or in public; but the direction which recommendations lately made to him had taken was the control of the police in this matter. Whether that was the view of the hon. Member he should be curious to learn; but there were many hon. Members who were inclined to think it would, perhaps, be the most economical and the most efficient system. The hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. Moore), touching point after point which were afterwards filled in by the hon. and gallant Member for Cork County (Colonel Colthurst), argued against the present workhouse system, which he thought was too favourable to those persons who he considered ought not to be in workhouses at all, but should be supporting themselves by their own labour, and which, on the other hand, bore too hardly upon people who ought to be in the workhouses at the public expense. Idlers, he said, were allowed to frequent the workhouses; and, on the other hand, others who ought to be supported by the public on account of their infirmities were neglected. He could not, however, but think that the arrangements made were not far off the mark, and the proper mediums had been struck. The main principle upon which these workhouses were conducted, and the arrangement drawn up was, that idlers who could support themselves by sound labour should be deterred from applying for relief to the workhouses, by the restrictions imposed. These restrictions must be uniform. If there was to be a real test of whether a person should or should not be supported by the public, it must be a uniform test; and a uniform test would always admit some persons who ought not to be admitted, and, at the same time, perhaps, bear a little hard on others who deserved better treatment; but he thought it was not yet proved that the workhouses of Ireland, any more than those of England, encouraged a great number of idlers to throw themselves on the public charge; or, on the other hand, that the personal discomforts and vexations of being supported in the workhouse were of such a character as to bear hardly on persons who were pauper inmates. The hon. Member referred to the lunatic wards, and in that respect undoubtedly it would be well if some remedy could be applied. It was a most painful sight to see these unfortunate people collected in small bodies—with the air of depression which such persons usually bore—where they were a small isolated section of the larger body, the great majority of whom were sane. The lunatics were few, and were probably in the charge of persons who were not professionally acquainted with the manner in which they ought to be treated, and their condition was certainly hopeless and distressing. With regard to the pauper children, the same remarks applied, and, to a certain extent, in many cases, must apply necessarily, and in this case it was yet more painful. It was a sad sight to see 8 or 10, or 15, or 20 poor little children being taught with few of those appliances which could be obtained in larger establishments. Their number, and the distressing character of their condition were, no doubt, painful. In this case, and in the case of the lunatics, it would be better if they could in the one case adopt the English system, and have large workhouse schools; while in the case of the lunatics it was well worth considering whether they could be congregated in a central workhouse. But it must be allowed that in all these cases the consideration came in that the contributions of the Treasury were rigorously applied, and that every alteration of system in the direction of a more pleasant life, and more efficient training, and more healthy maintenance was liable to cost money, and they must be very careful that in their desire to obey the dictates of philanthropy, they did not put on the ratepayers a burden which people who had a right to be represented might be unwilling to adopt. The hon. Member had spoken of the inferior class of teachers in the Irish workhouses; but unfortunately the supply of qualified teachers had long been very deficient in Ireland. It was most distressing in the elementary schools to see how few of the teachers at that moment really had such qualifications as would be considered necessary in England, and even, perhaps, in Scotland; but upon that point the Government had clean hands, because the real prime cause of this depression in Irish education was the want of training. The causes of that want of training were well known to all Irish Members, and those causes the Government had done their very best to remove. As time went on, he thought the steps that had been taken would cause an improvement, and they might hope that after the elementary schools had been supplied the Standard might go on improving lower down the scale, and the workhouses might get supplied with better teachers. But the hon. Member likewise spoke of the industrial training, and on that point he charged the Local Government Board with not having furthered it. The Board might not, perhaps, have done all in their power to further it; but they had not prevented the Guardians in any case from establishing industrial training. He was unwilling to anticipate whatever discussion there might be on the Vote for Industrial Schools; but the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) had spoken of the extreme parsimony of the Government for a good many years past, in refusing to allow more industrial schools to be started in Ireland. The hon. and gallant Member was well aware that the parsimony he complained of had not resulted in Ireland being ill-used, as compared with the Sister Island, because in England and in Wales the proportion of money per head for industrial schools was only 3 to 1, as against the proportion in Ireland; whereas the proportion in population was, roughly speaking, twice as large, and more probably 6 to 1, as compared with Ireland. The hon. and gallant Member, as he understood him, proposed to largely relax the conditions under which children might be sent to industrial schools. That was a very serious question indeed. It would result, he could see, in industrial teaching, at the public expense, being extended over almost the whole of Ireland; and it was quite obvious that many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), would certainly have something to say about the great body of Irish children being educated on a system which, in England, was only applied to those who, from the unfortunate circumstances of their homes, had no chance of the least education. The hon. and gallant Member for Cork had said he would not inflict on the Committee a speech on Union rating if he (Mr. Trevelyan) would state what the views of the Government were on that subject—whether they proposed to make the Union Rating Bill a measure for encouraging indoor relief, and discouraging outdoor relief in Ireland; or whether they would adopt the English system of applying Union rating to every species of relief. He could see that it would be impossible to pass a Bill through Parliament for a limited and partial system of Union rating. In all questions in which the two countries could have their affairs managed on the same system, it was very important that the greatest possible amount of similarity should be aimed at. The Union Rating Bill in England, which was passed some 20 years ago, had been, on the whole, a very great success; and the tendency in England during those 20 years had certainly not been in the direction of excessive and dissolute outdoor relief, but rather the opposite; and he had no doubt that although by an artificial system of having Union rating for indoor relief, and divisional rating for outdoor relief, when once they should pass the Bill that would be a system he could not ask Parliament to adopt. The hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) had referred to a question upon which he had said something at Question time, and asked what measures were being taken by the Local Government Board to provide hospitals in case of cholera. In that matter there had been a good deal of activity, and the policy of the Local Government Board was this—they proposed first to rely upon the existing hospitals. Wherever fever hospitals existed they were of opinion that it would be well if the Guardians were to use them as cholera hospitals. Where no such hospital existed, or where it was inconveniently or dangerously placed, or where, by any evil chance, the cholera should fall upon Ireland severely, and the hospitals were over-filled, and room was wanting—with a view to that they had carefully examined what measures had been adopted in England. In England advice had in one case been given by the English Local Government Board in the shape of a Memorandum with regard to temporary hospital accommodation. That was, he believed, in the year 1876, and the advice given was that the authorities should resort to huts or tents. The Local Government Board for Ireland had been adopting measures for ascertaining where temporary hospitals might be most rapidly procured; and they had ascertained that one English firm had a sufficient number of tents in store. But they were anxious to have these temporary hospitals on the spot, and they had applied to an Irish firm for the plan of a hospital with the intention of at once furthering the provision of hospitals should they be needed. For immediate purposes he might state that the Government had in store 16 Constabulary huts at Phœnix Park, which had been inspected by Inspector Mackay, and he had found them admirably suited for temporary hospitals. They would accommodate five patients each, and could be erected in a few hours. The Government proposed to hold them at the disposal of any Sanitary Authority that might require then, and they would be willing to leave the question of payment to arbitration; but he would see that this most necessary service was pushed forward quickly, because he quite agreed with the hon. and gallant Member that when troubles arose, whether through the inroad of disease, or war, or famine, the difference was very great between having provision actually made and the question settled of authority and responsibility for the arrangements made, and these things not being settled. Going back to the question with which this discussion commenced, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) made some general observations as to the conduct of permanent officials in Ireland. He did not acknowledge the justice of those observations, because he doubted whether the hon. Member could find a case resembling that which they had been now discussing, in which any Government, English, Scotch, or Irish, had acted with more decision than the Irish Government had in the case referred to. He did not know what measure of public spirit his hon. Friend had; but he thought he was present when he de-scribed the action of the Irish Government in that case as an earnest of what they would do in similar cases, and he should be very much surprised if the hon. Member could pick any hole in the action of the Irish Government in that matter. The hon. Member said that when an allegation was made two days would be sufficient to settle the matter. The hon. Member had not studied the case sufficiently; he had not paid sufficient attention to the great principle that no man should be condemned untried. The Executive had not had the opportunity yet of writing to Mr. Elliott, to ask him what colour he placed upon the charge. Till the Board had had its meeting, and until the Executive got a reply from them, they would not have that opportunity, because his (Mr. Trevelyan's) recollection of the matter was that the first official intelligence they had that anything that could be construed into defalcations had existed was contained in the answer which the Board of Blackrook Commissioners returned to their first letter, and it was immediately on the heels of that answer that they sent their second letter, to which the Board must return a reply after their next meeting.

What is the date of that letter?

said, he had not got the papers with him; he was not aware the subject was going to be started. But the letters of the Executive, whenever they were written, were written very soon after the communication was received from the Blackrock Commissioners. As he had already stated, the Blackrock Commissioners had been exceedingly sluggish, and, consequently, in the last resort, he should propose that the matter be dealt with by two independent bodies. However, as a practical result of this discussion, he was perfectly prepared to accept the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) to defer the Report. The hon. Gentleman had done much good by comparing the Estimates of the one country with those of the other, and he (Mr. Trevelyan) would be extremely glad if his hon. Friend could, on some future occasion, give them his ideas as to whether a Public Office was better managed by a Board or by a Permanent Secretary. But when the hon. Gentleman spoke of the salary of the Vice President, he (Mr. Trevelyan) must own that Mr. Robinson's responsibilities and duties were not more than adequately represented by a salary of £2,000 a-year. It must be borne in mind that in the English Local Government Board there were two Parliamentary officers who had nothing to do except to look after that Board. In the Local Government Board in Ireland there was only one Parliamentary official, and he was the Chief Secretary; and it was pretty plain that an official who had to be for the best part of seven months in each year in constant attendance in Parliament at Westminster, occupied with the business of many different Departments, and with an amount of what might be called Home Office Business that alone would be enough to keep a Minister actively employed, would not in any sense be able to undertake the duties of a Permanent Supervisor of a Department. Under those circumstances, he could not say that the Vice President of the Local Government Board was at all overpaid. His hon. Friend spoke of the very large expenditure on medical relief, and he (Mr. Trevelyan) did not think that the answer of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) covered the whole ground. The hon. and gallant Member for Galway put it down to the great territorial size of Ireland as compared with her population. That made some difference, no doubt; but he (Mr. Trevelyan) should say that the difference in the expenditure on medical relief in the two countries was due in great measure to the different habits of the English and Irish populations. The dependence of the Irish people upon medical relief provided by the public went undoubtedly in very much higher classes, and was very much more general, than in England, and was at least one main cause of the very great proportionate expenditure upon medical relief. An indication of that was the difference in the position which was occupied by the public dispenser in England and that occupied by the public dispenser in Ireland. The dispenser in Ireland depended to a great extent upon a public salary; but in England he depended chiefly upon his private practice. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) referred to several cases of elections in which he considered the Local Government Board had not acted justly. Now, the Local Government Board was extremely anxious to be relieved of its functions in regard to elections. Some 80 or 90 contested elections were brought to be tried and supervised by the Local Government Board every year. The duty was one that was extremely invidious and extremely difficult to perform, and he should be only too glad if it could be transferred by the Bill, which had now gone to "another place," to a tribunal which was well fitted to examine into the questions at issue. But he was bound to say that whenever a Question had been asked in the House with regard to the position of the Local Government Board respecting a contested Poor Law election, he had always gone into the case, and he had generally found that this idea governed the decisions of the Board—that as little as possible should be done to disturb the result of elections unless what had taken place was of a nature to falsify the elections. The Board were of opinion that defects of technical legality should not be pressed too hard unless there was some reason to believe they occurred of malice aforethought, or unless the result of the elections was affected by them. He could not say he had found any case in which the Returning Officer was seriously to blame in which he was not reprimanded, in one case he was even dismissed; and he had not known any case in which an election was turned by illegality. He could not expect hon. Gentlemen to agree with the judgment of the Board in all the cases; but the Board had performed their duty to the best of their ability. He earnestly hoped this would be the last year the Board would have to decide election disputes. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) spoke of the Gweedore evictions. He should not follow the hon. Gentleman into that part of his speech in which he referred to the relations between the landlord and the tenants. He did not want to enter into controversial questions, which were not essential to the Vote; but with regard to the conduct of the relieving officer, and the conduct of the Local Government Board, he had a word to say. The hon. Member said that the evictions took place on the 1st or the 2nd of July, but that the relieving officer did not transfer the people to the workhouse until a good many days had passed. The relieving officer was specially sent by the direction of the Board of Guardians on Saturday, the 5th of July. Up to that time he conceived that he was performing his duty by remaining at home, ready to be sent over in case he was wanted; and, in so doing, he (Mr. Trevelyan) was informed he was acting strictly legally. The relieving officer had been long resident in the district, he knew well the circumstances of the people, and he was not out of sympathy with the people. The character given him by those who knew him locally, including, he (Mr. Trevelyan) was informed, the Catholic clergy of the parish, was that he was a kindly and honest man, and was upright and generous in his dealings with the people. The Local Government Board were alive to what was going on; from the very first they were in correspondence with the relieving officer, reminding him of the great responsibility he would incur by any neglect of duty. They sent an Inspector down to the locality to make a special Report, and they reminded the Guardians of their power to give out-door relief; but at that point the powers of the Local Government Board ceased. The Local Government Board, as the hon. Gentlemen well knew, had no power whatever to order outdoor relief in a particular case. Well, on Saturday, the 5th of July, the relieving officer was directed by the Guardians to proceed without delay to the scene of the evictions, and to afford, at his own instance, provisional relief, either in or out of the workhouse, according to the circumstances of each case. He went accordingly, and offered meal in one case where he thought it was immediately wanted, and he offered to provide conveyances to the workhouse. The latter offer was refused by all the people.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give the date the officer visited the place?

It was the 5th of July.

He got the order on the 5th; did he go the same day?

said, the relieving officer went on the day that he got the order. The offer to provide conveyances to the workhouse was refused—that was to the best of his (Mr. Trevelyan's) belief.

said, that the orders of Boards of Guardians were not given to relieving officers until after their meetings.

said, the 5th of July was a long day; but he would not absolutely say the relieving officer visited the scene on the day he got the order; but, at any rate, it was not on the Monday he went. The relieving officer offered to take the people to the workhouse; but his offer was declined by the people, who were evidently acting under the advice of Father M'Faddy, Who said they were all to go in together; and on the Monday following 141 did go into the workhouse, conveyances being provided for them by the priest, though the relieving officer would have provided them if application had been made to him. Then, with regard to no women or children having been allowed to go to the workhouse unless the father of the family went with them, on that point no complaint had hitherto been made to him. He saw, from the Report, that of the persons who went to the workhouse, 72 had been amongst those evicted on the Gweedore estate, and the remainder were the wives and children of tenants on neighbouring estates, who had been evicted, but reinstated as caretakers; so there could not have been a general system forbidding wives and children to go to the workhouse unless the husbands and fathers went in also. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) spoke on the subject of the Labourers' Act, with regard to which he was interrupted once by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers), and once by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate). The hon. Member for Galway accepted the interruptions in a very cheerful spirit, and he said nothing from that moment forward to which anybody could take exception. But he (Mr. Trevelyan) could not help thinking that the general sense of the Committee would be with the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Newdegate) who appealed to the Chairman; because, when a Committee was sitting upstairs, it was altogether out of reason that the evidence should be the subject of comment in the House. The hon. Member (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) was so ingenious, however, that, though he was obliged to obey the ruling of the Chair, he was not at all disconcerted, but was able to put forward his opinions and views on other grounds than on the evidence of the Committee sitting upstairs. The hon. Gentleman asked him several questions—for instance, whether any houses had been built under the Labourers' Act; and whether any Boards of Guardians had objected to burden their ratepayers in the matter? He (Mr. Trevelyan) was not aware that any houses had been built; but he did not think that, under the schemes which were being put forward, any houses could very well have been built by this time. It was only in the latter part of the Session that the Provisional Orders were passed; besides, it was extremely unlikely that, with a Committee now sitting, and with further legislation so freely talked of by hon. Members, the present Bill would be put into any very active use. And when he was asked whether any Boards of Guardians had objected to burden their ratepayers, he should be inclined to think it was extremely probable that they had objected. The very principle of the Bill introduced by the hon. Member himself was that pressure should be imposed upon Boards of Guardians from the outside, and that they themselves should have the power to say whether they would burden the rates by building houses. The hon. Member required from him (Mr. Trevelyan) two pledges, neither of which he was able to give. The first pledge was that the Committee now sitting should report this year. On that point he had no power whatever. It was for the Committee themselves to say how much evidence they wished to take, how long they wished to sit; and it would be impertinent in him even to express a wish on the subject. The next pledge was that the Government should, in the Autumn Session, bring forward an amending Bill. On that rested a question of extreme gravity; a question which could only be settled by an appeal to the Prime Minister, and upon which he (Mr. Trevelyan) would not have the courage to express any opinion. He knew that the idea of the Prime Minister was that the Autumn Session should be devoted exclusively to the Representation of the People Bill. One hon. Member mentioned his desire that the Local Government Board should interfere to see that the children in workhouses received the advantages of a religious education. At that moment a question was impending with the Donegal Board of Guardians, with regard to which he (Mr. Trevelyan) was extremely anxious. A controversy had arisen between the Local Government Board and the Donegal Board of Guardians, and he was bound to say there had been faults on both sides; but the difficulty occasioned at present appeared to lie with the Board of Guardians. The Local Government Board had made up their minds to settle the question; and, in the course of the next week, he had no doubt that settled it would be. He was quite certain that they never could permanently allow the children of the poor people in workhouses to be deprived of religious instruction and consolation. Having done his best to deal with the different points which had been started by hon. Members during the discussion, he earnestly hoped they would now be allowed to take the Vote.

said, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had exhibited great patience and care in going through the many subjects which had been referred to by different Members of the Committee; and he did not intend to reward the right hon. Gentleman's patience by putting the Committee to the trouble of a Division, especially as his hon. Friends sitting on the Irish Benches opposite did not think it wise to do so. He desired, however, before he asked leave to withdraw his Amendment, to thank the Chief Secretary for the pointed way in which he alluded to the condition of lunatics. Of course, he considered the condition of the children was of paramount importance; but he was pleased to find the right hon. Gentleman took a deep interest in the condition of the lunatics. Speaking of the children, the Chief Secretary alluded to the fact that he (Mr. Moore) had said there were 42 unclassed teachers; and the right hon. Gentleman stated that that was owing to the absence of training schools, a defect which the present Government were taking means to remedy. But that did not meet the case at all, because none of the teachers, roughly speaking, were trained. He should be sorry to terminate any of the appointments already made; but what he complained of was that the Local Government Board sanctioned the appointment of any unclassed teachers. Another point upon which he laid stress was that there was a clashing of authority; that the Local Government Board Inspector came down to the schools with certain powers, and then the Inspector of the Education Department came down with other powers, and as a consequence the education of the children suffered. The two points he had mentioned were points of administration with which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary might very properly deal, with a view to an improved state of things. There was only one more remark he wished to make, and that was that nothing that hon. Members opposite could say could increase his desire to keep down undue expenditure. He had always been a consistent advocate of economy, and he anticipated that, by a wise reform, or modification of the existing system, a very large saving would accrue. He believed that some workhouses might be wholly closed, or only kept open so far as they were required for sanitary purposes. He asked leave to withdraw his Amendment.

said, he did not wish to travel over the ground that had been so fairly and exhaustively covered by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary; but he desired to make a few remarks with regard to the observations of the hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. Moore). The opinion of Irish Members was not absolutely unanimous on some of the questions the hon. Gentleman had referred to. For instance, he could not agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be an advantage to the educational training of children in work-houses that the duties of inspection should be delegated to the ordinary Poor Law Inspectors. In the first place, the technical knowledge which Poor Law Inspectors had to acquire to enable them to discharge their Poor Law duties was altogether different to that technical knowledge which they should possess to fit them for Inspectors of Schools. It would be a distinct disadvantage, in his opinion, to the education imparted in workhouse schools if the duty of inspecting those schools were taken out of the hands of the Inspectors of National Education in the country. His idea was that the best means of improving the education of children in workhouse schools was to subject them to the same system of inspection as the children of ordinary schools were subjected to. A Poor Law Inspector, from his very position, knew nothing of the system and method of primary education which necessarily must be present to the mind of the man who came into contact with children for the purposes of education. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had referred in a very detailed manner to the administration of the Local Government Board. The details rather surprised him (Mr. Harrington), because he knew that government by the Local Government Board was perhaps the most intricate problem in Ireland, and he could conceive the difficulties anyone who had the management of the Department must experience. Now, there was one point connected with the operation of the Labourers' Act to which he wished to draw special attention. The 10th section of that Act provided that where a representation was made to a Sanitary Authority, the Sanitary Authority was to report forthwith to the Local Government Board, and they must see whether the Sanitary Authority had devised a scheme under that representation to put the Labourers' Act into operation; in other words, if the local Sanitary Authority refused to put the Act into operation, the Local Government Board were empowered by this section to do so. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had admitted that there were numerous instances where the Boards of Guardians had refused to put the Act into operation. Could the right hon. Gentleman give the Committee a single case where the Local Government Board had used the powers which the 10th section of the Act gave them—namely, to call upon the Sanitary Authority to devise a scheme, or themselves devised a scheme, by which the Act should be put in force? He (Mr. Harrington) had watched the operation of the Act pretty carefully, and he had found that whatever had been done under the Act to improve the dwellings of the labourers had been due altogether to the willingness of the majority of the ratepayers, or to the action of the Boards of Guardians, in which the elected Guardians had been in the ascendancy. He had failed to find a single instance in which the Local Government Board had endeavoured to give effect to the 10th section of the Act by stepping in and compelling the Local Authorities to devise a scheme. Now, from the observations of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), it was evident that the Act had had no operation at all in two of the Provinces of Ireland. Only two efforts had been made to put the Act in operation in Connaught, where the condition of the people most required it. He believed that not a single scheme had been devised by the Boards of Guardians in what was called "the loyal Province of Ulster," "the Conservative Province of Ulster." The labouring classes in that Province were as badly housed as those in any other Province. In respect to the two Provinces in which no effort had been made by the Local Authorities to give effect to the Act, it was worth the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary whether the Local Government Board, over which he presided, should not themselves put the Act into operation.

said, he did not propose to enter into any of the purely Irish questions which had been discussed.

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

said, he had no intention of entering into the comparison between the work of the Local Government Board in Ireland and England, with which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) had threatened them. There was, however, one item in the Vote to which he desired to call attention—namely, the item for the pay of Inspectors. It amounted to £2,100, and what struck him was the small amount of work which appeared to be done by the Inspectors for their salaries. Their labours appeared to be confined to the neighbourhood of the Parks, and the item was exactly the same as it was in the previous year. It was made up of the personal expenses of six Inspectors at £1 1 s. a-day for 163 days, and the personal expenses of seven Sub-Inspectors at the same rate; but although there were 313 working days in the year, these officers appeared to have been employed in one case for 166 days, and in the other for only 143. He did not know what the explanation was, and it might be that they were only paid when they were actually employed. It certainly appeared that there were more Inspectors than were absolutely necessary, or else they did not perform half work enough.

said, the Inspectors received a guinea a-day when they were employed on the work of inspection.

wished to ask the Chief Secretary if there were any Unions in Ireland in which Vice Guardians were employed? He would also ask him what the intention of the Government was with regard to the Union of Newport, in the County Mayo? For a long time this district had been subjected to heavy rates, at which the greatest dissatisfaction was expressed, as they were paying no less than 4 s. 6 d. in the pound. They had passed a resolution to the effect that they were totally unable to pay 4 s. 6 d. in the pound, and they had recommended that there should be an amalgamation between them and the Westport or Belmullet Union in order to lessen these high and grievous expenses. The poor people had resolved that they would pay no higher rate than 2 s. in the pound. That, however, he thought, would be a foolish step for them to take, as they subjected themselves to political disability, and deprived themselves of their votes. If they wanted not to pay so much, it would be much more preferable that they should come to a resolution to decline to pay county cess, because it would be better to strike against a tax which did not entail the loss of the vote or any political disability. Non-payment of the poor rate did, of course, involve political disability. The Local Government Board had held an inquiry into the case, which had been adjourned to the 7th of August; but he did not see why three weeks should be taken up by Mr. Robinson, the Inspector, in this way. The valuation of the entire district was only £14,000, and it was absolutely absurd that there should be such charges made for such a poor district. He trusted that they would have some assurance from the Chief Secretary that the Government were willing to concur with some scheme of amalgamation of Unions which would relieve the people. He was entirely opposed to the present system for the management of the Poor Law districts in Ireland, although he admitted that there might be a difficulty in regard to the medical authorities. He did not think, however, that the difficulty was an insuperable one; and where they had dispensary districts they could, by an arrangement in regard to the staff of doctors, obviate much of the evil. He also wished to ask a question with regard to the Donegal Union, and he certainly thought that the Chief Secretary had not dealt with the Guardians of that Union as he would have done if it had been a Union further South. The Catholic clergyman was still divorced from his flock, because the Guardians would not comply with the suggestions of the Chief Secretary, and had chosen to get rid of every Catholic official who had been connected with the administration of the affairs of the Union. He had raised the question last year, and was sorry to find that no progress had been made in the matter since. The Guardians were still recalcitrant. It was unjust that, because the Guardians were almost all Protestants or Presbyterians, the paupers, who were almost entirely Catholics, should be shut off from the administrations of their clergy. In the case of the old sick poor this was peculiarly unjust. In the case of the old sick, who were on the verge of the grave, they found themselves shut out from the consolations of their religion. Even in England, where the religious grievance could hardly be realized because it was practically non-existent, any distinction of this kind would be held to be an intolerable grievance. It might be said that the young people were able to attend the Catholic churches in the towns; but in the event of being attacked with small-pox, scarlatina, or any of the complaints to which children were subject, they were cut off from the ministrations of the priest. He asked the Chief Secretary to deal with the Boards of Guardians in the North of Ireland as he had done with the Union of Carrick-on-Suir in the South. Why had not the Guardians of the Donegal Union been dealt with in the same manner? If a similar defiance of the regulations of the Local Government Board had occurred anywhere else, the Chief Secretary would have suspended the Guardians from the exercise of their functions, and appointed Vice Guardians. It was monstrous that hundreds of these unfortunate paupers professing the Roman Catholic faith were allowed to die without Christian ministration simply because they were paupers. In Ireland, where religion was strong, there was a very widespread feeling on the subject, and he trusted that the Committee would have some statement from the Chief Secretary that would be satisfactory, instead of being put off again with promises never in-tended to be performed. For more than 12 months this kind of thing had been going on, and the Irish Members had been unable to obtain satisfaction. In England such a scandal would be settled immediately. Time after time they had been told that the question was on the verge of settlement, but it had not been settled yet. So dogged were the gentlemen who officiated as Guardians in the Donegal Union in their religious prejudices that they would defer dealing with the question until they were absolutely driven to do so. Unless there was something in the shape of a menace from the Government, he did not believe for a moment that the Guardians would consent to come to terms. He hoped to hear from the Chief Secretary some statement as to the nature of the steps which the Local Government Board intended to take.

said, the Chief Secretary in the course of his speech had touched upon various important subjects, and one of the matters which had been alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman was of special importance at the present moment—namely, the provisions which the Local Government had made or were making in view of the contingency of a possible outbreak of cholera in Ireland? He was aware that this was a subject to which the right hon. Gentleman and the Vice President of the Local Government Board should have their attention directed to; and he would ask if they were alive to the responsibility, and were prepared to accept it? There was no reason to assume that the United Kingdom would escape a visitation of this kind, for the history of previous epidemics pointed to the almost certainty of the disease visiting these shores in a more or less virulent form. It might not be at first in the most virulent form; but, judging from past experience, the visitation next year would be much more serious and severe. The right hon. Gentleman had told them what provision was intended to be made in regard to the hospitals, and so on; but there was one highly essential precaution which ought to be taken. He believed that it would be necessary to make a regular revolution in the present system of cleansing and scavenging. Cholera was essentially a disease which became dangerous and even fatal wherever filth existed, and he was of opinion that every precaution should be taken to insure cleanliness, for where that was done there was little to fear from the disease. Cleansing and scavenging, to be efficacious, required time; and he believed that no time should be lost in taking measures to prevent the disease from spreading. So far as medical assistance was concerned, it could not be necessary until the very moment of the attack and visitation; but it was very different with scavenging, cleansing, and disinfection, which, although very humble methods of prevention, were, perhaps, the most efficacious, although they undoubtedly took up the most time. He did not gather from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that he had in his mind the propriety of urging upon the Local Government Board the necessity of making these regulations. It was all very well to tell them that he had in view preparations which would be available when the visitation came; but it was desirable to do a great deal more. A fortnight ago, he had asked the right hon. Gentleman under what circumstances the Local Government Board would feel themselves called upon to issue an Order, and he was told that it would be issued under the provisions of the 149th section of the Irish Act. Yesterday, the Chief Secretary repeated something to the same effect. He thought it was time the Local Government Board told them distinctly what the nature of the arrangements was. All the Continental cities had taken precautions; and even America, which was 3,000 miles away from any centre of the contagion, had made preparations to prevent its inroads. Probably they would be told that the Local Government Board were fully alive to the necessities of the case; but that they would refrain as long as possible from issuing their Orders, for fear of producing a panic. Now, he did not believe in any person dying of panic, and nothing effective would be done until the Local Government Board issued a sealed Order. If there were any persons who were likely to die of panic, he did not think it of much importance whether they lived or died. He would urge on the right hon. Gentleman himself not to be panic-stricken in regard to the effect of panic on other people. It was his duty, and that of the Local Government Board, to take timely precautions, and to issue Orders at once under which the Sanitary Authorities would be able to act. Scavenging and cleansing could not be accomplished in a moment, and after the Orders were issued weeks and months would elapse before their cities could be thoroughly purified and cleansed, and justify the people in regarding the approach of the disease with comparative equanimity. Scavenging and cleansing could not be carried on without great danger if the disease were actually to visit these shores, as it would be in that case a most serious thing to stir up the festering accumulations of filth which were known to exist. What would be thought of anyone stirring up the mud of the Thames, or the accumulations of refuse in the back yards, if the disease were actually amongst them? Everyone who had a nose had palpable evidence that the streets of London required effective cleansing. He would urge upon the right hon. Gentleman the necessity of taking timely precautions in this matter. He should remember that, if the case of cholera which had been discovered in the Mersey the other day had been introduced into Liverpool, the disease would have been in Dublin within three days. He did not believe there was the least danger of the people becoming panic-stricken if the necessary Order was made by the Local Government Board to have steps taken to institute precautionary measures. It would be folly to defer their action until cholera was actually in their midst. If the provisions of the Public Health Act were to have any effect at all, now was the time for putting them in force. The Irish people would prefer having their streets cleansed under a sealed Order rather than having them left in a state of filth. He considered this a matter of enormous importance. The right hon. Gentleman had alluded to an Act passed last year which materially affected Ireland, the object of the Act being to concentrate the responsibility in a single Sanitary Authority. In the peculiar conditions of Irish law, up to last year the duty in one district would be divided between the two Sanitary Authorities; but the Act of last year enabled the Local Government Board to concentrate the authority in the hands of one Body, and so far the measure was a useful one. Unless the evil he would point out was mitigated, the Act would be found inoperative. The authorities called on in the urban districts in Ireland to carry out the special provisions which might be made whenever the Local Government Board mustered up courage enough to issue a sealed Order were the Poor Law Guardians. The duty of carrying out the work was vested in that Body, even in Dublin City, and the financial effect of that was, that the expense was divided between the owners and the occupiers, as all Poor Law charges were in Ireland. The Act of last year enabled the responsibility to be handed over to the Urban Sanitary Authority, which in ordinary cases was, of course, the Corporation. The taxes payable to the Corporation were payable solely by the occupiers, so that the financial result would be that, if the Local Government Board availed themselves of the Act of last Session, they would take the cost, so far as one-half was concerned, from the shoulders of the owner, who was certainly best able to bear it, and whose life, in his own opinion at any rate, was more valuable than that of the poor occupier, and to transfer it to the shoulders of the occupier solely, who might be presumed, in most cases, to be the poorer man, and less able to bear a sudden impost, and less likely to submit to it with willingness. Now, that was an effect which he believed was not contemplated by the Act. He was not quite certain that the Local Government Board had any power in the matter; but if the Urban Sanitary Authorities, or any of them, were to be selected to undertake this grave responsibility, a responsibility which would probably bring on them, under any circumstances, a great amount of odium, and nothing else, they might also be saddled with the responsibility of transferring to the occupier liabilities which the occupier would not otherwise incur. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to give his consideration to this matter, or else he might find that, when the rules came to be enforced, they would all be dislocated by the financial difficulty that so often cropped up. With regard to the Labourers' Act, he (Mr. Gray) quite recognized the difficulty, and, in fact, the inexpediency, of generally discussing the subject pending the Report of the Select Committee. He trusted that the Committee would see its way to reporting that Session; but he acknowledged that the right hon. Gentleman would not be justified in seeking to put any pressure upon that Body to express its opinion on the subject just now. It was suggested that, in consequence of the Act not having been put into effective ope- ration either in Connaught or in Ulster, it might be the duty of the Local Government Board to exercise the powers conferred upon them by Section 10, and to endeavour to force, to a certain extent, the putting of the Act into operation in extreme cases. Of course, the Local Government Board might consider it their duty to act in that way; but he, for one, must dissent from the opinion of his hon. Friends to this extent—that he believed they would be only justified in taking action of that kind in extreme cases. He thought it would be very much better for the interests of the labourers, and the success of the Act in the end, that the local Representative Bodies should be permitted to take the initiative. He did not believe in spurring on Local Bodies too energetically. He thought that where a Body was really representative of its constituency it was the best judge, and it was even better to let it make a mistake, and allow experience to put it right, than to suppress it and put matters in such a state that they would go back to their former position. The true remedy against the apathy, and even the hostility, which characterized a certain number of Boards of Guardians in Ireland was to make them more representative of the people. As his hon. Frend had pointed out, wherever the elected Guardians had a majority on the Board, wherever really the popular party had had the preponderance of votes upon the Board, they had shown their willingness to carry out the Act; and it was only where the ex officio element, or the sympathizers with that element, had been too strong for the truly local element, that the Act had been rendered nugatory. He thought that the remedy for that was to strengthen the representative element on the Boards. They knew that the Labourers' Act was in its very essence a Sanitary Act. How was it that sanitary matters had attracted, during the last 10 or 15 years, such an enormously increasing amount of attention in England? Why, it had only been since the time when Parliament had vested in the householders of cities and boroughs the franchise that those higher up in the social scale, statesmen and others, had found the necessity of directing their attention practically to sanitary matters. It was the last Reform Act which, by giving the people power in this country, had really brought about the important and valuable legislation which they had had in recent years in connection with all sanitary matters. Now, if in the same way in Ireland they gave the people more power on their local Representative Boards, they would insure their awaking in a very short time to the necessity for sanitary reforms, even to the extent of putting into operation the Labourers' Act. That would be a healthy, whole-some, and natural movement. But the Local Government Board in Ireland did not command the entire confidence of the Irish people, and pressure from that Board might have a deleterious effect. As he was on the sanitary question, he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the fact that, while he deprecated any pressure from the Local Government Board in this respect, he thought that Board could do a great deal to instruct and encourage the local Sanitary Authorities, whether Corporations, or Boards, or Poor Law Guardians, in their duties under the sanitary laws. Now, the Local Government Board in England was ceaseless in its efforts in this direction; but the Local Government Board in Ireland never did anything at all. The Local Government Board in England, immediately after the passing of the Public Health Act of 1875, set to work in the most careful manner, and, under the highest possible professional advice, drafted a series of model Poor Laws, circulated them amongst the Sanitary Authorities, and got them to adopt them with such modifications as might be required in certain localities. The Local Government Board in Ireland had done nothing of the kind. Not only had the Local Government Board in England issued a set of bye-laws, but after a certain number of years they had issued a revised and more valuable set. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant whether the Local Government Board of Ireland would do anything to stimulate the Local Bodies in a legitimate way to a more healthy and vigorous action. The Sanitary Authorities in Dublin had adopted a set of bye-laws framed on the English model; but they got in the matter no assistance whatever from the Local Government Board, and that Board would not, even when they were framed, adopt them as a model and see how they could be applied to all the other Sanitary Authorities of Ireland. He had put a Question on this matter to the right hon. Gentleman, and the right hon. Gentleman had informed him vaguely that the Local Government Board of Ireland did not see the necessity for the bye-laws. He (Mr. Gray) failed to see why the Local Government Board in Ireland ought not to be as zealous in instructing and encouraging the local Sanitary Authorities, who naturally could not be expected to be informed on these subjects—why they should not, in fact, become as much interested in their work as did the officials of the Local Government Board in England. Possibly the secret of it was to be found in the fact alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman in connection with an observation which he made as to the salary of the Vice President of the Local Government Board. He (Mr. Gray) respectfully agreed with him, that in the case of an official occupying so responsible a post as Mr. Robinson, and performing his duties on the whole so well, he was not too highly paid by a salary of £2,000 a-year. He did not think they could get a good man to do the work for much less. In England, the Local Government Board was represented by two Parliamentary officers, one of them a Minister of Cabinet rank. The right hon. Gentleman, in the speech he had made, touching on a variety of subjects, had shown a marvellous amount of industry and a splendid memory; but no sane man could expect that the Chief Secretary could possibly make himself acquainted with all the details of the Local Government Board in Ireland in the manner in which the two Gentlemen who represented the English Local Government Board, and who were charged solely with those duties, and no others, could make themselves acquainted with the details of their Office. Compared with the enormous number of duties which the right hon. Gentleman had to discharge, his functions as President of the Local Government Board were merely nominal. All he could possibly be expected to do was to act as a species of funnel to submit to the House information which he received from the officials in Ireland. He was not like either of the English Representatives of the Department, who were responsible officials, and not merely nominal Heads, but Parliamentary Heads of the Office, able to answer Questions, and go into subjects from their own knowledge. He (Mr. Gray) was amazed at the amount of knowledge which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Trevelyan) had shown; but the right hon. Gentleman did not profess to have the same knowledge of the Department as the officials of the Local Government Board in England were legitimately expected to have, seeing that they were more responsible and had more knowledge in the matter. He wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the difficulty which sometimes arose in connection with the functions of auditors under the Local Government Board and local Representative Bodies in Ireland. The clauses of the Irish Act appointing them, and giving them their powers of surcharge, were not precisely the same as the corresponding clause of the English Act. Still, in substance they were the same. But he did not think that the Auditors in Ireland took as broad a view of their duties as did the Auditors in England. He knew that sometimes Local Bodies in Ireland had serious reason to complain that the Auditors inflicted upon them surcharges for money really bonâ fide expended in the interests of their constituents, and sometimes on public objects. He did not think that, in giving this power to surcharge, the object was that it should be used in a narrow, technical manner, and that the Auditors should have power to charge an individual doing an important public duty without any kind of fee or reward—that he should be really able to fine them if they stepped out of the technical limit of their powers, as they sometimes happened to do, for the public benefit, although the action was technically ultra vires. He would call attention to one case of surcharge, not important as to the amount, but very important as to principle—a case which occurred within the last few years in the Dublin Corporation. The Dublin Corporation had been in the habit of constantly sending deputations to England in connection with such matters as Royal marriages, Royal christenings, and Royal what-nots. Usually, the Lord Mayor and certain members of the Corporation came over, attended by the civic officers, to add éclat to the occasion. The custom was for the Lord Mayor, and the members of the Corporation who at- tended him, to pay their own expenses; but for the expenses of the civic officers to be paid out of the rates. That, he believed, was a common habit in England. The Local Government Board Auditor invariably allowed these expenses, thus showing that, in his opinion, they were legal expenses, and that it was within the discretion of the Local Body to spend the rates under their control for congratulating Her Majesty whenever any auspicious event occurred in connection with the Royal Family. Well, last year, a matter which, perhaps, some of the Irish people deemed to be of almost as much importance to them as the advent of a new Royal Infant, occurred in Ireland. An Exhibition, a National Exhibition, was opened in Cork for the purpose of seeking to encourage Irish local manufacturing enterprize and industry. It partook, in no sense, of a rebel or revolutionary character. The chief movers in it were strong Conservatives. All parties in Cork joined to make it a success; and it actually enjoyed the patronage and presence in bodily form of the Lord Lieutenant, which was an abundant guarantee of the useful and loyal character of the undertaking. Well, the Corporation of Dublin considered it their duty to encourage the Exhibition by all the means in their power; and they passed a resolution for the then Lord Mayor of Dublin to attend in state, and ordering the civic officers to accompany him. The Lord Mayor, as usual, paid his own expenses; but the expenses of the officers—their travelling expenses—were paid, by order of the Common Council, out of the funds of the Municipality. Twelve months afterwards, when the Auditor came to audit the accounts, he surcharged, not the individuals who had ordered the payment, but the persons who, by the routine of the service, had to sign the cheques. Now, what distinction was there in law between the Corporation sending their Lord Mayor and officers to England for the purpose of carrying an Address of sympathy or congratulation to the Royal Family, and their sending their officers to Cork for the purpose of attending the opening of a National Industrial Exhibition? Why, in the one case, were individuals to be made to pay out of their private purses, and, in the other, the ratepayers be held liable by the auditor? He would ask the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Irish Local Government Board to that particular point. He (Mr. Gray) had given the right hon. Gentleman briefly the facts of the case. As to the general system of audit, it would be worthy of the right hon. Gentleman's attention whether some improvement should not be made. The system both in England and Ireland was very extraordinary, but particularly so in Ireland. Resolutions were come to at one meeting, and were usually acted upon at the next. It saved time, and was the most convenient course. For instance, at a meeting of the Poor Law Guardians a number of payments would be ordered to be made to-day, and at the next meeting the formal operation of signing the cheques would be gone through. In the event of one unlawful payment being made, and the auditor surcharging it, it was not the individuals who ordered the payment to be made who were held liable, but the individuals who happened to go through the purely mechanical act of signing the cheque—individuals who might have had no connection whatever with the operation of ordering the payment. The Act said that the Auditor, under the circumstances, should be entitled to surcharge the illegal or improper payment on the person making or authorizing the illegal payment. If the payment were illegal, or such as should be surcharged, it was right to surcharge the person authorizing it; but the fact that the mechanical operation of signing a cheque rendered the person so signing liable to the surcharge struck him as something like an absurdity. He himself had known many cases in which individual members of a Corporation voted against a certain payment; in a week or a fortnight cheques in connection with that payment came up; they were signed in the ordinary routine, the resolution of the Corporation being thought to be a sufficient guarantee to those who signed them that the payments were justifiable; subsequently the Auditor surcharged the amount, and the persons who signed the cheques, although they might have been opposed on the Council to the illegal payment, had to pay the surcharge. This was an absurdity. Where thousands of cheques had to be signed, it would be impossible for the persons signing them to consider whether each payment authorized by the previous action of the Body was legal. Though the matter was a small one, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider it in order to see whether it could not be placed on a better footing. He did not deny that there might be legitimate surcharges; but where they existed, they should be enforced upon the proper individuals, because, as he had pointed out, at the present time they were very often put upon the wrong people. As to the Auditors and the Inspectors of the Local Government Board, he wished to mention to the right hon. Gentleman that he believed a great amount of dissatisfaction existed amongst officers of the Local Government Board in consequence of the way in which the prizes of the Office were frequently given away by the Heads of the Departments. Officers who had served long in any Department looked forward to promotion—to Inspectorships, or to Auditorships—as the rewards of their services; and when some outsider, comparatively ignorant of the work of the Department, without any kind of qualification except merely that of being a relative of this person, or the pet of that individual who might have influence, was pitchforked over the heads of those who were entitled to promotion from long and faithful services, the result was to discourage the officials of the Department. He did not wish to drag forward the names of individuals; but it would possibly be in the recollection of the right hon. Gentleman himself how many times during the last few years outsiders had been taken in and presented to lucrative offices, while competent individuals, who had been for considerable periods in the Service, had had their claims passed over. He did not make any complaint against the right hon. Gentleman, because he believed that under the late Government the system was, if anything, worse. He (Mr. Gray) did not see why, if they could find an efficient officer in the Department, they should go outside it to fill vacancies; and even if a man happened to be a captain, a colonel, or the relative of a Lord, he did not see why he should have £600 or £700 a-year presented to him for doing work in order to learn how to perform which it was necessary that he should have a man under him. There was another matter to which attention had been very frequently directed. It was a matter which did not affect the Chief Secretary so much as the Secretary to the Treasury; but he would call attention to it, although he had not the least hope that what he said would have any effect upon the hon. Gentleman. They would find in this Vote a considerable sum for the salaries of sanitary officers. By the Public Health Act of 1874, as well as he remembered, the Treasury, in order to encourage the appointment of sanitary officers, paid the Sanitary Authorities in Ireland—and he believed that the same thing was done in England—half the salaries of these persons; but, in consenting to do that, they inflicted what he considered to be a very great injustice upon those Sanitary Authorities, and he had already taken action for the purpose of bringing about sanitary improvement before it was compulsory upon them to do so. Prior to the passing of the Act of 1874, under the former Public Health Acts, it was open to the Sanitary Authorities to appoint sanitary medical officers, and a sanitary staff or not, as they thought fit. Some of them thought fit, but most of them did not. Now the Treasury, which, after the passing of the Act of 1874, had rendered these appointments compulsory on all Local Bodies, said—"We will give to those who, up to 1874, had neglected their duties and made no appointments, half the salaries of the new officers; but as an encouragement to those who did their duty, and did make appointments, we will offer no assistance whatever." That seemed to him very like punishing the ratepayers who did their duty, and rewarding those who neglected it. How could they expect that Local Authorities would put into effective operation their legislation if they treated them in this way? Was not natural that, under the circumstances, the Boards of Guardians should hang back, and say—" The Treasury will do the same in connection with the Labourers' Act as they are are doing in connection with the Public Health Act. We will wait and see what they do." These Bodies would say—"If we do not put into operation the provisions of the Act, in course of time we shall receive some assistance from the Treasury; whereas, if we do put the Act into operation, we shall have to bear the whole expense ourselves, and never receive any assistance." The action of the Government in this matter was certainly not just. And it did not seem to him (Mr. Gray) to be good policy. He could understand the Treasury even saying that in the lifetime of the individuals already appointed they would not make contributions to their salaries; but to say that for ever they would make this distinction between officers performing the same duties, and between similar Public Bodies—to say that they would pay a contribution of half the salaries to one set, where they neglected their duty, and refused to another, where they performed their duty, was to give a premium to sluggishness, and a punishment in perpetuity to the progressive districts in Ireland. The Government did not seem to have a defensible position; although he had no doubt the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would have some excellent reasons to give for maintaining the existing state of things. The system appeared to him (Mr. Gray) to be hardly compatible with justice or common sense; and certainly it tended to encourage Sanitary Authorities in future to refrain from doing what they should for the carrying out of the Labourers' Act. The right hon. Gentleman had alluded to the case of the man Elliott, of Blackrock, the collector of the South Dublin Union. The Chief Director had sought to justify the sluggishness of the Department in the case of Elliott by saying that they had been prompt in the case of Byrne. The authorities had been energetic in the case of Byrne, no doubt; but he hoped that in consequence of' that they would not stay their hands in the case of Elliott. He should be sorry to prosecute any man unless there was abundant reason for it; but he thought that the case of Elliott should certainly be dealt with on its merits; and, certainly, it did not seem to him to be desirable that a man who had carried on a system of fraud for years and years should be kept in the Public Service. The right hon. Gentleman, said that he had no official knowledge of the facts. But suppose it to be the case that Elliott had embezzled the money of a private employer; supposing that he did not occupy a position on a public Board, but had been the employé of a private individual, and had embezzled moneys belonging to him; how would the right hon. Gentleman arrive at official knowledge of the fact? Supposing the case were published in all the newspapers, and were made the subject of discussion for months. Would it not suggest itself to the right hon. Gentleman to make some inquiries concerning the individual, and to question the man himself? Would he not take that course in the case of one of his own servants? Would he not ask him what he had done with the money that was missing? Supposing anyone in that House had an employé against whom such a charge was made; would he not ascertain by the best means in his power what truth there was in that charge? Would not the simple way of obtaining information be either to write or to send to the man, asking whether it was a fact that he was short in his accounts? The employé would have to reply yea or nay. If this course were pursued in the case of Elliott, and if the latter said neither yes nor no, it would then be sufficiently manifest to the common sense of the right hon. Gentleman that the man was guilty. Everyone knew that he was guilty. It had been the subject of discussion on the Board day after day. The Board had taken his property. He had been under their vigilance day by day, and they estreated his belongings. Surely, this was not a man who ought to be allowed to remain in the Public Service, handling public money. The right hon. Gentleman did not seem to think that there was anything for him to do; but there was a simple thing for him to do. In the first place, he should cause a letter to be written to Mr. Elliott, as to an employé, asking for an explanation, and should give Mr. Elliott to understand that if he did not send one he would be dismissed from his office; but that, under any circumstances, in the meantime he would be suspended. Saying this much could not be attended with any kind of injustice or hardship. In connection with the Local Government Board Vote there was such a variety of topics, all of them of considerable interest and importance, that once he (Mr. Gray) had commenced, he found some difficulty in stopping. He thanked the Committee for the patient attention they had given to him.

said, that with regard to the last question mentioned by the hon. Member who had just sat down, he would remind the Chief Secretary of the answer which the Secretary to the Treasury had given to him (Mr. Dawson) as to the steps to be taken in the case of Mr. Elliott, because he was sorry to say that the Local Government Board would ride off on the excuse that the difficulties in the defalcations of Mr. Elliott were matters for the Sanitary Board, and not for the Local Government Board. He had asked what course they would pursue if they found a man in the Government employ, but in another capacity of a municipal kind, had been guilty of defalcations? He had asked how they would proceed; and the Secretary to the Treasury had told him that the Home Secretary would take cognizance of the matter in England. Well, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary stood, so far as Ireland was concerned, not only in the position of President of the Local Government Board, but also in the position of Secretary of State. He (Mr. Dawson) therefore maintained that he was bound, not only as Head Official of the Local Government Board, but as the Chief Secretary of State for Ireland, to take cognizance of Mr. Elliott's defalcation, and to institute, as a Secretary of State would do in England in the case of an English official, a full inquiry into the matter. Then, as to the Auditor, he begged to ask the Chief Secretary if he would give them, if not of his own knowledge, at least on the authority of the officials with whom he was associated, some categorical answer to this plain question? If the Auditor of the Local Government Board should say that it was legal to spend the public funds of Dublin in coming to the Bar of the House to congratulate Her Majesty on an auspicious event, how could they draw the line and say it was illegal for the same Corporation to send their officer to open in state an enterprize that was for the national benefit and the general progress of the community? They certainly did not find in the Act any definite instruction as to where to draw the line. The phraseology of the law which directed the Auditor in the two countries was typical of all the other legislation which was passed for the two countries. In the first article of the Instructions to the Poor Law Officers in England, the conditions under which they should surcharge were detailed in a comprehensive manner; but what was the wonderful power given, unfortunately, by the Act applying to Ireland? It was to surcharge everything contrary to law, or anything they deemed to be not according to law. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, or the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland, should give the Committee a plain statement as to the liability of officers who administered the public funds in a city like Dublin in respect of money spent by them in sending an Address to Her Majesty and in respect of other public events. He was of opinion, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would be able to say, that as soon as possible some legislation should be introduced to define the power of Auditors of the Local Government Board in Ireland in respect of surcharges. What the Committee looked for from the right hon. Gentleman now was that he should answer the legal point raised with regard to the two species of deputations, and also that he should state whether he intended to take proceedings against Mr. Elliott.

said, it would be superfluous for him to follow the hon. Member for Carlow County (Mr. Gray) into the question of the sanitary arrangements at Dublin, because he had so thorough a knowledge of the subject, and had spoken upon it so ably and fully, that it would be almost impossible to add anything of value to what he had stated. But the hon. Member had also called the attention of the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee to the appointments of Sanitary Inspectors; and, in doing so, he had pointed out an extraordinary anomaly with regard to them—namely, that, whereas the Medical Inspectors and Officers of Health who were appointed under the Act of 1874, had the half of their salaries paid by the Treasury, those who were appointed previously to that Act coming into operation had no portion of their salaries paid out of the Consolidated Fund. He was bound to say that he regarded the existence of those officers as a complete fraud—an imposition. They did nothing for their pay. Notwithstanding the large salaries they received nothing was done by them to preserve the health of the people. In cases where they were employed by people, it was not likely that they would report adversely to those who supported them, because they depended more upon their practice than they did upon their salaries as Officers of Health. This office, which was so necessary, was made such a fraud on the public that when the present Amendment was disposed of, he should feel it his duty to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £7,400 which represented half the salaries of the Sanitary Officers. But he rose mainly for the purpose of addressing the right hon. Gentleman on a subject which was closely connected with the question of the health and sanitary condition of a town in Ireland. Some time since, owing to a variety of circumstances, the existence of the Ennis Town Commissioners ceased. Now the Town Improvement Act had ceased to be enforced, and it was sought to have that Act re-adopted, a proposal which was agreed to by the ratepayers at a public meeting. On the 9th of April last, a deputation of townspeople went to the Board of Guardians and asked them to take charge of the water and sewage works, and also of the lighting of the town; a deputation was then deputed to beg the consent of the Local Government Board. The deputation, having attended the Local Government Board with reference to the sewage and water works, informed them that the Board desired to know what their powers were, and whether they were authorized to undertake the duty of contracting for the supply of the town; and, in regard to the question of lighting, what power they had to supply gasworks, or of contracting for the supply of gas from the present Company; and also whether the Board of Guardians could assume the functions which formerly had had belonged to the Town Commissioners? The letter sent in reply stated that the Board of Guardians could not undertake the lighting of the town, and that the opinion of the Law Officers would be obtained on the other point. But three months had elapsed since that time, and yet no answer had been given, notwithstanding that repeated communications had passed asking for a reply to the inquiry of the Board of Guardians. It appeared that the Local Government Board found it impossible to prevent the Board of Guardians taking charge of the water works, as the rates would have to be divided between the landlords and the tenants. Of course, there was a feeling amongst a certain portion of the population of the town that it would be adverse to their interest to have the Board of Guardians appointed for the purpose, because the adjustment of taxation might be different under the Board of Guardians from what it was under the Town Commissioners. He need not point out that at the present moment it was exceedingly desirable that the sanitary arrangements at Ennis should be looked after and made as complete as possible; that the town should be lighted; that the water works should not be allowed to fall into a defective state owing to there being no person to look after them, and that there should be some authority appointed who should be responsible for their proper management. It appeared that when the water works were originally constructed, there was a little stream near them which was shut off by the engineer responsible for the management of the works. But owing to the present unsatisfactory state of affairs this stream had broken through the barrier and entered the reservoir which supplied the town. The Committee would at once perceive the very serious consequences which were likely to follow from the town being supplied with bad water, especially if there were an epidemic of cholera. He would venture to put this matter before the Solicitor General for Ireland. It appeared to him that under the Public Health Act there were strong reasons for supposing that the Board of Guardians had power to assume the responsibility for supplying water to and lighting the town, which the Town Commissioners previously possessed. It was stated in the reply which the Board of Guardians received from the Local Government Board, on the 28th of April last, that there was no power in them to light the town, which, by the Public Health Act, was confined solely to the Local Authorities. But Section 80 of the Act gave power to the Sanitary Authority to contract for lighting, and even to purchase gas works, and, therefore, he was of opinion that the Board of Guardians were entitled to contract for the lighting of the town. He would also call the attention of the hon. and learned Gentleman to the words "duly authorized" in the connection in which they stood in the 232nd section of the Act, which clearly implied that the Board of Guardians had power to light the town. For his own part, he thought that, under various provisions of the Public Health Act, it was clearly established that the Board of Guardians could assume the exact functions which the Town Commissioners had ceased to exercise. He could quite understand that it might be inconvenient for the hon. and learned Gentleman to reply upon this question at the present time, because he (Mr. Kenny) had introduced the subject without any previous Notice. He understood that the question was rather an involved one, and that the cases which had arisen under the Act of Parliament were very intricate and complicated, and therefore the hon. and learned Gentleman would probably prefer to reply on the point he had raised on a future occasion. Still, as his constituents were extremely anxious to know in what position they stood in reference to this matter, he should be obliged if the hon. and learned Gentleman would state the day on which it would be convenient that such reply should be given.

said, this was probably the first time that the question brought forward by the hon. Member for Ennis (Mr. Kenny) had been raised since the Act was passed under which the Town Commissioners ceased to exist. Primâ facie he did not think the Board of Guardians had power to light the town. However, he was aware that some difference of opinion existed on the matters to which the hon. Member had referred, and if the hon. Member would place a Notice on the Paper, he would undertake to answer it in detail on Friday next.

said, he must ask the Solicitor General for Ireland, as the Legal Representative of the Irish Government, to give an opinion on the power of the auditor to make a distinction with regard to surcharging public officers in cases where they expended money on different public objects. What powers had they to distinguish between money spent on presenting an Address to Her Majesty, and money spent, say, upon opening an important public Exhibition?

said, it was the duty of the Auditor to exercise his discretion and legal knowledge in striking out payments that he deemed to be illegal. The auditor might be right, or he might be wrong, in deciding on a particular charge; but he would point out that a two-fold remedy was provided—first, by an appeal to the Local Government Board, who, after consultation with their legal advisers, might decide whether an auditor was right or wrong; and, secondly, by an appeal from the Local Government Board to the Court of Queen's Bench by writ of certiorari. It was clear, therefore, that the law provided ample remedy in case of error on the part of the auditor.

said, with all respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, he did not think he was quite right in the view he had taken of the remedy open to public officers who were surcharged by the auditor of the Local Government Board. The hon. and learned Gentleman had described that remedy as two-fold; but his recollection was that the exercise of one part of the remedy precluded the use of the other. They might appeal to the clemency of the Local Government Board with reference to the question of law, or, at their own instance, they might seek to have the question decided at law; but they could not first appeal to the consideration of the Local Government Board, and then, if the result were unfavourable, proceed in the Queen's Bench. He was anxious to make the position clear with reference to this point. His opinion was that the remedy was not two-fold, as the hon. and learned Gentleman had described it to be, but alternative. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that the auditor was entitled to exercise his discretion as regarded the legality of certain payments, and that the word "unfounded" meant unvouched, not unjustifiable; that was to say, the auditor was only entitled to consider whether the payments made were illegal payments or not. For instance, one might conceive it to be perfectly proper on the part of the Local Authorities to send a deputation, at their own expense, to congratulate Her Majesty under certain circumstances, or to open an Exhibition; on the other hand, it might be, in the opinion of other persons, improper to send a deputation for any trifling pupose. Now, he said that if the auditor was not to have regard to the test of the discretion of the body in question, but was solely to be restricted to the consideration as to whether the expenditure was legal or not—if that were so, he contended that nothing could well be more unsatisfactory, because the auditor was found often to forget that he was a public official, to seek to place himself in the position of the elected representatives of the ratepayers, and to say whether such or such an expenditure was or was not extravagant and imprudent, besides occasionally surcharging, not because he thought the expenditure illegal, but because he did not like it. For instance, the auditor, on one occasion, surcharged the fees paid by the Dublin Corporation to Messrs. Ellis and Sons, solicitors, for appearing, on behalf of the Council, before the Recorder of Dublin, on the ground that they had a regular law agent, although that gentleman was then engaged upon important legal business in London. Now, he felt sure that the legal mind of the Solicitor General for Ireland would revolt from that exercise of the auditor's discretion. There was an appeal, undoubtedly, to the Local Government Board, and that appeal might decide the matter, not on the point of law, but on the point of whether the expenditure was one which they approved, or otherwise; and there was an appeal to the Court of Queen's Bench, in which a great deal of money might be unsuccessfully spent. But there ought, he contended, to be some means by which a local body, without expense or formality, could obtain a legal decision with regard to the legality of surcharges by auditors of the Local Government Board. It was not sufficient that the Local Government Board should, in some cases of surchage, be able to tell the auditor to say no more about the matter. There ought to be more than that; there ought to be responsibility on the part of the auditor. The law, as it stood, would amply provide against any absolutely improper application of the funds. There ought to be such a remedy as an application to the Court of Queen's Bench for a mandamus or some other means of recovering the money. Further, he thought that a Government official should not have the right to interfere at all between the ratepayers and those who expended the public money. He was of opinion that there ought to be a double remedy—first, an application on the merits of the case to the Local Government Board, and, failing that, an application to the Court of Queen's Bench. With regard to the case put by his hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Dawson). Here was an instance in point. Money had been spent by a public body on two objects—in the one case upon a deputation to congratulate Her Majesty upon certain circumstances, and in the other upon the opening of an important public Exhibition, and the auditor stepped in and said—"I will allow the charge for the Queen; I will not allow it for the Exhibition." He did not think that the answer of the hon. and learned Gentleman met the case put by his hon. Friend.

said, having listened for some time to the complaints of Irish Members opposite, he felt bound to commiserate the state of their affairs. He rose on that occasion to say a few words with reference to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Dawson), and other hon. Members, in regard to the question of surcharges by auditors of the Local Government Board. He had understood the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to wish to lead the Committee to suppose—["No, no!"]—at all events, the hon. Gentleman had led him to suppose that, in some circumstances, in England it was possible for such a matter to occur as the hon. Member for Carlow had alluded to. But no such thing had ever happened in England. There was no Government audit of the Corporation accounts of any municipal borough in England; and if the Corporation of any borough in England thought fit to come up to London at that time to congratulate the Prime Minister on the passing of the Representation of the People Bill through the House of Commons there was no power to surcharge the expense of such a visit upon those who incurred it. The auditors of Municipal Corporations were appointed by the Corporations themselves, their functions were clearly defined, and were limited to investigating whether or not the expenditure was met by the vouchers that were produced to them at the audit. He assured the hon. Gentleman that no such case could occur, with regard to any Corporation in England, as that described by the hon. Member for Carlow; and he did not see why the Corporation of the City of Dublin should labour under a disability which did not apply to any Municipal Corporation in England.

said, he felt it his duty to press this question further upon the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury. He could assure the hon. Gentleman that the circumstances he had alluded to had created a very strong interest amongst the people of Dublin and of Ireland generally. In this matter of audit they complained that power was left to the auditor, who was not a lawyer, to decide upon his own judgment what he would and what he would not allow; in other words, it was left to him to say whether he would irritate and annoy the whole Corporation of Dublin, and put the people into a state of discontent with the law of the land. He was sorry to trouble the President of the Local Government Board, whose duties were so constant and multifarious; but he would be glad to know distinctly from him whether it was a fact that the Department had issued a request to the auditors who were engaged in carrying out the law in England that they would only surcharge what was not accounted for? The Irish Act contained the words with reference to surcharges "which he deems to be unfounded," and those words he (Mr. Dawson) contended ought to be restricted. The result of the present action of the auditors might well be that if the Corporations in Ireland could not send their officers to open a public Exhibition, which in the case in question, he believed, was under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen and of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, they could not send deputations of the other kind indicated—they might say they could not send deputations to condole with Her Majesty in her domestic bereavements, or to congratulate her on having escaped from the hand of an assassin, because they would have to bear the expense themselves. If they were told they must not employ their officers to open an Industrial Exhibition, as they would have to pay for it, why that wholesome custom would have to be discontinued. The point was, that the Dublin Corporation were allowed to send a deputation to London to present an Address of Congratulation to Her Majesty because the auditor said the expenditure was legal; but when they sent to Cork to open an Exhibition that would be useful to the people of Ireland the case was entirely different. This high-minded man said—" We will allow you to come to London and spend £50 on an Address to the Queen; but if you go down to Cork to open an Exhibition for the purpose of facilitating the development of Irish industry we will surcharge you every farthing" He therefore appealed to the painstaking President of the Local Government Board to take this matter up, and to prevent the further irritation of public opinion which the action of the auditors had produced throughout Ireland. Under the Irish Act an incompetent man often got to be auditor, and, in the matter of allowing expenses and expending the funds of the Municipality, took upon himself to tell the people what they should do and what they should not do, in spite of his want of knowledge on the subject.

said, he took part in the debate with great reluctance, and at the outset he felt it necessary to take exception to expressions made use of by the hon. Member for Salford (Mr Arnold).

said, he would withdraw any expression the hon. Gentleman thought out of place.

said, the hon. Member for Salford was not correct when he stated that any of these expenses could be borne out of the borough fund in England.

I said that any expense out of the borough funds could not be made subject to surcharge.

I do not say those were the hon. Member's very words. I say the argument of my hon. Friend was that the excessive expenditure at the discretion of Town Councils in England could not be questioned by the auditor.

Not questioned in the same manner.

It was asserted that in England the authority of the Town Council was not sufficient to cover the expense incurred by the Town Council. The question was opened in England, although in a different manner, as was seen in the case of the Corporation of Sunderland.

The action of the Town Council was questioned in a Court of Law.

Precisely. No doubt the auditor in Ireland is able to question the accounts and surcharge illegal expenditure; but is his action final?

Yes.

said, the statute which created the auditor's duties provided two means of redress and getting the auditor's decision corrected—one way by applying to the Local Government Board for a reconsideration of the auditor's decision, and asking that, if necessary, the auditor should be superseded, and the other way precisely as in England—by applying to the Court of Queen's Bench for a writ of certiorari. Those were the remedies afforded by the Statute. The first seemed very simple—namely, to appeal to the Local Government Board—and it involved no expense whatever. In the case in question no remedy had been resorted to. It was not for him to question the consistency of the decisions in the matter of the various expenses of the Dublin Corporation, some having been surcharged and the others allowed. Possibly the Corporation would come to the conclusion, after what had occurred, that if they were not to be permitted to spend money for one purpose they would not spend it for another.

said, one was struck by such speeches as they had just heard with the want of knowledge of the Members of the Government as to the nature of local business. He thought it should be necessary for a man before he became a Minister to serve an apprenticeship of not less than three years in one of their local Municipal Corporations, or that Parliament should occasionally meet in one of their large Provincial towns, in order to get out of the miserable atmosphere of London and acquire some knowledge of local affairs. There was nothing worse—there was nothing more irritating than this auditorship in large towns. An auditor came down to Birmingham, or Manchester, or Liverpool, to audit the School Board accounts, and took off, say 1 s. 6 d., for a cab which some unfortunate individual had seen fit to hire in the performance of his duty in connection with the School Board. His hon. Friend (Mr. Courtney) talked about "a remedy." But the hon. Gentleman must remember that an appeal, if unsuccessful, involved great ex- pense to those who made it. He must also remember that election to a position on the Town Council no doubt carried with it a great deal of honour. ["Oh, oh!" and a laugh. ] He expected cheers of that kind from Gentlemen who did not know the dignity of their municipal institutions; but he could assure them that the position was regarded by the leading citizens in their municipal boroughs as a high honour. That was to say, it was the highest position within their reach—the highest position in which they could serve their fellow-citizens and secure good local government. As he was saying, the position of Town Councillor, although it involved a great deal of honour, at the same time involved considerable responsibility. Added to these drawbacks, the responsibilities and sacrifices of public municipal life, they were asking by the remedy the hon. Gentleman suggested that men should get themselves out of a position of difficulty in which they had been placed by some official knowing nothing about the circumstances by appealing to London, very possibly getting themselves into expense. Take the Corporation of Birmingham, for instance, which had upon it a large number of men unable to bear heavy expense. Surely, it was a very hard position to place such men in, to hold them responsible for the repayment of the cheques required, if one of these auditors should come down and surcharge the expenditure. In his opinion no audit at all was required. Corporations were required to furnish accounts periodically—once a year—and they were scrutinized by the ratepayers, and that was a sufficient check. In Birmingham they had two local auditors who, so far as vouchers and so far as expense was concerned, were very considerate. It was necessary to get out of the minds of the Government and their law-makers this idea of centralization. That a man or two or three men shut up in a room in London could understand the wants or do justice to a particular locality in these matters of expenditure was absurd, and it should be get out of the minds of the Government. He on one occasion had been engaged in regulating a public meeting for a public object, and an action was brought against him. The Town Council decided to defend him. One or two individuals moved the Queen's Bench, or whatever it was in London, to prevent the charge for his defence being levied on the ratepayers; and the result was that the costs, amounting to £200 or £300, were put upon him. What right had anyone in London to say to the people of Birmingham, represented by their local Parliament—"You shall not do this thing; and your Chief Magistrate, who for no purpose of his own, but in order to secure good order in an action which the inhabitants compelled him to undertake to preside over, shall bear the expense of defending himself." What right had anyone in London to say that the people of the Muncipality should not bear the expense of defending that Chief Magistrate? He thought the tendency of the House should be to leave the localities to help themselves, and to manage their own affairs. At present the state of things was simply like a nurse saying to a child—"I will never let you walk until you can walk properly." At least, let a child learn to walk. It must always have its falls rd bumps; but they would teach it experience that would cease when it began to stand well. In the same way it was most foolish to keep Corporations continually in leading strings. He did not know Irish Corporations were subjected to indignities that English Corporations were free from, and if they were it was time the arrangement was altered. All bodies elected by the people should be let alone. The House might depend upon it that if they went wrong once or twice they would not go wrong a third or fourth time, for the ratepayers, or those who had to supply the money, would very soon insist upon those who had the spending of it awaking to a sense of their duty. To his mind they had quite enough to do in that House instead of meddling in all these little ridiculous things connected with subjects which they could not possibly understand. If hon. Members could see the ridicule in the locality itself attached to he proceedings of auditors sent down to audit the affairs of a Municipality they would be amused. For instance, the manner in which the expenditure of the School Boards was audited was regarded as a perfect farce. The expense of the salaries of these officers was regarded as an absolute waste of money, and he had no hesitation in saying that where £100 was spent on these officials they did not effect a saving of as many shillings. He knew cases where there had been grave doubt and serious reflection as to the accounts of a Municipality, and where in the end there had been about 2 s. 6 d. struck off for some simple matter. As to the remedy pointed out, that in a very small degree, if at all, alleviated the difficulty. It added to the expense, no doubt; and if those who appealed were unsuccessful the expense fell upon them—the poor Town Councillors. In this case there was no allegation of any fraud or mal-administration. But in cases where the representatives of the people spent money with the full approval of the constituents, and in the interest and for the benefit of the locality, if the auditor when he came down should happen to disagree with the item, possibly because of his over-officiousness, such representatives of the people would have to bear the expense. The ratepayers had a remedy in their own hands if anything wrong was going on with the accounts. They had the power of turning out the Town Councillors at the next election. The ratepayers knew what was going on—the auditor knew nothing about the borough. They wanted a species of Home Rule in England in these matters as well as in Ireland. Let the people in their boroughs manage their own affairs—it would satisfy the localities, and enable Parliament to devote more time to more important Imperial matters. He earnestly hoped the Government would take this matter into their consideration, and would move in the direction of putting a stop to all this waste and expense of auditing. He was conscious that there was a difficulty in the way of such a proceeding—namely, the idea the various Departments had of the advantages of creating new offices. The Departments were always anxious for an opportunity of creating a new office—they readily availed themselves of any pretence for such a proceeding. They all liked creating offices to which salaries of some hundreds a-year were attached, and in connection with which there were some duties to perform which they endeavoured to persuade the country were useful. All this sort of thing caused great dissatisfaction in their municipal boroughs; and it was a matter which when they had time, and when the Par- liamentary atmosphere was clear of present legislation, the Government would have greater pressure put upon them to deal with.

said, the Secretary to the Treasury, who was nothing if not critical, in this case had exercised his criticism on matters with which he had not the slightest acquaintance. They had not taken action against the decision of the auditor in the case of Dublin, but they had in the case of Limerick. Limerick, in order to give effect and solemnity to the Industrial Exhibition, had also sent up to Cork their civic officers, and when the expenses of these officers were surcharged upon the Town Council an appeal ad misericordiam was made to the Local Government Board. This appeal met with no satisfactory response—the mission was not recognized as one for which the ratepayers should be allowed to pay, however they might desire to, because it was not a toadying affair. Limerick had applied to the Queen's Bench; but their surcharge was confirmed in a much more Governmental manner than it had been by the Local Government Board itself. The Municipality of Dublin, therefore, had been forewarned and forearmed. They had heard upon this subject a very powerful appeal from the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray)—a much more powerful description than they had heard in the interest of the Government on the other side. If English Members would only take the interest in these matters which they took in the affairs of the Soudanese and the Basutos, no doubt some satisfactory issue might result. If the Prime Minister said one word about the South African Natives, or the inhabitants of the Soudan, he raised a discussion at once, and the London papers teemed with the subject. He (Mr. Dawson) told them that Ireland was of more consequence to them than the Basuto tribes. He told them that the peace and goodwill of Ireland, which was set at nought, was of more importance to England than what occurred in the Soudan, or in the fate of General Gordon. He did not blame the English people at all for the attitude assumed by English Members in that House. If the English people were as thoroughly informed about the real status quo as they were about the remote and unimportant Colonies of the Empire, they would care more about the security, safety, and prosperity of Ireland. Therefore it was that the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) and he (Mr. Dawson) had drawn this matter out of the small area of the Metropolis of Ireland, in which it originally rested. They had drawn the matter out of the small question as to the jurisdiction of the officer who supervised the accounts of Dublin for the time being, and who told the Corporation where they should go with their civic officers, and where they should not go with municipal deputations. He would ask the Secretary to the Treasury to secure, not only that knowledge of the Provinces of England which it was desirable that such an official should possess, but also a knowledge of the Municipalities of Ireland. The hon. Member might look upon these things as trifles, but he should not shut his mind to trifles, particularly where Ireland was concerned. Trifles were at the bottom of many human affairs, and trifles made the whole history of Ireland. He trusted that the discussion which the hon. Member for Carlow had raised would initiate a system of local and municipal government in Ireland which would be of vast value, not only to that country, but to the United Kingdom.

said, he had scarcely hoped, when he mentioned this small matter, that the discussion would have blossomed into a Home Rule debate. He hoped some benefit would accrue to Ireland therefrom. He would like to give to those Gentlemen who had the experience of English municipal life a few examples, which were in his own recollection, as to the working of the present municipal system in Ireland. Some years ago they were building in Dublin a new bridge. At that time it was in contemplation, as it was needed at the present time, to carry out in the Irish capital a system of main drainage, something on the same principle, though on a more modest scale, as that which obtained in London; and, by the advice of the engineers, it was determined that culverts should be made when the bridge was built. The engineers advised them that if in connection with the building of the new bridge they were to make culverts in the main sewers, which they contemplated carrying along each side of the river, those culverts could be made at a very small expense; but that if they built their bridge, which was to be of stone, and subsequently attempted to tunnel under it, it would involve enormous expense, and possibly endanger the stability of the structure They accordingly determined that, at the cost of £4,000 or £5,000, they would make the culverts while the new bridge was building. Anyone acquainted with municipal affairs would see that that was a wise determination to come to; but it did not commend itself to the Local Government Board official. They happened to have a capital fund at the time on account of this main drainage expenditure. Having that capital fund, and not having any immediate occasion for its expenditure, they decided to expend some portion of it in the construction of these culverts. That expenditure amounted to some £6,000. Well, the Local Government auditor, when he came to consider the various bearings of the matter, decided the legal point in his non-legal mind. This gentleman happened originally to have been a clerk—a very good clerk—but nothing but a clerk. This gentleman having read up certain Acts of Parliament, and having somewhat forced himself into the process, came ultimately to the conclusion that the Municipality ought to have levied a tax instead of spending the capital sum they had lying by useless at the time. This gentleman accordingly surcharged these individuals, not those who had authorized the payment, but those who had signed the cheques—surcharged them to the amount of some £6,000. It was within his (Mr. Gray's) knowledge that one of the gentlemen—a man of goodsocial position and high personal character—there was and high personal character—there was no harm in talking about the matter now, for it was many years ago—happened to be in some temporary financial embarrassment. It became noised abroad that he had been surcharged, not with a share of the £6,000, but with the whole of it; and it was owing to the merest chance that, by reason of the surcharge of the sum expended in the interest on the citizens, this gentleman was not made bankrupt. For months, metaphorically speaking, this gentleman had to go no his knees to the Local Government Board to obtain, not freedom altogether from the charge, but a promise from the Local Government Board that they would not take legal steps to enforce the charge until they knew what the Municipality would do. He (Mr. Gray) wanted to know how long such a thing would have been tolerated in England—how long would hon. Members have been "loyal" if such a thing had taken place? In another case, the local Gas Company was endeavouring to obtain an increase of capital. The Municipality of Dublin was against it; but there was some difficulty in their petitioning against the Bill as citizens of Dublin, or as representatives of the citizens. The Gas Company asked for the increase of capital for some new purpose outside the City limits, and that was the reason for the opposition of the Corporation. The Company proposed to spend a considerable sum at the Port of Bray, where they had small gas works, and the money for the new operations would have come out of the general gas capital of the Company. The new works were to be the erection of piers at Bray. The Company had not reached their maximum charge, being 6 d. under what they were entitled to charge by their Dublin Gas Acts. The Corporation argued in this way. They said that the expenditure of these thousands of pounds at Bray would be comparatively unproductive; they declared that the township of Bray, being a very small place, the consumption of gas would be very limited, and that the Gas Company, whether they made an unproductive gas expenditure or not, would take good care to maintain the 10 per cent interest they were paying their shareholders, and the only way they could do that, if they wasted money on Bray, was either by increasing or maintaining the existing prices of gas in Dublin. They, therefore, thought the Bill a dangerous one, and made up their minds to oppose it. They did oppose it, and opposed it successfully. Well, though they took that course, and, in their opinion, preserved the interests of their constituents, this clerk, to whom he had already referred, again examining into the law of the case, decided that they had no power to oppose the Bill, because the expenditure the Gas Company had proposed to incur would have taken place outside the city limits. This gentleman surcharged the members of the Corporation. That was more than they could stand, and they determined that they would fight him in the case. They considered it a most insulting surcharge, and determined to fight the auditor. They defeated him on this absurd point. It chanced that the Dublin Corporation ran a water pipe through the township of Bray; and they argued that because of that pipe they were citizens of the township, and entitled to a locus standi. Was this not absurd? He would only give one more instance. On one occasion a Lord Mayor of Dublin—a Mr. Bulgin—died in office. The Corporation were anxious to pay his memory as much respect as was in their power, and they voted that the Corporation and the officers of the Corporation should attend his funeral in State. The small expense they decided to go to was for black scarves for the official drivers and footmen, and to place black rosettes on the horses. The thing cost, he thought, 25 8., and the auditor surcharged them all. Now, was that a thing to be surcharged? If the representatives of the citizens were sufficiently respectful to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board and to his officials as to go down on their knees and beg them to be good enough not to surcharge them out of their own money, the probability was that they would remit the surcharge. But that was not a position in which the representatives of the citizens should be placed; and if they did not do that, they had to fight the matter in the Queen's Bench. The Secretary to the Treasury seemed to think that the position in England and Ireland was practically the same. In the one case what happened was this—There was an auditor—not a nominee of the Crown, but a man elected by the ratepayers—who had no power of surcharge, but, as he understood, only power of report. The auditor in England might report on any improper or extravagant expenditure, and say—"In my opinion, this was an expenditure which ought not to have been incurred;" and, therefore, any ratepayer who thought proper to do so could, at his own risk, go to the Queen's Bench. If the ratepayer be defeated, he would be required to pay his own costs and the costs of his opponents as well. What happened in the case of Ireland? The authorities must themselves go to the Queen's Bench if they wished to be relieved, and even if they were successful they must pay the expenses, not only of the appeal, but of the unsuccessful auditor; if they proved the auditor to be in the wrong, they were rewarded by being permitted to pay his expenses. Such was the difference between the systems which prevailed in the two countries. He trusted that the system of auditing in Ireland would be reconsidered by the Government, and that the present irritating and vexatious badgering would be removed. He believed that members of Corporations and of other Local Bodies in Ireland endeavoured to do their duty with regard to public funds as well as corresponding authorities in England did; and there was no reason why Parliament, by its laws, should declare its want of confidence in the authorities in one country, and its confidence in the authorities of the other country. Parliament should leave the ratepayers and their representatives to settle matters of this kind between themselves. Of course, if there be any improper charge, one involving anything of the nature of fraud or of solid and real illegality, a ratepayer should have his remedy by going to the Queen's Bench. A ratepayer had that remedy in England, but not in Ireland. But that the auditor should be the nominee of a Board of nominees, and generally a partizan, and, at the same time, to add insult to injury by compelling the local authorities to pay his salary, was rather too bad. It was, to say the least, irritating to a Corporation that they should be obliged to pay the man who surcharged them in sums not amounting, on the average, to £50 in the year. The Corporation of Dublin were required to pay a man £500 a-year for coming down and insulting them with these surcharges whenever he thought fit. That was not a system calculated to encourage healthy political life in Ireland; it was not a system calculated to encourage the best men to enter local representative bodies. Men of position and of self-respect would not tolerate these petty insults, they would not be bothered to go to the Local Government Board to make appeals to their mercy, or to go to the Court of Queen's Bench to fight, at their own peril, local points. As a matter of fact, the tendency of the system was to encourage the advent of inferior men, men who, far from doing what was required in the interests of the ratepayers, were likely to take an opposite course.

said, that, when speaking earlier, he omitted to move a reduction of the Vote by £6,400.

There is an Amendment already before the Committee. It must be disposed of before the hon. Member can move his.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

moved to reduce the Vote by the sum of £6,400. His reasons for wishing a reduction of the Vote he had already stated.

Motion made, and Question put,

"That a sum, not exceeding £102,144, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Local Government Board in Ireland, including various Grants in Aid of Local Taxation."—( Mr. Kenny. )

The Committee divided: —Ayes 21; Noes 105: Majority 84.—(Div. List, No. 174.)

Original Question again proposed.

said, that, owing to the fact that they had got no promise whatever from the Head of the Local Government Board as to whether he would take any steps to restrict the arbitrary power of auditors in Ireland, he (Mr. Dawson) now proposed to reduce the Vote by £500. Some English Members, as well as the Irish Representatives, had appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, but, up to that point, fruitlessly. The right hon. Gentleman professed to have very great intimacy and knowledge of the various Departments; and he had displayed it that night in a remarkable manner. The hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) had pointed out that the auditors in Ireland had surcharged Corporations for undertaking patriotic work for the benefit of the citizens, and for no personal object whatever; he had told them that the Corporation of Dublin had been surcharged 25 s., which they had expended in rosettes to be worn by the officials of the Corporation when attending the funeral of the Lord Mayor. The Committee had been told that whereas the Corporations of Dublin and Limerick were permitted without surcharge to send deputations to congratulate Her Majesty upon certain events, and to con-dole with her upon others, they were surcharged when they sent representatives to the Exhibition at Cork, an Exhibition which was destined to promote the industry and trade and commerce of the country. He would like the Chief Secretary, as the Head of the Irish Local Government Board, to tell them whether his Department had issued any order to the auditors in Ireland analogous to the orders which had been issued to auditors in England by the English Local Government Board? The orders to the auditors in this country were distinctly to the effect that they were only to surcharge in cases of negligence, or fraud, or matters obviously contrary to law. Would the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that he would cause the Local Government Board in Ireland to issue orders to the auditors in Ireland that would confine their actions within the limits of reason and prudence, in which the actions of the auditors in England were confined?

assured the hon. Gentleman that if the case he had just brought forward of the check which was put on the patriotic tribute paid to the Cork Exhibition by the Dublin Corporation had been brought before him at the time there was not the slightest doubt what decision he should have given in the matter. Indeed, he would look most carefully into the system of audit. The hon. Member had asked him whether the Local Government Board were prepared to issue instructions similar to those issued in England. The Board would examine those instructions, and if it was found that they were based upon just principles, they would have no objection to issue such instructions to the auditors in Ireland. His own desire was to leave, as far as possible, the discretion of all the local bodies unfettered; but he could not go so far as to say off-hand, in the course of a debate on the Estimates, that he disapproved altogether of a central audit on every occasion. He was inclined to believe that it would be a very great evil for the ratepayers in Unions if there was no system of central auditing. It was extremely probable that ratepayers might suffer very much what shareholders of Companies frequently suffered; their business might get into the hands of men who were not to be trusted, and who totally disregarded the interests of the ratepayers. Such things had occurred. Everyone would allow that if, in some of the Southern States of America, there had been in past years a more rigorous audit, the financial condition of those States would be very different from what it was now. The question of the abrogation of the Act of 1871—of the emancipation of Municipalities from audit—was one which he would like to consider very carefully. He should like to consider to what extent the English Municipalities were satisfied with the system of audit to which they were subjected before he removed the audit which in 1871 was imposed on Irish Municipalities.

heard with great surprise that the Corporations in Ireland were subject to an audit. He was persuaded that a proposal to subject English Municipalities to a central audit would be looked upon with the greatest disfavour; and he should be glad to join in the expression of opinion that in Ireland it was desirable that Municipalities should be allowed to exercise their own discretion in the administration of local funds.

said, that what was claimed on behalf of Municipalities was that they should have absolute power over their own affairs. Members of Town Councils in the English Municipalities were elected by the entire body of ratepayers; they were as truly representative, and even more so, than the Members of the House of Commons. If there was no appeal against the decision of the House in matters of Imperial expenditure, he wanted to know why there should be an appeal from the decision of municipal authorities, and that appeal to a man who might be utterly ignorant of the policy of certain expenditure? The security against extravagance was that every three years the members of Town Councils had to go before their constituents. It must be borne in mind that there were always two parties in a Corporation, and that there was the greatest vigilance exercised by one party over the other. That also was a very great security against any corrupt expenditure. A Government audit would result in irritation and annoyance, and would afford no security against improper expenditure. It was not to be for one moment supposed that a Government auditor could understand the merits of large expenditure incurred by a Corporation on water, gas, sewerage, or other great works. He hoped his right hon. Friend's (Mr. Trevelyan's) mind would soon be disabused of the idea that any good could come from such interference in municipal financial affairs as took place in Ireland.

said, he thought it right to remind his hon. Friends who were conversant with affairs in England that the school boards, which were representative bodies, were subjected to Government audit. It appeared to him somewhat strange that his hon. Friends (Mr. Rylands and Mr. Illingworth), who condemned a Government audit in Ireland, should themselves have sanctioned the same rule in the case of the English school boards.

said, he was sorry that such a venerated Member of the House (Mr. Ramsay) should have stumbled into a mistake. In England an auditor could only surcharge in cases where there was negligence, fraud, or something contrary to law. That was quite fair; but in the Dublin and other Irish Corporations the auditor's power of surcharge was not so restricted.

said, he thought his hon. Friend (Mr. Dawson) ought to be satisfied with the assurance which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had given him. He (Mr. Gray) was satisfied that when the right hon. Gentleman looked into the question, he would see there was a substantial grievance which ought at once to be remedied. The right hon. Gentleman had made a very long and interesting speech, touching upon a good many points; but, still, he might have spared three or four minutes to deal with the points he (Mr. Gray) raised, and which, to his mind, at least, were worthy of attention. He did not expect that the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney) would have told them anything about the remission of these half salaries; but it was a grievance which, one day, would have to be remedied. They could not have in perpetuity a different system with regard to two practically identical bodies. It would be very much better that the Treasury should give the same sum in a different manner than give it as at present—namely, paying half the salaries of one set of officers of one Corporation, and paying nothing at all for a similar set of officers of a similar Corporation, simply because the one set were appointed at a certain date, and the other set not until after that date. It was a system which did not bear examination, and he trusted that, at least, between this and next year, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Trevelyan) would give the matter his consideration. He (Mr. Gray) would certainly bring the question up again when the Vote again came on for discussion. With reference to the cost of the police he had nothing further to say, and should not press for a reply from the right hon. Gentleman, supposing the right hon. Gentleman did not see his way to giving a reply at once. But there was one matter which he felt bound to urge on the attention of the right hon. Gentleman, and that was, whether he would not consider the propriety of issuing a sealed order to the proper authorities, in view of a possible outbreak of cholera in Ireland? He put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether it would not be much better to issue such an order at once than to wait until the cholera made its appearance? A sealed order need not deal with all the subjects mentioned in the 49th section of the Act of Parliament. Such an order might be supplemented afterwards by another sealed order if, unfortunately, the necessity should arise. He would, at any rate, beg the right hon. Gentleman to consider the matter. He did not want a positive assurance upon it at the present moment, but merely an intimation that he would carefully consider the point he had thus raised, which, to put it briefly, was this—that, inasmuch as the Sanitary Authorities of Ireland would require time to carry the order into effect, and there would be little use in waiting until such time as the disease should actually make its appearance, if, unfortunately, that eventuality should come to pass—because any attempt to carry the order into effect by setting about the cleansing and scavenging of the different towns and cities when the disease was rife among the people, instead of being beneficial, would be the most dangerous thing possible—it would be infinitely wiser and more prudent to deal with the matter in advance.

I entirely agree with the hon. Member who has just addressed the Committee. I think we have the power, and that we ought to exercise it, to separate the classes of subjects to which he has called attention, under the 49th section of the Act of Parliament; and I may state that the Local Government Board are prepared to issue at once to all the Sanitary Authorities throughout Ireland a Circular pointing out the necessity of exercising vigorously the powers already possessed in regard to the treatment of nuisances in their respective districts. That will be done under the ordinary law. But with regard to the Public Health Act, the 49th section of the Act of 1876, the first step has already been taken by communications that have been sent to all the large cities—such as Dublin, Cork, Belfast, and Waterford; and if the answers should be favourable, the policy to be pursued ought obviously to be to prepare and issue the instructions we are empowered to issue under the Act of 1866 with regard to the abatement of nuisances. With reference to the three other heads, it is also obvious that they must be kept in view. I was specially impressed with the hon. Gentleman's remarks with regard to appointments and promotions to Auditorships and Inspectorships. I think he did not speak especially of what has happened during the last two years. Since I went to Ireland I have always taken great interest in these proposals; and if the rule has not been absolutely unbroken, my desire would be to carry out what I think to be for the absolute security and efficient administration of the Department.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(3.) Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £39,997, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Public Works in Ireland."

said, there were one or two points to which he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. The increase in the amount of the arrears of loans appeared to be very great, especially with regard to Ireland. On the present amount outstanding—namely, £777,000—the amount of arrears had increased from £60,000 to £95,000 during the past year. That he regarded as very serious, especially as the increase of those arrears had been getting larger from year to year. The arrears under the Land Improvement Act had been raised from £30,000 in 1880 to £56,000 last year. That was a matter which required to be attended to. The subject, however, on which he had risen to speak was one which he thought required the special attention of the Chief Secretary's Department. The Commissioners of the Board of Works had specially to do with loans for the drainage of land in Ireland, and they had to see to these matters under the provisions of no fewer than 19 different Acts of Parliament. Seeing that the whole system of land in Ireland had been changed by the present Parliament, and that the owners of land in that country had no longer the same interest as formerly in borrowing money for drainage, now that the land was in the hands of the tenants, it was obvious that these loans were no longer in request on the part of the landlords. The Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had this year brought in a Bill, because it was evident that the Irish Board of Works would not be able, in future years, to carry out the complete business of encouraging the drainage of Ireland as they had done under the old Acts. When the right hon. Gentleman brought in that Bill this Session, many of those who were specially interested in the subject looked forward to the prospect of its being passed with some satisfaction. It was founded on the Report of the Commission of which the noble Viscount the Member for Fermanagh (Viscount Crichton) was a Member. The Bill was blocked by the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) and another Member, and the consequence was that it was now among the numerous measures that had been dropped. It had been announced as the intention of the Chief Secretary to endeavour to get the Bill read a second time, and then to refer it to a Royal Commission; and he (Captain Aylmer) wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would not now consent to the appointment of a Royal Commission to consider the question of the arterial drainage of Ireland, and how the 19 Acts of Parliament, of which he had just spoken, could be consolidated, so that the Irish Board of Works, or whoever might hereafter be interested in the carrying out of a measure on the subject, would have an Act that would work well with the present system of land tenure? If the right hon. Gentleman assented to the appointment of this Royal Commission, he hoped it would not confine itself to the Report of the Committee to which reference had been made, nor to the various Acts that were in operation, but would go to what was the real point of the whole question—the arterial drainage of the country. If it did that, it would give great satisfaction, not only to the landlords, but to the tenants, and would add many millions of pounds to the value of land in Ireland. He hoped the Chief Secretary would consent to this proposal on behalf of Her Majesty's Government.

desired to support the recommendation made by the hon. and gallant Member who had just spoken. Last year his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney) had brought in two Bills; but unfortunately they had not reached a second reading. At the beginning of the Session he (Colonel Colthurst) had, almost from day to day, called the attention of the House to the question; but in deference to his hon. Friend (Mr. Courtney), who had made a very reasonable request, his Motion was withdrawn, on the understanding that the Bills which had been introduced should be referred to a Select Committee. Those Bills were, however, unfortunately dropped. Next Session, no doubt, the hon. Gentleman would re-introduce them; but the probability was that they would again be blocked, and the whole Session would again be lost. No one conversant with the question of arterial drainage could do otherwise than admit that the matter was one of the most pressing importance, and that without legislation on the subject nothing could be done. The conditions of the tenure of land in Ireland had undergone a complete change, and a new definition of owners was required, otherwise all operations under the Acts would be suspended, though he believed that the Report lately issued by the Commissioners of Public Works showed that five districts had been established this year. As far as it went, this was a great improvement on what had been going on during the last few years; but still improved legislation was required in order to render effective the legislation already existing. As far as his own opinion went, he did not consider that the Bills which his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury had brought forward would have met the case. He thought they must have a Royal Commission. In such a body there would be a certain number of experts, and if they were to investigate the matter during the approaching autumn they might have their Report ready by February next, and a Bill could then be brought in giving effect to their recommendations. He knew that a very general consensus of opinion existed on this subject among all parties in Ireland, and he hoped his hon. Friend would see his way to giving his assent to the appointment of the Commission.

said, he did not altogether concur in the remedies which had been suggested. Five-and-twenty years ago there were immense arterial drainage works established in different parts of Ireland, and these works had done a great amount of good, having completely changed the face of the country. They all knew what advantages were derived from such works in Ireland. No doubt some of them were very expensive; but certainly many fully recouped themselves, and there was no doubt that if the system were further extended much good would be done to the country. Not only ought they to extend the arterial drainage of Ireland, but in the case of many properties a good deal more was required, as the drainage works stood in need of extensive repairs, such as were wanted about every 15 or 20 years. These were very costly. Under the present state of the law, two-thirds of the landowners must act together in order to form a Board; but at the present moment it was absolutely impossible to get them to do this. A great many would not answer the letters that were sent to them. He had made particular inquiries on the subject, and, as far as he could ascertain, not a single landowner would agree to act in the matter, although half the money was to be found by the Government. Recent legislation had intensified the unwillingness of the landowners to join in the carrying out of large drainage operations. In fact, the situation had become such that it was necessary to find some remedy. The hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone(Captain Aylmer) had reminded them of one remedy, which was, perhaps, not a bad one—namely, that the tenants should agree, and that they should form a Drainage Board. There was a great deal of good sense in that suggestion, and he (Colonel Nolan) believed that, in a great many cases, it would work well; but he would go further than that, inasmuch as it might be said that the proposition was too Democratic a one. Whether that was so or not, the present state of things was one of despotism. What he would propose was this. Whenever a sufficient number in a particular district should petition for the appointment of a Drainage Board, a qualified engineer should be sent down by the Board of Works, and that officer should be charged with the investigation as to whether it was or was not desirable that effect should be given to the Petition. This Petition might be presented either by a certain number of individual residents in the district, or by the District Board of Guardians, or any other recognized public body, and upon their Petition the investigation should take place. When the Report of the Engineer, sent down by the Board of Works, had been received, it would then be for the Board itself to decide whether a Drainage Board should be constituted. Some such system was now at work in Ireland. He would not say it was the only system; but he would repeat that it was now impossible to get a sufficient number of landowners to agree to act together for the reasons he had already stated. He would mention a case in point; it related to a small drainage work in his own district. They had dealt first with his own property, he having no objection to that being done, and the tenants being willing to pay the expenses; but the agent of one owner—a lady—said—"No; I will not advise the owner of the property to accede to what is proposed, as she has really no interest in the land." The tenants came forward, all of them agreeing in the matter. They stated that all they asked was that the lady should give her name; but she would not do so. The land in that neighbourhood was extremely wet, and the tenants were very much impoverished, because there were no means of efficient drainage. Nothing, however, could be done, and that was one of the results of the operation of the Land Act in Ireland. What, he would ask, had the Government been doing? During the last two years they had made the most abortive attempts to bring in a Bill; but they had not been able to pass one. The consequence was that many districts in Ireland were being kept in a wet and swampy state, like a sponge, because the Government could not find the time to attend to the drainage, or in consequence of their busying themselves so much about the affairs of Egypt and other matters to which they gave almost their entire attention. The hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen) once said the best thing they could do with Ireland was to dry it; and, for his own part, he (Colonel Nolan) had always considered that a most sensible remark; but, unfortunately, the Government would not take the advice. They had been asked to issue a Royal Commission to consider this subject. Let them do so, although the Committee knew very well what frequently came from the appointment of Royal Commissions. In the first place, they could not be got to report within a month or so; but the House had to wait for a year or a year and a-half before the Report was presented, and then, very frequently, nothing came of it. However, they might as well have a Royal Commission; it would be quite as good as the Government bringing in a Bill and then giving the House no time to discuss it in. A Royal Commission would be quite as good as that. Why the Government should act in so ridiculous a manner with regard to this important subject no one who had not been in the House of Commons, as he had been for a number of years, could, understand. They never thought of asking the assistance of Members of Parliament, like his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), or the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson), who could render valuable service; but they went to someone connected with the Board of Works, and the Board of Works, naturally enough, considered what was likely to give them the least trouble. All they did was to talk very wisely, and then suggest some impracticable scheme; and the Government were really showing that they were totally unfit to develop the material interests of Ireland in a matter which, to that country, was of vital importance. He did not confine this remark to the present Government. The Conservative Government had been quite as bad, as they had never done anything to improve the drainage laws. The Shannon measure was perfectly ridiculous. The Government were warned by the Irish Members, and they found time to debate the Bill; but it was, as he had just stated, a ridiculous Bill. There was another point connected with this subject which had relation to the question of small ownership in Ireland. Her Majesty's Government were about to use their utmost efforts to pass a Household Franchise Bill, which was to apply to Ireland as well as to England and Scotland; and, at the same time, they were proving to the small landowners in Ireland that they were to be totally and entirely neglected. This was totally absurd, and just the sort of thing which led the country into all sorts of trouble, and tended to foster revolutionary ideas. They were going to give these men a vote, and yet leave them in this ridiculous position. A rich man could get a large loan with but little difficulty, and the position of the Government was that under the system which was now being carried out they were saving trouble. No doubt they were. But why should not several small tenants who wanted loans obtain them by combination. The Government would not grant loans of less than £50; and it was said that one of these small loans gave as much trouble as a loan of £1,000. He admitted that that was so; but there was a remedy, and if eight or ten men wanted small loans of from £10 to £20, the cost of inspection would not be more than in the case of a loan of £200. Why, therefore, should not eight or ten men be allowed to combine together? That, however, was refused at the present time. It was simply a question of the Government officials wishing to save themselves trouble. Why should the Government not consult the Irish Members on this matter? He would defy the Government to show where the difficulty would be in allowing 10 or 20 men to join together for the purpose of obtaining a loan for the improvement of property in the same district. The result was that where a small tenant paying £8 or £10 a-year wanted to execute some useful work, and went to his landlord in order to get the money, the landlord said to him—"You can hardly give security for a loan of £50;" and the man was very often unable to get the money, whereas if he were allowed to join with others he would be able to execute the works that were necessary for the improvement of his holding. Then there was another and a minor point connected with this subject. When a man was able to obtain a loan of £50 or £100, he was not allowed to spend the whole of it for drainage and building. He might get £50 for drainage or for building; but he would not be allowed to spend half of it in drainage and half in building. In old times, when loans were obtained by large landowners, it was extremely convenient to have one loan for drainage and another for building; but, nowadays, when they came to the case of the small owners who only wanted sums of about £50 to aid them in improving their farms it was a totally different thing. If a man only had a small farm, he might wish to spend £20 on buildings and £30 on drainage; but in that case he would not be allowed to have a loan at all. That was a point on which he thought the Government, looking to the altered circumstances of the country, might very well consider whether they could not provide some such remedy as he had pointed out. The proposition had nothing revolutionary in its character, but simply appealed to the common sense of the Government; and they could hardly wonder at the feelings induced in the minds of a large number of respectable men when they found that their wants were disregarded, and they were not allowed to acquire the means of carrying out essential improvements under any circumstances. He really thought the Government might do something to meet the wishes of the Irish people in this respect. He had never entertained any great amount of admiration for the Government of the day. At the present moment they were in want of demonstrations, and wished to see large numbers of men marching from place to place, in order that they might carry out a particular line of policy. He was only putting before them a reasonable argument in pointing out these things, although he must say he did not expect very much from them. His hon. and gallant Friends (Captain Aylmer and Colonel Colthurst) wanted the Government to appoint a Royal Commission; but if they did so it would be found that they would not get the Irish Members there. He should support the hon. and gallant Member for Cork (Colonel Colthurst) if he divided the Committee on the subject, for he feared that under the very bad Government they had in Ireland it would not be found possible to get the most common-sense proposals properly considered.

desired to call attention to a few points which he deemed worthy of consideration. In England they had a Board of Works with the right hon. Gentleman then in the Chair (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) at its head. The cost in Ireland was, altogether, a sum of £57,000, or, exclusive of the Land Act loans, £24,000. He would now ask the Committee to look at a few details. The First Commissioner of Works had a salary of £2,000 per annum; but in the case of Ireland they had a Chairman of the Board—the First Commissioner of Works in England having no Commissioners to act with him—receiving a salary of £1,500 a-year, and having the assistance of two Commissioners, who together received £2,400 per annum. That was to say, that what the First Commissioner of Works did for £2,000 was done in Ireland at a cost of nearly £4,000. Going further into detail, the first thing he came upon was the fact that there were in Ireland two classes of bookkeepers and clerks, including, as he perceived by a note at the foot of the page, one who was paid a special allowance of £50 for injured prospects. Could the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury tell the Committee what this absurdity really meant? The hon. Gentleman could not. For his own part, he (Mr. Labouchere) had not the most remote idea of what this item referred to. In England the First Commissioner had no architect under him. The work was done, probably under the right hon. Gentleman's own supervision, by clerks and surveyors; but in Ireland they had an architect; and he saw, by a note below, that this architect, who was put down as receiving a salary of £1,039, also received a second salary of £100 a-year as architect for the national monuments. Then there were chief surveyor and surveyors of buildings, principal draftsman and furniture clerk, and a superintendent of fuel and light, a gentleman who received an allowance to cover the cost of offices. Then they had a Board of Control for Lunatic Asylums, and there was also an architect receiving a salary of £300 per annum and a pension of £300 a-year in addition, as was stated in a foot note, on account of his having been late architect to the Poor Law Board in Ireland. What did that gentleman do for his salary of £300 per annum? Why did he get the large pension of £300 a-year? Probably he did nothing in either office. If some Irish Member would be kind enough to move a reduction of the Vote, he (Mr. Labouchere) would be most happy to support him. Everybody must see that these sums were perfectly preposterous. In all probability those officials were Englishmen, and, therefore, were not worth much; and in Ireland, no doubt, it was true that Satan found some work for idle hands to do.

said, the central point of the hon. Member's speech was the comparison between the Irish Board of Works and the English Board of Works, over which the First Commissioner presided. He would ask anyone who knew anything about the two Boards whether there was a single function that was common to the two. The functions of the two Boards were not at all similar, and had nothing in common. The Board in Ireland had to look after loans to railways, loans for tramways, land improvement loans, business with respect to drainage and piers, and a hundred other matters, with not one of which he suspected the hon. Member was familiar. The hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) had called attention to the question of arrears of loans, and in that matter the appearance was very much worse than the reality. The total indebtedness had not increased; but, instalments of principal having become due and not been paid, there was an apparent alarming increase in the amount of arrears. The matter had been under the consideration of the Government; but it was difficult to enforce the payment of the instalments. The Government would, however, spare no effort to reduce the total of the arrears. With respect to the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the question of arterial drainage, he was afraid he could not share the anticipations as to the great advantages to be derived from such a Commission. If the Government had only to consult themselves and their own convenience, nothing would be easier or simpler than the appointment of a Royal Commission. That would mean the postponement of the question for a year; but this year the Government had introduced two Bills, one dealing with the powers of the Board of Works, embodying the recommendations of a Royal Commission. Had they advanced with that Bill because it was founded on the Report of a Royal Commission? On the contrary, it had been immovable, in consequence of objections of two Irish Members representing two sections of the House. He had agreed to let the Bill be read a second time, and to be referred to a Select Committee upstairs; and if that had been carried out, he should have been glad to have listened to the representations of the Irish Members with the greatest respect. As to arterial drainage, the Bill contained something which might be accepted if it were sent upstairs. Why did not Irish Members exert themselves so as to get this question dealt with upstairs? He did not believe that if a Royal Commission were appointed the Bill would be passed; but he hoped that next year something might be done.

said, he thought the hon. Gentleman must admit that the Irish Members applied themselves as actively to their Parliamentary duties as hon. Gentlemen who received salaries for doing so; and if the hon. Gentleman would take some steps to advance the interests of Ireland, he would find that they would assist him. The hon. Gentleman prided himself upon accurate knowledge; but he thought the conclusions of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) were more accurate than those of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, with all his knowledge. He greatly sympathized with the conclusions and the contention of the hon. Member, as he did with any hon. Member, whether English, Scotch, or Irish. The English Department of Works was much more important than the Irish; but, although a great many of the powers of the Government had been gathered in the hands of the Irish Board, and although its functions were very important, and its cost was very considerable, he believed the Board did very little good for the coun- try. The hon. Member invited some Irish Members to move a reduction, and if he were now as he was four years ago he might be deluded by the hon. Member's suggestion; but he should not adopt the suggestion, for two reasons—first, he believed the hon. Gentleman's Radical mind was not robust enough to follow him into the Lobby; and, secondly, with regard to this Board of Works, he did not believe that any proposal for a reduction would be Radical enough for him; but if the hon. Member would move to abolish the institution altogether he should be glad to support him, and to go in for a cheaper institution. If any hon. Member wished to satisfy himself as to the defined functions of this Board, he would find that the Board was authorized to lend £920,000 for loans to Local Boards, Grand Juries, public buildings, harbours, railways, labourers' dwellings, drainage works, land improvement, repairs of fishery piers, lunatic asylums, and emigration. Emigration was an inevitable dish in every bill of fare for Ireland. If this Department, instead of being supine, cold, and callous, went energetically to work, it might do a great deal to lessen the pressure of poverty on the Irish people. There were vast tracts of land in Ireland which, at a moderate expense, might be reclaimed. But what had been done in the past year? One loan of £60,000 for reclamation. Why was there only one loan for that purpose in the year? Was it because of some impediment of the law? If it was not, then the Government stood self-condemned. If it was, they were almost equally condemned, because they ought to propose an amendment of the law. Then, with regard to National School teachers, 6,000 out of 7,500 were at that moment without suitable residences attached to the schools. He knew that many of them walked many miles; and many lived in houses, not in homes, but in rooms in a condition ruinous to morals and health. It was most difficult for them to live with that external respectability which was essential with anybody having to instruct children. The Local Government Board never troubled themselves to induce the Government to erect teachers' residences, and for these 6,000 teachers only 40 residences had been erected in the past year. Then, again, the Labourers' Cottages Act had been abortive; but if the Department had exerted itself, at least some labourers' cottages might have been erected. Again, as to the Sea Fisheries Act, the Commission, headed by the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake), had set to work, but too near the end of the financial year, and, as far as he was aware, not a stone had been laid towards the construction of any harbour or pier on the coast of Ireland. The Department admitted that there were 200,000 holdings in Ireland occupied by solvent tenants at an annual value of £7 who were entitled to come in under the Act and obtain loans up to £200,000; but how many loans had been advanced? If there were 200,000 persons entitled to have loans, the Department must advance more than £200,000 a-year if they were to make any real progress; but instead of encouraging these poor people, and explaining the regulations and conditions, the Department took pride in multiplying obstacles in the way of these men. If a tenant applied for a loan, at the end of three months' waiting he got a form to be filled up and sent somewhere; but if there happened to be a mistake in the paper it was sent back to him, and then he entered upon a ceremonial during which he was deluged by forms of all sorts. He had known men withdraw from application, after several months, utterly bewildered and broken-hearted. But there was no lack of zeal on the part of the Department when it was called upon to send people out of the country. Although there were only 163 Boards of Guardians in Ireland, the Board had sanctioned during last year no less than 62 loans and spent £11,000 for this purpose. They were empowered to spend £100,000 for that purpose under the Act, and so eager had the Board been to use that power, that, although only two years had elapsed since the Act was passed, no less than £87,132 had been allotted. He should like to have some information as to how many people had been sent away; whether any care was taken to provide the people with the means of living when they arrived in America; and whether it was true that the other day 600 men were sent back as assisted paupers? He would like to know, also, whether it was a fact that a capitation grant was still allowed to the Poor Law Officers in Ireland, and whether they still received 5 s. a-head as a bribe from the country for every person emigrated?

said, he thought there was a consideration underlying this question which the Chief Secretary had passed over. The question raised by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) was not the amount of work the Board did in Ireland compared with what the English Board did, but the extravagance of the Board in Ireland in doing their work. That was an important question. It had been brought forward for several Sessions—namely, the question of national expenditure. If the present Government came in upon any question it was that of national economy; but he was bound to say that their promises had not been fulfilled. Every attempt made by hon. Members to reduce the national expenditure was ridiculed, and they were treated as if they were a set of foolish fanatics. They were led to believe that the Estimates were everything they could be; but the Government would find that the people of the country had not forgotten this question of national economy. The Conservative Party were working it up throughout the land, and the Government would find that this question would have to be faced, and that if they came back to Parliament with a majority it would make itself heard. He felt compelled to make these observations because of the statements which had been made. Every item in the Vote indicated wanton extravagance which ought to be explained, and he wished Irish Members to understand this. Every-body was extravagantly paid, and yet Members were expected to defend this before their constituents. He felt exceedingly aggrieved by the view which the Secretary to the Treasury had taken; and although he felt it was impossible to attempt economy in this Parliament, he hoped the time would soon come, under this or some other Government, when the national expenditure could be reduced.

said, he wished to draw the attention of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to several items in the Estimate which required some explanation. There were, under the head of Salaries of the Staff, a number of discrepancies with regard to which he would like to hear a state- ment from the hon. Gentleman. For instance, in the case of the Secretary to the Board of Works, Ireland, the minimum salary of that official was stated to be £800, with an annual increment of £25. Now, that gentleman's salary stood last year at the minimum amount of £800, and, according to the scale of increase stated in the Vote, the amount of this year's salary ought to have been £825. It was, therefore, a matter of surprise to him that in one year—that was to say, since 1883–4—the salary should have sprung up to the maximum of £1,000, which sum was now asked for. The item certainly baffled his comprehension, and as no information whatever upon the subject was furnished in the Estimate, he must ask the hon. Gentleman by what extraordinary process of computation this sudden jump from £800 to £1,000 in one year had occurred? Then with regard to the first class clerks, there were three clerks of that class with minimum salaries of £320, rising by an annual increment of £20 to a maximum of £500. In their case it appeared that an operation entirely the reverse of that which had taken place with regard to the Secretary's salary had occurred. The salaries of the three first class clerks stood for the year 1883–4 at the total amount of £1,357, to which, if the increment of £20 each were added, or £60 in all, the amount would be £1,417; but the actual amount of their salaries, according to the Estimate, was £1,377 only. Here, again, was a remarkable discrepancy, and he would ask the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to explain why it was that the Secretary to the Board of Works, Ireland, suddenly jumped up, as regarded his salary, to £175 more than his annual increment appeared to warrant, and why the three first class clerks had not advanced at the rate at which they were entitled to advance?

said, in answer to the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Dawson), he believed he could satisfy the hon. Member with regard to the points raised in connection with the salaries of the Secretary and the first class clerks in the Department. The gentleman occupying the position of Secretary was formerly in charge of the accounts of the Office; he was the person who, as appeared on the next page, 181 of the Estimates, received £850 a-year in 1883–4 as Clerk in Charge of Accounts; on his retirement from that position he was promoted to the position of Secretary, which he now held. That being so, having been in receipt of £850 a-year as accountant, it was felt necessary to put him at once at the maximum salary of £1,000, at which he would remain. Then, with regard to the salaries of the three first class clerks, which the hon. Member had referred to, although he was not at the present moment able to give the actual details, he would point out that the apparent inconsistency might be explained—he could not, however, vouch for the accuracy of the explanation—on the supposition that two of the first class clerks were at the maximum of their salaries, or £500 each. That would make up £1,000 of the amount of £1,377, the rest of which might possibly be the salary of the one remaining clerk. With regard to the observations of the hon. Member below the Gangway, the question was whether the subjects he had drawn attention to were proper work for the Committee to be engaged upon in connection with this Vote. The suggestion of the hon. Member was that the work done by the Office of Public Works in Ireland was identical in character with that done by the Board of Works in England; but anyone who had heard the long list of items for the last year which had been read out by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) a short time back must at once perceive that the two Boards were absolutely dissimilar. Any comparison of the two Boards was, therefore, misleading; and hon. Members were not, in his opinion, entitled to make any such comparison, unless they were at the same time prepared to examine the nature of the work done. Then, with regard to the argument made use of by hon. Members opposite, and reiterated by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). The hon. Member had imputed to the Board of Works in Ireland the duty of taking the initiative. But that was an entirely erroneous view of the matter; because the Board of Works took action on the applications made to them by certain persons, and it was a justification of their conduct if it were proved that the applications made to them had been dealt with. It was, therefore, no fault on the part of the Board of Works, Ire- land, that they had made only one loan for the reclamation of land; and no case could be established against them until it was proved that a great many persons entitled to claim did make applications, and were refused. In the same way, with regard to the tenants who were supposed to have a right to receive loans under the Land Act of 1881, the question was not how many tenants were entitled to ask for loans, but how many had actually applied; and how many of those applications had been accepted or rejected. Looked at in that light, the case wore an entirely different aspect to that presented to the Committee by the hon. Member. The Board had started necessarily with an imperfect knowledge of the work to be done, and in the earlier part of the time considerable arrears, no doubt, accrued; but those arrears had, during the last year, been very considerably reduced. The number of applications under inquiry last year had been 1,486; but the number had since been very considerably brought down. The total number received to 31st March last was 6,600, and out of those applications 6,100 had been sanctioned. The effect, therefore, of the action of the Board of Works, Ireland, last year, had been considerably to reduce the arrears, to bring the new cases under consideration down to a smaller number, and to sanction a large number of loans. Hon. Members might ask whether the money had been paid, to which he replied that the money was issued as the work was done and certified. He did not think it necessary to go through every item touched upon by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). He would simply express his opinion that the action of the Board of Works, Ireland, had been reasonably efficient in dealing with the applications made to them; and, further, he had great satisfaction in testifying to the energy shown in conducting the work of the Department generally. There was, however, one branch of the work of the Office on which he felt it his duty to say a few words—namely, that in relation to the Fishery Commission. The hon. Member had referred to what had been done in respect of that branch, and he had blamed the Board of Works for not responding more readily to the action of the Fishery Commission. But what did the Report say? It showed that out of 39 applications for survey made up to the 31st of March last, 35 cases had been considered by the Board of Works, and that plans and specifications had been forwarded by the Board of Works to the Fisheries and Harbours Commission. On the 15th of February eight plans had been sent out, and the rest by the 15th of April, the interval having been, of course, occupied with surveys and work of that kind. The rest of the cases were referred back for change of plans, &c. Then with regard to the action of the Board with reference to another subject. An hon. Member had complained of the action of the Board of Works in respect of the Labourers' Act of last Session, and founded that complaint upon the Report which brought up their work to the 31st of March last. But the hon. Member must be aware that it was impossible for the Board of Works to have taken any action at all under the Act of last year, and that inability on their part formed a material point in the Report. The other reference of the hon. Member with regard to emigration related to the Local Government Board, not to the Board of Works, Ireland.

said, he did not consider that the Office of the Board of Works were in any way to blame on account of the delay which had occurred in connection with the Labourers' Act of last year. The facts of the matter were—the Bill did not receive the Royal Assent until the month of August, and therefore even preliminary steps could not be taken under the Act at the very earliest until the month of September. He believed that he should be more correct in saying that no proceedings at all could take place before November, because the Boards of Guardians were not actually seized of the plan and purposes of the Act itself until that month. At an earlier stage of the discussion of that evening he had felt it his duty to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to the very serious vexational difficulties which stood in the way of the operation of the Act in almost every particular. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury was, he presumed, familiar with the details of carrying out the Act in question; and he would, therefore, repeat to him his apprehension that there was very great danger, in the case of many of the proposed schemes which had already reached their final stage so far as the Board of Works and the Boards of Guardians were concerned, that those schemes would not be carried out at all owing to the difficulties placed in their way. For his own part, he was perfectly convinced that the Treasury would not insist in forcing upon the authors of these schemes an amount of taxation which rendered the erection of labourers' cottages practically impossible; and, therefore, he had reason to hope that the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury would add his valuable assistance to his (Mr. T. P. O'Connor's) endeavour to impress upon Her Majesty's Government the desirability of taking this matter immediately into their consideration. He would just make one or two observations with regard to the general question upon which the Secretary to the Treasury had spoken in reply to the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). He did not think the Committee should be surprised or irritated by the amount of warmth displayed by the hon. Gentleman in this matter; the hon. Gentleman had only followed good example, and he would add that the Head of any Department who did not stand up to defend that Department with some vehemence was not worth his salt. The hon. Gentleman said he differed from hon. Members on those Benches. There was nothing in that to cause surprise to the Committee; nor did he at all blame the hon. Gentleman for being tempted into an unusual display of vehemence out of zeal for his subordinates. But there had been a sight witnessed by the Committee that evening which he thought was extremely significant and interesting. For the first time during the last four years there had been something like earnest assistance on the part of English Members given to Irish Members in their efforts to restrain extravagance in Irish Departments. Now, it was this which had caused the vehemence which the hon. Gentleman vented on the innocent observations of the hon. Member for Northampton. The moment the discussion of these Irish Estimates ceased to be the monopoly of Irish Members and was taken up by Members on the other side of the House, that moment the present system was doomed, and the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Trea- sury knew it very well. It was during the Russo-Turkish difficulty, the parent of the present Liberal majority, that the Duke of Argyll made use of the expression—"My Lords are beginning to be found out." Let the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury consider that the phrase by which his Department was designated was—"My Lords, your Department is being found out;" and that the Offices under its control in Ireland were being conducted on a scale of extravagance that would not be tolerated for one moment in this country. But this Department was only one of many Departments where the same extravagance existed. There were more Judges than were wanted; more Secretaries, Presidents, and Vice Presidents than were necessary; throughout every Department the same vicious system ran—namely, that of tempting English officials into the ranks of the Irish Civil Service.

said, he did not complain of the remarks of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, who, if he were not a Government official, he had no doubt would have supported his hon. Friends and himself in pressing this matter on the consideration of the Government. Situated, however, as the hon. Gentleman was, he had to give some reason, good, bad, or indifferent, for every job perpetrated by the Government. He was not in the least surprised that Irishmen knew more about what went on in Ireland than the Secretary to the Treasury, and Irishmen who lived in Ireland had one and all protested against the general extravagance in regard to the pay of all Irish officials, and particularly in regard to those whose salaries the Committee were now engaged in considering. And yet the hon. Gentleman came forward and, in defiance of the wishes of Irish Members, said that the system was a proper one under which large sums of money were spent upon officials in Ireland who were not wanted in Ireland, and whose salaries were higher in proportion than those of the officials who did the same work in England. The hon. Gentleman did not answer that complaint of hon. Members, and why? Because he knew absolutely nothing about the matter. He asked the hon. Gentleman why there should be an architect appointed to the Board of Control and the Board, of Lunacy at a salary of £300 a-year, when there was an architect appointed for the whole Board of Works who received a salary of £900 a-year, and a special allowance of £200, as well as another £100 a-year a sarchitect for National Monuments. And he further asked the hon. Gentleman why he received the latter salary obviously for doing nothing, and if he also received £300 per annum for another office which he once held under the Poor Law Board? He had been under the impression that the official in question was not to receive a pension; but it now appeared that he was getting £300 a-year in respect of an office with which he had nothing to do. It was in that way these things were done, and if the matter in question were looked into, it would, no doubt, be found that this person was a relation of someone who had done something in the interest of the Government, and that giving him the office was an act of mere Party bribery. He did not say that the present occupants of the Treasury Bench were one whit worse than the Gentlemen who sat opposite them. He could see exceedingly little difference between Parties in that respect; but his great objection was that whenever a job, be it big or little, was perpetrated it was done at the expense of the nation.

said, it would appear from the statement of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury that the officers of the Board of Works in Ireland were perfect individuals. The hon. Gentleman defended each item, and he endeavoured to prove that in every respect the officials whose actions had been questioned on both sides of the House discharged their duties perfectly. But he ventured to say that if each item were examined in the light of the Report which had been presented to the House for the year it would be found that there had been a deplorable failure on the part of the officials in question to meet the reasonable expectations of the people, with regard to the question of the Fishery Boards and Harbours Act of last year. The statement of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury a few minutes since, that of 39 schemes sent forward only two were in course of being carried out at the present time, was, in his opinion, the most eloquent condemnation that could possibly be passed on the Board. He was obliged to say that the boast of the Secretary to the Treasury, that with regard to 35 of these schemes plans and specifications had been forwarded, was somewhat pre-mature and misleading, because he (Mr. Kenny) perceived that of eight of those schemes specifications had not been sent on; so that he apprehended there was a mistake somewhere. For his own part, he should be sorry to admit that the hon. Gentleman's estimate was accurate. He passed now to page 28 of the Report, on which it appeared that £13,275 had been advanced this year to a Mr. Drinkwater for reclamations. It appeared from the Report that the works were commenced in 1873, and the Report went on to say—

"We are now engaged in making such arrangements as will facilitate the execution of the works."

What did that mean? Did it mean that Mr. Drinkwater had broken his contracts? It would appear so, and that the Treasury had no satisfaction whatever for his having done so. The Secretary to the Treasury had given the Committee nothing in the nature of an explanation of this extraordinary transaction, which certainly had the magnitude of a public scandal. Hon. Members on those Benches would like to know whether Mr. Drinkwater was still responsible for the loan; how much money had been expended on the works, and what security the Treasury had that this money would be repaid? Passing from this transaction, which required to be cleared up, there was another matter to which he desired to refer. What was the extraordinary expenditure in connection with the Labourers' Act of last year? They had the following items:—One Assistant Commissioner, £800; one Examiner, £300; three Draftsmen, £240; 36 Inspectors at £300, £10,675; travelling expenses of Inspectors, £6,500; advertising, £3,000; registry of loans, £1,500. It was the function of these gentlemen to prepare Reports as to loans amounting to £200,000. It appeared, therefore, that the preliminary expenses made a charge of 7 per cent on each loan before it was granted. Such a waste was to be deplored. The manner in which the Labourers' Act had been, so to speak, paralyzed by the extraordinary demands of voracious officials was a thing they ought to have some explanation of. There was nothing more deplorable than the manner in which the public officials in Ireland ate up enormous slices out of the money that was granted in the shape of loans by Parliament for the purpose of carrying on public works. He hoped the Secretary to the Treasury would be able to give them further information as to fisheries, though he did not think he would be able to do so. Whether or not, he trusted the hon. Member would be able to give them some information as to the other matters to which he had drawn attention. There was another question to which he would like to advert—namely, the inspection the Government were bound to make of those schemes which were prepared under the Tramways Act of 1861. He saw a lot of bogus schemes on the Paper, that from the commencement had never had a chance of being carried to a successful issue. These schemes were prepared by men of straw, by men who were nothing but swindlers who came from England. Such practices should not be allowed to go on. As he said, they were nearly all Englishmen who came over to Ireland to carry on their swindles, and it was a scandal that they should be allowed to thrive with impunity on the unsophisticated people of Ireland.

said, he did not want to go into these questions as to the Poor Law Board of Ireland; but he desired to call attention to the persistency with which the Secretary to the Treasury insisted upon putting into the Estimates arithmetical puzzles and absurdities, and the innocent manner in which he offered explanations. He (Mr. Warton) was not going fully into these questions, because they had been gone into by the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray); and he had no doubt that everything the Secretary to the Treasury had said in reply to that Gentleman, with regard to the persons promoted from one post to another, was, from his point of view, perfectly right. That was not the question. Because the hon. Gentleman could give a reasonable account of the promotion of an official he thought he was answering the whole question; but that was not so. These Estimates should be arithmetically correct, and no explanation as to the virtues or excellence of a certain official was a reason for financial absurdities. They had an item of four second-class clerks with maximum salaries of £300, rising by annual increments of £15. The total was £1,239, or £39 more than the maximum of the four clerks, which would be £1,200. The item for 1883–4 was £1,204, and he should like to know how the difference between that sum and £1,239 could be made up by any increment of £15? Then they had an item showing that in 1883-4 the minimum salary of the Secretary was £800. It should have risen to £850, the increment being £25; but here they had an item of £1,000 put down for 1884–5. The Secretary to the Treasury should be ashamed of putting such absurdities in the Estimates, and he (Mr. Warton) felt it his duty to protest against the system. That was not the first time or the second they had had such Estimates prepared.

said, he was sorry the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bridport was not satisfied with the explanation he had given. He (Mr. Courtney) might be open to censure; but the explanation was that the person appointed to the post of Secretary was a gentleman receiving a salary already above the minimum of the post—he was a gentleman transferred from one post to another, of course on full pay. With regard to the question put by the hon. Member for Ennis (Mr. Kenny) as to the cost of working the Land Act of 1881, he was afraid that the expenditure was necessary in the nature of things. It was necessary that they should have Inspectors to visit the localities, in order to ascertain the nature of the proposed improvments, and report upon them. It was obvious, therefore, that the expense of the Commissioners must be considerable in proportion to the work they did. They still took security for the due execution of the work. The hon. Gentleman put a question as to the Clare slob reclamation. He (Mr. Courtney) thought he had explained how that stood. The scheme as originally promoted was promoted by private individuals, and promised to be a great improvement and a work financially profitable. It was eventually ascertained, however, that it would be much more expensive than had been supposed. The works did not go on, and further loans were necessary to carry it through. Even after further loans were granted the work was not completed, and then an additional payment of three-fourths was granted. An Inspector of the Board of Works was sent down to see that the work was done.

Was the Inspector constantly there?

said, he was not there every day; but week by week he went down to examine the work done. Finally, the Board of Works had been obliged themselves to take the work over. The operation had proved to be a loss; but it was one of those things they had been constantly urged to undertake—that was to say, in this case, as in many others, they had been constantly invited to grant loans for the reclamation of land which was covered with water at high tide. These things were often recommended as profitable reclamations, but frequently turned out to be a loss. In this case the work was carried out at the expense of English capitalists.

How much capital was invested?

£20,000; the figures have been given over and over again in answer to the hon. Member for Ennis.

Did they not become bankrupt?

said, they liquidated, and the whole matter was inquired into. There were many cases of precisely the same character, and the Government had to be continually on their guard. In the matter of the tramways, the Board of Works was executing the duty thrown upon it by Parliament. When the scheme for the construction of the tramways was brought under their notice they had no option but to proceed to make an inspection for themselves, and to estimate the cost of the work, so as to be ready to satisfy the Grand Jury, and to put the case before the Committee of Council. The action of the Board of Works might have been imprudent; but it was altogether due to the Act of last Session, which the hon. Member himself had heartily supported.

said, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, with considerable ingenuity, made himself out to be completely innocent of Irish feeling as to this Vote. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman would feel offended with him for saying so; but "where ignorance is Bliss 'tis folly to be wise." Certainly, if the right hon. Gentleman found it his duty to defend the system carried on by this Board for so long, he (Mr. Harrington) could only say that it must be a matter of bliss to the right hon. Gentleman if he did not know that the functions of the Board towards the Irish nation were of the highest importance. The right hon. Gentleman was ignorant of the fact that, if the Board moved with anything like the progress they had a right to expect, it would be of immense advantage to the country, instead of being, as it was, a drag on every movement for its real improvement. When a scheme of any kind passed through that House, no matter how urgent was the necessity for it, and how pressing was the case which had been made out—however great the necessity in Ireland might be—the administration of the scheme was at once confined to that Irish limbo called the Board of Public Works. It was practically many years after a scheme had obtained the sanction of Parliament that it began to show its head above the surface of social and political life in Ireland. Last year, by the energy and zeal of the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake)—whose services he (Mr. Harrington), as an humble Member of the Party, regretted extremely to hear they were about to lose—a very excellent Bill was passed through the House for the erection of fishery piers. It was provided that a sum of £50,000 or £70,000 for the first year, and not more than £50,000 each succeeding year, should be expended on fishery piers and harbours. What was the story the right hon. Gentleman had to tell them? Why, that not a single stone of any pier had yet been laid. Only two schemes had been prepared—two efforts had been made; he supposed he might say that two stones had been laid; perhaps the divers in these cases had gone down and sounded the bottom. He would appeal to the hon. Gentleman who had charge of the passage of the Bill, and who had taken upon himself, without remuneration, the onerous and important duties of Chairman of the Commission for the carrying out of the work, and to which, to his (Mr. Harrington's) knowledge, the hon. Member had devoted a great deal of energy and labour—he would appeal to him, in his position as Chair- man of the Commission, to know whether anything had been done on these important schemes which had occupied the consideration of Parliament last year. The hon. Member might not find himself free to stand up and take part in a debate; but he (Mr. Harrington) would challenge him to say whether anything had been done. Why was the time of Parliament occupied with this matter last Session, if there was not immediate and urgent necessity for the passing of the Bill; and why was it that this scheme, to obtain its first growth and sanction in Ireland, had been for the past 12 months winding its way through the circuitous route of the routine of this Board? If there was anything in the whole system of government in Ireland which excited the ridicule of the Irish people, who were peculiarly sensitive on matters of this kind, it was this same Board. They knew perfectly well that when a man applied for a loan under it his hair grew grey, practically, before he could succeed in getting the first instalment; and that, when he did succeed in getting one, the work which he wished to carry out, and part of which he might have carried out, was utterly useless, because of the period which elapsed before he got a second instalment. The circumlocution which was practised as to the first instalment was practised as to the second. He found that after he had laid a foundation he was struck idle, waiting until the lethargic officers of this public Body found it convenient to set themselves again in motion in order to give him a second instalment. The right hon. Gentleman, of course, had quite a style of his own of meeting charges of this kind—a style which seemed to be satisfactory to a great many Members. It was well for him that he had only the British House of Commons to deal with, and that it was not necessary for hint to put himself before the people of Ireland. In this matter, however, the right hon. Gentleman would find that, if he were confronted, not only by that House, but by the people of Ireland on this question, the laugh would be all on the other side. Everyone had condemned the existing system in Ireland. A few petrified officials had been allowed to continue in office after they had grown unfit for their duties a decade at least. It was admitted by the Board that these officials were unfit to discharge their duties, and yet the Government left them in possession of them. A Commission was appointed in 1878 to inquire into the working of the Board, and he found in the Report of that Commission certain comments made upon the action of this Board. Hon. Members opposite seemed to be paying some attention to this subject, much more than they generally paid to questions raised by the Irish Members; and he would, therefore, invite their attention to this. It appeared that up to 1860 the Report, which the right hon. Gentleman had quoted, said the Commissioners had held four meetings with tolerable regularity. The minute book was duly kept, and the minutes received the counter signature of the Secretary in the usual way. During the next two years, according to the Report, the new minutes entered were minutes of transactions in the Office rather than transcriptions of the Board, and such formalities as the attesting signature of the Secretary were dispensed with, though on what ground those who made the Report were unable to say. The Report went on to say that at last traces of Board meetings disappeared, and it had not been customary for the Commissioners to hold formal sittings. He did not know how much weight that Report had had with the Government, or what effect was given to the recommendations of the Commission; but with regard to some of their recommendations the House was in a position to judge in the matter, and hon. Members knew that though the Commission had suggested the retirement of the Chairman, a length of time was allowed to elapse before he could be removed out of the way. The retirement of the Secretary was suggested; but he was allowed to remain in office for eight years after the Commission had suggested his retirement, and had practically pointed out that he was unable to fulfil the duties that he was entrusted with. If this Commission had to discharge a merely formal routine business, there would not be much ground for complaint; but that was not the case. There were many such bodies as this in Ireland. The Government was in the habit of rewarding its servants with payments of this kind, and hon. Members from Ireland would not object so much if they did not happen to be a drag on every movement for the improvement of the people, and for the improvement in the resources of the country. He had touched upon the action of the Board with regard to the Fishery Commission. The right hon. Gentleman had certainly given extremely scant satisfaction with regard to that; he had not in any manner explained to the Committee why it was that of the £70,000 which they had been allowed to believe the Government would have expended, scarcely 1 d. had been expended up to the present time.

£6,000 has been spent.

said, he was told that £6,000 had been spent; but what was that out of £70,000 Was this supineness and lethargy owing to the fact that the Board had too many duties placed upon its shoulders? If it had too many duties imposed upon it, why was not that stated to the House, and why did not the Board refuse to do the duties, and why were not those duties handed over to some other Department? But if, as was believed in Ireland, the whole system was wrong, and that the men at the head of it were unable to discharge the duties entrusted to them through not having been trained to the work, and if they had no means of grasping or dealing with the difficulties of their position, why was not some effort made by the Government to clear them all away, bag and baggage, and establish in their place some cheap and fast method of dealing with this matter? As to the system of inspection in connection with the improvement works carried on, he remembered that large loans were obtained from the Treasury through that Board in 1879–80, when the landlords in Ireland were so exceptionally favoured as to get at a nominal interest very large loans, ostensibly for the purpose of giving some employment to people in the country, but really for the purpose of improving their own property. Cases were numerous where people could point out that landed proprietors in Ireland were taking large sums of money from this Department to effect certain improvements on their land, and that not a single 1 d. of the money had ever been expended for the purpose for which it had been obtained. They were able to get from the Treasury money at the rate of 1 per cent; but they used it for whatever purposes they chose. He challenged the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to deny that half the money that had been so raised was applied to the purposes for which it was lent by the House. There was not a county or district in Ireland where the people could not tell them that landlords living there had obtained loans for the drainage and improvement of their properties; but that not a single 1 d. of the loans had been expended with that object. Sometimes a slight pretext was made of doing something; a few holes were dug in the ground here and there in which to plant trees; but the trees were never planted, the holes remaining unfilled. Everything that the Board touched it corrupted. There was no Board in Ireland more odious to the people, not because of the political influence it had, not because of any objection, personal or otherwise, they had to the men—they were mere nobodies, so far as the people were concerned—but because any measure which passed through the House of Commons, and which had any connection with money, was sure to be consigned to limbo by the Board of Works.