Before this Bill passes to "another place" I wish, with the permission of the House, to make a few observations. No one can fail to have been struck by the fact that yesterday there was a change of tone in all parts of this House on this matter, and that the hopes of a very speedy arrangement, satisfactory to all Parties and to the country at large, seemed yesterday to be more distant than they had done before. Any regret which I may feel for the fact, whether or not it has an echo on either side of the House, is, I feel sure, shared by a great many persons out-of-doors. And in proportion as they see the prospect both of these measures—the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill—being passed by the present Government, and the present Parliament receding from view, so there will be a very great regret that this Parliament has not been able to arrive at that solution which, I believe, the country desires. I should like to ask what is the cause of the change that seemed to come over the House of Commons with regard to this matter yesterday? Was it that the House considered that, after the hints and the suggestions which had been made by the responsible Leaders of both Parties, there was less hope than there was before that some agreement might be arrived at? Or did it appear that there was less prospect of agreeing to a Redistribution Bill when that Redistribution Bill had been introduced? Or was it that one isolated political event out-of-doors so changed the opinions of hon. Members opposite — ["Oh, oh!" from the Opposition]]—that that which they seemed to approve of before was not approved of yesterday? I call the attention of the House, not only to the speeches, but to the cheers and the demeanour of hon. Members opposite. [Laughter.] I do not see why hon. Members opposite should indulge in merriment at that suggestion, and I do not think that the part I have taken with regard to this measure should disincline hon. Members opposite to listen to my observations. If I now venture to address hon. Members opposite, I have not shrunk from speaking frankly to my own Friends; and it is not in any spirit of opposition, but it is because I feel certain that the country will regret the prospect of a solution of this question receding, that I venture to make this appeal. I do trust that the Conservative Party will not think that they are serving the cause they have at heart, or that they will strengthen the position of the House of Lords, or that they will promote that solution which they so much desire—namely, the speedy introduction of a Redistribution Bill—by giving way to any feeling which may arise in their minds that their success at an isolated election means that the country endorses the position which they have taken up. Supposing that that were so—supposing that that election had been fought on the ground that the Lords had done right, and that the election had been won on that ground—and, indeed, for my part, I believe there was much force in the remark of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), that the action of the House of Lords has brought the question of redistribution nearer than it was in the last days of August; that we are now standing in a different position from what we were then; and that we have a greater certainty that it will be dealt with, and greater guarantees, and more prospect of performance, than we had before. Nevertheless, even if the late election expressed that opinion, I think distinctly it would be a great pity if the prospect of other elections, such as South Warwickshire, were to change in any respect the conciliatory attitude which I understood the Conservative Party to assume on Thursday and Friday last. I do not know whether the position of the Government has been thoroughly and correctly understood; but, to my mind, their position is this—not that they invite the opposite Party, as has been represented, to introduce or sketch a Redistribution Bill themselves, but that the Government are prepared at the very earliest date to introduce their Redistribution Bill, provided they only have some indications—not formal, not complete indications, but some indications of the attitude which the other side, or, rather, which the whole House, is likely to take with regard to these proposals. [Cries of "Oh, oh!" and "What are they?"] I will tell hon. Members what they are are. They are, that the Redistribution Bill shall not be founded simply upon the principle of population; that in the Redistribution Bill the principle of communities as against individuals shall be maintained; and that the Redistribution Bill is to be fair and just as between rural and urban districts. All these indications have been given by the right hon. Gentleman speaking on behalf of Her Majesty's Government; but the House has had no indication, the country has had no indication whatever, of the attitude which will be taken by the Conservative Party with regard to any one of these great principles, and so I understand the position of Her Majesty's Government to be, that they invite some indication of opinion, being convinced in their own minds that they are going to propose a Redistribution Bill which will be satisfactory to hon. Members opposite. I am afraid that, standing in this place, it is incidental to political human nature to express oneself with more warmth than one would desire; but what I wish to suggest to hon. Members opposite is simply this—that they should return to the frame of mind in which they were on Thursday or Friday last. [Opposition laughter, and cries of "No, no!" from below the Ministerial Gangway.] I quite understand "No, no!" coming from that quarter, and it is because I understand it so well that I make my appeal to hon. Members opposite. Why have hon. Members opposite wished, and why have some of us wished, that these two Bills should be carried together? Because they consider, and I agree with them, that the present Parliament is a fit Body to deal with this question of redistribution, and will deal with it, possibly, in a fairer spirit than the new electorate would before redistribution has taken place. But there is a danger that is equal to that danger, and that is this—that we should now embark upon a controversy between the two Parties who, in the heat of an election, will produce rival schemes of redistribution. For my part, I think that the whole of that subject will be dealt with in a fairer spirit, and in a manner much more representative of the true interests of the country, and with a consideration for all sides, if it is done by a friendly arrangement after the manner suggested by the Prime Minister through the action of the whole House, than if we were to go to the country with each side making this question of redistribution one of the planks in its political platform, and with both sides bidding against each other in order to secure popular, and even democratic, support for their proposals. I do not think that the Conservative Party will find that their views will be subserved by such a course, because it appears to me that even Conservatives will go much further in the heat of election, and even in a bye-election, when they publish their addresses, than they will do when they are sitting in this House and carefully considering the question like statesmen. On the subject of redistribution Lord Salisbury says that he has been misrepresented when it is said that he has adopted the principle of population as the basis of representation. In his article in The National Review, which circulates in clubs, and which is read in society, he complains that any reference on his part to the four rules of arithmetic before popular audiences is considered as showing that he is in favour of making population the basis of representation. But, certainly, if, on a public platform, the noble Lord says that a district is entitled to so many Members in proportion to its population, it is highly probable that that district will think that that means business. You cannot dangle these arithmetical problems before an excited audience without their drawing their own deductions from them, and it is not by any kind of explanations in The National Review that the effect of such statements will be diminished. But the moral of that appears to be that we must make every effort to deal with this question of redistribution before a General Election. Hon. Members opposite will see, I trust, that it is with no feeling against them that I make these remarks. I believe that statesmanlike and steady principles will be more likely to be introduced into the Redistribution Bill, which I trust may be—and, indeed, which must be—introduced within the next few weeks. [An hon. MEMBER: The next few days.] Very well, the next few days — [loud Opposition cheers] — which I trust will be introduced within the next few days, after the invitation of this side of the House has been met, and hon. Members opposite have somewhat lifted the veil with regard to their views concerning redistribution, which we, on this side of the House, have been unable to penetrate. But as long as hon. Members opposite do not give us the slightest indication as to what degree of favour the sketch made by the Prime Minister is likely to be met by with among hon. Members on that side, so long it is difficult and almost impossible for Her Majesty's Government to produce their Bill. I was about to say that I see in the very language the Prime Minister has used this night that he intends to reserve this Session for the question of redistribution as well as of the franchise. There were words carefully chosen, too, in the Queen's Speech which indicated the same thing; and I implore hon. Members opposite to do what they can in order that that which they themselves have hitherto wished may be brought about, and that the country may see that, to the credit of this Parliament, we are able to carry out the wishes of the people, which I believe to be that both these great questions may be dealt with forthwith. By doing so I believe that we shall best vindicate the practical character of the House of Commons, and that we shall also vindicate the position of the House of Lords, which will be saved from an agitation which cannot be to its advantage; and, above all, it will be possible tranquilly and quietly to consider that scheme upon which the future of England must depend, and which we ought to be able to consider in this House like men of business, and putting the interests of the public above the interests of Party, rather than in the heat and turmoil of a contested election. In that spirit we might be able to consider that scheme of redistribution which, if both sides would only approach each other and pass over that small interval which still seems to separate them, I believe could be devised to the satisfaction of both Parties in this House and to the great advantage of the country.

I am disposed to agree with the right hon. Gentleman in the expression of his regret at the change of tone which was perceptible in the debate of yesterday; but I think that it is necessary to make this qualification—that that change of tone was only recognized after my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Lancashire (Colonel Stanley) resumed his seat. There was no change of tone in his speech, which was moderate and temperate; the change of tone was only perceptible in the reply of the Prime Minister, and in what I venture to call the hectoring speech of the Home Secretary. If there was such a marked change of tone in the speeches we heard yesterday from the Treasury Bench, and equally, undoubtedly, on this side, the House and the country out-of-doors must place their own construction upon the causes of that change. The right hon. Gentleman has invited us to recur to the frame of mind in which he supposes we were on Thursday and Friday last. I wish to give the right hon. Gentleman every satisfaction in my power, and if I could recur to the frame of mind in which I was on those days I would endeavour to do so; but the fact is that I am in exactly the same frame of mind now as I then was. I am quite at a loss to understand what the right hon. Gentleman means when he says that not only the language but the demeanour of the whole Conservative Party has undergone some wonderful change since Thursday and Friday last. I cannot enlighten the right hon. Gentleman as to the causes of a fact which has no existence. But the right hon. Gentleman proceeded to refer to three possible causes for that change of language and demeanour. The first, and, as I assume in his opinion, as he dwelt the longest upon it, the most important, of those causes is the result of a recent contested election. But there have been one or two contested elections lately; and when the right hon. Gentleman says that the change in the whole demeanour of the Conservative Party of the House is probably to be attributed to the results of a single bye-election, I feel disposed to ask him to which bye-election he refers, because, if I am right in my assumption that the change of toners on the Ministerial side of the House and not on this, then it must be the Scarborough and not the South Warwickshire Election to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. What inducement does the right hon. Gentleman hold out to us to depart from the position and principle which we have hitherto inflexibly maintained? The right hon. Gentleman says if you will only kindly tell the Government what your general scheme of redistribution is, and, more than that, if every section of this House will kindly tell the Government what their scheme of redistribution is, then he has little doubt that Her Majesty's Government will forthwith proceed to introduce a measure which will satisfy everybody and will discontent nobody. Was ever so extraordinary a proposition submitted to the House? Has the right hon. Gentleman himself communicated his scheme to Her Majesty's Government, and have his hon. Friends who sit around him—the highly respectable, but, I fear, the somewhat diminishing, Whig Party—com- municated to Her Majesty's Government what scheme will find favour in their eyes; and has that banded phalanx of the enthusiastic supporters of Her Majesty's Government who sit below the Gangway on this side of the House communicated to Her Majesty's Government the scheme of redistribution which they will support? I might also go through every Bench below the Gangway on the Ministerial side of the House, and ask whether the hon. Members who sit upon them have told the Government what their scheme of redistribution is? No, Sir; the appeal is really made to Her Majesty's Opposition, and to Her Majesty's Opposition alone.

"'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly."

Now, Sir, had it not been for the rather lugubrious tone of the right hon. Gentleman, I was rather disposed to congratulate you, and the House at large upon our impending relief from the vexations and troubles of what obviously, since the speeches from the Government Benches, is about to be a barren and a fruitless Session. I think this House and the other House of Parliament and the country ought to know that, while on some occasions Her Majesty's Ministers can speak in honeyed accents, and appear to be in the most amiable of minds, in reality they intend not to budge one single inch from the position they have taken up; and that, while they insist upon this isolated measure being placed on the Statute Book, they will not take this House nor the country into their confidence as to the corresponding measure of reconstruction which this Bill renders absolutely necessary. For I must contend that while the Government are complimented upon the simple character of this Bill and upon its enfranchising qualities, there is another aspect and another character of it to which, I think, too little attention has been directed, and that is its disfranchising influence. This is a Bill in reality—and I am not sure that the same thing was not pointed out last night by the hon. Member for South Northumberland (Mr. A. Grey)—which logically and practically destroys the existing system of the borough representation of the Three Kingdoms; and this is a Bill which annihilates practically the existing county constituencies of the Three Kingdoms. It is not too much to say that this Bill throws down the Parliamentary walls of every borough which does not contain a population of above 50,000. And this Bill, by merging those towns in the adjacent counties, and by the emancipation of county voters by its other provisions, does substantially disfranchise, as far as political power is concerned, the existing constituencies of the counties. Well, Sir, these being the two disfranchising effects of this measure, I would ask what are the proposals of Her Majesty's Government in the way of reconstruction? What they do in the way of destruction is patent and obvious. What they are prepared to do in the way of reconstruction, I say, has always been, and still remains, vague, indefinite, and uncertain. The right hon. Gentleman who has just resumed his seat has told us that nothing could be clearer or more definite than the principles of reconstruction laid down by the Prime Minister. I take exception to that statement entirely. I should say that, compared with the statements of the right hon. Gentleman last Session, those which we heard with respect to reconstruction the other night are still more vague and still more indefinite. Now, let me take one—and I take one only—of these five principles, as I think the right hon. Gentleman called them—perhaps some will call them propositions, some perhaps—certainly nobody in this House—might be tempted to call them Parliamentary platitudes—but whether principles, propositions, or platitudes, I will test by one, and by one only, what they really mean, and what construction anybody can place upon them. I will take the fourth. Last Session the right hon. Gentleman was, I thought, clear and distinct on the subject of that fourth proposition—the proportional representation between the Three Kingdoms. Ireland was to keep the whole of her present representation; Scotland was to gain new Members; and England was to lose Members unless Parliament should agree to an increase of Members of this House. I am sure some hon. Gentlemen will remember the sort of shudder which passed through the crowded Benches when it was proposed to increase the numbers who were to sit upon them. This Session all that is dropped. Now, what is the fourth proposition or principle of the right hon. Gentleman? It comes in these words—

"Further, and to this I attach immense importance, it must be equitable and liberal, as between the great divisions of the country; and in speaking of these great divisions I have avoided the term 'the three countries known in the Constitution,' because it is not unnatural to speak of the four countries, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales."

That is the sole amount or item of information which we have had communicated to us by the right hon. Gentleman. Last Session Ireland was to keep all her Members; this Session we are not told that. Last Session Scotland was to gain Members; this Session we are not told that. But the proposition, like all other propositions, is regulated by a qualification; and the qualification in this proposition is that it must be equitable and liberal, as between the great divisions of the country. How are we to interpret those two epithets? If we look at the first epithet, and take it as the ruling epithet of the sentence, we may be disposed to think that, after all, Ireland and Wales probably will not keep their present number of Members. If, on the other hand, we disregard the epithet "equitable" and think only of that which follows, "liberal," the Irish Gentlemen below the Gangway may even hope for a considerable addition to their number. And so, Sir, throughout all the divisions of the country. Is Wales to gain, is Scotland to gain, is England to lose? This will all be regulated by those two epithets in conjunction "equitable" and "liberal." Now, Sir, when we press our well-founded demand—from which in principle I apprehend the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) does not dissent—that redistribution should accompany this scheme of extension of the franchise, what are the answers which we received in the course of yesterday from Her Majesty's Ministers? They were twofold. First of all, that to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, the information which has already been vouchsafed to us, and with which we are told to be content, that no more will be afforded to us until the Franchise Bill is placed upon the Statute Book; and the other is an answer of the most extraordinary character I think I ever remember even in this House. We are told in answer to our demands—"Oh, why do not you come forward and tell us what you wish for?" I object altogether to either of these answers being regarded as satisfactory. I have already given the reason why I think the information with which Her Majesty's Government have favoured us is altogether illusory and insufficient; and with respect to the other argument—the only new one which I heard from the right hon. Gentleman yesterday—it was certainly an injudicious one—the argument of fear. The right hon. Gentleman said in effect—"I fear if we do not first of all enrol the Franchise Bill on the Statute Book, something of a very unpleasant Parliamentary character may ensue, and this House of Commons may, in my greatest need, desert me, and on some question connected with Egypt or South Africa I may find myself in a minority, and then what becomes of the Franchise Bill? Why, it would be intrusted to your suspicious, suspected, unfriendly hands, and that is a danger which I dare not face." Now, I have always had a high opinion of the courage of the right hon. Gentleman, but it would seem to be destroyed by himself if this argument is admitted. But I would bid the right hon. Gentleman to take encouragement from the recollection of what has occurred during every Session of this Parliament. Cannot he rely, after all that has gone by, on the unswerving fidelity and the dauntless resolution of his bands of serried followers. What amount, I should like to know, of humiliation, or disgrace, or calamity is likely to sever them from his victorious car? The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down passed an eulogium—a very well deserved eulogium—on himself for the impartiality and fairness of his conduct on this and all other questions; but unless my memory deceives me, the right hon. Gentleman himself, on that very Egyptian Question, condemned the conduct of the Government in his speech, but abstained from recording that unfavourable opinion in the Division Lobby. No, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman may address his followers in a classical and well-known quotation—

"O passi graviora, dabit Deus his quoque finem."

But, supposing—because the right hon. Gentleman at least desires that the House of Commons should suppose, the position he has placed before them is, at any rate, a possible one—suppose the catastrophe which he dreads should occur, and he should find himself in a minority on some crucial foreign question—what would happen? A change of Government would ensue. Would the right hon. Gentleman or anybody on the other side of the House contend for one single moment that any Government which could be formed in this House of Commons could remain in Office a week without an appeal to the constituencies of the country? Therefore, it is not that the right hon. Gentleman dreads this House, not that he dreads his supporters or his opponents here; but what he dreads is that there must be under those circumstances an appeal to the country. He dreads what sort of answer the country would have to give even upon this question of the Franchise Bill. I will not ask the right hon. Gentleman to trust to the honour of his political opponents. Let him think as meanly and as poorly of us as he pleases. Let him suppose that we are capable, after having accepted the principle of the Franchise Bill on the condition that the measure is accompanied by a full scheme for the redistribution of seats—let him suppose that even after that we are mean enough to throw over the whole subject if we have a chance. Let him think all that if he pleases; but what can he think of the country, of the constituencies, without whose consent or assent, base as we might be, we could never hope to perform so extraordinary a feat? Now, I will say a word or two on the other branch of the question which has been put before us—namely, this new doctrine of the duty of the Opposition to furnish the Government with their views on the question of redistribution. It is the first time during my long career in Parliament that I have heard such a proposal made to an Opposition. I am quite certain that the right hon. Gentleman himself the last time he dealt with the question of Reform never invited the Opposition to favour him with their views on redistribution. At first, it is true, he was a little shy of introducing his Redistribution Bill; but after awhile his repugnance was conquered, and he placed before the House his scheme of redistribution, as well as the scheme for the extension of the franchise. The present proposal is a complete and entire novelty, not likely to lead to satisfactory results, or to the due discharge of the Ministerial responsibilities of the Government. If the right hon. Gentleman is sincerely anxious—and I do not for a moment doubt his sincerity in the matter—to obtain the support of a large section of the House for the scheme of redistribution to which he has given his assent, he must wait for the exposition of that approbation until the proper time and opportunity have arrived, and that will be when he submits his scheme on his own Ministerial responsibility to the attention of Parliament. This is no new view of mine. If hon. Members will turn to the interesting work with which many of them are doubtless by this time familiar—namely, The Memoirs of Mr. Croker, they will find in it a very admirable letter written by Sir Robert Peel on this question. Somebody, it appears, in 1831, had made that sort of communication to Sir Robert Peel which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon has made to us to-night, and suggested that it would be a very good thing if Sir Robert Peel would indicate in a friendly sort of way his view of Reform to the Government of the day, and this is what Sir Robert Peel said in answer—

"My fixed determination is to keep myself wholly unfettered in regard to any measure of Reform brought forward by the Government, and to decline all communication, direct or indirect, with the Government of the day."

I think that Sir Robert Peel expressed in this sentence tersely and well the true Constitutional position which Leaders of the Opposition should assume towards the Government of the day. The Government have deliberately, persistently, and for their own purposes, tried to divorce franchise from redistribution. They maintain that position; and, so long as they maintain it, it will be impossible for us to communicate, publicly or privately, with them on the subject of redistribution of seats. When the Government show a disposition to qualify that position the whole condition of affairs will be immediately changed. But, after the speeches which we heard last night, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon we must reconcile ourselves as best we can to the impending strife of tongues which is apparently before us, and we must do in our respective spheres the best we can to maintain and promote those principles which, on one side of the House or the other, we have been sent here to maintain. For myself, I can only say that every debate which has taken place on this subject, every meeting which I have had the opportunity of attending—nay, that even the general result of the descent by the Prime Minister and his Colleagues into the streets during the autumn, have, in my opinion, confirmed the wisdom, the prudence, and the patriotism of the course which the Constitutional Party in both Houses of Parliament and in the country have adopted and maintained. That being the state of the case as it presents itself to our minds, we shall, when the Question is put, say "No" to the third reading of the Bill, animated by the conviction that in so doing we shall be simply discharging our plain and bounden duty to the constituencies, the country, and the Constitution.

I do not rise for the purpose of endeavouring to answer the speech of the noble Lord (Lord John Manners) in the spirit in which it has been conceived and delivered. On the contrary, I shall endeavour to reply to it in a tone as far removed from his as I can possibly make it; for what, Sir, is the speech that we have heard from the noble Lord? It is a speech which introduced with great ability every combative element and consideration into this debate which could tend to render it impossible that anything but a great Constitutional crisis should ensue. To widen a breach, to insure a conflict, to extinguish hopes that might yet remain of reasonable accommodation, I admit there is no man so well qualified as the noble Lord. What is the real upshot of the speech which we have just heard? It is to convey to the mind of the House that it is idle to think of aiming at any union of minds and spirits in the settlement of this great question, and that an accommodation is impossible; and, as if that were not enough, every word of that speech has been directly addressed to the purpose of rendering accommodation impossible. Now, I shall not deal with the parts of the speech of the noble Lord which may properly be called combative, for there is something more important at issue to-night than drawing cheers from those who sit upon the Benches of this House. There are greater issues even than the Motion which you, Sir, have proposed from the Chair, and the thought which weighs and presses upon my mind is, who is to be responsible for events that may possibly happen? So far, Sir, as I am concerned, and I think I may say so far as my Colleagues are concerned, we do not covet any share in that responsibility; and my duty, therefore, is to avoid all topics which, if I were to handle, I could only handle, or might be tempted to handle, in the spirit and the manner of the noble Lord. I come, then, to those portions of his speech which refer to the course of actual events, and I wish to see how far the noble Lord has made good his main contentions in those portions of his speech. He said that there had been a change in the tone and temper of the House since Thursday and Friday last, and he regretted that he could not replace himself in the frame of mind in which he was upon those days.

The right hon. Gentleman has entirely misunderstood what I said, which was, that I could not put myself back into that frame of mind because I had never come out of it.

I am sorry to say that I am afraid I have an additional cause for regret, because I did hope until I heard that explanation of the noble Lord — which, nevertheless, I must thank him for—I did hope that on Friday last he had for once been in a pacific frame of mind, and that the passing state had been so short-lived. Then I will not refer to what the noble Lord has told me of his frame of mind on Friday last. I can only condole with him on many subjects of misgiving and pain which that evening, I am afraid, suggested to him, and very much regret that he is still so faithful to ideas of a different order. But the noble Lord says there was a change of tone in the speeches made last night, but that change of tone never began till after the speech of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Stanley) in moving his Amendment. Was the noble Lord in his place last night? Did he hear the speech of the right hon. Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther)? Is he not aware that in that speech, proceeding from the right hon. Gentleman who sits in common cause and common council with the other Gentlemen on that Bench, the change of tone to which we refer was more conspicuous — if I may say so, more violent—than in any speech which followed? What does the noble Lord mean, then, when he says that this change of tone began with speeches from the Treasury Bench? Why, Sir, the right hon. Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther) not only gave no indications agreeable to the general tone of his speeches in this House, but he actually undertook upon his own responsibility to efface and destroy the effect of the remarkable declaration that had been made by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Assheton Cross) now sitting near him, on the subject of proceeding in this matter by Resolution; and the right hon. Gentleman, whose presence would have been invaluable on that occasion, was, either inconveniently or otherwise, absent from the House—

was understood to say that he had been present.

The right hon. Gentleman was not in the House. His absence was referred to at the time. He was not present in the body. He was not visible to our eyes. I shall have more to say on the subject of that declaration to which I have referred. The noble Lord, declaring that this change of tone proceeded from the Treasury Bench, has carefully avoided all verification of his assertion. He has not referred to a single statement, a single phrase, that was used from this Bench. He has conveniently overlooked the fact that more than once in the course of my remarks, while lamenting the change of tone that had been perceptible, I stated that, with regard to the conciliatory expressions that had been used, neither I nor my Colleagues receded from one syllable of them. And it is after that that the noble Lord puts out of view the speech of his own Friend and Colleague, and tells me that the change of tone was in speeches from the Treasury Bench. I do not deal, like the noble Lord, in those general accusations which are so easy to throw out against opponents, because, from their general character, they do not admit of confutation by reference to particulars. But the whole purpose of my speech last night was to point out—and to point out with deep regret—the change of tone which had taken place in the speeches and in the sentiments of hon. Gentlemen opposite. The noble Lord has, no doubt, gone carefully over the debate of yesterday, and has found himself unable to cite from my own declarations, or any declarations on this side of the House, any one proposition indicating this change of tone. [An hon. MEMBER: Friday night.] Well, I shall go back to Friday night, and to our position as taken on Friday night. The noble Lord says that it is impossible that there can be any communications, publicly or privately, between the leading Members of different Parties on this subject. Did the noble Lord make that declaration for himself? I am afraid not. The noble Lord is well able to enter into the debates of this House without any premeditation; but the speech he has made to-night bears, unhappily, too many marks of premeditation, especially considering that a very large part of it consisted in the treatment in detail of the substance of yesterday's debate. The speech of the noble Lord, therefore, does not permit me to believe that the main propositions he has delivered are the offspring of the thought of the moment alone. He lays down that there can be no communications on the subject, publicly or privately, between the leading Members of Parties. He refers to the case of Sir Robert Peel. I am glad to hear the example of Sir Robert Peel quoted in this matter from those Benches. But the misfortune is that when they quote it they totally misunderstand and misapply it. The noble Lord is now citing Sir Robert Peel as his example and justification on this subject of Parliamentary Reform, especially of redistribution; and Sir Robert Peel did decline those communications. But why? He declined them because he was opposed to Parliamentary Reform. He declined them because he was determined to be responsible for no plan of Parliamentary Reform. May I refer to the consequences of his declining them? Are those consequences so very satisfactory and so very inviting to the noble Lord? What happened in consequence? The passing of the Reform Act and the utter humiliation of the House of Lords. That was the unfortunate consequence of the course Sir Robert Peel took on that occasion; but his course was honourable, manly, and consistent. Being opposed to Reform, being determined to be responsible for no measure of Reform, and seeing that he could not disarm that question of what he thought its danger, he naturally and properly said—"I will have no communications; but will reserve my own absolute freedom on a subject of that nature." Is that example applicable to the noble Lord? Does the noble Lord love Reform as much as we do? Is he anxious beyond anything for the redistribution of seats, that even the double-distilled poison of the Franchise Bill may be diluted possibly by virtue of a Redistribution Bill, and embrace that also? To make the reference applicable, Sir Robert Peel ought to have been saying—"I agree with you in your objects, I am as ready as you are to pass a Reform Bill, I wish to consider in a fair and candid spirit every object which I conceive to be of doubtful advantage, but I will hold no communications with you." If the noble Lord could have cited Sir Robert Peel as saying that, I admit his citation would have been in point; but instead of that he has only shown how entirely out of application is the language which he held. It is necessary, in resorting to that kind of argument, to make use of liberal exaggeration. How did the noble Lord treat the point when he came to say that we had invited the expression of opinion? He said—"Has everybody given his opinion to the Government? Has the right hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) given his opinion to the Government? Have the Gentlemen on this Bench, have the Gentlemen on that Bench? Have you gone round the House to every section and demanded this expression of opinion?" The noble Lord pays me sufficient respect not to pay the slightest regard to the declarations made by me on the part of the Government. I have declared, in the most explicit terms, that, so far as the great majority of the House is concerned, we were at one with them—that we felt perfectly confident as to the principles of the measure of redistribution, that it will meet their cheerful approval and assent. There is no question of referring to my right hon. Friend, or to any Gentleman connected with the majority of the House, upon the subject of the franchise and redistribution. But we did undoubtedly invite communications from hon. Gentlemen opposite, and that appears in the view of the noble Lord a great offence, and he repudiates it altogether, and says—"It is impossible to have these communications, publicly or privately." If that be so, recollect how we stand. Our own course is this—to pass the Franchise Bill, and then be secure of a fair unobstructive treatment of the Redistribution Bill. That is our plan of proceedings. But of that plan you complain, and make use of the power which by sympathy you enjoy "elsewhere." I do not say you threaten—you give warning—that the controversy shall continue, and you are ready to risk the consequences. Well, Sir, under these circumstances, what we have sought is to consider whether we could depart from our own plan and meet your views, and instead of seeking to give effect to our own political principles and desires we are asking for communication of your ideas. That is our actually pacific intention, and for that pacific intention the language of denunciation has been liberally bestowed upon us by the noble Lord. But the question, after all, is, Where lay the change of tone that has unfortunately cropped up? What happened on Friday night of a material character, and how far have the material occurrences of that night been altered? The first thing that happened on Friday night that was material was the speech of the late Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir R. Assheton Cross). The late Home Secretary did not hold this language at all, of the impropriety and impossibility of communications between Parties with a view to an agreement. If I understood the general spirit of that speech, on the contrary, it was an encouragement to free communication. I do not presume to dwell upon the interpretation of the speech, but I do recollect one portion of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and it does not rest in my memory alone, because it was specifically noticed by my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board, who followed him in the debate. When the right hon. Gentleman had expressed his desire that an accommodation should be arrived at, and his belief that it might easily be arrived at, he went on to say—I think he said very modestly—that it was not for him to determine on the form of proceeding; but it might be by Bill or it might be by Resolutions, and the choice between them was a question on which he did not think it his duty to enter. Well, Sir, that was a most conciliatory declaration on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. It was noticed as such by my right hon. Friend on the part of the Government. But what happened last night? Why, in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman, the right hon. Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther) took into his own hands the entire responsibility for the late Home Secretary, just as if the late Home Secretary had been his ward, and the right hon. Member his guardian. What did these words mean, or, rather, did they mean anything at all? What between possible defects of statement and total defect of apprehension and understanding on the other side, they were words which might never have been spoken at all. But if the authority of the right hon. Member for North Lincolnshire is open to some question—although, from the seat he occupies and the tone he generally assumes in this House, I do not see how it can be questioned—we have the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). How did he endeavour to get rid of this reference to "Resolution?" By saying that it was an obiter dictum, and that an obiter dictum—he could not very well say it was equal to nothing at all, but he brought it as nearly as possible to obiter dictum. I apprehend that obiter dictum is essentially and by the very meaning of the phrase something that has nothing to do with the issue that is directly before you. But this had to do—it was an essential part of the issue before us. It was a question as to the mode in which this desire for accommodation was to be brought about upon which the right hon. Gentleman gave his obiter dictum. It was a judicial utterance directly pertaining to the mode of dealing with this great issue between us, proceeding from Gentlemen in authority, and couched in such a manner that we had a right to treat it as a serious declaration, an important declaration coming from a very weighty and leading Member of the Party, and distinctly conceived in the interests of peace. Was there no change of tone in the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite when this most important and conciliatory declaration was described and accentuated by the Leader of the Party as obiter dictum? But that was not the only point. No complaint had been made, as far as I remember, from this Bench of the insufficiency of the declarations from the opposite Bench or from the Leaders of the opposite Party with regard to the principles of redistribution. I am not aware that such complaint was made—certainly not by myself, and certainly not by either of those two Colleagues I see beside me (the Marquess of Hartington and Sir Charles W. Dilke) who took part in the debate. But what I did presume to observe was, that the declarations of the minority of the House were in contradiction with one another upon this subject; and when I said that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon called across the House "How?" I then pointed out that he himself had given an encouraging and sympathetic response to an invitation of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) in favour of a particular form for the measure of redistribution—a most encouraging and sympathetic response; but that form was initiatory, and if there had been a disposition to peace it would have been so recognized and so treated. My right hon. Friend referred to a Bill which, in giving great scope to the principle of population, was to have that principle limited and its application varied by the introduction of a number of other elements. I said that was one form and one possible idea of a Redistribution Bill. But we also had another declaration from the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), and that declaration, in apparent coincidence both with previous declarations of his own elsewhere and of declarations made by Lord Salisbury, on the contrary, pointed, not to varied and diversified construction, but to the application of the principle of population only, qualified to a certain extent, as far as the noble Lord was concerned, by a division of rural and urban constituencies and pursuits. Then, when the right hon. Gentleman asked "How?" I said—"We are anxious to know the general tone and tendency of your views; but they have been laid before us in terms which are contradictory and incompatible." I endeavoured—as the right hon. Gentleman had asked me—to explain my meaning. I endeavoured to get at the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman, and asked him whether he adopted the declarations of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock as to the scheme of redistribution? But the right hon. Gentleman maintained a persistent silence. I again challenged the right hon. Gentleman to reconcile these indications, both of them rather authoritative and both given us from the Opposition. I said they appeared to me to be contradictory, and I requested him to reconcile them and show what their real meaning was. The right hon. Gentleman deliberately avoided any attempt to reconcile, and he resorted to what I must call a mere Parliamentary shift—well known in Parliamentary warfare—that of saying that I had asked him to lay a Bill, forsooth, before us. I had asked nothing of the kind. I had not stated that either the one declaration or the other was insufficient, but I had stated that the declarations were incompatible. The right hon. Gentleman knew that they were incompatible, and, therefore, he would not, or at least he did not, attempt to reconcile them when he had the opportunity afforded him and almost forced upon him. This is the change of tone that has taken place. We can get nothing in the sense of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire; but I hope, if he speaks to-night, he will speak in his own sense and not in that of somebody else. We can get nothing to give unity or intelligibility to the two very different utterances which have taken place on the subject of redistribution. That is the change of tone that has taken place. We are not a whit less desirous than we were on Friday, or any other day, of making use of any opening that is afforded us. Is it improper to hold language of this kind? No doubt, as the right hon. Gentleman knew, when we were dealing with the Franchise Bill the Members of the Opposition were sufficiently free in reproaching us with our vigour and severity in refusing Amendments. We stood on a question of principle. We knew that the differences between them and us on the franchise were very wide, and the noble Lord's (Lord John Manner's) speech is the last evidence we have had how wide and how deep they are. We knew that on the Franchise Bill we could have no communications of that kind; but I say that where you have no reason to know that there is a difference of principle, where you are desirous upon a measure of complex structure to put the House, if you can, in the way of an easy and effectual solution, there is nothing more perfectly warrantable, there is nothing more honourable than an open invitation given to Gentlemen in this House to afford those indications which might enable us to judge whether, by some deviation from the rules and provisions we are ourselves ready to adopt, we can procure that harmony which is admitted to be so desirable, and on the attainment of which we are averting a serious crisis. Now, I hope I have shown that the change of tone of which I have spoken has not proceeded from this side of the House; and the noble Lord, notwithstanding the loud and imposing tone of his speech, has not cited one word in order to sustain his very broad and perfectly gratuitous allegations. I think, on my side, I have pointed out the changed tone. I have pointed out the difference between the reference to the Resolutions on Friday, and the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincolnshire, and the doctrine of obiter dictum from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon, and I have pointed out that the object in view of declaring the difference which we see in the two schemes of redistribution, or the two tendencies of redistribution that have been declared, was not polemical. The object was to procure some reconciliation of those schemes, so that when that reconciliation had been effected we might have given full force and effect to it in determining our own proceedings. It is all very well to say—"Produce your Redistribution Bill; it shall have a fair trial." Well, I suppose you think you gave the Franchise Bill a fair trial last Session. It had! The Franchise Bill, with its simplicity of enactments and 25 nights of debate, the noble Lord says, had a fair trial. I am not making it a matter of reproach; I am endeavouring to get at the facts, and it is that kind of reception they gave to the Franchise Bill that they are now so kind as to promise to the Redistribution Bill. I am not aware that we have anything to qualify or anything to retract in the debates last week, or in the debate of this week. I have not now said a word averse to accommodation. I have explained and justified the fact that it is honourable, Parliamentary, within our history and our precedents, and within the dictates of reason, when you have no right to charge upon your opponents a vital difference of principle, to invite communications with a view to a more easy and effectual agreement. I will invite them again, in spite of what the noble Lord has said. If they fail they shall not fail through our fault. If we are not to have peace, at any rate we will leave behind us some record that we sought peace—and we esteem that record of having sought peace, with a view to the general interests of the country, much more highly than the boasts of our own consistency, or appeals to the heated sentiments of political controversy.

I should not have interfered in the debate to-night had it not been that my former speech has been alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister. I cannot help thinking he has somewhat forgotten what took place last Session, because he has taunted my noble Friend (Lord John Manners) with saying that he thought the Franchise Bill last Session was fairly and properly discussed.

What I said was in answer to the noble Lord.

The right hon. Gentleman seemed to have entirely forgotten one of the many causes why those debates on the Franchise Bill were so long as they were. It was because of the positive refusal of the Government to accept the Amendment of my noble Friend—namely, that these two Bills should be taken together. If the Government had assented to that principle, in one form or another—that one Bill should have been accompanied by the other—none of those debates would have taken place on the Amendment of the noble Lord or on the Amendment of my right hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Stanley) in Committee. I listened to the speeches of last night with the greatest pain. When I left the House I said to myself I cannot imagine how it is that the tone, manner, and spirit of the Prime Minister, and of the occupants of the Treasury Bench on Thursday evening, were so entirely changed. Everyone remembers the conciliatory tone and manner of the Prime Minister on Thursday. I felt bound myself to take notice of it, and I believe the House joined with me in the expression of that opinion. At the same time, I could not help giving a warning to the House that whatever the tone and the manner of that speech might be, I was quite sure that not simply the House, but the whole country, would be much disappointed with the matter of that speech. The whole contention of the speech that I made in that debate was this. I said it was quite true that the majority of the House of Commons had passed this Franchise Bill alone; but there were many ways in which the will and feeling of the majority of the House might be intimated beyond that of the giving of actual votes. The vote simply expressed the feeling of the majority on the vital principle of the Bill itself, about which we are all agreed, because the principle is accepted by both sides. But so far as the mode of procedure went, I said that the vote was in favour of the procedure simply because it had been proposed by the Prime Minister, and there were other points upon which the will of the majority could be gathered quite irrespective of that vote. There were two points on which I thought the majority of the House had made up their minds—namely, that, if possible, this should not be a barren Session, and that there should not be a General Election after the passing of the Franchise Bill and before the passing of a Redistribution Bill. I said it was a matter of principle with us that we would not, as far as we could avoid it, run the risk of an Election upon the Franchise Bill, unless it were accompanied by a Redistribution Bill. Someone below the Gangway said "Followed by;" but I adhered to the phrase "Accompanied by." This is the principle we laid down and upheld throughout the country at the first, and which we shall uphold to the last. That being so, I had not the remotest notion but that, when we came to discuss in what way we were to avert the undesired result, it must rest with the Government to proceed with the Redistribution Bill on their own authority, and not on ours. It is quite true, I believe, that I said it would be the same whether the procedure were by Resolution or by Bill; but what I was endeavouring to urge was, that any step to be taken must be taken on the authority and the responsibility of the Government alone. I understand that my right hon. Friend (Mr. J. Lowther) afterwards said that neither Resolution nor Bill would be satisfactory, that what we wanted was a definite legislative measure, and that was what was in my mind. Of course it was. Why, my whole argument was founded upon that. It was that the Government, on their own responsibility, must bring in a Bill, and that the two must be passed, I did not say simultaneously, but I said conterminously. We were to insure the one thing, that there was to be no Election under one measure without the other. If the Government take hold of an isolated part of that speech, they remind one of a drowning man catching at a straw. If I had thought that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had meant anything more than a passing allusion to that speech, I should have got up at the moment. The matter lies in a nutshell. Does the Government intend in any form or shape to meet us on that point? This is all we want to know. That we have no wish to delay the passing of this Bill is evident from what passed on the second reading and in Committee. We have given you every guarantee of our good faith we can. We tell you that if you bring forward a Redistribution Bill for the purpose of passing it, provided it is not intentionally so drawn as to give advantage to one Party as against the other, it will meet with a fair, a full, and a candid discussion, and we shall do all we can to pass it. Our desire is that both Bills shall be passed by the same Parliament. What more can we say? We say we are able to carry out the pledge we have given, and as a matter of good faith we shall be bound in honour to do so. There is no intention to oppose the Franchise Bill, and we will do all in our power to pass a Redistribution Bill. We will give you credit for all your good intentions; but you are not masters of the situation. You cannot insure the fulfilment of your pledge, because events at home or abroad may lead to an adverse vote of this House, which may render it impossible for you to fulfil your pledge. That being so, there was a great change in the tone and manner of the speeches from the Treasury Bench. From beginning to end the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secre- tary of State for the Home Department was one of defiance. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Quote what I said.] I cannot do so at once, and the right hon. Gentleman would not wish me to read the whole speech. As is usual when the right hon. Gentleman throws himself with vigour into debate, the speech was bellicose in matter and tone, and it did not in any sentence hold out the slightest hope that the Government would meet us in any way. He ended by putting the matter in the clearest possible light, when he said that the question was whether a majority of this House was to be overriden by a majority of the House of Lords. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: I did not say so.] Well, the close of the speech practically came to that; and if he did not intend to say I hope he will withdraw his words. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister seems still anxious to say he has been anxious that some arrangement should be made. Any arrangement to be made on a matter so vitally affecting the interests of the people must be made across the floor of this House. Nor is it possible for us to say what Motion or Resolution we should like to have brought forward. They must be brought forward on the responsibility of the Government of the day. Two things, to my mind, are absolutely clear. When the Government brought forward their Franchise Bill they had not made up their minds about the provisions of the Redistribution Bill. And now they have not made them up still. They know perfectly well, whatever the opinions of right hon. Gentlemen on this side may be, on that side there is the greatest possible difference of opinion, and they do not know how to draw a Redistribution Bill in order to catch most votes on that side of the House. They want to find out what the majority wants in order to draw up a Bill. I will defy any right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench to get up and say—"We have a Redistribution Bill drawn." If you have, we are entitled to say—"Produce it." It must be produced some time in the course of these debates. I sincerely hope the time is not yet past when we may be told that the moment this Bill has passed this House, trusting to the good faith of what we have said as to the way the matter is to be discussed, we may be favoured, at all events, with a satisfactory utterance from the Government on this question, in order that, if possible, both those Bills may become law at the same time during the present Parliament.

I rise not to prolong this debate, but to offer some explanation with regard to the extraordinary representations made by the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down of my speech of yesterday. I should not have complained if the right hon. Gentleman had thought my speech unworthy of his attention. But he ought not to have professed to have quoted a statement which it contained unless he was quite sure of its accuracy. The right hon. Gentleman has composed a very admirable sentence for me, and I am not sure that I differ from the sentiment of it, and if the right hon. Gentleman will lend me the sentence I will be very happy to see if I cannot use it on some other occasion. But that was not the sentence I made use of last evening. What I did say last night was, that the Amendment of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Stanley) was a proposal that the Franchise Bill should be made dependent upon the passing of a Redistribution Bill which should be satisfactory to the majority of the House of Lords. That very plain and simple proposition is quite true, and cannot be disputed. I was observing upon the proposals which had been made on both sides of the House to see whether we could not come to some arrangement as to the Redistribution Bill. I pointed out that it was in vain to expect that we should come to that arrangement here, when it was possible that the House of Lords would take a different view from that taken in this House on that question, and that, after it was settled by accommodation between the two Parties in this House, the House of Lords might throw it over, and then the Franchise would go with it. That, I said, was a proposition which we could not assent to, because, whatever terms we might come to here, if the Franchise Bill were made dependent upon the Redistribution Bill, the final decision of the House of Lords on the Redistribution Bill would determine the fate of the Franchise Bill. That seemed to me not at all a defiant argument, but a reasonable argument, and an argument founded on the facts of the case, and I desire to make that explanation, as I should be extremely anxious not to be thought—by anything I have said or done—to throw any obstacle in the way of accommodation on this question, which I desire as much as anybody.

said, he was one of those who desired most sincerely that this question should be settled. He did not think, indeed, that anyone could view with a light heart a continuance of this agitation throughout the country. The working classes would have to face with the coming winter a state of commercial depression, and they would probably be called upon to undergo considerable privation. The manufacturers and traders had already felt the depression keenly; but the distress had not yet reached the artizan class. He would be very glad indeed, for his own part, to see this burning question removed out of the way, so that the artizan and trading members of the community might be the better able to devote themselves to the amelioration of their material condition. The change which had undoubtedly taken place in the aspects of this matter since Friday last he looked upon with something like dismay. He had certainly believed that the result of the discussion on Thursday and Friday last was a distinct and definite approach to a settlement of the question; and he had perused with no little apprehension the speech which had been made on the previous day by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther). He understood the term "compromise" to mean that something was to be given up by both Parties. But if he understood it rightly, the speech of the right hon. Gentleman demanded that the Opposition should give nothing, and the Government should give everything. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincolnshire declared that nothing would be satisfactory to him but the production of a Redistribution Bill, and its passage into an Act of Parliament, before the Franchise Bill was passed. That was the position which the Conservative Party and the House of Lords took up, and which they were entitled to take up, and he thought the whole argument was in favour of that position. But recognizing, as he did, the extreme importance of a settlement of the question, and that if a settlement were to be arrived at it was impossible for the Opposition to give up all they desired, he could not help feeling that it was also perfectly impossible for the Government, after the statements they had made, and the support they had received, to yield all that was demanded of them, by allowing the Franchise Bill to stand over until the other Bill had become law. But surely there was something besides that which would reasonably satisfy both Parties. They were not children, but men of business, and if they were agreed upon so much, was it not possible to agree on the rest, and would it not be a disgrace to that Party which stood in the way of a settlement? All Parties were agreed that the franchise ought to be extended to the counties, and that it should be done quickly, and that without a Redistribution Bill that could not be satisfactorily accomplished; and being agreed on those two fundamental principles, could they not go a little further, and come to some settlement of the remaining portion of the question? No doubt, there were Members who desired to humiliate one Party or the other; but such were not worthy of the name of statesmen. It ought not to be the desire of either Party to humiliate the other. If the House of Lords were to surrender at discretion, without some tangible security for the passing of a Redistribution Bill, they would be so humiliated in the eyes of the people as to render them in the future perfectly unable to carry out their part in the Constitution of the country. They would, perhaps, still drag on an ignoble existence, neither good for themselves nor beneficial to the country. Rather than be a Member of that House under such circumstances, he should welcome some reform which would give him some power in the Constitution, and make him a useful member of the great legislative machine of the country. Those who expected the House of Lords absolutely to surrender their position were asking what they had no right to ask. But was there not a middle way? [Mr. WARTON: None.] His hon. and learned Friend said "None;" but he ventured to assert that the people of this country would think it a very extraordinary thing if no middle way were to be found. The Government had let fall something of what they intended in the way of re- distribution, and he had not heard that what they intended had been considered unreasonable by the Conservative Party. But as they had gone so far, why would they not lay on the Table, after the Franchise Bill had left the House, the scheme which they had indicated? He honestly believed that if the Redistribution Bill were framed in a spirit of fairness on some general principle which should be acceptable to all reasonable men, it would receive the assent of the House of Commons and be passed into law. But the refusal of the Government to do that gave a colour to the accusations made against them. Surely if the Franchise Bill would be, as they said, in jeopardy if they produced a Redistribution Bill, it would be in greater jeopardy if they did not. It was because he felt most earnestly the desirableness, not for the sake of one Party or the other, but for the sake of the country, of settling this matter, that he implored the Government to meet this question in the only way in which he thought it could be met—namely, by producing their Redistribution Bill. He did not ask for a promise that the Government would push the Bill forward and pass it into law as soon as the Franchise Bill passed into law; he did not even say that there should be any compact as between one side or the other; he only said—"Let the Government produce the Bill and throw upon the Opposition the responsibility of dealing with it and the Franchise Bill, after that Bill is produced." If there be a failure, and if the Redistribution Bill be a fair one, on the Conservative Party would rest the responsibility, and it would be for them to defend the position which they had taken up. He could not conceive of a reason, when they were agreed upon so much, why they could not agree upon what remained. It would be a shame and a scandal to the Party, whether the Opposition or the Government, which stood in the way of a settlement of this question, when they had already agreed upon so much.

said, that while he could not go so far in retreat as the hon. Member who had just spoken (Mr. Ritchie), yet he could say this, on the part of Warwickshire, the Northern Division of which county he had now for 41 years represented, that the feeling of Warwickshire was that she would not submit to be governed by half a Parliament. North Warwickshire, nay, the whole of Warwickshire, he believed, insisted that all attempts to ignore the House of Lords, as an Estate of the Realm, should be energetically resisted. Nay, he would go so far as to declare that, if he knew the county at all, she would not accept any Act of Parliament, without using perpetual endeavours to get that Act altered or repealed, if she suspected that it had been passed by half a Parliament. In fact, the county would not regard any such Act as a legitimate Statute. ["Oh, oh!"] He (Mr. Newdegate) hoped that he had expressed that opinion with sufficient plainness. He was thoroughly convinced that such was, and would be, the determination of the county, in the representation of which he had so long shared, and that, pass what Act the majority of that House might, unless it had the full sanction of both Houses of Parliament, it would never be accepted as legitimate in the county which he had the honour to represent. Warwickshire included Birmingham, and Birmingham had often shown that it had a will of its own; and if it had any suspicion that what was termed a Statute had been passed in bad faith, he (Mr. Newdegate) had little doubt but that Birmingham knew how to practice agitation for the amendment or repeal of any such misbegotten measure. He (Mr. Newdegate) supposed that it must be accepted as a strong probability that the county franchise would have to be lowered to the level of the borough franchise created in 1867. That appeared just now to be the will of the country. The question might be asked, what had the Conservative Party to complain of? Why were they to complain of that, as the authors of the Reform Act of 1867. At the opening of these discussions in the late Session, the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government held up to the view of the House the example of the United States. Why, then, did the right hon. Gentleman not follow the example of the United States? What were they doing in America? Were they recommending the Lower House of Congress to set itself in opposition to the Upper House? Had they been endeavouring to supersede their Senate? Were they endeavouring unduly to exaggerate the administrative power of the President of the day? On the contrary, they were doing exactly the reverse of all that in the course they were adopting. Their determination was to strengthen the Senate; to strengthen the Supreme Court, and to control the President. The Conservative Party might well believe that the Americans were not ashamed of their origin; and might well admire the courage of the Americans in endeavouring to follow the former example of England in these respects. He might be taunted, he and other hon. Members who admired the conduct of the people of the United States, because they sat here in a minority of that House. But it must be admitted that, by the Rules of the House, a considerable minority could render the legislative action of a majority impossible in attempting a large measure of Reform without a Dissolution. Why, then, did not the Liberal Party accept their legitimate position? The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury referred in his introductory speech for Reform to the United States, and then sketched out a scheme for a Redistribution Bill at the commencement of these discussions in the late Session; he evidently felt the necessity for doing so. But did he not warn the House that he could not answer for his Colleagues. He (Mr. Newdegate) had a right to put this question to the right hon. Gentleman—"Is it because you cannot agree with your Colleagues now, that you shrink from producing your Redistribution Bill? Are you about to plunge the country into the difficulty which you know must ensue if you pass the Franchise Bill, and then, before a Redistribution, force a Dissolution?" What would be the nature of such an appeal to the country? It would not be a regular Parliamentary appeal; it would be more in the nature of an appeal through a Convention. This country had had Conventions. We had a Convention in the year 1660, another in 1689; but these constituted revolutionary action. And why should the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues drive those, who represented the stable and peaceful elements of this country, even to consider such an alternative in defence of the freedom they valued? Did the right hon. Gentleman think that they were incapable of any such action—with their Irish neighbours sitting beside them on those Benches, ready to join them, for aught he knew? The right hon. Gentleman was conscious that this possibility might arise from the action of his Administration. It was evident that they were prepared to make concessions to violence, nay, even for the purpose of avoiding the opposition from his (Mr. Newdegate's) neighbours on the left. Did the right hon. Gentleman think that these exemplars of his conduct were wasted upon hon. Members who sat upon the Opposition Benches? The right hon. Gentleman proposed to increase the representation of Ireland and of Scotland; did he think that Englishmen were blind? All the Opposition asked was, that the right hon. Gentleman should abide by Constitutional practice; that he should discourage all attempts to ignore the House of Lords as an Estate of the Realm; and that he should not shrink from the responsibility, which was attached to his position, by refusing to give legitimate effect to the principles which he had introduced, and which the Bill before the House involved. The Opposition demanded nothing that was unreasonable; and he warned the right hon. Gentleman that by attempting dealings or negotiations across the Table of the House with the Leaders of the Opposition, he would rouse the English suspicion, would excite a temper among the majority of the people of this country such as had already been displayed in the firm attitude of the county which he (Mr. Newdegate) had the honour to represent. In Warwickshire, they had not yet forgotten what happened in 1867 respecting the suburb of Aston, near Birmingham. A late Speaker of that House (Lord Eversley), now in the House of Lords, was the Chairman of a Royal Commission which recommended that two additional Members should be given to Birmingham, and that Aston should be included in the borough. That proposal was laid before the House by the then Government which was in a minority, and was abandoned during the miserable proceeding of a minority struggling to pass a Reform Act. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister of today had majority enough at his command; that was not the case with the late Lord Beaconsfield, when, owing to the exigencies of the Leadership of a Government in a minority, he was obliged to hand over the Report of the Commission, to which he (Mr. Newdegate) had referred, to a Committee of the House, who grossly mismanaged the matter. The right hon. Gentleman now at the head of the Government had no such excuse. He was supported by a large majority in the House, and had the consent of the other House of Parliament to proceed with a measure for the extension of the franchise. But the people of England felt that they had a right to expect from him this much—that if he had framed, as it was known that he had framed in his own mind, a scheme for redistribution of seats, the should insist upon the acceptance of that scheme, or of some other, by his own Colleagues. That he should conform to Parliamentry practice by presenting a scheme for redistribution to the House and the country on his own responsibility, according to acknowledged Parliamentary practice. There was nothing to prevent any communication the Prime Minister might be pleased to make in private to the Conservative Leader in the House of Lords, or to the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. But the people of England had a right to insist upon this—that the Minister who undertook the responsibility of passing a Bill for the reform of Parliament, which was almost revolutionary, should not shrink from his responsibility, or from completing his task, and that in completing his task he should give them—the people—a fair opportunity of examining the whole Bill, or the whole Bills, through their Representatives, before any measure of Reform was enacted, as complete, into a law.

said, he thought the country would be somewhat perplexed at the change of front which had taken place on the other side of the House since Friday. He wished to express his admiration of the spirit which the Prime Minister had shown that night, and which all through those discussions had animated him and his Colleagues, and he hoped that in even the unpromising situation in which the matter now stood that disposition would still continue to be manifested by the Prime Minister when the Bill went to "another place." He confessed that the disposition shown by the Government in meeting the views of the Conservative Party had gone much further than many independent Members on his side of the House could reconcile with their views. The great majority of Members in his section of the House had agreed to abate a great deal of what they regarded as due to the majority in the country, both in the Bill before the House and in the measure which must subsequently be dealt with. He ventured to hope that the Prime Minister and his Colleagues in "another place" would do nothing which could in any degree abate from the approbation, which the country would express by an overwhelming majority, of the fact that they had done everything which honourable men could do to settle a great Constitutional question. His object in rising was to make it known on behalf of many Members who sat below the Gangway, and a great number of people out-of-doors, that if, after all the efforts that had been made at conciliation, a struggle of a wider and more serious character should be entered upon, they, at any rate, were free from any binding obligation, either as to the character of this Bill or as to the scheme of redistribution. He admitted it would have been better for all Parties in the State if, even at some sarifice, this question had been settled for a long time to come; but he feared that the country would say that far greater changes must be made if this Constitutional struggle was not now terminated; and, for his own part, he should look forward to the turmoil and trouble that were before them with the conviction that he was justified in going thoroughly with those who demanded more extensive changes than had now been recognized as necessary by the Government. It was impossible that the people of this country should excuse their Representatives if they were to permit the rights of the representative system to be trifled with over and over again. If the discussions of last Session, the manifestation of public opinion in the Recess, and the recent majority of 140 in that House were of no avail, then he said that nothing short of a radical change in the relationship of the House of Lords with the Government of this country would satisfy the people. He unhesitatingly said that there would be ample compensation in the coming struggle for those who had been put through the ordeal which the great majority of that House had submitted to, by the ultimate and not distant results which would follow.

said, if the House was impatient he had no wish that the debate should be continued. Representing an important constituency, he had not yet had an opportunity of addressing the House during the recent debates of the present Session. He wished to follow the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie), and to say what he could to show that there were some others on that side who in voting for the Amendment of his right hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Stanley), and in thus formulating what undoubtedly was their extreme demand, did not mean to be understood as refusing to accept anything short of what was therein demanded. But when they were asked to abandon their demands, why was there no suggestion of yielding something on the other side? Why did the Government refuse to listen to the reasonable and much-lessened demand that the Redistribution Bill should not be submitted to the House further than by being in print and laid upon the Table? There was no excuse why that could not be done, except such excuses as were based on those kinds of insinuations and imputations which were what caused the speech of the Prime Minister to be so singularly deficient in conciliatory character. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman, if he would drop these insinuations and imputations that Conservatives, in their support of the Bill, were not sincere and that in their intentions as regarded the Redistribution Bill they had scarcely masked intentions of no patriotic character, the progress of both the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill would be much easier. Those were the only reasons upon which the non-production of the Bill could be defended. It was true there was also the foolish heat with which the Government had always said they would never do anything of the kind. But let them remember these ill-judged declarations were made last Session when time was limited and important, and there might be truth in the statement that to pass a Redistribution Bill in the Session was impossible. But now the case was very different; and so, before the Bill left the House, he wished to address one word of entreaty. Much of the present difficulty arose from the fact that those at the head of the Government persisted in accepting advice from those other Members of the Government who did not wish that any accommodation of the difficulty should take place. Much of the difficulty arose from the fact that the Government treated this question not as statesmen, but as men treated a contest over the card table, in which they tried to outwit each other by arts of concealment and suppresion of mutual intentions. He had seen the astute shake of the head with which the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke) invariably met the proposal that the Redistribution Bill should be made known to the public; but he could assure the right hon. Baronet that if there was one thing Englishmen loved, it was the open and fair disclosures of their intentions—one thing they detested, it was suspicion and concealment. He was confident that the declaration of the intentions of the Government with regard to redistribution would materially assist, and not impede, the Franchise Bill. There was no difficulty in the way of negotiation. He wished the Prime Minister would give a single instance in which a Bill had been settled in consultation by both sides of the House, against such a high authority as Sir Robert Peel, whom the right hon. Gentleman sought to demolish that evening. Another difficulty in the way of negotiation was their unfortunate experience in the summer of this year, in which there was a disclosure, for platform purposes, of abortive negotiations, in which they had seen formulated the extraordinary new doctrine that it lay with those who concealed those negotiations to show that they were bound to conceal, not to those who disclosed that they had a right to do so. He would not detain the House further. He hoped the difficulty would still be accommodated; and he believed that by the formal introduction of the Redistribution Bill at this present stage, or some early stage, practically the necessities of the case would be met, and, for his own part, he should be perfectly satisfied.

said, that he had heard Ministers ask the Front Opposition Bench what kind of Redistribution Bill would satisfy them. His own belief was that the Redistribution Bill which would satisfy the Front Opposition Bench would be the one which would most neutralize the effect of the Franchise Bill. The extraordinary change which had come over the Opposition since Friday was probably due, to some extent, to the resnlt of one bye-election; but it should be remembered that the hopes that were built a few years ago on the result of the bye-election of Southwark were not afterwards realized. He pointed out that if the majority of the House of Lords were united to the minority in the Commons, there would still be in the Lower House a majority of 90 in favour of the measure.

said, after the contests of giants, great and small, to which they had listened, he was very unwilling to withdraw the attention of the House from the subject it had been pursuing, and to stand in the way of the Division which might, perhaps, be expected. The question of which he had given Notice was one of some very considerable importance, and he would respectfully claim the attention of the House and of the Government for a few minutes to its consideration. His Amendment proposed to effect a reduction in the charges which Returning Officers were entitled to make upon candidates where the return was unopposed. It might, perhaps, surprise many Members of the House to learn that no change had been made in the scale of charges which the Returning Officers were empowered by law to make in the case of unopposed and opposed candidates since the Act of 1875; that was to say, nine years had gone by since the attention of Parliament had been directed to this important matter. It consequently happened that Parliament, legislating on this matter nine years ago, had in view the proportion of the then existing constituencies under the franchise, and did not, of course, take into its contemplation the greatly increased proportions which those constituencies would attain to under such a Bill as that which the House was now discussing. Now they were going to admit many persons to the franchise in England and Ireland who were not largely endowed with the goods of this world, and it was possible that in some instances those large masses might desire to be represented by persons without much wealth; and he submitted that if it could be shown—as he thought he could show—that the present charges authorized to be made by the Returning Officers at Parliamentary elections, both opposed and unopposed, would, in the presence of the existence of the new constituencies, become most exorbitant, and impossible for any but rich candidates to pay, he thought that he would then have made out a fair primâ facie case for invoking the attention of Parliament to the matter, which at first might appear to be a little outside the scope of the Bill. Now, on referring to the Schedule of the Act of 1875, which governed the charges which could be made by the Returning Officer, he found in some cases, which would be many in England, and which would be somewhat numerous in Ireland, charges were sanctioned by the Returning Officers, in the case of unopposed returns, ranging from £200 to £100. In the case of constituencies whose registered electors would exceed 30,000, £1,000 caution money could be demanded beforehand by the Sheriff from the candidate, and in the event of the election not being contested the Sheriff could retain £200 of this amount; and he would beg of the House to notice that his Amendment, and consequently his argument, would be limited to the excessive amount the Returning Officer was allowed to take in the case of unopposed returns; but, to a considerable extent, a good deal of what he had to say as to the excessive charges in cases of unopposed elections would also apply to opposed elections. In the case of unopposed returns, he would ask what possible justification could there be for giving the Sheriff in any constituency in England, Ireland, or Scotland, £200 for driving from his home, which was usually fairly close to the county town where the election was held, and for superintending the very few legal formalities which were necessary in the case of an unopposed return? He believed that the only expenditure the Returning Officer would necessarily incur in such a case would be the expenditure for a junior barrister to act for one day as his advising counsel, and for that a very small fee would be sufficient. His contention was that the House ought not, in contemplation of its taking a great step towards the enfranchisement of the masses, and in view of the fact that they compelled a candidate, con- trary to the practice of most other countries, to pay all the official expenses connected with the election as well as his own, to insist on maintaining a charge which was manifestly not necessary, and to continue a payment to Sheriffs in the case of unopposed returns which it was obvious the Sheriff could not spend. He regretted the subject was not touched by the Act of 1883; but it was not now too late to deal with it before the new franchise came into operation, and he hoped the House would hear from the Government some expression of opinion on the subject. In conclusion, he moved that the Bill be recommitted with the view he had indicated.

said, that this was a subject which deserved to engage the attention of the Government. At present, however, they had to deal with the Amendment as a practical question; and he submitted that this Bill was a Franchise Bill, and that the question of the charges of Returning Officers was not one of franchise. If the Government were now to take up that matter, they would be acting inconsistently with their previous action on this Bill. He would, therefore, appeal to the hon. Member for the City of Cork not to press his Amendment. He hoped by withdrawing it the hon. Gentleman would not be making much sacrifice. He assured him the Amendment he desired to propose would not accomplish everything that was necessary, for it did not propose to deal with certain charges now made by Returning Officers which probably the House would not be willing to continue. He thought that when the constituencies were enlarged there ought to be a revision of the Returning Officers' charges as well as of the deposits. Returning Officers ought not to be allowed to charge too much for professional services. When an opportunity occurred he should be very glad to join with the hon. Gentleman in reconsidering the present law in relation to the existing charges. But the acceptance of the Amendment at the present time would place the Government in such a position that he could not consent to adopt it.

recognized the spirit of the hon. and learned Gentleman's comments. Indeed, it must be apparent to every Member who had listened to his hon. Friend (Mr. Parnell) that the case he made was unanswerable. He had shown that as much as £200 had to be found in some cases. Now, he presumed the House of Commons did not desire to restrict its Membership to persons of any social class. [Mr. GDADSTONE: Hear, hear!] The extension of the franchise would necessitate and involve the coming forward of working men as candidates. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Hear, hear!] How was a working man to put down a sum varying from £100 to £200? The matter was urgent; and they wanted to know what security the Government intended to offer that these charges should be brought to a tolerably reasonable level before the time for the next General Election?

I wish to say that I entirely agree with the view of my hon. and learned Friend. I certainly think that, if possible—I do not see why it should not be possible—the opportunity ought to be taken in the present Parliament to make a just legislative provision on this subject.

said, that, under those circumstances, he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it was a Bill to enable the salmon fishers on the estuaries of some Irish rivers to fish on Saturdays. He understood they were prevented by the existing law from fishing during some portion of Saturday. The Bill had been prepared by the late Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake), who always took a very great interest in the question of the Irish Fisheries, and who knew more about them than any other Member coming from Ireland. The Bill was recommended to their care by that gentleman when he retired from the representation of the county, and he trusted it would be accepted by the Government without very much difference of opinion.

said, he quite recognized the importance of the subject. The Bill proposed to repeal certain changes introduced about 20 years ago in the law with respect to Salmon Fisheries. The result of these changes had been to effect a most marked improvement in the Salmon Fisheries of Ireland. Everyone would agree that they ought only to alter the law affecting that industry with great care and deliberation. In this Bill there were various provisions of great importance with regard to which there was a considerable difference of opinion among the highest authorities whom they could consult. The Fisheries Board were divided in their opinion as to the effect of the changes introduced in 1863, and which were so introduced as the consequence of an inquiry. In his opinion, therefore, this subject was one calling for an inquiry to ascertain whether such changes as the Bill proposed were required; and he did not think it would be right for the Government to assent to the principle of the Bill without some inquiry which would furnish them with the basis upon which to proceed. He was not anxious to pronounce an opinion either for or against the proposals of the Bill. He would suggest to hon. Members in charge of the Bill that the Motion for the second reading should either be withdrawn or adjourned for a considerable time. In that case, the Government would be willing for a Select Committee to be appointed to consider the question of the Salmon Fisheries, and the changes that might be required.

said, the Bill was one drawn exclusively in the interests of one class of fishermen—namely, those who fished by boats or other movable contrivances, to the detriment and injury of the owners or lessees of fixed nets and weirs. It proposed to limit the close time for this class to practically half the existing close time, as it threw open to them 12 hours of the daylight of the closed 48 hours. The Bill might be more accurately described as one for the more effectual destruction of breeding fish, which, in the interests of the consuming public, required all the protection they could be given rather than additional facilities for their capture. As a proof of the decline in the supply, he took the returns of Billingsgate Market, one of the principal markets for Irish salmon, and it would be seen that in 1882 the number of boxes arriving there was only two-thirds of the average of the preceding 10 years; and in 1884—the returns for which were not yet complete—he was informed the number of fish taken was considerably lower than any of the previous years. The latter part of the Bill might be called the "Poachers' Facilities Clauses," as one of the provisions of the Bill was to make different close seasons for trout and for salmon fishing in inland waters, under which it was quite possible that a man might be caught in the act of fishing, and assert he was fishing for trout and not salmon, although, as soon as he was alone, there was nothing to prevent his pulling a salmon into his boat instead of a trout. Another provision enacted that there should be a different close time in different parts of the same water. This would enable a man, who was caught in the possession of fish in the close season, to say—"Oh, this fish came from the other water in which the close season does not exist." The same argument would apply to the estuaries. The last provision was one for legalizing during a certain period the most destructive engine that could possibly be used in fishing—he referred to the half-trawl net. Therefore, he thought the Government should not only ask for time to enable them to secure full information, but that the House should resolutely refuse to read the Bill a second time now.

said, he was not surprised that the hon. Member (Mr. Tottenham) had spoken as he had, since he was anxious to prevent Irishmen enjoying free means of living by fishing. The Irish Members fully agreed with the Chief Secretary that it was not material that the second reading should be taken now; and on the understanding that a Select Committee would be appointed at the beginning of next Session, he begged to move the adjournment of the debate.

said, he thought the course suggested by the Chief Secretary was the right one; but he feared the right hon. Gentleman was misinformed in several particulars.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord; but I have to ask you, Sir, whether he is speaking to the Motion for Adjournment?

The noble Lord must confine himself to the Question of adjournment, and not go into the merits of the Bill.

Then I will support the Motion for Adjournment, and say that I have no doubt that if a Select Committee is appointed they would get some valuable information.

said, he wished to make a suggestion to Her Majesty's Government, and he thought this was the proper time for making it. This was a Bill one of the main provisions of which was the abolition of the proxy vote in the election of Poor Law Guardians in Ireland. In supporting it last year, the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Trevelyan) made two concessions, in order to mitigate any hardships which might ensue from the abolition of the existing law. In the first place, he proposed to substitute triennial for annual elections, and he further said that the Local Government Board would so ex- ercise the power they possessed in regard to fixing the dates of elections as to provide that elections in the different divisions of a Union should not take place on the same day. The right hon. Gentleman said the Government fully recognized the difficulty which would arise from holding different elections on the same day, but he added that the Local Government Board intended to exercise the power they possessed of naming the days on which Poor Law elections should be held, so that they would not be allowed to clash with each other. He (Viscount Crichton) thought it was best to have these things in black and white in the four corners of an Act of Parliament; and, therefore, he would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) that he should bring up some provision on the Report making it imperative on the part of the Local Government Board to carry out the spirit of the suggestions made by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan) last year, and not leave it optional for them to do so.

said, he recognized the great convenience which would result from these elections taking place on different days; but he did not see how that could be provided for in an Act of Parliament. He had no doubt that the Local Government Board would practically carry the suggestion into effect; but he was not prepared to say that any words could very well be inserted in the Bill which would tie down the Board.

remarked, that this was a matter of considerable importance, and he did not think the right hon. Gentleman appeared to recognize either its importance or its fairness. The late Chief Secretary, the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan), took a very extraordinary course in reference to this Bill last year. The right hon. Gentleman stated that it was necessary to make some arrangement by which those who had votes should not be disfranchised, which would be the obvious effect if the owner was bound to vote in person at several elections on the same day, because, even in Ireland, no man could be in more than two or three places at the same time. It was to meet that difficulty that the late Chief Secretary said he would provide, as a matter of arrangement, that the Local Government Board should undertake to fix the elections, as far as they could, on different days. The words of the clause were very elastic, and they did not lay down any hard-and-fast line. He hoped the Local Government Board, as far as was practicable and reasonably convenient, would take care to fix the elections for such times and upon such dates as would enable owners connected with different Unions to go from one to the other, if they were so minded, in order to record their votes. He would himself suggest words to meet the difficulty when they came to Clause 9, which proposed to deal with proxies. When that clause came under consideration, he would submit an Amendment, not for the purpose of laying down a hard-and-fast line, but to empower the Local Government Board to provide that these cases should be dealt with in accordance with the obvious requirements of common justice.

said, he would strongly recommend the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to leave the carrying out of the elections, so far as the dates were concerned, to the Local Government Board themselves, because he thought, when the matter came to be considered and investigated, that it would be found to be a work of great difficulty to introduce into any Bill a provision which would absolutely carry out the suggestion of the noble Viscount. It appeared to him (Mr. Parnell) that the Irish Local Government Board might be fairly relied upon to fix the days for these elections for Poor Law Unions in such a way that the times and days would be most convenient for those who had the privilege of exercising the vote. Although he did not wish to deprecate the merits of any provision which the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) might propose, yet he thought it might be found exceedingly difficult by any general arrangement to carry the matter further than it had been carried by the late Chief Secretary (Mr. Trevelyan).

pointed out that the Bill had been framed in accordance with the suggestion of the late Chief Secretary (Mr. Trevelyan), which was now confirmed by the present Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman). He did not see why it should be amended. His own opinion was that it would be much better to leave the matter in the hands of the Local Government Board, and to allow the arrangements to be of such an elastic character that they could be easily made to work when a difficulty arose. He did not think it was necessary to lay down any hard-and-fast line which they could not possibly change, in order to meet exceptional circumstances.

said, he had put down an Amendment on the Paper to omit this clause; but he saw another Amendment in the name of his hon. Friend the Member for Coleraine (Sir Hervey Bruce), and as his hon. Friend was not present, and as he approved of the Amendment, he would move it in the place of his hon. Friend. The clause required that every ratepayer must himself attend in person to vote at the place of polling, and he proposed to add to the clause, with a view to inserting hereafter the necessary provision, the words "except as hereinafter provided." This was the vital clause of the Bill, and it made provision for the mode in which the election of Poor Law Guardians was to be conducted. In Ireland, the landlord paid one-half of the poor rate, except in the case of tenants under £4 a-year, where he paid the whole. In addition, he paid the rates for the land he held in his own hand, and in this way it was computed that the landlords paid five-eighths of the entire rates of Ireland. That being so, it was only just that they should have some corresponding influence in the election of Poor Law Guardians. This Bill, however, took from the landlord altogether the power of voting by proxy, and he would be practically disfranchised in every electoral division in which he had property except in the one in which he was able to vote personally. The clause virtually disfranchised him for every other division, but, nevertheless, he was still required to contribute very largely towards the rates. The Session before last, the late Chief Secretary—the right hon. Gentleman who was now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan)—recognized this hardship, and, in order to meet it, he made a proposal the effect of which was to provide that an owner of property voting in one electoral division in person should have the power of voting by voting papers sent to the Returning Officer in a registered letter in all the other divisions in which he held property. Whether the right hon. Gentleman was frightened by a Notice of opposition in consequence of the proposal put down by the hon. Member for Roscommon (Mr. O'Kelly) or not, he (Viscount Crichton) was unable to say; but, undoubtedly, that opposition had the effect of killing the Bill for the Session. The right hon. Gentleman since then had turned right-about-face, and last Session strongly opposed the very provision which he had himself previously suggested. The object of this clause was to prevent representation and taxation from going together, although that was the established principle of the English Constitution; and he hoped the Committee, by acceding to the terms of the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Coleraine (Sir Hervey Bruce), would admit, to some extent, the justice of the claim made by the Irish landlords, and mitigate the injustice which the Bill, as it stood, did to them.

said, he was altogether opposed to the Amendment. Since the Poor Law Act was originally passed, its provisions had been rendered quite intolerable by the power of interference with the representative character of the Board of Guardians exercised by the landlords. It must be remembered that the Poor Law Guardians had important powers conferred upon them, which were not given to any other representative body or in connection with any other municipal institution. Nevertheless, the landlords enjoyed an undue share of voting power. As an illustration, he might mention that in certain districts there were Town Commissioners, Corporations, and Boards of Guardians; but whereas the election were conducted on the principle of personal voting, as a general rule, in the election of Boards of Guardians, the landlords enjoyed privileges which were not given to other voters. He asked if the Government were prepared to propose in the Franchise Bill, which dealt with matters relating to Parliamentary elections, that electors who had a vote in more than one county should vote in one case in person and in another by means of a registered letter? If the Government were prepared to do that, then he would have no further objection to the adoption of a similar principle in the present case; but, otherwise, he certainly could not see the necessity for introducing this objectionable principle into the election of Poor Law Guardians alone.

said, he could not accept the Amendment. The object the noble Viscount had in view in proposing it was perfectly intelligible, and to that extent he sympathized with it, because he had a great objection to anything which would have a disfranchising effect. But he thought they were bound to consider, before effecting a change in the law, whether that change would be antagonistic to the principles of the general law. He must say that, as far as he was concerned, he looked upon the proposal of the noble Viscount as one which would introduce a new species of proxy voting, and he could not see that it was at all desirable, in making any change in the mode of voting in the election of Poor Law Guardians, to introduce artificial arrangements for the purpose of exempting a particular class of persons from the requirements which attached to all other classes. There might be cases, but he did not think they would be very numerous, where Poor Law elections in different localities might come into collision with each other, and one individual, holding property in more than one district, might be disfranchised to a certain extent; but he thought the objections to the introduction of an elaborate and novel system of voting in a Bill of this sort were greater than any advantages which could be gained from it. It was proposed that if an elector voted personally in one division, he should have the right of recording his vote, by means of a registered letter, in any other division. Now, he did not see how the fact of an elector having voted in one division was to be known in the other divisions to which registered letters might be sent. All sorts of objections might be raised to arrangements of this kind, which were necessarily of an artificial kind. His opinion was that it was desirable to have the elections conducted in as simple a manner as possible; and although, in some instances, the present system might act as a disfranchisement, he could not see that it would be judicious on the part of Parliament to attempt, by any artificial arrangement, to remedy the evil.

said, he was not disposed to overlay the debate with further points, when all of them had been urged over and over again; but he must enter his protest, once more, against the course which had been adopted by the Representative of Her Majesty's Government in Ireland on this occasion, as he had done formerly in regard to the same matter. It was nothing more nor less than the same surrender which was made last Session, and which was now being repeated again in order to save trouble, and to conciliate Irish Members below the Gangway. The right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had not been able to adduce one single particle of argument in support of his contention. The right hon. Gentleman had not shown that there was any difficulty, and indeed there was no difficulty, and there could be no difficulty, in carrying out the system of voting by registered letter, which was suggested by his own Predecessor in Office. He defied hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway to suggest that there was any difficulty in the matter. As to the observations which had fallen from the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray), when he spoke of the importance of the special duties conferred on the Poor Law Guardians, he (Mr. Plunket) confessed that he did not know what the hon. Gentleman was referring to.

said, that one part of the duties of the Guardians was to administer the Sanitary Acts.

said, he failed to see in that a reason why additional votes should not be given to the owners of property in the country, who had certainly quite as deep an interest in the proper administration of the Sanitary Acts as in any other portion of the working of the Poor Law. The case was altogether different from elections for Members of the House of Commons, and the duty of the Board of Guardians was, or ought to be, to see to the proper application of the rates provided by the ratepayers. There was no elaborate or novel system evoked by the present pro- posal, but it simply followed out the suggestion of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Trevelyan). If the Bill were passed in its present shape, the poorest ratepayer in the Union would have precisely the same influence as the ratepayer who owned a very considerable amount of the property of the parish. He had no wish to detain the Committee, but he should certainly vote for the Amendment.

wished to say, in reply to the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken, that his (Mr. Dickson's) experience in connection with the working of the Poor Law extended over a period of more than 16 years, both as an elected Guardian and as an ex officio Guardian, and, in his opinion, there could be no worse system of election than that now adopted. He thought the Local Government Board were tired of the present system of electing Guardians. There was hardly an election in regard to which there was not a contest or some dispute, and he certainly could see no valid reason why the Guardians should not be elected on the same principle as Members of Parliament. He protested against all this elaborate arrangement for fancy voting either by registered letter or by proxy. What they really required was some plain and simple plan of voting by ballot.

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) said that the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) had advanced a curious argument in support of the Bill, and in opposition to voting by proxy, in pointing out that the Guardians had to deal with sanitary questions and with matters affecting the health and well-being of the people. What did these sanitary questions mean? They meant an intimate acquaintance with the condition of the district sufficient to enable the persons elected to know what the evils were that required to be remedied. Persons who voted by proxy were persons who did not reside in the locality, and were, therefore, unacquainted with its wants. The very pith and marrow of the argument of the hon. Member for Carlow was that these persons who desired to vote by proxy and by registered letter possessed no local knowledge and had no personal interest in improving the sanitary con- dition of the district. On the contrary, their interest went entirely the other way, and they would be desirous of preventing sanitary improvements even in matters vitally affecting the lives and health of the people, in order to save their own pockets. The right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) had only added strength, to the argument of the hon. Member for Carlow, when he pointed out that these proxy votes were required to be given upon local questions concerning the lives and health of the people. Persons, however rich, they might be, ought not to be allowed to vote by proxy, and thus to override the opinion of the resident electors.

expressed regret that the Amendment of his noble Friend the Member for Fermanagh (Viscount Crichton) had not received the support of the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman). The late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Trevelyan) always assumed a learned air in reference to Irish Poor Law matters, and the right hon. Gentleman his Successor seemed to have taken up his Predecessor's position. The right hon. Gentleman had not attempted to adduce a single argument beyond his own individual opinion on the part of the Government that the system of proxy voting was undesirable. In arriving at that conclusion, the right hon. Gentleman set his face against the arguments, opinions, and interests of the whole of the landlord class in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman turned away from them in a contemptuous tone, and merely referred to them as "a particular class of people"—an expression that would not soon be forgotten. That was the way in which the right hon. Gentleman spoke of those who paid five-eighths of the rates in Ireland. ["No, no!"] He believed he was accurate in that assertion, and that five-eighths of the rates was about the exact amount of the rates paid by the Irish landlords. Yet it was proposed to prevent the large majority of these ratepayers from having a voice in the election of Poor Law Guardians. He honestly confessed that he looked upon the Amendment of his noble Friend as a very moderate proposal. Why should they force a man, who, for instance, might be attending to the discharge of his duties as a Member of Parliament, whenever a Poor Law election occurred in Ireland, to return there or to lose his vote? He believed that the right of voting by proxy or by papers was recognized in the English law, and yet the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary said that he could not support proxy voting in Ireland, because it would create a divergence between the law in Ireland and in England. It was urged by hon. Members below the Gangway that it was not desirable to give the right of proxy voting on sanitary matters to persons who were not resident in the locality, because they might possess a very small amount of local knowledge. But the hon. Gentlemen who made use of that argument forgot that one of the main points urged on the previous occasion when the point was raised, was that the non-resident owners had their agents on the spot, who would act for them, and who did possess full local knowledge. With regard to the provision as it stood in the Bill, he contended that it was practically an attempt to disfranchise altogether a very large and important class of the ratepayers. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) would probably remember that about two years ago he suggested in one of his speeches in Ireland that it would be well to make the landlords pay the rates that were expended in supporting the families of suspects and of convicted felons. If the hon. Member would consult the books of some of the Poor Law Guardians, he believed he would find that in some instances £1 a-week was paid to such families, while the families of the more deserving poor were not receiving more than 5s. or 6s. a-week. He put it to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary whether it was not desirable that those who were engaged in supporting the action of the Executive Government in Ireland should be permitted to enjoy something like the legitimate influence they were entitled to in the elections for Poor Law Guardians, and an influence which the Bill, in its present shape, would deprive them of? Of course, he knew what the result would be if the Government persisted in opposing the Amendment; but, nevertheless, he hoped that his noble Friend would press it to a Division.

said, the hon. Member who had just addressed the Committee had referred to an interesting remi- niscence. He (Mr. Sexton) certainly remembered in Ireland recommending that the landlords should be required to pay for the sustenance of the families of the suspects while the suspects themselves were confined in gaol, because he believed that the practical effect of such a course would be to render the landlord interest more cautious in procuring the arrest of honest men. With regard to the question more immediately before the Committee, he thought there could be no question that the adoption of the system of proxy voting was a great scandal, and a source of grievous injustice in Ireland. His hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) had pointed out that, in addition to the relief of the poor, the Poor Law Guardians performed other most important functions, among them being the administration of the Sanitary Acts with a view to the preservation of the public health. It would be intolerable if persons drawing large incomes from the land in Ireland, but leaving the country and residing abroad, should be able to throw sheafs of proxies into the hands of agents which would virtually control all the elections under the Poor Law, seeing that these persons no longer resided upon Irish soil, and had no interest whatever in the country or the well-being of the inhabitants, except so far as the income they drew out of it was concerned. He had known cases where persons—intelligent men—were candidates for the office of Guardian, and had the support of every resident ratepayer; but the landlords' agent was able to come down with a formidable sheaf of proxies in his hand, and throw them out. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) had done the Irish Members below the Gangway the honour of speaking of them as clever. He (Mr. Sexton) did not claim for them that they were any more clever than hon. Members in other parts of the House, and it was not only unreasonable, but absurd, to suppose that the Local Government Board in Dublin in making its preparations for the election of Poor Law Guardians would not take care to fix the elections in the different electoral divisions in such a manner that no landlord would find himself embarrassed in exercising his right of voting. No doubt, having regard to the fact that property might be held in more than one division by the same individual, the Local Government Board would so fix the elections in the different divisions that one did not clash with another; and there would be no difficulty at all, except the persons claiming the right to vote happened to be non-resident. In that case, of course, the vote would not be recorded; but, surely, if the vote was worth anything at all, it was worth giving in person. The proposal made by the noble Viscount the Member for Fermanagh (Viscount Crichton) was that in the event of an election taken place in two electoral divisions on the same day, in both of which a landlord happened to have property, he should be allowed to vote in one division personally and in the other by sending a registered letter to the Returning Officer, proving to such Returning Officer that he had voted in person in another division. But surely that was a physical impossibility, because the letter in the one case must be despatched while the voter was actually on his way to record his vote in the other. He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell - Bannerman) deserved but scant gratitude from hon. Gentleman who sat on that side of the Gangway. The right hon. Gentleman had made a speech in which he said that he had a strong feeling of dislike to any proposal which had a disfranchising effect; and then he went on to attribute such an effect to the present Bill. The right hon. Gentleman never paused for a moment to ask himself whether the present franchise was an equitable one, but said he was opposed to any rating franchise, however reasonable it otherwise might be, which was calculated in any degree to deprive the landlords of their influence in controlling the municipal government of the country. He might tell the right hon. Gentleman that the present Bill was the result of a compromise. The Irish Representatives had asked for much more than was contained in the Bill; but they had consented to accept the measure in a spirit of compromise, the effect of the compromise being still to leave the landlords a large plurality of votes as compared with those enjoyed by the occupiers. If by peculiar practices in that House, or by moving the power of their friends in the other House, Gentlemen of the Tory Party obstructed and embarrassed the measure now, and prevented it from being passed into law, as they did last Session, he warned them that they would have to face a much more disagreeable Bill next Session.

believed that the Irish landlords would lose nothing whatever by accepting the Bill as it stood. At present, there were insinuations that they made use of their influence to control unfairly the Poor Law elections. What was it they would lose? They would simply lose the chance of influencing the election of one Guardian as against another; and he did not think that that was a privilege which ought any longer to be preserved to them. Their privileges were fully preserved for them now by the plurality of votes which they enjoyed. He had no interest, personally, in any election in Ireland for Poor Law Guardians except as a landlord. He held property, as a landlord, in three counties in Ireland; and so much had he always felt that it was only for the people on the spot to decide what persons should be elected to perform the duties of Poor Law Guardians, that he had never for 25 years given a vote either by proxy or otherwise. He ventured to say that it would be a most mistaken policy, indeed, if hon. Members above the Gangway were on this occasion to force the Committee into a Division. He trusted that better counsels would prevail, and that the Bill would be accepted, as it stood, seeing that it was the result of a fair compromise.

said, that, not-withstanding the threat which had been held out to the Irish landlords by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton)—

A warning; not a threat.

Oh, a warning! Well, notwithstanding the very menacing warning held out to the Irish landlords by the hon. Member that they would be worse treated if they did not now take what they could get, he must resist this attempt to deprive them of their rights, at the proper time, and not wait for some other opportunity. His objection to the present Bill was this. When it was introduced in the Session before last, when the right hon. Gentleman, now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was then Chief Secretary of Ireland (Mr. Trevelyan), a difficulty arose as to the abolition of proxy voting, and the desirability of preserving the proprietor's right to the vote. He (Mr. Macartney) suggested, and the suggestion was accepted and acted upon by the Chief Secretary, that every proprietor should be allowed to send in a paper containing his vote, as now proposed in the Amendment' of his noble Friend the Member for Fermanagh (Viscount Crichton). It was further suggested that the paper so signed by the landlord, and duly filled up by a magistrate, should be sent in a registered letter to the Clerk of the Union. It was all very well to say that the owners of property in different Unions, if they valued the vote, would attend to record the vote in person. One thing appeared to have been completely forgotten, and that was, that in many instances females were owners of property, and had the right to vote for the election of Poor Law Guardians. They would be completely disfranchised by this Bill.

Not at all.

asked what female, who happened to own property in five or six Unions, would take the trouble to go about in order that she might vote in person? The hon. Member had, perhaps, no respect for those who had property, and reserved it for those who had none. It had been stated, in the course of the discussion on this Amendment, that a part of the rates were paid by the landlord; but he would point out that, in addition to that, the landlord paid for all his occupiers under £4 valuation, who were very numerous, and, besides that, he paid the total amount of the rates on the land which he himself occupied. That being so, the landlord paid a much larger proportion of the rates than the tenant, and it was only right that he should be proportionately represented in the election of Guardians. The principle that representation should follow taxation was, in his opinion, eminently applicable to the case.

said, the Amendment he had to propose was with reference to a subject which he had referred to at an earlier stage of the proceedings. It had been admitted that it would be unfair and unreasonable for the Local Government Board not to make a practicable arrangement by which the opportunity of voting might be secured to those whose property lay in different localities. The only objection to that principle had been stated by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), who said that it would not be desirable or practical to lay down a hard-and-fast line for determining the action of the Local Government Board. That was precisely what he did not wish to be done, and he was, therefore, in agreement with the hon. Member on the point. But it was perfectly reasonable, and had been done over and over again in Acts of Parliament, to suggest in words to Public Departments that Parliament expected them to do what was reasonable and practicable in the discharge of their duties. He, therefore, put forward words which would direct the Local Government Board to fix such times for the election of Boards of Guardians as they might think fit, to assist, as far as might be convenient and practicable, owners having property in different districts in recording their votes. That, the Committee would see, was to draw no hard-and-fast line, but to put the matter upon a common-sense footing.

said, he had expected that the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland would have made a statement with reference to the representation of Irish tenants on Boards of Guardians in Ireland. The recent experience of official life in Ireland on the part of the right hon. Gentleman had certainly led him (Mr. Sexton) to expect that the Committee would have been furnished with at least one example of the manner in which the landlords exercised their powers in this respect towards the tenants. The general belief was that it was exercised in an unsatisfactory manner. He thought the Local Government Board might in this matter be allowed to exercise the discre- tionary power which they already possessed, and he should, therefore, oppose the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

said, it would be inconvenient to the community generally for the Local Government Board to fix times for the elections in the manner proposed. There were about 163 Poor Law Unions in Ireland, and the words proposed would almost coerce the Local Government Board to fix those elections for so many different days, if, as might happen, there were proprietors who, in respect of them, had property in different Unions. The Local Government Board would be driven to fix 163 days for holding the elections, in order to avoid the attacks that would be made upon them.

said, he hoped the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite would not press his Amendment. The Government had already stated their opinion that this was a matter which might be left to the discretion of the Local Government Board. He thought there was a good deal of force in what had been said by the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray)—namely, that any injunction of this kind would lead to constant reclamations on the part of people who thought that other arrangements might have been made. It was, therefore, very much better to leave the point to the Local Government Board, who had both experience and discretionary power in the matter.

said, they had been told last Session that the rights of landlords in respect of their votes at these elections should be preserved; but, from what had been said, it appeared that justice was not to be done to them.

hoped the Amendment would not be agreed to. It would lead to great inconvenience.

said, before the right hon. Gentleman proposed his Amendment to Sub-section 5, he wished to call attention to a point in Sub-section 3. He did so merely as a protest against the provision that—

"No Justice of the Peace shall be qualified to be an ex officio Guardian of any Poor Law Union, unless he is a ratepayer of such Union."

It happened that in Ireland there were a certain number of Justices of the Peace, who were either agents representing landlords, or the eldest sons of landlords who were old and decrepid. These persons might be very able and efficient men as Guardians; and he raised the point indicated, because he could not think that any abuse could creep in as a consequence of allowing such Justices of the Peace to be ex officio Poor Law Guardians. He hoped the matter would receive the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman; but as the animus of the Committee at the moment was quite clear on the point, he would not press it at greater length. He simply put it to the right hon. Gentleman, in the hope that he might be prepared to omit the words in question.

said, that so far as concerned agents who were Justices of the Peace, they had generally farms in the country. He did not see why agents should be on the Boards of Guardians simply because they represented proprietors. One object of the clause was to get the proprietor to live in Ireland, although, of course, if he was unable to do that it was a proper thing that he should go away and give his son the opportunity of representing him. He could not see that any practical inconvenience would arise from this; but he was at a loss to understand why a Justice of the Peace, who was not a ratepayer in the Union, and who lived in a country town, should be ex officio a Poor Law Guardian. He did not think that the proposal of the hon. Member would tend to the proper working of the Act.

said, he understood it was the general feeling with regard to this Bill that the number of ex officio Guardians should be limited to one-third of the number of the members of the Board. That, however, was not exactly carried out by the wording of the clause in its present form, and he was therefore anxious, in order to prevent any doubt as to the meaning of the Bill, to amend the clause in such a way as would express the general intention. He would propose to add words to the effect that the number of ex officio Guardians in any Poor Law Union should in no case exceed one-third of the number of members of the Board. But the objection to that was that the total number of which the ex officio Guardians were to be a third would be a movable quantity by the fact of their being ex officio Guardians, and the words, therefore, that would best express what was intended would be words which implied that the ex officio Guardians should be not more in number than half the elected Guardians. In that way they would be one-third of the whole. He had heard other ways of expressing it, but that appeared to him to be most correct. The section would then read—

"The number of ex officio Guardians of any Poor Law Union shall not exceed half the number of the elected Guardians in the Union;"

and then there would be added, to meet a very obvious case—

"Where the number of such elected Guardians is an uneven number, it shall, for the purposes of this section, be deemed to be diminished by one."

They could not have half a Guardian. He believed that if these words were inserted they would carry out what was the universal intention when the clause was before them last Session. At present, anyone who read the section would see that it did not convey that impression at all.

said, they had abolished the proxy vote, they had made it impossible for landlords to vote in any place except that in which they resided, and now it was proposed that the number of landlords sitting on Boards of Guardians should be reduced from an equal number to only half the number of elected Guardians; and, on the suggestion of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), where the elected Guardians were 21 in number the ex officio Guardians should be only 10—that was less than half. That the ex officio Guardians should be only half was unfair. They seemed in Ireland to be proceeding upon the principle adopted at the time of the Revolution—namely, property and robbery. Nowadays, to be possessed of property in Ireland was sufficient to disqualify a man from enjoying any of the privileges which anyone else enjoyed, and to subject him to the suspicion that he had bad intentions towards his country and the community amongst whom he lived. He (Mr. Macartney) was bound to say that the compact, whatever it was, that had been entered into between the Government and the Gentlemen (the Home Rulers) sitting below the Gangway was a most iniquitous one, sacrificing, as it did, those who were attached to the connection between the Three Kingdoms; sacrificing those who represented law and order in Ireland; sacrificing those who represented, he would not say the smartness, but certainly the education of the country, and also insuring for the future that in every district in Ireland where there was a Poor Law Union there should be a small Parliament in which the voice of reason should be smothered by numbers.

only wanted to state how he understood the matter to stand. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), in his observations, had not applied himself as yet to the consideration of the substance of the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman only proposed to put the matter into the shape in which it was understood to be left by those who put forward the suggestion in the last Session. The Chief Secretary, however, was a little incorrect in saying all parties.

said, he thought it was universally understood that that was the meaning.

said, his only desire was to have the matter put quite right; and, therefore, he saw no objection, as a matter of form, to what the Chief Secretary said should be done. He thought that when that was done it would be put into the shape that was intended by the Mover of the sub-section last Session. When the Amendment suggested by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) had been made, the noble Viscount the Member for Fermanagh (Viscount Crichton) would move the omission of the whole of Sub-section 5, because the contention of the noble Viscount and of others was that the existing law was more just and more reasonable than the change proposed to be effected by the amended sub-section.

Before we pass from this section—

Let us amend the section first.

said, he did not think the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was technically correct. The words of the clause, as they stood, carried out the intention of the framers of the clause, because they provided that the number of the ex officio Guardians should be one-third of the whole Board. [The SOLICITOR GENEEAL for IRELAND dissented.] He saw the Solicitor General for Ireland shaking his learned head, As a matter of fact, under the clause, as it now stood, all Guardians were elected, both ex officio and those elected by ratepayers. He understood it was contemplated to propose an Amendment to remedy that defect. The clause, however, as it stood, fully carried out the intention of its framers, because it did secure—although, he granted, not in a very clear manner—that the number of ex officio Guardians should be one-third of the whole Guardians.

said, he did not think the hon. Member (Mr. Gray) was quite correct. As the clause stood in the Bill, it said—

"That the number of ex officio Guardians of any Poor Law Union shall in no case exceed one-third of the number of Guardians to be elected by the ratepayers of such Union."

That was not what was intended. It was intended that they should not be any more than one-third of the Guardians, whether elected by the ratepayers or appointed in some other way.

said he thought it would be well if the Committee allowed the words "by the ratepayers" to remain in the clause.

said, the words he had proposed had been carefully drawn.

said, it was now necessary he should move to leave out from "exceed," in line 36, to the end of the section, in order to insert "one-half the number of elected Guardians."

proposed to omit all the words after "by the," in page 9, line 2, down to the words "fifty-six," in line 4, and insert—

"16th section of the Act of the Session of the 10th year of the reign of Her present Majesty, chap. 31."

His object in moving this Amendment was to point out that, if the words in the sub-section were retained, the Justices might elect Justices who paid little, if any, rates, and who had no interest whatever in the taxes. Now, the section he proposed to insert provided that the Justices who were the highest rated should be elected, his desire being to prevent the abuse of Justices being elected who had no interest in the Union.

pointed out that Sub-section 3 already provided that no Justice of the Peace should be qualified to be an ex officio Guardian who was not a ratepayer of the Union.

said, it was the fact that Sub-section 3 did provide for the qualification mentioned by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Macartney). He (the Solicitor General for Ireland) thought it might be but reasonable that if there were a number of ex officio Justices to be elected, the Justices should have the power to select which of their number should be ex officio members of the Board.

expected the Solicitor General for Ireland would have informed the Committee how the law at present stood. If, at the present time, there were more magistrates in a Union than elected Guardians, and if they had property and were otherwise qualified to act, how were the ex officio Guardians elected? It was not by voting amongst the magistrates, but the highest rated magistrates became ex officio members of the Board of Guardians. In the very ward in Dublin to which the Solicitor General for Ireland belonged a question was raised last year as to the constitution of the North Dublin Union. By some peculiar manipulation, some of the Liberal magistrates had their rating so reduced that they were deprived of the right to sit as ex officio Guardians, and Conservatives were put in their place. This state of things arose by manipulation that was well known in ex officio circles in Ireland. Why should the Committee change the law? If the subsection were dropped altogether and no words substituted, the existing law would come into operation. If the hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) confined himself simply to omitting the last four lines of the section, and no directions were given as to the manner in which the ex officio Guardians should be elected, the highest rated Justices would, under the existing law, be elected. It was upon that point he (Mr. Callan) thought the Solicitor General for Ireland would have enlightened the Committee. The law at present in existence provided that the highest rated magistrates were ex officio Guardians of the poor, and he did not see that any reason had been advanced why there should be a reversion to the practice of 50 years ago.

said, he did not catch the exact words of the Solicitor General for Ireland; but he understood they were not unfavourable to the Amendment. The Amendment was a very important one, because the effect of the clause, if it remained as it now was, would be disastrous. The existing law provided that where there were in a Union a number of Justices, the highest rated should be elected ex officio Guardians. What was proposed to be done by the Amendment was simply to leave the law in that respect unchanged. Two systems had been tried in Ireland, and after experimenting in the fashion now contemplated by the Bill, the law, being found unsatisfactory, was amended. There was no reason why they should go back to a system which had been tested and failed, and which Parliament had found itself obliged to amend. The Amendment was a very reasonable one, inasmuch as it would simply leave the law as it stood at present.

said, that when the law was amended, and the ex officio Guardians were allowed to be equal in number to the elected Guardians, if there was an excess of Justices, the highest rated were elected. It really appeared to him a matter of very little moment whether the Justices were to select those who should represent them on the Board of Guardians, or the ex officio Guardians should be the highest rated magistrates.

said, he hoped the Committee would not restore the law to the condition in which it stood 20 years ago, but that they would continue to enforce the principle of selecting as ex officio Guardians those who were the highest rated Justices in the Union. He would even recommend that only the highest rated resident ratepayers should be elected.

hoped Her Majesty's Government would accept the Amendment.

said, he remembered perfectly well how the words appeared in the clause. They were Government words. They were put in by the late Chief Secretary (Mr. Trevelyan), after consultation with the draughtsman, and, he (Mr. Gibson) presumed, with the sanction of the Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Walker). He (Mr. Gibson) was surprised to hear it proposed to omit the words without any consideration. If the Government wished to reconsider the propriety of their own words, the wisest and most satisfactory course for them to pursue would be to let the matter stand over for Report, by which time they could confer with the draughtsman. The words were put in last Session after consideration by the Government, and it was now proposed to omit them without any consideratien or argument. He could see several objections to the election of those who might chance to be highest in the rating, without knowing whether they desired to attend or whether their health enabled them to attend.

said, provision was made by law against the appointment of persons unable to serve.

said, he had an Amendment on the Paper providing for the omission of Sub-section 5 of this clause. He had no intention of travelling again over the ground which had been already gone over, but would merely say that as the landlords in the Unions paid five-eighths of the rates they ought to have a reasonable share in the representation. It was quite idle to say that the elected Guardians were likely to be overborne by the ex officio Guardians. He thought the contrary was the case, because the elected Guardians were always on the spot and able to attend to their duties, while the ex officio Guardians were very often away. He believed that originally the number of ex officio Guardians was fixed at one-third; but it was found there was so much extravagance and waste in the administration of the funds of the Unions that a Bill was brought in in 1847 by Lord John Russell establishing the proportion as it now stood. He looked upon the present proposal as a distinctly retrograde one, and one by which it was intended to revert to a system which had been already condemned. On these grounds, he moved the omission of the sub-section.

said, the sub-section was only part of the clause, and that part of the clause having been amended the noble Viscount could only propose to omit the whole of the clause. Amendments having been made in the section, it was impossible for the noble Viscount to omit the section. If it had occurred to him, he would have called the noble Viscount's attention to the matter at the time the Amendments were made. It would, however, be competent for the noble Viscount to take a Division against the whole clause.

said, he would, therefore, take a Division against the clause.

said, that before the Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) made any reply to the noble Viscount (Viscount Crichton), it would be well some reason should be assigned for the suggested reduction. Up to the present not one syllable of reason, good, bad, or indifferent, had been given as to the justice of reducing the number of ex officio Guardians from one-half of the whole Board to one-third the number of the elected Guardians. Moreover, no reason had been shown why the people who paid five-eighths of the rates should now be reduced to one-third of the representation. It was due to the Committee, the country, and ex officio Guardians that the Chief Secretary should give the Government's reason for sanctioning the present proposal.

said, the reason why the proposal was made was not far to seek. Any man who had experience of Poor Law work knew full well that more than two-thirds of the ex officio Guardians did not attend regularly to the work of the Board; they only attended when an officer was to be appointed, or when there was a job to be done.

said, his experience of Poor Law administration, which he had no doubt was equal to the hon. Member's (Mr. O'Sullivan's), was precisely the reverse of that of the hon. Gentleman's. He (Mr. Tottenham) had been in the habit for years of attending regularly Poor Law meetings, and he could confidently say that what the hon. Member had stated was absolutely without foundation.

said, he was surprised that his hon. Friend the Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) had asked for a reason why the Government had assented to this proposal. The reason was obvious. It was to be found down there. [The hon. Gentleman pointed to the Home Rule Benches.]

said, he had understood the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had indicated that this was one of the points which required consideration and examination — namely, the date at which the Act should come into operation. This clause fixed the date at the 1st of February, 1885. That time was near at hand now, and the Chief Secretary had expressed the opinion that it was too soon—that though it might have been a suitable date to fix last Session, it was not a suitable one to fix now. The question was one affecting the machinery of the Executive Government, and, as he (Mr. Gibson) had already pointed out, it was more the business of the Government than of an independent Member to deal with it. He now merely drew the attention of the Chief Secretary to it, so that he might adopt whatever date he thought desirable.

said, it was well to remind the Chief Secretary that all the notices of election in Ireland were issued on or about February 1, and that if, therefore, that date were passed, the measure could not come into operation for 12 months.

said, he would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant to lot the clause stand as it was.

said, he did not think it would be well to alter the date at all. The question had been inquired into since last Session, and since the commencement of this Session, owing to the extraordinary alacrity with which hon. Members had got through the Business, the prospects of the Bill becoming law were much improved. Though there would not be too much time to make all the arrangements for conducting the elections before February, and although a great deal of work would be thrown on the Department, he did not think it would be right to postpone the elections under the new system for 12 months through pressure of business. When the Bill was introduced this Session, Public Business had not made such progress, and the probability of the measure becoming law was not so great. Then there might have been a strong case for altering the date; but now that they were within measureable distance of the Bill becoming law, if it became law at all, it should be passed as it was. To put off its operation a whole year would be a great sacri- fice, in order to avoid a little inconvenience.