asked the President of the Local Government Board, If his attention has been called to the practice, by local authorities under his jurisdiction, of issuing bonds for loans signed by the clerk only (who also keeps the seal); and, whether, in the public interest, some additional precautions should not be adopted in dealing with those securities?

Sir, there is no authority for the issue of securities under the signature of the clerk alone. Any such security must be under the seal of the Local Authority; and it appears to the Board that such arrangements should be made by the Local Authorities, that the seal should not be under the exclusive control of the clerk. Any such precautions as are necessary are within the powers of the authorities without further legislation.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, How many men in Her Majesty's Dockyards are in receipt of the "duty-pay" au- thorised to be paid to them, and how many clerks receive it at Whitehall?

Sir, in the London Establishments there are about 70 duty-pay places held by Lower Division clerks. In the Dockyards there are no Lower Division clerks employed at all. The clerical staff consists of Higher Division clerks, who are paid on the Playfair scheme, and Dockyard writers, mechanic and otherwise. A Departmental Committee was appointed by the late Board to fix the number of writers to be allowed as a settled Establishment, and to report as to the necessity of granting duty-pay to this class of employes. The Committee completed their labours some months back. The late Board had the Report of this Committee under their review; but as it contained references to the Higher Division staff, and necessitated further references and re-references, no decision was arrived at when they left office. We hope shortly to take the matter up.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether, on account of the large number of men engaged in fishing at Baltimore, county Cork, the present Mail Service between there and Skibbercen will be continued until 1st September?

in reply, said, that there were no grounds for continuing the present special service beyond the 14th instant. It was considered that the ordinary service would suffice after that date.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether his attention has been called to the practical inconvenience and hindrance to thrift caused by the regulations which limit deposits in Post Office Savings Banks to £30 in any one year; prevent a redeposit after withdrawal of the original deposit in the same year; restrict the maximum sum which may be invested in public securities at one time through the Post Office to £100; and the maximum sum which may be deposited to £200; to the fact that in many thousands of parishes there is no bank excepting the Post Office Savings Bank; and, whether, under these circumstances, he will favourably consider the expediency of raising the limit in the first case to £50, and in the second and third cases to £300?

in reply, said, that, since 1880, there had been two efforts made in Parliament in the direction suggested by the Question of the hon. Member; but both these efforts were defeated by the opposition raised in that House. Therefore, although he entirely concurred in the desirability of raising the limit of savings bank deposits, he feared that, in view of the circumstances, it would be quite hopeless to make any attempt in that direction during what remained of the present Session.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether gas engines have been substituted for steam engines for the working of the pneumatic system in the General Post Office, Dublin; whether it is admitted that the steam engines gave satisfaction, and that the Technical Department and Mr. Preece, chief electrician to the Post Office, reported against the change; if this be so, why was the alteration made; was the work carried out by private tender, or was it publicly advertised; what was the cost of the alteration; how the new engines have been found to work; and, whether the cost of their maintenance is not greater than that of the steam engines?

in reply, said, that the gas engines had been introduced by the Irish Office of Works, who paid the costs of maintenance, except the wages of the attendants.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If the Irish Government have agreed to the unanimous recommendation of the Royal Commission that the salaries of warders in Irish prisons should be increased; and, if so, how soon it will take effect?

The Government will be prepared to give favourable consideration to this recommendation when the time is ripe for doing so; but that mainly depends upon the larger question of the consolidation of prisons, which the Royal Commission have also recommended, and which is now being dealt with.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, when he comes to consider this question, to bear in mind that it has been in suspense for the greater part of a year, and, to ordinary minds, appears to be ripe for settlement now.

asked the Vice President of the Committee of Council, Whether the Government intend to proceed with the Bill relating to the Croydon and West Bromwich School Boards, in accordance with the promise given by the late Vice President?

Yes, Sir; we propose to introduce a short Bill dealing with the cases of Croydon and of West Bromwich. We wish, at the same time, to legislate upon a matter which has been much pressed upon us, and to take powers to the Education Department to divide the enormous School Board Division of Lambeth into two parts. The Bill will probably be introduced in the House of Lords.

asked the Secretary to the Admiralty, What protection there is in the waters of Madagascar to the persons and property of English residents in the Island?

Sir, the Senior Officer on the Coast of Madagascar is intrusted with the protection of British lives and property. The Kingfisher and Dragon are on the Zanzibar division. The Dragon was at Tamatave on June 16.

asked the Secretary of State for India, Whether he still adheres to the opinion which he expressed on the 3rd of June last, at the Tower Hamlets, that a Parliamentary inquiry into the Government of India Act is "an effectual and effective part of the policy now so absolutely necessary to strengthening the British hold upon India;" and, if so, what steps he proposes to take to carry out that policy?

In reply to the hon. Member, I have to say that, as far as I am personally concerned, I agree entirely with the view I expressed on the 3rd of June last with regard to a Parliamentary inquiry into the Government of India Act. But the hon. Gentleman must not take that reply as in any way committing Her Majesty's Government, who have as yet had no opportunity of collectively considering this very important matter.

Will the noble Lord, in some way before the end of the Session, endeavour to make a statement to the House as to the reforms of the Government of India which he is prepared to carry out?

I hope that possibly, when I have the honour of addressing the House on the Indian Budget, I may be able to allude to this matter; but the hon. Member will see that any appointment of a Commission this Session is obviously impossible.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether any communications have passed between the Government and Captain G. F. Wilson, R.E., with respect to the proclamation alleged to have been issued by Captain Wilson, offering a reward for the capture of M. Olivier Pain, dead or alive?

No, Sir; no communications whatever have passed between the Government and Captain Wilson, R.E. The Government could only in such a case communicate with the General in command of the Expedition, and this was done, with the result which I have already stated to the House.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, What provision was made by the late Government for the accommodation of the population of the province of Dongola, which has migrated from that province since the late Government determined upon its evacuation?

None, Sir.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether ho can assure the House that orders have been given to the Police to use the utmost possible exertions allowable by Law to suppress the abominations revealed by The Pall Mall Gasette and, whether the Government will introduce into the Criminal Law Amendment Bill such amendments as may, in the opinion of the Law Officers of the Grown, be necessary to secure that the perpetrators and abettors of such abominations be brought to justice '?

The orders given to the Metropolitan Police are that, on sufficient information given to them, every exertion allowable by law is to be used to suppress the alleged practices. The existing law, supplemented by the main clauses of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, which was read a second time last night, is, in the opinion of myself and my hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster), sufficient to bring to justice the perpetrators of such abominations.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, If his attention has been called to the unanimous Report of the Select Committee appointed 18th July last, to the effect that

"Evidence has been given …that the local sewer under the control of the Westmin- ster District Board of Works emits most offensive smells from time to time, and your Committee arc of opinion that steps should be taken by the local authority to put an end to a nuisance of a very serious character;"

if his attention has been called to a subsequent Report upon the subject by Major Hector Tulloch; if ho is aware that yesterday an escape of sewer gas took place at the ventilator over the point of junction between the sewer of the Westminster District Board and that of the Metropolitan Board of Works at the entrance to New Palace Yard, which caused inconvenience to Members and officers of the House, and to the public; and, if, should that be his opinion, he will inform the Metropolitan Board and the District Board that, in addition to the temporary measures taken yesterday, permanent works will be required in order to prevent recurrence of danger to health?

The right hon. Gentleman is aware of the communications which were addressed to the Metropolitan Board of Works and the Westminster District Board of Works on the subject of the Report of Major Tulloch, on the inquiry which he undertook in consequence of the Report of the Select Committee. I have already addressed communications to the Metropolitan Board and District Board, asking for information as to the action which has been taken, and which is proposed to be taken, with the view of preventing the escape of sewer gas which is complained of. Anything that I can do to insure the matter receiving prompt attention from those who are responsible for the sanitary arrangements of the district will, of course, be done.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, If he is aware that the overseers are now engaged in preparing the voting lists for Parliamentary elections, and that in many districts they are omitting the names of those who have received medical relief; and, if he will cause a memorandum to be issued from his Department directing the overseers to put the names referred to on the lists, leaving it to the revising barristers to determine as to the validity of the votes?

asked whether the duties of the overseers were not prescribed by Act of Parliament?

My hon. Friend the Member for Derry (Mr. Lewis) has really suggested the answer to the Question. However desirable it may he, as to which I express no opinion, it is altogether impossible for the Local Government Board to do as the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) suggests. It is the duty of the overseers under the statute to include only in their lists persons who, under the existing law, are entitled to be registered as voters; and the Local Government Board have no authority whatever to give directions to the overseers to prepare the lists otherwise than in accordance with the statutory requirements.

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman could not call the attention of the overseers to the subject by way of recommendation, instead of a legal requirement?

It is not the practice of the Local Government Board to recommend officers to perform acts contrary to statute.

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that, in many cases, the overseers were making out the lists with these voters on; and, whether, seeing that there was a difference of opinion between the officers on the subject, he would alter his opinion as to what was being done?

No, Sir; I do not think I can.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, seeing that the voters in question would be left off the list, and that the 20th of the month would be the last day for making claims, and that the Parliamentary Elections (Medical Belief) Bill was down for Tuesday, the 14th, leaving only six days to get through with it, he would give all possible facilities for the consideration of the Bill on that day?

Sir, I am not at all sure that the matter is quite so pressing as the hon. Member has stated; but I know that it is pressing, and we shall take care to deal with it as soon as we can, in order to avoid every possible inconvenience arising out of the fact stated by the hon. Member in his previous Question to my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board.

said, that this was a question of hours, and he should like to ask if the right hon. Gentleman would give a positive promise with regard to proceeding with the Bill on Tuesday? He would repeat the Question on Monday, if the right hon. Gentleman could not answer it now.

I shall be quite prepared to answer the Question on Monday.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been directed to the following statement in the Press, in reference to the recent Return of the proceedings of the Irish Land Commission:—

"At the close of the month of April the total number of applications to have fair rents fixed was 121,891, and the total disposed of was 115,528, leaving 6,363 still to be heard. The appeal business is in a still more unsatisfactory state. Only 143 cases were heard during the month, leaving the large number of 9,923 still to be decided. In their task of getting through these appeals the Land Commissioners are likely to be very much assisted by the suitors themselves of these Courts, for the number withdrawn every month is considerably in excess of the number heard, a fact not to he wondered at, considering that several appeals have been now awaiting trial for two years;"

and, whether Her Majesty's Government will take into consideration the propriety of devising some means to remedy this delay of suitors and frustration of justice in the Land Commission Courts in Ireland?

I explained yesterday, in answer to a Question, how matters stand with regard to original applications before the Land Commission. The total number of appeals pending from both Sub-Commissions and Civil Bill Courts on the 30th ultimo was 9,316, of which number about 900 have been lodged for more than two years. The Land Commissioners inform me that withdrawals have considerably increased since, under new rules, valuations for the use of the Appeal Court must be paid for by suitors. This is not a satisfactory state of affairs, and calls for further consideration on the part of the Government.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether, after the statement made on Thursday by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, showing an excess of £500,000 over the Estimates previously given to the House, a Parliamentary inquiry as to the financial affairs of the Admiralty should not be instituted?

Sir, it is the intention of the Government to institute an inquiry into the excess of the expenditure at the Admiralty over the Vote of Credit, and the exact shape and scope of the inquiry is at present under consideration.

Having consulted my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board, which I had not the opportunity of doing before, I may, perhaps, be allowed to supplement what I stated just now on the subject referred to by the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Jesse Collings). Her Majesty's Government have very carefully considered the question of medical relief, and having so considered it we think it would be better to propose legislation on the subject ourselves. This evening my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board will give Notice that on Monday he will move for leave to bring in a Bill, which will be pressed forward as speedily as possible.

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman would give the terms of the Bill?

asked whether the Bill would be confined to the question of medical relief, or whether it would deal with other matters?

I think the right hon. Gentleman had better wait until my right hon. Friend states the provisions of the Bill when he moves for leave.

asked if the Bill alluded to would refer to Scotland?

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he will be prepared to state on Monday the terms of the Bill dealing with the question of medical relief, and at what date it would be in the hands of Members?

in reply, said, he had already stated that, on Monday, the President of the Local Government Board would move for leave to bring in the Bill. The Bill would be a very short one.

said, he would like to give Notice of a Question on this subject after the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had had an opportunity of consulting with his Colleagues. It was, Whether the Government would take steps to carry out what had been the intention of the late Government—to give power to the Education Department to put off those School Board Elections, which would fall at the exact time of the General Election? Many School Boards did not attach importance to the postponement of their election, and the late Government had a strong impression of the inconvenience which would be caused to Parliamentary candidates and others, especially in London, where the School Board Elections would fall at exactly the same time as the General Election.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he will be good enough to offer facilities for the discussion and progress of the Police Enfranchisement Extension Bill?

I cannot at present promise to do what my noble Friend desires me to do. I am afraid I cannot go beyond the state- ment I made on Tuesday as to the Business with which Her Majesty's Government propose to ask the House to deal. We have our own Business to consider; but I hope, however, that my noble Friend, and those who are interested in the Bill, will do the best themselves to bring the subject under the consideration of the House.

said, that, in the absence of the noble Marquess the Member for North-East Lancashire (the Marquess of Hartington), who would be in his place at the beginning of next week, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for War three Questions in connection with the Army Estimates, which were, he saw by the Notices, fixed for Monday next. At the present time, the first six Votes, being up to and inclusive of the Yeomanry Vote, had been already taken. He wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman proposed to begin with Vote 7, being the Vote for Volunteer Corps, on Monday, then going on in succession with Vote 8, for Army Reserve, and taking afterwards the large Votes connected with the Department of the Surveyor General of the Ordnance? If the right hon. Gentleman proposed to follow the order of the Votes, he wished to ask, secondly, whether Vote 8, for Army Reserve, was to be regarded as the legitimate opportunity of a discussion upon Army questions in general, as had been the practice lately, when the late Government were in Office, or whether it would be confined to the subject-matter of the Vote itself? He asked this not from any personal desire to raise a general discussion, but because the practice alluded to had been permitted in Committee of Supply during the term of Office of the late Government, and might now therefore, he presumed, be regarded as legitimate; thirdly, he wished to ask, whether, in the view of the right hon. Gentleman, the discussion on the Contagious Diseases Acts, if any, had not better be taken on Vote 15, which contained the larger provision for the general expenses arising out of the Contagious Diseases Acts, than on Vote 9, which contained only a small provision for the police employed under the Act? That was the course which he thought he might safely say the late Government would have preferred.

in reply, said, with the consent of the House he would propose on Monday to go on with the Supplementary Estimates for Men which had been omitted by the late Government, and of which Notice had been given, and then proceed with the other Votes. He would propose to proceed with the Votes in order. Probably, on the Supplementary Estimates for Men, an opportunity would be given to hon. Members of making any observations they might think necessary. On Vote 8 there would be the opportunity which the hon. Baronet (Sir Arthur Hayter) suggested. He should not wish to say within what limits the discussion should be confined. It would be for the Chairman of Committees to deal with that; but the Government had no wish to put an undue limit on the discussion, and would leave it to the House to say how far it should go. He had hoped that, after the conversation which took place in that House on the Motion for time, there would be no discussion with reference to the Contagious Diseases Acts, seeing that this year no change could be made in the arrangement for carrying out those Acts. If, however, there was to be any discussion it would be more convenient to take it on Vote 15 than on Vote 9.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, in consequence of the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Prisons in Ireland, the three inspectors under the General Prisons Board have been reduced to two; whether these two gentlemen have been required to reside in Dublin; and, why the increase of £100 per annum salary, recommended by the Commission to meet the required change of residence, has not been accorded them?

The Royal Commission recommended in connection with the reconstruction of the Prisons Board that the number of Inspectors should be reduced to two, with increased salaries on a scale rising from £600 to £700. The Inspectors have accordingly been reduced to two, and they will be obliged to live in Dublin; but their taking up residence in Dublin has been postponed until the autumn at their request. No increase has been made to their salaries, which are £600 a-year. The arrangement which resulted in the appointment of Dr. McCabe as medical officer of the Board was sanctioned by the Treasury on the understanding that the Inspectors' salaries remained as at present.

gave Notice that, in consequence of the answer of the right hon. Baronet, he would call attention to the subject on the Vote for Prisons (Ireland).

I wish to put a Question to the Secretary of State for the Home Department of which I have not given him Notice, but which, if he desires, I will repeat on Monday. My Question is, Whether he is aware that the authorities of the City of London have taken proceedings against men, women, and boys who have been selling very undesirable publications, and have stopped altogether the sale of these publications in the City; and, if so, I wish to know why the Metropolitan Police have not taken similar proceedings against the same class of persons within their jurisdiction, so as to remove from before the public eye most offensive and obscene placards in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross and at other places, where newspapers of the stamp of The Pall Mall Gazette and Town Talk are being sold, not only by men, but by women and children?

in reply, said, he demurred to the statement made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Whitehaven as a statement of fact, and would prefer that Notice should be given of the Question.

said, he would give Notice, that on Monday he would ask the Pesident of the Local Government Board, If, when he asked leave to introduce the Medical Relief Bill, he would at the same time state its precise terms?

in reply, said, that he would, of course, explain the provisions of the Bill at the time of its introduction. The Bill would be circulated on Monday or Tuesday.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it is intended to bring on the question of Hobart Pasha's allowances on the Report of Supply?

in reply, said, that the Report of the Resolution agreed to in Committee of Supply, upon which the question could be raised, would be taken on Monday.

in rising to call, the attention of the House to the extreme destitution and overcrowding in our great cities, especially among the class of unskilled casual labourers, and to move—

"That it is expedient to establish a system of compulsory industrial training for the children of the destitute classes, in night schools, from the age of 12 or 13 to 16 years, in order to fit them to earn their living either at home or in the Colonics,"

said: Sir, this subject is one of vast social importance. It springs out of the painful conditions which exist in all our large towns. It may be considered by some almost superfluous to enlarge upon destitution and overcrowding in our great cities, as there has been such abundance of evidence of late years upon the subject, especially in the Report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Poor; but I crave permission to call attention to one or two brief extracts from that Report which will vividly bring before hon. Members the necessity for some remedial legislation of the kind I am about to suggest. One of the most important points brought out in that Report is the prevalence of overcrowding and the existence of a large class of the population living in single rooms. It has been estimated by Mr. Marchant Williams, one of Her Majesty's Inspectors, who has been investigating the condition of a large section of the East End of London, that there exist in the Metropolis at present fully 60,000 families who live in single rooms, and that these families must represent at least 300,000 persons. In regard to life in these single rooms, I will read a few lines from the evidence of Lord Shaftesbury before the Royal Commission, who says—

"The effect of the one-room system is, physically and morally, beyond all description. In the first place the one-room system always leads, as far as I have seen, to the one-bed system. If you go into these single rooms, you may sometimes find two beds; hut you will generally find only one bed, occupied by the whole family, in many of these cases consisting of father, mother, and son, or of father and daughters, or brothers and sisters. It is impossible to say how fatal the results of that is. It is totally destructive of all the benefits derived from education. It is a benefit to the children to be absent during the day at school; but when they return to their homes they are such that in one hour they unlearn everything they have acquired at school during the day."

I think most hon. Members will agree that these painful statements are only too true; but I would also refer to the disastrous physical effect of this system upon the energies and industrial power of the people. Lord Shaftesbury says on this point—

"Some years ago the Board of Health instituted inquiries in a low neighbourhood, to see what was the amount of labour lost in the year, not by illness, but by sheer exhaustion and inability to go to work. It was found that, upon the lowest average, every workman and workwoman lost about 20 days in the year from simple exhaustion, and the wages thus lost would go towards paying an increased rent for a better house. There can be little doubt that the same thing is going on now, perhaps even to a greater extent. That overcrowding lowers the general standard; that the people get debilitated, depressed and weary, is the evidence of those who are daily witnesses of the lives of the poor."

These two paragraphs will bring to the mind of the House the sad condition in which a large part of the population of the Metropolis is now living. I think I am not over-estimating the number when I say that 500,000 people in the Metropolis virtually belong to the semi-pauper class. In the old days of profuse out-door relief these would have been counted as State paupers; but, under the present system, whereby the workhouse test is applied with great rigour, we are year by year reducing the number of State paupers, and thereby giving a false impression of the condition of the poorer part of the population. I have been startled to find, from the figures of the Local Government Board, that in the last year for which we have a Return, rather more than one-fifth of all the deaths in the Metropolis occur in workhouses and hospitals, much the greater portion being in the workhouse. Some of these are, no doubt, the deaths of patients from the country who have come up to the great hospitals; but there can be little doubt that the great mass of the deaths are the result of the wretched lives of people in the Metropolis, who are virtually paupers, and who are obliged to die in the workhouse or the hospital, because they have no home of their own. Similar instances may be drawn from circumstances connected with the School Board. It has been proved over much of the East End that something like a fifth of the children come to school without breakfast, and the 1d. dinner system is to a large extent a failure, because, in some schools, not even one-half of the children are able to find that small sum. There is no city, I believe, in Europe or America that contains anything like the amount of wretchedness which exists in this Metropolis, and it is a tremendous social danger. But London does not stand alone; the same state of things exists in all our great cities, though, perhaps, not to so great an extent; but, speaking for Liverpool, I will say we have just as great a proportion of the population living on the verge of starvation as there is in London. If you have a seventh or an eighth of the people here virtually paupers, I believe we have at least a sixth or a seventh in Liverpool. Taking the Island of Great Britain alone, there are at least 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 people verging on pauperism, who in the old days would have been reckoned as paupers, and probably another body of the population about as large who are just a very little removed from these. The statements furnished by the Statis- tical Society as to the condition of the working classes in no degree apply to the lower stratum, of society. The lower stratum is as poor, as wretched, as demoralized, as helpless now as it was 50 or 100 years ago. ["Oh! oh!"] Well, I can only refer hon. Gentlemen to the mass of evidence by which these statements will be amply supported, and, certainly, my experience has led me to the opinion I have expressed. The depression of trade which has lasted for 10 years is adding to this evil. In all the great industries, masses of people are only partially employed, and in the agricultural industry, in particular, the state of things is deplorable. It has been reckoned that over 600,000 persons have passed from the rural districts into the large cities within the last 10 years, and a great portion have come into London, adding very much to the difficulty of life among the lowest class of labourers; and when we remember that our population is increasing faster than ever before, the gravity of the case must be apparent. During the present century, the population has almost trebled itself, for within that period it has risen from 10,500,000 to 31,000,000. The life-saving tendency of our improved sanitary arrangements is so great and marked, that, in this present century, the population has increased in actual numbers two or three times as much as in the 700 years preceding it. Indeed, the same rate of increase will carry our population next century to 120,000,000. Remember, too, this is taking place in spite of a very large emigration. The population of the Metropolis has increased five-fold since the beginning of the present century, and if we proceed at the same rate, this portentous result will be reached—that by the end of next century, London and the suburbs will contain 30,000,000 of people. This prospect is little short of appalling. It points to a fearful struggle for existence in this country in the future; for, by the end of the next century, somewhere about seven-eighths of the food of the country will have to be imported. It is only by a rapid increase of our foreign trade in years to come that we can hope to be able to pay for the supply of food our ever-increasing population requires, and of such an increase of trade we have no prospect. The outlook, at present, is a starving proletariat I at no distant future. This subject is far more important than those with which our time here is mostly occupied. It is, I consider, high time the best and highest thought of this nation should be given to these tremendous social problems which will have to be solved in the future. The first and natural question that occurs to us to ask ourselves is, Why do we not use more largely the enormous safety-valve of our Colonial Empire? That seems the natural outlet for our superabundant population. Well, the remedy is already largely used by the self-reliant class of the population. The vigorous and intelligent artizans, the agricultural labourers, and the middle class, have sent out 10,000,000 people in the present century. From those classes have been built up the United States of America, and, more or less, all our Colonies; and I am not afraid but those that classes, in the future, will be quite able to look after themselves. What I want to bring to the attention of the House is the fact that the pauperized classes of our population cannot avail themselves of emigration. They are too poor, and worse, they are helpless and shiftless. They have learnt no trade that is of any value in the Colonies. I have myself tried to send them out as emigrants, and have been baffled by the fact that amongst the great mass of poverty-stricken and semi-starved people there is almost an absolute incapacity to use their hands in any useful manner. The Colonies will not receive such people. They will become paupers in any country they go to. The London Emigration Societies tell only a tale of failure. Those Societies number nearly 30, and are conducted by many able, energetic, and philanthropic men; and yet, last year, scarcely 3,000 adults were sent out of London, although 103,000 people were added to the population. The true reason of the failure is mainly that the London poor are not fit to emigrate. Here they must remain rotting in our midst—a constant festering sore in the community. We have heard a great deal about State-aided emigration. Well, within certain limits and for certain purposes, I am an advocate of State-aided emigration; but we fail to deal with the pauper class in that way, because they are not fit for it. The gist of my case, then, is to invite the House to consider some means of fitting this class of the population for useful life, either at home or in the Colonies. I wish to ask whether it would not be possible to pass these people through a kind of moral sieve, and so turn them into useful material. Our poor population are made utterly unfit for ordinary life by their wretched upbringing in youth, after they have left school, by their roving life on the streets without any parental control, learning habits of idleness, entirely unfitting them for industrial life hereafter. Generation after generation this pauper class reproduces itself; and I think the time has come to break through this hereditary entail of vice and crime. The State has laid down for a good many years past that children shall not be allowed to grow up in absolute intellectual ignorance, and, the time has come when it should go a little further and decide that children shall not be allowed to be brought up in such utter helplessness as to make them a burden to the community. I have taken the trouble during the last year or two to get the opinion of competent authorities on this subject, and I am surprised to find that among educational leaders, among the heads of industrial schools, among all clergy who labour amongst the poor, and among all people who examine the economic condition of the poorer classes, the unanimous opinion is that the real remedy is a system of industrial training. We may be told that we have already an excellent system of industrial schools and reformatories. Quite true. I have had much pleasure recently in going over some of these schools, and I would recommend those who wish to study the subject to pay a visit to some of these well-conducted institutions. If they do, they will find they are little hives of industry and cheerfulness, where children lead happy and useful lives, and get a special training for ordinary life, who would otherwise be a useless burden on the community. We have also an immense number of private institutions, among which I would specially mention the case of Dr. Barnardo's Homes in the East of London, where many hundreds of children taken out of the very cesspools, so to speak, of the city, are being turned into useful citizens. These schools are worked on what is known as the half-time system, half the time being given to head-work and half to hand-work. That is an excellent system, and nothing can be more striking than, the health which the children enjoy under it. The fact is that human nature, being a complex machine, requires to be dealt with physically as well as mentally, and I believe that the system of half-time for intellectual work and half for hand-work is far more in harmony with the laws of Nature, and far better for the children and the State, than a system of exclusive mental training; but the enormous benefits of these institutions are limited to a mere handful of children. There are only 25,000 in the certified schools of the Kingdom, the cost of which is about £500,000 a-year, and, supposing the private homes bring the number up to 60,000 or 70,000, there are probably 500,000 of the same class out-of-doors. It is, therefore, quite impossible that a system of this kind could be extended to all this class, for the cost is far too great. But these 500,000 are just as destitute and going just as much to waste as were the 70,000 children before they were rescued from the mire. Is not the time come for extending to all the immense advantage of an industrial training? Why should the boy who has committed a small theft get the benefit of industrial training, while his brother, who has not committed any crime, is left on the streets to lead the life of either a knave or a fool? My plan is that the State, which now has control over the education of children, should not let go its hold of them at the age of 13. Once having got these children under the control of an Inspector, with their names registered, it should keep its hold of them till the age of 16 at least. I do not recommend that these children, as a mass, should be put into day schools, and have to attend them until they attain the age of 16, for I know that it is necessary for most of them to be doing something for their living; but I recommend that we should require them by law up to the age of 16 to attend night schools for industrial training. I would open in all large cities a certain number of night schools where, say, from 7 to 9 o'clock, the same kind of teaching should be given as is already given in our reformatories—such as carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking, printing, and any other rudimentary trade which boys can easily learn. We might, to a considerable extent, use our existing schools, which, with some slight alterations, would be suitable for the purpose. I propose that this scheme of attendance at these night classes should be made compulsory; be-cause, without that, we should never get the attendance of the very class of children whom we have in view, their parents being too careless and ignorant to send them, and themselves being too wild to come. My belief, however, is that, in a very short time, little compulsion would be required. There is nothing children enjoy so much as handling tools. They like using a hammer, as much as playing cricket. In a short time, then, a boy accustomed to useful work would far rather be at the school than running about the streets. It is, of course, much more difficult to reach the girls, and yet girls in large towns need such training even more than the boys; and it is the want of that training that lies at the root of many of the evils of our social system. The wives and mothers of the poorer classes are, to a large extent, slatterns; they keep such miserable homes as account for much of the drunkenness of the people; therefore, girls must be trained in useful domestic work, if those homes are to be made less wretched. I would propose that the schools for girls should be devoted mainly to such things as sewing, laundry work, and cooking, and perhaps to the rudiments of some of the lighter trades, for there are a considerable number of trades requiring dexterity of hand which women can carry on as well as men. I do not mean that the State should undertake to convert the population of the slums into first-class mechanics; and I quite admit that even if that were desired, these night classes would not furnish the means for doing so. That would be too much. All the State should undertake by them would be to give the boys a rudimentary training, and above all to teach them habits of industry and discipline "which would produce a liking for steady, useful labour, which, in itself, would be a prodigious gain. If those children were kept in hand till the age of 16 under the discipline of intelligent men, they would then be able to go to work, and to understand and to know something of the desirability of doing something for themselves in the future, to form higher views of the duties of life, and they would not be content to settle down to the wretched life of the slums. They would form to themselves ennobling resolutions as to the future, and many of them would emigrate. I may be asked bow I intend to draw the line between those who are semi-paupers and those who belong to the working classes? The latter, I do not propose to force into these night schools; but, at the same time, it will be highly desirable to keep a hand upon thorn, and I hope the time will soon come when it will be possible to do so. At present, I propose to apply this system only in such cases where the Inspector is not satisfied that a child is properly employed by the parent. Where a child is apprenticed to a regular trade, or to an employment where he gets regular wages, I do not propose to interfere. With the very large class of children who pick up odd jobs in the streets, I would employ compulsion and gather them into the night schools. In all large towns, it is most lamentable to see the deterioration of these wretched children in a few years after they leave school. They leave school with habits of cleanliness and regularity, they are bright and happy; but in a short time they lose all their brightness and intelligence, all the habits of regularity which they have been taught at school. The critical period is from 13 to 16, which is the period when a child acquires habits which last for life; and it is the same with the upper classes. The time at which, of all others, children require a steady hand to guide them is from 13 to 16. I think our whole educational system has much too little regard to manual training. I wish to supply the want on the part of the large class which stand in need of it. Instruction is given too exclusively in literature, and on the basis of mere mental training. In the so-called middle classes, there are a large number of young men unable to obtain a living, most of whom can only use their pen but not their hands. Many who are sent into offices descend to utter poverty, and are entirely unfit to help themselves; and if they go to the Colonies, they fail on account of their helplessness. For every vacancy for a clerk, there is a shoal of applicants. I believe that an inestimable boon would be con- ferred on this country if in all classes of society manual training were added to the school curriculum. We should then see the unhappy men in large towns, now unable to earn a living, get plenty of employment. Any man who could use tools could make £2 or £3 a-week in the Colonies in ordinary times; none need starve. The British people, as a whole, have a greater number of dependants than any other civilized State. Even in the middle classes, multitudes of fairly educated young men are, as I have said, unable to make a living; they are capable of using their pen, but utterly incapable of using their fingers. There can be no doubt that all the trades and professions which live by brain labour are overstocked, and the purely mental training of our youth has a tendency to draw the population into this one direction. On the other hand, when trade is brisk, many of the departments of skilled labour are not fully supplied. It would be well if, like the Jews, each man learned a trade; and we shall never see the end of the present state of things till we make education more practical. Another point I have to bring before the House is the question of health. I believe three hours of brain work is as much as can be given to many children with advantage. All beyond this is purely wasted time. If manual training was given half the day, there would be a much stronger and healthier population. In connection with this point, it should be remembered that in the industrial schools the Standards are passed nearly as soon as in schools where the children have nothing else to learn. I therefore contend that the training of the hand and eye ought to form a more important part of education than it has done in the past. Our Continental rivals are far ahead of us in this respect. Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and other Continental nations give a training to the hand and the eye which is very much in advance of what exists in this country. I am not pleading so much for technical education, although I should like to see the system largely extended. What I do wish is to give that amount of industrial training to our poor children which will enable them to fight more advantageously the battle of life. The scheme which I propose is simply a rough sketch, and I hope that many hon. Members, who understand the subject better than I do, will fill in the outlines. If the House likes the sketch, and if my suggestion bears fruit, it is quite within its power to organize a system within a few years which would almost change the social condition of the country. I believe that no reform of the present day would be so fruitful of good results to the nation as a general system of industrial education for the young. It is a question of vital importance, which will excite the greatest interest in the constituencies. [The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.]

said, he had much pleasure in seconding the Resolution, because he regarded it as merely a portion of a very great question, of which he believed the Resolution was but one of the earliest echoes of which they were now beginning to hear. He conceived that, with a wide franchise, they would have the question of secondary education—of that education which was to go beyond and come after our primary education—considered for the whole population. He trusted it might be at no late period of the history of the new Parliament, that they might see some system worked out, if not entirely established, for the evening education of those persons who had left our primary elementary schools, and to carry further the education which they had received. He would be the last to take any part in supporting a Resolution of this kind, if he thought that its tendency, or its object, was to diminish the efficiency, or to diminish the amount of the elementary education in our schools. On the contrary, he had himself seen, in many instances, young boys and girls who, leaving school with a wonderfully fair amount of elementary education, had gradually lost the power of applying it, because they had not been placed in circumstances in which such application was either encouraged or rendered necessary. He hoped that they might see a system established somewhat similar to that which was found in Switzerland, although better adapted to the needs of this country, in which the general science of the world, which was now so comparatively familiar to the wealthier classes, could become familiar to the poorer classes. He maintained that every person ought to be acquainted with the common facts of this science. They ought to be the common possession of mankind; and without calling in the aid of Inspectors of Nuisances, the people should know whether their houses were healthy or not. There was no doubt that the children to whom the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith) referred got much less benefit from our elementary schools than, children belonging to the better classes in society. The reason of this was hunger. The children of the poorer classes attending our schools in the East End of London—the number, he believed, in some schools was quite one-tenth of the whole—were insufficiently fed and insufficiently clothed. It was certain when they left the school each day they returned to poor homes, where the benefits obtained at school were soon lost. He supposed this question was starting from below, and assumed that it was for these little children who went out merely to roam in the streets after finally leaving school, that the hon. Member wished to apply his Motion. One of the principal things to be observed about the abject poor was their want of "handiness," and he believed it to be the object of the hon. Member to try to make the children of these people a little more "handy" after they left the primary elementary schools. The position of the children of casual labourers was one of deep misery; and in this connection, he (Mr. J. Stuart) had taken part in an experiment some time ago at Cambridge. He thought it would not be out of place if he were to mention the statistics regarding that experiment. This undertaking at Cambridge grew out of a similar movement where they endeavoured to provide handicrafts for the sons of the rich, and in which the necessity for giving some handicraft education to those richer young men who were emigrating to the Colonies was one of the strongest reasons for undertaking the experiment. Feeling it to be a necessity in the case of the rich, he was struck much more with the necessity of a similar experiment in the case of the poor. This experiment at the present time consisted of 17 boys. The time of their attendance was from 7 to 0 o'clock on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the age of those boys ranged from 12 to 16. Latterly they had paid a small fee of 2d. per week. There was no charge beyond that for. The articles made were sold to defray the expense, and the cost of carrying the school on was 6s. a-week. Of course, that cost would be very greatly diminished were they able to increase the number of pupils. The expense of the experiment he had described would be reduced by making use of some of the elder scholars as pupil teachers. The children might be described as those of the unskilled labourers of Cambridge, and some of the children were employed during the day in running errands—an occupation which might sharpen their wits, but failed to give the general handiness that was so necessary for emigration and for success in life. The object of the training was to make them handy at home, and to facilitate their acquiring a trade if opportunity should offer. There was no attempt made to teach them any trade. Among the things taught were carpentering, rough carving, French polishing, japanning, soldering, and other branches of the mechanic's work, and the experience and skill they thus acquired it was hoped would render them useful in their own future homes when there was anything to be done in the way of alterations or repairing. The boys were kept there for a year, and there was always a competition among candidates to enter the school. The cost was very moderate, the expense of the plant having been about £50; but that had included the provision of two lathes, so as to give the children some acquaintance with machinery. If use was made of the London Board Schools, all the things could be easily cleared away, and the expenditure need not be so largo proportionately as it had been at Cambridge. One objection that might be made to the proposal of the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith) was that it would involve an increase of inspection and of Inspectors, and an intrusion into the private life of families; but having the names of the children on the school records, the necessary inquiries as to whether they were employed or not could be carried out without the introduction of anymore machinery than already existed. The plan, therefore, could be carried out without additional Inspectors. It was well to ascertain whether each pupil intended to follow a trade or not. The system had proved attractive at Cambridge. There was scarcely anything so valuable to a young man as facility in using his hands. The great attraction of many games was not only the physical exercise, but also the pleasure of doing anything with accuracy. Look at the mass of our proletariat, and ask how many of them could do anything with accuracy or with delight. There was an absence of accuracy in their actions and of pleasure in their lives. The very beginning of what was proposed would be attractive, and development would increase the attractiveness. It was said that there was a difficulty with regard to girls; but girls, as well as boys, might benefit from instructions in the laws of health, and the difficulty might be got over by properly instructing them with regard to cookery. Indeed, he believed that 20 per cent might he added to the wages of the working classes if only the women were taught to cook properly. There was nothing alarming in the Socialistic aspect of the question, arising from the gift of the free instruction of the kind shadowed forth by his hon. Friend, and he (Mr. J. Stuart) had no fear of its being in any way advanced through the adoption of the Resolution. It was the duty of the State to endeavour to render its population capable and efficient. He accepted so much of Socialism as to maintain that it was the duty of the State to endeavour to produce a population efficient, enter-prizing, and self-reliant. The State had the right to bring about the state of things in which its interference should become less necessary; and that should be the tendency of State interference in education. By doing what was proposed for the poorer classes, we should only be paying them part of the debt we owed them in respect of advantages of which they had been deprived by being left too much to the natural evolution of things. They had been deprived of their naturally fair share of the advantages produced for the nation by the nation, because of their incapacity, and in this they were too largely the victims of our imperfect institutions.

said, there was a difference in the character of the speeches made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith) who had moved, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hackney (Mr. J. Stuart) who had seconded, the Resolution. The hon. Gentleman the Mover had shirked some difficult points; but the Seconder had dealt with the question less in the abstract, and more in the concrete. The hon. Member for Liverpool had drawn a pitiable picture of the condition of the country; and the question naturally arose, whether the fact that there were 500,000 children growing up in the country in a state of destitution and absolute ignorance—a statement which he (Mr. Pell) had heard with surprise—was the outcome of the efforts of the Church and of the setting up of a complete system of elementary education. It was surely, if it was true that there was so much destitution, a confession of the failure of all these influences, and an indication of the uselessness of that sort of effort. His experience of emigration as a remedy for the evil complained of had not been very encouraging, and he thought a great deal of good might be done in the poor districts by individual duty and by individual action. He believed that when boys and girls got to be 13 years of age, the less they came in contact with the Government Inspector, the better for society at large. If they could get rid of some existing institutions and bring the rich people of the West End of London into legitimate communication with the poor people of the East End, he had no doubt that good would result from it. By legitimate communication, he meant that communication which existed between the owner of property and the occupiers. Speeches at the Mansion House and music parties were all very good in their way; but the rich could not shirk the question in that manner. If they desired to do their duty, and improve the condition of the lower classes, they must go among them in a legitimate way as the owners of property. Complaints were made of houses in the poorer districts being injured by the tenants; but he submitted that that was not the case, except in houses that were jobbed and let for the purpose of making high rates of interest by concessions to immorality. If the rich would, out of their superfluous wealth, take the trouble to provide good house accommodation with perfect sanitary arrangements for the working classes, he was sure they might make a fair percentage—5 per cent— and they would be received with respect and attention and interest by the people. Let any one of them buy a street, put the houses and drains in proper order, see that the property was thoroughly kept in repair, and that the rents were paid, and he would do more than by any other means to improve the condition of the people. Ho wished to raise his voice in favour of individual duty and action, as against a mistaken philanthropy and the Inspector, and to invite all those who took an interest in this subject to go down into the poor districts, and see for themselves what could be done to benefit the people. Above all, he did not think it expedient to introduce the compulsory element into the Question. He doubted the practicability of the scheme of the hon. Member for Liverpool as a cure for the serious state of things that no doubt existed.

said, he was sorry to say that, although he agreed with very much in the Resolution, he was not able to support it as it stood; because he objected to compulsion in the matter, and to the expression "the destitute classes." He agreed a great deal more with the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Seconder of the Resolution (Mr. J. Stuart) than he did with the wording of the Resolution itself. It was not, he thought, expedient to introduce a compulsory element into any question of this sort. One of the points of the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith) was that, at present, our general elementary education was too purely theoretic and mental, and that there was too little handicraft and physical education. There was a substantial element of truth in that charge; but, surely, the remedy was one which should be applied to the whole body of persons subjected to our present system of education. There was too much of a penal taint in the mixture of the old ragged school and the reformatory in the speech of the Mover of the Resolution. He could not altogether agree with the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) in the extreme spirit of individualism and isolation which characterized his remarks. Of course, nothing good could be done without individual efforts; but he (Mr. Lyulph Stanley) felt perfectly sure that the present evils would never be met by mere isolated efforts of individual philanthropists or reformers. What they wanted was the spirit of philanthropy in its true sense—the sense in which the hon. Member for South Leicestershire spoke when he referred to the legitimate connection between the rich and the poor. It was no good to show a spirit of patronage, or the spirit of Lady Bountiful benevolence; what they wanted was a spirit of common citizenship and common humanity. To bridge over the period of transition between the elementary school and wage-earning, there must be some organized effort based upon some public resources; and if that was to take effect, it would involve a large expenditure of public money. It was said that the education of the children was too intellectual, and not sufficiently physical; in fact, they were told that the children did not know how to play. But if they wanted to develop the physical powers of the children, they ought to have not only playgrounds, but gymnasiums where they might receive a regular training. Then it was suggested that in addition to the intellectual and physical training, there should be some training for the eye and the hand. He was glad to say that we had now in the Code a more distinct recognition of drawing. When drawing was recognized as an ordinary part of the curriculum of schools, it would be found a great relief to the children as regarded their intellectual training. But if they had these things it must cost money, and hon. Members who were prepared to welcome the results must be prepared to accept the means by which the results would be accomplished. We were behindhand in England as compared with other countries, even with such a poor country as Sweden, which had an intelligent harmonious school system for the develop- ment of ail the faculties of school children. In Sweden there was a system of training the children to produce adroitness and skill in the use of the hand and eye, so that they might become afterwards intelligent workmen. In London the School Board was endeavouring in a small and tentative way to introduce the same system. On Saturday mornings some 20 or 30 boys attended an instruction given by a lady who had spent some months in Sweden studying the Swedish system. He repudiated the idea of regarding this as a criminal interference with the children of criminal or semi-criminal parents. If the system was good for some it was good for all. He objected to its being left exclusively to individual efforts. If it wore to be done at all, it must be done by national effort.

said, he should like to make a few remarks on the subject before the House, as he had listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith). For his own part, his attention had for many years been called to the state of the people of London and other large towns; and he could confirm the truth of the picture which the hon. Member for Liverpool had drawn of the state of the poor of London. He would wish, however, to say that, in comparing the present state of London with what it was 50 or 60 years ago, Lord Shaftesbury, while admitting the great misery and poverty which still prevailed, had stated that London was a paradise now compared with what it was at that time. Although its condition might have somewhat improved during the last 50 years, there was still much to do; and he hoped that the investigation into its condition, which had lately taken place, would bear good fruit. When he introduced the Bill with which his name was connected, now some 10 years ago, he felt bound to say, and he would now repeat the statement, that we must not look for too great results for a long time. The state of London, for instance, was the growth of many generations, and we could not, as by the stroke of a magician's wand, remedy all the evils which prevailed; but by the continuance of good work much might be done. They could only hope to do so by great perseverance, and after many disappointments. Still, if the good work were continued, he believed that success would eventually crown our efforts; and he would only further touch on this part of the subject by expressing a hope that the House, when the Bill which was the result of the labours of the Royal Commission was presented, as it would be within a few days, would allow it to pass, even within the short remainder of the present Session. He agreed with the hon. Member for Liverpool that it was perfectly idle to talk of emigrating the class of people to which he alluded. They would not know what to do abroad. They would not be able to earn their living there; they would be a burden to the country to which they were transported, and they would have to be brought back again to this country at great cost and expense. Emigrants were of no use unless they were properly trained and wore fit for the work they had to do. It was, therefore, a great matter, before they left these shores, to fit people for their calling and for the life they would have to lead if they were to go abroad. He would like to point out that something had been done in the way suggested by the day industrial schools which we had. A very great improvement had taken place in those clay industrial schools, and the teaching carried on in them. We now had very large and good day industrial schools in Liverpool, Sunderland, Leeds, Bristol, and other large towns, and the education given in them was very good. He quite agreed with what had been said as to the value of mixed education, as it might be called—an education by which the children should not be kept at their books the whole day, but should be trained during some part of the day so as to fit them for industrial pursuits. In the schools to which he referred three hours a-day were devoted to education and three or four hours to industrial training. Anyone who had examined the Reports on these industrial schools would see that the industrial training did the physical condition of the children so much good that the education they got had a better effect upon them than if they had no industrial training: and, for his own part, he believed that if this system were carried out in our other schools, a much better effect would be produced than at present. If the education given in the elementary schools of the country were more mixed in its character, it would be very advantageous. A great deal might be done with regard to the education of girls. He agreed with the hon. Member opposite that cookery was one of the most valuable arts which girls ought to know. Needlework, he was glad to see, had now entered largely into the education which they were given, and altogether the training which they now received was much better than that which they formerly had. It might then be asked what was it he objected to in the Resolution of the hon. Member for Liverpool? Well, he objected to two things —the compulsory part of it, and the extensive powers which it was proposed to confer on the Inspectors. There would, he believed, be great objection to extend the age at which the State had hold of the children in the manner proposed by the hon. Member for Liverpool. In his opinion, the time had not arrived for taking such a step. It might be true that, in many cases, parents did not look after their children as they ought to do; but he was not sure that if the compulsory system were carried out in its entirety parents would not feel that the State was taking upon itself a great part of their responsibility, and that they would not be glad to part with their responsibility. An article written by the hon. Member for Liverpool a short time ago suggested that legislation should be accompanied with a more strict enforcement of parental obligations; but the scheme which the hon. Member had propounded that day was one which would release the parent from his obligations to a great extent. Then, what was the Inspector to do? According to the hon. Member's proposal, he was not merely to inspect the schools, or the children in them, so as to see whether they were properly taught, but he was also to inspect the families of anything like destitute parents, and to decide whether the children were to be taken out of the house or not. Now, he thought that the people of England would hardly stand such a step as that. He did not know whether the hon. Member intended that the parents were to contribute anything to the support of their children or not. He understood indeed that the education was to be free; but if the children were taken away, the parents would lose the services of their children at an age when those services were of great advantage to them. In his opinion, a parent was entitled to have the advantage of the earnings of his children when they arrived at the age of 14 or 15. On the other hand, if a boy was working for his parents all day long, it would be rather hard that he should be taken by the Inspector and compulsorily sent to a night school, without having the opportunity of being at home in the evening. What he would suggest was that, so far as industrial schools were concerned, the Home Office would be prepared to make arrangements, for persons who so desired, to use them as voluntary night schools in the evening for the purpose of such training as the hon. Member for Liverpool thought desirable, such, for instance, as they were told could be obtained at Cambridge. He saw no reason why we should not endeavour, by voluntary contributions, to offer the people of this country the advantages which the hon. Member desired to confer upon them. It had been said that if such schools as he had described were offered they would be very attractive and very useful. He quite agreed in that view, and his only desire was to offer the hon. Member for Liverpool, and those who agreed with him, every opportunity to make use of the day industrial schools for this purpose, if they would only meet those who had charge of them with some voluntary assistance to meet the necessary expenses. He should be exceedingly glad to see industrial night schools for children established; but differing, as he did, from the manner in which the hon. Member for Liverpool proposed to attain that end, he trusted the Resolution would not be pressed to a division, although, at the same time, he would say that the discussion had been a very interesting one.

Sir, we are very much indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith) for raising this interesting, instructive, and suggestive discussion, a discussion which, at least, brings this plainly before us—a point upon which, in my own mind, my conviction, is strong and growing daily — that if you are to deal with the wretched, thriftless classes of this country, you must begin with the children. When these have passed beyond the age of parental control, when they have become young men, it is hopeless to attempt to deal with them in the way suggested. If they have been neglected in their childhood, taught no useful trade or occupation, they have no enterprize, no incentive to help themselves, and are really a curse and a burden on society. This one good thing my hon. Friend's Motion has brought out—that the root of the evil is parental neglect of children in early life. I do not, however, agree with all the statements and all the conclusions he has submitted to the House. I am inclined to concur with the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down (Sir R. Assheton Cross). I believe in the statement by Lord Shaftesbury, that the condition of the masses of the people in this country is infinitely better than it was 40 or 50 years ago. They have much larger means of securing, and much more sense and appreciation of comfort, less pauperism and misery, and some intelligence. That there is much more thrift is shown by the growth of the Savings Banks Returns and the increase of temperance. Indications of this are not wanting in all directions around us; but I do not want the House to come to the conclusion that it is possible by legislation, or by anything this House can do, to train up the neglected classes among our people in useful handicrafts. I cannot conceive anything much more dangerous than to suppose that these 500,000 children are to be selected from the other portions of the community, and trained to industry at the expense of the ratepayers or taxpayers. The real way to deal with the whole question is to begin early and wiser, with day and industrial schools as the first step. Much more legislation and encouragement are wanted for industrial schools. We have before the House the Report of the Industrial School Commission, and an excellent Report it is. The recommendations of this Commission are among the questions the House ought to deal with as soon as possible. I hope the now Parliament will deal with them in a largo and liberal manner, sparing no determination to encourage day industrial schools. The mischief begins when the child becomes truant, when he begins to associate with bad characters, when he runs about the streets, lanes, and markets, and lapses into a condition from which he never emerges. The right course is to lay hands upon the child at once; and if the parents cannot be made responsible for him he should be made to attend a day industrial school where he would obtain manual training simultaneously with educational training. The hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. J. Stuart) has made a most useful suggestion as to night schools; and I may say that there are many school boards in the country who are trying a little supplementary manual instruction—but not in handicraft instruction, in the use of tools, the file, the saw, the plane, the axe—and they make this instruction a reward for good conduct in the school. At present this is not incorporated in the Code. The time has not come. We have not had enough experience of the working of it to justify me in asking for a special grant for giving manual instruction. But really and truly there is no country in Europe—I except Belgium —where the term of training children is so short as in this country. In many countries the compulsory training continues to ages from 13 to 16. I do not propose that we are not prepared for it; but, unhappily, we do not get the children up to the ago of 13. In the rural districts largo numbers of children pass from school at the age of 10; and in hundreds of rural parishes children are employed, contrary to the requirements of the Education Act. They have not passed the Third and Fourth Standards; but as soon as a child is able to earn a shilling, he is allowed to slip from the attendance officers and the schoolmaster, and much of this is winked at by school committees. There are large districts in England, I do not hesitate to say, where the Education Act has not come into force at all, where, although you have the machinery — a school attendance committee — nominally a school attendance is practically not enforced, and you find the result in largo measures of ignorance still in various parts of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith) spoke of 000,000 who passed from the rural districts during the last 14 years to the great centres of population. Now, I do not think all the helplessness in London is the creation of London itself. Into cities like London, Liverpool, and others, the helpless portion of the population have, in a great measure, drifted, for various reasons, to escape their wretched surroundings, to find employment, some because they have lost their character and cannot remain in the place where their fault was committed. London is not altogether responsible for this state of things; but in London and other large towns the condition of things which has so painfully been brought before us is the result of generations of neglect. It is not the fault of the Education Act of 1870. Some hon. Members speak as though we had had 15 years of compulsory education in this country, when, in truth, we have only had four. The Act was purely optional up to 1881. Besides that, the supply of schools was altogether insufficient then, and indeed we have not yet overtaken the requirements. There is a state of things which I commend to the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. E. Stanhope), and if he remains long in his present Office I hope he may find a remedy—I mean the low Standard of education necessary for employment in thousands of parishes, sometimes as low as the Third Standard, and often Fourth, when children between the ages of 10 and 15 are at work in the fields, or on the farm. In large towns, however, the work of education is tolling marvellously, not only on the intellectual but on the physical and industrial condition of the population. The last Report of the Factory Inspector for the present year—from Chief Inspector Henderson—says—

"The most interesting testimony is submitted to me daily of the great and beneficial influences of the Education Act in England and Scotland. Employers and others are unanimous in acknowledging a marked improvement in the intelligence, behaviour, and character of the children. They are more amenable to discipline and much less mischievous."

There is also a long statement, with which I need not trouble the House, showing the result of the Education Act upon the industrial condition of the population. The town of Preston is specially referred to, and the beneficial effect of the Act upon the factory people there. The children, who passed a good preliminary Standard, made, with half-time education, half-time employment, as much progress as children who passed the whole day at school. But the condition precedent is this—that the child should have passed a good Standard before he begins that half-time. Thus it was with the factory people in the Lancashire towns, where such half-time children of 13 and 14 passed the Seventh Standard, beginning half-time at 11 years of age. If we raise the Standard all over the country, and declare that no child shall begin half-time until he has passed the Third Standard—and that is low enough, surely—and that ho shall not begin full-time employment until he has passed the Fifth, and, until he passed that, making it obligatory to attend a night school, we should make our educational system much more complete, more effectual, with more result for the money we spend so lavishly. In saying this, I am not setting up a very high Standard. Germany and Switzerland have been quoted to the House, where children must attend full time until they are 12 or 13 years old, no matter how engaged. In Prussia it is 12 years. After that they may go to work half-time, but must attend half-time at school until 14 years, and then, if the education is not completed, they must attend a continuing school for two years more. The result is, you do not have the complaint there of classes who cannot use their hands, who cannot find employment, who are shiftless and helpless, and wretched dependers on charity or pauperism. Scotland is another illustration. You do not find the same wretched dependers, a class hanging like a millstone round the neck of the country, or, if you do, they are not natives to the manner born. The only way to get rid of this curse is to take the children in hand promptly and early. By developing the intelligence of the whole population, enter-prize is infused into them. As to the industrial school system, I have always been of opinion that the right way to begin is to begin with a truant school. Up to the age of 10 or 11 years, a child can earn no wages, and therefore when a child can be at school and is not at school, then is the time for compulsion. I am not quite sure of the meaning of the remark of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, as to the encouragement of night schools supported by voluntary contributions. I would refer again to Colonel Henderson. I remember him saying—

"We used to be reducing the stream of wretchedness at its mouth; we are now attacking it at its source."

And I believe it is only by the existing industrial school system, you can get a hold over the children, giving them intellectual and manual training, but not attempting to teach them trades. The workshop is the place for that. I know there are schools where trades are taught in Paris, where £12 or £14 per head is spent per annum on each boy in teaching a trade, one school having 300 or 400 boys thus taught at the expense of the rates. But, in the result, they produced no better workmen than our industrial schools. No child learns so quickly and can work so well as an English child. Comparisons are odious; but experience among Continental children—in Italy, in Germany, and in France—has shown me that our boys have more energy, more go in them, than any others in Europe. The girls especially are most rapid workers, as they have so much deftness of eye and hand. All that we want in many cases is to keep some of these children from their own parents. Upon this subject I was glad to hear the last remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite to the effect that he would be glad to see a greater enforcement of the parents' responsibility. This lies at the root of the whole question, for in Germany and almost every country but our own it is made penal for a man to neglect his children. In this country, a man may half-starve his children and not send them to school, but he is not responsible for his conduct and his neglect. I was glad to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell), of the help that the rich people of the West End of London were giving to the poor people of the East End over this matter. I think that this is a very good sign. I have often heard of the good that the rich Jews living in the West End do for those residing in the East End. In the East End of London there are about 40,000 poor Jews, many of them refugees, yet no Jew is ever found applying to the Guardians for relief.

They have Guardians of their own.

But the relief is paid for entirely by Jews. I am thankful to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith) for having brought this matter before the House. I have great sympathy with his Resolution; but I should recommend him to withdraw it, because I feel that I could not vote at once to make a selection in this matter of the poorest from amongst the poor, and to grant to, say, 10 per cent of the community, what is denied to the rest because they are better off. I think the right thing to do is to follow upon the lines upon which we are already going. A great deal has been done in the education of our children in the direction of domestic economy. The sewing of the girls has wonderfully improved, and I believe that English girls are being taught sewing in a way that will make them the best hands at sewing in Europe. Then, again, thousands of girls are being now taught cookery, which will be of the greatest advantage to them. I think that one of the most important things that can be taught to boys is drawing. I mean not pictorial drawing, but drawing that gives accuracy of eye and hand, and which is useful in every condition of life. I have been spending my Whitsuntide holidays in the country, where I came across a Scotch gardener with half-a-dozen boys. In reply to my question, this man told me that he had had all his sons taught drawing, and that he considered it of the greatest advantage to them. There is nothing so useful to a boy as good mechanical drawing. Another thing I think should always be taught to boys. They should be taught the geography of the Colonies. In saying that, I do not mean that they should simply be taught the physical geography, but that they should be taught the resources of them. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool drew an alarming picture as to the results of the growth of our population. That growth has been caused, in my opinion, by the better feeding of the poorer classes, by better clothing them, and by the better sanitary arrangements made for them. There is no doubt that better education will produce a class of men who, if they emigrate, will do well, and will not allow those whom they leave behind to be a burden on the community. I feel that a successful emigrant is not only a bless- ing to himself but a blessing to those be leaves behind, and whose manufactured goods he consumes in the Colonies.

said, he also thought the House was much indebted to the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith) for raising this discussion, which might do something to prepare the public mind for a solution of several social problems. It was a good thing to have their attention drawn to these matters, for, though no practical results might immediately follow, such discussion of social questions drew forth their sympathies with the great mass of their poorer brethren in their difficulties and miseries. He [Mr. Ecroyd) placed the highest value upon every kind of education; but he would associate with it a certain amount of industrial employment during some portion of the day. He did not believe a remedy could be found for the great evils described by the hon. Member for Liverpool, and those which had been discussed the previous night, without first recognizing that they arose to a great extent in large cities like London and Liverpool from the complete divorce of the wealthy and industrial classes. It was by directing attention to the great need of establishing industries outside, but within some reasonable distance of those great cities, that they might take a first step towards the solution of this difficult problem. Following out the plan so successfully adopted by Sir Titus Salt, when he established Saltaire, they must take out the people of these congested regions to places within some reasonable distance, where they could have more constant employment at remunerative rates, and obtain decent houses at a moderate price, No amount of philanthropic effort would attain the end. They must clear the ground, in the first instance, by recognizing the fact that a population partially and fitfully employed and inadequately paid could never be respectably and decently housed. Therefore, if they would remedy those vast congestions of misery, they must, in the first place, turn their attention to the real root of the mischief, which did not lie so much in the want of education, as in the want of sufficient employment and adequate remuneration for the work which was done. Labour in the East End of London was not adequately paid. Let society discharge its just debt in this respect; let them pay the poor women for making their shirts before they began to treat the matter from a philanthropic point of view. So long as poor women were allowed to make shirts in the East End of London at a third of the remuneration to which they were fairly and reasonably entitled, it was impossible for them to provide themselves with healthy homes, and it was inevitable that many of them would be tempted to add to their miserable pay the wages of immorality and shame. There was one element in this problem which was too little kept in view by those who discussed it. The adoption of mechanical aids, the general progress of industry, and the division of labour had continually concentrated their great industries in certain localities. That process was still going on, and there was something like a survival of the fittest localities with respect to special industries. In his own county, it was instructive to notice that among a population generally intelligent, and of an eager industrial character, Oldham was rapidly absorbing to itself the great business of cotton spinning. In the same way North-East Lancashire was rapidly absorbing to itself the weaving industry. Thus, even in strong and energetic industrial communities, the strongest and fittest survived. Those who failed in the race did not remain in the prosperous neighbourhoods, but drifted away to the congested masses of misery in our large towns; and the lesson he wished to press home was this?— if they would understand the cause of the enormous development of the melancholy and disgusting social evil which they discussed the previous evening, and of the inadequate housing of the poor, they must go to the root of the difficulty and recognize that, after all, whatever might be the apparent gain to portions of the community by an opposite policy, the duty of the State and of individuals was to care for and to nurse their industries, in the first place, and to look anxiously to the employment and well-being of the productive population. By so doing they would enable them to earn their own living and preserve their independence, and would foster the spirit of self-reliance, by giving them a reasonable remuneration for their labour, and putting them beyond the need of charity. He was convinced, therefore, that to find honourable, fully-paid employment for the people was the only possible way by which the slums of our great cities could be improved. When they had realized that fact they would see the necessity of encouraging national industries. He held that the mistaken legislation which had destroyed the silk industries of Spitalfields, and the cruel national policy which in times past had destroyed industrial occupations in Ireland, was largely responsible for the misery and destitution which existed. With reference to the proposals of the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) in regard to a peasant proprietary, he (Mr. Ecroyd), said there was no man in the House who felt a profounder desire to see a larger proportion of the population enjoy healthy life and employment on the land as cultivators than he did. If he was unable at all times to follow the hon. Member in the particular methods by which he proposed to carry out his scheme, he would say, at the same time, that any agency of a sound and healthy character, possessing conditions of permanence, and likely, therefore, to accomplish this desirable end effectually, would not fail to receive his cordial support. He thought that unless they could find some means of enabling a larger proportion of the population of this country to exercise their industry upon the soil, with profit to their employers and themselves, and to the owners of the soil—for they all hung together—they would fail to stop one of the greatest causes of the existing misery. As for emigration, he knew the value of their magnificent Colonies; but the mischief was, that the conditions at present existing were making larger and larger masses of the population unfit for emigration to those Colonies.

said, many hon. Members on his side of the House could subscribe to the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member who had just spoken (Mr. Ecroyd). All these difficult questions came back to the immense mass of poverty which existed among the people; and he was glad the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith) had ventilated the subject, though he had only touched upon the fringe of it. He (Mr. Jesse Collings) hoped that it would continue to receive more and more attention on the part of the House, and that Parliaments, in the future, would conceive it to be their duty to spend a much larger amount of time than they had hitherto done in the contemplation and solution of these social problems. The hon. Member for Liverpool had a great notion of training up children individually, and he (Mr. Jesse Collings) agreed with him in all the ideas he had put forward, except in that of sending them abroad, as he believed we had facilities enough for keeping them employed at home. The hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) replied to the hon. Member for Liverpool, relying on individual effort; but he (Mr. Jesse Collings) would ask the hon. Member whether individual effort was ever more active than it was at present? The solution would come when the people of the East of London saw how they lived in the West; and he demanded an answer to the question, How it was that in the richest country in the world—in a country with riches incalculable—there should be an amount of poverty unexampled anywhere else; and, how it was also that by the side of a comparatively small number of highly opulent individuals, there was a proletariat so enormous? The last Census showed that these inequalities were still on the increase. The Census Returns showed a very largo increase in the total population, amounting to 14½ per cent. That increase was the more remarkable, because nearly all the rural districts, like Wilts, Dorset, and Devon, showed a decrease. Emigration had had very little influence on the question, and the conclusion was that the rural population had migrated into the towns. In prosperous times, the towns had always been able to absorb the surplus labour flowing into them from the country, but they had long ceased to be able to absorb it. The hon. Member for Liverpool wanted to train up the children to industrial handicrafts. But for what handicrafts or industries did he intend them? They were all overdone already. But there was one industry which was not overdone; and he said boldly that the only industry which, at that present moment, was capable, with profit to the workman and the nation, of absorbing this surplus population was the agricultural industry. In Birmingham they had an industrial school with 150 boys eight or 10 miles out in the country, so that they might be brought up in the technical details of the agricultural industry. They did not bring them, up as brass-founders, because they knew there were now five brass-founders where four were wanted, and the same with other trades. He would recommend that training schools should be established in every village and in every parish in connection with the rural schools, for the purpose of giving technical training in matters connected with the rural industries. The boys could be taught fruit-growing, bee-keeping, and the care of poultry, &c.; while the girls could be instructed in general daily work, such as the making of butter and cheese, great quantities of which we now imported from abroad. The result of the establishment of such schools would be to keep the youth of the country upon the land, where they might enjoy all the simplicity of country life, combined with the advantages of education, and so lessen the labour competition in the large towns. He hoped attention would be directed to these subjects hereafter, as he was certain it was upon those lines that our village life was to be restored.

said, he considered that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) had suggested two very remarkable solutions of the social problem with which they had to deal. The first —namely, that the East End should see how the West End lived—was quite incomprehensible; perhaps the hon. Member would on another occasion explain exactly what he meant. The next solution was almost as remarkable. The hon. Member said the agricultural system was capable of indefinite expansion for the benefit of those who lived by it. That was just what they had all been looking forward to in vain. How was that to be attained? No one but the hon. Member knew how his magnificent scheme for the development of the agriculture of the country was to be carried out so as to yield those profits which he anticipated, and he (Mr. Salt) could not help thinking that it was rather selfish of the hon. Member to keep this great secret to himself; and he thought the House, therefore, had some cause of complaint against the hon. Member. He (Mr. Salt) had listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith); but he was afraid that the hon. Member took too sanguine and hopeful a view of the results he anticipated from the adoption of the proposals he made. He had shared the hon. Member's surprise at the statistics relating to the condition of the poor, which gave such satisfactory results, at a time when one's own experience of facts led one to know that so much misery prevailed. But the explanation might be that, during the past 25 years, the people who lived by manual labour had been dividing themselves into two classes—the prosperous and the unfortunate—and the satisfactory statistics as to the improvement in the dwellings of the working classes and the increase in the savings banks' deposits were furnished by the prosperous class. There could be no denying that the condition of a large number of the class who lived by manual labour had been deteriorating owing to carelessness, or ill-health, or great depression in some special branches of trade. The hon. Member had spoken of emigration. Many agencies were at present at work, doing much good; but he thought they were in a very confused state, owing to the want of some directing hand. What was wanted was information; and it might be well if this work was undertaken by some Government Department, which would furnish, month by month, information as to the class and amount of labour required in different Colonies. He sympathized altogether with the spirit in which the hon. Member for Liverpool had made his suggestion; but he was afraid that the innate goodness of heart which actuated the hon. Member tended to lead him into the region of hopeful speculations, rather than into the sphere of practical possibilities. He (Mr. Salt) could not see that the proposal of compulsory industrial training for night schools was, on the whole, either practicable or desirable. If they could establish a system of training that was partly physical and partly intellectual, they would teach young children quite as much and lead them to like the schools, and they would not require the power of compulsion to force them into night schools. He was glad to hear what had been said by the right hon. Gentleman opposite the late Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella) as to the system of industrial homes. That system, ho thought, might he very usefully extended so as to maintain, at far less cost and with much benefit to the children themselves, many poor children who were wandering about the streets uncared for. In conclusion, he would appeal to his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool to be satisfied with the valuable discussion that ho had elicited, and not to press his Motion to a division.

said, he thought they must all have been interested in that debate, which had ranged over a great variety of topics, and had drifted away from the scheme proposed by the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith), and introduced to their notice almost every possible subject which could be discussed in reference to education. He had risen chiefly because a special appeal had been made to him on one or two points. Amid the various suggestions that had been made, a very substantial agreement appeared to exist on one or two main points. They were in that House all heartily agreed as to the desirability and the importance of trying to improve the technical education of the children. The hon. Member who introduced this subject had proposed to attempt this object by the establishment of industrial night schools. Well, he should like to see the experiment tried. But he himself did not look very hopefully upon it. He was rather inclined to think that the view of the right hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) was the correct one, and that it would be well if they could establish in all the large towns day industrial schools, a system which might receive every reasonable development. When he himself served upon the Commission on Industrial and Reformatory Schools, the evidence led him to the conclusion that it was hopeless to expect, and useless to attempt, to teach children the particular trades which they would have to carry on in after-life. What they had to teach them was some trade or other, in order to quicken their intelligence and fit them in a general manner for their duties in after-life. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) had put forward a scheme of wide application, and would add an agricultural de- partment to the schools in the country. But what were the boys in the agricultural districts now doing? Why, they were withdrawn from school, generally speaking, at about 10 or 11 years of age; and it seemed to him that at that early age they need not think much about industrial training. They should rather endeavour to make the best use of the opportunities they had for giving the children a sound education in elementary subjects which would stick to them in after-life. The case of girls was different; and now considerable efforts were made to give them industrial training in elementary schools. He did not speak of sewing only, but of cooking, training in which, he was glad to say, was extending. Seventeen years ago he found in a village in Shropshire—Stokesay—instruction in cottage cooking being given on a system that was then novel; and since that time the system had gone on developing to a very large degree. He would do everything in his power to encourage that training in cookery, because he believed that by it, perhaps, more might be done for the happiness of the population than in any other way. Those, however, were subjects on which he should have more to say next week; and he now desired simply to make an appeal to the hon. Member for Liverpool in regard to his Motion, with the objects of which they all sympathized. The hon. Member for Liverpool had done good service in bringing so important a subject before the House; and he would appeal to him to be content with the discussion, and not to press the Motion to a division.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had understated the fact. There were 500 centres of instruction in cooking; but there were many schools at which cookery was taught connected with some of these centres.

said, that he had often observed that the breaks in the Party organization of the House which changes of Administration produced afforded scope for free and friendly interchange of opinion. In this debate everyone had recommended education as a remedy for the poverty and the social evils described by the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. S. Smith). It was proposed to make education compulsory, and to make this a charge, not upon the rates, but upon the Imperial Revenue. What were they coming to? The proposal meant an enormous charge upon the Revenue, brought about by the displacement of a great industry, and by the removal of a large part of the population, not to the Colonies, but to the large towns of this country, where the people found employment almost as deficient as in the country districts which they had left. He had always feared, and he had not been ashamed to say it, that ho had long foreseen, and declared his opinion, that the policy of free imports would turn out more expensive to this country than the policy which it superseded. Ho (Mr. Newdegate) was not solitary in that opinion. It was now generally known that the German Empire had recently adopted a Corn Law, and that the French Republic had still more recently adopted a similar measure; while England was obliged to cast forth a population so unprepared for labour, that the United States had passed a statute to the effect that no such people should be allowed to immigrate into that country. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) had stated that farmers should turn their attention more than they had done to dairy produce. The hon. Member ought to know something about Birmingham, but seemed not to be aware that through poverty in Birmingham itself, or from the extent that land had been laid down in the Midland Counties for dairy purposes, that the price of milk in that town had fallen one-third, while the superiority of the quality of English cheese was gradually driving American cheese out of the market. He (Mr. Newdegate) submitted that the Legislature had no right to enforce compulsory education until they had the knowledge to inform scholars from 13 to 16 years of age where they might employ their industry. He contended that it was cruel and impolitic to force this advanced education upon lads without furnishing them with information as to whore they could obtain spheres for its use. The Government of the day alone possessed, or could promptly obtain, this information from foreign countries and from the Colonies, and ought to publish it monthly. With respect to the training of girls, he was of opinion that all girls ought to marry. He himself was a bachelor; but if he were to marry he would have to bless the Government, who had made his wife a good cook.

said, that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) was perfectly right when he said that for a long series of years the rural population was flocking into the towns. Some 20 years ago this arose from the better employment given in the towns; but during the last 10 years there had been going on a considerable migration into the towns, which resulted mainly from the quantity of land that was laid down in grass. When the hon. Member told them that the salvation of farming would be attained by the production of more cheese and butter, he hardly knew how small a quantity of labour was employed in the production of cheese. There was scarcely anyone employed on the great cheese farms, and the same might also be said of butter; but when they considered the amount of labour employed in growing an acre of wheat, it would be seen that the laying down of land in grass, while much more profitable to the farmer, would be a loss to the country and to the labouring population. A farmer could not grow an acre of wheat unless he spent something like 40s. in labour upon it, while 10s. would be ample when the land was laid down in grass.

continuing, observed that the hon. Member for Ipswich had said that there was a very successful future before the farmer; but that future must depend upon the production of fruit, butter, and cheese. Why, butter had been selling at from 9d. to 10d. per pound, and milk at 6d. per gallon. Fruit was never more cheap than at present, and vegetables were absolutely given away. He saw a bill the other day for three cartloads of rough vegetables sent into Birmingham, and all that the man received for them was 14s. 6d. Cabbages were actually sold for 1d. a-dozon. If they were to grow corn, mutton, and beef, they would have a very much larger quantity of labour employed than at present, and they would stop the migration into the towns. The hon. Member said that they ought to have in all the rural schools an acre or two upon which the boys should be taught agriculture. He would ask the hon. Member whether the boys could tend stock, or girls make the cheese, on this acre or two? Many practical suggestions had been made in the course of the debate; but those which had been put forward by the hon. Member for Ipswich would not tend much to the benefit of the rural population.

said, he was prepared to give a general support to the Motion. He thought that more information should be given to persons intending to emigrate than was given at present. It would be well if an Office could be established which should collect all the information on the subject, and diffuse it throughout the country. He would suggest that that might be done without difficulty through the instrumentality of the Post Office. He agreed with what had been said as to the importance of industrial training for the children of the country. Though it might be almost impossible, as his hon. Friend who had last spoken observed, to make a profit out of small items, yet these might form an important element in the industrial life of the rural labourer. Though the labourer might not be able to sell his vegetables, he might be able to consume them himself very profitably. A great deal was being done by voluntary effort for emigrating children to Canada from industrial homes; and if those homes were encouraged by a Government grant a much greater work might be done. If children physically and mentally fitted for emigration were selected from the schools and sent to Canada, where the demand for young emigrants appeared to be inexhaustible, much good would be effected. Considering how magnificent a Colonial Empire we possessed, it seemed a great pity that our surplus population should remain at home instead of going to Dependencies, where energy and intelligence were highly valued.

said, he was perfectly satisfied with the instructive discussion that had taken place upon the matter, and, therefore, would not ask the House to divide.

in calling attention to the administration of justice in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, with special reference to statements set forth in depositions sworn to on the 19th ultimo by the postmaster and telegraph clerk of Portree before David Ross, Esquire, J.P. for Inverness-shire, said, that under the Telegraph Act of 1868 it was constituted a felony in England and a crime in Scotland for anyone employed in the Postal Telegraph Service to divulge the contents of any telegram. That Act was one of the Post Office Acts, and in all the Post Office Acts it was laid down that any person inciting to the commission of a felony or crime was himself guilty of a felony or crime, and was liable to two years' imprisonment. The case he had to refer to was that of a gentleman in a high and powerful position, who had been apparently guilty of the offence which he had described. About a month ago a statement appeared in the newspapers, substantiated by the signatures of two witnesses, to the effect that Sheriff Ivory, Sheriff of Inverness-shire, had gone into the Post Office of Portree, and had used intimidating language towards the telegraph clerk and the postmaster, to induce them to divulge the contents of certain telegrams which had passed through that office. A Question was asked the late Lord Advocate on the subject, and another Question was asked of the late Postmaster General. The late Postmaster General said he had communicated with the postmaster at Portree, and his Report entirely bore out the statements in question. He said he had handed the matter to the late Lord Advocate; and the Lord Advocate, being asked whether he would take steps in the matter, replied that he had received from Sheriff Ivory an explanation on the subject, and that he did not intend to take any steps. Since then sworn depositions had been made by the two men who heard what was going on, and by the postmaster and telegraph clerk. They were all to the same effect—that Sheriff Ivory did, on the 25th May, go into the Post Office, force himself into the private room, and in a most imperious and unlawful way incite the officials to commit a felony—namely, to disclose the contents of telegrams which had passed through the office. The Sheriff in Scotland was not merely a Judge, but held an important administrative office; and it was entirely in his administrative and not in his judicial capacity that he should have occasion to criticize his conduct. They had all heard a great deal about the military expedition to Skye; but it was not generally known that the chief mover in connection with those military expeditions was Sheriff Ivory. He did not state that on hearsay authority; he stated it on the authority of a Report presented by the Commissioners of Supply of Inverness-shire to Sheriff Ivory. In 1882, there was considerable commotion in the Highlands. The Commissioners of Supply found themselves obliged to supply police or some other protection to Sheriff officers who went there to serve notices either of interdict or eviction, and they put themselves in communication with the Imperial authorities. Sheriff Ivory impressed upon the military authorities the necessity of sending a Government steamer with Marines; but the late Home Secretary absolutely refused to sanction any such expedition. Later on, the representations of the Police Committee of the Inverness Commissioners of Supply were more successful, and Sheriff Ivory was the moving spirit. Pressure was put upon the Government, and at last a military expedition was sent. Sheriff Ivory went with that expedition; and a statement was published, signed by a clergyman in Skye, to the effect that in his presence Sheriff Ivory had said that he had power to order the Marines to shoot the people. When an observation was made that he could not make the Marines shoot them, he said he could; and he used language which, in the opinion of the rev. inhabitant of Skye, was of a very irreligious and unbecoming character. A statement to that effect was published, signed by the men who heard what Sheriff Ivory had said. It was Sheriff Ivory's duty, as the officer in charge of the expedition, to send a Report to the Government, and he sent a Report. That Report cast aspersions broadcast. Sheriff Ivory was the Judge in the county, and naturally any case that was for trial would come before him. But he showed in the course of the Report the most extraordinary resolution to make statements without evidence, and to judge cases beforehand; and he thought himself justified, without any sanction from the Government, in publishing his own Report in the Scottish newspapers. He did not do so even in a straightforward fashion. The Report was dated on the 10th February, and on the 12th it appeared in extenso in The Scotsman. It was prefaced with this introduction—

"The following is the Report of Sheriff Ivory, which has been laid before the Commissioners of Supply of Inverness."

What could be the object of that introduction but to lead the country to believe that it had been supplied to The Scotsman by the Commissioners of Supply at Inverness? He found that there had been no meeting of the Commissioners on the 11th, and he asked the late Lord Advocate a Question on the subject, and was told that Sheriff Ivory had admitted to him that he bad published this official document—which the Homo Secretary subsequently refused to lay on the Table of the House—entirely on his own responsibility. In view of such conduct he asked the House was that a man who ought to be allowed to dragoon a highly-strung portion of the population of Scotland? Was that a man on whose word the Government should send military expeditions to Skye, involving the country in expense, and taking steps which might lead to blood-shod and other deplorable results? He maintained that the conduct of Sheriff Ivory in publishing that confidential Report, and again in committing the breach of the law which was laid in the charge in the depositions to which ho had referred, was such that he could not be safely entrusted with administration of a disturbed district such as that over which he ruled. An even-handed administration of justice in the Highlands was essential in order to prevent the people from regarding the law and the officers of the law as their enemies, and to prevent it being in their power to defeat the law. The hon. Member then proceeded to refer to the cases of the mutilation of animals. The Lord Advocate had admitted all the facts that Martin had so mutilated the crofters' sheep that they died, and the authorities had thought it necessary to take action in the matter; and when he (Dr. Cameron) had questioned him on the subject in the House of Commons, the Lord Advocate explained that there was no evidence that Martin had wantonly or intentionally mutilated the sheep. But was there no law against cruelty to animals in Scotland? And if there was, why was not that law enforced? Well, Martin brought his action for the mutilation of his ram, and the crofters their counter-action for the deterioration of the value of their ewes; and the Sheriff awarded to each party £3 in the shape of damages, and the crofters found themselves minus their expenses, and the value of their time occupied in the action. And when the crofters followed him afterwards, calling him "ba!" in reference to what had really occurred, they were brought up before Sheriff Black and sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment with hard labour, without the option of a fine. And the late Home Secretary, when questioned on the subject in the House of Commons, said that it was necessary to maintain the strong arm of the law in Scotland. It might be necessary to maintain order in the Highlands by a stern administration of the law; it might be necessary to imprison the crofters for 30 days with hard labour, for in their natural resentment, and in their ignorance of the consequences of saying "ba!" to a tacksman; it might be necessary to interpret the law in the most literal fashion to hold that any man breaking it should be punished by the extremest penalties of the law; but if they laid it down so in one case they ought to do so in all cases, but, as he had pointed out, the severity of the law was not vindicated in the case of Martin. There might have been some excuse for those ignorant Highlanders for collecting in a mob. They had not much experience of mobs; they did not know it was a crime to walk behind a person who had denounced them as thieves and robbers; but Sheriff Ivory was a Judge and an administrator of the law, and it was his business to know the law, and yet they had him going into a post office at Portree, and committing the offence he was alleged to have committed—an offence which the statutes of Parliament declared to be a felony in England and a crime in Scotland, punishable with two years' imprisonment. He (Dr. Cameron) did not want to assume the guilt of Sheriff Ivory, although lie should like to hear what explanation he had to offer, if he had any; but it seemed to him that no explanation of Sheriff Ivory's was comparable to the sworn evidence of those four witnesses. The Sheriff might have the authority of the State for the course taken by him; but, if that was so, he had not produced his authority. When the postmaster said he was the servant of the Postmaster General, Sheriff Ivory was reported to have replied that he did not care for Mr. Shaw Lefevre; that these Englishmen knew nothing about Scotsmen; and that he did not care for the hard-and-fast rules of the Post Office, and was determined that the Post Office should not be made a medium to convey intelligence for the purpose of defeating the ends of justice, and he threatened that he should, have the postmaster apprehended, and charged with being "art and part" in the offences in question. He did not, as he had said, desire to assume the guilt of Sheriff Ivory as to the offence ascribed to him; but, according to the law of Scotland, the prosecution of offenders was the duty of the Crown officials, and it was their duty in this case, as in that of the wretched Highlanders who mobbed the tacksman, or in the expedition to Skye of Sheriff Ivory. Why, instead of trying them with a jury in Inverness in [ordinary fashion, they put them to the inconvenience and expense of a jury trial, without the corresponding benefits to be reaped from a summary trial at Portree, and in a manner altogether unprecedented. The public of Scotland had been so scandalized by the proceedings that they had signed, and published in The Times a protest in the matter, for a more miserable fiasco was never enacted in a Scotch Court. It might, as he had already observed, be necessary under existing circumstances to administer the law in Scotland with severity, to inflict penalties for offences against the law which might, under ordinary circumstances, be overlooked; but unless it was desired to prejudice the minds of the people against the impartiality of the law, he would call upon the Government to administer even-handed justice— to let the law be what the Houses of Parliament declared it to be, and not the dictum of the Procurator Fiscal.

wished to impress on the Government the necessity of making a full inquiry into the charge against."Sheriff Ivory, of having, as it was alleged, taken upon himself, without authority from the Secretary of State, to enter the Post Office at Portree and threaten the postmaster, if he did not disclose the contents of telegrams, that he would have him up before himself. Now, that had caused much excitement in Scotland, and he himself had received several communications on the subject; and the answer given by the late Lord Advocate, when questioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) on the subject, was not by any means a sufficient answer to satisfy the House of Commons. But since the hon. Member for Glasgow had asked the Question of the late Lord Advocate the matter had assumed greater gravity. The matter then rested on the evidence of the two witnesses who were accidentally present; but since then their statements had been fully corroborated by the official testimony of the postmaster at Portree, and the telegraph clerk. He urged on the Postmaster General to undertake a full investigation into the charges made by the two responsible witnesses, fortified by the postmaster and his clerk, and that the noble Lord would afterwards inform the House of the result of the inquiry; and he (Mr. Mackintosh) hoped that, should it be found that this person (Sheriff Ivory), however high his position, was guilty of the charge brought against him, an equal measure of justice and of punishment should be dealt out to him as had been dealt to the crofters.

said, he had put a Question on this subject to the late Lord Advocate, and the answer was perfectly unique. A serious charge had been made against a high official in Scotland; it had since been affirmed by three or four persons on oath, and the Lord Advocate's reply was that the person inculpated had given an entirely different version of the case. He did not wish to charge Sheriff Ivory with any criminality; but he supposed it was usual for criminals to give an entirely different version of a case; yet he had never known high officials like the Lord Advocate or the Judges to accept the criminal's version as a settlement of the matter. But this was not a dispute between two individuals in Portree. It was a question between the dignity and honour of the law and the people. He denied that there was any necessity for enforcing the law with severity in the Highlands. The crofters for the most part were wholly ignorant of English, and on that account they frequently did not know when they might be committing breaches of the law. But the moment they discovered they had done so they voluntarily surrendered themselves to the Court to take their trial; and it was not likely that people who would walk such great distances as they had in order to reach the Court to take their trial could be such very great desperadoes. Whether the Highlands were disturbed or not, the administration of the law should, as far as possible, be above suspicion. That was not the case. He did not wish to give his own judgment on this occasion. All that they asked for was a strict investigation; and if on that it was proved that a high officer of the law had misused his position to terrorize the people—as he had good reason to believe he had—then he hoped Her Majesty's Government would make an example of him that would be remembered by the Highlands and by all Scotland. Apart from this matter of the telegrams, they had had innumerable instances of the want of discretion on the part of this high officer. He travelled through Skye when the people were in a great state of excitement, and a judicious man would not have treated the people as he did. It had been the same from the time the man-of-war went to Skye and the Marines fraternized with the people. From that time, and before that time, he had been practically a firebrand. The people did not believe in him or his justice; and it did not matter whether he was just and impartial or not. So long as the people did not believe in his justice and impartiality he was unfit to be an officer of the Crown. During recent years the House of Commons had had brought before it a great many cases from Ireland, perhaps some good and perhaps some bad; but ho did not believe the magistrates and justices had anything like a chance of carrying oh their practices in Ireland as they did in the Scottish Highlands. There was a public opinion in Ireland that kept a watchful eye on them; and within the last few years they had done nothing amiss without being called in question. He wished to see the same vigilance ex- ercised in regard to the Highlands also. There ought to be a trial of this Sheriff, and, if found guilty, justice ought to be meted out to him. He would not dwell upon the subject, because another opportunity would be afforded for discussing it, by moving the reduction of the Vote for the salaries of the Scottish Law Officers.

said, he had paused before rising to address the House, because he thought it possible that the only Member of the late Government who was on the Bench opposite (Mr. Mundella) would have taken the opportunity of making some reply to the statements regarding affairs with which the late Government alone were concerned. It was quite obvious that Her Majesty's present Government had not been concerned in any way in the matters under discussion, and, indeed, it would have been only natural—indeed, it would have been very much to be expected—that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield should have taken notice before quitting the House of the speeches that had been made. The hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) put his Notice on the Paper only on Thursday night, and it was quite impossible to obtain fresh information on the subject from Skye in time for this debate. He believed it was a matter of convenience to various Members that the question should be brought on to-night; but he thought it was unfortunate that it should havebeen brought on in the absence of the late Lord Advocate (Mr. J. B. Balfour), who must have been much better informed on the subject than any Member of the present Administration could be. He was, moreover, of opinion that it would not have been inappropriate if the discussion had been delayed till the Vote on Law and Criminal Expenses in Scotland was brought before the Committee, especially as the hon. Member for Inverness Burghs (Mr. Eraser-Mackintosh) had intimated that he intended to raise the whole discussion again on that Vote in Committee of Supply. He had no complaint to make about the hon. Member for Glasgow for bringing forward the matter, although he had said a great deal in the course of his speech which was not in the least foreshadowed in his Notice on the Paper. The hon. Member had entered into a review of the conduct of Sheriff Ivory from first to last. It was no part of his (Mr. Dalrymple's) business to defend Sheriff Ivory, and he had very little to say in reply, because there was no information in possession of the Government independent of that which was within the reach of the late Government, nor was there anything in the papers which the hon. Member for Glasgow had been so good as to send him which in any degree covered the hon. Member for Glasgow's speech, for the papers had reference alone to the matter of the telegrams. Her Majesty's Government had taken no action in this matter because they had no new information. On the 8th of June he observed that a Question was put to the then Postmaster General (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) in reference to the telegrams. The Question asked whether his attention had been called to the letter in The North British Daily Mail of May 9th; and the answer was that the Postmaster General had received a statement from the postmaster at Portree to a similar effect, but that the Lord Advocate had received an essentially different account. The matter had since been made the subject of certain depositions. These were brought before the notice of the Home Secretary, and were dealt with after communication with Sheriff Ivory, who gave a distinctly different account of the proceedings. The present Government had not got in their possession the communication from Sheriff Ivory. He (Mr. Dalrymple) did not know where it was, and he could give no account of it whatever. His hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow said he had not seen it. Why, if he had not seen it, should the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Macfarlane) assume that it was a valueless document, and was not to be taken as evidence any more than any part of the evidence? The hon. Member thought it incredible that the communication should be relied on; and yet, it was to be observed, though the present Government had not seen it, it was thought sufficient by the late Government. He could but state that the late Lord Advocate had made inquiry, and had seen no cause to take steps. No new information having reached the present Government, the Secretary of State did not see any ground for re-opening the case. This answer might be unsatisfactory to the hon. Member for Glasgow. He entirely agreed that even-handed justice should be dealt out in a district which had been the subject of considerable agitation in times past, and, as the hon. Member for Carlow had said, the administration of justice should be above suspicion; but the whole case seemed to have been under review of the late Government, and as the present Government had no fresh information on the subject it was impossible to re-open the ease.

said, there was great force in some of the remarks which the hon. Gentleman had just addressed to the House. He did not think the hon. Member for Glasgow had any intention of putting the responsibility on the present Government; and the question had boon brought forward to-night in order that the new Government, or whoever might now be responsible for Scotch affairs, might have the opportunity of giving some assurance to the people of Scotland, and particularly the Highlanders, that they would see that justice should be now administered fairly and impartially. There was no doubt that there was the greatest dissatisfaction with the administration of justice in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. So far as he could make out, there was great reason to doubt that justice was impartially administered in that quarter of the country. He deeply regretted that the Law Officers of the late Government did not give sufficient importance to the subject when it was first brought before their notice. He was also sorry to call attention to the circumstance that there was not one of the late Law Officers now in the House —that there was not present one Member of the late Government—although he understood that the Notice of his hon. Friend had come under the notice of the late Law Officers. There was no doubt whatever that a large proportion of the disturbances that took place recently in Skye was due to the want of confidence among the people in the administration of justice. They felt from long experience that they could not look to the Crown to protect them from injustice; and they were driven as the only resource to attempt, very unwisely and injudiciously, to take the law into their own hands, though the result of that had been that they had had an at- tention drawn to their case which it otherwise would not have received. The new Government would put the people of the West of Scotland to a great amount of indebtedness if they would take means to have a fair inquiry into the administration of justice in the Islands of Scotland. So far as the case of Sheriff Ivory was concerned, he thought it was the duty of the Government to place the sworn affidavits before the Law Officers of the Crown for Scotland, and ask their opinion whether there was not prima facie evidence to justify a prosecution of Sheriff Ivory. There were sworn affidavits by two persons in authority, and by two respectable householders. All these concurred in making the same statement, not from hearsay, but on the evidence of their own senses; and he did not see how the Lord Advocate could set aside these affidavits on the simple explanation of Sheriff Ivory of what took place. In the particularly excited state of the Island, and the ideas of the people as to the administration of justice, he thought there ought to be some public inquiry, in order to satisfy the people that impartial justice would be meted out to all. This was not the only case in which Sheriff Ivory had contradicted evidence of individuals given on affidavit. Complaint was made of him on a previous occasion when certain arrests -were made, and of the undignified and unbecoming language used in discussing the matter with the crofters. Sheriff Ivory denied the language attributed to him, whereupon those who made the statement went before a magistrate and made affidavit that the statement was correct. Five witnesses agreed on that occasion. Under these circumstances, he thought that it was the duty of the Law Officers of the Crown to take steps to satisfy the people that the law would be fairly and justly administered. The conduct of Sheriff Ivory had been principally dealt with on the present occasion; but on a previous occasion he had called attention to the conduct of the Procurator Fiscal and of Sheriff Black, which he begged the House to consider for a moment in relation to the position of the people in the Highlands of Scotland. The population of Lewis amounted to about 20,000 people, and the whole Island belonged to one pro-prietrix, and, with the exception of the Sheriff Substituteship, every place of emolument or power was in her hands, or those of her nominees and officials. The Procurator Fiscal—a Law Officer of the Crown—was also the law agent for the proprietrix. There was, therefore, no independent individual to whom the islanders could trust, except the Sheriff. He had called the attention of the House by Question to the conduct of the Procurator Fiscal in the case of Murdo Graham, when the Procurator Fiscal, as agent, obtained a warrant from the Sheriff for the demolition of a house, and at the pulling down of the house a disturbance took place. In connection with the subsequent trial Sheriff Black had shown such a partizanship in favour of the proprietrix that the people did not believe that they could have impartial justice. The Report of the Royal Commission indicated very clearly that the Commissioners had reason to believe that there were grounds for the dissatisfaction at the administration of justice in the Highlands; and they strongly recommended that all the officers of the Crown —Procurator Fiscal, Sheriff Clerk, and Sheriff—should be placed in a position entirely independent of the landlords in those districts. He therefore thought it was the duty of the present Government to apply to Parliament for sufficient power to deal with existing circumstances; and he appealed to the Home Secretary to give them an assurance that the whole matter would be inquired into. He also desired to urge on the Government, as probably one of the best measures for the pacification of the Western Highlands, to issue a Commission of Inquiry on the spot as to the manner in which justice had been administered during the last six or 12 months in that part of the country.

said, he felt bound to thank the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron") for the courteous way in which he had brought his case forward, and had given all the information in his power to his hon. Friend who sat beside him, to himself, and to the Lord Advocate. Considering, however, that it was a question of the administration of Scotch law, he thought the hon. Member would agree with him that it would be wrong for him to enter further into the case at present. In the absence of the late Lord Advocate, who had had this matter before him, it was quite impossible for him (Sir R. Assheton Cross) to express any opinion on the facts. He hoped the hon. Member (Mr. J. W. Barclay) would excuse him; but he had never heard the name of Sheriff Black before, and had certainly received no complaint in regard to him. He could assure the hon. Member for Glasgow that this matter would not be lost sight of. He would take care that the matter would be thoroughly looked into, and, of course, the only object of his Friends and himself would be to see that justice was administered in the Highlands to the satisfaction of the inhabitants. At the same time, he hoped no one would go away with the impression that he was expressing any opinion on the subject. He had no information on, which he could do so, and he only wished to give an assurance that he looked upon the satisfactory administration of justice in the Highlands and Islands as one of the most important parts of his duty, and, as far as he could render assistance in that direction, he should be most happy to give it.

said, he considered the case one of great hardship, and one that no Government could tolerate. He was much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Homo Department for the spirit which he had shown, which contrasted very favourably with that of his Predecessors.

who had the following Notice upon the Paper:—

"To move, That the interests of justice re quire that an independent inquiry should be made into the circumstances attending the dismissal of District Inspector Murphy from the Royal Irish Constabulary,"

said, that so unsatisfactory and evasive were the replies given to the representations made on former occasions to the officials of the late Government, that the Irish Party had felt it to be their duty, on the first possible opportunity, again to press the matter of the dismissal of District Inspector Murphy. He rejoiced exceedingly that this fresh appeal was to be made to a new set of Irish officials rather than to those who, being responsible for the injustice done, would be unwilling to remedy it. He had been much gratified by the remarks made in "another place" by the new Viceroy, who said he went to Ireland with an open mind. He hoped that that would be the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir William Hart Dyke) and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Holmes) would consider this matter. The case was a painful one, for it raised again the question of those horrible Dublin scandals, which all would be glad to see buried in oblivion. But they could not be allowed so to rest until justice had been done. The Irish officials had endeavoured to ruin the accusers of their political associates; and when obliged by a jury to take proceedings, so contrived them that the chief criminals escaped, and it was with difficulty that one of them—French— was convicted. In fact, he was only convicted after he had threatened the Irish Government that he would publish further disclosures concerning them. District Inspector Murphy was the victim of the Irish officials, who had, so far as lay in their power, ruined him. He had been in the Force from December, 1856, until October 10, 1884, when he was dismissed, without pension or compensation; and his record for that period of 18 years was that he had rendered long and valuable service. Indeed, it was only by a breach of the rule that acts of indiscipline could not be revived against a man after the lapse of 12 months that the Government could find any pretext for his dismissal. He (Mr. J. Redmond) joined issue with the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) with reference to the question of Inspector Murphy's alleged drunkenness and indiscipline. Inspector Murphy had been many times, and in various parts of Ireland, recommended for favourable records. In June, 1882, considerably more than a year before United Ireland breathed a syllable against James Ellis French, the late Government had in their possession evidence showing that accusations of a grave nature were made against him by members of the Constabulary Force. At that date District Inspector Murphy, in connection with others, had sent a round robin to Earl Spencer and Colonel Brackenbury on the subject of French's infamies; and yet the officials of the late Government in that House refused to institute an inquiry into his conduct, and even had the audacity to stand at the Table and defend him when he was attacked in debate. In July, 1883, Mr. Murphy made up his mind that he would communicate with some Members of that House, and have the matter probed to the bottom. In October, 1883, a letter was opened by one of Mr. Murphy's subordinates, which disclosed the fact that he was the person who was prompting hon. Gentlemen, and giving information to them. From that time this system of persecution commenced against Mr. Murphy. The persecution was continued persistently for some time. Mr. Murphy was removed from place to place, his life as a Constabulary officer being rendered almost intolerable. As, however, he had more endurance than was expected, the persecution culminated at last in a distinct charge made against him. That charge of alleged drunkenness was trumped up from the first; it was not substantiated; and eventually it was withdrawn by the Government. Moreover, the official inquiry was conducted in a most irregular manner. During the trial a letter, with the seal of Dublin Castle, was handed to the President of the Court, read by him and by other officers, one of whom made the significant remark, in a slight whisper—-"It's very pleasant to know what we have got to do. "Eleven witnesses were called, eight of whom were for the prosecution. Of these eight, four swore absolutely that Mr. Murphy was sober; two knew nothing; and two, one of whom was the accuser, County Inspector Sheehy, and the other, a broken-down hanger-on at the officers' kitchen, gave evidence which was uncertain. That charge having failed, another was framed, that of insubordination in his ! correspondence, and for this he was dismissed. Now, no written charge to that effect was made against Mr. Murphy. He was not tried for it, and it was contrary to the Rules of the Force that he should be dismissed without trial. Another regulation provided that no man should be called upon to answer any general charge of misconduct, but only specific and definite allegations. He challenged the Government to say that there was any charge against Mr. Murphy but a general one of insubordination in his official correspondence. For 18 years Inspector Murphy had been a trusted officer in the Force, and he had only been dismissed upon vague charges of insubordination, in contradiction to the Code dealing with the Force, when it was found that he had been an agent in exposing the practices of Mr. French. In doing so he contended that Inspector Murphy had done a lasting service to the interests, not only of the Irish people, but of humanity itself. He (Mr. J. Redmond) now asked for an independent inquiry into the case. There wore precedents for that demand being granted. Lord Spencer, having failed to ruin the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien), found that he had one man on whom he could wreck his vengeance, and so Mr. Murphy was offered up as an atonement for the blasted reputation of his quondam adviser and friend, Mr. James Ellis French, and the infamous gang associated with him. The new Viceroy had promised that he would inquire for himself into the Irish question; and he would ask his Representative in the House that night that he would inquire himself into this case.

Rising, Sir, as I do, for the first time to address this House, I find myself placed in a position of considerable difficulty, and I feel that I must ask the indulgence of the House. I need hardly remind the House that the circumstances to which the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. J. Redmond) has referred, occurred long before either my right hon. Friend (Sir William Hart Dyke) or I myself became connected with the Executive of Ireland. I may also say that the principal matters which have been mentioned have been brought before my notice and that of my right hon. Friend for the first time. The position in which we found this matter of Inspector Murphy was tin's. Mr. Murphy had been a District Inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary, and had been dismissed as long ago as September last by the Inspector General of the Force, with the sanction of the Lord Lieutenant; and I believe that at a later period the question of his dismissal was the subject of discussion in this House; but with these facts we became acquainted simply as members of the general public. Under these circumstances, my right hon. Friend and myself naturally expected that the right hon. Gentleman who had formerly been Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) would have been present, and would have risen at once to express his views upon this subject. As far as we ourselves are concerned, we are not acquainted, in the same degree, with the facts which have been brought before the House. At the same time we have been enabled within the last 24 hours to acquaint ourselves, to a certain extent, with the details of the matters now under discussion; and in venturing to express an opinion upon them, I am obliged to say that, as I now understand the facts, I cannot agree with the hon. Member, although I listened carefully to his speech, in the conclusion at which he desires the House to arrive. I will ask the House, in the first place, to consider the position of the Constabulary Force in Ireland, which hon. Members opposite will admit is a most important factor in that country. It is most necessary that its discipline should be preserved, and that anything tending' to a want of discipline or insubordination should be suppressed. [Mr. HEALY: By the landlords.] Now, the government of that Force is placed by statute under the direction of an Inspector General, and the Inspector General has conferred upon him very large powers. He has power, with the sanction of the Lord Lieutenant, to dismiss any person in the Force upon facts proved, or which come under his own notice; and if any Member of the Force is guilty of insubordination the Inspector General has the power of dismissing him. [An Irish MEMBER: "Without a court martial?] The person dismissed has, under these circumstances, no right of demanding an inquiry by court martial. I understand that if the circumstances come under the Inspector General's own notice, or that he feels no doubt about them, he has power, at his own discretion, to dismiss the officer offending, with the sanction of the Lord Lieutenant, and the officer has no right of appeal. If the Inspector General of the Force has got the ability and intelligence to exercise a correct judgment on a question of this kind, and he exercises his judgment in good faith and honesty, I think the House would not be disposed, under any cir- cumstances, to retry the question, because in doing so they would be trying the Inspector General, who, as I have said, would have acted in good faith and honesty. It therefore appears to me that the question before the House resolves itself into this—whether the Inspector General (Colonel Bruce) of the Royal Irish Constabulary acted with good faith and honesty; and if the House comes to the conclusion that he has done so, I think it would be the duty of the present Government—apart altogether from what may have influenced their Predecessors—to approve the Inspector General's action, or, at least, at this distance of time, not to have a matter of this character re-agitated. A great portion of the speech of the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. J. Redmond) was taken up with, an investigation hold in the month of September into a charge of drunkenness against District Inspector Murphy. Now, I confess that if I had been informed that Mr. Murphy was dismissed from the Force on account of that charge I should have great hesitation in accepting such a judgment as that; and if the Inspector General of Constabulary had acted solely on the finding of that Court of Inquiry, I should think that there would be strong ground of complaint on the part of Mr. Murphy. The reason I think it unnecessary to enter into that inquiry is that admittedly, as I understand, the Inspector General of Constabulary and the Lord Lieutenant, in confirming the decision which dismissed Mr. Murphy from the Force, did not rest upon the finding of the Court of Inquiry at all. They put the matter in this way. Previous to the time of holding that Court of Inquiry the conduct of District Inspector Murphy, as a member of the Force, and as regards the discipline of the Force, was under consideration. It appeared to them that, commencing as far back as 1875, under successive Inspectors General, District Inspector Murphy had been guilty of what was considered in the Constabulary to be insubordination. That course of conduct was said to have gone on down to September last; and, accordingly, when a full inquiry was made into the subject, the authorities came to the conclusion that District Inspector Murphy's insubordination was of such a character that he ought not to be allowed to retain his position in the Force. On that ground, and on that ground alone, the sentence of dismissal—he having refused to tender his resignation—was passed upon him. The material point of the complaint of the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. J. Redmond) was this; and the hon. Member said that he would not have addressed the House on this occasion, nor asked that the matter should be reopened by the Government, if he had not reason to believe that the Inspector General, in passing the sentence, had not acted in good faith. He said that it was not on account of acts of insubordination that Mr. District Inspector Murphy was dismissed, but for a very different cause—that it was really because the Inspector General ascertained that Mr. Murphy had been the means of bringing to justice County Inspector French, and on that account he had incurred the odium of the Constabulary Office, and, therefore, that proceeding was instituted against him. I think I have now stated clearly the issue which has been raised in this House, and everyone must admit that an issue of that description ought not to be found against a person in the position of Inspector General of Constabulary except upon very convincing-evidence. The Inspector General of the Royal Irish Constabulary has been for some years in his present office; previous to that he held the position of Deputy Inspector General; and he has always borne, at all events before the public, an honourable character and a high reputation. [An Irish MEMBER: So did French.] Having had the privilege of becoming acquainted with him in his official character during the Earl of Beaconsfield's Administration, the Inspector General of Constabulary always struck me as being an active officer and a fair-minded man. What, then, is there in the case which should lead the House to believe that the motive in the mind of Colonel Bruce was a desire to injure District Inspector Murphy for the reason that has been suggested? Now, while knowing nothing myself of District Inspector Murphy, I am quite certain that, although he may feel aggrieved and annoyed at his dismissal, he would not state what he did not believe to be true; but I can well understand that, smarting under what he imagined to be an injustice, he might be led to believe that which was not the fact. On the other hand, I claim that hon. Members coming to scrutinize the conduct of the Inspector General of Constabulary will give that officer credit, when he makes a statement, for believing it to be true. Mr. Murphy stated that in 1882, prior to the publication of any article in United Ireland, he addressed two letters, one to the Lord Lieutenant and the other to Colonel Brackenbury, then in the Department of Dublin Castle connected with crime, in which he referred to the charges then circulated that French was living a grossly immoral and criminal life. I believe him when he says that he sent these letters. I understand that Mr. Murphy did not retain a copy of them; and the Lord Lieutenant said that, according to his recollection, he never received the document at all. Colonel Brackenbury and his Secretary make a similar statement about the letter addressed to him. Whether or not the letters were overlooked in Colonel Brackenbury's or in the Chief Secretary's Office by some oversight, one thing is perfectly certain — namely, that those letters were never brought to the notice of the Inspector General of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and Colonel Bruce has stated most distinctly and positively that he never saw them. Therefore, we have it that, although the letters may have been written by Mr. Murphy and sent to Dublin Castle, they never came in any way to Colonel Bruce, because we have it stated by the persons to whom they were addressed that they never sent them to Colonel Bruce.

How do you account for his sending for the witnesses?

I will come to that in a minute. Colonel Bruce says that, so far as District Inspector Murphy was concerned, he was never aware, either directly or indirectly, that Mr. Murphy had preferred any charge against Inspector French until the day after he was arrested. The day after French was arrested he did receive a communication from Murphy making charges against French, and immediately put himself in communication with Mr. Harrold of the Metropolitan Police, who prosecuted further inquiries. If I am correct in what I am stating, there could not have been any feeling on the part of Colonel Bruce against Mr. Murphy on account of the charges he had made against Inspector French, because he could not have known, until after French was arrested in July, that Inspector Murphy had been working in the matter. After the charge against French was made, and after he had been arrested, the inquiry was pursued very vigorously, honestly, and efficiently— [cries of "No, no !"from the Irish Members] That, of course, is a matter for the late Administration to answer; but I can assure hon. Members that there were difficulties at the time connected with the prosecution which were very hard for anyone to cope with. [An hon. MEMBER: What were they?] It will be found that up to that time it was impossible for Colonel Bruce to have had any feeling against Murphy on account of French, nor can it be alleged that, because he happened to know that Murphy sent in some information after French was arrested, such a feeling of animosity was got up against Murphy as to make Colonel Bruce determined to ruin him. I certainly do feel that unless much stronger evidence is brought before the Government it would be wholly impossible for the Irish Administration to re-open this inquiry. I am not in a position to discuss the matter further. I had certainly expected that the right hon. Gentleman opposite the late Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) would have contributed something towards this discussion, because there may be matters connected with it of which the present Executive know nothing; but, taking the general facts of the case, I am disposed to say that the Irish Executive at the present time would not be justified in recommending the inquiry asked for.

said, he gathered some hope from the closing declaration of the right hon. and learned Attorney General that this was a matter the Government would not feel disposed to run away from in one way or another. The last Government had some cause to run away; but the present Government were in a position to face it with courage, and arrive at a different conclusion. He was, therefore, disposed to hope that the language of the right hon. and learned Gentleman was intended to lead the House to infer that the matter was not finally closed, and that when he and his Colleagues had had a longer time than 24 hours to devote to the consideration of it, it would be found that the demand made upon them by hishon. Friend (Mr. J. Redmond) was not only justice, but which the necessities of the case called on them to obey. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had referred to difficulties which had arisen in a prosecution in which he had been lately concerned. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, as a lawyer, might have been expected to enlighten the laymen of the House upon some of those difficulties; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman had been silent, and had kept his legal lore to himself. He (Mr. Sexton), as a layman, would humbly admit that the prosecutions to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman had referred had some difficulties connected with them except to the prisoners in the dock. They had bad exceptional facilities, and the facility with which they were allowed to leave the dock, by reason of some black letter unexplained difficulties of law, contrasted painfully with the fate of those poor peasants in the "West of Ireland who had been prosecuted by the same Legal Advisers, and sent to the gallows by their political enemies. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that this case arose before he and his Friends took Office. No doubt it arose—was prosecuted and culminated—before the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his Friends assumed power. It was on that ground that the Irish Members presented the case to the new Government with great confidence; because they hoped, and reasonably expected, that the Gentlemen now in power would not so foolishly deny justice to an officer who happened to be an honest man, simply because in the back bonelessness of official life in Ireland one man's word was preferred to that of another. Ho was not surprised at the obstinate silence of the right hon. Gentleman. the late Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), nor yet at the reserve of the late learned Attorney General (Mr. Walker). They were conscious of the complexity and true character of the proceedings. They were fully acquainted with the policy of Dublin Castle, and they had a memory more keen than pleasant of the appearance they had to make on this subject; and, with a modesty which all prudent men would appreciate, they now refrained from making a further exhibition of themselves. He gave the right hon. and learned Gentleman credit for the frankness with which he had dealt with the charge of drunkenness. It redounded to his manliness, and afforded a creditable contrast to the manner in which the case had been dealt with by the late Chief Secretary. The late Chief Secretary, with all the cunning of a lawyer, but none of his skill, had endeavoured to get rid of the case of drunkenness by a course of special pleading; but after the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, what had become of the charge of drunkenness? When District Inspector Murphy was put on his trial there was a charge of drunkenness against him and nothing else. There was not the remotest hint or suggestion that any other cause existed for dismissing him from the Force. The Court of Inquiry reported to the Lord Lieutenant that the drunkenness was very slight, and in the letter of Earl Spencer, by his Secretary, from Dublin Castle drunkenness was no longer held to have been the cause of District Inspector Murphy's dismissal; but, as a matter of fact, it disappeared altogether. Inspector Murphy and the public were told that the dismissal was not at all on account of drunkenness. So that the sole charge upon which Mr. Murphy was impeached upon the Court of Inquiry was now declared to have had nothing whatever to do with his dismissal. Was there ever so complete and astonishing a transformation? The right hon. and learned Attorney General had gone a step further that night in reference to the charge of drunkenness, because he had conveyed an intimation that if drunkenness had been the cause of the dismissal of Inspector Murphy, and the case against him had rested on the charge of drunkenness, he would have felt bound to grant the inquiry asked for. He asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman to run over the evidence as to the charge of drunkenness. The Court of Inquiry said that the evidence of drunkenness was very small; the Lord Lieutenant said that it was not the cause of dismissal, and now the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself declared that if it had been the cause of dismissal he would feel bound to re-open the case. How, then, did the right hon. and learned Gentleman dare, in addressing a rational Assembly, to say that the Inspector General of the Irish Constabulary had acted in this matter with honesty and good faith? It was notorious that District Inspector Murphy was sent down to Nenagh to be entrapped; to be put in the hands of Inspector Sheehy, who was playing into the hands of those in superior authority. He was sent down there to be ruined and dismissed, and the "trip" or the "stagger" which Inspector Murphy gave, according to one witness, in the street, might be taken as a figure of the "trip" which the authorities at Dublin Castle were waiting for in order to make out an order for Inspector Murphy's dismissal. Inspector Sheehy would never have presumed to contravene the Constabulary Code and violate its settled law by sending a confidential communication to the Inspector General if he had not been previously authorized to do so. What was the meaning of that private and confidential communication? It took Inspector Murphy entirely by surprise. The Code said that any charge against a member of the Constabulary Force must be written and communicated to him before it was sent in; that he must give a specific answer to it; but in this case the doctrine of Thuggee was applied to Inspector Murphy, and he was choked off on a Report drawn up by means of a collusion between the Inspector General and the County Inspector, the Inspector General taking upon himself the double capacity of prosecutor and judge. By this stealthy process Inspector Murphy was dismissed from the office, having been tried upon one charge and condemned upon another. What was the honesty of saying that he was not dismissed upon the charge for which, he was tried, and yet allowing the Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant to stand up at that Table and endeavour to maintain the charge of drunkenness which had been preferred? The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General had not gone so far as to say that the evidence of a County Inspector in such a case as this was to be regarded as something sacred, and certainly the sequence of dates in this case was most irresistible. Inspector Murphy sent in his round robin in 1882. He wondered that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was not ashamed, even after a lengthened practice in the Four Courts of Ireland, to come there and suggest that the terms and phrases used in the round robin were a matter of no importance. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said it was a communication which, by its nature, would hardly compel anyone to fix his attention upon it, no matter what the language was in which it was couched. But the nature of the charge was so terrible and so unprecedented that it must have commanded the startled attention of all who saw it. If one letter was lost it must not be forgotten that two were sent, one to the Lord Lieutenant and one to Colonel Bracken-bury. They were asked to believe that those two letters, sent in different envelopes, to two different officials in Dublin Castle both miscarried. He (Mr. Sexton) did not believe it, and he was fortified in his unbelief by knowing that when the matter could no longer be kept from the action of the authorities— when his hon. Friend the Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) had, in his newspaper, drawn public attention to it, the Government proved their own guilt by prosecuting his hon. Friend, by threatening his newspaper, by dogging him with detectives, and by delaying and refusing to indict the criminals until the public indignation made it no longer possible for the Castle officials to throw their shield over the culprits. It was then too late in the day for the Government to endeavour to defeat the application of the law, or to delude the public by keeping back the facts of the case. How was it that if the letters addressed to the Government had miscarried, having been sent in 1882. they allowed Inspector Murphy to retain his position until 1883? It was because it was not until 1883 that they discovered by chance that Inspector Murphy was the person who had sent these letters to the Castle. From that moment Inspector Murphy never had an easy day; from that moment the die of his fate was cast. Wherever he went he had enemies about him. Some cause or other must be found for his dismissal; if not drunkenness then insubordination. If the Court could not find him guilty of drunkenness the Chiefs of the Department would find him guilty of something else. He (Mr. Sexton) had always thought that civilians were badly off in Ireland; but it would appear that members of the Royal Irish Constabulary wore far worse off. It now appeared that if a police constable dared to be honest it was not necessary for the Government to go through that ceremony of bringing him to trial at all. They gave him no venue and no jury; but if the Inspector General thought it convenient to ruin a Constabulary officer his own mere will was amply sufficient for the purpose. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had endeavoured to make the House believe that the Government at Dublin Castle did not derive their knowledge of the witnesses against French from the letters which were sent to them. Yet the day after they arrested Trench the Government sent for. Inspector Murphy and examined him. They also examined every Inspector who had been named in the round robin—five Inspectors in all, who were declared in that round robin to have a personal knowledge of the unnatural crimes of French. No other person except District Inspector French was in a position to make the statement, and the Government sent for these Inspectors before they arrested French. It was said that the round robin miscarried in its passage through the post, that the Lord Lieutenant never got it, and that the Head of the Department of Crime never got it. They would, therefore, know nothing of the persons who had been named in the round robin. How was it, then, that they summoned the very persons who were named in the round robin, and no others? There were 6,000,000 of people in Ireland; and only five persons named in the round robin. How was it that, out of the 5,000,000 of people in Ireland, the Government only summoned the five persons named in the round robin, and no one else? Would the right hon. and learned Attorney General, or anybody else on the Treasury Bench, get up and attempt to answer that question? It was quite evident that from the round robin, and from it alone, they derived the knowledge which led to the conviction of Inspector French; and on that he (Mr. Sexton) was entitled to maintain that Inspector Murphy met with dismissal because he was found to be an honest man, and for that simple reason he had been met with malignant persecution. Because Inspector Murphy dared to be vulgar enough to think that the law, which was intended to punish crime, was ever intended to be applied to an official of Dublin Castle, he was dismissed in disgrace from the Royal Irish Constabulary.

said, the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Holmes), at the commencement of his speech, had expressed some surprise that neither he himself (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) nor his right hon, and learned Friend near him (Mr. Walker) had risen to reply to the speech of the hon. Member for New Boss (Mr. J. Redmond); and the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. Sexton), in the beginning of his remarks, had made an observation to the same effect. Now, it would have been extraordinary if they had risen, because, so far as he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) was concerned, he had listened attentively to the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. J. Redmond); and, from the beginning to the end of it, the whole gist of it was that it was an appeal from the decision of the late Government to the more candid and impartial minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite. It would, therefore, have been most unbecoming on his part if ho had disappointed the hon. Gentleman by interfering with the progress of the debate for the purpose of expressing his tainted and discredited opinions, and attempting to corrupt the innocent minds of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. It was a question of an appeal from a decision of the late Government to the present Government; and, therefore, he had thought that the proper course was to hear, in the first place, the decision the present Government had arrived at on the subject. He had now to tell the House that he had nothing to add to the explanation of the conduct of the late Government which he gave to the House some weeks ago. On that occasion the matter was very fully discussed and debated. He had made a speech, and his right hon. and learned Friend beside him (Mr. Walker) also made some observations, and he had no more recent information in his possession than that which he had then. Therefore, he had nothing further to say in the matter. What he said then remained on record; but there were one or two things which appeared to have been dwelt upon, and which might call for a few remarks. In the first place, it was said that District Inspector Murphy was accused of one thing and dismissed for another. It was said that the offence for which he was tried was drunkenness, and that he was afterwards dismissed on account of insubordination. It had further been alleged that, in the first place, the charge of drunkenness was the only charge; and, in the second place, it was afterwards stated to have been proved, but to have been of a very slight nature. Then, when pressed a little further, it was said that the Government admitted that drunkenness was not the cause of dismissal at all; and, finally, they were informed by the right hon. and learned Attorney General that if the dismissal had taken place on the ground of drunkenness, he thought there might be a case for re-opening the inquiry. Now, the facts of the case, as he had explained them before, were simply these. District Inspector Murphy had been for a long course of years guilty of acts of insubordination. He had again and again been reprimanded and warned, not only by Colonel Bruce, but by that gentleman's predecessors in command of the Royal Irish Constabulary. He had confessed his faults, and had promised amendment; and he was warned that if a difficulty of the kind occurred again he would render himself liable to dismissal. It was on the top of these proceedings, such being the character of Inspector Murphy in the eyes of his superior officer, that he was accused of the offence of drunkenness, and tried for that offence. It was said that the inquiry ought to have embraced the whole subject; but in this case, as had been pointed out by the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, where there was an accusation of writing insubordinate letters, and of displaying an ill-disciplined tone in his correspondence, which were the principal matters of which Mr. Murphy was guilty, they were not subjects which could be remitted to any Court of Inquiry. His superior officers had a whole body of evidence before them; but no verbal evidence could be taken. The offence was contained in the letters which Inspector Murphy had written, and his superior officers were the best and the natural judges of what constituted want of discipline. The ordinary clauses of the Constabulary Code, which had been quoted, as to the necessity of having a Court of Inquiry, did not apply to this sort of offence at all, but to such an offence as that of drunkenness, which was capable of proof by evidence in Court. The reason why Inspector Murphy was dismissed from the Force was that he had been guilty of a series of acts of insubordination. The drunkenness was a very slight matter. It was not right to say that it was not proved. It was proved; but as it was slight, that alone would not have been sufficient, in itself, to have led to his dismissal from the Force. It had this effect, nevertheless—that, coming after a long course of misconduct, of which complaints had been made, although they were in reference to a different matter, his whole position in the Service, and his conduct while he had been a member of it, were looked into; and it was thought better, as he had been guilty of these intemperate and ill-disciplined acts, that, in the interests of the Force, he should cease to belong to it. That was all he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) thought ho need say as to the cause of Inspector Murphy's dismissal. But there was an additional matter imported into the case—namely, the allegation on his part that a considerable time before his dismissal occurred he had communicated to Earl Spencer and Colonel Brackenbury certain facts which had come to his knowledge. The House had heard a good deal of a round robin. As far as he could make out, it was alleged to be an "anonymous round robin"—a kind of document which was seldom heard of on this side of the Channel. He was not certain whether District Inspector Murphy signed it; but he had never heard of anyone else who did, and a round robin was usually signed by a good many people. There was certainly no allegation that it was signed except by Inspector Murphy; and if Inspector Murphy did sign the letter, all that could be said was that it must have miscarried in the Post Office.

There were two letters sent—one to the Lord Lieutenant and one to Colonel Brackenbury.

said, that made it still more extraordinary, and he thought they were entitled to have distinct evidence that the letters were ever put into the post. They had nothing at present but Inspector Murphy's ex post facto statements to induce them to believe they were sent; and all he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) could say, on the part of Earl Spencer and Colonel Brackenbury's Secretary— who still occupied an official position in Ireland—was that neither of them had any recollection of having received such a letter, and there was no trace of them, either officially or unofficially, in any way whatever. It was inconceivable that if letters of such importance were received, the fact should have passed completely from the minds of those to whom they were addressed. As the case stood, the House had before them a distinct statement by Earl Spencer and Colonel Brackenbury, and an ex post facto allegation, on the other hand, by District Inspector Murphy. The Irish Government said the first they heard from Inspector Murphy on the subject was the day that French was arrested, and then Mr. Murphy wrote, stating that he could give certain important evidence. He was sent for at once, and brought up to Dublin; but it turned out that the evidence he had to give was not worth a farthing. It was of no value whatever. It consisted merely of hearsay evidence that was perfectly incapable of substantiation in Court. He must say, in truth, that the round robin was obviously an afterthought to account for the unfortunate termination of Inspector Murphy's career. He was sorry to say that, because Inspector Murphy had undoubtedly on some occasions done good service. [Ironical cheers from the Irish Members.] If he made a concession of that kind, surely it was not a point to be jeered at. He was prepared to admit that on some occasions Inspector Murphy had done good service; but, on the other hand, from first to last, the letters and communications in possession of right hon. Gentlemen opposite would prove that he had, unfortunately, been endowed with considerable facility for letter writing and using improper and intemperate language towards his superior officers. He had created around himself an atmosphere indicative of want of discipline, which was quite incompatible with his being retained in a Force of this kind. That was the whole cause and reason of his dismissal. The question, as he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) had already stated, was discussed at great length some weeks ago. He had stated then the different occasions on which Inspector Murphy had been reprimanded and warned, and the way in which he had accepted the warning and promised amendment; and it was only after his dismissal that anything was ever heard of his having made accusations against Inspector French. It was said that after his dismissal he heard, for the first time, that he had been accused of insubordination; but that could not be the fact, because he had himself admitted it and promised amendment, so that it could not have been new to him. As to the round robin, he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) was sure the House would not believe that Earl Spencer would for a moment conceal the fact, either from the public now or from those who acted with him at the time, that he had received so startling a letter as this would have been which was alleged to have been sent to him. And he would, further, point to the fact which he had just stated — that when Inspector Murphy came to make a clean breast of it, and came to give all the information of which he said he was in possession, it was found to be of no material value. On those grounds, he trusted the House would believe that the Irish authorities had been actuated, in dismissing Inspector Murphy, by no other motive than the desire to maintain the discipline of the Royal Irish Constabulary.

said, he thought the strength of the case against Colonel Bruce was increased rather than diminished by the course which the late Chief Secretary had taken in defending him. Instead of replying at once to the speech of the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. J. Redmond), the right hon. Gentleman laid back upon the Bench in order that he might hear what the Members of the new Government had to say before committing himself to a reply. As soon as he found that the new Government had not been able to devote their minds to the consideration of the question, the right hon. Gentleman repeated the arguments he had addressed to the House some weeks ago; but from first to last, throughout the speeches they had heard both from the present and from the ex-Government, no explanation had been offered of one remarkable fact — namely, that although, nobody received the letter which had been spoken of as a round robin, yet the moment the charges against certain officials connected with the Government were preferred in United Ireland, the five gentlemen who had been named in Inspector Murphy's letter were sent for and examined. [Alaugh.] The right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary (Mr. Camp-bell-Bannerman) laughed when he stated that those five gentlemen were sent for and examined directly the charges were made by United Ireland. Instead of indulging in idle laughter, it would have been much better if the right hon. Gentleman had explained various points in the matter which were very strongly open to doubt. Such laughter as the right hon. Gentleman indulged in might be intelligible, perhaps, in Scotland; but in the House of Commons it was not likely to be regarded as a complete answer to a serious charge. The right hon. Gentleman said that the evidence given by Inspector Murphy himself, when he was called before the Castle Authorities, was merely of a hearsay character. It must be remembered that he was speaking of hearsay evidence in the case of accusations against individuals for the perpetration of abominable crimes. Did the right hon. Gentleman expect to get the evidence of the principals themselves?

said, he had, perhaps, used a slipshod phrase when he had stated that Inspector Murphy only gave hearsay evidence. What he had meant was that they were merely statements in the nature of idle gossip, with no substantial facts that could be acted upon, and which only amounted to hearsay evidence.

said, there was a line in Othello which, when the actor came to it, he was in the habit of making a marked pause—

"Would you grossly gape on."

—and then the actor stopped. The right hon. Gentleman had interrupted him with a commentary upon hearsay evidence, which he said, in this particular case, was idle gossip. When he was contending that the Detective Inspectors of Ireland should be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion, the right hon. Gentleman interrupted him in order to correct his own slipshod phrase, as he termed it, in regard to "hearsay evidence." He had invited the right hon. Gentleman, when he laughed, to give some explanation of his merriment. The right hon. Gentleman was asked how it was that the five witnesses mentioned by Inspector Murphy were immediately called and examined after United Ireland had referred to the charges against French and not before? The right hon. Gentleman, however, did not get up upon his legs then, and was by no means ready with an explanation. If the right hon. Gentleman desired to offer an explanation, he (Mr. Healy) was prepared to give way to him once more.

said, the reason why he had laughed was that in his belief the letter alleged to have been sent was never sent at all.

said, he did not know how it was that he (Mr. Healy) should be so stupid; but he certainly could not understand the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman. What he asked the right hon. Gentleman to do was to account for the fact how it was that the moment United Ireland gave the facts in regard to French, the five witnesses mentioned in the round robin were immediately sent for and examined by Colonel Brackenbury, if the letter had never been received? The names of the five witnesses who were sent for were mentioned in the round robin, and had been mentioned nowhere else. He would afford the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity, by giving way a third time, if the right hon. Gentleman desired to offer an explanation of this circumstance. He was satisfied, however, that the right hon. Gentleman had no explanation to give, and it was really remarkable how differently the case had been treated at different times. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland began his speech by stating that the discipline of the Force must be preserved; and on that the right hon. and learned Gentleman raised an argument that nothing could be done in this case without upsetting the discipline of the Force. But he appealed from the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to the Bible of the Constabulary—to their Code—to Sections 416 and 1632 of that Code, which declared that all charges must be in writing expressed in clear and express terms, and that a copy of them must be furnished to the party accused a reasonable time before the inquiry came on for investigation. The name of the prosecutor was to be entered on the face of the charge; no member of the Force was to be called upon to admit or deny a general Report upon his conduct; but if a clear charge or charges were framed upon the Report of the officer by whom they were made, then they were to be forwarded to the accused for his admission or denial. When the Inspector General talked about observing the discipline and order of the Force, how did he expect to maintain it by going directly in the teeth of his own Code? Were the Force to understand, in future, that when the Inspector General entertained a grudge against a particular individual he could dismiss that individual without even the formula of a court martial? There was another point. They had a Code which could be invoked against a man when he misconducted himself. Was it not, then, to be quoted in his favour '? The right hon. and learned Attorney General had coolly stated that the discipline of the Force must be maintained; but if it was to be maintained it ought to be maintained in a legitimate manner by the usual methods of procedure adopted in a recognized form, and by the sanctions which were the spirit of all discipline. He appealed from the declaration of the Government that discipline must be maintained to the very rules which defined the discipline, and which declared that no man should be called upon even to answer a charge unless the charge had been expressed in writing in clear and distinct terms in the name of the officer who made it, and was replied to by the party accused. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket), who now filled an Office he was glad to see him promoted to—the Office of First Commissioner of Public Works—ought to have some knowledge of the precedents in this case. [Mr. PLUNKET dissented.] The right hon. and learned Gentleman shook his head; but he believed it was the right hon. and learned Gentleman who replied on behalf of the Government in the year 1876 to the case of a constable, which was on all fours with the one they were now discussing. That case was brought forward by a Tory Member, Mr. Bruen, formerly Member for Carlow, and an inquiry was granted. Was he to be told now that because one of the supporters of the present Government, the hon. Member for Coleraine (Sir Hervey Bruce), was connected with the Inspector General of Constabulary in Ireland, the Government now refused to grant what they acceded to in 1876 through the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket)? This was what occurred in May, 1876, and it would be found recorded at page 1442 of the volume of Hansard for that year. The Solicitor General for Ireland said—"Sir John Wood"—who then occupied the position Colonel Bruce filled now—"is a distinguished servant"—hon. Members would find that those men were all distinguished servants—

"Since the Chief Secretary had spoken, several matters had been brought before the House of which his right hon. Friend was not aware when he arose to address it. He had now to announce to the House that if the present Motion were withdrawn the Government would institute such an inquiry as would, he thought, be satisfactory to all parties. He wished to mention that his right hon. Friend had, before coming down to the House, made inquiry at the Treasury, and had been informed that there was no such letter or Report as had been referred to."

That was exactly the case now. The circumstances of the present case were exactly on all fours with those of the case which were brought under the notice of the House in 1876. He would appeal also to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to a case that came under his attention in 1876, when Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. A question was at that time asked by the hon. Member for Galway with reference to a constable named Maloney, who was dismissed and reinstated, and the right hon. Gentleman replied that Maloney had been restored after dismissal, not because there was proof of his innocence of the offence imputed to him, but because he had been dismissed without having been tried. Well, Inspector Murphy had been dismissed without having been tried; or, in other words, ho was tried for drunkenness and dismissed for insubordination. He would now quote the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stirling (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), and late Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had said that Inspector Murphy was dismissed for drunkenness; but Earl Spencer, the late Viceroy of Ireland, caused a letter to he sent to Inspector Murphy to the effect that His Excellency, after further consideration, thought it necessary to inform him that his removal from the Irish Constabulary was due to his insubordinate conduct after repeated warnings, and to no other cause whatsoever. Thus the House would see that the late Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland said that he found that the man was dismissed for drunkenness, and that the Lord Lieutenant himself stated that he had been dismissed for persistent insubordination. Parliamentary usages would not allow him to say that either of those two officials were liars; and therefore he found refuge in collating the two conflicting statements, and in expressing a hope that when the right hon. Gentleman met Earl Spencer he would try to reconcile the two statements, and have the matter arranged before the case was again brought before the House of Commons, because so long as it remained in its present state so long would the Irish Party keep ringing the case in the ears of Her Majesty's Government. He would ask the Government to contrast the way in which Murphy was dismissed with the way in which French was dismissed. The Government had acted very differently in the two cases. They knew of the charge against French, and they allowed him, in spite of his conduct, to continue in office; they knew that he had committed perjury—that he was allowed to commit perjury in connection with the Motion of the hon. Member for Marlow (Mr. O'Brien). French was then, according to the statement of the present Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan), allowed to make an affidavit that he had not been dismissed or suspended, and that his official position was not affected in one way or the other. But in that House the Irish Party charged that French had been dismissed, and that he had been suspended; but he was allowed to declare in his affidavit that that was not so. And yet the Government at the time paid no attention to the acts of French; they allowed him to get the benefit of that affidavit by having him still kept in the Police Force, while the hon. Member for Mallow was being harassed by a prosecution for libel. Let hon. Members contrast the two cases. The letters of Murphy which he addressed to Members of the House were opened, and when the Government were informed that he was in communication with them a watch was set upon him, and Colonel Bruce began at once to follow him up; and then there was the statement of the late Chief Secretary that he was dismissed for drunkenness, and the statement of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland that he was dismissed for insubordination. Would it be maintained that it was for the benefit of the Public Service that when a public officer had done a service to the cause of morality he should be immediately afterwards dismissed for an offence which he did not commit? Was the humblest soldier in the ranks ever treated as Inspector Murphy had been treated? The late Chief Secretary had said that Murphy had served with distinction, and he called that making a concession to hon. Members for Ireland—in other words, it was making a concession to them to tell the truth. But the right hon. Gentleman would only make concessions when it suited him—in other words, he would do what was best for his own case. After his (Mr. Healy's) experience of Castle government in Ireland he had no hesitation in saying that the case of Inspector Murphy was the most infamous that had come under his notice. French had been convicted and sentenced to penal servitude, and the man through whose instrumentality he was detected had been dismissed from the Service without the opportunity of making a defence, and on a charge for which he had not been tried, and in spite of the rules which said that a man was not to be charged in general terms, or any statement made against him except in writing. They were all glad to find in the Attorney General an Irishman who gave promise of such an excellent career in that House; but they said it was not for him, after his slight experience, to set up for a defender of the Irish Government in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had formerly granted an inquiry into the case of Mr. Croker, and into that of Malony, on the ground that he had been dismissed with- out inquiry; and he would appeal fearlessly to the right hon. Gentleman in this matter not only as Leader of the House, but as one who had had experience in Ireland, and one who had had the advice of Members of that House. He maintained that if the Code declared that no man should be found guilty until tried, and that he should not be tried until ho had seen the charge made against him—that it was in the interest of that Code that Murphy should not have been tried on one charge and dismissed on another. By such a course a feeling of mistrust would be created in the mind of those who were connected with the Army and Navy and with the Police Force of the Kingdom. A fatal blow would be struck at a Force like the Irish Constabulary, who it should be remembered were Irishmen, and men who knew that their officers were Englishmen. If those men came to know that amongst the officials in Ireland there were those who could, on the word of a single individual, set aside the finding of a court martial, and say to a man—"You are not charged with drunkenness; but you are found guilty of insubordination, which you never heard of until you had your letter of dismissal," ho said that the Police Force would read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the conduct of the Government. He appealed, therefore, to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he valued the fidelity of the Irish police, to remember that they were Irishmen, that most of them were Catholics, that they knew that there were placed above them officers hostile to them in politics if not in religion, and that they were men who must sympathize, to a great extent, with the movements taking place in Ireland—he appealed to him not to allow those men to think that the Government wanted to throw a screen over the most terrible charge which could be brought against mankind, and which had called down fire from Heaven thousands of years ago. He said that if, under these circumstances, the Government refused an inquiry they would strike a great blow at their own Service in Ireland; and when, perhaps, it was most needed, they might find the Irish Constabulary a weapon that had broken in their grasp.

said, he thought the feeling uppermost on those Benches was one of surprise that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not answered the appeal made to him by the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy'). His hon. and learned Friend had pointed out with a great deal of force, which everyone in the House would recognize, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, who replied on this case, must of necessity be utterly ignorant of the whole matter. It had been pointed out by more than one speaker on those Benches that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was himself Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at a period when there occurred a ease very similar to that of Inspector Murphy; it had been pointed out that the right hon. Gentleman had personally dealt with the case of a police officer during his term of Office; and, under the circumstances, he thought it surprising that he had not thought it fit to respond to the appeal made to him. The silence of right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench might be due to the fact that it was not a very congenial task to them to take up the fag-ends of the business left them by the late Government. It was said that a new broom swept clean; but it was evident that the broom which swept away the late Government from Office had left certain disreputable things in Ireland, and it was impossible not to sympathize with the Government in having to associate themselves with the acts of their Predecessors. It had been put forward by Irish Members that Inspector Murphy was dismissed because he was giving information which led to the detection of French. If that was not so, why was Mr. Murphy dismissed? It was not denied that Mr. Murphy had been treated in an altogether unprecedented way, and as no other officer of the Constabulary had ever been treated, so far as hon. Members were aware. And, therefore, taking into consideration the fact that Mr. Murphy had been treated in a most unusual way, it was reasonable for the Irish Members and the people of Ireland to look round and inquire what possible reason could there be for treating Mr. District Inspector Murphy in a manner in which no other police officer had been treated in the whole course of the constitution of the Royal Irish Con- stabulary. Why was the man treated unusually? Echo answered, why? In looking round for the reason the remarkable fact came to the surface that Murphy was the man who originally gave to an hon. Member of the House the information which led to the exposure of Mr. French and those other Government officials in Ireland who acted in such a disreputable and infamous way. It was the most natural thing in the world that the Irish Members and the people of Ireland generally should come to the conclusion, after due deliberation, that Murphy was dismissed the Force because he was the man who gave the information which brought about the conviction of Mr. French and the disbanding of the gentlemen whose acts had rendered the reign of Earl Spencer so infamous. Unless they got some better reason for Murphy's dismissal than had as yet been given, he and his hon. Friends, and the people whom they represented, would remain firmly under the impression that Murphy was made a victim because he led to the exposures which had covered with so much disgrace and infamy the name of Earl Spencer and his administration in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) had said Mr. Murphy was dismissed not because of the charge of drunkenness, but on account, of insubordination which he displayed from time to time during his 18 years' service in the Constabulary. The hon. Member (Mr. J. Redmond) who commenced this discussion spoke very frankly indeed of the cases of insubordination of which Mr. Murphy was convicted, pointing out that Murphy was convicted and punished for the insubordination of which at different periods he had been guilty. And after such a statement the House was told by the right hon. Gentleman that Murphy was dismissed for insubordination. Now, he (Mr. W. Redmond) wished to know if it was the fact that if a Constabulary officer was guilty of insubordination, and was punished for it, the offence could be raked up against him 10 or 15 years afterwards in order that he might be dismissed the Force? It was very necessary that question should be settled, because, as the matter now stood, they had heard nothing from the right hon. Gentleman to teach them anything else but that when the charge of drunken- ness fell through Mr. Murphy was dismissed for the old acts of insubordination for which he had been punished years before. Now, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) had already pointed out a fact which they had not got admitted as yet by any Member of the Treasury Bench. He (Mr. W. Redmond). with perfect earnestness and a full desire to gain information, would ask the new Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Sir William Hart Dyke), who, he believed, would be sufficiently courteous to give him a reply, whether it was not a fact that, according to the Constabulary Code of Regulations, a man who was charged with an offence must have a written notification of the offence given to him before the day on which the investigation of the charge against him was to take place? If that was one of the Constabulary Regulations, was it put into force in the case of Mr. Murphy? An answer ought to be given to that question. Either Murphy got a written notification of what he was to be charged with, or he did not; and if he did not, the Constabulary Regulations were not carried out, and the man was convicted in an irregular and, it appeared to him (Mr. W. Redmond), an infamous manner. It had not been alleged that night that Murphy was guilty of any insubordination save that for which he was punished, and for which, according to the theory of the authorities, he was ultimately dismissed. Upon that point a full and frank statement ought to be made by right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, because, whether they made it or not, the truth would ultimately be proclaimed.

said, he did not wish to follow the course the debate had taken, but simply rose in answer to an appeal made to him by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), whom he desired to thank for the flattering remarks he had made about him (Mr. Plunket). The hon. and learned Gentleman made an appeal to him as having taken part in a debate in the House in 1876 upon a case very like the one which was now presented to the House. He was ashamed to confess to the hon. and learned Member that when he called his attention to the circum- stance it had passed away from his recollection. But he had since referred to the report of the debate in Hansard, and he found he could explain to the House exactly how the matter stood. There was certainly considerable similarity between the two cases. In both cases a Constabulary officer was dismissed for insubordination, and his case was afterwards brought before the House of Commons. There was this further degree of similarity—that the Chief Secretary of that day, and now Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), at first declined to grant an inquiry upon the ground that he placed confidence in the Inspector General of Constabulary in Ireland; and he was not prepared to re-open the question as between the Inspector General and his subordinate officer. So far, the cases were exactly on all fours. But the peculiarity of the case which arose in 1876 was that a document was produced, which purported to be a Report made by Mr. George Alexander Hamilton, who at one time had been a Secretary to the Treasury, giving the view of the case which was taken in official quarters. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) had heard something about the alleged Report of Mr. Hamilton; but he treated it with indifference, as it had no signs of a genuine document about it. The document, however, had been circulated two days previously amongst Members of the House, and had produced a great impression, because, as ho had said, it purported to be a Report of an official of the Treasury, and was supported by a letter which appeared to give colour to its veracity.

asked if the right hon. and learned Gentleman recollected whether the original Report itself was ever produced?

said, he was about to explain to the House what really happened. The Report produced a great effect on the House; it was thought it would be better that an inquiry should be held, and under the circumstances an inquiry was granted. The inquiry resulted in the discovery that the document was a forgery, and, as far as he understood the case, that the view taken by his right hon. Friend Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) was the correct one. He (Mr. Plunket) did not wish to pursue the matter further, having shown the difference between this case and the one to which the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Healy) had called his attention.

said, he had listened with amazement to the line which the present Government had thought it their duty to take upon this question. He could not understand why they should hold that an investigation conducted by themselves into the case of Mr. Murphy, late Inspector in the Irish Constabulary, would in the slightest degree affect the good order and discipline of the Force. Indeed, it appeared to him that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) had himself given them a very good argument in favour of an inquiry, for he had called to their recollection the result of an inquiry which was held in the case of Captain Croker, an Inspector of the Irish Constabulary, a case which he (Mr. Parnell) remembered very well. It was discovered that Captain Croker had no case against the Government, and that he had put forward a forged document. Was not that a very happy result for the Government? Why should that case be quoted by the right hon. Gentleman as a case where the granting of an inquiry resulted in injury to the discipline of the Force, because the only ground that this or the last Government took up in refusing the Motion for inquiry into the case of Mr. Murphy was that it would injure the discipline of the Force? Of course, they knew very well that there were other grounds behind that ostensible one. They knew very well that the late Government could not give an inquiry into the case of Mr. Murphy, because Earl Spencer's administration in Ireland, and Earl Spencer's personal action, would have been placed in a very disagreeable light. But the present Government did not stand committed, so far as he could see from their action, to uphold Earl Spencer in every particular, or to swear that everything Earl Spencer did was absolutely right. However much it might be necessary for the late Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) to oppose such a Motion as this, he (Mr. Parnell) could not see in what respect the present Government were committed against it. Ho submitted that an overwhelming case for inquiry had been made out by his hon. Friends; and therefore they were entitled to a more definite answer than they had received from the present Government. It was manifestly absurd to plead that the discipline of the Force would be affected by giving an officer of the Force who, apparently, had been? wrongfully dismissed a fair trial, or by granting a fair inquiry into the reasons of his dismissal. It had been shown by his hon. Friends that night that Inspector Murphy was an officer of very old standing in the Force; that at the time of his dismissal he had been in the Royal Irish Constabulary for 18 years; and that during the whole of that time the only fault alleged against him was an insubordinate tone in certain correspondence which passed between him and the Inspector General of Constabulary of Ireland, between the years, according to the statement of the late Chief Secretary, 1875 and 1881. According to the statement of the late Lord Lieutenant, Earl Spencer, Inspector Murphy was dismissed, not for the charge of drunkenness, which was now admitted on all hands to be absolutely unfounded, but solely on account of the insubordinate tone he adopted in the correspondence during the years from 1875 to 1881; indeed, the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Holmes), in his very able speech that night, admitted that if Inspector Murphy had been dismissed for nothing else than the insubordinate tone in the correspondence in question, ho would have considered it an unjust dismissal, not a very illogical conclusion on the part of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, because it appeared rather illogical to dismiss a man for the offence of which he was not found guilty, and to refuse to commit him for the offence which was brought against him; and the seriousness of the charge brought by the Irish Members was this — that it was not until 188– that action was taken in reference to these matters, and then only after an inquiry into a totally different charge—namely, the charge of drunkenness. If it was right that Inspector Murphy should have been dismissed for writing these letters during the years from 1875 to 1881, his dismissal should have immediately followed that offence. It was preposterous—nay, more, it was eminently unjust—on the part of the Government only to recollect these acts of insubordination so many years after they had been committed, and when serious comments had been made, which showed that ho had had a hand in bringing James Ellis French to justice. Before Inspector Murphy had ceased writing the letters which were complained of, he obtained a favourable record from his superior officers, and was commended for his services, so that he (Mr. Parnell) was entitled to hold that these alleged offences had been looked over and forgotten. But what was the nature of these alleged offences? The House would be surprised when he told them that Inspector Murphy's sole offence against subordination was that he paid his addresses to a young lady, whose father objected to those addresses, as he had a right to do; that he—the father—addressed remonstrances to the superior officer of Inspector Murphy, and asked that officer to interfere and prevent Murphy from renewing or repeating these addresses— which were addresses with a view to marriage; that the superior officer of Constabulary in Ireland did intervene at the request of the father, and did remonstrate with Murphy, and directed him to discontinue his addresses; and that Murphy, as any man of spirit would have done under similar circumstances, refused, and repeatedly refused, in the letters which were alleged to be insubordinate, to cease these attentions. Now, that was the whole story of Inspector Murphy's insubordination from the year 1870. It could be substantiated by reference to names; but these, of course, he (Mr. Parnell) would not give. That was the whole history of Murphy's insubordination committed, according to the statement of the late Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, between the years 1875 and 1881, and for which, according to Earl Spencer's letter, Murphy was dismissed in 1884. It was obvious that the action the Government had taken in this matter, and their refusal to grant an investigation, so far from being an advantage to the discipline of the Force, must tend to injure it to an extreme extent. In 1882, after the necessity for it was practically over and Inspector Murphy's alleged insubordinate conduct had ceased, Murphy received favourable mention from his superior officers. In that year ho ad- dressed a round robin to the Lord Lieutenant—subsequent to the commendation—in his own name and those of four other persons in the Constabulary. They alleged in the round robin to have evidence in their possession which would tend to incriminate Detective Inspector French of the offence for which he was recently tried and convicted. The round robin was, of course, anonymous, and it could not be traced to Inspector Murphy at the time. But, in the subsequent year, the Government were able to trace out that Inspector Murphy was the originator of this round robin; and then it was that the charge of drunkenness, of which he was admittedly innocent, was trumped up against him, owing to the necessity which French, the Detective Inspector of Constabulary, felt under of shielding himself. This charge was trumped up against him, and it was ordered that he should be brought before a Court of Inquiry. The Court of Inquiry held its sittings, and, as a result, Inspector Murphy was informed that he was dismissed the Service, not on account of the charge of drunkenness, but on account of the alleged acts of insubordination committed between the years 1875 and 1881. Now, he would not—he did not think it necessary— explain to the House the manner in which the Government obtained information that Inspector Murphy was moving, in order to obtain a vindication of justice in reference to the man French. But they undoubtedly did obtain that information, and as soon as they obtained it proceedings were commenced against French, and he was sent to a part of the country where it was impossible to entrap him. That course of action was successful, and Murphy was finally dismissed from the Force, after 18 years' service, without a pension, and with his character ruined. His [Mr. Darnell's) hon. Friends had pointed out, during the course of this debate, in reference to the denial which had been repeatedly given on the part of the Government, that the five persons who signed the round robin of Inspector Murphy—that the five names mentioned as being the witnesses, or as having evidence to give of French's guilt, were the five persons who were called on by the Inspector General of Constabulary immediately French was attacked in United Ireland. They were at once sent for and asked for their evidence—asked what they knew with regard to French. They gave their evidence, and the result of it was that the Government were able to get up a case against French which resulted in his conviction. First of all he was suspended, then he was convicted, and he was now suffering the punishment of his crimes. He (Mr. Darnell) contended that that was a sufficient answer to he denial of the Government. It proved that the denial of the officials in the Constabulary as to the receipt of this round robin was not true. He maintained that the fact that the five men, and only the five men, who were mentioned in the round robin by Inspector Murphy as being important witnesses were called in by the Inspector General of Constabulary—who was one of the persons to whom the round robin was addressed—immediately the attack was made on French showed that the denial of the authorities was not true. How was it that the Constabulary authorities hit upon these five men, and only these five—that they did not call six, seven, or eight persons? Why did they not call three out of the five? Why was it that they called these five men, and none others, as witnesses against French on the preliminary inquiry and investigation they made as to the man's character in the Force? It was manifest that it must have been in consequence of the round robin which they had received, and which had not miscarried in the post—which had been sent by Inspector Murphy both to Earl Spencer and to the Inspector General of Constabulary. It was manifest that it was this round robin which enabled the authorities to put their hands on the five men whose testimony it was necessary for them to obtain in order to get at the clues and proofs of French's guilt. It was manifest that it was from this document of Murphy's that the Constabulary authorities had got their information, and that it was this document that first put it into their heads in Dublin Castle to prosecute this unfortunate man to his doom and to his ruin. It was evident that this matter could not be loft where it was. It was true the Government had only lately come into Office, and that it might not, perhaps, have been expected by them that this matter would have been reached that night, the Motion not having had the first place in the Order Book, and that it might not have been possible for them to fully consider this very great and very important question. Undoubtedly it was a disagreeable thing for a Government which had lately come into power to reverse the acts of its Predecessors or to throw discredit upon them, especially in reference to so serious a matter as the administration of law and order in Ireland. But he thought that the Government ought to be strong enough even to do that. They had already reversed the policy and the acts of their Predecessors in a much more important matter than an inquiry into the question of the dismissal of such an humble individual as Inspector Murphy. The question of the renewal of the Prevention of Crime Act was of ten thousand fold more importance, regarding the whole government of Ireland, than the yielding of assent to the Motion of his hon. Friend would be; and ho did think that if they were strong enough — and he believed the result would prove that the Government were strong enough—to do without the Prevention of Crime Act in Ireland— that the result of their action in that respect would be its justification. If the Government had been strong enough to do that, he maintained that they were strong enough to grant an inquiry into the case of Inspector Murphy. They ought to be ten thousand times stronger than the necessity of such a case; and he submitted that until the Irish Members had received some better answer from the able Attorney General for Ireland—who undoubtedly had handled this case in a way in which it had never been handled before by any Irish Law Officer—they could not rest satisfied. He (Mr. Parnell) had listened to the defence which the late Attorney General for Ireland had sought to make and to the defence which the present Irish Attorney General had endeavoured to make; and ho was bound to say that the last-named right hon. and learned Gentleman had handled his case in as able and vigorous a manner as it was possible for any man to handle one consisting of such wretched materials. But he was bound to say that although the right hon. and learned Gentleman had done his best, he had not been able to put a face upon it; and until the Irish Members had something better to meet them than the defence which had been attempted that night by the right hon. and learned Gentleman find the late Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and the defence attempted some time ago by the late Attorney General, it was manifest that the Irish Members, in justice to the people of Ireland, who loved fair play, and who considered that Inspector Murphy had been shamefully ill-treated in this matter, and in justice to Inspector Murphy himself, would have again to recur to the question. Before ho sat down he would ask the Government this—whether the door was finally closed against justice to Inspector Murphy? Would they not further reconsider this matter? Important Cabinet Ministers had been present that night during a portion of the debate. During its later stages they had had the advantage of the presence of the Home Secretary (Sir R. Assheton Cross), the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) — who had had considerable experience of Irish administration—the Secretary of State for War (Mr. W. H. Smith), and the Secretary of State for India (Lord Randolph Churchill). He was bound to say he was always pleased when he saw such officials as the Home Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and those others whom he had named, taking any interest in an Irish question. Ho had had some experience of the candour and fair dealing of the Home Secretary in the last Parliament, in very similar cases to this; and he had always found the right hon. Gentleman's mind open to reason, and had always found him anxious to inquire into cases of alleged injustice, and to leave no room or opening or excuse for saying that justice had not been done. And what he would say before ho sat down was this—Would not the Government further consider this matter, and if they thought that the case which had been made by the late Government and by the present Attorney General for Ireland was not of such a nature as they ought to rely upon, and that the Irish Members had put forward not only a prima facie case, but a very strong case in proof of their contention that Inspector Murphy had been badly used, would they not, without, perhaps, formally agreeing to a Parliamentary Motion on going into Supply, give this matter further attention, and see whether it was not possible to hold, of their own will and of their own sense of justice, this inquiry, which they had refused on the Motion of his hon. Friend?

I should like to say a few words before the debate comes to a close. First of all, I desire to answer a question put to me, I think, by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. W. Redmond) in reference to the Police Code now existing. I confess I have not had time to look at the Code. I have consulted the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Holmes); and, so far as I understand the question, notice ought to be given in a case where an inquiry is necessary as to a matter of fact—that is to say, where a general charge is brought against a constable; but where a case of insubordination occurs which is patent to everybody, and which, on the face of it, requires no inquiry at all —such as writing an insubordinate letter —that notice is not necessary.

The Code says "all charges."

Of course, I had fully anticipated, when I went to the Irish Office, that all my sins, present and to come, would be visited on my unworthy head, but that that would be the full modicum of the visitation I should receive; and I must frankly state to the House that this debate has placed me in a position of some difficulty. In the first place, if I am asked to reopen a charge which is brought against the late Administration, I say at once that the position is one of extreme embarrassment, because a majority of this House has already supported the view which the late Government took. Hon. Members from Ireland must forgive me if I do not go minutely into the circumstances of this case. In the first place, I have not had time to ascertain them; and, in the next place, I do not possess the legal ability and acumen of my right hon. and learned Friend near me (Mr. Holmes), who, I am bound to say, has stated the case admirably from our point of view. But there is one point on which I wish to rest my judgment in the matter. I would simply ask whether Colonel Bruce, who is accused of having caused the discharge of District Inspector Murphy, acted from bond fide motives, or from some motive behind in what he did? I am bound to come to the conclusion that neither in the debate that has just taken place, nor in the previous debate in December last, or in any paper that I have read, can I find any trace of suspicion against Colonel Bruce to induce me to think that he did not act in a perfectly bond fide manner in discharging Mr. Murphy. As to the letter which is asserted to have been posted by Mr. Murphy, and which is asserted never to have been received by anybody, it must be borne in mind that in dealing with it we are simply dealing with a matter of assertion on the one side and on the other; and however anxious one might be to go into the matter, and do justice to both sides, after all the case must rest on simple assertions. On the one hand, there does not seem to me to be any evidence to show that this round robin was ever posted, or, on the other hand, that it was ever received. Coming back to the action of Colonel Bruce on the discharge of Murphy, I find that, long previous to the horrible charges against French, and their horrible surroundings, and before Inspector Murphy moved in that matter at all, ho was being constantly reprimanded for something or other. He was reprimanded, I find, in 1875, again in 1877, in 1878, in 1879, and again in 1881. Therefore, I find that in each succeeding year Inspector Murphy was reprimanded; and what strikes me is this. Although it may be true that the charge of drunkenness was not fully sustained, yet it may have formed sufficient ground, in the mind of Colonel Bruce, for his discharge. What I wish to put to the Irish Members, and I know they will forgive me if I speak plainly to them, is this. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) spoke of the Government having just come into power, and proposing to relax the Prevention of Crime Act. It has been stated, both here and in the other House of Parliament, that we are doing this of our own will, and entirely upon our own responsibility. I say, then, to the Members from Ireland that they know as well as ourselves what our responsibilities will be; and all I can urge is that, if we are to make these concessions in regard to exceptional legislation, it becomes even more imperatively our bounden duty in all cases to support the Executive as it exists in Ireland at this moment. The evidence afforded by the papers, and by the previous debate, does not give us the least excuse for declining to support the Executive in Ireland. I have said that we have only a cursory knowledge of the matter; but, as far as we have dealt with it, we do not think we should be justified in granting the inquiry asked for by the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. J. Redmond). I will not detain the House longer upon the question. I will only add that, of course, if any fresh circumstances should arise, I do not think it would be fair, or right, or just, that we should debar ourselves from consenting to an inquiry. But, as at present advised, we do not see the necessity; and, on the part of the Government, I cannot accede to the demand of the hon. Member.

said, the spirit of frankness manifested by the Front Bench afforded a marked contrast to the virulent feeling exhibited by the late Government on the 13th of March. Although he felt very strongly upon the case, he did not think his hon. Friend ought to go to a division after the speech of the Chief Secretary, who had plainly intimated that if any new fact should arise it would still be open to the Government to consent to an inquiry. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that, at the present moment, he only possessed a cursory knowledge of the facts of the case; and he accepted the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that if hereafter new evidence could be furnished a further inquiry would be made. The course pursued by the Chief Secretary, although the right hon. Gentleman strongly defended his Executive, was in strong contrast to that of his Scotch Predecessor. On the former occasion the late Chief Secretary (Mr. Campbell-Banner-man) displayed a most unconciliatory spirit, and had stated all the points that were calculated to toll against Inspector Murphy, without adding one which told in his favour. On that occasion he (Mr. Callan) had felt it his duty to read, from a document which had been handed to him by Mr. Murphy, testimonials to his character, which had been given, among others, by Lord Ardilaun, Sir R. J. Lynch, and Colonel Chichester. He was glad to say that the latter was not an Irishman, but an Englishman; but he had read the character given to Mr. Murphy by Colonel Chichester, in the hope that the House would attach some value to it, seeing that a few weeks previously the same gentleman had given the highest character to Earl Spencer, and he had thought the House might take the two together—quantum valeat. If the character given to Earl Spencer was of any value, certainly equal value ought to attach to a character given to Mr. Murphy by the same gentleman. A day or two after the debate Colonel Chichester sent a letter to him by the registered post, impugning his statement, and asking him upon what authority he had made it, and some time afterwards a letter from Colonel Chichester appeared in the columns of The Freeman's Journal, stating that the statement was a gross falsehood. He had borne the brunt of that attack patiently; but he now held in his hand not only the letter sent by Colonel Chichester through the registered post, but also the original character which Colonel Chichester had given to Inspector Murphy. He had submitted both to an expert in handwriting, and he was quite prepared to prove that the statement made by Inspector Murphy and the statement made by himself in that House, that Colonel Chichester had given this high character to Inspector Murphy, were perfectly true. He had simply risen for the purpose of giving Colonel Chichester another opportunity of denying the fact that he had given this character to Inspector Murphy; and he would only add that the late Chief Secretary to Earl Spencer and Colonel Chichester were equally reliable and worthy of credit.

said, that as the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) had drawn special attention to the fact that he was present in the House, he wished to say a few words before the debate closed. From his knowledge of the personal character of his relative the Inspector General of the Royal Irish Constabulary, it would be easy to convince the House of the absurdity of supposing that there could be any truth in the charge made against him of having wished to conceal the abominable crimes which had been committed in Dublin during the last few years. He particularly wished to draw the attention of the House to one of the statements which had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Sir W. Hart Dyke) that Mr. Murphy was reprimanded for insubordination in 1875 and subsequent years. It was long after that date that his brother became Inspector General of the Irish Constabulary, and therefore he could not have been the original promoter of the charges of insubordination.

said, he did not propose to offer a single remark on the case which had been the subject of debate that evening; but he simply wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to inquire whether the insubordination had not been condoned by repeated favourable Reports, on various occasions, under different Inspecting Officers, and whether the charges on which Mr. Murphy was dismissed had not been trumped up in spite of such condonation after the charge of drunkenness had failed?

said, he did not see the least objection to making such an inquiry as that which the hon. Member suggested.

asked the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury how the Government proposed to take the Votes which now stood for Committee on Monday and subsequent days?

said, it was proposed on Monday to take the Army Estimates; then the remainder of Class III., except the Irish Votes. It was thought that it would be more convenient to take all the Irish Votes on Monday week, and Vote 1 of Class 1 on Wednesday. The Education Vote would be taken on Tuesday.

thought it would be inconvenient to postpone the Irish Votes until Monday week, and he objected to their being put off so that they might all be taken together.

said, that of course the Government had no wish to do anything that would be inconvenient, and perhaps it might be desirable to proceed with any non-contentious Vote taking the others as soon as they could. Unfortunately Monday and Tuesday were already appropriated.

said, that it appeared to him, after a hasty and perhaps imperfect consultation he had been able to have with his hon. Friends, that the course suggested by the Financial Secretary would be the most convenient—namely, that the Irish Votes should not be taken until Monday week. If the hon. Gentleman proposed to proceed with any non-contentious Votes that night there would be no objection.

said, he should be glad to take any non-contentious Votes in Class III.

asked if the hon. Gentleman could not take the non-contentious Votes on Monday week equally well?

said, ho had no intention of pressing it. It was only a matter which had suggested itself.

remarked, that there were two postponed Votes in Class II., and others in Class III.

said, that was so. He wished to know if there were any non-contentious Votes in Class III.?

No.

said, there were one or two matters in the Bill which required amendment in Committee. One of them was a piece of bad drafting, for the Bill spoke of a person "in custody elsewhere than in prison." He did not see how a man could be in custody except in prison. Then, again, cases often came under his notice of convictions quashed by certiorari. Now the law in Ireland was that a man must lie in prison while the case was being argued; and he thought it would be a good thing if the Bill were to provide that if a case of certiorari arose the man should be held to bail pending the decision. He thought the provisions of the Bill were not sufficiently wide to carry that, and he therefore hoped they would be amended in the way he had described.