in rising to call the attention of the House to the inequality of Imperial Taxation on Ireland; and to move for a—

"Return of the Gross Imperial Revenue of Ireland derived from taxation, and of the Population of Ireland for the years 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1881, and a like Return for Great Britain for the same years, being in both cases a continuation, in like form, of Parliamentary Paper, No. 407, of Session 1874,"

said, he noticed that the hon. Member (Sir George Campbell) had given Notice to insert "Scotland" instead of "Ireland;" but he begged to say that if the hon. Member made out his case for Scotland against the rest of Great Britain that would only strengthen the Irish case. When he had last addressed the House on the subject of the unequal incidence of Imperial taxation on Ireland as compared with Great Britain the right hon. Gentleman then, as now, at the head of Her Majesty's Government (Mr. Gladstone) had heard what he had to say on the subject—or, at least, heard all he had said, for his (Sir Joseph M'Kenna's) speech was not concluded when it appeared fit to the officials of the Government whose duty it was to "keep a House" or permit "a Count out," to allow the latter alternative to be availed of. There was not so much danger of a similar catastrophe to-night; and yet he would ask hon. Members for English and Scotch constituencies to give some attention to the case he was about to submit, as it was the key to understanding many things connected with Ireland which at first sight did not appear to be connected with Imperial taxation. It was not his intention to accuse any particular Party or Statesman of intentional injustice to Ireland in the matter of Imperial taxation. He should content himself by exhibiting the case as it stood, showing by Parliamentary Returns how the taxation of Ireland had been increased, and by what proportions, decade by decade, since 1841, in the face of a waning population; whilst in the case of Great Britain, notwithstanding a vast increase of population and wealth, and the natural and consequent increased charge for carrying on the Business of the State, the taxation of Great Britain had been so regulated, and the Revenue so husbanded in her favour, that the pressure of taxation had been continuously lightened, so that as the taxes increased in actual amount their pressure—whether measured by the growing wealth of the country or by their incidence in respect to each head of the population—was less in 1871 than in 1841, 1851, or 1861; and he believed it would be equally shown that the pressure so measured was still less in 1881 for Great Britain. Before he entered on the details of this comparison, he was bound to explain wherein consisted the injustice of the disparity of taxation. Adam Smith laid down in his Treatise on The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Book V., Chapter 2) this proposition, which had never been contested—

"The subjects of every State ought to contribute towards the support of the Government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities—that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the State. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the State. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality, or inequality, of taxation."

That maxim in the case of Ireland had been for the last 30 years grievously violated. He held in his hand the Parliamentary Return of the 7th of August, 1874, which gave the Revenue derived from taxation of Great Britain and Ireland at the decennial periods 1841, 1851, 1861, and 1871, furnished by the Treasury, by Order of this House, on his (Sir Joseph M'Kenna's) Motion. The year 1841 was included in that Return in order that the House might have, in juxtaposition, the taxation of Ireland, before, as well as after, the Famine of 1846. The gross Imperial taxation of Ireland in 1841, with a population exceeding 8,000,000, was £3,907,238. The Irish people were not lightly taxed, then, but heavily taxed, having regard to actual ability. Nevertheless, 41 years after the Union, measured by population, the taxation was 9s. 6¼d. per head, and no more. The Imperial taxation of Ireland in 1851 did not recede as compared to 1841, although the population was reduced from 8,175,124 to 6,552,385. The taxation of Ireland in 1851 was £4,006,711. One should rather have expected a reduction. He founded no complaint on that, however; he merely asked hon. Members to bear in mind that 51 years after the Union the Imperial taxation of Ireland stood at £4,000,000 sterling. Owing to the decrease of population over which this taxation had to be distributed, the incidence measured per head rose from 9s. 6¼d.in 1841 to 12s. 2¾d. in 1851. The next decade showed more astonishing figures. Between 1851 and 1861 the Imperial taxation of Ireland was raised from £4,006,711 to £6,420,378, an awful bound, quite 60 per cent increase of the burden; but a still greater increase when measured by each head of the diminished population which had to bear it, for it showed an advance from 12s. 2¼d. to £1 2s. 1¼d. per head, being about 75 per cent in the decade. Between 1861 and 1871 the Imperial taxation of Ireland increased from £6,420,000 to £7,086,593, which showed an increase of 75 per cent as compared to the amount at which it stood 20 years before; but this increase, operating on a still diminishing population, raised the incidence for each head of the population from 12s. 2¼d. in 1851 to £1 6s. 1d. in 1871, an increase in the 20 years of 120 per cent. And he ventured to say that when they obtained the Return which he now looked for, it would be shown that owing to the diminution of the population—even though the gross taxation had ceased to ascend—that the increase of taxation, as measured per head of the population, had grown still more severe. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had adverted to the rule laid down by Adam Smith, that taxation should, as nearly as possible, be levied on the subjects of a State in the ratio of the incomes which they enjoyed under its protection. That principle applied in strongest force to Empires made up of several Nationalities, and where the possessions of an entire people might be measured with approximate accuracy. How that principle had been set at nought in the case of Ireland and Great Britain he expected to make very clear. In 1851 the Imperial taxation of Ireland was, as compared with that of Great Britain, as one to 12. In 1861, owing to the disproportionately increased levy of Imperial taxation in Ireland, the proportion of the Irish contribution was raised to that of one to nine. In 1871, owing to the still further increase of Imperial taxes on Ireland, the proportion was raised to that of one to eight. Since then, so far as Ireland was concerned, there had not been a vestige of relief or amelioration of any kind. A Return obtained by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. M'Laren) in 1884, to which he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) should again have occasion to refer, would show that for the year ended March, 1883, the Imperial taxation levied off Ireland only amounted to a sum equal to l–10th of Great Britain; but no burden had been struck off Ireland in the meantime. That country had simply broken down, and her purchasing powers had fallen away in the ratio of the diminution of the population since 1871. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) should now elucidate the unfairness of the increase of the taxation in Ireland by showing what was the course of things in Great Britain in respect to Imperial taxation within the period 1841 to 1871. The taxation of Great Britain, measured relatively to each head of the population, was—in 1841, £2 9s. 9¼d.; in 1851, £2 7s. 4¼d.; in 1861, £2 9s. 9s; in 1871, £2 4s. 1¼d.—showing a decrease of 11 per cent in the incidence, as measured in respect to each head of the population, between 1841 and 1871. When the like test was applied to the taxation of the population of Ireland, it was found that it had been augmented from 9s. 6¼d. per head in 1841 to £1 6s. 2¼d. in 1871, an increase of 175 per cent, mark, during the very same period when the pressure of taxation was reduced 11 per cent in respect to each head of the population of Great Britain. But, then, he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had been told that the taxation for each head of the population of Great Britain still greatly exceeded the taxation in respect of each head of the population of Ireland. Yes, truly; and the taxation in respect to each head of the population of Ireland was five times as great as the taxation in respect to each head of the population of India; but that did not prove that the Indian population was not more heavily taxed than the Irish, for taxation had to be estimated, and ought to be levied, in proportion to wealth, and not in the ratio of numbers. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had adduced the comparison of the taxation in respect to the populations of Great Britain and Ireland simply to show that in regard to Great Britain it had demonstrated progressive alleviation, and in respect to Ireland an extraordinarily progressive increase of burden. As to the relative powers of Great Britain and Ireland to sustain taxation, he should be more specific presently. There was nothing which he then adduced that had not been within the knowledge of Parliament for more than 10 years; but the legitimate arguments based thereon had been met with every form of evasion. One right hon. Gentleman, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, who now adorned the Upper House, had the temerity to say that Ireland was not taxed at all, but individuals, no doubt, were taxed who happened to reside in Ireland; but their taxation must have been just and fair, because the same tariff was applied in respect to the same articles, whether consumed in Ireland or in Great Britain, and so he disposed of all grievance, ignoring, or affecting to ignore, the fact that unless the habits of the different nations constituting the United Kingdom were identical, and their relative wealth equal, the fact of identity of impost or duty applying to the articles they all more or less consumed afforded no guarantee whatever for the equality of their taxation. Another right hon. Gentleman, who had also been translated to the same convenient haven, whilst admitting the general facts, and that a case of disparity had been made out, raised this phantom of an argument—that he doubted whether it might not be shown that great disparity existed in the incidence of taxation in one district of England as compared to another; and so he generalized that, because some disparity might exist between one part of England and another, nothing was to be done to mitigate the disparity of taxation between Great Britain as a whole and Ireland as a whole—not even a Commission of Inquiry or a Select Committee was necessary. Not the slightest attempt was made to show why the taxation of Ireland should be increased £3,000,000 a-year contemporaneously with a decrease of 3,000,000 of the population of the unfortunate country; and so things had gone on from bad to worse, redress appearing impossible. All that time there had been great sympathy in England with any foreign Nationality or State which rebelled against its Sovereign or Suzerain. There was slight heed for Ireland calling out in her distress whilst her people were flying from her shores. But the House, as at present constituted, would expect him (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) on this occasion not merely to point out the fiscal results, but to show how the injustice of which he complained had been carried out, and particularly to show how it was possible that a common tariff, applicable with similar duties to Great Britain and Ireland, should favour the former, and work out conspicuous injustice to Ireland. He would explain all this, not exhaustively, but, he hoped, sufficiently. The greatest source of Revenue in the United Kingdom—of the many which existed—was that which might be generalized under the head of "Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages." These were not regulated according to any scientific principle. If it were so, they would, doubtless, be taxed equally, having regard to the quantity of alcohol contained in each. The disparity of duties, however, in respect to alcohol was not of recent origin; but the nature of the disparity had been in our own times altered, and this alteration had been made so as to give England the greatest advantage, and to press with extreme and exhaustive severity on Ireland. From 1840 up to the year 1880, with a slight interval, the Malt Duties—which were, in fact, the duties on brewers' drinks, ale, porter, and beer—had been levied at the rate of 2s. 8¼d. a-bushel on the dry malt. There had also been a duty on hops, another ingredient of beer; but he would take no further notice of that duty at present, but content himself by saying that the duty was in its result equal to a tax of 2s. a-gallon on the alcoholic equivalent of every gallon of proof spirits contained in the beer. Since that time, in 1880, the Malt Duty had been repealed, and for it was substituted a duty on the brewed liquor computed according to its alcoholic strength. When the right hon. Gentleman now at the head of Her Majesty's Government (Mr. Gladstone) carried the measure for commutation of the Malt Duty into a Liquor Duty, he exposed the fact that the duty on the English national beverage of beer, porter, and ale was only 2s. in respect to the alcoholic equivalent of every gallon of proof spirits contained in the brewed drink. Everyone would agree that in that case there had been an enormous disparity in the tax on alcohol where brewers' drinks constituted the chief popular beverage, as they did in England, contrasted with the duty of 10s. a-gallon on the Irish popular beverage, to which it had been raised from 2s. 8d. a-gallon, the rate of duty in 1853. Now, they had to consider the effect of the increase of the Spirit Duty from 2s. 8d. a-gallon to 10s. a-gallon between 1853 and 1871. The effect of the increase of duty would be illustrated by the following fact, shown by the Return in his hand, if carefully examined. From a population reduced by 1,140,000 souls, and in spite of a reduced consumption of 1,700,000 gallons, there was extracted £2,300,000 more tax on this one article in the year 1871 than in 1851. That was a contemporaneous relief of so much to England. Every additional pound levied off the people of Ireland went as palpably in relief of English taxpayers, or in reduction of the National Debt, as if the amount had been levied off Ireland as a rate in aid or a war ransom. Some people were surprised, or affected to be surprised, for some years past that things had, so to say, broken down in Ireland, and that there had been an uprising against rent. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) was certainly not surprised, except that all that had not occurred in Ireland many years before. In no part of Europe, or of the world, so far as he knew, did so monstrous a system of fiscal injustice prevail as the fiscal system of the United Kingdom in its bearing on Ireland. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) attributed no malignant design to anyone; he left it for those who were curious on such matters to determine whether the permanent officials of the Treasury in former years, or the Statesmen who held Her Majesty's Seals of Office, were, or had been, the real authors and inventors of the system. But see in what it had eventuated. In extracting an annual amount of Imperial taxation from Ireland, which, measured by income, would require an Income Tax of 5s. 3d. in the pound to commute it, whilst to commute the whole Imperial taxation of Great Britain into an Income Tax would only require a rating fractionally in excess of 2s. 6d. on identical Schedules to those of Ireland—he could give the precise computations, but that he feared to weary the House, whose indulgence he had already trespassed upon. There had been a Return obtained a few Sessions before by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. M'Laren), which purported to give the actual and relative contributions to Revenue by taxation of each of the three countries constituting the United Kingdom. By that Return it appeared that the Revenue raised by taxation in Ireland equalled in amount l–10th of the sum raised by taxation in Great Britain for the year ending 31st March, 1883. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) assumed that Return to be accurate. But what did it show? That Ireland paid Imperial taxation equal to l–10th of the amount paid by Great Britain, when, in fact, on former statements of equal authority, her fair proportion would have been l–18th or l–20th; and when that very Return showed that for the year it dealt with—to 31st March, 1883—the taxation of Ireland, measured by the Income Tax, should have been only the l–22nd. The proportion of the relative ability of Ireland to bear taxation, estimated as l–20th of that of Great Britain, he might shortly state, was taken from a Treasury Return of 24th April, 1882, which showed that each penny Income Tax for Ireland yielded £95,000 only, whilst that of Great Britain was set down in the same Treasury Return as £1,946,000 for each penny, a sum 20 times larger than the penny yielded for Ireland. But whilst revolving all those computations and considerations in his mind, after a series of denials from several Chancellors of the Exchequer that there was really anything abnormal in the incidence of Imperial taxation, after hearing, ad nauseam, that Ireland was a favoured nation, treated with more than sisterly self-sacrificing affection by Great Britain, spared some—albeit trifling—taxes which England paid, but at any rate saved something, he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) read in the columns of a morning paper a letter which he believed to be from the highest official statistical authority in the service of the Government, which letter confessed all that had been hitherto denied. This was from the letter of "Economist" (Mr. Giffen) in The Daily News of the 6th of this present month (February, 1886)—

"At present Ireland pays more in taxes than her fair share, comparing her resources with those of Great Britain. The figures are not quite certain; But the Irish taxpayer appears to contribute £6,700,000 a-year to the Imperial Exchequer, whereas his proper contribution ought not to be more than half of that sum."

"Economist" (Mr. Giffen) then went on to say that Ireland had more than her proper proportion spent upon her. These were his words—

"The Imperial Exchequer thus gets out of Ireland, in the first place, about £3,200,000 more than it sought to get, and then spends upon the internal administration of Ireland the whole amount."

And then he fairly went on to say—

"The expenditure does not benefit Ireland as it ought to do; but neither does Great Britain gain."

He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) did not complain of these addenda; but he might remark that the chief expenditure on the Imperial Establishments in Ireland, save for the convenience of Great Britain, might as well be made elsewhere—in Malta or Cyprus—except to the extent of £1,000,000 or £1,500,000 a-year. The feeding and lodging and clothing of the Army, the outlay for ordnance, ships, sailors, and the like, were Imperial business; and the charges for all these things had rightly to be defrayed out of the Imperial Revenue, to which Ireland ought to contribute her full quota, and no more; and the amount which Ireland should contribute to the general Revenue of the Empire should be assessed at precisely the same amount if the outlay had been made at London, Malta, Cyprus, Woolwich, or Southampton, as if it had been made at Dublin, Cork, or Athlone. He maintained that England, as the chief member of the Empire, and with the strongest interest in preserving its unity and integrity, had the greatest reason to maintain that view. However, all that was somewhat beside the question, and he should not pursue it; but he might say that all he had contended for in that House and outside for the last 20 years was now practically acknowledged, and might be proclaimed without fear of refutation—namely, that the burden of Imperial taxation had been made to fall on Ireland for the last 30 years with double the weight of its incidence than on the wealthier Island. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) would now make a few observations on a case suggested or attempted to be set up in mitigation of the injustice of the proven disparity. That case might be shortly put in this form—that the extraordinary levy was in some degree compensated for by the outlay in Ireland of a much larger sum annually than what was now admitted or proved to be her fair share of the expenditure. The writer in The Statist puts this forward for what it might be worth. "Well, it was literally worth nothing. The local taxation of Ireland was £4,000,000 a-year; that also was a greater levy, in proportion to the wealth of the two Islands, than the levy for local taxation of Great Britain. But the case of Ireland which he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) desired to put was this—that in 1841, when her population exceeded 8,000,000, her Imperial taxes were barely £4,000,000 sterling; that in 1851 they were barely £4,000,000, and that the injustice of the increase of £8,000,000 of annual taxation, without the slightest evidence that Ireland had any pecuniary benefit thereby, was manifest and monstrous. It appeared to have been the policy of the Treasury for some years past to make the real state of the accounts between Great Britain and Ireland as obscure as possible. Up to 1862 the Treasury had been in the habit of publishing the expenditure of Irish taxation separately from that of Great Britain. Since then, however, no such course had been pursued, and they were left to grope through the Returns of various Departments to make some approximate calculations. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) should, however, take the latest dissected Beturn—that for 1862— and tell the House the account it gave of the expenditure of Irish Revenue. In 1862 the Revenue made up of Irish taxation amounted to £6,736,281, and this was how it was expended:—Army and Ordnance, £3,240,380; interest and management of Debt, £1,240,980; miscellaneous payments (including Constabulary), £1,671,814; Public Works, £208,232; remitted English Exchequer, £374,875. How in the name of all that was rational could any sane person treat the expenditure of £3,250,000 on Army and Ordnance as expenditure for Irish purposes, or the interest and management of the National Debt, another £1,125,000? The miscellaneous payments, £1,671,874, no doubt, included items of Imperial Expenditure for Ireland, and so did "Public Works," £208,000. But if it comported with the general policy of the Empire to keep an Army anywhere, it was quite clear the charge for maintaining that Army and the Ordnance Establishments, unless they were quartered on an enemy, should be defrayed out of Imperial funds, to which, of course, Ireland should contribute, having regard to her actual means, in precisely the same ratio as England or Scotland. As a matter of account between the Imperial Exchequer and Ireland, the locality in which the charge for Imperial objects was expended had nothing to do with the distribution of the burden of the charge. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) freely admitted that the local trade of the district in which Imperial funds were expended benefited somewhat by the expenditure; but that was not the point, and had no earthly connection with the distribution of the charge amongst the taxpayers of Great Britain or Ireland. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

in seconding the Motion, said, he desired to make a few remarks on the subject which his hon. Friend had brought forward. In Ireland they considered they were not fairly treated in the matter of taxation. They considered, in the first place, that they were overtaxed, having regard to the amount of the Irish National Debt at the time of the Union; and, in the second place, they considered that they were overtaxed, having regard to the poverty of the people compared with the people of England. Hon. Members in that House might not be cognizant of the facts regarding the Irish National Debt; and he, therefore, thought it well to say a few words upon it. In the year 1794 the Irish National Debt was £2,400,000, in the year 1797 it was £3,000,000, and in the year 1800, the year in which the Legislative Union was passed, it amounted, according to some authorities, to £28,000,000. It was estimated by Mr. Grattan at £25,000,000; but he (Sir Thomas Es-monde) had made a calculation, and he estimated that the Debt was £24,536,000, but he would take it at the sum of £28,000,000 out of regard to the susceptibilities of Members in that House. He would like to say a word as to how this National Debt was constituted. From 1797 to 1800 it was necessary to maintain a large force of English troops in Ireland. In 1797 the number was 50,000 men; and in 1800 the number reached 170,000 men. The cost of maintaining those troops amounted to £16,000,000. And that was one item in the National Debt. Then there was paid to the owners of Irish boroughs, for the purpose of purchasing their votes and their influence to effect the Legislative Union, a sum of £1,500,000. Then there was paid to a certain class of individuals, who were termed "suffering Loyalists," in satisfaction of their claims £1,500,000. What those claims were must be left to the imagination. There was paid for secret service to informers, who instigated the people to rebellion and then informed upon them, a sum of £53,547. There was given to individuals who were called "deserving men," for suppressing that rebellion and carrying the Act of Union, £1,000,000. There was paid to the Legal Advisers of the Government £500,000; and there was paid to several individuals for compensation for the removal of the Parliament from Dublin, £500,000. To give some idea of the persons who received compensation he might mention that the ratcatcher to the Lord Lieutenant received a certain sum of money. In this way was constituted the Irish. National Debt, which he estimated at £24,536,000; but he would be content to take the larger figure. Now, he did not say anything as to the character of that Debt. They would accept it as an accomplished fact. The Legislative Union, he thought it would be admitted, originated for the benefit of England; but, nevertheless, the people of Ireland had to pay for it. At the time of the Union the National Debt of England was 16 times greater than the National Debt of Ireland; and by the Act of Union solemn promises were made to Ireland that at no time should she be called upon to bear taxes arising from the pre-Union Debt of England. These promises were embodied in the Act of Union, which a short time ago was described in that House as a fundamental law. But, nevertheless, the promises of that Act were abrogated. English Ministers did not find much difficulty in changing fundamental laws when the change was for their own benefit. It was only when fundamental laws affected other people that English Ministers regarded them as unchangeable. The Irish National Debt at the time of the Union was 1–16th of the National Debt of England; and it was provided, he thought by Clause 7, that should the Debt of Ireland at any time reach 12-15ths of the National Debt of England that the two Exchequers should be consolidated. In 1803 the Irish Debt was £43,000,000. In 1804 it was £53,000,000, and in 1816 it was £112,740,000. How this was brought about was easily explained. The Irish Revenues were not sufficient to meet the increase of the Irish National Debt, which was incurred at the time of the Union; and this deficit was made up by loans which the Imperial Government raised, and then charged to the National Debt. Therefore, it was very easy to understand how in 17 years the National Debt of Ireland had increased from £28,000,000 to £112,000,000. It was stipulated by the Act of Union that Ireland should pay 2–15ths of the taxation of the Kingdom; but when the Union was passed it was charged 2–7ths. In 1817 the Irish Debt was £112,000,000, and the English Debt was £734,000,000; and having reached the limit stated in the Act of Union the two Debts were consolidated, and Ireland was charged a proportion of taxes entirely out of proportion to the amount stipulated in the Act of Union. They also objected, secondly, to the proportion of taxation because of the present condition of the country. Ireland was not a country like England, with great manufactures. Ireland had manufactures prior to the Union; but owing to the system that since then pre- vailed, these manufactures had disappeared, and commercial enterprize had completely left the country, and the people were obliged to turn their attention solely to the cultivation of the soil. Then, under the system of law that prevailed the land of Ireland was not administered for the benefit of the people, heavy rents were imposed upon them; and he now asserted that Ireland was better able to bear its present taxation prior to the Union than at the present time. Even deducting all that Ireland received, he submitted that, what with taxes and rent to absentee landlords, the country paid a sum of £8,000,000 or £9,000,000 sterling. If they took the basis of property they would find that the value of property on which Income Tax was paid in England in 1869 was £370,000,000, while in Ireland it was £25,000,000. That showed that property in Ireland was l–17th that of England. In 1870 Ireland paid in Revenue £7,000,000, while Great Britain paid £78,000,000. That showed that while Ireland had only 1–17th of the wealth of England it had paid l–9th of the Imperial Revenue. That, he thought, clearly showed that Ireland was overtaxed, and that its just proportion was much lower than £7,000,000 a-year. He thought it was most important that these facts should be known, in view of the alteration that would take place in the relations between the two countries.

who had on the Paper an Amendment to leave out the word "Ireland" and insert "Scotland," said, when he intimated his Amendment he did not do so in any unfriendly spirit, his desire simply being that the facts should be brought out. He contended that a Return issued on the Motion of the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. M'Laren) with regard to the Revenue in 1882–3 gave all the information necessary for practical purposes. It appeared to him that the hon. Member for South Monaghan (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) was in the position of having; aimed at the pigeon and hit the crow while he had endeavoured to prove his case with regard to Ireland, he had really given material for an incontestible case for Scotland. The Return procured by the hon. Member for Stafford showed that in 1882–3 the population of Ireland was about one-seventh of the United Kingdom; whereas the taxation of Ireland was as nearly as possible one-eleventh part of the taxation of the United Kingdom. He quite admitted that Ireland was a poorer country, and ought to pay a smaller proportion of taxation. He thought there was not a glaring injustice under the present arrangement; but, on the contrary, Ireland paid pretty much what she ought to pay, being a proportion of something more than half what the average inhabitants of England or Scotland paid. On the other hand, Ireland had great advantages, in many ways, over England and Scotland with respect to taxation. The Income Tax was collected much less harshly in Ireland than in Great Britain, and the upper classes in Ireland were exempted from many taxes that were paid in the Sister Isle. In Ireland no Land Tax, no House Tax, no assessed taxes, no police or education rates were paid. Ireland also received a large amount by way of local grants; they merely looked at the financial question. He contended that Ireland was not an oppressed country, but, on the contrary, was a specially favoured one. But while Ireland was liberally and even generously dealt with, what were the facts with regard to Scotland? It was a very great hardship that the alcohol consumed by the people of Scotland, and to a great extent by the people of Ireland, paid five times as much per gallon as that imposed on the people of England. The Englishman was enabled to muddle himself with beer five days a-week for the same sum which the Scotsman paid for a glass of whisky on Saturday night, if he was imprudent enough to take it at that time. Scotland paid in regard to taxation of whisky the same as Ireland paid; but Scotland consumed more whisky in proportion than Ireland, and consumed less beer. The consequence was that the taxation of Scotland was really very much heavier in proportion than the taxation of England, because they had in Scotland their whisky taxed very much heavier than the beer in England. All other taxes were paid equally in Scotland. They had no exemptions from Land Tax, or House Tax, or assessed taxes, or from education and police rates. On the contrary, they paid, he believed, more for their schools than almost any other part of the Kingdom. It was, therefore, undoubtedly the case that Scotland paid more than her fail share of taxation. In 1883 Ireland, with a population of 5,000,000, paid a taxation of £6,654,000; whereas Scotland, with a population of only 3,800,000, paid a taxation of £8,000,000. When they compared the taxation of Scotland with that of the United Kingdom they found in respect of spirits and beer that Scotland paid £4,000,000 out of £27,000,000, or a good deal more than one-seventh of the whole taxation, whereas the population of Scotland was a good deal less than one-ninth of the population of the Kingdom. The total taxation of Scotland, which was £8,000,000 out of £73,000,000, was somewhat larger than the proportion of population; and when they contrasted the enormous wealth of the City of London and the poverty of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland the disparity appeared very much greater. He was in favour of justice, and even generosity to Ireland; but, at the same time, as a Representative of Scottish taxpayers, he was anxious that in any new arrangement they should not impose a heavy additional burden on the over-taxed people of Scotland in order to carry to an excess generosity towards Ireland.

I do not rise to continue the controversy between Scotland and Ireland, which has been initiated by my hon. Friend; but I am anxious to express my sense of the extreme importance of the question which has been brought before the House by the hon. Member opposite. I regret that the matter has not been dealt with by a Committee or otherwise at an earlier stage; because, if there is a case on behalf of Ireland, everyone must be most anxious to examine that case to the very bottom, and those of us who are in favour of maintaining the Legislative Union between England and Ireland do feel all the more bound to see that in maintaining that Union we are not doing any financial injustice to a country which is in a minority so far as this House is concerned. Therefore, I think every Motion that comes before the House from the Irish quarter, which can substantiate even a primâ facie case of financial injustice, ought to be examined with the most anxious desire on the part of the House to probe it to the bottom. It seems to me that this matter has obtained additional importance from the circumstance to which the hon. Member who brought the Motion before the House alluded—namely, that a distinguished statistician has made the statement that Ireland is paying too much towards Imperial taxation. This Motion is for a Return carrying forward the figures which have been submitted on previous occasions to this House; but I venture to think that even when those figures are in our hands we shall not be advanced very much further. We require the figures in order to form our judgment; but the Return will not show whether Ireland is paying too much, or her fair share, or too little. It cannot be shown simply by a dry Return, and for this reason, that the question is, what principles are to be applied in determining what each country ought to pay? Every hon. Member would see that according as you take up the principle of population, or of property, or of the various forms of ability to pay, so you will be able to establish whether a country is paying too much or too little. Let me take a case for instance—I do not say whether at this moment it goes for or against me—but I am prepared to contend that the amount of Income Tax which is paid by a country does not in itself form any basis as to the aggregate taxation which that country ought to pay. It simply constitutes one element in that most complicated problem. It might be possible that one country had a very large wealthy class and a very poor class; that, on the other hand, another country might have a very substantial population of artizans, but very few above that line. Then any deduction which would be drawn from the relative amount of the taxable property of the two countries would give a very inadequate standard as to what the classes below the Income Tax would be liable to pay. That is only an illustra- tion; but it does not apply to Ireland, because, while the Irish have a very much smaller class of men who contribute Income Tax, when you go below the line where Income Tax is paid they have again a poorer population than we have in England. That, then, is a circumstance to be taken into account upon the other side. Then here is another question. How far is it any compensation, in looking to the taxation of Ireland as a whole, that there are large exemptions in favour of certain classes of the wealthier inhabitants—for instance, that they pay no taxes in respect of servants, and other exceptions of that kind? That is no great advantage to the bulk of the population who, if a certain total is to be raised from Ireland, have to pay so much more. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) made this observation—that if the wealthy classes are paying too little in Ireland, perhaps the poorer classes are paying too much. Well, supposing, on the whole, Ireland is paying its fair share, I can, nevertheless, fancy that the distribution of the burden would not give satisfaction to the bulk of the population in Ireland. Then, again, the hon. Member who seconded this Motion (Sir Thomas Esmonde) spoke of the aggregate rateable property, if I understood him, with regard to the Income Tax, and compared that with the total payments made by the Irish people in regard to taxation. But I would venture to contend that that is not a fair application of the principle at all, because while rateable property is an element of the contributing wealth, neither rateable property, nor personal property, nor any form of wealth, is the only contributor towards taxation. If there are also taxes on consumption a population, of course, ought not to escape its fair share of payment for consumable articles, because the rateable property happens to be less than it is in the Sister Island. I have ventured to put forward these considerations in order to show that I do not think that we shall advance the matter very much simply by the production of figures. What will some time or another be necessary, if it is not done on the present occasion, is that the principles should be grappled with by a Committee, or otherwise, and that then, applying those principles, we should see whether or not we could come to some agreement. I am sure the bulk of the population of both countries would wish to come to a fair agreement upon this matter. I have thought myself of moving to substitute a Committee on this occasion for a Return; but I have reason to believe that that in the present position of Irish affairs would not be a very convenient arrangement, and I further think it will be wise, and may advance the matter, if the Return should be procured without any delay. But if nothing should come of the presentation of the Return, I trust at some future period that this question may be renewed, and that we may endeavour by such means as may be in our power to probe this very important question to the very bottom to see if a grievance exists, and if a grievance really exists, to set to work to remedy it in a spirit of justice and equity to all parts of the United Kingdom.

said, he must compliment the hon. Member for South Monaghan (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) on the manner in which he had prepared his case; and though he could not altogether agree with the hon. Baronet who seconded him, still the care with which he had studied the question gave them every reason to hope that he would prove a valuable contributor to their debates. He did not rise to oppose the Motion; but, at the same time, those figures must be accepted with some reservation. For instance, the hon. Member stated the relative wealth of England and Ireland, taking the Income Tax as an absolute proof. But the Irish holders of foreign securities and English funds registered at the Bank of England would appear as English taxpayers. A certain portion of the Beer Duties, though paid in Ireland, fell on English consumers, and this could not be exactly allowed for. The hon. Member very fairly admitted that if Ireland contributed somewhat more than her share, she received also much more than in proportion. It was a salient fact that no tax fell specially on Ireland, while Ireland was exempt from some which fell on England. Again, Irish and Scotch farmers paid at a lower rate than English. On the whole, he doubted whether Ireland or Scotland was unduly taxed; but they only wished for what was fair and just; and he suggested that, instead of omitting Ireland to include Scotland, as suggested by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy, the Returns should include both.

said, he did not desire to take up the time of the House for more than a few minutes. His wish to address the House was chiefly owing to some observations which had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Goschen). He must congratulate the House upon the fact that the right hon. Member had now, after a long time, spoken in a fair spirit towards Ireland. The impression on his mind was that the right hon. Gentleman, great financier as he undoubtedly was, was in a state of doubt upon the question whether the Irish people had received fair treatment with respect to taxation. It was a striking fact that, although the right hon. Gentleman had been many years in that House, that doubt had newer crossed his mind until now, though the question had been raised both inside and outside the House over and over again. He could easily explain that extraordinary change. He was glad to think that in the minds of those who were intensely anxious to maintain the Union between the two countries there was a growing desire to be just to Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the produce of the Income Tax was not a fair test of the comparative ability of the two countries to bear taxation. But in the degree in which it was not a fair test the argument was even stronger in Ireland's favour. The right hon. Gentleman had said that in one of two countries there might be a very wealthy class, while the remainder of the people were miserably poor, and in another there might be a large body of prosperous artizans and lower middle class. But it was a commonplace with respect to Ireland that the prosperous middle class was absent, and that there was a great gulf between the two sections of the population. The wealthy in Ireland, though not so rich as the wealthy class in England, were yet not so much poorer than the corresponding class in England as the poor of Ireland were poorer than the poor of England. Between the very rich and the very poor in England there was a large class of persons coming gradually down who were all just under the Income Tax. When, however, they got out of the ranks of the wealthy in Ireland, they at once dropped into the great unfathomable gulf of poverty and misery, with no intervening middle class. Whatever was the case during a period of comparative prosperity in the past, the great wave of depression which had passed over England as well as Ireland had notoriously struck the agricultural class more severely than the manufacturing or trading class. As the people of Ireland were only an agricultural class, they had, consequently, suffered infinitely more severely, and the poverty which had always existed became intensified. His hon. Friend, therefore, was really doing less than justice to Ireland in taking the Income Tax as the test. In Ireland the tax produced about £500,000, as against upwards of £10,000,000 in England. Thus, Ireland's wealth ought to be reckoned as 1–20th of that of England alone, whereas she paid l–10th of the whole Revenue of the United Kingdom. Therefore, he believed his hon. Friend would be inside the truth if he said that on the present basis of taxation Ireland had been paying more than twice her share. Any arguments based on the assumption that a due proportion was spent in Ireland were entirely beside the question. It was a wasteful expenditure, necessitated by ill-government, and was a practical waste of money. It was true that by an imposition of taxes upon the wealthy classes in Ireland something might be done to redress the balance; but the taxes from which the wealthier classes were exempted were very small—as, for instance, the Land Tax, which did not produce much. He did not believe that such a tax would make any appreciable difference in the Revenue. The House was perfectly welcome to put on a Land Tax at once on the wealthier classes if they would redress the grievances of the poor of Ireland. Then it was said that there was a good deal of Irish capital invested in England. But that was far more than compensated by English investments in Ireland. The more this question was examined the more it would be found that it was not a matter of ancient history, but would be found to be one of pressing interest when the relations of the two countries came to be re-adjusted, as they would in the course of a very short time. It would be one of the main points for inquiry, if the whole question were gone into, how Ireland came to be charged with a share of the Debt of the country altogether different from what was provided for under the provisions of the Act of Union; whether that was done justly; whether at present Ireland was not paying an undue proportion of the general Expenditure; and, further, whether, in the times when the Irish Exchequer was managed separately, those having charge of it did not, in the dark and without any control, practise a wholesale and monstrous robbery, amounting to £100,000,000. His own desire and view as to the issue of this question would be that some arrangement might be come to which would be accepted on all sides as a fair and just arrangement—that they should mutually consent simply to draw a veil over the past and agree to do justice to each other in the future.

thanked the hon. Gentleman opposite for the spirit in which he had initiated the present discussion; and to the Motion which had been submitted to the House Her Majesty's Government would offer no opposition. Their desire was to ascertain what were the real facts of the case. He was quite sure that no one in that House wished otherwise than that while Ireland should not enjoy exceptional advantages she should not bear exceptional burdens. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) had imported Scotland into the matter; and the same remark, of course, applied to Scotland. Might he be permitted to apply it to England also?—because such re-adjustments as were proposed for Ireland and for Scotland might possibly tend to press somewhat severely on the English taxpayer. He was quite willing to admit, in the first instance, that we could not exclude from consideration the relative capacity of those upon whom the taxation fell. He himself could not see that we could upon any principle simply take up the sum total of the amount to be raised and divide that by the sum total of population, and then say the taxation should be borne in those proportions. To take one illustration, the entire amount raised in this country on tobacco was in the last year, for which he had the Return before him, £8,800,000, of which Scotland paid £807,000, or one-tenth, whereas the amount contributed by Ireland was £1,200,000, or about one-seventh of the whole. Now, when the House remembered that when an Irish peasant spent 6d. on tobacco he paid 5d. in taxation, they would remember what a very heavy burden this imposed on, perhaps, the most necessitous class of the community. With reference to the general figures, the taxation borne by Great Britain in 1851 was £49,250,000, of which the sum raised in Ireland was £4,000,000. In 1861 the taxation of Great Britain had sprung up to £57,500,000, of which there was raised in Ireland £6,500,000. In 1871 the figures were practically stationary; but in 1883 the taxation of Great Britain had advanced to £66,500,000, whereas that of Ireland still remained at £6,500,000. Therefore, although there had been a very large—as he thought, a too large—increase in the taxation and Expenditure of the country in that time, yet his hon. Friend would see that the extra burden of the taxation imposed in the period referred to had been borne to a great extent by Great Britain, and not by Ireland. Now, the Revenue of Great Britain, according to the Return he held in his hand, was £66,250,000 in 1883, and the population 30,500,000, making the average taxation per head £2 3s. 5d. In Ireland in the same period, the Revenue being £6,750,000, and the population 5,000,000, the taxation was equal to £1 6s. 4d. per head, showing a very considerable difference per head as between the two countries. Some of the criticisms in reference to this Return he admitted were not inaccurate; but taking the year 1884–5, he would give his hon. Friend the exact amount paid into the Exchequer. In Customs, £1,928,000; Excise, £4,270,000; Stamps, £610,000; Income, Tax, £564,000; Total, £7,372,000. But that amount had to be adjusted in two directions; it had to be increased, and it had to be decreased. There was a considerable amount of duty levied in Ireland in the shape of Excise on spirits and beer which were consumed in England, and the duty on which, of course, was paid by the consumer; and, on the other hand, there was a certain quantity of tea and other Customs-bearing articles the duty on which was paid in England, but which were consumed in Ireland. In this and other ways there was considerable difficulty in ascertaining exactly what was the true propor- tion of taxes levied upon Ireland. H had, with the assistance of the very able officers of the Treasury, given his best attention to this matter; and the result he had arrived at was that the net taxation borne by the people of Ireland in the financial year ending March, 1885, was about £6,500,000. Reverting to the general taxation of the Kingdom, he found that the income from taxes in the financial year 1884–5 was, in round figures, £73,000,000—that was the sum raised in the Three Kingdoms. Of that £73,000,000, £58,340,000 was raised in England and Wales, £8,005,000 in Scotland, and the amount raised in Ireland was the figure he had named. He was not in those figures including the Post Office, for it was not a source of Revenue, but a business carried on by the State. It was, indeed, to be regretted that the national accounts were kept so as to include the Post Office Returns, for it led to wrong ideas on the subject. For instance, people talked about burdens of £80,000,000, £90,000,000, and £100,000,000 on the taxpayers, while, as a matter of fact, the taxation last year was only £73,000,000. To this taxation Ireland contributed £6,500,000, or about 1–11th. It was necessary to consider the local expenditure of that money, though he knew that this was a delicate subject as regarded Ireland. They were, however, confronted with the expenditure in Ireland; and he must consider it, though he expressed no opinion as to whether the expenditure was in all respects wise or not. He, of course, did not fasten upon Ireland any special charge for the military in Ireland. The actual Civil Service Expenditure in Ireland was, exclusive of collection of Revenue expenses, £4,000,000 out of that £6,500,000 which it contributed.

asked if that included the Constabulary?

said, it certainly did, and the Constabulary Vote formed a large portion of it. It was last year £1,500,000. In England there was a Constabulary Vote, too, the only difference being that only half the expenses of the English Constabulary were paid from the Consolidated Fund, whereas the whole expense was paid in the case of Ireland.

Will you give the items of the £4,000,000?

said, he was hardly able to do that without reference. Education, he was glad to say, now amounted to nearly £1,000,000 a-year in Ireland. There were law and justice and other items that brought up the expense for what might be termed the local government of Ireland to £4,000,000. The Imperial Charges on the Consolidated Fund might be taken at £31,000,000, and £30,000,000 for the Army and Navy, and that made £61,000,000 for Imperial Charges. To this Ireland's contribution was about £2,500,000, and he would be within the mark if he said that Ireland's contribution was less than l-20th of these Imperial Charges. It therefore appeared that Ireland, in round figures, contained one-seventh of the population of the United Kingdom, contributed about 1–11th of the gross Revenue, and after deducting the cost of local government less than l–20th to Imperial Charges. He did not desire to argue about these figures, but to place them before the House for due consideration. Attention had been called to the poverty of Ireland as compared with Scotland. Ireland certainly had not the resources and reservoirs of mineral wealth possessed by Scotland. There was, in fact, an enormous disproportion between the wealth of Scotland and that of Ireland. But he did not think that Ireland was on those retrograde lines that had been described. A good test of wealth—a more accurate test than the payment of taxation or Income Tax—was the amount paid for Legacy and Succession Duty in respect of property in the country. In 1871 the property in Ireland on which Legacy and Succession Duty were assessed was £7,500,000 in value, while in 1884 it was £10,650,000. The Income Tax Returns told the same story. In 1871 the gross amount, without deductions, on which the tax was charged, was £26,000,000; in 1874 it was £36,000,000; and the actual payments were on £27,000,000. Under these circumstances, he did not think they ought to take so very gloomy a view of the financial condition of Ireland as had been presented by some hon. Gentlemen opposite. He had no objection to grant the Return asked for, and, if the Scotch Members desired, to include Scotland within its scope; and he hoped and believed that, whatever course might be taken, full justice would be done in this matter to the claims of England, Ireland, and Scotland.

said, he should not pretend to add anything to the information which had already been placed at the disposal of hon. Gentlemen. He was able to do little more than recapitulate the figures and facts to which they had already listened. In 1841 the taxation of Great Britain was £2 9s. 9½d. per head, and in Ireland 9s. 6½d., Ireland's proportion of the gross taxation being about 1–12th. In 1871 the taxation in Great Britain was £2 2s. 1½d., and in Ireland £1 6s. 3¼, certainly a vastly disproportionate arrangement. While the taxation of Great Britain declined moderately, that of Ireland was increased to nearly three times what it was in 1841. In Great Britain the population rapidly increased and the taxation fell, while in Ireland the population diminished and the taxation increased. According to the assessment for Income Tax in 1861, Ireland's wealth—Ireland's capacity to pay taxes—was 1–17th that of Great Britain; and in 1882 it had declined to the proportion of 1 to 21. This, he submitted, was a very fair indication of the relative capacity of the several Kingdoms to contribute to the National Expenditure. It was no answer to the charge that the taxation of Ireland was unfair to say that Ireland was free from certain taxes which were levied in Great Britain. They had no objection at all to the wealthy classes of Ireland being taxed the same as the wealthy classes in England; but what was complained of was that Ireland, as a whole, was overburdened with taxation of a general kind. While Great Britain with its vast wealth paid only 2s. 6d. in the pound on its income, impoverished Ireland paid 5s. 3d. in the pound on her income. The population and wealth of Great Britain increased and taxation declined. While the population and wealth of Ireland declined rapidly, Irish taxation per head almost trebled from 1841 to 1871. When in 1853 it was proposed to increase the taxation of Ireland, the taxation of Great Britain was subjected to a net reduction of £1,040,000, which drew from an English Member of this House—Sir Francis Baring—a protest against the conduct pursued towards Ireland. No one could deny that wrong and in- justice were thus inflicted upon that country. Dr. Johnson must have known his countrymen very well when he warned the Irish people that if they ever entered into a Legislative Union with England, Ireland would be robbed. Certainly Ireland had been robbed.

I should be very sorry to disturb in any degree the excellent spirit which has pervaded this debate, and I do not think that anything I have to say will produce that effect. I must admit that the question has been approached from all sides in a considerate spirit, and in that I rejoice, for this reason above all others, that there is no other hope of arriving at a definite settlement of the question. It does not admit demonstrative handling. It has been found extremely difficult on all sides. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Goschen) stated with truth that we could not expect to make great advance by moans of this debate, and he expressed the wish that a Committee should be appointed to examine it more thoroughly. That is a most natural wish; but it behoves us to recollect that Committees have been appointed for the purpose of examining this question, and "bolting it to the bran," and that the last of these Committees, at any rate, which I will take as the most important, has not been able to arrive at a definite conclusion. The Committee of 1863–4, which was appointed for the express purpose of determining, if possible, within the Committee Boom whether Ireland pays excessively or not in proportion to her means—that Committee arrived at no conclusion, and made no Report upon that subject. But the Committee made a very full Report upon the general subject and upon many points, and evidently gave very great attention and labour to the investigation; but upon the main point I do not think that the most careful examination of the Report will succeed in discovering any distinct utterances on the part of the Committee. The Committee was obliged to give the go-by to the question, for the very simple reason that it could not arrive at any amount of unanimity, even by a majority, on that point. I felt myself obliged, having listened with interest to the whole of the debate, to notice one or two propositions to which I am bound to say I cannot accede, and by which I cannot be bound, and especially the proposition which appears a favourite one with Irish Members on these occasions—namely, that the yield of the Income Tax affords, upon broad and general grounds, a fair and just test of the ability of Ireland to pay taxes, and, therefore, of the measure in which taxation should be paid by Ireland. I think it is much more true that the yield of the Income Tax is one of the elements necessary in order to enable us to form the best judgment we can upon the matter; but the reasons are distinct why we cannot possibly take it as an absolute measure. [Sir Joseph M'KENNA: Hear, hear!] I am glad that the Mover of the Motion, whom I compliment on the manner in which it was moved, admits that proposition. Undoubtedly, it is the fact that so far as Schedule A is concerned—I am not aware that the same observation would apply to Schedule B—and I do not urge it in that case; because there, although an apparent inequality, unquestionably as far as Schedule A is concerned—which in Ireland bears a very important proportion to the whole—the taxpayer in Ireland has considerable advantage, a large advantage, as compared with the taxpayer in England. He pays upon his net income by no means so much, inasmuch as he pays upon valuation, whereas in England and Scotland—in Scotland with one exception, and in England with no exception—the tax is paid upon the gross rental, which includes not only charges of management, but includes charges for repairs, in many cases extremely heavy, the charge in England forming a considerable proportion, sometimes 10, 15, and even 20 per cent of the rental. These repairs, which are absolutely necessary to keep the property going, and enable it to pay taxes at all, are subject to taxes. This is one reason why you cannot take Income Tax as a test. A second reason is that a proportion of Income Tax is paid by Irishmen in England, to which there is nothing to correspond on the other side of the account, and that amount, whatever it may be, swells the proportion of the English Income Tax in comparison with the Income Tax in Ireland. But I must also say that the relative distribution in society affects the Income Tax in Ireland very differently from the manner in which Eng- land is touched by it. Some Gentlemen have assumed, not like the Mover of the Motion, that absolutely the Income Tax, be what it may, affords a just test. If the Income Tax is to afford the test of ability, the first thing you must do in order to raise the presumption is to apply it to all incomes. If you apply it to all incomes—of course, that is impossible—it would be obviously necessary to do so to get at the taxable ability. There is another subject to which I will refer—namely, the very large expenditure of the Imperial Exchequer for the Civil Service of Ireland. It has been said by some Gentlemen representative of Ireland that Ireland derives no benefit from that expenditure. I will not say whether Ireland derives benefit or not, or how far it ought to be charged against her in an account of this kind; but one thing I will say, in connection with a long experience at the Treasury, that I have always observed when there has been a question of diminishing that expenditure at any point, or in any particular, such proposals have not been received with favour by the Irish Members. I recollect one particular occasion in which it was proposed to introduce a measure for effecting a large and very important, and evidently necessary, economy in certain classes of Irish establishments, that an Irish Member of great ability gave fair Notice to the Government that he would oppose the Bill, not because the reduction was not necessary, but unless the Government gave a pledge that the money to be saved by it should be expended elsewhere in Ireland for Irish purposes. I do not complain of that, although I think it was pushing things rather far. But you cannot, at the same time you hold that language, say that Ireland derives no benefit from this expenditure. If she has no interest in it why show so considerable anxiety that it should not be diminished? I do not give any positive opinion upon the subject; but I am sorry to say, not from the fault of Ireland, but through the operation of complex causes, especially of the financial administration of this country, it has been found during the whole period of my experience very much more difficult to apply principles of sound economy to the details of administration in Ireland than in England or Scotland. I think that is to be ac- counted for by large considerations, into which I will not enter, and I am not referring to it as a matter of complaint. I make this concession fully to the Mover of the Motion and the Irish Representatives. It was made by the Committee of 1863–4. They did not make it in express terms, but I cannot have any doubt upon the subject. The Committee of 1863–4 referred to various considerations, and said these considerations unquestionably pointed towards the conclusion that the proportion fixed under the Union arrangement—namely, a proportion of 2 to 15 in the expenditure for Ireland—was too high. I make the admission frankly; I think it is too high. The Committee went on to say, with perfect truth, that Ireland had never paid that proportion. That I believe to be unquestionably true. The question whether Ireland has paid too much or not is another matter, which may deserve very careful consideration. I think the question is of great interest. It is worth while to say one word upon the chapter of finance to which my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury referred as exhibiting a probable test of the relative wealth of the three countries, and that is the amount of property upon which Legacy and Succession Duties have been levied. These Legacy and Succession Duties are singularly variable from year to year. I have often been surprised in Treasury administration at the degree in which they vary from year to year, even in a country like England, where the amounts are at all times so vast. I am inclined—I will not dogmatize upon the subject—but I am inclined to put to the House that upon the whole the amount of property over a sufficient number of years chargeable to Legacy and Succession Duties is perhaps the very fairest test that we could get of relative ability to bear taxation. It is certainly not open to the same objections as the Income Tax. Upon the other hand, there are no doubt exemptions in the Legacy and Succession Duties; but these exemptions, especially as they have recently been shaped, are exemptions entirely applicable to the class of such very limited means that no one would wish, if he could avoid it, to make them in any heavy degree subjects of taxation. Now, Sir, the Return which my hon. Friend (Mr. H. H. Fowler) had in his hand does not give us the sum total of these Legacy and Succession Duties for a large number of years. That is to say, the sums are not added up, and I had not time to add up all the figures of a total of 14 or 15 years. But I have taken the three last of these years, and I am bound to say that my strong impression is that that is not at all a mode of proceeding unfavourable to Ireland. But I am bound to observe that in the first of the three years—that is, 188–12—the amount in Ireland was extremely low, and lower than at any time during the 14 years. It was only £7,142,000; whereas they ear before it was£9,000,000; and the year after it was £9,525,000. The next lowest year is 1879, when it was £7,532,000. Ireland, therefore, in my computation, gets the benefit of that excessively low year. Now, Sir, the result of my comparison is this—I take the three last years; I add them together; I find that the property chargeable to Legacy and Succession Duties in Great Britain during these three years was £361,000,000; I find that during the three years the amount chargeable in Ireland was about £28,000,000; and dividing the sums one by the other the result is that the wealth of Ireland as tested by that test is as 1 to 13. My contention is that, upon the whole, the property chargeable to these Duties affords the fairest test that we can get. I give this, not as absolutely accurate, but as very near the mark. I will only say, further, that I agree with Members who have said this subject cannot sleep very long. It is quite evident that there are other relations between England and Ireland besides those of direct taxation which ought to be taken into view, which have been very important in former times, and which may become still more important—I mean the relations which subsist between Ireland as a debtor and England as a creditor. I am sure Gentlemen who sit opposite, in the spirit of candour which they have shown to-night, will admit that Ireland has received very considerable advantages from the use of the Imperial credit in the relation to which I have just referred. Well, Sir, it may be that circumstances, if they should lead to further and more extended attempts to deal with questions profoundly affecting Ireland, such as the question of Irish land, may open up the whole of that subject upon such a scale as to make it absolutely necessary, not only that the Government, but likewise the House, should form as well as it may a conclusive and a solid judgment upon the proportion of the relative taxability. I beg Members to remember that this is a subject that does not bear being handled by demonstrative evidence. Debate it as long as you will, appoint as many Committees as you will, it will still be in the main a matter of argument. The best security and guarantee that we can have for arriving with tolerable facility at some tolerably fair conclusion is that all Gentlemen shall endeavour to approach the question in a thoroughly considerate spirit and with an abatement of all extreme opinions. If they do that, I believe the matter is perfectly capable of a practical solution; and it is because I think the temper that has been shown to-night affords considerable promise of progress in that direction, should the necessity arise, that I congratulate the hon. Gentleman and the House upon the spirit in which the debate has been conducted.

said, they must all acknowledge the tone and spirit in which the Prime Minister had approached the consideration of the subject, and the general character of his statement. The Prime Minister appeared to consider that ultimately when the Return was procured it would at least tend to show the relative capacity for taxation of the two countries. He looked upon the Prime Minister as the greatest authority on the subject; but in this instance he was not only judge but advocate, and in his speech he possibly selected three very good years for his argument. Accepting, however, the figures of the right hon. Gentleman for the three years, it was evident that Ireland was taxed 20 per cent more than England. The general gist of the whole statistics on the subject was to put the capacity of Ireland to bear taxation at between 1–16th and 1–17th of the capacity of the United Kingdom; and if that proposition was correct, it followed very naturally that Ireland was overtaxed. The Secretary to the Treasury had stated the total taxation levied from Ireland at about £6,500,000; but they could not allow the figures of that hon. Gentleman in the present case to pass unchallenged. According to the House of Commons Return of 1883, the taxation levied from Ireland he took to be a long way over £7,000,000; and, therefore, unless there had been a great fall- ing off in the amount since then, he thought the Secretary to the Treasury had under-estimated the sum paid by Ireland. That hon. Gentleman had reckoned the amount of Public Expenditure in Ireland at £4,000,000; but how was that sum made up? Nearly £1,000,000 was paid for education, and the Civil Service absorbed nearly £2,000,000; so that in order to get his total of £4,000,000 the Secretary to the Treasury must include the item for the Constabulary. Now, the Constabulary were a very expensive, although a very useful, force; they were armed men, and could in a very short time be converted into soldiers; and the total of £4,000,000 of local expenditure in Ireland reckoned by the Secretary to the Treasury largely turned on the question of the Constabulary, and whether they were to be considered as a Civil or as a Military force. They wore told that half the cost of the police was paid for in England by the ratepayers. He had looked into the matter, and, as far as he could make out, he gathered that in England some counties paid only 1d. in the pound and others 2d. for the police; whereas in Ireland, although they received all that money for the Constabulary, they had to pay 9d. in the pound in some counties for extra police alone. In fact, they paid in Ireland as much, or nearly as much, for extra police as was paid in England by the ratepayers for ordinary police; and therefore it was incorrect to say that they got their police for nothing. The argument of the Secretary to the Treasury was that the difference of £2,500,000 between the £6,500,000oftaxation and the £4,000,000 of local expenditure represented Ireland's contribution towards the Imperial Exchequer, and that that contribution was only 1–20th of the whole taxation of the United Kingdom, and could not be excessive. The Prime Minister had spoken of Ireland as being 1–13th as rich as England; but he rather disputed the accuracy of that notion. He disputed the contention of the Secretary to the Treasury that the Constabulary Force of Ireland was a Civil force; his opinion was that the Constabulary was essentially a Military force, doing police duty occasionally. As to the contention that Scotland was more aggrieved in respect to the inequality of Imperial taxation than Ireland, he admitted that Scotland contributed a far larger proportion in taxation as compared with the amount returned to it in the shape of local expenditure than Ireland; but then the circumstances of Scotland and Ireland in respect to local expenditure were totally different. There were no great State Military and Naval Establishments maintained in Scotland as in Ireland; and, in point of fact, Scotland was, in respect to local expenditure, as much a part of England as was Yorkshire or Lancashire. Then Scotland was comratively a rich country as compared with Ireland. Comparing the average individual wealth of the three countries, they were represented by the figures 260, 276, and 110, the latter representing the average individual wealth in Ireland. The wealth of Scotland formed 11 per cent of that of England, and its taxation was also 11 per cent of the taxation of England; so that Scotland could not complain of unfair or disproportionate taxation in comparison with its national wealth. On the other hand, the case for Ireland amounted to this—that while her wealth only amounted to 6 per cent, she paid in taxation 9½ per cent. The question of expenditure in Ireland was not the Question before the House that evening; but he might remark that a more unproductive expenditure could not be imagined. There were £4,500,000 spent in Ireland on soldiers, Constabulary, the Navy, and naval and military pensions. The great military countries in Europe, weighed down as they were with expenditure, only paid 29 per cent of their gross income on military establishments, while Ireland paid at least 50 per cent. What the Irish people desired, therefore, was to see that Ireland paid only in proportion to her wealth. He believed the more the case of Ireland was sifted the more it would be found that she was paying a proportion of taxation largely in excess of her capacity.

said, from the length of time to which this debate had extended it was manifest that hon. Members regarded the subject as one of great importance. His object in rising was to make a suggestion so as to render the Return as valuable as possible. The Motion proposed that the Return should apply to Ireland only; but it would be of comparatively small value unless they had similar Returns from England and Scotland, so that a fair comparison might be made of the Revenues of the respective countries; and that was what he fancied was primarily aimed at by the Motion. He would suggest that the words "Great Britain" be deleted, and that the words "England and Scotland" be introduced. He thought it was also desirable that they should have information down to the latest date; and, as he believed the Secretary to the Treasury was ready to give the figures down to 1885, he would suggest that this Motion should be altered accordingly. During the discussion frequent reference was made to the large amount of money repaid to Ireland for expenditure for local purposes. It was very important to have the amounts repaid in a similar manner to England and Scotland respectively, and he would suggest that the Resolution be amended with that object. He had all the more reason for pressing that, seeing the amount repaid or expended in that manner in Scotland was comparatively small. Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

resuming, moved to amend the Motion by substituting the words "England and Scotland" for "Great Britain," and extending its scope so as to bring the figures down to the latest date, and so as to include the amounts expended in England, Scotland, and Ireland, in aid of local purposes.

seconded the Amendment.

said, he had no objection to the alteration.

in rising to call attention to the disparity in the salaries and duties of persons holding public offices under the Crown and otherwise appointed; and to move for a Select Committee

"To inquire into the method of appointment and apportionment of salaries and duties under the Crown,"

said, the object which he had in view was to see whether he could be instrumental, in however small a way, in the reduction of the public burdens. That there was room for reduction was evident from the fact that the Civil Expenditure had now reached nearly £18,000,000, and he thought very largo reductions could be made in that sum without any injury to the Public Service. It was admitted on both sides that the country stood in need of economy. Hon. Gentlemen opposite acknowledged that taxation was too high, and he hoped he should have their assistance in reducing it. On all hands we heard of the serious depression under which trade and commerce were suffering. He begged the House to recollect the enormous rate at which the Civil Expenditure had been growing, and as he had the honour to represent an industrial community (Bristol) which suffered greatly from the depression of trade he felt bound to try to do something to lighten the burdens of the people. The point he had especially to establish was that the salaries paid were out of proportion to the work done. He did not aim at any reduction in the salaries of the smaller class of public servants; they were underpaid. The class at whom he aimed were high up in the scale, and received very large salaries for little work. The higher they went in the scale the higher the salaries were for little work. The Lord Chancellor received £10,000 a-year—a sum equal to the salary of the President of the United States. He ventured to say that the duty devolving on the Lord Chancellor was much loss than that devolving upon the President of the United States, and yet the Lord Chancellor not only received £10,000 a-year while in Office but £5,000 a-year after quitting Office. He did not so much complain of the salary of the Lord Chancellor while in Office as he did of his pension. Not only did we pay one Lord Chancellor in Office, but at the present moment we paid two ex-Lord Chancellors, the late Lord Chancellor having earned a pension of £5,000 a-year by a service of only seven months. Was there any other country in the world that would suffer this? There was no country in the world with so many highly paid servants out of office, and that fact alone would justify him in asking for a Select Committee to inquire into this state of things, and he appealed to the House to assist him with a Motion, which if carried out would, he believed, result in a considerable reduction in the public burdens, without any loss of efficiency. He had referred to the salary of the Lord Chancellor. He would now pass on to the salaries in the Post Office, the Savings Banks, and the Telegraph Department. He found there that the Controller of the Savings Banks had a salary of £900 a-year, while the men who did the work had salaries of £150. In the Post Office £108,000 was voted for superannuation salaries alone. The engineer of the telegraphs had £1,100 salary, while his assistant had £850, and the men who did the work only £150. Did there not need to be some adjustment there? He was exceedingly surprised to find that the King of Greece got £4,000 from this country, in addition to £20,000 from his own country—as if money was no object. Then in the Education Department the Chief Inspectors got £900 a-year salary, and the Sub-Inspectors £500 each, and so on with the whole army of Inspectors—an amount of remuneration out of all proportion to the work they did. He would not trouble the House with entering at any greater length into the details of this very important subject. It was wholly unnecessary for him to take up the time of the House by doing so, because in order to lay the foundation for his Motion for a Select Committee it was quite sufficient that he should make out a primâ facie case, and that, he must submit to the House, he had already done. He was aware that the question of public economy was in the most competent hands of his hon. Friend the Member for the borough of Burnley (Mr. Rylands), and he need hardly say that he had not the slightest wish to interfere with his hon. Friend's conduct of a case of which he was so great a master, and with which he was so thoroughly able to deal. He was aware that his hon. Friend had on the Notice Paper a Motion somewhat to the same effect as that which he was now submitting to the House; but he did not think that the two Motions would interfere with each other. On the contrary, he was inclined to think that it would strengthen the position of his hon. Friend if the House would be good enough to accede to the Motion which he (Mr. Handel Cossham) was then making. He sincerely hoped that the House would be good enough to take that course. If they did he was in a position to pledge himself to lay before a Select Committee an abundant array of facts in support of his Motion, and of the case he was then endeavouring to lay before the House. He had, on that occasion, taken the course of moving for a Select Committee, by whom the subject might be carefully investigated, because that was, he believed, the only Constitutional manner in which they could reach the object—the promotion of economy—which he and those who thought with him on this subject had in view. He had not made a direct Motion in the sense of the opinions he had expressed, because he thought that it would in the long run save the time of the House if he were to submit the facts in his possession to a Select Committee instead of laying them in the first instance before the House. If they were laid before the House they would rest, to a certain extent, upon his statement; whereas they could be sifted and placed beyond dispute by a Select Committee. He would, therefore, not trouble the House by entering further into the details of the subject, but would conclude that short speech by making the Motion which he had already submitted to the House.

seconded the Motion. He spoke in the interests of the working classes, and protested against the constant diminution of the salaries of lower class officials who worked very hard, and the constant increase in those of those more highly placed. It was the latter, and not the poor letter-carriers, in whose remuneration a saving ought to be effected. In the Telegraph Department, for instance, the Controller in London received seven times the salary of a first-class telegraphist, whereas in Switzerland the Director General of the whole of the telegraphs only received twice as much as a first-class telegraphist. In Switzerland the telegraphs were so well managed that with a rate of 10d. for 20 words they had been able to repay the whole of the original capital outlay for construction; and at present, on a rate of 5d. per 20 words, the profit provided the expense of the necessary apparatus in constructing telephones, whereas a 1s. rate in this country had not been remunerative. In Switzerland the Prime Minister received only £700 a-year, and the other Ministers £500 a-year, which was in striking contrast to English official salaries. It was admitted that the Swiss Ministry was composed of very able men. In the United States the same example of economy was seen. The Controller of the National Bank, who had great powers over the whole banking system of the country—the finest system in the world—only received £1,000 a-year. The rate of the higher salaries ought to be diminished, and that of the lower raised; and he had, therefore, great pleasure in seconding the Motion.

said, he could assure his hon. Friend who had brought forward this Motion that proposals in favour of public economy would meet with no opposition from him. At the same time, it was undesirable that there should be any misapprehension among the public with reference to the subject of expenditure on the Civil administration of the country. There was a widespread belief that that expenditure was largely and unduly increasing. In reality it was not doing so. Although the work of all the Civil Departments had increased enormously in the last 80 years, the expenditure had not increased. It was true that the ordinary Parliamentary Estimate showed an increase in the expenditure; but that was owing to the inclusion of a number of items, such as increased educational grants and grants in aid of local taxation which were not strictly covered by the phrase, the Civil administration of the country. Prom a Return (No. 338) presented to Parliament, it appeared that in the years 1857–8 the charges for Civil administration properly so called were£5,931,000,andinl880£5,930,000, or £1,000 less. That was a fact which reflected credit on those who were responsible for public economy. Speaking from his own experience, he could assure the House that no longer ago than 1859 the work of the Home Office was only one-fifth of its work now. Armies of Inspectors had been created in the last 30 years, and the number of Judges had been largely increased, and yet so great had been the care taken in connection with the Civil Expenditure of the country that, as he had shown, there had been in 1880 an actual diminution. In 1884–5 the sum of the expenditure was £6,233,000, an increase of £300,000 as compared with the year 1857. Therefore, in a period of 30 years there had been no substantial increase of expenditure, although four times as much work was done. The increase of £300,000 in 1884–5 was due to the acceleration of the Ordnance Survey, which accounted for £100,000; to the institution of the Irish Land Commission, which accounted for £110,000; to the purchase of the Blenheim pictures, which accounted for £65,000; to the determination of the House to establish a Memorial to General Gordon; and to grants for the South Kensington Museum and the British Museum, which should rightly be placed under the head of education. These sums put together amounted to nearly £500,000, so that if they deducted these exceptional charges they found that in 1884–5 the general charges of the Civil administration of the country were less than they were 30 years ago. He warned the House not to be led away by illustrations taken from countries whose circumstances were very different from those of the United Kingdom. The standard of public salaries or even ordinary wages in Switzerland was not applicable to this country. There wore many occupations in Switzerland which the working men of England would not undertake on similar terms. The Government of the United States, he was assured, made a great mistake by giving low salaries to public officials. It was almost impossible in that country to induce competent men to accept judicial posts, as the acceptance of them in- volved a great sacrifice of income. There were many men who even refused judicial appointments in the Supreme Court. He trusted that the public would not believe that the subject of the Civil Expenditure of the country had been carelessly treated. A private individual who could, say that his expenditure in 30 years had not increased although the work conducted by him had increased four-fold would certainly be held to be a good manager. Now, with reference to inquiry into this matter, it was not only necessary that things should be put right, but that everybody should know the real state of the facts. The question of appointing a Committee had been discussed for a year or two. There was a general opinion that the House should take some more careful cognizance of these matters than could be done in the haphazard condition of Committee of Supply. He himself in the Office that he held felt very strongly; and he might say that it was the intention of the Government to make proposals of that kind. He was not at liberty to anticipate what might be done with reference to the Procedure of the House; but the Government did desire that the Estimates should be in some form or other more fully, more satisfactorily, and more completely discussed. He thought he might, without imprudence, say that they were prepared to embody proposals with that object in the new scheme of Parliamentary Procedure. He hoped that the Proposer of the Resolution would be satisfied with that assurance, and would refrain from pressing for the appointment of a Committee until, at any rate, the suggestions of the Government should have been laid before the House.

said, he was satisfied with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, and begged leave to withdraw his Motion.

in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, the proposals embodied in his Bill were simple and unpretending. The first of the objects of the Bill was to secure for workmen that protection which Parliament, by the Act of 1880, desired to give them, but which many employers had managed by legal chicanery to deprive them of. The fact was that many thousands of workmen had been deprived of the benefits of the Act by being virtually compelled to contract themselves out of it. The first provision of the Bill, then, was to render null and void any such contracts. The next provision was to secure that the employés should not be deprived of their right of action by reason merely of the fact that as between them and the chief employer there was introduced another contractor or sub-contractor, with whom there might be privity of contract with the workman, but who being introduced as an intermediary between the chief employer and the workman, prevented the latter from bringing an action for injury sustained by reason of the defective condition of the plant or anything else as to the condition of which the head employer was morally responsible. Another provision was that in those cases in which notice had in effect been given, or in those eases in which it was perfectly clear that notice of a formal kind was not necessary, it should not be incumbent upon the injured party to furnish such a formal notice as was required by the Act of 1880. Further, that it might be in the power of the Court to allow an action to proceed, even though there might be in the notice given to the employer some technical defect which, in the strict construction of law, might be held to vitiate it. He was anxious also that a very great injustice which had been almost unavoidable under the earlier Act in respect of the amount of compensation recoverable by an injured workman should be removed. In the Act of 1880 the amount of compensation payable was limited to the very trifling sum of three years' wages of a person employed in that particular capacity—a provision which operated hardly on a youth on the eve of entering into receipt of a man's wages, and to remedy that injustice in such cases; but he proposed to limit the amount which could be awarded in certain cases to £150, unless that amount was clearly inadequate. He further proposed that actions brought by workmen for injury sustained should not be removable to Superior Courts unless the amount of compensation claimed exceeded the sum of £200. The next section of his Bill defined the word "workman" and made it include seamen. He understood that the representatives of the shipping interest were arraying themselves against the proposal, and he had tried to find out why this organized opposition was threatened. He was assured that the shipowners were hostile to the proposal not so much because of the compensation they might have to pay on account of injuries to their men in the United Kingdom as on account of the uncertain liability they might incur with regard to the sailors in their vessels in foreign parts. If that were the case he would accept an Amendment exempting shipowners from liability under circumstances in which it could be shown that their liability was unreasonable in respect of injuries sustained abroad; though before doing so he should like to ascertain the sense of the House on this subject. The Bill also altered the definition of the term "person having superintendence intrusted to him," as at present, if a superintendent wore engaged more or less in manual labour a sub-employé was debarred from obtaining any compensation from the chief employer for injuries sustained. This was in his judgment a grievous blot in the Act of 1880. Finally, the Bill provided for the continuance of the Act of 1880 as amended, and repealed the section which said that the Statute should last only to the end of the year 1887. In conclusion, the hon. Member moved the second reading of the Bill.

said, he would indicate what the Government suggested for consideration by the House as the proper course to adopt in reference to this measure. In the first place, he might remark that the Government had complete spmpathy with the main object which the hon. Member had in view. In saying that, however, he wished to guard himself against being supposed to commit the Government on several important points. There was also a Bill standing for a second reading under the charge of his hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt), which dealt with the same subject-matter as the present measure. It was much shorter and not so far-reaching as the Bill of the hon. Member opposite. The Act of 1880 was a new departure in legislation, and to a great extent a tentative measure, and its principle was at the time much debated in that House. He did not mean to suggest that the Government intended to withdraw from the principle embodied in the Act, far from it; but the fact that it was then treated as a new departure in legislation and as a tentative measure suggested that probably the time had been reached when it would be very convenient that the whole subject should be referred to the consideration of a Select Committee of the House. The Government suggested, therefore, that the subject-matter of this Bill and of that of the hon. Member for Morpeth, should be referred to a Select Committee. With regard to a large class of employés, he thought there would be a disposition on the part of the House to make it impossible for them to contract themselves out of the Act; but he said that in relation to the narrower definition of the Act of 1880, and not to the wider clause of this Bill, which would include clerks and managers of businesses, or persons engaged in supervision. This might be right; but it was necessary to consider the matter before making so great a change. He agreed with the hon. Member that seamen were entitled to full protection; but it was clear that different considerations applied to that subject-matter than those which were applicable to the cases meant to be dealt with by the Act of 1880. It was obvious that to fix liability on an employer for the result of accident when he could not by any exercise of his control or discretion prevent the accident presented a very different case from that when an employer was or might be on the spot. While he (the Attorney General) desired to see the fullest practicable protection for so important a class as seamen, it might be necessary in their case to have special provisions as to notice to employers and so forth. He wished to guard the Government against any announcement of a positive opinion on any of the topics he had referred to; but the course which the Government suggested was that this debate should be adjourned, and that a Select Committee of the House should be appointed to inquire into and report upon the subject-matter of the two Bills in question.

said, he did not understand exactly what course the Government recommended—whether it was that they should assent to the second reading and then refer the Bill as proposed, or whether it was that they should adjourn the debate on this Bill, as well as upon the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth, for the purpose of having the principle involved discussed fully and fairly before a Select Committee. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL assented.] The latter would certainly be the more convenient course. He must, however, call the attention of the House to the fact that in the Act of 1880 there was a clause providing that it should only be tentative and remain in force until the year 1887, in order that the country might see how its provisions worked. Having a great deal to do with employers and employed in the great manufacturing constituency which he had the honour to represent, he was quite certain that the great object of the House ought to be to promote good feeling between employers and employed. Great objection had been taken to the Act of 1880, because some employers had contracted themselves out of it, and therefore that the employed did not get the full benefit of the Act. On the other hand, there were other questions to be considered, such as the habit of employers in Northern counties insuring themselves against accident. He would not, however, now discuss the question at length, for he thought the Government, if he understood the hon. and learned Gentleman rightly, had taken a very proper course. Before the Act of 1880 was made perpetual or an addition made to it, he thought that both employers and employed had a right to have the question fully discussed, in order to see now the Act had worked, and how the proposed extension of it would be likely to work. As he understood it, the proposal of the Government was that the whole subject of the Act of 1880 should be referred to a Select Committee, and that the debate on this Bill and on the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth should be adjourned until that Committee had reported. As the Session was still so young, there would be ample time to discuss these Bills at a later period without running the risk of not coming to a conclusion upon them.

said, he thought that the observations of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down distinctly showed that he did not mean anything like the same as the Attorney General, because, as he understood the hon. and learned Gentleman, he proposed that the question of these two Bills should be referred to a Committee. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had informed the House that nothing was further from his purpose than to sow dissension between employers and employed; but in reality he inferred that he was not in favour of referring these two Bills to a Committee, but of referring the general principle involved in the abortive Act they were endeavouring to amend. That, he hoped, hon. Members would do all in their power to prevent. The Bill which it was sought to amend had seen perilous times in the House, and what was the result? It was a result of which, speaking as a lawyer, perhaps, he ought not to complain, because he should think it had created more litigation than any Act passed for many years past. But he thought that was the very thing which hon. Members who sought to amend the Bill wished to prevent. The object was to simplify the provisions of the Bill of 1880, and to do away with litigation. The Attorney General had alluded to another Bill, likely shortly to come before the House, which was in charge of the hon. Member for Morpeth; but he (Mr. Lockwood) was not aware that that Bill was a better one than the Bill introduced that night. He believed it agreed in the main with the present Bill. He took it that those who were interested in amending the Act of 1880 wished, if they could, to prevent the employer from contracting himself out of the Act. That was the first great principle to be fought for in the amended Bill. It was said by those who opposed that Bill that this principle would interfere with freedom of contract. That was not the first time they had heard about this bogey of "freedom of con- tract." It was all very well to talk about freedom of contract; but he knew something about these matters, and he would ask what was the freedom of contract in the well-known case of the Earl of Dudley? It was held that the placing of placards up in a colliery bound the workpeople to the contract contained in those placards. He contended that when working men came to the House and said they wanted protection, the House was bound to protect them. There were many cases in which, with regard to the testing of machinery and the limitation of the hours of labour, freedom of contract was already interfered with, and if the working men expressed a wish to be protected there could be no further discussion of the principle of the Bill, and the law must be amended in that respect. Another question of principle was involved in the provision with respect to notice of action. In ordinary cases persons were not entitled to notice of action; but only certain corporations and official persons like magistrates were entitled by Statute to notice of action. He could see no reason why employers should have notice of action given to them in respect of injuries sustained by their workmen, which in 99 cases out of 100 occurred on the masters' own premises. Then with regard to leaving the matter to the discretion of the Court. He spoke with all due respect of the Court and its discretion; but he contended that all words with reference to discretion had better be left out of the Bill, for discretion really implied litigation. For his own part, he believed that many hon. Members would be quite willing at once to go to a division on the principle involved in this Bill and the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Morpeth, and that if they did so they would be in a better position than if they referred the Bill to a Select Committee.

said, that he had been invited to state explicitly the views of Her Majesty's Government as to the course to be taken in respect to this Bill. Her Majesty's Government thought that the subject-matter of the Act of 1880 and the subject-matter of this Bill and of the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) should be referred to one Select Committee. For that purpose he should suggest that this Bill should be adjourned for a reasonable time, until the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth could be brought forward and read a second time. In that way all questions would be placed before the Select Committee for their consideration. It was not possible to refer both Bills to a Select Committee at once; that course could only be taken when the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth had been read a second time. It would be much better, therefore, to refer all questions to a Select Committee, which, it was probable, might be appointed within the next month or six weeks, by which time the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth might be reached. He might say that he made this proposal in no spirit of hostility to the present Bill; but it appeared to him that the Select Committee ought to have the whole subject before it. If it was necessary now to decide the question, he should express himself in favour of the principle of this Bill. The Act of 1880 required amendment in several matters, including the power to contract out of it and as to the limitation of the amount which employers might be compelled to pay. He would, therefore, ask the House to allow an inquiry to be instituted into the whole subject, with the assurance on the part of Her Majesty's Government that they agreed with the general principle of this Bill. He would remind the House that before the end of this Session a Bill ought to be passed dealing with the Act of 1880, and it would be better for the Select Committee to have the whole matter before them than a Bill dealing with only one part of the question. Before 1887 an Act must be passed renewing or continuing or otherwise dealing with the Act of 1880; and it would be much more convenient, therefore, that the Select Committee should deal with all questions. He trusted that the House would adopt the plan proposed by the Attorney General, with the assurance that the Government would appoint a Committee to deal with the whole subject.

rose to a point of Order. He wished to know whether, if this Bill were read a second time, it would be possible immediately afterwards to read the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth, on the ground that the smaller would be included in the less? [Loud laughter.] He meant that the less would be included in the great. He also wished to know whether it would be possible for the right hon. Gentleman to give a guarantee to the House that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee before it had passed the second reading?

said, that the second question put to him by the hon. Member was not one for him to decide. With respect to his first question, he could only state that it would not be possible to anticipate the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth.

This is a question which, beyond any other, ought to be discussed in a spirit of good temper and moderation by both sides of the House. There is one important class—namely, the colliers employed in our coal mines, whom we are bound to take into our consideration. No class of men is more worthy of consideration than the working collier who pursues his calling, day after day, contending with the forces of nature and mechanical science under circumstances of the utmost danger and difficulty. It must be remembered, in discussing questions of this kind, that it is essential to the welfare of the working man that the capitalist should be secure of the capital he advances, and that he should be encouraged to invest his fortune in dangerous occupations rather than invest it in Consols and Railway Debentures. ["Question!"] This is the Question; and I beg to tell those hon. Members who cry "Question!" that the sooner they devote themselves to the subject before the House the better. In the constituency which I represent (Wigan) there exists a large insurance fund, consisting of contributions both from the masters and men. In consequence of the existence of this fund the men are able to contract themselves out of the Act, and the masters are not forced to come under its provisions. The contract consists in this—that the masters contribute 25 per cent of the fund; and the advantages which the collier gains under this condition of things is, that when an accident happens, involving loss of life or injury, there is no uncertainty, delay, or legal cost involved, but the injured man, or, in the case of a death, his representatives, come upon the insurance fund the very next day. There is a certainty that advantage may be taken of the fund without any deduction whatever for the heavy cost which always attends the initiation of legal proceedings. I appear here to-day on behalf of the colliery proprietors; and I wish to remind the House that in many cases when an accident happens in a colliery all evidence of carelessness or negligence is swept away by the accident itself. I believe it would be found in many cases that if this insurance fund were altogether done away with, and if the sole reliance of the working collier was to be upon this Act, when a grievous misfortune happened, he would by the act of this House in passing the present Bill be entirely deprived of all remedy in the hour of his greatest misfortune and his deepest need. We ought not to allow ourselves to be carried away by fervid appeals to our sympathy; but we are bound to have regard to all the circumstances of the case, and to bear in mind that the working collier himself gains great and signal advantage by being able to contract himself out of the Act as now allowed by law. Not only is he allowed to do so, but he is almost encouraged to enter into a contract. As regards the Bill of the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. A. O'Connor), I do not wish to discuss it at any length. I was certainly surprised to hear the opening speech of the hon. Member who introduced the Bill. He said at the beginning of his speech, if I rightly understood him, that the subject had not been well discussed hitherto; and towards the end of his observations he informed us that the matter was thoroughly debated in 1880, and that little more was to be said upon it on the present occasion. The fact is, that although the period of the Session was somewhat advanced the Committee stage of the Bill occupied a considerable time, and the Bill was debated carefully clause by clause, nay, almost word by word. There are only one or two points which I think it is necesssary I should mention before I sit down. The first is a matter alluded to by the hon. Member—namely, that most difficult question of responsibility. It is clearly out of the question that every employer should be rendered liable under this Act for the misconduct of every one of his work-people. I know no subject of greater difficulty, or one more worthy of being investigated by a Select Com- mittee. Then comes a vexed question, which the hon. Member has also mentioned—namely, the extension of the principle of the Bill to other classes, including sailors. That is a subject of large dimensions; and not only is it a large, but it is also a very difficult subject to handle, and will require careful searching out. I am unable to say whether the hon. Member behind me, the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Forwood), wishes sailors to be included in the Bill; but he will probably address the House upon that part of the question, as I have no title to speak on their behalf. I do hope that, whatever change may be made in the law, the Statute will be such that it will not, and cannot, break down in practice. I trust that it will be so clear in its terms that no intelligent working man in this country will have the slightest difficulty in ascertaining the meaning of the Statute under which he pursues his calling. Then, again, supposing the law, after our deliberations are concluded, leaves any freedom in the matter, I trust that it will be a real and true freedom, so that if any man contracts himself out of the Act he will do so of his own free will for his own liberty. ["No!"] I do not understand these interruptions from the other side of the House. I am speaking in favour of the freedom of the working man; and if hon. Members challenge my observations I would ask what is the kind of liberty they desire to give to the working man? Another point is that the notice, if notice is to be given, should be of a simple character, and not fenced about by technicalities or the institution of artificial machinery; nor should it contain any of those snares which are so prejudicial in daily practice to the artizan class of our population. I was reluctant to rise; but I felt it my duty to take part in the debate, and I certainly do hope that a temperate discussion, which I have no doubt will take place upon this Bill in the course of the present Session, will result in placing the law in a satisfactory position—that the capitalist may be encouraged to invest his capital, and that the working man may feel secure from loss in pursuit of a hazardous and dangerous occupation.

I wish to make a suggestion to the House which I think would meet the views of both sides of this question. I think that all agree with the observations of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that it is desirable, in some form or other, that the whole Act of 1880, and not merely the part of the subject included in this Bill, should be reported upon by the Committee. It would be a most convenient course that the Committee should inquire into the whole subject. On the other hand, Gentlemen who are in favour of this Bill, being, as I think, a large majority of the House, desire that the course may be taken in this case which is sometimes taken by the House—namely, that the Bill should be read a second time; and then, since it is only a short time before the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) will come up for discussion, and, as I think, no one would desire that a Bill proposed by my hon. Friend should be excluded from the consideration of the Committee, it would only delay the decision of the Committee a short time if we were to wait until we read that Bill also a second time, and referred it as well to the Select Committee. I would suggest, further, that it should be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to inquire into the operation of the whole of the Act of 1880, and thus enlarge the power of the Committee, so that they may be able to deal with the whole subject, as well as with both Bills. I think that would be a satisfactory way of bringing the whole topic under the consideration of the Committee. If this course is acceptable to the House, I think we should read this Bill a second time, on the understanding that within a short time the whole subject will be brought under the consideration of the Committee.

I have for many years taken a very keen interest in the subject now under discussion, both before I became a Member and since I became a Member of the House. Together with my hon. Friend the late Mr. Macdonald, I took an active part in advocating the measure which is now the Act of 1880. I believe that that Act has produced great benefits to the working people. Those who advocated it did so not merely as a means of getting compensation for widows and orphans, but generally for securing the safety of the workmen themselves; and the universal testimony of Inspectors of Factories, In- spectors of Mines, and those who are connected with Benefit Societies and Trade Unions among the workpeople, is that the Act has been invaluable as a means of protecting life and limb in connection with industrial occupations. Well, Sir, the main difficulty or cause of dissatisfaction which has arisen in connection with the Act is that a certain number of employers have compelled their workmen to contract themselves out of the benefits of the Act. As a body, the employers have accepted the Act loyally, and those who have contracted themselves out of it are quite the exception. As far as the working men and the Trade Unions are concerned, their desire is to have the Act made compulsory. As the House knows, in the last Parliament as well as in this I introduced a measure to deal with the subject. It went to a division in the late Parliament, and I was defeated by a very large majority. With regard to the Bill which is now before the House, and which has been introduced by the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. A. O'Connor), I may say that I entirely approve of it, and I can say that with the less hesitation, because the hon. Member has really appropriated the provisions of my Bill and embodied them in his, although his Bill deals also with some other matters which, in my opinion, it is desirable to deal with, but which I had omitted. As far as I am concerned, I am quite prepared to accept the proposal which has been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer—namely, to read this Bill a second time, because it is very important that we should affirm the principle of the measure by assenting to the second reading. With regard, however, to my own Bill, I must make an appeal to the Government. I beg to thank hon. Members who have spoken approvingly of the provisions of that Bill; but I would point out to them that the position in which the measure now stands is not a very advantageous one, and therefore I hope the Government will afford me facilities for having it read a second time. I do not think it will be necessary to press the matter at any length; but I tope that Her Majesty's Ministers will endeavour—and I think they can do it if they like—to give facilities for having the Bill read a second time, after which I think it would be of advantage to the complete and satisfactory settlement of the whole question that the subject should be remitted, as has been suggested, to the Select Committee that will sit upon the present Bill.

I have listened with great pleasure to the remarks which have fallen from the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt), and I think it would be most satisfactory that the Bill of the hon. Member should also be submitted to the consideration of the Select Committee, because at the last Election it was that Bill which was before the constituencies, and to which the attention of candidates was directed. Indeed, I am sorry to find that the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth has been postponed for that of the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. A. O'Connor); but I am glad to hear from the hon. Member that he does not object to the Bill of the hon. Member for Donegal, and that it practically coincides with the provisions of his own measure. That being so, I freely accept what has fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and I hope that, as the right hon. Gentleman has suggested, the two Bills will be referred to a Select Committee, so that the same Committee may deal with them, and with the Act of 1880, and present a Report to the House on the whole subject. I have always been averse to power being given to any persons to contract themselves out of an Act of Parliament. If we pass an Act of Parliament we pass it for the whole of the Realm, and not as a voluntary or permissive Act for any persons to contract themselves out of. That was the view which I took in regard to the Agricultural Holdings Act, and other measures of a similar nature. At the same time, I should be extremely sorry to put unadvisedly any compulsion on those masters who, as the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) has just pointed out, have acted so well towards their workmen in the contracts they have made with them, and from whom the workmen have got more than they could have obtained under the Act. I refer to such cases as that of the London and Northwestern Railway Company and certain large brewers, who have provided for their workmen in a much better way than they are provided for under the Act of Parliament. We must take care that, in preventing workmen and masters from contracting themselves out of the Act, we do not put an end to those salutary contracts which now exist, in many cases, between masters and workmen. It is on this ground that I think the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. Like the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. F. S. Powell), I may say that many of my constituents are affected by the Bill; and it is one of those matters to which my attention was frequently called during the General Election. Questions were put to me in reference to the propriety of amending the Act in the direction proposed by the Bill introduced last year by the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt). There is one other point to which allusion was made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lockwood)—namely, the question of notice. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that there is no reason why, in actions of this sort, there should be notice any more than in any other action. The notice should be the same as is required under Lord Campbell's Act in the case of compensation, and there should be no further limitation than there is in actions generally. With regard to the other details of the Bill, it is not necessary that I should detain the House by any criticism; because, as the whole matter is going before a Select Committee—not only this Bill, but the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth—together with the Act of 1880, there is every hope that there may be produced by that Committee and laid before the House a measure which will place the whole question upon a satisfactory basis.

I must confess that in this matter Her Majesty's Government appear to have no very definite idea of the course which should be adopted. Ten minutes ago the promise made on their behalf in regard to this Bill and the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) was that they should be referred to a Select Committee, and that pending that reference there should be an adjournment of the present debate. But, for some reason which is still concealed by Her Majesty's Ministers, that proposal to adjourn the debate has now been abandoned; and we understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, unable to divest himself of the instincts which possessed him when at the Home Office, now intervenes and overrides the decision of his Colleague the Home Secretary; and we are told that the Bill should now be read a second time ["No!"] I am in the recollection of the House; and I am prepared to maintain, in the presence of hon. Members who heard what passed, that there was a distinct understanding come to, at the instance of the Home Secretary, that there should be an adjournment of the debate. But, however that may be, the effect will be slight so far as the merits of the Bill itself are concerned. Those who are friendly to the principle of the Employers' Liability Act, and those who desire an extension of the provisions of that Act, know that the time must shortly arrive when it will be necessary to decide whether that Act shall be made perpetual or be allowed to lapse; and along with this consideration will have to be considered the question of its extension, or whether it shall be made more restrictive in its character. Whether the Bill is now read a second time or not, the object of those on behalf of whom the late Home Secretary has spoken is that the Committee to whom it is referred should get to work at once, and that hereafter the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt), who is, I should say, the real patentee and person with a true right to ask the House to consider the subject, should also be referred to the same Committee. The Select Committee will then be in a position to consider and take evidence on the whole subject, including the question of the actual operation of the Act of 1880, which has now been working for five years. There seems to me to be really very little difference between the two proposals; and I do not see why Her Majesty's Government should have had so much difficulty in making up their minds in the matter. We are perfectly willing that the Bill should be now read a second time on the understanding that hereafter the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth, which stands on the Paper, but not in a very favourable position, for to-morrow fortnight, should be referred to the same Committee.

I can only say a few words with the indulgence of the House; but if hon. Members will allow me I will explain how the matter stands. We propose that the present Bill should be deferred after it has been read a second time—["No!"]—that in the meanwhile a Select Committee shall be appointed, and that the two Bills—the one now before the House, and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt)—be referred to the Committee. There can be very little difference in reading this Bill a second time on the understanding that the Bill of my hon. Friend is also read a second time, and that, in the meantime, a Select Committee be appointed to consider both Bills. When the Bill shall have been read a second time, I shall move to refer it to a Select Committee, and that it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to call witnesses, and to inquire not only into the two Bills submitted to them, but also into the Employers' Liability Act. The Committee will be at once appointed, and when the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) has been read a second time I shall move to refer that Bill also to the same Committee.

This being the first occasion on which I have had the honour to address the House, I desire to make only a few remarks, the more especially because several hon. Members who sit near me on this side of the House do not approve of the course proposed by Her Majesty's Government. Notwithstanding the explanation which has been given by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, there cannot be a doubt that the Government have executed a serious change of front as to the course to be taken on this Bill. They began by agreeing to the suggestion that the debate should be adjourned for the purpose of having both measures referred to a Select Committee. That, I think, was a proposal which was made by two Members of the Government—namely, by the Attorney General and by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. At that moment in comes the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then we find that the whole thing is to be reversed. It is very hard for us to know what the reason of this change of front is. I can only conceive that the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department must have used his influence with the right hon. Gentleman who is now, in the absence of the Prime Minister, occupying the position of Leader of the House, in order to induce the right hon. Gentleman to make that change of front. But if we cannot approve of the action of the Government, neither can we—and I say it with due humility—approve of the course taken by the Leaders of the Opposition. We had reason to believe that the proposal to adjourn the debate was welcomed by the Front Bench below. It was our desire that the difficult questions involved in the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee, and therefore I approved of the suggestion to refer this Bill to a Select Committee; but I did not approve of the proposal to first read the Bill a second time, for that would pledge the House to its principle, of which I and others on these Benches disapprove. That principle involves the very common Radical nostrum of compulsion. Compulsion, in my opinion, is a principle which is noxious, except where it is unnecessary. Let me remind the House that in speaking on the question of compulsion the hon. Member who introduced the Bill spoke of the Ground Game Act, passed in the last Parliament. The reason why that Act is not more noxious than it has been is because it was entirely unnecessary, the condition of agriculture having been such that tenants could exact what terms they liked from landlords without the intervention of the Act. With regard to the present Bill, it is by no means in the interest of the employers that I am speaking. I believe that to pass a Bill of this kind would be directly against the interests of the workmen. I was talking the other day to a colliery owner in Lancashire, and he told me that when the Employers' Liability Act was passed, in the last Parliament, he called his men together, and said to them—"I do not wish in any way to defraud you, and therefore I would suggest that we should try this Act." And, consequently, they tried the Act of Parliament for a year, and at the end of the year the men all went to my friend and asked him to be allowed to contract themselves out of the Act. [A laugh.] Hon. Members may laugh—in fact, they do laugh—but, as a matter of fact, it was a very reasonable ground on which the men objected to the Employers' Liability Act. The point is this—although, on a matter of this kind, I speak with the greatest humility—on the occurrence of an accident to one of the men he is obliged, in nearly every case, to bring an action at law in order to recover the compensation due to him under the Act. If he cannot prove negligence—which I am told it is very difficult thing indeed to do—he has not only to bear all the injury which the accident may have inflicted on him, but to pay the costs as well. Consequently, the man thinks twice, or even thrice, before he goes into a Court of Law to exact compensation. The men prefer very much the voluntary method of getting compensation for an accident through the action of a mutual Insurance Company. Some hon. Gentlemen seem to think they may have the benefit of both systems. But they ought to remember that an Act of a compulsory kind is very unpopular indeed with the masters, and that the tendency of it will be to prevent the masters from giving' the assistance they now give to the insurance funds. If that is the case the men would have to fall back on the Compulsory Act, and, if so, I wish them joy of it. I think I have said enough to show that there are very good reasons why many Members on this side of the House should object to the passing of this Bill. But I think that is a question which may justly be referred to a Select Committee, provided the House does not bind itself to the principle of the measure before the Committee has sat; and, therefore, I have the honour to move that the debate be now adjourned.

I think that the action which has been taken by Her Majesty's Government places us in a very considerable difficulty in regard to this matter. I am unfortunate enough not to have been present in the House in the early stage of the debate, so that I did not hear what fell from the Attorney General, and I only heard part of what fell from the Home Secretary; but I understand that what passed was this—The original policy of the Government was precisely that which has just been suggested by my noble Friend behind me—namely, that the whole policy of the Employers' Liability Act should be considered formally and completely by a Select Committee, and for that reason they proposed the adjournment of the debate on this Bill, and further proposed that, at a later stage, the Bill and the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) should be referred to the consideration of that Select Committee. That proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was, I understand, accepted as a fair and proper mode of dealing with the question. Subsequently, however, it was objected to by some Members sitting on the other side of the House, and also by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Staffordshire (Mr. Staveley Hill). It was objected to first by the hon. and learned Member for York (Mr. Lockwood), who spoke with considerable force against the principle of freedom of contract, although I am not quite sure that the hon. and learned Member would support interference with freedom of contract if applied to his own Profession. It was also objected to by other hon. Members who addressed themselves to the subject. The result of that was that the Home Secretary said he approved of the principle of the Bill now before the House; but, at the same time, he approved of an adjournment. That was a certain step in advance. There was further debate, and then the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose and said he approved of the principle of the Bill, which led him to support the second reading on the present occasion, thereby entirely departing from the understanding arrived at with my right hon. Friend. I confess that I was not a little puzzled by what had passed up to that stage; but I was still more puzzled when my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) accepted that proposition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It does appear to me that, by agreeing to the second reading of the Bill, the House commits itself to the principle of that Bill—that being an old and well understood rule. Now, what are the principles of the Bill? I must not debate them on this Motion; but they are principles which, to my mind, are of vital importance in the settlement of the question; they are principles which, if carried into effect, would fatally interfere with those advantages which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Staffordshire (Mr. Staveley Hill) has told the House have been given to the employed by many employers of labour, and which he expressed his great desire to maintain. If that be so, the House is asked this evening to assent to a principle of no little importance when it ac- cepts the second reading of this Bill. It seems to me to be a matter of real necessity that this question should be thoroughly sifted and investigated. Next year it must be dealt with by Parliament, and it is so difficult a matter that no inquiry can be too thorough or too searching—I was almost going to say too long—["No!"]—if you can secure its final and satisfactory settlement. But if that inquiry is to be undertaken, surely it should be approached, so to speak, with an open mind. Surely it should be approached without the preliminary acceptance of any principle as to a change in the law, especially a change of such great importance as would be effected by the Bill which is now before the House. I must say, for myself, it does appear to me that the suggestion of a Select Committee is a very proper and necessary suggestion; but that the Committee should be appointed without reference to this or any other Bill—in point of fact, that it should go into the inquiry——

The right hon. Gentleman is now discussing the Main Question, which is irregular upon a Motion for the adjournment of the debate.

I beg pardon. I will only say, in conclusion, that it appears to me, the adjournment of the debate having been at first suggested by Her Majesty's Government, as the mode in which they proposed to deal with the subject, it would be wise for the House to adhere to that proposition. By doing so they would leave the whole question open, as it ought to be left open, for the consideration of the Committee.

The Government do not defend the literal consistency of the course which has been taken either on this or that Bench. If it were desirable—which I have no wish to do—to enter into recrimination on this subject, I should say that the late Home Secretary (Sir E. Assheton Cross) took one view, that the late Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) took another, and that then the Leader of the Opposition (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) reverted to the old position. With regard to the Government, there is no doubt that my right hon. Friend suggested that the whole subject should be referred to a Committee. As the debate went on our views underwent a modification. I am not in the least ashamed to confess it, and it is frequently the case in debates in this House that as they go on opinions become modified. What is the use of debate in this House unless it is to modify views? The Government, however, stand in a very different position with reference to the substance of this question from right hon. Gentlemen opposite. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has affirmed that we agree with the principle of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman opposite does not agree with the principle of the Bill; at all events, he has not yet made up his mind. As regards the Government, the only question affecting them is one of procedure with reference to a matter upon which we are agreed in principle. I quite admit that it would be a different question if we were agreed upon the principle. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary suggested that it would be consistent with the opinions of the promoters of this Bill and the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) that a particular course should be taken. The supporters of the principle of the present Bill demurred to that course being taken. I think it was perfectly reasonable that we should consider that objection, seeing that we agree with them in the main substance of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman opposite and some of his Friends, including the noble Lord the Member for Darwen (Viscount Cranborne), whom we heard with satisfaction, expressed opinions that were altogether different, and opinions with which we do not concur. But there are further stages of the Bill after it leaves the Select Committee on which it will be possible to raise any question as to principle; and, indeed, in the Select Committee itself it will be quite possible to do so. Therefore, hon. Gentlemen opposite are not precluded by any means from further opposition to the principle of the Bill. Under these circumstances, and after the concurrence of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Stuart-Wortley), the late Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, I do not think that hon. Gentlemen sitting on that side of the House have any right to complain of the course we have taken. My right hon. Friend said the difference between us was so infinitesimal that it was not worth discussing. There is no intention of acting in any way unfairly to hon. Gentlemen opposite, or on this side of the House, who demur to the principle of the Bill, seeing that they will be able to discuss that principle here-after. And therefore I hope, on the whole, that without any warmth of feeling on the subject the course which I have suggested will be adopted.

The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken does not often succeed in throwing oil upon the troubled waters, and he has certainly not succeeded in doing so to-night. He has not only thrown overboard the Secretary of State for the Home Department, but he has also thrown over a former Colleague of his—Lord Monk Bretton—because, when Mr. Dodson (now Lord Monk Bretton) had charge of the Employers' Liability Bill in 1880, he brought it forward as a tentative measure, for the express purpose of having it reconsidered after it had been in operation for a few years. The object which I had in view in assenting to the Motion for Adjournment, and the object of the adjournment itself, was to provide that the inquiry of the Committee should be deferred until it could have the opportunity of considering that which Lord Monk Bretton said in 1880 ought to be considered—namely, how far the Act had answered its purpose before it was made final, or its provisions extended. The whole object of the adjournment, which is the Question upon which I am at the present moment speaking, was in order to afford a proper opportunity for having the whole matter discussed. I suggested that the debate should be adjourned for the purpose of securing the appointment of a Committee, and that the Committee should sit without the principle of this measure having been affirmed by the House in the first instance. ["Order!"] If lam out of Order the Speaker will correct me. I say that the object with which the adjournment of the debate was suggested in the early part of the evening was this—that before we assented to the principle of the Bill by reading it a second time we might have the experience of the Select Committee, together with the evidence adduced before them, and the conclusion they may arrive at, whether the principle of the Employers' Liability Act ought to be extended or not. That was the sole object I had in proposing the adjournment of the debate; it is the reason why I shall support it now; and it was the reason why the suggestion was accepted by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department. It is simply because other hon. Members have made other suggestions that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has proposed a different course, although he did not hear a word of what was stated in the earlier part of the discussion.

I bog the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. He is mistaken. I have been present throughout the debate, and I heard the speech of the right hon. Gentleman.

I am glad that I was mistaken. I am only sorry that my remarks had no effect upon him, and I am still more sorry that the arrangement proposed by the present Home Secretary had so little effect upon him that he was induced to get up half-an-hour afterwards and make a different proposal altogether.

As a new Member addressing the House for the first time, I would claim its indulgence. As an employer of labour who has loyally accepted the Act, I rise for the purpose of expressing my conviction that it is for the interest of the working man himself that he should have the power of contracting himself out of the Employers' Liability Act.

The hon. and gallant Member is not addressing himself to the Question before the House, which is that the debate be now adjourned, and not the Main Question.

I have listened with the greatest attention to the remarks which have been made by the late Home Secretary (Sir E. Assheton Cross); but I am bound to say that they failed to carry any conviction to my mind. I understand him to say that there is a difference of opinion between two right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Front Bench, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has thrown overboard the Secretary of State for the Home Department; but I am bound to say that, so far as I caught the remarks of both of those right hon. Gentlemen, I cannot find the smallest possible difference in their action. The question dealt with by the Bill has the greatest interest for many of the constituents I have the honour to represent.

Order! The hon. and gallant Gentleman is travelling from the Question.

Under the Employers' Liability Act, as it now stands, the workmen are able to contract themselves out of it. Now, I think that that is a very proper thing; and the system of insurance which has been established, and to which the employers contribute, is of the utmost advantage to the workman. It provides for him when he is sick, and also for his widow and orphans if he has the misfortune to be killed. I see no objection to a provision in the Act rendering it illegal to make it a condition of employment that a workman should contract himself out of the Act, provided he may do so if he thinks it his interest; but I would point out that in dangerous occupations, such as that of coal-mining, the injuries inflicted upon the workmen which can by any possibility be imputed to the negligence of the employer are infinitesimal—probably not more than 5 or 10 per cent. But many accidents occur in which the injured workmen suppose that negligence can be so imputed, and the consequence is that there is an enormous amount of litigation. So much is that the case that in 1884 the claims made were four times as great as the compensation obtained by the workmen. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that upon the Select Committee which will have to consider the provisions of this Bill this vital question should be carefully sifted to the bottom, because I do not disguise from myself that many workmen suppose that the question of safety is involved. But in dangerous occupations like coal-mining there are Acts of Parliament passed, like the Mines Regulation Act, which are intended to protect the workmen; and if they fail to give them protection they should at once be amended. I have dwelt strictly upon this single point, because I feel that it is the very essence of the Bill now before us.

I have only one remark to address to th.6 House. I am anxious to say a word on behalf of a class of workmen who are entirely unrepresented in this House—the class of seamen. I understand that when the Bill passes a second reading it is understood that the principle of it has been thereby affirmed; and I hope that, in this case, it will be also understood that part of the principle of the Bill which we are about to affirm to-night is that seamen shall be brought under the protection of the measure.

I hope the House will extend to me the indulgence which is usually afforded to a Member who rises to address it for the first time. I may say that I appear here in a dual capacity, seeing that I have the honour to represent a large body of men who are engaged in coal-mining, and that I have also the further privilege of representing another large body of men who are interested in the provisions of this Bill—I mean the shipping interest. With regard to the colliers, I must admit that I originally took the view that they were better off by entering into an arrangement with the mine owners by which an insurance fund was provided, under which a collier, in the case of an accident which, whether it came within the Employers' Liability Act or not, would receive compensation. But upon discussing the matter with the workmen themselves I found—and I honour them for it—that they put in the forefront their anxiety to make compulsory the necessity of protecting life and limb, and that it is not with them a mere question of compensation. They desire to come under the Act in order that they may best protect the mines in which they work and their own lives from accident. Therefore, I feel that as regards the principle of the Bill, as far as it applies to that class of workmen, it is desirable that it should be affirmed, and distinctly affirmed. But there is another point in the Bill which is quite novel, and which has not been considered, I believe, in this House before—namely, the reference to seamen. Now, I would venture to suggest to the House that the position of the seamen and that of other workmen are not analogous. As regards workmen employed in general trade, their work in mines or buildings is carried on under the eye and under the inspection of their own master or a foreman. But with regard to a ship, the vessel is sent to sea with all that is necessary to equip her and render her seaworthy. The owner provides the host officer and master he can command to control that ship; but once it has left the port and gone away from his sight, he has no further opportunity of exercising that vigilance and constant control over her which the owner of a factory or of a coal mine has, whose works are conducted under his own immediate inspection. As the great national shipping industry has not been alluded to to-night, perhaps I may be allowed for a moment or two to place before the House the exact position of the shipowner, and the difference which exists between his position and that of the manufacturer and colliery proprietor. The manufacturer proceeds with his work under little, if any, inspection; but the case is vastly different with the shipowner. The law recognizes that there are great dangers attending the voyages of a ship; and from the day that a man makes up his mind that he will build a ship until the day that ship loaves her port the shipowner positively hands himself over body and soul to the inspectorship of the Board of Trade. He draws his plans and makes out his specifications, and he has to submit those plans and specifications for the approval of the Board of Trade. I am speaking now of the steam shipowner. Then he has to obtain from a Government Department a certificate that the vessel has been built, prepared, and equipped in a manner sufficiently strong to insure her safe navigation. Even then the shipowner has not a free choice as to whom he shall employ in the conduct and navigation of the ship; but he is bound to employ a master or engineer officer, who must have submitted himself to an examination by an inspecting officer of the Board of Trade and received a certificate as to his qualification. A ship sent to sea is thus, from first to last, under the control of a Government Department. When the vessel goes to sea under the direction of a duly certificated master, she passes absolutely away from the control of the owner; but if this Bill passes, in the shape in which it is now before the House, the owner will become responsible for every act and deed of the officers he employs which may be construed to have been in any degree an act arising from negligence on the part of the master or other certificated officer so approved by the Board of Trade. Now, Sir, it is very difficult to determine what is negligence and what is an error of judgment on the part of the master or officer navigating the ship. We have hundreds of cases investigated year by year before the Wreck Commissioners, whoso duty it is to ascertain whether the master has navigated his ship in a seamanlike manner, or whether the accident or loss arose from some cause not under the control of the owner, or master, or officers. It is one of the most difficult points the Wreck Commissioners has to decide where comes in the question whether the master was guilty of negligence in navigation, or whether he was only guilty of an error of judgment. In order to show the House how difficult and how intricate that question is, I may say that it may turn upon a point whether the master has cast his lead every hour or every two hours, or upon other matters perfectly out of the control and altogether beyond the cognizance of the owner. If the Court holds that the master ought to have taken a cast of his lead every hour, and that he only did it every two hours, he is held to have been guilty of negligence; and it is proposed, under this Bill, even if the ship may have gone to the bottom, that for such an act of technical negligence the owner of the ship shall be liable for three years' wages in the case of every man who was on board that vessel. That means, in the case of some of our large Atlantic liners, something like £30,000. I think, therefore, that the House will consider that it is a subject of deep importance and great moment, and one that is not to be decided hastily or without careful consideration. There is another point in the Bill to which I must also call attention. It makes the owner responsible, under Section 3, for the negligence of every person who may have been entrusted by him with the duty of seeing that the ways, means, works, machinery, and plant are in a proper condition. Now, large employment is found by the owners of vessels—and I may say at once it is the only profitable employment for owners at the present day, in trading abroad, visiting the home port seldom, but making voyages inter-colonial, or from port to port abroad. Under this Bill the master abroad will select probably the best engineer and the best workpeople he can find to effect any repairs that may have to be done in a foreign country, but of whom the owner at home has never heard before. If such workpeople do their work negligently or inefficiently, under this Bill the owner at home is made responsible for acts over which it is impossible that he can exercise any control whatever. Now, Sir, the Employers' Liability Act, to which this is to be a supplement, clearly and distinctly sets out that by reason of the negligence of any person in the service of the owner certain penalties shall be incurred. One effect of this drastic legislation will be to increase what, I think, is a very unwholesome practice for the purpose of defeating the Act, and I will point it out to the House in this way. The Limited Liability Act is frequently adopted in regard to the ownership of a vessel. The owners of a vessel constitute themselves into a single Company with fully paid-up shares. If that vessel goes to the bottom the whole of the capital comprised in the shares goes with it, and there is nothing left to represent anybody against whom a claim for compensation under the Act can be made. The effect will be to do away with the private ownership of vessels, which still very largely prevails in this country, and to force every owner to take advantage of the unwholesome provisions of the Limited Liability Act in regard to the ownership of vessels. The result would be that instead of giving protection to the sailors the owners would absolutely escape scot-free, owing to the desire which would spring up to evade the provisions of the Bill. I have pointed out these practical points—I hope the House will consider them practical points—for the purpose of directing the attention of the Select Committee, which I hope will be appointed to consider this measure, to the important fact that it involves a new departure as regards the question of seamen, and requires very careful attention at the hands of any Committee which may be appointed. In regard to the general principles of the Employers' Liability Act, so far as it affects the pocket interest, in forcing manufacturers and others who employ labour to provide good machinery and appliances, I cordially sympathize with the object of the Bill. All I hope is, that the House will not allow their sentiment to run away with their reason, and induce them to strain a point against the general interests of the country.

The hon. Member opposite has called attention to the case of seamen. May I, with the permission of the House, say a few words in regard to another class who have not been referred to to-night—I mean the railway employés, because no body of workmen will be more largely affected by the provisions of the Bill than those with whom I happen to be connected—I mean the London and North-Western Railway Company. I desire to say a few words as to the position of the men under that Company, and under private firms who have made similar arrangements. I came down to this House entirely prepared to support the second reading of the Bill. Like hon. Gentlemen opposite, I found, on facing my constituents, that there was no question regarded by them as of more general interest. Over and over again my attention was called to the principles of the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt); and I have always claimed to myself the right in Committee, after the Bill should have passed a second reading, to bring forward the case of the railway servants, with regard to which I have special knowledge. The hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. A. O'Connor), who moved the second reading of the Bill, said that practically the railway servants in this country were morally compelled to contract themselves out of the Employers' Liability Act. Now, I wish to tell the House that in regard to the very large body of men employed by the London and North-Western Railway that accusation does not hold good.

The hon. Member must excuse me. I do not think I committed myself to the statement that the great body of railway servants were compelled to contract themselves out of the Act; but what I said was that hundreds of thousands of workmen in the country were compelled to contract themselves out of it.

I beg the hon. Member's pardon if I have misrepresented him. I was quite aware that he had not alluded specially to railway work- men; but as they are a large body, and will undoubtedly be affected, I concluded that his observations applied to them. Now, the position of the railway servants, with whom I have the honour to be connected, is this. When the Act of 1880 became law, the London and North-Western Railway Company called their men together by delegates from all parts of the country, and placed a scheme before them for their consideration. They were not asked to adopt it hastily. On the contrary, they were requested to go back to the country and consider it carefully through their delegates. Some weeks were spent by the men in so considering the scheme. At the end of that time they returned, and accepted the proposition placed before them by an enormous majority of no less than 32,000 in favour of accepting it, against 59 individuals who were unwilling or indisposed to accept the terms of the Company. The proposal was by no means framed with any idea that the Company would benefit their pockets. On the contrary, in the proposals made by the Company the shareholders were required to make a large grant from their resources. Indeed, the proposal was of such a character that instead of spending a matter of some £3,000 a-year, which was the utmost that could have been possibly claimed under the Act, a very much larger sum was voluntarily contributed by the shareholders of the Company. Although I entirely agree with the principle of this Bill, and think that we ought not in this House to pass permissive Acts—that if an Act of Parliament is good we ought to pass it, and if it is bad that we ought to repeal it, but that we ought not to allow permissive legislation—I think that the interests of men who in large numbers have accepted the terms offered to them, both in this and in similar cases, should be fairly considered when the Bill goes before the Committee. A suggestion has been made in some quarters which seems to me to be worthy of consideration—namely, that in cases where insurance funds exist the firms which have created such insurance funds should have public inspection applied to them. Freedom to contract themselves out of the Act should only be conceded when a satisfactory certificate was obtained to prove that no compulsion was being used towards the workpeople. It may be said that such a proposal is in the nature of a compromise; but I would point out that it is offered in the interests of the men themselves, who, in the case of the servants of the London and North-Western Railway Company, in such a large proportion as 32,000 against 59, after full consideration, expressed themselves satisfied with the arrangement proposed for their acceptance. It appears to me that in affirming the principle of the Bill we ought to reserve to ourselves the right in Committee to consider and deal with this point in the way I have suggested. Even if the clause were introduced, I have said that the arrangement made by the London and North-Western Railway Company is such that the shareholders contribute under it a larger sum than they can be called upon to pay under the Act. The arrangement has been in existence for five years, and with that experience the Directors are ready to refer to their books and accounts, which will establish the correctness of what I have stated.

If it were not for the speech of the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Forwood) I should not have risen to address the House on this subject; but having some experience as a sailor I trust I may be allowed to occupy a few minutes in stating my views upon the question of bringing seamen within the scope of the Bill. If I believed that it would be for the benefit of the seamen themselves that they should be brought under the Act I should at once agree to the principle; but I believe, having regard to the vicissitudes of a sailor's life, that it would not be so. What the hon. Member for Ormskirk said is perfectly true; I quite agree with him that it is manifestly impossible for a shipowner in England to have any knowledge of what is going on in connection with his ship in a foreign part. Supposing, for instance, the engineer is invalided, or dies, the captain of the ship gets the best engineer who can be found in the port to do the work; but bad may be the best. Instances may occur of a man losing his arm or his leg; but is it right that the shipowner should be taxed to the extent of three years' pay for an accident over which he has no control? It is just the same in the case of sailing ships. Upon the ocean, thousands of miles away from England, with only one officer on deck in charge of the vessel, what may not happen. How can the owners tell, if a man falls off a yard, whether it is caused by a rotten brace or by a shift of wind? I can assure the House that these matters are not easily dealt with at sea, nor can they be easily judged of afterwards. Sailors are, as a class, not partial to lawyers. There is, I believe, a good understanding between owners and seamen at the present time, and I trust that the harmony which exists between them may not be disturbed; but I believe that the result of bringing shipowners under this law would be that this harmony would be very much interfered with. Sir, there are many of my brother officers here, more than ever there were before; and I say that we arrogate to ourselves, notwithstanding the remark of one hon. Member who has spoken, that we represent in this House sailors just as much as officers and shipowners, and as long as we remain here we shall continue to do so. For these reasons I object to shipowners being brought under the Bill.

Sir, I can assure my hon. Friends below the Gangway that my speech shall be very short. I apologize for my temerity in speaking on this subject, and as one of a class said by the gallant Admiral who has just spoken to be peculiarly obnoxious to sailors. I venture to make some observations to the House on behalf of seamen. I should not do so if I were sure that the gallant Admiral the Member for Southampton (Sir John Commerell) was an adequate Representative of seamen. I have an idea that there is a difference with regard to this matter in the Navy as compared with the Merchant Service, and that ordinary seamen do not look at it in the same light as the hon. and gallant Gentleman. I have been a supporter of the Employers' Liability Act since the time when it was first brought into this House; and I remember, when I had the honour of a seat below the Gangway on the opposite side, that it was supported at the time by some Gentlemen opposite who are now most eloquent in the denunciation of its principles. I should also like to say that those who have been ardent and consistent supporters of the Employers' Liability Act have never been able to understand why seamen have been excluded from its provisions. Arguments have been adduced by the Attorney General (Mr. Charles Russell), my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk, and the gallant Admiral who has just sat down, against the Bill, which are just as applicable to the case of miners who worked below ground as to seamen. In answer to the Attorney General's statement, I should like to ask what control the representative of a Mining Company in London has over miners working underground in Northumberland? If a shareholder in a mine is to be made liable for the negligence of managers and overlookers under these circumstances, I say that you should apply the same principle as you apply to him to owners of ships. If the law is good in one case it is good in the other. But, Sir, I happen to know that the exclusion of seamen from the benefit of the Act of 1880, which astonished us so much at the time it was originally proposed by a Liberal Government, was no matter of principle at all. I know how it came about, and I will tell the House how it came about. The right hon. Gentleman now President of the Local Government Board, who at that time was President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain), had two Bills before the House—one the Employers' Liability Bill, and the other a Bill making certain regulations with reference to the shipment of grain cargoes for the better preservation of life at sea. The Grain Cargoes Bill, which passed into law in 1880, was opposed by a large number of shipowners, who represent always an important interest in this House; and it was desired to buy off those shipowners, if it could be done, that seamen were excluded from the Employers' Liability Act. They said—"If you exclude us from the Employers' Liability Bill we will withdraw our opposition to the Grain Cargoes Bill." Well, Sir, the bargain was made, and the opposition of the shipowners to the Grain Cargoes Bill was withdrawn, and a clause was introduced into the Employers' Liability Bill that it should not apply to seamen. That is the reason why that extraordinary anomaly was introduced. I should be glad if this Bill were to do away with that anomaly, for which, in my opinion, no justification can be found. I trust the House will excuse me for having stood for a few minutes between them and a division; but after the speeches made by the hon. Gentlemen to whom I have referred I think it right to say that there are some Members on this side of the House who are not in favour of continuing this anomaly.

I have listened attentively to hon. Gentlemen on these Benches representing a very important body in this country—namely, the Railway Directors, and through them the railway shareholders. He has expressed the opinion that Railway Directors hold on this question. I beg, Sir, to ask the attention of the House to another body of men who are connected with the railway industry of the country, neither Directors nor shareholders—I mean the employés. I have the honour to represent a very large number of that class of persons; and I venture to think that, when inquiry is made amongst them and if they are represented on the proposed Committee, it will be found that there is another side of the question than that which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Northumberland (Mr. MacInnes) has put forward. I know that what I am saying will find its echo when that Committee is called together; and therefore I ask that when that takes place the Committee will be so carefully constituted as to include not only those who represent capital and Railway Directors, but that there will be upon it persons who can speak the voice, language, and feelings of persons employed in mines, as well as that very important class, the railway employés, in whom this House will recognize some of the most valuable and reliable of those who administer to the wants of the public.

Sir, I thought, for reasons I ventured to submit to the House, that the wisest and safest course which the House could adopt with reference to this question was the adjournment of the debate, as originally suggested by Her Majesty's Government. But when I found that the strong opinion of the House was against that proposal, I recommended my hon. Friend not to press his Motion to a division; and, Sir, although I still hold strongly the opinion that it would be better, in the interest of a fair and adequate solution of this great ques- tion, that we should not pledge ourselves to anything before the inquiry of the Committee which Her Majesty's Government have undertaken to appoint, and, therefore, am still opposed to the second reading of the Bill, yet I shall content myself, as I trust my hon. Friends behind me will also content themselves, by saying "No" to the Question, without putting the House to the trouble of dividing.

Sir, representing, as I do, a nautical as well as a shipowning community, I desire to say why I intend to abstain from voting tonight on this question. I shall abstain from doing so because of the proposed inclusion of seamen in the Bill for which a second reading is asked. I will yield to none in my anxiety to promote the welfare of seamen, no less than of shipowners; and, therefore, I intend to withhold my judgment until the Bill is considered in Committee. In the meantime, I protest, Sir, against the inclusion of seamen within the scope of the Bill, after the very short debate which we have had upon the question to-night.

Sir, I have no objection to urge to the appointment of a Select Committee to consider this Bill, because I am more than gratified by the support of the principle of the Bill which I have obtained from Her Majesty's Government. But I wish to point out that it is further proposed to refer to the Select Committee not merely the Act of 1880 and the Bill which has just been read a second time, but also the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt). We should remember that the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth cannot be referred to the Select Committee until it has been read a second time, and that there is no reasonable prospect of its being so read on the day for which it is put down. It is, therefore, clear that a second reading cannot be secured for it at any very early date; and I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Childers) whether he proposes that the Select Committee should, so to speak, rest upon its oars, practically doing nothing, until the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth has been read a second time, or proceed to business as soon as possible? I should also be glad to hear that Her Majesty's Government will be prepared, if the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth is not read a second time on the 10th of March, to afford some facility for its early reading, so that there may be no delay.

Sir, with regard to the last question of the hon. Member for East Donegal, I could not undertake to give any facilities respecting the Bill of the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt). It is proposed to refer the Act of 1880, as well as the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth when it has passed the second reading, to the Select Committee; but I do not propose that there should be any delay in the matter whatever.