, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that the Bill had been some time before the country, and he hoped he might say there was a considerable consensus of opinion in its favour. The recent Reform Act enfran- chised all capable citizens who paid rates and taxes; it even enfranchised many who lived in houses, but did not pay rates and taxes directly. Yet it most unfairly left out a large class of as capable citizens as there were in this country, who had shown by their conduct that they were as fit to be intrusted with the privilege of voting as any other citizens. An attempt was made to remove the grievance of the police at the time of the passing of the Franchise Bill in 1884. A clause was moved for the purpose; but the right hon. and learned Member for Bury (Sir Henry James) took exception to the introduction of it, though not on the merits of the clause itself, and after a discussion it was withdrawn. In 1885 Mr. Coleridge Kennard, then Member for Salisbury, introduced a measure on the subject, which received the support of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the then Home Secretary the right hon. Member for a division of Lancashire. The second reading was carried without a division, but it was too late in the Session to make any further progress with the Bill. He hoped, however, that the early period at which he had been able to bring on the Bill this Session was a favourable augury of the ultimate success that would attend it. It was said that the opinions of the Force were not unanimously in favour of the Bill. Some chief constables, including those of Macclesfield and Herefordshire, had strongly opposed the extension of the franchise to the police. But an organ which was supposed to express the opinions of the Police Force of the country showed that a vast number of equally competent chief constables had taken an entirely opposite view. They had represented, with a great amount of force and reason, that the police were quite as well qualified to vote as were soldiers, who enjoyed the franchise, and as Revenue officers and Post Office officials. They said that the police regarded it as a slur and as a mark of incapacity that they should be deprived of a privilege which had been given to almost everybody else. The hon. Member for Central Sheffield (Mr. Howard Vincent) in February last received a deputation to congratulate him upon his return. This deputation spoke on behalf of 151 chief constables of counties or boroughs representing over 10,000 men, and the deputation expressed their confidence that one effect of his return would be an additional guarantee that the grievances of the police, of which disfranchisement was one, would speedily be removed. The hon. Member in his reply said he regarded this as one of the grievances from which the police suffered, and he congratulated them on their unanimity in desiring its removal. This question had already been tested with perfect success in Scotland. The police in 32 counties and in a certain number of the burghs of Scotland created under the Lindsay Act in 1862 were in the same position as their brother constables in England, and were not possessed of the vote; but all cities and Royal burghs in Scotland had ever had the vote for their constables, and they had exercised that vote for many years without the least hitch or hindrance, with perfect advantage to the police as a force, and with no injury or detriment to the general public. Chief Constable M'Call, of Glasgow, who was in command of 1,083 men, said that he entirely agreed with the Chief Constable of Dundee, who had 163 men under him, that he never heard that the voting of the Police Force had been injurious to the Public Service, and that he thought they had always exercised the vote without prejudice to the public interests or their own. This was confirmed by the Chief Constable of Edinburgh, Captain Henderson, who commanded 429 men, and said that he knew no body of men who were more likely to use the privilege with judgment and discretion and for the good of the country. He had been told by one or two chief constables that what was now proposed would be likely to interfere with discipline. But if we could trust our soldiers with the vote, why not trust the police? He thought he was justified in saying that it was time that the disqualification should be removed, and the same privilege which had been conferred upon other classes should be extended to the police. He begged to move the second reading of the Bill.

, in seconding the Motion, said, that after the complete and lucid statement of his right hon. Friend there was little left for him to add. The police laboured under unwarrantable disabilities. We gave our soldiers liberty to vote and refused it to the police, although the man who once became a soldier could never divest himself of his military character, whereas a policeman, when off duty, was essentially a citizen. We also gave votes to postmen, as well as to Civil servants and Excise officers. There was no other class in the community, indeed, that was disqualified from exercising political power except the police. And there was really no justification for the exclusion. The police in Scotland had it, and the police in the Colonies and other countries—where they had more onerous duties to perform than they had here—also possessed it, and in no instance did they use it adversely to the State. The late Home Secretary was in favour of the principle of the Bill, so was his Predecessor; and he hoped the present holder of the Office would be a supporter also. There was no body of men in the country to whom Englishmen were more indebted for their security and liberty than to the policemen. They were an ever-present but an almost invisible force for good in our social system. To deprive such men of the primary rights of citizenship which they did so much to protect was a glaring injustice and anomaly. There might have been some justification for withholding this power from them in former times. The right to vote might then possibly have been an injury to the policemen themselves, as when votes were given openly it would have been possible for members of the Watch Committees in boroughs and magistrates in counties to ascertain how the men had voted, and they might have been punished for their political opinions. But that was impossible now. They could exercise their power without supervision or without the chance of injury; and he trusted that the House would unanimously pass a Bill which only sought to do a tardy act of justice to a deserving body of public servants.

said, that as he took a somewhat conspicuous part in the last Parliament in opposition to a similar proposal, he hoped the House would allow him to state the course which he intended to take in reference to this Bill. His hon. Friend who had last spoken had said that they had enfranchised the soldier, therefore they ought to enfranchise the police. The fact was soldiers never were disfranchised, but had always had the right to vote; whereas the police had been disfranchised from the very time of their creation as a force under the Municipal Act of 1835, and every other Act under which bodies of constabulary had been formed. Under these Acts not only were the police rendered incapable of voting, but they were not allowed to affect the vote of any other person; and the reason for this provision—which, might at first sight appear strange—was that the Legislature intended that the policemen who had to appear at political meetings, and whose duty it was to keep the peace between the political parties, should be perfectly independent, and never regarded as a political partizan. It was considered desirable that the police should be removed from even the suspicion of showing favour to political allies and disfavour to political opponents. Therefore, the analogy which his hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle relied on was not well founded. Soldiers had never interfered at elections; they were not present at political meetings to keep the peace, and they did not appear in public while elections were being held. It was therefore immaterial whether they were political partizans or not. In the case of policemen, however, it had been thought, at least in past times, that they should be removed from all suspicion of being partizans. It was under circumstances of this kind, in consequence of legislation by the Government of Sir Robert Peel, passed with the full and unanimous occurrence of both political Parties, that this matter was raised in 1885. In the last Parliament, when the Franchise Bill was before the House, and Mr. Coleridge Kennard moved an Amendment with a view to conferring the franchise on the police, he stated his reasons for opposing it. What had taken place on that occasion was impressed upon his memory by the fact that he had received support from an unexpected quarter. Mr. Warton sprung up, and said that the happiest day of his life had been reached because he found himself able to agree with every word the Attorney General had said. Mr. Kennard withdrew his Amendment, and so the matter rested until 1885, when the ques- tion was again mooted and an attempt was made to reverse the previous decision. What he asked for then, being at the time in Opposition, was that an opportunity should be afforded the House to reflect upon the question. He was glad he had done so, for the subject was now approached with fuller information. The matter had been discussed at the General Election, and he had to confess that he believed there were a majority of Members within the House, and a consensus of opinion outside, in favour of giving the vote to the police. It had not been unreasonable to entertain the opinion he had formerly held; and he still thought that if they looked at the matter in an abstract light, the weight of authority would be against the proposal; but they had to deal with it as a practical question, and he thought it would be inadvisable to have it made a subject of discussion at future elections and a burning question. Therefore, though he did not go back from the opinion he had previously expressed, now that the question had been brought into the position which it occupied, he would not be disposed to oppose the second reading of the Bill. There were a few more subjects he wished to refer to. A question arose whether they were going to make the policeman a whole citizen. They retained by the Bill the disqualification of the policeman with regard to his appearing at any public meeting when off duty, and therefore with regard to his standing on the platform and expressing his political views. Neither must he attempt to persuade a voter or to canvass any man. Therefore, they had to consider whether they would leave the policeman in this peculiar position, or give him the full rights of citizenship. There was one other matter. They were not by this Bill conferring the municipal franchise on the policeman, and therefore were not trusting him with the full duties of citizenship. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to admit that he was afraid to give to policemen the municipal franchise lest they should come into contact with the Watch Committees of boroughs. The House would have to consider whether this disqualification ought to prevail. An enormous power was given to the heads of the Police Force. At county elections especially they had the sole control of the force, and men could be removed out of their own polling district into another if their political views were opposed to those of their superior officers. He was not going to suggest that the heads of the police would act intentionally in that way; on the contrary he believed they would act with strict impartiality; but they would have to give orders which would create a suspicion against them and which would at the same time disfranchise the police. All this showed that the subject was not quite so narrow as some had supposed it to be. As, however, the objections he had urged would probably not be deemed sufficient to justify the rejection of the Bill, he would cheerfully consent to the second reading, reserving to himself the right of again raising his objections in Committee.

I rise in support of the second reading of the Bill which has been moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson). It is, as he has said, no Party measure. It may, I hope, receive the unanimous assent of the House. There is no one who has a greater knowledge of the Police Service than the right hon. Baronet. It was a matter of general regret when he resigned the Under Secretaryship of State at the Home Office, which brought him for many years into close contact with the police of the whole country. That which he now seeks at the hands of Parliament on behalf of the Army of Order in England and Wales is an act of simple justice, and one which he knows well, and I know, will not be abused. With the recent extension of the franchise it is, I submit, impossible longer to deprive 34,000 of the most intelligent men in the whole country of the Parliamentary vote. Hon. Members on this side of the House have nothing assuredly to fear from the extension of the franchise among the educated, the discerning, the far-seeing, and the intelligent. Have hon. Members opposite any scruple upon this head? It may be that in the course of the debate doubts may be thrown upon the wisdom of this step from a disciplinary or a social point of view. They are, however, I submit, devoid of solid foundation. Can it be doubted that political feeling is constantly—and I, for one, say unfortunately—imported into elections for the school boards and for guardians of the poor? The police have long had a voice in the election of persons to seats on these bodies. But there is no hon. Member who will aver that the privilege has been in any way unduly exercised. No hon. Member can, I am sure, cite one single instance in which the public interest has been in the slightest degree prejudiced thereby. I go further. The police in Scotch boroughs number 2,317 men. They have long enjoyed the Parliamentary franchise, and I shall be much surprised if there is any hon. Member for a Scotch borough who will rise in his place and say that the privilege has been improperly exercised by the Scotch police, or who will say that the public interest in Scotland has been prejudicially affected. I hold in my hand letters from 24 chief constables of Scotland, whose uniform experience is that no evil consequences whatever have ensued, either to the public or to the police themselves, and they one and all claim its extension to their English brethren. The Chief Constable of Edinburgh writes—

"I have never heard that the possession of the franchise has been attended with any unsatisfactory results."

The Chief Constable of Glasgow, Mr. M'Call, one of the ablest officers in the Kingdom, says—

"The men have always exercised their voting powers without prejudice either to the public interest or their own."

The Chief Constable of Aberdeen declares that the police have enjoyed and exercised both the Parliamentary and municipal franchise for many years without any unsatisfactory result. This, I submit to the House, is overwhelming evidence that no evil result is likely to follow the enactment of the measure proposed by my right hon. Friend. He has excluded—and wisely, in my humble opinion—the municipal franchise. It is, I freely admit, open to question whether advantage is to be gained by the police joining in the election of the Municipal Councillors, by whom, they are to be controlled, who are often the arbiters of punishment, reward, and pension. It is true that no great inconvenience is found in this system in Scotland; but, none the less, I think the right hon. Baronet has wisely excluded the municipal franchise from this measure. His opinion wholly coincides with that of a representation I recently had the honour to receive from 150 chief and head constables in England and Wales. They were not in favour of the police receiving the municipal franchise; but they one and all placed reliance upon the justice of Parliament to allow to those who did such good work for the country at least a silent voice in the choice of those by whom its affairs of Empire are administered. No one, Sir, would advocate or in the remotest degree recommend that the police should take any active part in electioneering, or that they should be strong partizans. But on behalf of those with whom I stood shoulder to shoulder for many years, on behalf of those whose comradeship any man might with reason be proud, I beg leave to join my right hon. Friend in seeking this act of justice at the hands of Parliament. I beg to support the second reading of the Bill, which will secure for the police of England and Wales the privileges enjoyed by police beyond the Tweed, privileges from which neither the soldier nor the sailor are debarred, privileges—nay, Sir, the rights in this age of education, of intelligence, of honesty, of uprightness, such as are exhibited every day and every hour of the day by the guardians of public safety in this country.

said, that one of the reasons why he complained of the last Reform Bill was that it did not accomplish the object aimed at in this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to amend the Franchise Act by including within its operation 34,000 policemen; but it should be remembered that there were still 3,326,000 men in the country, most of whom, he believed, paid their fair share of taxes, who were not enfranchised. As far as the police were concerned, he had never been able to understand why they were excluded from the franchise. It had been considered that law-abiding people, who were otherwise qualified, ought to have a Parliamentary vote, and if there was a body of men more law-abiding than any other it was the police. He hailed with satisfaction the fact that this measure came from a Conservative Member. Time was when every extension of the franchise was bitterly opposed by hon. Gentlemen who sat opposite; but the Conser- vative Members were, it seemed, anxious to do tardy justice to even a small class of people. He hoped the time would come when Parliament would extend to all intelligent men who lived in houses, whether as occupiers, lodgers, or employés, the right of voting for Members of Parliament. He heartily approved of this piece of Conservative liberality, and trusted that hereafter those hon. Members opposite would bear in mind their own act when it was sought to extend the franchise still further.

said, the House should not, in considering this subject, overlook the important diference that existed as between the constitution of the police in England and Scotland and that of Ireland. In the former cases the police were a local force, who were not liable to be sent outside the county to which they properly belonged. But in Ireland the contrary was the fact. The Constabulary there were liable to be removed from one end of the Island to the other; and he might add that the force was always a Tory force, so far as the officers were concerned. Officers could, if they chose, send 200 or 300 men to reside in any constituency they chose, and thereby succeed, it might be, in turning the scale against the Government then in Office. This circumstance, taken in conjunction with a proposal to reduce the qualifying period of residence for a voter from 12 months to one month, opened up a dangerous prospect in Ireland. There was nothing, indeed, to prevent the practical disfranchisement of men by transferring them from one division of a county to another to suit the exigencies of the occasion. He would, under all the circumstances, and having regard to the peculiar constitution and mode of administration of the force in Ireland, give his most strenuous opposition to this Bill as far as its extension to Ireland was concerned, and he hoped that an assurance would be given that this extension was not to be persevered in.

said, he desired to bear his testimony regarding the operation of police enfranchisement in Scotland. There the police had all along enjoyed the franchise, both municipal and Parliamentary, and until he became a Member of this House he did not know that the police of England were denied it. In this they had another little illustration that, in some respects, England was behind Scotland. He said so because he was prepared to state, and to state emphatically, that police officers in Scotland had never to his knowledge shown themselves unworthy of using this qualification. On the contrary, they had invariably brought to bear on election business the ordinary intelligence and good sense of citizens. No doubt, during his candidature, he had been asked whether he would look favourably on the Bill to create retiring allowances for the police; but he could excuse that, because all hon. Members knew that in Parliamentary contests every class in the community spoke up for their own interests; and if they were to disqualify any class because they spoke out on subjects which specially affected them he was inclined to think that they would have to cut off two-thirds or three-fourths of the whole electorate of the country. In Scotland it had not been found that police enfranchisement had worked in the least degree unsatisfactorily. The police had not interfered with their meetings, nor had they shown Party bias; and he held that on this point their experience in Scotland was a proof of the adage, that "one ounce of fact was worth a pound of fancy." Considerable numbers of the Scotch police were drafted into England, and it was an anomaly that that which was regarded as a compliment and a preferment should be accompanied by a degradation in the loss of the vote. He did not believe that the police in England would be less intelligent or less patriotic in the exercise of the franchise than their brethren in Scotland, and he appealed to the House most heartily and cheerfully to agree to the second reading of this Bill.

said, it might be convenient if he stated at once the intentions of the Government. He should endeavour to separate the Bill altogether from considerations which had been urged on both sides with reference to the possibility of some amendment of the General Law under which a residence of a month would give a qualification for the Parliamentary franchise. When that proposal came on the Government would know how to deal with it; but it need not be mixed up with the present discussion. He regarded the Bill as one not to enfranchise a certain class of the constituency, but to remove a penalty now imposed on policemen for voting. A policeman had as much right, primâ facie, to vote as any other citizen, but he was debarred by certain Statutes from voting through the fear of the heavy penalty which he would have to pay if he did vote. He believed it was once ascertained in a trial that 20 policemen had voted, and a question arose as to who paid the fines. The question was whether we should retain a special disqualification for a particular class of persons in a certain employment, or whether they should be put upon the same footing as all others. He was bound to say that for a long time past—certainly since the passing of the Ballot Act—he had been strongly opposed to these special exemptions, which in other cases had been removed years ago. Mainly by the efforts of Mr. Monk, the disqualification of Revenue officers was removed, and in large numbers they were admitted to the franchise. He was not aware that any harm had resulted; and, although they could approach Parliament with respect to their emoluments, speaking generally, they had shown themselves to be as capable and as reasonable as any other class of citizens. In these circumstances, and holding strongly that any exclusion on the ground of the office one might hold was bad in itself, and ought to be maintained only on the clearest proof that the exclusion was necessary, he could not vote against the Bill; but, on the contrary, he should cordially support it. In saying this he was only repeating what was said in the last Parliament upon a similar Bill by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. If other classes of persons were left out, unless there was some special reason for their exclusion, their case ought to be considered; and, no doubt, in Committee any necessary amendment would be entertained. Police magistrates were given the franchise by an Act passed in 1874. As to the disciplinary question, he did not think there would be more difficulty in dealing with the police than there had been in dealing with the Revenue officers and with soldiers. For a very long time every soldier or sailor who had a qualification had been always allowed to vote, and to go to the poll wherever the polling place might be situated, without asking his superior officer. All he had to do was to intimate that it was his intention to go to the poll, and on giving that intimation he might go to wherever the place was to exercise the franchise, only under the reservation that the time he took for the purpose should be reasonable and proper. Other disqualifications having been removed, he could not conceive there was any reason for maintaining that of the police, and he should, therefore, vote for the Bill.

said, he hoped the House would read the Bill a second time, for everything appeared to be in favour of it and nothing against it. A policeman certainly should have the same rights as a soldier or a sailor. It would be possible for the commanding officer of a ship to say that a man had misbehaved himself, and that he should not be allowed to go on shore and vote; but he did not think such a thing would be likely to occur, any more than he believed that a chief constable or superior officer would send men away just before an election so as to deprive them of their votes. We all owed a great deal to the police, no matter to what class we belonged, and it was very hard upon the police that they should have their votes taken away. We were indebted to them for our comfort and safety, and still they were disfranchised. Some years ago he was intimately connected with the police, once or twice, and, while he found that they had a very strict sense of discipline and duty, at the same time they displayed a great deal of kindness and courtesy. He did not think that the police would be unfair partizans in any way whatever, no matter what their political feelings might be. If they were to show any partiality or committed themselves in any way, of course they could be punished as others were for similar offences.

said, he regretted that his right hon. Friend (Mr. Childers) had not given an assurance that an Amendment would be proposed which would have the effect of causing this measure not to be extended to Ireland. It had been stated during the debate that it was all imagination to say that the police would act against the interests of the people. There might be no such fear in England or Scotland; but in Ireland the contrary was the case. Last year, when the Registration Bill was being discussed, objection was taken to placing University students on the Register, because they were in statupupillari. It was argued on that occasion that, as they performed none of the ordinary duties of citizenship, they were not entitled to exercise the franchise. That argument applied with even greater force to the Royal Irish Constabulary, who were known to be greatly under the influence of their officers, and to have attacked the people with alacrity and pleasure whenever they had been ordered to do so. They were known to be out of sympathy with the people, and if they were so ready to assault them on all occasions, of course they would be ready to perform the much easier duty of voting as their officers told them. They were at present a military force, and so long as they remained a military force, thoroughly imbued with all the hostile feelings of their officers, and inimical to the best interests of the people, it was the duty of the Irish Members to interpose their voice and to protest against the Constabulary being endowed with the franchise. The noble Lord (Lord Charles Beresford) said they all owed the police a great deal. In Ireland they owed the police nothing but the memory of hard knocks; and until the time had arrived when the people of Ireland would have control over the police of Ireland—until they had been reduced to the position of a civil force—the Irish Members must protest against their being endowed with the rights of freemen, which in their hands would enable them, at the bidding of their officers, to outvote the people in Ireland who represented the popular interests of the country.

said, he would remind the House that those Members who sat on the Front Opposition Bench had always been in favour of this principle. He was glad to find that there was no contention on the part of the House with regard to the principle of the Bill. If he might venture to address a word of advice to his right hon. Friend the Member for Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) in charge of the Bill, he would say to him that, though they would not be prepared for an instant to admit that the dangers existed which Members for Irish constituencies appeared to apprehend, still, in the interest of the measure and its early passage through the House, it might perhaps be wise that the case of the Irish Police, which was certainly different in its constitution, should not be mixed up in this matter with the case of the Police of England and Wales. The Metropolitan Police was to some extent an Imperial Force like that of the Irish Police; but it had also to be remembered that the Secretary of State for the Home Department was responsible to the House of Commons for the control of that body, and could be closely questioned when anything occurred calling for examination and inquiry. He did not believe in the dangers which were feared regarding the possible removal of a polite force from one part of the country to the other. This, however, was a risk which in all cases they must run in extending the franchise to this and similar bodies of public servants. The same power of removal might just as well be exercised at election times in a greater or less degree by cab proprietors and other employers of labour. It was a risk they must be prepared to take; but to all objections regarding a risk of that kind, to the infringement of discipline and the possible partiality of the Police Force, there was the absolute and conclusive answer afforded by the satisfactory experience gained in Scotch burghs. He hoped, therefore, the House would assent to the second reading of the Bill.

said, he was heartily in favour of the Bill so far as it applied to the English and Welsh Police, and also to the Dublin Metropolitan Police. But with regard to the Royal Irish Constabulary, he confessed, that after what had fallen from the hon. Member for South Kilkenny (Mr. Chance), there was a great deal of weight in the objection which had been urged. He did not see in his place at present the Chief Secretary for Ireland, but if he had been he would have asked him whether the Bill would apply to the county police at all. His own opinion was that they would not come within scope of the measure, because the members of this force lived in barracks and not in houses, and were not ratepayers according to the law. If any Member of the Government present was ac- quainted with the Royal Irish Constabulary, perhaps he would give an opinion as to whether they came under the Bill.

said, he had no abstract objection to a policeman having a vote. So far as the Irish Police were concerned he held that they were just as well entitled to exercise the franchise as any other class of the community, if they would fairly be allowed to do so. He had still less objection to the Metropolitan Police in Dublin being admitted to the benefit of the Bill. They lived in houses in many cases, and did not live in barracks, and he believed it would be a very hard thing to deprive such men of the franchise when they paid for their houses or lodgings. He thought the case of the Constabulary was very different indeed from that of the ordinary Police Force. He saw no objection to the men of the Royal Irish Constabulary having votes if they would be all allowed to record their votes. He saw not the smallest objection to the Bill if the officers and men of the force acted according to their opinions, and were allowed freely to exercise the franchise. He, for his part, believed that as good Irishmen were to be found amongst the Constabulary as amongst any other class in the community, and he certainly differed from those who believed they would all vote Tory. The House should, however, take into consideration the fact that in passing this Bill they would be only passing it for the benefit of the Tory section of the force. He believed that at elections only the men who would vote for the Government would be allowed to exercise the franchise, and the others would be appointed to such duties as would take them as far away from the polls as possible, so that the Nationalist constables would really never get to vote at all. As he had already said, so far as he was concerned, he had not the smallest objection to the Bill if the police could exorcise the franchise freely. There was another point to which he wished to draw attention. While he thought it was very doubtful if many of the men would get a vote at all if this Bill passed, as there were so many requirements for them to fulfil that very few of them would really enjoy the franchise, he was bound to say that they had in Ireland very extraordinary decisions occasionally regarding election matters. Soldiers in Ireland had voted in circumstances which were not permissible in England and Scotland. In Kildare, at the last elections, they had whole platoons of soldiers sent up from the Curragh Camp to vote, and no one could stop them. He could quite conceive that if the period of residence were shortened that in tight constituencies like Derry, where the present Member only won the seat by a majority of 29, that the Government would be able to send down some time before the election a number of men to vote against the Nationalist candidate. In the Derry Election 20 soldiers voted at the last election, of course for the Tory, and against his hon. Friend the Member for North Longford, and it was thus that he was defeated in Derry. Let them fancy the author of The History of Our Own Times defeated by a regiment of soldiers in this way! This was the danger which he feared in military and police cases if the period of qualification were shortened. In Ulster constituencies, for example, the Government might be open to the suspicion of drafting policemen and soldiers into divisions of the Province with the object of swamping the real constituency. In order to avoid suspicion of any intention of this kind he believed that no risk or temptation should be either left in the hands of the Government or the landlord class; he believed it would be wise to exclude a movable force like the Constabulary from this Bill. At the same time, he wished again to say that he did not desire to cast the least slur upon the force as a body. He could not follow those who seemed of opinion that they would if they got their vote go against the people. He believed that as a body if they were allowed to exercise the franchise freely and untrammelled it would be exercised with prudence and fairness. When the police were under the control of the Local Authorities in Ireland the matter would be entirely different.

said, he believed that a great injustice would be inflicted on the Royal Constabulary if they were excluded and the other portions of the Police Force throughout the country were admitted to the franchise. He was not surprised that hon. Members from Ireland should feel a little sore on the subject of the Irish Constabulary. They had had a large experience of that force at various times, and probably they would have again. He protested, however, against the assumption of hon. Members below the Gangway when they said that if a few constables were enfranchised by this Bill—and they would be very few—they would be absolutely under the direction of their superior officers as to how then-votes should be recorded. Hon. Members from Ireland were so accustomed to the manipulation of the Irish electorate that they could not conceive a person in the position of an Irish constable giving a vote according to his conscience. His own experience of the Constabulary was that they were a very conscientious body of men. They were mostly Roman Catholic in their religious views, and were always law-abiding and loyal. He had no doubt that if they received a vote they would probably record it in favour of the candidate who wished to uphold the supremacy of the Crown and the maintenance of law and order. Hon. Members might think that was good reason for refusing them the vote; but, of course, he held a contrary opinion. One hon. Gentleman had said they would wait until they themselves got control of the police; but perhaps that day might never come. At a recent period it seemed probable it might; but he thought the matter had now receded into a dim future. However, he hoped the House would not consent to place a slur upon a most deserving and loyal body of men who had been always faithful in the maintenance of law and order in Ireland.

said, it could not be pointed out too strongly by Members of the Nationalist Party that if they offered an objection to the Constabulary being included it was not by any means that they thought them incapable or unwilling to act as citizens. It was because the Constabulary were not an impartial force in Ireland—they had always been arrayed against the National Party—and if they had the vote it was well known they would be as partial as could be to one Party, and as hostile as could be to another. The hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh naturally championed the Constabulary, because he represented the landlords for whose behalf the Constabulary existed. In the North of Ireland when an election occurred large numbers of Constabulary were sent up to support and look after and generally wet nurse the hon. and gallant Member and his brother magistrates who liked to have the police about at election times. Numbers of police were drafted up where the issues of the election were somewhat uncertain. In the constituency he represented the Nationalists and the Tories stood pretty equal on the Register, and loads of police were brought up. It was quite conceivable and possible that the landlords of that county, having control of the police, and being friendly and intimate with them, might draft up a hundred or two a month or so before the election, and so by the voice of those servants of the State turn the election and nullify the voice of the real inhabitants. That would be an altogether unfair thing; and it was upon those grounds alone—upon the ground that the Constabulary was not a civil but a military force—that the Irish Members objected. A number of the constables were better men than the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh, who tried to suggest that a slur was being cast upon them. He said in his jocose and rather idiotic style—["Order!"]

The hon. Member is not justified in applying such an expression to another hon. Mamber of this House, and I therefore call upon him at once to withdraw it.

I certainly withdraw it, and I am sorry I uttered it, because——

The hon. Member must withdraw it unreservedly.

said, he would withdraw it unreservedly, and he was sorry he used the expression, because it was unnecessary to do so. He would only add that no Member of the National Body would for a moment think of casting a slur upon the Constabulary as a whole. Although some of them were bad enough, he believed the great bulk of them, if left to their own discretion, would vote fairly for the country. With regard to the Dublin Metropolitan Police he did not think anybody would object to their being included in the Bill.

said, he was willing to admit there was some force in what had been stated with regard to the movable character of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and that that body was not in the same position as the Dublin Metropolitan Police, or any other force of ordinary local police. Therefore, he was willing to consider in Committee the withdrawal of the Royal Irish Constabulary from the operation of the Bill; but he thought it would be generally conceded that the Dublin Metropolitan Police should be included within its scope.

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, the subject was unfortunately a somewhat technical one, and he was afraid that the observations with which he should have to trouble the House would be of a rather dry and uninteresting character. He, however, threw himself upon the indulgence of the House, and promised that he would try to avoid being wearisome. At the time of the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 there were in existence a large number of towns having separate Courts of Quarter Sessions which owed their origin as boroughs to the operation of Charters containing a provision known to lawyers as the Non-Intromittent Clause; that was to say, they contained a clause which prevented the County Justices from entering the borough to exercise jurisdiction or to levy rates. When the Act of 1835 was passed it was seen that there would come into existence under its provisions a large number of boroughs, and the question arose as to the position which these boroughs should occupy in regard to contributing to the county rate. A sort of compromise was effected by which boroughs and towns, all or any part of which had been liable before the 11th of July, 1832, to contribute to the county rate, should continue to be so liable in the event of their incorporation under the new Act. This had given rise to an altogether anomalous and unjust state of things, against which many important towns protested, which it was the object of the Bill to cure, and which the Bill would cure if the House allowed it, as he hoped it would, to pass. There were in existence at the present time in England three classes of towns, two of which enjoyed an exemption from the county rate, which was altogether unfair, and the third was still liable to that rate. The first class comprised towns which, from some cause or other, were not only towns, but counties in themselves, as, for instance, Nottingham and Newcastle, which, being Quarter Sessions towns, paid nothing to the rate of the counties by which they were surrounded. In the second class there were the important towns of Derby and Northampton, both of them having Charters obtained before the 11th of July, 1832, which Charters contained the Non-Intromittent Clause; so that they came under the benefit of Section 150 of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1832. They paid nothing to the counties. Derby paid nothing to Derbyshire, and Nottingham paid nothing to Nottinghamshire. These were two classes both exempt from county rating; and then he came to the third, class, which were brought into existence as boroughs subsequently to the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, and which, under the provisions of Section 152 of the Municipal Corporations Act, were still liable to contribute to the county rate. Conspicuous examples of this were the great town of Leeds, which was so well represented in the House, and the town of Birmingham, a division of which he had the honour to represent. What the promoters of this Bill said was that the two first-named classes were unfairly and improperly exempted from county rating. If boroughs of the third class ought to pay—and they were not exempted—why should one class of town pay and the other class not pay? All the towns he had mentioned offered no peculiarity in regard to geographical position which would entitle them to this exemption; and he said again—and he impressed that respectfully upon the House—that it was unfair to distinguish between them in any way, to say to one "Pay," and to the other "You are not to pay." But the flagrant injustice of the thing became more apparent when regard was had to two facts—first, that upon the body which collected and administered this fund the towns which had to contribute to it had no sort of representation; they had no voice in the expenditure of this fund. A thing like that was contrary to a well-known and well-recognized principle of the House. It was anomalous and unjust. The boroughs to which he referred did not want any representation upon the County Board. They said—"Let the county take care of itself and provide for its own requirements, and we will take care of ourselves and provide for our requirements." But still the fact remained that there was a contribution made to a Governing Authority without any representation being given to the community which contributed. The second point he thought the House would admit was of more force. The very purposes to which this contribution was devoted were purposes which the borough had already provided within its own limits and out of its own resources. Why should the borough pay twice for the same purpose? Take Birmingham, for example. He cited Birmingham because it was the town which he was so fortunate as to know most about. But the town of Birmingham contributed £3,000 a-year as county rate. What did it get in return? It got the noble sum of £45 by way of contribution to the repair of two bridges, which were now contained in the borough, but which, the county people had used almost as much as the people of the borough. They did not mind abandoning that at any moment; but there being five bridges connected with the borough of Birmingham, three of them were repaired, being for the joint convenience of the borough and the county, jointly at the expense of the county and the borough. That was a proper principle to apply; where the expense was incurred for the joint advantage, then let it be borne between the two. What were the objects to which the borough contributed? Before he read a statement he had in his hand perhaps the House would allow him to mention a fact he knew in regard to Leeds. The borough of Leeds contributed £4,000 a-year to similar purposes—to those purposes for which they had already provided out of their own resources. The total contribution was £8,000 a-year; but he believed £4,000 of that was on account of lunacy, which he would speak about in a moment, and which this Bill did not in the least interfere with. What were the purposes to which the contribution of Birmingham was devoted? First of all, it went to the salary of the Clerk of the Peace and Solicitor. Birmingham had its own Clerk of the Peace and Solicitor. The County Auditor? Well, there was no corresponding official in the borough except a person who held an honorary office. The County Surveyor? They had their own Borough Surveyor, and they paid him a heavy salary. The Justices' Clerks' salary? They had their own, and they paid them heavy salaries. And the Treasurer's salary? They had their own, and paid him a considerable sum of money. The next was the Shire Hall. They were about erecting in Birmingham a very costly building for the purposes of the Assizes. Another purpose was the Judges' House. They were just providing Judges' Lodgings in Birmingham. Petty Sessions Room? That, of course, was an item which they had long ago provided. County bridges and bridge-masters? Lunatics asylums? They had their own lunatic asylum in Birmingham, which was very ample to accommodate the very few lunatics which were to be found in that borough. The next thing was the industrial school. They had their own industrial school. Not to weary the House, the next point was the registration. There might by some difference of opinion in the minds of hon. Members on the point whether the particular constituency everywhere ought to bear the cost of registering its own electors, wheresoever they might happen to live. It seemed to him the expense of registering county electors ought fairly to lie on the county, and ought not to be charged to the borough. Such was a list of purposes to which he referred, and in almost every case—certainly in every important case—they were purposes which had already been subserved by the borough out of its own resources. He asked the House again why should the community pay twice over to the same object when it derived no possible benefit from so doing? It was quite true that there were some purposes which a borough did not in some cases provide for itself out of its own resources, but which it hired from the county. He had referred to the case of Leeds, which he supposed, not having sufficient accommodation for lunatics within its own precincts, hired that accommodation from the county. That was perfectly reasonable, and a proper state of things. He did not mean to interfere with that by this Bill, which did not touch it in any way. If it was an advantage to any borough to hire any kind of service from the county that was a matter of bargain and sale between them, and need not in any way be disturbed. But that Parliament recognized the principle which he was asserting that boroughs should not pay twice over for the same purpose was clear, even from Section 152, which it was here sought to repeal, because the section expressly said that the borough should not be liable to contribute to the salary and expenses of the Coroner. Why? Because it would be obliged to have him, with his expenses, working within its own limits, and to provide those expenses out of its own resources. What were the objections to the Bill? It was said that the borough derived advantage from appeals to Quarter Sessions. Would the House be surprised to learn—he had it on the authority of the Town Clerk of Leeds—that there had not been a single appeal from the borough of Leeds to the Quarter Sessions of the West Riding since 1883; and as regarded Birmingham, there had been only two appeals during the last five years, and one of those was only nominal, and was disposed of in a moment? Did anybody mean to say that for accommodation such as that a great borough ought to pay £3,000 a-year? It was said that the county rate would be enormously increased if this Bill were passed. Sir George Morrison, the Town Clerk of Leeds, had shown that whereas the total rating of the West Riding was about £167,000 a-year, only about £20,000 of that amount was collected from the Quarter Sessions boroughs, so that the talk about the enormous increase of the rating was not accurate. And suppose there was an increase of the rating, which was best able to bear it—the borough or the county? Sir George Morrison stated that the rating of the West Riding was about 4d. in the pound. The rating of the county of Warwickshire, in which Birmingham was situated, was less than 4d. Everybody knew that unfortunately the rating of the boroughs themselves was very greatly in excess of that sum, and therefore, if there was anything in that argument, the county was quite as well or better able to bear that expenditure than was the borough. It was said that the boroughs had the advantage of the use of the county bridges and roads. But had not the counties the advantage of the use of the borough streets, which they used pretty extensively on market days? And they got the advantage of the paving, watering, lighting, and watching of those streets "free gratis—for nothing." In the borough of Leeds there were 269 miles of streets, and in Birmingham, over 200 miles of streets, and the boroughs did not charge the counties a single halfpenny in respect of these streets, and why should the counties ask the boroughs to pay for their roads? It was said that the county had a vested interest in the payments that were being made. But was not 50 years long enough to have paid? Even if a county had incurred any capital expenditure in respect of the accommodation required by a borough, that capital expenditure either had, or ought to have been, wiped out long ago. But he had no belief in a vested interest in an unjust payment such as he conceived this contribution by a borough to a county to be. The only serious objection he had heard against the Bill was that it did not go far enough. The towns of Halifax and Huddersfield, which were Quarter Sessions boroughs without any Non-Intromittent Clause in their Charters, and were, therefore, liable to make this contribution, complained that they would not be exempt from the contribution under the Bill. They ought to be exempt, so far as they could show that the purposes to which the contribution was being devoted was provided by themselves. He was perfectly willing that a clause should be introduced into the Bill in Committee, which would exempt the boroughs of Huddersfield and Halifax, and other boroughs in a similar position, from the unjust taxation which it was the object of the measure he was recommending to the House to remove. In conclusion, he begged to thank the House for the attention and indulgence with which they had favoured him, and to express an earnest hope that the Bill would commend itself to the sense of justice of the House, and that the House would read it a second time.

, in rising to move the rejection of the Bill, said, he hoped that if the House agreed to read the Bill a second time at all they would not read it a second time that day. The Bill had been introduced once before, and on that occasion it was only printed on the very day that the second reading was moved, and this time it was only in the hands of Members on Friday last. This would not have mattered so much if the Bill had been a simple Bill, and had stated on the face of it what it purported to be; but in reality it was a highly technical Bill, which referred to past Acts of Parliament, and did not on the face of it state what was the real purport and intention of the Bill. The Bill had a very misleading title. Anybody seeing the Quarter Sessions (Boroughs) Bill would suppose it was a Bill which affected nobody but Quarter Sessions boroughs. In fact, when he first communicated with the authorities of the borough he represented (Preston) the answer he received was that the Bill did not affect them. He, however, advised them to look more closely into the Bill, and he had that morning received an answer from the Town Clerk of Preston saying that the Bill would be most detrimental to the interests of the borough, the actual effect being to increase its contributions to the county, in round figures, by one-third—namely, from £1,666 to £2,539, an increase of £873, equal to about 3s. 4d. in the pound on the rateable value of the borough. The whole question of municipal boroughs was thoroughly gone into by a Committee which sat in 1882; and if Quarter Sessions boroughs had any objection to make they should have made them then, when the law was consolidated into one Act dealing with the whole question and intelligible to everybody. It was also well known that Government contemplated introducing a Bill dealing with the whole question of Local Government; and it would not be right to have the matter complicated by a Bill of this character. There were objections to the Bill being read a second time at the present moment. So far, however, from the Bill being a good Bill, it was a very bad one. The Bill sought to redress grievances, not by curing them, but by shifting the burthen from one shoulder and putting it on another. He always paid great attention to the literary productions of the Birmingham Corporation, because they always stated with unhesitating frankness the real intentions of their Bills. It did not seem to matter to them much, whether the objects sought were just or unjust, if only the members of that particular Corporation could get their own way on a subject. What were the statements boldly made in the statement issued by the Birmingham Corporation? That a considerable number of Corporations had not made the same provision, that Birmingham had made. The result would be that a considerable number of Corporations which had not satisfied the requirements would obtain them at the expense of the county, without making any contribution in return. The Bill was based on a very plausible ground. It was stated that a great many Quarter Sessions boroughs which were in existence before 1832 did not contribute to the county rate; and the promoters of the Bill said—"Why should we contribute any more than they do?" There was no practical reason whatever for the uniformity of exemption which was proposed in the Bill. In the first place, the Quarter Sessions boroughs in existence before 1832 were boroughs which had been long exempt from the contributions to the county, and therefore it was no injustice to the county to allow their continuance; but it was a very different thing to create a new exemption. Then, again, in those days the work done was very different, for a great deal of work had been thrown on the Quarter Sessions in counties which was formerly done by the Quarter Sessions in boroughs, and it would be manifestly unfair that the Quarter Sessions boroughs should be exempt, not only from the old charges, but from new taxes in the benefit of which they had shared. Then there was another reason, which showed the distinction between these boroughs. It was that in a good many cases the old Quarter Sessions boroughs were county towns, and as such were totally distinct from the county, and transacted their own business within their own area. A still further difference was that whereas the old Quarter Sessions boroughs before 1832 were small boroughs, the boroughs which now claimed exemption from the county rates were very different. But there was still another point which was very important. Supposing the Bill passed, and the Quarter Sessions boroughs were not be exempt from contribution to the county rates, what would be the result? The result would be that if they made the boroughs exempt from the county rating, they would indirectly give the Crown the power to interfere with the rates and practically alter the area of rating. He thought that was a very important feature in connection with the measure, and one that ought not to be lost sight of. It did seem to him that large democratic towns appealing to a democratic Parliament like the present, and raising their claim to be exempted from county contribution, had a very much simpler remedy in their own hands that would do justice not only to the boroughs, but to the counties also. What was the principle? The principle, as had been laid down by the hon. Member for Birmingham, was that no place should pay twice over. He perfectly admitted the justice of that principle; but there was a preliminary question ahead of this, and that was, how far was it right to take any town out of the county, and thereby increase the rates in the county? That was a part of a very large question, which demanded very careful attention before it was decided. When the hon. Member for Birmingham said that, because they had a Quarter Sessions in Birmingham, therefore they were doing everything that was done by the Quarter Sessions outside in the county, he must remind him that the Quarter Sessions in Birmingham and that in the county of Warwick had two totally distinct kinds of work to do. Birmingham might have a larger jurisdiction than most other boroughs, but it still depended on the county for its Assize. But the fact was that these Quarter Sessions boroughs, trading on the name of Quarter Sessions, had already a great number of exemptions—certainly two or three of the most material character from the county rates—and which showed no reason whatever for those exemptions. There were the questions of main roads and the administration of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts, in respect to which the Quarter Sessions boroughs obtained exemption, and yet what on earth were these to do with having a different Quarter Session? He contended that if there were to be any exemptions at all, they ought to be taken fairly all round, and the ordinary municipal borough ought to be placed on nearly the same footing as the other ones. A great deal of the complaints raised by the Quarter Sessions boroughs were complaints which might be raised by any municipality in the Kingdom. It had been said as a reason why the Bill should pass that those who contributed the rate had no voice in the expenditure of the county. Surely the hon. Member knew enough about county government to know that that remark would apply to every rural district throughout the country. We had not yet got representative government in the counties, and therefore that argument was a very good one in favour of County Boards; but it was no argument whatever in favour of exempting Quarter Sessions boroughs from contribution to the county rates. A great deal had been said about these boroughs extending their bounds and erecting public buildings, &c.; but that was equally the case with other municipal towns. The curious fact about the Bill was that while Quarter Sessions boroughs were already unduly exempt from county rates, with the result that the rates they ought to pay fell on the ordinary municipalities, they were not content with that exemption, but wanted to go a great deal further, and the result would be that, if the Bill was passed into law, it would mean an addition of ¾d. in the pound to the rates on all the other towns, which would be, in his opinion, a great hardship. Let them take the question of asylums. That question was touched very delicately in the Bill, because it was a very weak part of the case. That question, however, was a very important one, and he thought they ought to know definitely and distinctly whether the promoters of the Bill intended to exclude lunatic asylums or not, because the effect in Lancashire, if they were excluded, would be very serious. The rateable value of four of the large Quarter Sessions boroughs was £6,500,000 out of £18,500,000 for the whole county; and whereas the boroughs sent 2,000 lunatics to the asylums out of a total of 4,000, they only paid £19,000 out of a total of £57,000. In fact, the boroughs only paid a third of the cost, while they sent half the lunatics. That was bad enough under the present system, but it would be much worse if that Bill were allowed to pass. Then let them take the question of bridges. He wanted to know who were to undertake the bridges if it was not the Quarter Sessions boroughs? In Manchester and Bolton there were six county and 16 borough bridges; and if that Bill were to pass, although there were those 22 bridges, the towns would only have to contribute one-fourth of the expense. Taking the case of vagrant lunatics, in the year ending on the 31st of May, in the county of Lancaster 53 out of 82 vagrant lunatics were from Manchester and Liverpool alone, and out of a total of 494, 369 were admitted from those two boroughs. Therefore, they contributed three-fourths of the lunatics, and only contributed one-half of the expense. Let them take another question—that of registration. The hon. Member for Birmingham said that they had their own register of voters in Birmingham. But the hon. Member seemed to forget that in Birmingham there were a large number of county voters; and why should not Birmingham, therefore, be called in to pay its share of the expense? Then there was the Militia, but he should like to know what that had to do with the fact of having separate Quarter Sessions? Then the hon. Member had brought forward the case of county buildings, which he seemed to think was a special grievance, and he said that Birmingham had built a great Shire Hall where the Assizes were held. But that had nothing to do with Birmingham as a Quarter Sessions borough. If Birmingham liked to build a Shire Hall for the glorification of Birmingham then let it do so; but that was no reason why it should cease to continue to contribute to the county rate. It was the more reason rather for bringing it more closely into connection with the county. The greatest grievance of all seemed to be with reference to the Clerk of the Peace. The hon. Member said that Birmingham had a Clerk of the Peace of its own, and asked, therefore, why it should be called in to contribute to the Clerk of the Peace for the county? Well, he admitted that, to a certain extent, there was justice in that complaint; but the hon. Member must recollect that the boroughs were not altogether independent of the Clerk of the Peace of the county, because, as he had said, certain appeals of their own Justices were brought before the Judges of Assize by those by whom the Clerk of the Peace was employed. Therefore, to some extent, they were entitled to the services of the latter, and ought to contribute their share of the expense. With regard to the Clerks to the Justices, he contended that there was no grievance at all, because the fees received covered, and more than covered, the Clerks' salaries. On all these grounds, and because, moreover, the Bill had been printed so late that the great majority of Members had been unable to master its provisions, he moved that it be read a second time on that day six months.

, in seconding the Amendment, said, the hon. Gentleman who moved the second reading of the Bill was more or less in error in the figures which he gave as to the rateable value of the West Riding of Yorkshire. The hon. Gentleman gave the rateable value of the Riding as £16,000,000; but if he would refer to the statement of the Treasurer of the Riding he would find that the rateable value was only £10,484,509.

The figures I quoted were supplied by the Town Clerk of Leeds.

, continuing, said, that why he had interposed in the debate was that the constituency which he had the honour to represent ran up to the town of Leeds, more or less surrounded it, and, consequently, would be very greatly affected if the Bill became law. The hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury) had, in moving the rejection of the Bill, gone into the general features of the question; so that he (Colonel Gunter), with the permission of the House, would only mention one or two particulars in which the measure would affect the West Riding. The West Riding contained five large boroughs, probably the largest, and most known of which, was the town of Leeds. The present rateable value of the Riding was about £10,500,000; but if the Bill passed it would be reduced to under £7,000,000 sterling, a reduction of about one-third of the whole. The Bill would affect the county constituencies to the extent of about £20,000 a-year. The Mover of the Bill had said that the contribution from the boroughs was only ¾d. in the pound. It might be taken, therefore, that the sum contributed by the large boroughs, such as Birming- ham and the large places in Yorkshire and Lancashire, would be very small. But by the Municipal Acts of 1835 and 1882, it was never in the slightest degree intended that the large towns should be taken out of the counties, so far as contributions to county rates were concerned. The Charters were granted to the large towns as Municipal Bodies, and not as Quarter Sessions boroughs. Now, the West Riding of Yorkshire would be very seriously affected if the large sums contributed by the Quarter Sessions boroughs of Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, and boroughs of the same kind were dropped, and municipal boroughs, such as Harrogate and Ripon, would suffer in proportion. He trusted the House would agree with him that this Bill was a most unfair Bill. It was said that Municipalities had a twofold expenditure; but he pointed out that the second expenditure they made was made in their municipal capacities, and not in the capacities of Quarter Sessions towns. Municipalities expended large sums in sanitary works, in gas and water, and so forth; but surely municipal towns would expend money upon such things whether there were any Quarter Sessions held in the towns or not. Then, of course, Quarter Sessions boroughs had only jurisdiction over criminal business; but there was a great deal of civil work carried on in Quarter Sessions boroughs. It could not be concluded for a moment that the boroughs ought not to be called upon to contribute towards the expenses of the various offices necessary for the carrying on of civil business. The Assize business enters very largely into the calculation; and when it was said that the people of the West Riding of Yorkshire had nothing to do with the buildings, let him point out that towards the Assize buildings and the county offices, where the Quarter Sessions were held at Leeds, the Riding originally contributed £4,000. Again, the main roads formed a large and important element of the question. It was well known that the greatest traffic on main roads was principally between large towns; and the roads were, therefore, more cut up by the heavy carts of brewers and others from the Quarter Session towns than by any countrymen who went into town for market purposes. Most of the large towns in the West Riding had Quarter Sessions. The large towns, therefore, caused the greater wear and tear of the roads. Personally, he much regretted that the turnpike system had been abolished. He should be very glad to see it restored, because he considered it the very fairest means of maintaining the country roads. Again, as to bridges. In the borough of Leeds one bridge was entirely repaired by the county, and towards another bridge the county contributed £2,000—a sum which, if capitalized, would give a very good amount per annum towards the maintenance of the bridges. Another, and to him as a county Member much more important matter, was the bearing of the Bill upon the suppression of disease amongst animals. In Leeds and Wakefield there were held large cattle markets. To those markets a large number of cattle, both Irish and foriegn, was taken, and it was a well-known fact that much of the disease disseminated in the West Riding sprung from those places. Why should the people of Leeds and Wakefield object to carry out the law by stamping out such disease, or to pay a fair proportion of the expense caused by their having scattered it throughout the county? The boroughs had by law always been considered part of the counties in which they were situated; and he trusted the House would think that it was only just and fair they should still be considered so. Mr. Justice Blackburn, when speaking of the Act of 1835 in the case Regina against the inhabitants of Windsor, which was heard in 1875, said—"This seems to be just legislation." Such he (Colonel Gunter) considered it, and he hoped the House would entertain the same view, and that, therefore, they would defer the second reading of the Bill for six months, as the hon. Member for Preston had proposed.

remarked that he held in his hand a great deal of information upon this subject; but he was bound to say that nearly the whole of it had already been presented to the House by the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment, and therefore he thought that if he wished to have the indulgence of the House on any other occasion, he had better not trouble it now with a recapitulation of the arguments which it had just heard. As the hon. Member for Birmingham had said, the measure was of a technical character. A friend of his asked him whether or not the object of the Bill was not to charge Quarter Sessions boroughs with some of the expense of the county rates, and that was an indication of how much this subject had been appreciated by the House. In the West Biding they were very proud of their five Quarter Sessions boroughs, and of their rateable values, amounting to more than £3,500,000. He would like to know from what quarter the Bill emanated? It did not emanate from the Quarter Sessions boroughs themselves, for there were many of these boroughs, some of them in Yorkshire, which knew nothing about it, and did not care two straws about the matter. His belief was that it emanated wholly and entirely from the Town Clerks of Leeds and Birmingham; and his explanation of it was that whereas a title was given lately to the Town Clerk of Leeds, the Town Clerk of Birmingham was under the impression that whichever Government was in Office he would get a Peerage for the part he had taken with this Bill. The hon. Member for Birmingham had said that the Bill would not interfere with lunatics; but it had been shown by the Mover of the Amendment that it would. By Section 150 of the Act of 1835, it was provided that no borough which had a separate Quarter Sessions should contribute towards any county rate except as specially provided. In a very short time they hoped to have a general measure of local government; and it was hardly reasonable now to discuss, in an Afternoon Sitting, a matter which was wholly and solely a question for experts, on the eve of getting such a Bill. It was exactly the same thing as if the House was asked to confer a fancy franchise just before a great measure of enfranchisement for the whole Kingdom. He hoped the House would see the advisability of throwing out the Bill, and that the Government would also see the necessity of a similar course, and speak with no uncertain voice on the subject. This was a mine sprung upon the counties, which did not want their county life broken in upon by such an insidious Bill. He knew that in the last century Englishmen—according to one of the greatest writers—were said to boast one against the other of the sums they paid to the public Revenue; and a French writer said that one man, who paid 5,000 guineas to the Revenue, was prouder of his contribution than the man who paid 4,000 guineas. He did not suppose that we should see that golden age again in this century of repudiation; but they might expect that rich and important boroughs, 17 in all, should not attempt to shirk the contribution that they were properly liable to, and which certainly ought to be continued until the Local Government Bill was presented to the House.

said, that the Bill greatly affected the town which he had the honour to represent. Hopes had been held out that at an early day there would be brought before the House of Commons a large measure of local government. That argument had been used many times during the last 15 or 16 years when any reform had been proposed that would come within the purview of that measure; and it was quite possible that other matters of importance, and other reforms which were necessary in the interests of justice, might cause a further postponement of the large measure of local government. Those who supported the Bill were also told that if this was an injustice and a wrong to a limited number of boroughs, the matter ought to have been entered into and a reform brought about when the law was being arranged in 1882; but the Act of 1882 was purely a measure for the consolidation of previous Acts; and he was told that in these purely Consolidation Acts it was contrary to usage and convenience that any debateable or contentious matter should be imported into its consideration. That was the only reason why this injustice, which was recognized as such in 1882, was not then removed. The hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury) entreated the House not, by passing this Bill, to introduce further complication into an already complicated matter; but might he point out to the hon. Member that the complication existed at the present time, and that it was sought to remove it? The complication that existed was that certain Quarter Sessions boroughs were exempted from paying county rates, while certain other Quarter Sessions boroughs were liable to be rated for county purposes. They had heard a great deal about the injustice of saying that Municipal Corporations should be exempt from paying county rates; but the vast majority of Quarter Sessions boroughs were already exempt. It had been enunciated by the Legislature of this country that it was an act of great injustice to ask Quarter Sessions boroughs to contribute to the county rate; and all that the Bill asked was that this principle should be carried to its logical issue by the exemption of all Quarter Sessions boroughs from such a contribution. The hon. Member for Morley (Mr. Milnes Gaskell) made a pathetic appeal to the House not to perpetrate an act of Vandalism by tearing away the boroughs from the county life; but there was no proposal in the Bill which would have such an effect. The boroughs were willing to remain part of the county life if they were not compelled by law to contribute to the borough life, to which the county life paid nothing. The town of Leeds contributed something like £8,000 a-year to the county rate. The hon. Member for Preston had said that it was absolutely necessary that someone interested in the Bill should make a clear and distinct statement as to the effect it would have on the contributions paid by these Quarter Sessions boroughs for the maintenance of lunatics. It was not within the scope of the Bill, and it was not the desire of Quarter Sessions boroughs, to refuse to contribute towards the maintenance of lunatics. Birmingham was in the happy position of having far more accommodation for its lunatics than it wanted. Leeds was in a still happier position, for it had not had any occasion to erect a lunatic asylum. But accidents did sometimes happen in the best regulated families; and if there was in Leeds a lusus natuœ in the form of a lunatic, then he was sent to the county asylum and paid for by the town of Leeds, which paid £4,000 a-year to the county for that purpose. Therefore the sum, the justice of which Leeds disputed at the present moment, was £4,000 a-year which she contributed towards the maintenance of institutions which she had already provided for herself. At Leeds there was a Court House, but that town had also to pay for the Shire Hall, for Court Houses, and other buildings at Todmorden and Holmfirth, which were far distant from Leeds, and could be of no use to the town. There were also handsome Judges' lodgings provided by the borough of Leeds; and why, in addition to paying for the entertainment of Judges there, they should also pay for the entertainment of Judges at York simply passed his comprehension. Then there were the smaller matters of the county officials whom Leeds had to pay for. Then there were the Borough Clerk of the Peace, the Borough Treasurer, the Borough Solicitor, and the Borough Auditor. Those were paid for as similar offices which were paid for in the county; but in the case of magistrates' clerks Leeds provided its own magistrates. There was one thing which had not been alluded to in the course of the debate, the question of juvenile offenders. The town of Leeds, it had been said, should provide for the maintenance of its own juvenile offenders; but it did so, and it was maintaining its own reformatory for juvenile offenders, while, at the same time, it had to pay for that of the West Riding of Yorkshire. There was another point. They were told after all that the Clerk of the Peace acted for Leeds as well as for the county. But there were two prisons which were not far from Leeds—one was Armley, to which the Leeds prisoners were sent. The town of Leeds had to pay the pensions and contribute towards the officers at Armley Prison. But there was another at Wakefield where no Leeds prisoners went, and yet Leeds had to contribute to the pensions of officials at Wakefield as well as Armley. Now, that was certainly unjust. The hon. Member for Preston said that, after all, the town of Leeds was never averse to have these, and gave the House to understand that magistrates' clerks and all these officials were mere articles of luxury.

said, he referred to the Assizes.

said, that one would think they were kept for their own glorification; but he maintained that all these officials he had named were officials whom the town of Leeds must maintain by law; and that being so, it was unjust to compel them to maintain one set of officials of their own and another set of officials who were of no use to them. They were told that appeals were made to the Quarter Sessions at Wakefield; but the hon. Member for Birmingham had shown that since 1883 there had been only one appeal from Wakefield and only one from Birmingham, and one was merely formal. He did not doubt that when we had county government we should not have this anomaly. It would be swept away, and the apparent excuse for the anomaly would also be taken away. One word with regard to bridges. The hon. Member for Preston said the borough was compelled to contribute to county bridges, and therefore he did not see why they should not contribute to the expenses of the county surveyor. He would give one instance. A fortnight ago there was in the town of Leeds a county rate for the bridge which was entirely inadequate for the purpose. The county were asked to repair the bridge; they refused; but they politely and kindly allowed the town to make a new bridge at its own expense. Here they had a county bridge in the borough of Leeds which for years and years had been contributed to by the county rate. That county rate was inadequate to the wants of the borough; and now the county compelled the borough to build a bridge at its own expense, and yet the county would for the next 100 years come and claim a quota from Leeds for the county bridge. That was a fair instance; and he thought something ought to be done to remedy that. The hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Gunter) said it would add £20,000 to the rates of the West Riding. Not at all; it would add £10,000, or only one-half. Those contributions would not be affected by this Bill at all; and the actual increase to the rates of the West Riding would not be the whole of the £20,000, but £10,000, which would be left after the boroughs had paid the rates they were liable for. He wished to say one word about the Quarter Sessions boroughs, which, it was said, did not claim that all these charges should be taken away at once, but only that they should be obliged to pay for objects in which they had an interest. He had a letter from the Town Clerk of Leeds last night, in which that gentleman said there were one or two small matters, such as regis- tration, town, clerks, voters, and one or two other small matters, which they did not object to pay, if Parliament thought proper to impose the liability upon them. If the county Members said it was unfair that these Quarter Sessions boroughs to which this referred should be exempted from their contribution to the local rates, he entreated them to be consistent, and to bring in a Bill to impose the necessity on all boroughs to contribute to county rates. But if they said it was unjust that these 15 or 16 Quarter Sessions boroughs should be exempted, he asked them how they could sit in their places and allow such enormous injustice to remain unredressed as 50 or 60 of these boroughs not to pay anything at all? The Quarter Sessions boroughs did not want to pay for what they provided for themselves; and he hoped that, notwithstanding what had been said about tearing the boroughs out of the county map, and in spite of the intention said to be entertained of bringing in a Local Government Bill at some period in the dim and distant future, the House would see its way to perform what was a simple act of justice, and say that the 15 Quarter Sessions boroughs to which the Bill applied should be placed on the same footing as other Quarter Sessions boroughs which were exempt from contributing to the county rate.

said, he thought the House was very much indebted to the hon. Member for Preston for having exposed the injustice that would be done if Quarter Sessions boroughs were to be favoured at the expense of those which did not happen to be Quarter Sessions boroughs, and of the rural districts generally. He wished to refer to one item which had not been mentioned in the course of the debate—namely, the cost of the Militia. During the last half-year Birmingham paid £238 towards the county rate of Warwick with respect to the Militia. If the Militia was useful it was just as useful to Birmingham as to the whole county. The objection of the 15 Quarter Sessions boroughs was that the remaining Quarter Sessions boroughs were placed in a better position than they were themselves. If it were an injustice to have these excepted boroughs, then the most proper thing for the 15 boroughs to do was not to place them- selves in a similarly unjust position, but to go in for making these excepted boroughs pay what they did not pay. He had no doubt it was the opinion of those who brought in this Bill that both the county and the borough should equitably bear their respective burdens; but it did not seem to him that, as the Bill stood, it would carry out that object, and therefore if the House went to a division he would vote with the hon. Member for Preston.

said, that when he was Secretary of State for the Home Department two deputations waited upon him, one from the boroughs and one from the counties, with reference to this particular subject; and it seemed right that he should tell the House the conclusion at which he had arrived about it. If the Bill passed as it stood it certainly seemed to him that no contribution could be levied from the boroughs for any county purpose whatever, even for lunatic and asylum purposes. Let them see how that would, work. Taking his own county of Lancashire, he found that that county had spent no less than £250,000 in enlarging the lunatic asylums to which all lunatics from Liverpool could be sent. That being so, it would be extremely hard to saddle the county with the whole of that charge when Liverpool obtained so great an advantage, and yet under this Bill would not contribute a single farthing. Again, as regarded vagrant lunatics, he found that out of 500 cases 267 cases came from Liverpool and 102 from Manchester. If the boroughs were not to pay anything in connection with these vagrant lunatics, it would be an extreme hardship upon the county. As far as the Bill stood, therefore, he must decidedly and absolutely oppose it. But he would go further. He maintained that property had been owned, bought, and sold in municipal boroughs subject to county rates. Therefore, if this Bill passed as it stood it would take a large sum of money, not out of the county alone, but out of all boroughs in Lancashire which did not happen to be Quarter Session boroughs, in order to put it into the hands of the owners of property who happened to be living in those boroughs at the particular time. The hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. Dawson) had referred to the Assize Courts at Leeds; but if the people of Leeds, in respect for having built the Court Houses there free of any charge to the county, as they undertook to do when the Assizes were transferred from York, were now to claim exemption from rates for the Court House buildings at York it would be a gross breach of faith. As to county bridges, there were six of these bridges repaired by the county of Lancashire, and 16 which were repaired by the various hundreds which were actually within the area of these Quarter Sessions boroughs; and if the Bill were to pass the effect would be that where these bridges were in the middle of the towns the inhabitants of those towns would not be called upon to pay anything towards their repair, the expense falling upon the county and other boroughs. Nothing could be more unjust than a provision of this kind. He was surprised that the hon. Member for Leeds had gone into this matter of county bridges. The real fact regarding the bridge at Leeds was that it was a county bridge, rebuilt in 1825, £15,000 being raised by public subscription, and £9,000 being contributed by the county. The Leeds Corporation in 1871 went in for a Municipal Improvement Bill; and, among other things, proposed to enlarge the bridge. The county, very properly, refused to saddle itself with the expense of building a larger bridge, and the Leeds Corporation did the work at their own cost. But when the Private Bill passed the county made a calculation of what the sum was that they had been in the habit of paying for keeping the old bridge in repair, and, capitalizing the sum, actually paid down to the Corporation of Leeds no less than £2,000 in lieu of further payment for the future repair of the bridge. Under these circumstances, it could hardly be said that the county had contributed nothing towards the rebuilding of the bridge. He was not prepared to say that there were not certain small matters in which the boroughs had a right to ask for relief; but he objected to the Bill because it was an actual transfer of property from one pocket to another. He would like the Government to state what course they intended to pursue. His opinion was that the small matters which had to be remedied were things which could well stand over. Both sides of the House had promised a large scheme for the purpose of regulating county government; but if they were to pass this Bill the difficulties in the way of carrying any such scheme through Parliament would be very much intensified. He hoped hon. Members would agree to allow the subject under discussion to stand over until the county scheme came before the House.

said, he thought that the hon. Member for Birmingham introduced the Bill in a fair, clear, and able speech. At the same time, he was bound to say that the measure was one of a very crude kind. It was a rough-and-ready proposal for remedying the injustice complained of. He did not deny that an injustice was done in respect of Quarter Sessional boroughs in the matter of certain charges; but if the Bill passed into law in its present form, more injustice would be done to other boroughs and portions of the counties than would be removed. He ventured, therefore, on the part of the Government, to make au appeal to the hon. Member for Birmingham that he should not press the Bill to a division. If he did, the Government would be bound to vote against it. He could promise the hon. Member that the matter should have consideration; and his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary desired him to say that he considered it was a question which had so many anomalies and difficulties connected with it that he wished to make inquiries with regard to it over all parts of the country by sending a Commissioner to the various Quarter Sessional boroughs, or by some other method of obtaining information. Scarcely two Quarter Sessional boroughs could be brought forward in which the grievance complained of was the same, or in which the payments were made on the same principle. Some were exempted under the Municipal Act and some were not. Thus, the greatest anomalies existed. With regard to lunatic asylums the difficulty was very great. There were three classes of Quarter Sessional boroughs when they came to deal with lunatic asylums—those with separate lunacy areas, those annexed to the county for lunacy purposes, and those which were contributory. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the late Home Secretary that there was a very great doubt as to whether, if the Bill became law in its present form, the boroughs which would be exempted under it would not become exempt from contribution for lunacy purposes. That would be doing a great injustice. The Bill would affect the various boroughs in Lancashire, which were not Quarter Sessional boroughs, very seriously. Some of these boroughs were almost as large, and in some cases larger, than certain of the Quarter Sessional boroughs. They had such towns as Preston, Oldham, Ashton, and Bolton—he rather thought the last town was a Quarter Sessions borough—but the cost in four of the large Quarter Sessions boroughs in Lancashire for lunacy, roads, and general purposes was £26,400 per annum; and, supposing the Bill passed, all that amount would be thrown on the remainder of the county, and the other boroughs in the county would suffer a serious injustice. It would be impossible to pass the Bill in its present form. It would require very great alteration, and the matter would, perhaps, have to be considered by a Committee. Then there was the further fact that Her Majesty's Government had in preparation—he might say that it was prepared—a large Bill dealing with county government reform. This subject of county government reform had been dealt with on two previous occasions; but he did not think any Bill had been brought in by the Liberal side of the House. He trusted that they might shortly have an opportunity of bringing in a measure dealing with the question. If they had such an opportunity, that would be the strongest argument in favour of the Bill now under discussion either being withdrawn, or not being allowed to pass on the present occasion. A great deal had been said on the various details of the Bill; but he would not go into them further, as he thought the subject had been sufficiently thrashed out. He put it to the hon. Member for Birmingham that, as the matter was one really for inquiry, he would effect his purpose in a much better way if he withdrew his Bill, and allowed the inquiry which the Home Secretary proposed to take place, than by pressing it to a division.

said, after what had fallen from the Secretary to the Admiralty he would not detain the House long. Whatever might be said against the Bill as it stood, it was an attempt to deal with a grievance which was a real one. Those who supported the measure had two strong arguments in its favour. First, there was a great inequality of treatment as between different classes of Quarter Sessions boroughs; and, secondly, it could not be denied that it was an injustice to any borough to be called upon to pay twice over for the same thing. What the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Powell Williams) proposed was to place all Quarter Sessions boroughs on the same footing. At present there was a distinction between them; but he did not know what reason there was for the distinction. It seemed to him clearly made out that there was a large number of matters in respect of which Quarter Sessions boroughs now had to contribute to the county rate, while they themselves had to provide and to pay for similar arrangements within the borough. In Birmingham he understood that only a very small fraction of the contribution made to the county rate was spent on objects from which the borough derived advantage; and the same might be said of Leeds, the borough which he had the honour to represent. It had been said that a great deal of property had been bought and sold in the last few years; and, therefore, the effect of such a Bill as that would be to transfer property from one set of persons to another. But he did not believe that the principle would be recognized that any part of the community had a vested right to the taxes imposed on another part of the community. He did not deny that a good many of the arguments brought against the Bill as it stood were sound. He thought in some cases the Bill, if it was passed as it stood, might create injustice and hardship; but the point on which they ought to fix their attention was this. An enormous change had taken place during the last 50 or more years in the position of the great Quarter Sessions boroughs. They had really become gigantic self-supporting communities, and what was really asked for in the Bill was that they should be completely autonomous. If things were allowed to continue as they were, the practical effect would be that the county would have a kind of vested right to the increased and increasing rateable property in the largo boroughs, and that the boroughs would have the privilege not merely of paying for what they provided for themselves, but also would be mulcted in an annual sum because certain expenditure had been incurred by the county in their behalf 50 years ago. That was a state of things which involved a real hardship; and, therefore, he should support the Bill if pressed to a division.

said, that after the statement made by the Secretary to the Admiralty he should ask permission to withdraw the Bill, the understanding being that there would be an immediate inquiry on the part of the Government, either by a Commission or otherwise, and that the result of such inquiry would be communicated to Parliament without delay.

expressed his willingness to withdraw his Amendment.

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that the object of the Bill was to confer upon Local Authorities power to acquire land, and afterwards to let the land to the poorer agricultural classes. The principle was already upon the Statute Book embodied in several Acts of Parliament. These Statutes were very complicated, and practically unworkable; but they indicated the principle embodied in the Bill. It was, therefore, no new principle, but one in accordance with the traditions of English legislation. The principle of the Bill had also received a large amount of support in the debate and in the division upon the Amendment to the Address moved by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings), upon which the late Government had been defeated. In the debate the principle received not only the sanction of the right hon. Gentleman who was now Prime Minister, but also the sanction of some Members of the late Government. The Bill, or some legislation in the same direction, was required in the interests of the rural districts. It was the best Conservatism to support a Bill of this character, for it would have the effect of bringing back and keeping the agricultural classes in the rural districts. They were the backbone of the country; but the number of persons engaged in agriculture was fast decreasing. During the last 20 years in England 027,000 people had ceased to be engaged in that industry—that was to say, more than 30,000 people a-year were leaving the rural districts to enter towns or cross the sea. Parties on both sides must regret that this depopulation was sapping the strength of the country. In 1861 the agricultural population in the country formed l–10th of the whole population. By the process of divorce from the soil which had been going on, the proportion had been reduced to l–19th, while the other classes of the working population had all increased, according to the last Census. The causes of this were threefold—the bad wages, bad cottages, and bad prospects of the agricultural labourers. Wages were again beginning to decline, and it was sad to think that men should have to support themselves, their wives, and families on 12s. a-week, or even less. From such wages it was impossible for labourers to pay the reasonable rental of good cottages. What was wanted was such a condition as would enable the rent of good cottages to be paid. A great many insanitary cottages had been pulled down by landlords, who were only too ready, in many cases, to take a hint from the Sanitary Inspector in the direction of demolition, without doing anything in the direction of reconstruction. Thus the poor had been driven to herd together in villages under very unwholesome conditions. As to the prospects of the agricultural labourer, was it not melancholy to think that, after a life of incessant toil, he could only expect to end his crippled old age in a workhouse? The purpose of the Bill was to cheer and stimulate the efforts of the industrious labourer by giving him an opportunity of adding to his earnings by the cultivation of an allotment, the produce of which would help to maintain his household, and, if there were any surplus, be sold, for his benefit. The cultivation of an acre allotment would, it was calculated, add 4s. a-week to a labourer's income; and it would have the additional advantage of supplying him and his family with more nutritious food than they could now obtain. The Bill also made provision for the purchase of small holdings of 10, 20, 30, or, perhaps, 40 acres, in the interest of the labourer who was able to save up and repay the necessary part of the purchase money. He justified the interference of the Legislature on the ground that the rural population had been reduced to its present miserable condition by long legislative neglect, and by the absorption of the common lands to swell the estates of large landowners. The position of the labourer had gone down for the last 100 years, for in 1770 the purchasing power of his wages was relatively greater, his house rent proportionately less, and he had the benefit of the common lands for pasturage, fuel, &c. In the agricultural prosperity between 1853 and 1877, when landlords' rents went up some 27 per cent. his wages were but slightly increased, and he suffered from the loss of his rights to commons and waste lands, 7,000,000 acres of which had been in-closed to swell the broad acres of the rich. It was true that the system of allotments had existed for some hundred years under voluntary arrangements; but during that time voluntary effort must have done its work very badly when they had that keen land hunger on the part of the peasantry of which many hon. Members on the Liberal Benches were witnesses. The agricultural labourers of the Eastern Counties more especially were driven to trust to some measure such as he was proposing, rather than to the voluntary efforts which had disappointed them for so many years. Voluntary effort would still leave much for Local Authorities to do; and the Local Authorities, he believed, would do the work more effectually than any voluntary effort in the past had given them reason to suppose it would do in the future. Even although, according to a recent publication, l–14th part of the cultivated area of the country was happily blessed with benevolent landlords, it was necessary to take care of the rest. And in the area which was blessed with landlords willing to do their duty to the labourers, and in many cases, he was glad to say, more than their duty, they had evidence that the allotments were of a comparatively small size. He found that in more than one-half of the instances the allotments did not exceed a quarter of an acre; whereas this Bill sought to allow one acre arable, or three acres pasture, so as to enable the labourers to eke out the scanty earnings on which they had to live, and bring up their families in decency and comfort. The objection was raised that voluntary effort was willing to do all this. His answer was that the principle of compulsion would never be applied if voluntary effort did its work. They were anxious that the labourer should have his acre of arable land, or three acres of pasture, under conditions which would give him security of tenure, and make him thoroughly independent both of landlord and farmer. But the power of acquiring land for the purpose of restoring the agricultural labourer to the soil was not compulsory on Local Authorities, but was permissive to them. They would not buy laud if there was no desire nor demand for that land. If voluntary effort were sufficient the demand would never arise, so that hon. Members who believed that voluntary effort was capable of doing all that was required had no need to oppose the Bill. The principle of the Bill had been on the Statute Book for 65 or 70 years. It was a principle which could be applied without hardship and without injustice; for certain clauses of the Bill recognized, most tenderly and thoughtfully, the interests of the owner of the soil. It proposed to take no land except under conditions which were necessary to the welfare of the community. The interests of the community demanded that in certain cases there should be individual sacrifice for the common good; but by these thoughtful clauses of the Bill it was arranged that any compulsory purchase of land should be made as tenderly and carefully as possible with regard to the owner's interests. He believed the Bill had been skilfully drawn, but he did not contend that it was perfect. It had been drawn with an earnest desire to help a longsuffering and patient class of the com- munity, who, at the end of a long life of incessant toil, found, under existing conditions, no refuge but a pauper home, or a pauper's grave. This was a state of things which was a disgrace to our legislation, and a scandal to our civilization. It was not beyond the intelligence and ability of the House to make the Bill perfect in the interests of the class in whose cause he asked them now, on grounds higher than Party politics, to read it a second time.

, in seconding the Motion, expressed himself gratified at being able, as a new Member, to make his first speech in the House of Commons in support of the long-suffering and patient class his hon. Friend had referred to. While not endorsing every word or clause of the Bill, he was prepared to stand by the great principle contained in the 40th and 41st clauses, that principle being summed up in the one word "compulsion." There was hardly an hon. Member sitting on the other side of the House—certainly not one representing an agricultural constituency—who would say he was not thoroughly in favour of the allotment system. The book recently published by Lord Onslow contained evidence enough of the general interest—the newly-found interest in many cases—taken in the question. It had been shown again and again that the giving of access to allotment land was of the greatest benefit to the agricultural labourer. The question to what extent these allotments were necessary was a matter of detail. The principle of the Bill, which alone he urged upon the acceptance of the House, was that it was for the well-being of the country—of the agricultural labourer, of the farmer, and of the landowner—that this question should be settled by giving every agricultural labourer access to a sufficient quantity of land for his wants. In a debate at the opening of the Session the late Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster spoke of the poor labourers with 12s. a-week, and the hon. Member who moved the second reading had also spoken of 12s. a-week as their normal wages. He begged to say that in the case of a very large proportion of the parishes in East Gloucestershire wages were not 12s., but only 9s. a-week. He had read in that morning's papers lines which might fitly be applied as an epitaph to an agricultural labourer—

"Here lies a poor fellow who always was tired,

But he lived in a world where much was required.

Weep not for me when death doth us sever,

For I am going to do nothing, for ever and ever."

Was it wonderful that this was the tone of a great many in this country? ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members might say "Oh, oh!" but he should like to see them live on 9s. a-week. He wished to do something to improve the position of that class, and give them some chance in life; and nothing could be done which would help them so much as by giving them land in the manner proposed by the Bill. It had been acknowledged from the Front Bench opposite that agricultural wages were more likely to decrease than to increase. That was the way in which the labourers themselves wished their position to be improved, and the man who wore the shoe ought to know best where it pinched. Compulsion was necessary in order to make evil men do what good men willingly did at present. The condition of the labourers had been slightly improved by their possession of the franchise, and in Gloucestershire there were allotment tenants who paid at the rate of £9 per acre before the General Election, and £7 10s. now. Even the latter figure, however, was altogether in excess of the agricultural value of the land. Over nearly the whole of Lord Eldon's property men were paying 50s. and 60s. an acre for allotment land of the same character as had been recently let at 12s. and 15s. an acre. He had 73 answers to inquiries he had sent out, and he found that in hardly a single case was the land let at the agricultural rent. He asked—Was this fair? Was it the way to encourage men? In the name of the agricultural labourers, he prayed the House not to raise any difficulties to the second reading of the Bill. Let Members amend it in Committee as much as they liked; but let them make one step to show that that House was in earnest in taking up the cause of the agricultural labourer. With regard to the element of compulsion, it was necessary, because without it the Act would be a piece of waste paper.

said, he believed the House would unanimously agree in the sympathy which had been expressed for the condition of the agricultural labourer at the present time. He wished, however, that the Mover and Seconder had given the House some explanations with regard to the details of their Bill, which appeared to be a measure of a very remarkable character. He sympathized as much as the hon. Members could do with the lowness of wages which labourers were receiving at the present time; but what was it owing to? It was owing to the unfortunate depression, in agriculture, brought about largely by the great foreign competition which it had to encounter. With the permission of the House, he wished to say a few words both upon the object which the hon. Members had in view as well as upon the machinery by which they hoped to give effect to it. Now, both hon. Members had spoken as if the Bill dealt with allotments alone, whereas it dealt with small holdings on the one hand, and with allotments on the other. As far as allotments were concerned, he had no opposition whatever to offer to any legitimate scheme by which a large extension of the system throughout the country might be brought about. The hon. Member would find before many months were over, from the Returns now being obtained, that probably allotments existed already in far greater number than he supposed. Allotments, however, were one thing, but small holdings were another; and he was not prepared to give his consent to any legislation whatever by which the burden of the provision for an indefinite number of small holdings, which under the Bill might be as large as 40 acres, and an indefinite number of tenants was to be thrown upon the rates and ratepayers. No doubt the principle of compulsory acquisition of land had often enough been recognized in legislation; but the Bill enabled the Local Authority to take and purchase any land at a price which was to be fixed independently of the owners and by somebody else altogether. He would not call this by any such name as confiscation, or rob- bery, or spoliation, because he did not think that it was necessarily any of these; but it was indispensable to show that the purpose for which the land was wanted was a good one. Now, as regarded small holdings, they had never proved, and he did not think they would ever prove, anything of the kind. It was not, therefore, on the ground of confiscation or spoliation that he was opposed to the Bill, but on totally different grounds. He opposed the proposal, first, because he held that at the present time compulsion for the purpose of creating small holdings was altogether unnecessary; and, secondly, because he believed it to be an impracticable and unworkable proposal, and one which would be injurious to the interests of the very people whom it was proposed to benefit. As everybody knew, there was an enormous quantity of land in the market which the owners were only too keenly anxious to sell; and, that being so, where was the necessity for compulsion? He maintained that the scheme would not answer, and that it would be injurious to the very people themselves. Why? The land was to be bought and paid for. But how was the land to be paid for? Out of the rates. Well, what would probably happen? He would assume that the holding, having been bought and paid for out of the rates, was sold again or relet in the way proposed in the Bill. Suppose there was a succession of bad seasons, and a further fall in the prices of agricultural produce—which a great many people told him must be contemplated—what would happen then? There would happen what had constantly happened in the past. A great many of the new tenants would find that through no fault of their own, they had nothing whatever with which to pay rent. What would the unfortunate men, who had nothing to pay the interest due to the Local Authority, wish to do under those circumstances? Would they wish to seek out the landlord, who might happen to be of a warm-hearted and generous disposition—although the Radical Party seemed to think there were no landlords of that description, who might have lived upon the same estate all his life, and whose forefathers for many generations had retained the respect and affection of their tenantry? Or would these unfortunate men prefer to lay their distress before the parish Board? Hon. Members could not doubt what choice the tenants would make. He was opposed to the creation of small holdings in the manner proposed by the Bill—first, because he believed compulsion to be unnecessary for that purpose; and, secondly, because he believed the scheme of the Bill to be impracticable, and one which, for the reasons he had given, was not likely to work for the benefit of the persons it was desired to assist. Allotments, in his opinion, stood on a different footing altogether. He believed that to place within the reach of every labouring man the possibility of obtaining within a reasonable distance of his home, or, better still, immediately around it, a convenient piece of land for an allotment was, probably, the most substantial boon that, under all the circumstances, could be conferred upon him at the present moment. He was in favour of securing to every agricultural labourer throughout the country the means of obtaining such an allotment for himself. The size of the allotment he would not specify. That was a matter of detail. Some people thought that a quarter of an acre was as much as a labourer could cultivate. The Bill proposed that it should be an acre; but, without wishing to dogmatize, he might say that it seemed to him that an acre was too large to be an allotment and too small to be more than an allotment. Probably, on the whole, half an acre would be the best size, though he should defer his judgment on the matter. He saw no difficulty whatever in providing these allotments, because it was undoubtedly to the interests of the landlords of the country that it should be done. He was not aware that there would be the slightest opposition offered to it on their part. It must be to the interests of the landlords, as well as of the community at large, that the great population which lived upon the soil should be happy and contented, and he could not imagine for a moment that the smallest opposition would be offered by the landlords to a scheme of this kind. So strongly was he of this opinion that, speaking for himself, he might say that in case this could not be accomplished without compulsory measures, he should not be afraid to resort to legislative compulsion. But compulsion should be the last resort, in his opinion; and his complaint as re- garded this Bill was that compulsion was the one thing of all others put in the foreground from beginning to end. It gave little option to the landlords, but empowered the Local Authority, whether the landlords were willing to sell or not, to adopt compulsory measures at any moment they pleased. The late Secretary for Scotland made an observation to which he attached a good deal of importance. He said that compulsion was desirable to the extent to which it encouraged voluntary effort. If it became necessary to introduce a compulsory measure that was the test that he should like to see applied to it. He had now explained pretty fully to the House his views on the subject of allotments, and he had shown that he appreciated entirely the motives in which, for the interests of the rural population, this measure was proposed, and he sympathized very largely with the objects that they had in view, and which he understood to be the amelioration of the condition of the agricultural labourers of this country. But he must speak in very different terms of the machinery by which it was proposed to carry those objects into effect. The Mover and Seconder, who were responsible for this Bill, had said nothing about its details; but his examination of the Bill convinced him it was one of the most remarkable legislative enactments he had ever seen. For instance, Clause 4 provided that it should be lawful for any Local Authority to sell to any person a small holding on certain terms. It seemed to be forgotten that the Local Authority had first to purchase the small holding before it could sell it. Nothing was said about the Local Authority purchasing until the 40th clause. In another clause the purchaser of a small holding was not only not required to pay more than a quarter of the purchase money down, but he was absolutely precluded by the terms of the Bill from ever discharging the debt remaining. The first effect of that extraordinary provision would be to maintain in perpetuity that dual ownership of land to which he had always taken great exception, and the mischief attending which had been amply proved by recent experience in Ireland. Her Majesty's Government was credited by rumour with intending shortly to introduce a measure to remedy the evils of dual ownership in Ireland. Of course, high rent must always be paid in the shape of the interest upon the purchase money which remained over upon the holding. In connection with this matter there was a curious inconsistency in Clause 5, which provided that the Local Authority might make loans to the holder of any small holding for buildings, and any other improvements. The Bill stated that the first condition of making loans on a small holding was that it should be free from mortgage, after having previously declared that three-fourths of the purchase money should remain as a charge on the holding for ever. Clause 4 displayed the most remarkable differences of treatment between ordinary existing owners of land and owners who had purchased their land under the Bill from any Local Authority. If the owner who had purchased from the Local Authority was for any purpose dispossessed by the Local Authority, he was to receive most exceptional treatment, including 10 per cent compensation for compulsory sale, and allowances for inconvenience and disturbance. On the other hand, the owners of the land purchased by the Local Authority were only to receive such price as would be given by a willing purchaser to a willing vendor without any compensation for compulsory sale or inconvenience. He was at a loss to understand why this difference should be made between one owner and the other. More strange than anything else was the power contained in Clause 6, which he understood to mean that if by mistake a Local Authority bought from one man property which might turn out in reality to belong to another, then the real owner, if he came forward, was not to have the land restored to him, however good his title, but to receive a certain amount of compensation for damages. Then there was Clause 7, which contained a principle which he should never have expected from the nine names which were on the back of the Bill. There was not one of those hon. Gentlemen who at some time or another had not denounced the principle of primogeniture. The principle of primogeniture was that the whole real estate on an intestacy should go to the eldest son. But the Bill went further, for it absolutely compelled the owner to make an eldest son, whether he liked it or not. He was not to dispose of his holding except in one of three ways—(1) by registered mortgage of the entire holding; (2) by registered transfer of it; or (3) by devise to one person of the whole estate. If that was not making an eldest son, what was? Then there was Clause 40, which, after all, was one of the main clauses of the Bill, under which powers of compulsory purchase were given to the Local Authorities. It could not be complained of that clause that its terms were not sufficiently wide. Any Local Authority might purchase or take on lease or by way of sale or exchange any lands, whether situate within or without their district. The first thing that occurred to him was this—when he remembered who was the author of the Bill, he began to fear that the Corporation of Birmingham might insist upon purchasing the whole of the small property which he happened to possess in Lincolnshire. There was absolutely nothing to prevent the Corporations of Liverpool, Manchester, or Birmingham purchasing any land in any part of the country, unless he had misread the Bill. When it was remembered that the favourite doctrine of the authors of the Bill was that the population should be restored to the soil, that was probably their meaning. There was, however, this limitation—the landlords might save the houses. The Local Authority might consider, under Sub-section 2, the amenities and conveniences of the owner's property. So far as practicable they were to avoid interference with "the parks, mansions, dwellings, labourers' cottages, labourers' allotments, gardens," &c. But suppose they did not, in their wisdom, find it practicable, then the landlords had no protection. The next clause seemed to contemplate farming on a gigantic scale by the Local Authorities. They had power to improve any land. They might improve any amount of land not belonging to them. They might enter upon drainage works, irrigation, embankment works, the strengthening of fences, reclamation of land, make watercourses and gardens, village greens, carry out the construction or enlargement of any of such works, &c. What opportunities were thus opened up for waste and jobbery, for mismanagement and unlimited expenditure in these gigantic undertakings! There was only one possible safeguard. Fortunately, the Bill had not taken powers to borrow money from anybody. The Local Authorities were dependent entirely upon whatever they might get from the Treasury. By Clause 48 the Treasury might from time to time make advances out of moneys supplied under any Act of Parliament of such moneys as might be deemed expedient. That was a considerable safeguard. Moreover, he did not think any Treasury in this country would be guilty of the supreme folly of advancing a sixpence for such purposes. He hoped he had made it perfectly clear that there was no lack of sympathy whatever for the agricultural labourers of this country on his side of the House. He did not know what course the Government were going to take; but he had the intention of introducing a Bill on the subject himself, so that his views should not be open to misapprehension. While they were not prepared to sanction legislation for the purpose of creating holdings of 40 acres and less wholesale throughout the country by burdens imposed on the rates, they were ready to give every legitimate facility and encouragement to the creation of allotments on the widest and most extensive scale. But when he considered the machinery by which it was by the Bill proposed to carry out such a scheme he must oppose it himself, and he hoped his hon. Friends would do the same.

I desire to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon the progress which he has made upon this subject in the course of the last two months. The speech he made from that Box is very different from the one which he delivered from this Box two months ago. It differs in this respect. The speech delivered two months ago, we all remember, was an emphatic "No."

It was am emphatic "No" to a Vote of Censure, and to nothing else.

The emphatic "No" was accompanied, if I remember right, by very able arguments—the right hon. Gentleman's arguments are always very able—against the whole Bill advocated by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings). Well, I describe the speech to-day not as an emphatic "No," but an ambiguous "No," to the proposals in this Bill. The early part of the speech was in favour of the principle of the Bill. The latter part of the speech was rather like the old description of a mermaid, which ended rather with the tail of the ancient fish with which we were formerly familiar. But what does the right hon. Gentleman say in the earlier part of his speech? Of course, he is in favour of improving the wages of the agricultural labourer. We all are; but his method is one with which we are familiar. He says the low wages of the agricultural labourer are due to foreign competition. Oh, yes; but there were low wages when there was no foreign competition, and what was the state of the labourers' wages then? Do you think you are going to the agricultural labourers of England and tell them that they had better wages under the old system of Protection? There was a former Colleague of the right hon. Gentleman in Lincolnshire, who is not now a Member of this House, who preached that doctrine a little higher than the right hon. Gentleman. But it did not commend itself to the agricultural labourers of Lincolnshire.

What were the wages 10 years ago?

What were the wages 40 years ago? But I will not follow that argument, for time is pressing, and I shall not follow the example of the right hon. Gentleman in occupying so much precious time by a Committee argument of detail, which took up more than half his speech, and which has nothing whatever to do with the principle of the present Bill. The principle of the Bill is to give to local communities power to hire land, which land shall be employed for two purposes—either as small holdings or as allotments. The right hon. Gentleman objects altogether to small holdings——

You have misunderstood me. What I said was, that I objected to small holdings the provision or burden of which was to be thrown on the rates and on the ratepayers.

I quite understand that. But what in the world does it signify? If small holdings are a good thing, and if allotments are a good thing, why should not both be provided? But it is said that the rate- payers will have to bear the burden of providing both the small holdings and the allotments. But who are the ratepayers? Why, they are the people of the community, and it is they who will have to judge whether or not it is a good thing for themselves and for the people among whom they live to have these allotments. The right hon. Gentleman opposite appears to look upon the ratepayers as something quite distinct from the community; but they are the people who will have to bear the burden, and who will have to be the judges in the matter. Then I go back upon the argument of the right hon. Gentleman as to the principle of the Bill; and in doing so I omit, for the moment, all reference to the argument whether small holdings are a good thing or not. For my own part, I think they are. I was brought up in a Northern parish, where every labourer had his three acres and a cow, and a very good thing it was; and I am very sorry to say that here I find, in the South, parish after parish where the children cannot get even a drink of milk, because the farmers will not sell it. In Yorkshire—I am sorry to say that I am speaking of some 45 years ago—every labourer had his grass plot and his cow; but things are very different in the South at the present time. The right hon. Gentleman says that he is in favour of allotments. Well, that is something. But how are they to be obtained? The right hon. Gentleman says that there are enough of them at present.

I did not say that.

Then the right hon. Gentleman does not think that there are enough of them. If there are not enough of them, why are there not enough? For generations there have been landlords, and there have been people who want allotments; and yet there are not enough of them. Why is that? It is because the voluntary efforts have failed. Then comes the question of compulsion, and the right hon. Gentleman does not deny that compulsion is necessary.

What I said was that I did not desire compulsion, but that I was not afraid of it.

The right hon. Gentleman says that he does not desire compulsion, but that he is not afraid of it—that is the ambiguous "No." Two months ago the right hon. Gentleman was afraid of compulsion, and now he is not. I say that if there were not as many allotments as were wished, and if voluntary means hitherto had not supplied them, there must be compulsion somewhere. And to whom were the powers of compulsion to be given? Why, to the community who bore the burden; and surely they may be trusted to prevent their money from being wasted if compulsion is adopted. [A laugh.] Why not? Why should the ratepayers desire that the expenditure which will fall on themselves should be wasteful and oppressive? I cannot understand the argument of the right hon. Gentleman at all. If the right hon. Gentleman is really in favour of allotments, and is not afraid of compulsion, and if he admits that the community is, or might be, the proper body to provide land which should be laid out in allotments for the good of the labouring poor, why is he against the principle of this Bill? In Committee he can propose to deal with the clauses regarding small holdings and with the clauses regarding compulsion if he is not satisfied with them, but these have nothing to do with the principle of the Bill; and therefore, as regards that principle, I take it that it is that the community should have power, under proper restrictions, to acquire land for these purposes. I have, at the present moment, neither time nor inclination to criticize the details of this measure. In my opinion, a measure of this importance ought to be in the hands of the Government, and its principles ought to be, and will be, dealt with in any measure of local self-government which may be introduced by Her Majesty's Government. With regard to the financial proposals of the Bill, I think that if I had time I might offer some criticisms upon them from the Treasury point of view; but I shall not be seduced into doing so at the present moment even by the example of the right hon. Gentleman. The question is, are we to say "Aye" or "No" to the principle of allowing land to be acquired for this purpose? Speaking for myself, I am in favour of the principle of this measure, although I do not desire such a Bill to be in the hands of a private Member. It is a Bill for which the re- sponsibility ought to rest with, the Government; but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman opposite, when he makes an attack upon the principle of this measure, I shall take exactly the opposite course with regard to it which he has indicated he intends to take.

, who rose amid loud cries of "Divide," said, he repudiated the claim of hon. Members opposite to figure as the only champions of the agricultural labourer. This measure was intended as a colourable fulfilment of the pledges which hon. Members opposite had given during the General Election to provide the agricultural labourer with three acres and a cow. He had gone carefully through the Bill, and he could find in it neither the three acres nor the cow for the agricultural labourer, nor for any of the classes for whose benefit the Bill was intended.