asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is the duty of the Dublin Metropolitan Police to report to the Chief Commissioner all cases where they find the footways (over which the Dublin Corporation have no control as to cleansing) are not regularly cleansed daily by the occupiers or owners in the City and Metropolitan District; whether it is their duty, on finding that such cleansing is not done, to summon the owners or occupiers; whether he is aware of the Resolutions of the Cleansing Committee on the 7th January, 1885, 3rd March, 1886, 25th January and 23rd February, 1888, calling the attention of the Commissioners of Police to the condition of the footways in Dublin, especially those in front of public buildings; and that, notwithstanding those complaints, no action has been taken by the police in the matter; and, whether, in the face of these repeated complaints of the Cleansing Committee to the Commissioners of Police, he will take steps to secure that the bye-laws of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878, sections 1 and 2, shall in future be enforced by the Commissioners of Police?

(who replied) said, the Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police reported that up to the present the duty of enforcing the law dealing with the cleansing of footpaths by the occupiers of promises had been undertaken by the Dublin Metropolitan Police. During the half-year ending with the present month 824 persons were summoned for neglect in this matter, while about three times that number were cautioned. However, the Commissioner added, taking everything into consideration, the citizens of Dublin fulfilled their obligations in this regard reasonably well. Probably the best remedy would be for the Corporation of Dublin themselves to undertake the cleansing of the footways; as was done by the Corporations of Rathmines, Pembroke, and Blackrock with satisfactory results.

Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether the Corporations of cities and towns in England and Scotland undertake the cleansing of footpaths?

I do not know.

I can inform him they do not.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether he can state what improvements he pro- poses to make in the Shetland Mail Service, in respect of more frequent and direct communication between Lerwick and Aberdeen, as was requested in a Memorial recently addressed to him by inhabitants of Shetland?

I am giving careful consideration to the Memorials for an improvement of the Postal Service between Aberdeen and Lerwick, and I am in communication with the Treasury upon the subject. I am not in a position to say more at the present time.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is correct, as reported in the public prints, that, at a Crimes Court, held at Athenry on the 20th instant, District Inspector Hamilton stated in his evidence that he

"Considered cheering for Mr. Blunt and Lady Anne Blunt worse than using sticks and stones;"

(who replied) said: The Inspector General of Constabulary reports that District Inspector Hamilton, in replying to a question at the trial, stated that he did not consider a crowd using sticks and stones worse than cheering for Mr. and Lady Anne Blunt; but he immediately corrected this statement by saying what he intended to convey was—

"That the conduct of a crowd with sticks and stones was, in his opinion, not worse than the conduct of the crowd at the Railway Station."

May I ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, Is there any way in which the Government can manage to convey to these magistrates a hint, that if they would confine themselves to the proper discharge of their duties, and not make speeches, the interest of justice would be better served?

I think the hon. Gentleman has not read the Question. It refers to a District In- spector, and not to a magistrate; and the evidence was given by the Inspector in a Court of Law.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he can inform the House when the European Powers are likely to accede to the desire of the Egyptian Government to impose the Stamp Duties already borne by Natives, on foreigners residing in Egypt, in accordance with the Convention of 1885; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a Return showing from what taxation foreigners in Egypt are exempt, but to which the Natives are subject?

The proposal now before the Powers is that the laws for the imposition of the Stamp Duties and Licence Tax on foreigners should be settled between the Egyptian Government and the Commissioners of the Public Debt. Projects of such laws have already been carefully prepared, and have been approved by Her Majesty's Government, who are using their best efforts to procure the assent of the other Powers to their promulgation. We have not the means of giving the Return asked for; but Sir Evelyn Baring has recently stated, in a despatch on other matters, that when once these taxes are made general, the position of Europeans will, so far as taxation is concerned, be assimilated in all important respects to that of the Natives.

asked the Postmaster General, If he can state the amount collected on railway borne parcels each year since the establishment of the Parcel Post, and the amount paid to Railway Companies in respect of the carriage of such parcels?

in reply, said, the amount could be given if the right hon. Gentleman would move for a Return. The figures were too nu- merous to be given in answer to a Question.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether his attention has been called to the extreme inconvenience and loss which lately resulted from the breakdown of telegraphic communication in New York; whether it is true that nearly 70 per cent of all the telegrams of the United Kingdom pass through St. Martin's-le-Grand, the apparatus being all under one roof, and that the two top floors are above the high pressure of the water mains; whether it is true that not long since the whole building was jeopardized by a fire which raged in Paternoster Row; whether consideration has been given to the great risk run by present arrangements; and, whether it is in tended to duplicate the Department on the land lately acquired in Aldersgate Street?

In reply to the hon. Member, I have to say that I have no official information of the inconvenience and loss which have resulted from the breakdown of telegraphic communication in New York; but I understand that the breakdown was caused by a snowstorm, which damaged the wires. About 50 per cent of the telegrams of the United Kingdom pass through the Central Telegraph Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand. Only on the top floor of that building are the fire hydrants not supplied from the street mains; they are supplied from tanks on the roof containing 28,000 gallons of water, pumped up from the artesian well on the premises. It is not true that the building was in any danger from a fire in Paternoster Row. The present arrangements have been made after mature consideration, and there is no intention to establish a duplicate Central Telegraph Office. The building, I may add, is fireproof throughout.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether there is in force a General Order that the Queen's Regulations shall be strictly observed on all occasions by every corps; and, whether the Honourable Artillery Company is not expressly named in those Regulations among the regiments and corps of Her Majesty's Service?

The Queen's Regulations are only applicable to such a corps as the Honourable Artillery Corps when subject to military law under the Army Act. The only reference to the Honourable Artillery Company in the Queen's Regulations is in Section 1, paragraph 3^a, which lays down that, in consideration of its antiquity, the Honourable Artillery Company will take precedence next after the Regular Forces.

asked the Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, What time after the date of examination for result fees in Irish National Schools are such fees paid to the successful candidates; and, whether the same ought not to be paid within one month after the examination?

The Question has been put down at such a short Notice that I am sorry I cannot answer it.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the Committee appointed to inquire into the cases of meritorious Civil Service writers, who were recommended for promotion to the Lower Division by the responsible Heads of their Departments, examined each case individually; whether a Report was made thereon; and, if so, will be laid, for the information of Members of this House, upon the Table; whether the Treasury intend to take any further steps respecting the recommendations of those writers who were not included in the first list of promotions; and, will they soon notify their decision?

The work done by copyists recommended, for promotion was inquired into, and each case was considered by the Committee, which reported to the Treasury. The Treasury will report the result to the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments; but I do not propose to present Papers to the House.

asked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the question that a pilotage certificate only shall be granted to a British subject, as proposed to be enacted by "The Merchant Shipping Act (1854) Amendment Bill," will be considered by the Committee which was appointed on Monday last to inquire into the subject of pilotage; and, if not, whether instructions will be given to the Committee to do so; and, what course the Government propose to adopt with regard to those certificates at present held by foreign masters or mates, authorizing them to pilot their own ships, under the provisions of "The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854?"

said, he certainly understood that this subject was included in the reference to the Pilotage Committee. In regard to the second part of the Question, existing certificates would, of course, hold good, pending the inquiry.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the French troops have now quitted the New Hebrides, pursuant to the arrangement made by Her Majesty with the Government of the French Republic?

Yes, Sir; the French detachments were withdrawn on the 15th instant, which was within the period of the engagement.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the case of Patrick Sweeney, who was charged on Thursday last, at the Thames Police Court, with assaulting Constable Dales, 441 H, whilst in the execution of his duty; whether Sweeney appeared in the dock with his "face severely cut, covered with blood, and very much swollen; "whether the constable admitted that he struck Sweeney; whether he is aware that the learned magistrate discharged the prisoner, and said that "the officer used more force than was necessary;" and, whether he will draw the attention of the Public Prosecutor to the case, with a view to the complaint against Constable Dales being investigated in open Court?

I am informed by the Chief Commissioner that the constable found Sweeney kicking a women, who was lying on the pavement. The constable interfered, and was thereupon attacked by Sweeney and two women, dragged to the ground, struck and kicked. The constable stated that in the course of this struggle he struck Sweeney. Sweeney appeared in the dock with a swollen lip and with blood on his face, which had apparently come from his nose. The magistrate discharged the prisoner, making the observation quoted in the Question. The matter is now being investigated by the Chief Constable of the district. I have no reason at present for considering it a case for the Public Prosecutor. Sweeney stated that he was going to apply for a summons. This will be the proper course to secure an investigation in open Court.

asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the revenues paid to King Theebaw from the Burmah Ruby Mines averaged for some years 1,50,000 rupees annually, and in the last year amounted to about 1,90,000 rupees, in addition to the fact that all rubies of the value of 2,000 rupees and upwards became the property of the King; whether, up to December last, the Indian Government had received from these mines only about 25,000 rupees during the preceding 12 months; whether a loss of current revenue is a permanent loss to the Indian Exchequer, owing to the fact that these mines are practically inexhaustible for a great number of years; whether sufficient precautions are taken to prevent smuggling; and whether it is the fact that large numbers of rubies are known to be disposed of to merchants and others without any royalty having been paid upon them; and, whether the difference to the Indian Revenue between the royalties actually received and the terms offered by Messrs. Streeter has been a loss of about 30,000 rupees per month, or 3,60,000 rupees a-year?

(1) According to the best information possessed by the Secretary of State, King Theebaw's revenue from the Ruby Mines did not average so much as £150,000; and he never received so much as £190,000. Stones of the value of 2,000 rupees were Royal perquisites; but were generally secreted, or broken up by the finders. (2) So far as reports have reached the Secretary of State.—Yes. (3) Cannot be answered till the Report of the scientific expert sent out by the Secretary of State has been received. (4) All precautions which are practicable are taken; but some smuggling undoubtedly takes place. (5) The diminution of revenue referred to does take place while the mines are unworked; but as the rubies are still there it is expected to be recouped in years to come.

asked, when the scientific expert would report?

replied that he believed he was at the mines now, and his Report might be expected very soon; but he could not fix a date.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the leasehold tenants on the County Lime-rick estate of Mr. William Lane Joynt, Crown and Treasury Solicitor, have served notices for the fixing of fair rents, and, pending the hearing of their cases, have offered to pay three-fourths of the rent due on the 29th of September, last, but are being served with writs for the full amount; and, as there is no possibility of the cases of these tenants being decided for some months, will he use his influence with this official of the Irish Government to induce him to stay proceedings until the tenants obtain relief from the Land Court?

(who replied) said: I am informed that three writs were served on the 2nd instant on leasehold tenants of Mr. Lane Joynt for the half-year's rent due in September last. These tenants were among eight leasehold tenants on the estate who have applied to have fair rents fixed. They have since settled.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the case of John Frost, late of 8, Emmett Street, Poplar, who was convicted on the 24th of November last, for receiving stolen goods, and who died in the hospital of the gaol on the 27th of December; whether he is aware that a strong feeling exists that Mr. Frost, who was suffering from serious illness when convicted, did not receive proper treatment when in gaol, and that his death was thereby caused; and, whether he will institute a searching inquiry into all the facts of the case?

I have seen a report of the inquest held on the body of this man. The allegation referred to by the hon. Member was before the jury, and was carefully considered by them. Their verdict was that the man received proper medical care and attention while in the prison. I have desired the Prison Commissioners to inquire whether there is any reason to doubt that the jury formed a correct opinion. Forfeiture of money now no longer exists, and, therefore, the £15 that Frost had in his possession will be handed over to his family.

asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether, on the next appointment to the Governorship of the Cape of Good Hope, it is proposed to combine that office, as at present, with the High Commissionership of South Africa?

In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that this Question has received careful consideration, and that Her Majesty's Government, as at present advised, do not propose to make any alteration in the existing arrangements. I may add that the relations between the Cape Ministers and the High Commissioner are on a very satisfactory footing; and it would be undesirable to check that cordial co-operation, which has been of benefit to British and Native interests throughout South Africa.

asked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Why the Returns of Judicial Rents for November and December, 1887, having been laid upon the Table on the 22nd of February, have not yet been distributed, and with whom the responsibility for the delay rests?

, in reply, said, the Question of the hon. Member only appeared on the Paper that morning; but he had ascertained that the Returns were duly presented and laid on the Table at the proper time. Some delay must necessarily occur before these Returns were printed.

asked if, on previous occasions, these Returns had not always been printed within 10 days after being laid on the Table?

said, he was unable to answer the Question without Notice.

asked the Postmaster General, If he can state why there are not embossed stamped envelopes for 5d. and 6d. respectively for India and Australia for sale here as there are 1d. embossed envelopes; and, is he aware that in India the 5d. embossed envelope is procurable, and has been for the past 25 years?

It has been thought that the general demand for such envelopes is not sufficient to justify the expense of supplying them. If they were introduced it would be impossible to limit their supply to certain towns; and there are valid objections to increasing unnecessarily the various denominations of stamps, and thereby the pecuniary responsibility of Postmasters. But if a request for such envelopes were made by a responsible body representing the Chinese and Australian trade I should be willing to consider it.

asked the Postmaster General, Is it true that the cost of sending small sums of money to Malta and Gibraltar, to which emigrants do not go, ranges from ½d. for 1s. 6d. to 1½d. for 20s.; yet these sums cannot be sent through the post to Canada, or any other place where the emigrants do go, for less than 6d.; and, has he under his consideration any alteration of this system?

The case is as stated by the hon. Member, and the explanation is simple. To Malta and Gibraltar postal orders are available on the same terms as within the United Kingdom itself. Indeed, until recently the Post Offices in those two Dependencies were under the direct control of the Imperial Post Office, and practically enjoyed all the advantages of the Imperial Postal System. Canada, on the other hand, although invited to participate in the postal order system to the same extent as it has been adopted in India and some of the Colonies, has not hitherto shown any disposition to do so. Consequently, the money order system alone is open to the public for the remittance of small sums of money, for which the lowest charge is 6d. for any sum not exceeding £2. I shall be happy to communicate again with the Canadian Post Office on the subject.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, as no notice of the suspension of the examination for outdoor officers in the Customs Department was given, he can now state the probable date of the next examination; and, whether the age of candidates now within the limits will be extended, in order that it may be competent for them to come up for examination, as in the case of the candidates for engineer studentships?

(who replied) said: I can give no date when the next examination of this class is likely to be held, as there are now more outdoor officers in the Service than will hereafter be required, besides which there are some candidates already qualified for the post. It is not intended to extend the limits of ago qualifying for the examination.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is the fact that there has been no sitting of the Land Commissioners in Lisnaskea, County Fermanagh, since April, 1887, and that a large number of originating notices have been recently served in the District; and, when it is proposed that the Sub-Commissioners will sit in Lisnaskea?

(who replied) said: Sir, as the Question appeared without sufficient Notice I leave been unable to get the information necessary to answer it.

I beg to give Notice that I shall repeat the Question after the Recess.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to take any, and, if so, what, steps to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Irish Public Works, in reference to railway communication in the County of Donegal with the towns of Donegal and Killybegs?

(who replied) said: The Government intend to deal with the consideration of the Report of the Royal Commission in detail. The first portion of the Report relates to the important subject of arterial drainage, in connection with which a Bill is now in an advanced stage of preparation. They are not at present in a position to state when they will be able to consider the recommendation in the particular case alluded to in the Question, which belongs to a later period of their Report.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the following account of a case mentioned in the last Report of the Irish Land Commissioners as leaving occurred in the County of Louth:—

"A purchaser and mortgagor who owed 12 half-yearly instalments was evicted from his farm after all attempts at compromise had failed. The farm was then set up for sale by us, and we were obliged to buy it in as the sale was Boycotted;"

(who replied) said: The Land Commissioners inform me that directions were given in October last to the Solicitor of the Commission to proceed and attempt to sell the farm in question. Some private negotiations took place, but did not lead to any result. The lands have been advertised for sale by auction, and will be set up for sale in Drogheda on the 31st instant. With regard to the last paragraph, the Commissioners have given me no information, and I cannot answer it at present.

Am I to understand, then, that the farm in question is still in the hands of the Land Commissioners?

Yes, Sir. The sale is announced to take place on the 31st.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether clerks employed at the Central Telegraph Office, when absent from duty owing to illness for more than one day, are required to furnish a medical certificate; whether the chief medical officer and his assistants often grant leave of absence for this cause; and, whether, in all cases of illness proved to the satisfaction of the chief medical officer, he will grant full pay, as is given to other Civil servants of equal status?

It is the case, as implied in the Question of the hon. Member, that the telegraphists at the Central Station, when absent ill for more than one day, have to furnish a medical certificate, and that such certificate is not unfrequently given by the medical officer. But it is not the case that in the matter of pay during illness the telegraphists are subject to different Regulations from other Post Office servants of corresponding rank.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, in the case of the death of one or more of the Trustees, the Bank of England insists that the probate or burial certificate of the deceased Trustee must accompany assent to the Conversion Scheme; if so, whether, with a view to facilitate conversion, he will consider the advisability of allowing the assent of surviving Trustees to be accepted, leaving proof of the deceased Trustee to remain for future action?

I have made inquiries at the Bank of England, and I was given to understand that the authorities will not insist upon the probate or burial certificate of the deceased Trustee accompanying the consent to the Conversion Scheme. On the contrary, it has been agreed to facilitate arrangements by allowing the surviving Trustee to assent.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether he is able now to state in what manner the Local Government Board propose to deal with the electoral representation at the new London County Council of the present area of the City of London; and, whether they propose to avail themselves of the exception made in section 52, sub-section 5 (b), to the Local Government (England and Wales) Bill, and give to the City area a larger proportion of representation than its population justifies; and, if so, in what manner, and to what extent?

I think I must ask the hon. Gentleman to allow me to reserve any statement as to the representation of particular areas until we come to the clauses of the Bill dealing with that matter.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he will communicate to the House what course Her Majesty's Government intend to pursue with regard to the renewal of the Coal and Wine Dues?

The Government have not felt themselves at liberty to depart from the position they have taken up on this question. They are unable to give their support to the Bill suggested by the existing authority, and will leave it to the House at large to determine whether or not it is expedient that the Coal and Wine Dues should be renewed.

asked, whether the Government would be prepared to give any facilities for discussing the question of the Coal and Wine Dues, which was a subject of the greatest importance to the ratepayers of London?

I have had no Notice of the Question, and my answer must be of the same character as that which I have just given. I cannot undertake to give facilities for a measure of this kind, for which the Government are not responsible.

asked, Whether any steps had been taken to fill the vacancy on the Royal Commission on Market Rights and Tolls caused by the resignation of the hon. Member for Londonderry?

, in reply, said, he hoped that the vacancy might be filled up in a few days.

said, he wished to ask the First Lord of the Treasury a Question of which he had given him private Notice. It was in reference to the Parliamentary Elections (Returning Officers' Expenses) (Scotland) Bill. The second reading of that Bill had been objected to from the other side of the House. He had communicated to the right hon. Gentleman the desire of Scotch Members that a second reading should be given to the measure; and he begged to ask him whether he would be assisted in any way by the Government in getting the Bill put down at some future time in order that it might in the meantime be withdrawn?

The hon. Gentleman had been good enough to send me a letter on the subject signed by several Scotch Members, to whose wishes I should be glad, if it were possible, to give effect. But the hon. Gentleman must be aware that there are many other hon. Gentlemen in the position he occupies—who have Bills in which they take great interest, and which are also interesting to other Members with whom they are associated. I greatly fear that if the Government were to make an exception in favour of one Bill, I should be pressed to make exceptions for other Bills, for which it would be utterly impossible for me to afford facilities. Under all the circumstances, I am sure that at this very early period of the Session the hon. Member will have abundant opportunities of bringing forward his measure; and, in any case, should he not succeed in bringing it on, the object he has in view is covered entirely by a Bill of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers) his charge.

said, he wished to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer a Question of which he had given him private Notice—What was the nature and extent of certain frauds which had occurred in a Customs bonded warehouse recently in Belfast; what number of casks of bonded spirits was removed without payment of duty; how many casks were found in the warehouse of which no account had been taken in the Departmental books; what number of casks were found to contain water only; and, whether the Government intended to take steps to prevent these occurrences in Belfast bonded warehouses in future?

(who replied) said: On recently taking stock at one of the Customs bonded warehouses in Belfast it was found that certain casks of spirits containing together upwards of 2,000 gallons proof, and a cask of wine containing 58 liquid gallons, had been delivered without payment of duty by means of fraudulent alterations in the delivery orders. These frauds were the work of a defaulting servant of the proprietors of the warehouse; and the duty on the wine and spirits thus improperly removed from the bonded warehouse had since been recovered. Seven casks of spirits, of which no account existed in the official books, as well as five casks of water, were also found in the warehouse. There is, besides, some evidence of malpractices in regard to eight other casks, as to which further inquiries are being prosecuted. The Board of Customs are taking steps with the view of preventing the recurrence of these practices.

asked, with reference to the date of the second reading of the Local Government (England and Wales) Bill, for which they had only 12 days for its consideration, Whether the First Lord of the Treasury could not find it consistent to give a longer time for the consideration of the measure? Twelve days were not enough for hon. Members to make themselves masters of this somewhat formidable measure. There had been no Bill like it since the Irish Land Bill or the Irish Church Bill, 18 days being given in the one case and three weeks in the other for consideration.

in reply, said, he fully appreciated the spirit in which the Question was put; but, looking at the course of Public Business, and having regard to the fact that the principal discussion on a measure of this kind must be in Committee, the Government felt it necessary to take the second reading of the Bill at the earliest possible period, consistently with due notice to the country and to the subject-matter of the Bill. Seeing that the President of the Local Government Board explained the measure at full length on Monday week, he thought that an interval of three weeks and a few days after that statement was sufficient for the consideration of the Bill by the country and by the House before they were asked to assent to its principle.

asked the First Commissioner of Works, When the new plans of the Admiralty Buildings would be laid before the House?

The plans have this day been placed in the Tea Room, where they can be inspected by Members.

I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland a Question with reference to the Eviction Returns before the Recess. In cases of proceedings under the Act of 1887, as the House knows, the tenant, on receipt of the notice, becomes a caretaker, and if he is put out of his holding I understand that that is not technically an eviction. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman, whether he will take care that the putting out of tenants who have thus been reduced to the status of caretaker will figure in future Eviction Returns?

Yes, Sir; the whole question of these Eviction Returns requires careful revision. I do not know any set of statistics more utterly deceptive, or that lead to more erroneous conclusions, than those eviction statistics which have been laid upon the Table since the time of the late Mr. Forester. The new Act necessitates some changes of form; and I am going into the whole subject, and will do my best to see that the particulars that the right hon. Gentleman asks for shall be given on the face of the Returns.

asked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the question that a pilotage certificate only should be granted to a British subject as proposed to be enacted by the Merchant Shipping Act (1854) Amendment Bill would be considered by the Committee which was appointed on Monday last to inquire into the subject of pilotage; and, if not, whether instructions would be given to the Committee to do so; and what course the Government proposed to adopt with regard to those certificates at present held by foreign masters or mates authorizing them to pilot their own ships under the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854?

No doubt it will be in the discretion of the Committee to take evidence as to the question referred to by the hon. Member. As regards the latter part of the Question, I may say that, pending the inquiry, those masters and mates who already hold certificates will continue to hold them.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Was there any truth in the statement that Mr. Stoney, J.P., D.L., of Rosturk Castle, County Mayo, had recently been appointed by the Lord Chancellor as one of the district collectors under the Court of Chancery; and whether, if so, Mr. Stoney is the same man who had recently been censured by an official of the Local Government Board, Mr. Hicks, with having been guilty of gross misconduct in the distribution of public funds entrusted to him by the House; and, whether he had also been censured by the Lord Chancellor?

I have no official information on the subject. I must remind the hon. Gentleman that the Lord Chancellor has nothing whatever to do with the appointment. It rests with the Land Court.

Will the right hon. Gentleman draw the attention of the Judges of the Landed Estates Court to the facts I have recited?

I am afraid such a proceeding would be entirely beyond the functions of the Executive.

I beg to give Notice that on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House I shall draw attention to this matter.

I wish, Sir, to put a Question to you on a point of Order with reference to the Report of Ways and Means. I have a general inquiry to make of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to his Financial Statement last night. What I wish to know is, whether I can make that inquiry on the Report of the Resolution relating to the Wine Duties, which seem to me to raise the whole question of the Financial Statement?

Any inquiry or discussion would only be relevant which referred to the subject of the Resolution which was passed last night in dealing with the Wine Duties. The noble Lord, therefore, upon that Resolution would have to confine his remarks to the Wine Duties.

The question is not without importance. I suppose I am right in assuming that the grants in aid of local taxation for the present year remain practically the same as last night. Am I also right in assuming that, in addition to those grants in aid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to give to local taxation resources an amount equal to about £1,700,000? If I am correct in those two assumptions, I wish to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer a Question which he will see has a most important bearing on the Local Government (England and Wales) Bill. Will that additional grant of £1,700,000 be dependent and conditional on the Bill passing into law—that is to say, that if it does not pass into law will this further grant of £1,700,000 be withdrawn, and will the grants in aid of local taxation remain as they are at present?

I am much obliged, and so is my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board, to the noble Lord for having put this Question. The grant of £1,700,000 will be entirely dependent on the passing of the Local Government (England and Wales) Bill. There is a clause in that Bill which regulates the temporary arrangement before the new authorities are established; but if the House should reject the whole scheme of Local Government the whole scheme of the re-adjustment of the local and imperial finance would fall to the ground at the same time, and have to be considered in succeeding years when Parliament might feel disposed to take a different view. It is most important that it should be understood that the proposed re-adjustment of local and Imperial burdens must depend upon the plan as a whole, and is dependent upon its being carried as a whole. If the plan as a whole is not carried, we shall remain as we are; the grants in aid of local taxation would continue to be given this year, and that relief will not be given which this and previous Governments have always intended to be part and parcel of any general scheme for the reform of local government.

I wish to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, with regard to the distribution of the £240,000 proposed to be paid in aid of local taxation in Scotland, Whether it is intended that the Secretary for Scotland shall issue a scheme for the distributing of the Fund; and, if so, when that scheme will be laid on the Table of the House?

The matter will be dealt with at the earliest possible date; but, of course, it will be for Parliament to vote the sum, and Parliament will then be informed of the proposals of the Government. With regard to the disposal of the sum, action will not be taken without a Parliamentary Vote having been obtained.

I wish to put a Question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to the proposed Horse Tax, Whether the tax of £1 to be placed on certain horses will include ponies; and, if, not, under what height those animals are to be exempted from the tax? I wish to ask, further, whether the tax of £5 on racehorses will include horses ridden in steeplechases?

As my right hon. Friend warned us on this Bench last night that we scarcely knew the difference between a horse and a cow, it would be most imprudent on my part to answer any Questions without taking measures for consulting with those who are intimately acquainted with the details of steeple-chasing and horse-racing. My right hon. Friend was not able to give me Notice of the Question; but I will take care that the whole question as to the breeding of horses shall be most carefully considered. With regard to the question of ponies, I shall put them precisely on the same footing as when the old Horse Tax was in force—that is to say, they will have to pay.

said, he wished to put a Question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to horses. He understood that among his constituents there would be great difficulty in defining what a "pleasure horse" was. He therefore asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he could state, rather more definitely than he had done yesterday, what he meant by a "pleasure horse" or a horse kept for pleasure, as definiteness was of importance in that matter?

Of course, the definition is difficult; but, speaking broadly, horses used for trade will be exempted, and horses employed in what may be called pleasure and kept as a luxury will be taxed. There are horses just on the border between those two classes which will have to be clearly defined; but it will be mere satisfactory that the hon. Member and the House generally should see the Resolution, and then judge as to the matter, rather than that I should make a further statement on the subject. But in the few days that will intervene before the House meets again I shall pay duo attention to all the definitions, and give full weight to the suggestions which have been made on this very important question.

said, it would not be necessary to bring the more important Articles of the Scotch Education Code into operation before the 30th of April. Under these circumstances, if an Address to the Crown was put on the Paper on the 13th of April, and moved before the 27th, the hon. Member would be in ample time to obtain the judgment of the House upon any proposal he might make.

said, he might be permitted to offer a word in explanation of some observations which had fallen from him on a previous occasion in regard to the Westminster Abbey Bill. It was supposed that he had referred to the position of Mr. Christian, the architect of the Ecclesiastical Commission. The work at Westminster Abbey would be carried on primarily under the direction of Mr. Pearson, the well-known architect, than whom a more able and competent person probably could not be found. But Mr. Christian would represent the Ecclesiastical Commissioners as the body through whom the money necessary for the repair and restoration would be advanced. The work would be strictly in the nature of repairs, and not of alterations.

said, that the Bill was a most disappointing and unsatisfactory answer to the request which had been made to the Government ever since the beginning of the Session, not only by the Irish Members who sat below the Gangway, but also by the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell). The grievance which it was supposed that the Bill would remedy was that there was a block in the Land Court which prevented tenants receiving the benefit of the Land Act. This block existed in every county in Ireland at the present moment. If the Question Papers were looked over for the last five or six weeks it would be found that nearly every Member representing a popular constituency in Ireland had complained of the glut of cases in his constituency; but they had all been put off from time to time with the excuse that the matter was under consideration, or that there was a lack of men of sufficient legal standing at the Irish Bar to do the work. Take his own constituency of County Dublin, where the block was, perhaps, not so bad as in other places, though even there it was quite bad enough. In the years 1881 and 1882 the tenants of the County of Dublin made an effort to get into the Land Courts; but a brief experience in those Courts induced them to drop that experiment, as the reductions given were perfectly farcical, and in many cases preposterously small. In some cases—upon Lord Talbot de Malahide's estate, for instance—the rents fixed by the Sub-Commissioners exceeded the figures given by even the landlord's valuer. In consequence of this state of affairs the tenants ceased to trouble the Land Courts. Of late, however, they had gone in again, and those who had had their cases heard had been able to get sweeping reductions. But the bulk of them just on entering the Court, from which they had been kept out for five or six years, had been stopped on the threshold by what he considered was a conspiracy between the Government and the landlords to prevent the tenants from getting the benefit of the Act. The result was that the tenants must go on paying the old rack-rents which it was morally certain would, if the cases could be heard, be reduced from 20 per cent to 50 per cent. Being forced to pay these rack-rents they would get into arrears, and under the "eviction made-easy" clauses of the Land Act of 1887 they would then be served with notices through the post, which would prevent them from getting into the Land Court at all. These circumstances had been present to the minds of the Nationalist Members during the past six weeks; they had also been present to the mind of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. The landlords had grasped at Section 7 as an instrument for robbing their tenants and turning them out of their holdings, which the hon. Member for Tyrone did not expect, but which the Nationalist Members fully anticipated. Meanwhile the block of the Land Courts continued, and tenants were kept out who would otherwise, under the present scale of prices, obtain large reductions. At last the Government had brought forward an answer to their complaints. They had asked simply for an addition to the number of Sub-Commissioners, which was not an unusual demand, because such additions had been made again and again. Most of the excuses given by the Government for not following the usual course were preposterous and ridiculous. The House was told that there was not enough legal talent in Ireland, with 800 practising barristers, to fill 20 or 25 extra Sub-Commissionships. He remarked that the Solicitor General heard the statement without any reproof. [The SOLICITOR GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Madden) (Dublin University) dissented.] Did the hon. and learned Gentleman object to the statement?

It was not made.

said, that the Chief Secretary for Ireland stated in the plainest language last night that there was a lack of legal talent and ability at the Irish Bar. Whereas the right hon. Gentleman could find any number of Resident Magistrates possessed of legal knowledge to try conspiracy cases under the Coercion Act, which was a much more difficult thing in many cases than deciding points under the Laud Act, he could not, forsooth, find barristers sufficiently learned to decide those points, most of which had been decided already. There were two objections to the Bill—first, that it postponed indefinitely the grievance which they lamented. No additional Commissioners could be appointed until the Bill passed, and thus the glut of the Courts would continue. The Chief Secretary for Ireland must be very sanguine, and the First Lord of the Treasury must have great confidence in the power of closure, if they thought this Bill was going through in two or three weeks. A Bill like this, which proposed to fix the constitution of the Land Commission for the next seven years, was a very important Bill, the clauses of which must necessarily attract a great deal of attention and criticism. He anticipated—what with the Local Government Bill, the Financial Scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and all the new versions of the British Constitution with which they were threatened—that the Bill would not get through till the end of the Session. The consequence would be that the glut in the Land Court would increase, and the tenants would be forced to pay rack-rents, with the result which he had stated. The second objection to the Bill was that it would hand over the settlement of cases from the Land Court to the County Courts. To compel the tenants of Ireland to go into the County Courts was to compel them to submit to robbery and confiscation. The House Lad passed several Land Acts of a beneficial character for Ireland. If the Acts of 1870 and 1881 had been administered in a fair, generous, and impartial spirit the present Irish land crisis would never have arisen. Indeed, he believed that if the Act of 1870 had been properly administered the Act of 1881 would not have been required; and if the Act of 1881 had been administered in the spirit in which it was passed, there would have been no necessity for the Acts of 1882, 1885, and 1887. But the administrators of the Act of 1870, like those of the Act of 1881, killed the Act instead of carrying it out. They were County Court Judges and Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, and they were landlords to a man. A good many of them were subsequently proved to be rack-renting landlords. No wonder that the Acts which they administered proved insufficient to meet the grievances of the tenants. Now it was proposed to go back to the step that was abandoned in 1881, and to hand over the tenants of Ireland to be ground to powder by gentlemen who were, practically, of the same class, and who, although they were first-rate lawyers, were still so imbued with the landlord spirit that they could not possibly be expected to administer the Act in a spirit of fairness. The Land Commission Courts had been chosen by 99 per cent of the tenants in preference to the County Courts, and only two Judges of County Courts had had any considerable number of cases before them. The County Court Judges had been mistrusted by the tenants, and justly so, and yet it was to these gentlemen the tenants of Ireland were to be handed over to be still further robbed in legal fashion. The lay assessors who were to be appointed to advise the Judges would also be landlords' men. He had no confidence either in the promised additions to the strength of the Commission, because so many of the recently appointed Sub-Commissioners had been either rack-renting landlords or their agents. If this Bill was to be the answer to the requests of the tenants and their Representatives to have the Land Commission Courts strengthened, he might say that the idea of a good many tenants would be that the Plan of Campaign would be a very much better invention. The Bill was a fraud on the tenants of Ireland. It was insolent and an outrage, and, in his opinion, it was evidence of the conspiracy entered into between the Government and the landlords of Ireland.

said, that his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland had, no doubt knowingly, raised a very large question indeed by the introduction of this measure. It was not a large one altogether from the point of view of the hon. Member who had last spoken, but it was from another point or view. They were placed in some difficulty, because the Chief Secretary, from the exigencies of time on Monday night, was unable to explain fully the object of the Bill and the motives which led him to introduce it. Therefore, in any observations he made he hoped his right hon. Friend would understand that if he was in error in any way it was because his explanation, under the circumstances of last night, was not sufficiently clear or complete. And if he opposed the Bill on insufficient ground, it would be in his power, as he had the right to reply, to enlighten the House more fully as to his measure. He understood the hon. Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy) to oppose the Bill on two grounds—first, because it would take a long time to pass, and no additional Commissioners could be appointed to revise rents until it was passed; and, secondly, because, as representing the tenantry of Ireland, he did not profess the same amount of confidence in the jurisdiction and administration of the County Courts that he had in the jurisdiction and administration of the Land Commission. Those were two widely different objections, and he had some sympathy with the first, but none with the second. The County Court was, or it ought to be, an excellent tribunal for the determination of disputes about the hiring of land. He had been under the impression that the County Courts gave satisfaction to the mass of ordinary suitors who came before them. Undoubtedly, the County Courts had the advantage over the Courts of the Sub-Commissioners that the County Court Judges were trained lawyers who had had much experience in judicial matters and in litigation of all kinds. A County Court Judge was not picked up haphazard from the Irish Bar, as the exigencies of time or lower political motives might force Party Leaders to select adherents; but he was a man selected by presumed fitness for high judicial duty. Therefore, a County Court ought to be theoretically the best tribunal for the settlement of these land disputes; that being the case, he did not sympathize with the hon. Member's second objection. But for the first objection of the hon. Member there was a great deal to be said. He understood there was a great desire on the part of the tenantry of Ireland to take advantage of the Bill of last year, and this was especially the case with leaseholders. An enormous number of applications for the valuation of land had been filed; and if the peace of Ireland was the first thing they ought to consider, means should be taken to deal with those applications without delay. Obviously, on a Bill of this kind, raising complicated issues, delay must arise before the very difficult, the burning question, of the valuation of land could be settled. On that ground the Chief Secretary for Ireland would do well to consider whether it would not be better to deal expeditiously with the more pressing difficulty of the valuation of rents on the part of the new claimants, the persons who had chosen to avail themselves of the privilege of going into the Land Courts, in order that they might not only suffer no injustice, but, what was equally important, that they might not think they suffered any. The Chief Secretary, by this Bill, had forced the House of Commons to review and re-examine the entire machinery set up by Parliament in recent years for the settlement of the disputes which existed in relation to land in Ireland. That machinery was most complicated, involved, and expensive; and, on the whole, he would say it was a machinery not characterized by sanity or reason, but rather, perhaps, by insanity and unreason. At present there were three separate tribunals for the regulation of the many disputes concerning the hire and sale of land which existed in Ireland, all of which were independent, and some antagonistic to each other. There was, in the first place, the old Landed Estates Court, an admirable institution, and he deeply regretted that that tribunal was not more regarded by Parliament in the earlier land legislation. Having all the machinery of a Court of Law, it cost the country between £12,000 and £15,000 a-year, and yet he believed he was not exaggerating when he said that at the present moment, and for some time past, it had nothing to do, nor was it likely to have anything to do; as a friend had recently expressed it—"Literally the staff of the Court had nothing to do, except to read the newspapers and pass their time in the best way they can." It was set up by Act of Parliament in 1857, he believed, and it was a magnificent machine, but it was perfectly useless. Then there was the Land Commission set up in 1881; and, besides that, there was the Commission for the purpose of purchase set up by the Land Act of 1885. These two Commissions between them cost the country about £110,000 or £112,000 a-year. Now, would it be believed that those two Commissions were unwittingly neutralizing each others' acts? The more the Land Commission worked at the revising of rents, the more Parliament encouraged it to lower rents, the less the Commission for Purchase would have to do; the more the Commissioners of Purchase of Land had to do the less the Commissioners would have to do for the revising of rent, and yet they were keeping those two Commissions alive, and were encouraging them to find work for themselves, although it was obvious to even the meanest intellect that the objects the two tribunals were driving at were hopelessly incompatible with each other. It was worth the notice of the House and the public that these three tribunals cost the country from £130,000 to £140,000 a-year, and that they were independent, and two of them were absolutely antagonistic. The efforts of all this great land machinery had been to reduce the rental of Ireland by some £2,000,000 a-year, he believed, approximately, and it had cost the country over £500,000 to effect that reduction. Was that, he asked, common sense? He submitted it was not. And when the Chief Secretary brought in a Bill which was to add to the existing machinery the House was justified in calling upon the Government to review, not the policy, but the whole system of machinery regulating the dealing with land in Ireland. The Bill proposed to add £300 a-year to the salary of the County Court Judge, and to give him two assistants, who, he supposed, would receive between them close upon £1,000 a-year. The House did not know to what extent this was to apply. Was it to apply to the whole of the County Court Judges in Ireland? If so, there would be no economy, and that could not be intended. On the other hand, all that hon. Gentlemen opposite more directly representing the tenantry asked for was a moderate and temporary addition of six or eight Sub-Commissioners to the existing machinery. He found that there had been a reduction in the number of Sub-Commissioners this year as compared with last year of 15, and he did not gather that the exigencies of the present rush into the Court on the part of the leaseholders demanded a more than temporary addition to the Land Commission of 10 or 12 Commissioners. If he had to choose between such temporary addition and a larger and more permanent addition that was to be made to the staff and salary of the County Court Judges, he preferred the proposal which emanated from the Benches opposite, because when the rents had been valued he imagined that the Commissioners would be dismissed from their appointments; whereas he had no security whatever that if the County Court Judge got an increase to his staff and salary he would readily part with either of those present adjuncts to his appointment. He was disposed to give great credit to the Chief Secretary for introducing this Bill, and for being unwilling to increase the expenses of the Land Commission by the appointment of additional Commissioners; but he should like to see the right hon. Gentleman aiming at a more perfect method of dealing with this great question of machinery for the settlement of land questions. The present measure of the Chief Secretary he did not think was large enough. If the right hon. Gentleman tried to unite the whole of the machinery for land disputes in Ireland into one, to be animated by one mind and one policy, and managed by one staff, whether as regarded the purchase or the valuation of land, that, he thought, would be an object well worthy of his great ability and of all the talent which he had shown in the administration of Irish affairs. That would be a worthy and a great object; but the Bill seemed to him, while recognizing the enormous evil and the absurdity of the present state of things, to afford no adequate relief for that state of things at all. He would much sooner see the more slovenly and less perfect method of Courts con- tinned, and that the Chief Secretary should take time before presenting, as he hoped he would, to Parliament a complete scheme, than that they should have such a Bill as this. The great thing was to put this immense judicial machinery, which cost the country such an enormous sum of money, on something like a final and permanent basis. From the point of view of economy, and not less from the standpoint of the peace of Ireland, he attached great importance to what had fallen from hon. Members opposite. If the Government delayed the settlement of the claims of the tenants by legislation of this kind they might add largely to their difficulties in regard to administration. At the same time, the measure of the Chief Secretary was inadequate to the real evil as regarded the machinery of land litigation in Ireland, and he earnestly trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider it, and before long bring in a Bill to deal with the subject more largely and more permanently.

said, he did not think the House would be disposed to regret that, by the accident of last night, they had secured a little time for the consideration, not only of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, but of his proposal as embodied in his Bill. If they had secured nothing else, they had, at least, secured the most statesman like speech of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill)—a speech which would have its full weight and effect in Ireland. What were the facts of this question? In his speech last night the Chief Secretary for Ireland complained somewhat that for the last four or five weeks Members from Ireland had been pressing the Government upon the block in the Land Courts. He asked the right hon. Gentleman to believe that none of them pressed the Government without being severely pressed themselves. The block in the Land Courts was unquestioned, and there was not a single Member representing an agricultural constituency in Ireland who had not been importuned by his constituents to bring this question before the House of Commons. What was the result of the pressure they had been applying for the last four or five weeks upon the Government of Ireland? The Government proposed to get rid of one grievance by creating a still greater grievance. What was the proposal in the first part of the Bill outlined by the Chief Secretary last night? As things stood now, an Irish tenant, who considered his rent an unfair rent, had the option or the choice of going to the Court of Quarter Sessions before the County Court Judge, or of going to the Land Commissioners' Court. The Bill outlined by the Chief Secretary last night proposed to destroy that option and that choice, and to force a certain number of tenants into whatever Court the Land Commissioners in Dublin thought fit to send them. The Land Commission in Dublin was set up as a kind of Committee of Selection who were to say to one set of tenants "Go here," and they must go, and to another set of tenants "Go there," and they must go; and, if he did not mistake, the end would be that the tenants would resolve to withdraw their originating notices and go nowhere. No one had ever heard him say, since he had had a seat in the House, either in or out of the House, one word calculated to either bring the law into contempt, or to reflect on the administration of the law. He had never used any such language, and he was certainly not going to do so that day. Let them reduce this proposal of the Government to the concrete and see what it meant. He would take the single County of Donegal. Outside the Barony of Raphoe, the County of Donegal was one of the poorest counties in Ireland. Who was the Chairman of that county; who was the County Court Judge? He had had for many years the personal friendship of Dr. Webb, a most brilliant, able, and conscientious lawyer, and, for his part, he should be ready to submit any case of his to Dr. Webb's judgment. But while he was perfectly certain that the County Court Judge in Donegal and the County Court Judges of Ireland generally would bring the utmost conscientiousness to the discharge of any duty they undertook, he asked the House if it was nothing to carry the sentiment of the people with them in the administration of this law? Who was Dr. Webb whom the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would place over the tenantry of Donegal? Dr. Webb was the author of Confiscation versus Contract. He was, or rather, he was formerly, the brilliant pamphleteer of the Landlords' Committee, and went as near proving as mortal man could prove, that the whole Land Legislation since 1870 had been sheer robbery. Again he (Mr. T. W. Russell) said that, so far as he was personally concerned he was prepared to trust Dr. Webb, and to trust the whole of the County Court Judges of Ireland; but he maintained that the poor peasants in Donegal, and the poor peasants throughout Ireland would simply recognize that their case had been handed over to a landlord's man, and there would be one more grievance planted deep down in the hearts of the people. In all sincerity, and with no bitterness whatever, he asked the Government to pause before they took this step, to look well at what they were doing. Then he came to the question of the assessors who were to sit with the County Court Judge. They were called "Court Valuers." These gentlemen were very old friends. Everybody who had been concerned in the land question in Ireland had heard of Court Valuers over and over again. They appeared first of all about the year 1883 under the auspices of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Sir George Trevelyan), but they were rejected by the House. They appeared in the Bill of last year, but were again rejected by the House. Why did they turn up now? The Chief Secretary for Ireland explained his action last night. He told the House that there was a difficulty in getting competent lawyers. He (Mr. T. W. Russell) should not be in the least surprised if the right hon. Gentleman heard of an indignation meeting in the Hall of the Four Courts to-day. But the right hon. Gentleman also said that there were difficulties in constituting fresh Commissions; that there were Treasury difficulties, and that time would be lost, and delay occur, if the Government were to appoint fresh Commissioners. He (Mr. T. W. Russell) wanted the House to understand what really lay at the bottom of all this. In his opinion, the Sub-Commission Courts—aye, even those chosen by the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—had felt themselves constrained by the circumstances and facts of the case to give very large reductions in rent, and he looked upon this proposal, and the tenantry of Ire- land would look upon it, as simply a desperate effort to undo the work of the Sub-Commission Courts. The tenantry of Ireland would look upon this as a stay put upon the proceedings of the Sub-Commissioners, who, in his opinion, had being doing substantial justice all round, no matter what class they had been chosen from. They had not been fixing fair rents in view of family charges and mortgages that had been piled up in the past; they had been fixing fair rents in view of the state of agriculture to-day. He maintained that the tenantry of Ireland would look upon the proposal to hand them over to the County Court Judges, and to these Court Valuers, as a proposal simply to put aside the Sub-Commissioners, and he believed there would be great danger that the tenantry would refuse to go into the Court at all. He could not think that this was a result that the Government could wish to bring about. He said nothing about the peace of Ireland. He stood here to-day to plead for fair play between man and man, and what were they told? They were practically told by this Bill that unless they accepted the proposals regarding the reconstitution of the Land Commission, to which the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) had referred—unless they accepted the proposals regarding the reconstitution of the Commission; proposals of the greatest magnitude, proposals of the utmost importance, proposals that would require to be debated for many an hour in the House before they were allowed to pass; they were told that unless they consented to this Bill as a whole, they would not get the part of it which was designed to relieve the block which existed in the Land Court. He thought the Government were committing another mistake in the thorny problem of Irish land legislation, and he could not help saying that he rejoiced that by the accident of last night, at all events, they had got time to discuss the Bill to-day, and that the tenants of Ireland would have time to look the proposals in the face during the Easter Recess. He very much mistook if, when the people in the Province of Ulster and elsewhere knew what was in store for them, this House did not hear of it loudly and strongly after the Easter Recess.

The hon. Member who has just sat down has attacked with great and, I think, unnecessary bitterness of spirit a proposal which, in the nature of the case, he could only imperfectly understand. The sincere desire of the Government in putting forward that part of the Bill which throws additional work upon the County Court Judges was that great and rapid progress should be made with the cases now pending before the Courts. My noble Friend the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), in his remarks, suggested, while quite recognizing that these arrears should be dealt with, that instead of a plan adumbrated by the Bill we should appoint 10 or 12 additional gentlemen, who should occupy themselves in dealing with these arrears. The plan of the Government is, in my opinion, far more calculated to deal rapidly with this question of arrears. We should have at once the services of 18 competent lawyers, with whom we should constitute 36 lay Commissioners, and they would undoubtedly be able to make extremely rapid progress with the business. But if hon. Gentlemen are so anxious before they see the proposals of the Government in print that they should be rejected, let them not blame me afterwards if the result is that arrears are not so quickly dealt with as they would have been by the Bill that I now propose to the House. The proposal of the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill), which met with the cheers of hon. Gentlemen opposite below the Gangway, and which, I believe, met with the approval of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell), is a small proposal to deal with arrears. The Government proposal is a big proposal to deal with arrears. But, as I have said before, I do not wish to press it wholly without consideration for the views of those who represented the tenantry of Ireland. It is intended in their interests; and if they do not like it I am unwilling to force it down their throats. But I warn them, and the House ought to take the warning, that the result must necessarily be that the arrears will not be as quickly dealt with as under the plan which the Government propose. Let me deal with one aspect of the case, which, I think, is misrepresented by hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member for North Dublin asked what we meant by saying that there were not a sufficient number of legal gentlemen at the Irish Bar, and the hem Member for South Tyrone, with his lively imagination and vigorous rhetoric, had spoken of an indignation meeting in the Four Courts. For my own part, however, I do not think it likely that what I have said will be so singularly misunderstood in Dublin as it has been by some hon. Members in that House. What I said was that for appointments essentially temporary it was impossible to get such good lawyers to deal with difficult cases as if we went to gentlemen like County Court Judges, who receive large salaries and are appointed for life, and who are the pick of everything in the second flight of the Irish Bar. Can anyone seriously maintain that that could be said of the great mass of these whom he should be able to secure for the temporary work of Sub-Commissioners? I turn to the observations of my noble Friend the Member for South Paddington, which dealt with the second part of our proposals, on which I was hardly able to touch last night. My noble Friend said I was, wittingly no doubt, opening up a very large and important question. My noble Friend is right. I was opening up a large and important question by even touching the Land Courts in Ireland, but it was not by choice that I touched it. My noble Friend is aware that the Land Commission lapses this year.

Yes; quite so.

Therefore, it does not rest with the Government to say whether or not we shall touch it. We must touch it; and my noble Friend, who is imperfectly acquainted with our proposals, thinks them inadequate, and that we ought to deal in a larger spirit of reform with the constitution of the Courts which have to do with the land. I will travel thus far with my noble Friend; I will admit that if I had unlimited time at my disposal, if I could ask the House to give many days and nights to the subject, I might propose to deal with the Land Courts as constituted by the Acts of 1881 and 1885 and with the Landed Estates Court in which Mr. Justice Monroe presides. But the time to carry a vast legal scheme of re- form is not at my disposal. Everybody knows the important business with which the House will have to deal, and I am therefore obliged to cut down to the narrowest limits the Irish measures which it will be my duty to lay before the House, and it is for that reason that I cannot suggest to the House such a vast plan as my noble Friend would like me to take in hand. But I must inform my noble Friend that the scheme is not so utterly insufficient as he supposes from the inadequate statement made last night. It is perfectly true that I do not propose to touch the Landed Estates Court in which Mr. Justice Monroe is doing such good work. I do not think that Mr. Justice Monroe is leading that life of dignity and case which my noble Friend supposes. Mr. Justice Monroe will probably differ in opinion from my noble Friend.

said, he spoke on the highest authority.

But leaving that Court aside, we do attempt some, as I think, very important reforms in the constitution of the Land Court. That Court consists of two practically independent Commissions. The Act of 1885 has been interpreted by the Land Court as obliging them to hand over the whole work of purchase to the Purchase Commissioners appointed under Lord Ashbourne's Act, and to abstain from any interference with their work. One result of that is that the two divisions of the Court appeared to take opposite sides. The Bill proposes to amalgamate those two Courts into one. We take powers for the Treasury to abolish that part of the Court dealing with the Land Question, supposing their work should come to an end. We do more than that. As the Court is at present constituted Judge O'Hagan, a lawyer of the highest eminence, is obliged to travel about the country dealing with small questions of fact with respect to which his legal knowledge is wholly unnecessary, and the two lay Commissioners spend their time in listening to the discussion of questions of pure law, as to which they are not in theory qualified to give an opinion. The Government propose to give more elasticity to the Court, to enable the lay Commissioners to decide questions of fact not of law, and on important questions of law to associate Judge O'Hagan with a Judge of the High Court, and thus to strengthen the Court which has to do with purely legal questions. At the same time the Government are of opinion that Mr. Justice O'Hagan's great legal acquirements might usefully be employed in dealing with the legal aspect of the questions which come before the Purchase Commission. At present he has nothing to do with it. The Government consider that while they are committing a great waste of time in compelling Mr. Justice O'Hagan to deal with questions of pure valuation, they are also committing a great waste of time in not enabling him to deal with legal questions for which his great competence so well qualifies him. I think, therefore, that though our proposals do not go so far as my noble Friend desires, he will probably be inclined, taking into account the circumstances, to withdraw some of the criticisms which he passed upon the measure I introduced last night, and to admit that the Bill will necessarily cover some of the ground which he desires to see occupied.

said, that a great deal of what his right hon. Friend had now stated was in addition to what he had said last night. What his right hon. Friend said last night had nothing to do with the Land Court.

My noble Friend is quite right. I got up to make my statement at a quarter to 12, and I was not able to put the whole case for the Bill before the House. What I would respectfully submit, as the best course for the House to adopt, is that the House should allow the Bill to be read a first time and printed. The provisions which it contains, whether hon. Members value them or not, were assuredly not to be condemned unheard. I will not show myself specially obdurate in pressing the details with regard to the Land Commission, but I should like even those details to be seen in print before the House rejects them. Let the Bill be printed during the holidays, and let hon. Gentlemen consider it in a cooler spirit than they have already shown. [" Oh, oh."] I do not wish to hurt their feelings, nor do I see any reason for the violent criticisms they have expressed; but hon. Members opposite have described the Bill as a conspiracy between the Government and the landlords to prevent the tenants from coming into Court.

I never described it as a conspiracy.

But I did.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Tyrone has stated that it was the last despairing effort of the landlord class.

said, the right hon. Gentleman totally misunderstood him. What he said was that it was another mistake on the thorny road of land legislation.

I will not further allude to what was evidently a casual rhetorical figure of speech. When the Bill was described as a conspiracy I trembled to think what might occur if the right hon. Gentleman opposite went beyond what was said by the hon. Member below the Gangway. My noble Friend the Member for South Paddington read out from the Estimates certain statements with regard to the Sub-Commissioners now at work. I cannot reconcile those figures with the figures laid before the House last night, and which I have now before me.

observed that the figures in the Estimates were wrong. They had never been discussed.

I will read the figures again. In August there were 20 Sub-Commissioners, in September 30, and they continued at 30 to the end of November. The Government then, finding the arrears heavy, raised the number to 50, and at 50 they continued at the present moment. So far, therefore, from the number being fewer it has been raised from 20 to 50. I will now compare the present state of things with what occurred in 1882. I observe that for eight months of 1882 the arrears stood, roughly speaking, at about the same figures as they are now, and the eight months began with a strength of 35 Sub-Commissioners and ended with 51; so that with substantially the same amount of work now the number of the Sub-Commissioners remains substantially the same as in 1882. I think I have now explained to the House some of the things I should have liked to have explained last night. I hope I have, at all events, gone the length of inducing the House to allow the Bill to be printed and considered by hon. Members at their leisure; and I shall not show myself too obdurate on the question of the County Court Judges, if on a sober review of the facts the House holds the somewhat paradoxical conclusion that the great legal talent which is now possessed by the body of County Court Judges should not be utilized for dealing with difficult land cases—cases on which questions of law of such difficulty have arisen that the Superior Court has been largely upset in its arrangements by the number of legal questions it has had to decide. If the House should think that all this legal talent should be wasted, of course I shall raise no serious objection, although I ought to point out to my noble Friend that if that decision is arrived at it will be entirely inimical to those interests of economy and efficiency of which he is so able an advocate. But if the House should decide, in spite of all these considerations, that it would prefer the present system, I am afraid the arrears will not be dealt with so quickly and so effectively as by the plan I propose, but it will not be my business to imperil the other reform which this Bill suggests, and which I hope we shall see carried into law.

said, there were two admissions he would at once make. The first was that it would be eminently reasonable, without challenging any Division, which, in point of fact, could not raise the issue fairly between the different opinions entertained in the blouse, that this Bill should as soon as possible be brought in; the second admission was that it was certainly very unjust to complain of the Government for not making this the occasion of introducing into the whole Land Court system of Ireland all the improvements that possibly it might be susceptible of. In point of fact, that would be to give additional force to the very thing that was complained of—the delay in meeting the great, urgent, and grievous want there was, not only connected with judicial improvements, but connected also with the social order of the country. The difficulty he found in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was that there was nothing whatever in it to show or explain whether, in his opinion, the method the House understood him to propose would be the speediest method of dealing with the accumulation of business. On the face of it, he thought the House was driven to a directly opposite conclusion. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to entrust the whole of this business to a body of men very limited in numbers, having much else to do besides this land business. It was quite evident, from the difference of opinion that prevailed in the House, and from the fact that the Irish Members who had spoken appeared to take but one view upon the matter, that, whatever might be the abstract merits of the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman, there was a great body of opinion directly at variance with him upon a question which seemed to him (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) to be all important—namely, the question of providing for the discharge of this business in the most rapid and effectual manner. The choice evidently lay between the plan of the right hon. Gentleman and a large temporary extension of the judicial strength in the shape of Sub-Commissioners, who were already at the command of the Government if they chose to seek them. He apprehended that there could be no doubt that the Government had sufficient material at their command to adopt the latter alternative; quite as much material as Mr. Forster had at the time when he had to encounter still greater difficulties. Having before him in that way the guidance of experience, he had generally felt that the method then adopted was a rapid and effectual method without including the County Court Judges. The House was now asked to believe—although at present the action of the County Court Judges was not excluded, but their collateral assistance was availed of—that to restrict this business to the County Court Judges alone, assisted by valuers, would produce a more rapid settlement of the whole matter than was effected under the former system. It was extremely doubtful, to his mind, how far the use of these valuers would in any way expedite proceedings; but supposing the use of valuers to be necessary, there was no reason why, if the want of valuers was the essential flaw in the present system, a greater amount of assistance in the shape of valuers should not be given. There was before the House a proposal that the Government should proceed by its Executive authority, subject, of course, to the ap- proval of the House, to enlarge very considerably the number of Sub-Commissioners, with a view to extended action, leaving the County Court Judges to render all the assistance in their power, as they had already rendered it. That surely had on the face of it the presumption of being a more rapid and effectual method of proceeding than that of trusting to the County Court Judges alone or limiting the action of the Sub-Commissioners, if not throwing it aside altogether. The appearance of the plan of the right hon. Gentleman for dealing with a matter in reference to which extension was the one thing necessary, not only for the satisfaction of the parties, but also for the social order of the country, was that of a great limitation of the means available for action; and the right hon. Gentleman, although he had explained himself fully and freely on the subject, had not shown that enlarging the powers of the County Court Judges would be so effectual a method as an extension of the number of Commissioners.

said, he rose for a moment, in consequence of the Chief Secretary for Ireland having exhausted his right of speaking, to make clear one point which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian had raised. This Bill did not in any way propose to do away with the action of Land Commissioners or of the Sub-Commissioners. Whatever might be the merits or demerits of the proposal, it did not in the least interfere with their action, It was merely intended to supplement their action to a very considerable extent, and, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian had pointed out, the existing system included the action of the County Court Judge. The County Court Judge was part of the existing system, and he was at present assisted by a valuer; but the employment of a valuer stood on a totally different basis to that of a Sub-Commissioner. There were, therefore, at present two systems—namely, the Sub-Commission and the County Court Judge assisted by a valuer. Without going into the question of the extension of the work of the County Court Judge, so far as the Bill strengthened his position by giving him more competent assistance, he thought that portion of the Bill would commend itself to the judgment of the House. With reference to the observations which fell from the hon. and learned Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy), he (Mr. Madden) should be sorry to listen in silence to any imputation on the Body to which it was the great honour of his life to belong. But he understood the observation of the Chief Secretary exactly in the opposite direction to the interpretation put upon it by the hon. and learned Member. It was not a question as to the ability of the Irish Bar. What the Chief Secretary intended to convey was that it was very doubtful whether it would be possible to get the same class of men to fill the position of Sub-Commissioner, appointed temporarily, as they would to fill the position of County Court Judge; whether it would be possible to get men of position and practice at the Bar to leave that position and practice for an appointment which was temporary. That was the statement in which he acquiesced.

said, with reference to the last remark of the hon. and learned Gentleman, he had to remind him that the Government were not confined in their choice of legal members to the Irish Bar, and one of the most respected Sub-Commissioners at this moment was a solicitor. The Government were perfectly able to choose from that branch of the Profession as well as from the Bar. The House wanted to know what was going to be done with reference to the cases now listed. To introduce what would evidently be a severely disputed Bill, was the most extraordinary method of expediting the business they were all desirous to see completed. From the elaborate exposition which the Chief Secretary had given, it was clear that a great amount of discussion would take place upon the Bill, and that its passing through the House would occupy many weeks, without even then entailing any undue discussion, and during the whole of that time the block in the Land Courts would continue to increase. He feared that the Bill, which had been prepared to meet a temporary pressing emergency, had been framed in a way which would prevent it from fulfilling its purpose. Before sitting down he wished to ask whether there was to be any increase of salary for the County Court Judges? If there were, the proposal would have to be discussed fully, for there was a good deal to be said on that subject.

said, that by the indulgence of the House he would endeavour to answer the question of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne. As the right hon. Gentleman was aware, each Sub-Commission had at its head a legal gentleman, who received £1,000 a-year. The idea of the Government was, that for that gentleman they could substitute a lawyer, to whom they would certainly not have to pay £1,000 a-year, or anything like it. But they did think that, as much additional work was thrown upon that lawyer, it would be proper that the Treasury should pay him something. He did not road that part of the Bill at all last night, but he casually mentioned £300 a-year. He said that if this heavy work was thrown upon these lawyers £300 a-year would be a fair substitute for the £1,000 which they were now obliged to pay.

said, the best thing for the Government to have done would have been to appoint a few additional Sub-Commissioners to help over the glut. He condemned the proposal of the Government to split up the Head Land Commission and allow the two lay Commissioners to run in pairs, whilst the only man of the Chief Commission who had shown sympathy with the tenants was to be put under the shadow of a Judge of a Superior Court, who was never appointed with special fitness for the trial of cases between landlords and tenants. He would warn the Chief Secretary that his proposals were dangerous to the peace of Ireland, because the tenants and their Representatives would not place confidence in County Courts. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had not treated the House fairly in slipping out a few sentences last night, which were apparently of no importance, and then coming down to-day with a proposal which meant handing over to the landlord class in Ireland the hearing of cases between landlord and tenant; but neither the tenants nor their Representatives would permit the right hon. Gentleman to carry the cases wherever he liked. The County Court Judges were the very men who had de- nounced from the Bench the combination of the tenants, on many occasions, in violent harangues, and yet the Government wished to force the tenants into the Courts of those officials. What would satisfy the Irish Members was the withdrawal of the Bill for a few weeks, and meanwhile the appointment of some additional Sub-Commissioners. If the Government were really desirous for the peace of Ireland, they would listen to the warnings of the Irish Representatives, who made no undue proposals to them. This was a measure that it would take a whole Session to discuss; and if it was the only answer the Government had to make to their modest and peaceful request, it was only mocking them.

said, he was sorry to interpose in the debate; but he desired to point out that for weeks and months past there had been a glut in the Land Court. If this Bill was introduced to-day, and considered some time after the holidays, the glut would continue, and there would be no apparent means of relieving it. Though he did not like to oppose the introduction of any Bill, he thought it would be wise for the Chief Secretary for Ireland to withdraw the portion of the measure referring to County Court Judges, and reserve that part dealing with the renewal of the powers of Land Commissioners as a subject for future discussion. Might he be allowed to ask the Chief Secretary to consider one point? The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Madden) had admitted one objection to the Bill by stating that the tenants had hitherto had power to go to the County Court Judges. There had been this glut in the Land Court, the tenants had complained of it, and yet for all that they had not gone to the County Court Judges. Now the Government were proposing to force the poor tenants to go to the County Court Judges, which, even in the face of the block in the Land Court, they had refused to do. His hon. Friend the Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) had referred to the "Court Valuers." In Ireland they had always had a great objection to Court Valuers. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgton Division of Glasgow (Sir George Trevelyan) suggested the appointment of Court Valuers some years ago, he (Mr. Lea) gave to the proposal his strongest opposition. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) very properly said just now, that in matters such as this they must consult the sentiments of the people as well as the facts. The reason of the objection of tenant farmers to Court Valuers was that they had noticed that every time there had been a rise in the rents, it had always been preceded by a visit and a fresh valuation by such valuers. Just now reference was made to Mr. Justice O'Hagan. Might he call the attention of the Chief Secretary to the fact that another member of the Land Commission was also a lawyer. Mr. Litton was an eminent counsel, and had devoted great time and ability to the work of the Land Commission. He (Mr. Lea) hoped that in any reorganization the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would not forgot Mr. Litton's devotedness and honesty of purpose.

said, he hoped that the part of the Bill, whether good or bad, referred to by his hon. Friend (Mr. Lea), would not be withdrawn without substituting something in its place. He thought it would be better to have a systematic and complete machinery such as that existing in India, set up for effecting the object with which the measure was concerned. It would not be expedient to make the County Courts special tribunals for trying a special class of cases, unless they were relieved of their ordinary business. It would be wise, in default of a better arrangement, to withdraw a certain number of County Court Judges from the present sphere of their duties, in order that they might devote themselves exclusively to the work which the Bill would render necessary.

asked, whether any steps were to be taken to relieve the glut in the Commissioners' Court during such time as would be occupied in passing the Bill through the House. What did the Government propose to do in case the Bill should not pass?

said, the Government would consider some scheme for temporarily relieving the block in the Land Courts. He hoped the House would have an opportunity of arriving at a decision on the Bill after it had full knowledge of what it really contained. MR. T. P. GILL (Louth, S.) said, that unless a few additional Sub-Commissioners were appointed, a crisis of very grave importance to the country would be created.

asked, whether the House was to adjourn at 7 o'clock, or after the Evening Sitting?

said, that it was usual to adjourn for the Recess after the Morning Sitting.

said, he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question with reference to the course of Public Business after the Recess. There was obviously a great deal of work before the House, and much would depend upon the goodness of the arrangements made for the carrying of it on. A great deal of the matter of the Tax Bill would depend upon the judgment given by the House upon the Local Government Bill. With reference to so large and complicated a measure, a considerable number of Members would be desirous of expressing their opinions, and he could not conceive that the former Bill could be prosecuted without progress having been made with the latter, and should therefore suppose it to be for the general interest to expedite the progress of that Bill as far as possible. When it came forward, so far as he and those near him were concerned, they had a very strong desire to expedite as far as possible the second reading of the Bill, which was fixed for the 12th of April, as well as the stage that would carry the Bill into Committee, so that practical judgments on the various points might be begun to be taken. It would not, he imagined, be possible, to go into Committee until some reasonable interval had elapsed from the second reading. So that hon. Members might have every opportunity of placing Amendments on the Paper; but so far as that stage was concerned, he hoped that no step would be taken in a hostile spirit which would be likely to greatly prolong the proceedings at it. After the second reading, he supposed it would be the desire of the Government to make the proceedings in connection with the Bill as continuous as possible, and to apply their whole strength to dealing with its very important propositions. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, if he would be good enough to expedite the Return of the number of Agrarian Outrages for the first quarter of the year, so that it might be ready when the House met again. He also asked for a Return showing a comparison between the state of things during the first six months of the Coercion Act and the first six months of the Crimes Act of 1882. He thought it also desirable to extend the Return, so as to give an account of the state of things for the six months preceding the Act of 1882 and an account of the state of things for the quarter which would have expired before they met again.

, in reply, said, he would do all he could to expedite the Return first mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. As to the exact period after the quarter had elapsed when the Return would be presented, he was not able to make a statement. But he would take care that there was as little delay as possible. The other request of the right hon. Gentleman would involve a retrospective and a prospective Return. He thought he could at once say that he would give the prospective extension for the periods after the respective Acts came into operation; but he was not sure whether the materials existed for giving the retrospective Returns.

said, he thought it was understood on the previous evening that the Resolutions in Ways and Means not previously dealt with should be considered on Monday, the 9th of April. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) would see the necessity of proceeding without much further delay, as important changes in taxation would be effected that ought not to be delayed beyond a reasonable period. The second reading of the Local Government Bill was fixed for Thursday the 12th of April, and it was hoped that the debate would conclude on Friday evening. ["Oh, oh!"] He had reason to hope that, notwithstanding the desire of Members to take part in the debate, with the assistance of the Bill itself, which was in the hands of Members, the debate might be continued, and, if he might make an appeal to hon. Members who had Motions for that day to forego their rights, concluded on Friday, April 13. They proposed to go into Committee on the Bill on Monday, April 23, which would allow an interval of at least a week after the second reading. Having regard to the facts that the Bill was already in the hands of Members, and that there could be no alteration in its character before the second reading, it would be in the power of hon. Members, who would have ample time for the purpose, to prepare such Amendments as they might think desirable. No doubt, the time was rather short, but as the House was prepared to consider the measure in a fair spirit, there was not the same necessity for considerable delay as would exist with regard to a measure which was likely to be hotly contested. He was in the hands of the House, but he hoped the House would go on with the Bill from day to day as nearly as possible, taking Morning Sittings on Tuesdays and Fridays, so as to enable the Bill to be dealt with in a manner worthy of the subject.

said, he was afraid the natural relief they all felt at the cessation of their labours was, so far as the Irish Members were concerned, largely dashed by the operations of the Government in Ireland. He was sorry to say they always found that there was a great distinction between the action and the policy of the Chief Secretary for Ireland when he had the vigilant eye of Parliament upon him, and his action and policy when Parliament for the moment had disappeared. He did not know whether the habitual self-satisfaction of the right hon. Gentleman enabled him to take a survey of the state of Ireland and the results of his policy, but he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) must say that though he had seen many Coercion Acts fail, he did not think there had ever been a failure so profound and abject as that of the present Coercion Act. What was the case of Ireland at present? To a large extent, the right hon. Gentleman had thrown up the sponge. Some of the grossest uses of the Coercion Act had been given up. A short time ago, they had the right hon. Gentleman arresting and imprisoning a number of Members of Parliament on the ground of publishing reports of suppressed branches of the National League. The right hon. Gentleman had ceased to make these prosecutions, and at the present moment the Member for North-East Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien), the Member for the College Green Division of Dublin (Mr. T. D. Sullivan), and the Member for South-East Cork (Mr. Hooper) were, in their three newspapers, publishing reports of the very suppressed branches which consigned them to prison a short time ago. Therefore, the House found that this iron Minister of unbending will had already run away from one of the main planks of his campaign. Addressing a meeting at Stalybridge on Saturday last, the right hon. Gentleman asked what measures the Government had ever taken against the liberty of the Press in Ireland? He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) thought that when they put three editors of newspapers in gaol, because of matter they reported in the columns of their newspapers, the Government were certainly interfering with the liberty of the Press. But the right hon. Gentleman had given up that form of attack, and now ran away from formidable enemies with a want of courage that was worthy of consider- able reprehension—the right hon. Gentleman now ran away from powerful and formidable enemies and satisfied himself by attacking weak and small enemies. At the present moment there was a man in gaol for selling a copy of United Ireland, because that copy happened to contain a report of a meeting of a suppressed branch of the National League. But the hon. Member for North-East Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien) who published every week of his life United Ireland, and circulated 70,000, or 80,000, or 100,000 copies of it, was walking about a free man. This miserable contrast between the terror of the right hon. Gentleman when he met a formidable opponent and his courage when he met a petty enemy was as grotesque a commentary upon his Irish policy as could be well conceived. The other day, speaking on the Arrears Bill, the right hon. Gentleman gave the House to understand, at least he conveyed the impression to the House, that evictions were not going to take place. But the right hon. Gentleman knew as well as any one in the House, and perhaps better, that if evictions did not take place, if multitudinous evictions were not possible, it was not because notices had not to the number of 4,000 or 5,000 been served on the tenants of Ireland. Why did not evictions take place? Was it because the landlords were merciful? Was it because the right hon. Gentleman had any sympathy with the tenants? In his (Mr. T. P. O'Connor's) experience he never heard of a Minister so callous to the sufferings of the tenantry of Ireland as the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary. If evictions were not to take place, it was because the right hon. Gentleman's heart had failed him, and because he knew that coercion had failed. If the right hon. Gentleman were to carry out the Coercion Act in the "Bombastes Furioso" manner in which he put it in force a few months ago, when Parliament was not sitting, he would require the whole Corps d'Armée to enable him to do so. What had the right hon. Gentleman done with regard to suppressed branches? If any one wanted to find the parts of the country in which the National League was strongest and most vigorous both in spirit and organization they would find that they were the very places where branches had been what was called "suppressed." The right hon. Gentleman amused the House by the statement that meetings did not take place at all. That was very curious if true, but unfortunately "if true" was a proviso applicable to a large number of statements made by the right hon. Gentleman. What happened when branches of the League were suppressed in County Clare? Meetings of the branches took place periodically and they were reported in the newspapers, and yet the right hon. Gentleman came down to the House and explained that the meetings did not take place at all. But at the very moment he was making that statement Colonel Turner was going about threatening the people with police attacks because meetings took place. He left it to Colonel Turner and the right hon. Gentleman to settle the delicate question of veracity between themselves. With regard to the rest of Ireland the right hon. Gentleman had not even made an attempt to deal with the branches of the National League. He was sorry the right hon. Gentleman had not done so, because his action had a most invigorating effect upon the League. The right hon. Gentleman was a most able and most useful coadjutor of the hon. Member for the Harbour Division of Dublin (Mr. T. Harrington), who was the Secretary of the National League. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman was as much the Chief Secretary of the National League as he was the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. Now, he passed from the general policy of the right hon. Gentleman to one of the particular instances of that policy with which they had been favoured within the last few days. A meeting was called for last Sunday in the town of Youghal. He did not think a meeting was ever called for a more legitimate purpose; he did not think that there was ever a meeting called under circumstances of greater legality. What was the position of the district in the midst of which Youghal lay? The tenants on the Ponsonby estate were in a certain proportion leaseholders, and the right hon. Gentleman having purloined the Bill which the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) produced, brought in a Bill last year, and passed it through Parliament, giving the leaseholders the same rights to go into Court as non-leaseholders. When the Bill was passing through Parliament a certain number of landlords endeavoured to filch from the tenants the rights which even their own friends in Parliament provided for the tenants. He would not go over again the story of the Mitchelstown estate, which was eloquently told them by the hon. Member for North-East Cork. He only mentioned it to note the fact that the lease-holding tenants on the Mitchelstown estate were running a race with the landlord to see whether the eviction or the Land Court would first be reached; the landlord trying to effect an eviction in order to get the tenants out of Court, and the tenants trying to reach the Land Court before evictions were realized. He did not think that anybody would ever forget the impression made on the House of Commons when the hon. Member for North-East Cork said he might in his advice to his tenants have been guilty of a technical illegality, but he felt bound to give the advice just as he would feel bound to stay the hand of an executioner when he knew that a reprieve was at the door. That striking and picturesque figure of speech described the case of the Ponsonby estate as well as the Mitchelstown estate; in fact, that figure of speech did not adequately describe the facts of the Ponsonby estate, for the very reason that the reprieve was not only at the door, but actually in the hands of the unfortunate beings whom the landlords sought to execute. What was the state of the case? The leasehold tenants on the Ponsonby estate had sent in notices to the Land Court, asking to have their rents revised. If the rents of the leasehold tenants on the Ponsonby estate be just and fair rents, why should the landlord have any objection to being brought before the Court? The Land Court would confirm the rents if fair, and would raise them if they were too low. But what occurred! When the tenants sent in notices to the Land Court, asking for a revision of their rents, the landlord then, and then for the first time, sent to the tenants notices of eviction. When the House was discussing the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman last Session, the right hon. Gentle- man in his usual lofty manner, and with the hauteur of his ignorance, ridiculed the idea of men being evicted by the silent agency of registered letters. The right hon. Gentleman assured them that such an agency could not be largely employed, but, as a matter of fact, landlords all over Ireland were making far more use of the section of the Act which admitted of eviction notices being sent by means of registered letters than of any other section of the statute. The landlord on the Ponsonby estate or his representative sent notices of eviction by registered letter. The result was that the tenants lost their status and the Land Court was unable to hoar their case or to revise their rent. He put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether he thought it was fair or decent on the part of the landlords thus by a side wind to attempt to filch the tenants of their right to have their rents revised. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did not deny that the landlord was within his legal rights in taking this course, but he maintained that the landlord, or any other person who would stand by the strict letter of the law in a country like Ireland, was a disturber of the law and was a disturber of the order of the country. It was true that disputes had been going on between the landlord and the tenant of the Ponsonby estate; but surely, if the landlord were a wise man, he would not say a generous man, but a wise and discreet man, he would have seized eagerly the opportunity of making peace between himself and his tenants which the notices to the Land Court presented. If these cases had been heard by the Land Court, they would have been taken as test cases by the tenantry on other estates. He was sure other tenants would have been willing to pay to Mr. Ponsonby or his representative a rent exactly equal in proportion to the rent fixed by the Land Court, and therefore Mr. Ponsonby or his representative would have best served the interest of the estate by allowing the cases to be heard, and allowing the rest of the estate to be adjudged and tested by them, apart from serving the interest of the tenants and the peace of Ireland. He was not speaking without precedent. What took place on the neighbouring estate at Mitchelstown? A certain number of tenants went into the Court; the judg- ment given in a few cases was accepted by the rest of the tenants, and the result was that the landlord and tenants were on thoroughly amicable terms. Evictions had ceased, disturbances, if disturbances there were, were now avoided, and Mitchelstown was one of the parts of the country which would give less trouble to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour) and the landlord of the district than many other districts. If the excellent example of Mitchelstown had been followed on the Ponsonby estate, peace and tranquillity and kindly feeling would prevail instead of the bitter relations which now existed. Did anyone suppose that Mr. Ponsonby did not know this? He was sure Mr. Ponsonby was as convinced as he was that the very best course he could have taken would have been to accept the offer of the tenants, to allow the cases to go into Court, and let the remainder of the tenants abide by the result. Unfortunately Mr. Ponsonby was not a free agent. Behind Mr. Ponsonby stood the Cork Property Defence Union. The Union were taking the estate over from Mr. Ponsonby. Mr. Ponsonby, in a letter he wrote, declared very pathetically that he had ceased to be a free agent. Was the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, who was so extremely anxious for the absolute liberty of every individual in Ireland, going to take any steps to relieve Mr. Ponsonby from the duress and coercion put upon him by the Cork Property Defence Union, because it was quite evident from Mr. Ponsonby's own admissions that if it were not for the coercion of this Union, he would have been willing to make terms with the tenants. What was the Cork Property Defence Union? He would not call it a gang of landlords, because that would be disrespectful language; but he would call it a body of landlords who were fighting the tenants not on their own estates, but en estates which did not belong to them. The hon. Member for South Huntingdon (Mr. Smith-Barry) was the head and front of the Cork Property Defence Union, and it was understood he supplied most of the funds of the Union. He would like to put a question to the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Gentleman supported the Cork Property Defence Union, and the Union compelled or advised Mr. Ponsonby to hold out against the tenants, and not to give fair reductions. Did the hon. Gentleman adopt that course with regard to his own tenants? Did he refuse them fair reductions, or was it not the fact that the hon. Gentleman himself had made large reductions? He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had been told the hon. Gentleman had given as large as 30 per cent reductions. If the hon. Gentleman had made large reductions to his own tenants, two questions arose. The first question was, how was it that large reductions were just in his case and not just in the case of the tenants of other landlords? The second question was, if the hon. Gentleman had not given the abatements on account of their justice, but because of being afraid to fight his tenants, what kind of courage was it on his part to compel other gentlemen to fight their tenants? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary spoke about every person being allowed to do exactly what he wanted without pressure from anybody else. Why did he allow the hon. Member for South Huntingdonshire to use pressure through the Cork Property Defence Union to prevent landlords coming to terms with their tenants? Was such pressure as the hon. Gentleman exercised calculated to conduce to the peace of Ireland? The hon. Member was the greatest offender against the peace, for the pressure he exercised upon others was a most fruitful source of disturbance. Such being the relations between landlord and tenants on the Ponsonby estate, a meeting was called for last Sunday. That meeting was announced two or three weeks ago. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was aware of that fact or not; but certainly if he was not, he was about the only Gentleman who followed Irish affairs who was not. He put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether, if he was going to proclaim a meeting, it would not be a great deal more decent on his part, as well as much better for the peace of Ireland, that he should give notice of the proclamation in due time. He did not suppose the right hon. Gentleman ever read any of the history of Ireland; but if he would favour the people of that country, over whom, unhappily, he at present exercised some influence, by devoting some little of his large mind to the study of their annals, he would find there was nothing which had caused more exasperation, or had more frequently imperilled the peace of Ireland, than the very policy he was now pursuing—the policy of retarding the proclamation of meetings. He did not suppose the right hon. Gentleman ever heard of the meeting at Clontarf in 1843, a short time before they had the happiness of having the right hon. Gentleman amongst the inhabitants of this earth; but that meeting, although it was known for several weeks before that it was intended to be held, was not proclaimed until the Saturday, the day before the meeting was to be held. The hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Madden) would tell the right hon. Gentleman that the shortness of the notice very nearly produced a great massacre of people at that meeting. Well, the Chief Secretary, knowing for weeks that the meeting at Youghal was going to be held, did not proclaim it until five o'clock on Saturday evening. That was an invitation to the people to come there; it was an incentive to a collision between the people and the authorities. It was the most skilful preparation that could be made, if the right hon. Gentleman had such a terrible wish in his mind. Were they asking too much of the right hon. Gentleman when they requested that when again he proclaimed a meeting, he would at least proclaim it in time, and not a few hours before the people round the country side started for the place of rendezvous. He (Mr. O'Connor) was, he thought, justified in making this observation, that of all the astounding proclamations that over broke up a meeting, oven in Ireland, there never was a more astounding one than that which broke up the meeting at Youghal. It was not issued until five o'clock on Saturday evening, and the precious Resident Magistrate used in it words to the effect that it had been represented to him, being a Justice of the Peace in the County of Cork, by an information duly sworn, that a number of people would meet or assemble at or near Youghal; and that the object and effect of such meeting would be to lead to dissension or animosity between different classes of Her Majesty's subjects, and consequent breach of the peace. How could they have dissension in Youghal? As a matter of fact, the people there were all of one mind. They could not produce animosity or difference of opinion amongst people who were all of the same opinion. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would not find in Youghal a score of people who disagreed with the rest of the community on the subject of his policy, for they were practically unanimous in its condemnation. The right hon. Gentleman declared that the meeting would have had the effect of leading to dissension and creating animosity. The meeting would have done nothing of the kind. It was the policy of the Government which had led to dissension. The meeting would have had the effect of presenting to the landlord a united tenantry—and he (Mr. O'Connor) believed that to have a united tenantry facing a landlord was the best means of avoiding dissension in Ireland. Well, the meeting was proclaimed, and he could not congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary on his selection of an instrument for carrying out his work, unless his object had been to select the very worst possible instrument. Amongst all the Resident Magistrates in Ireland, whom had the right hon. Gentleman selected to carry out the work? Why, none other than Captain Plunkett. No Chief Secretary who was anxious to preserve the peace of Ireland would have sent to a meeting of this kind, and on an occasion of this kind, so unfitted a person by his personal character and his antecedents, to appease and tranquillize the minds of the people with whom he had to deal. The Chief Secretary selected the man who, above all others, was a torch amongst the inflammatory elements of disturbance in Youghal. What was the history of Captain Plunkett? He was the hero of the telegram—"Don't hesitate to shoot them." A more cold-blooded, a more foul, a more ruffianly telegram was never sent by any official in that part of the world in any crisis of Irish history. What was the first duty of a magistrate, even in the face of peril, to the public peace? Why, not to shoot without hesitation, but to hesitate as long as he could against the shedding of human blood. Any Resident Magistrate who knew his business, in place of telgraphing "Don't hesitate to shoot," would have telegraphed "Hesitate to shoot until such an awful emergency arises as will compel you to resort to that terrible means of preserving the peace." Captain Plunkett was the hero of that famous telegram "Don't hesitate to shoot," a telegram which had certainly done excellent service in defeating Tory candidates at bye-elections in this country. And that telegram had been sent, of all places in the world, to that very town of Youghal; but that was not the only association in the past between Captain Plunkett and the town of Youghal, for some time ago a young man named Hanlon was killed in some disturbances which took place there. He (Mr. O'Connor) would not go into the circumstances in which this young man's life was taken, but everyone knew that the feeling in Youghal was that the young man's life was sacrificed by Captain Plunkett; yet this man who was regarded in the district in that light, and who was the author of the telegram to which he had referred, was of all other men the one selected to preserve the peace of Youghal. The hon. Gentleman the Member for North-East Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien) gave the Chief Secretary and Captain Plunkett an easy opportunity of at once carrying out their proclamation and preserving the peace. His (Mr. O'Connor's) hon. Friend did not say, "We will hold this meeting in spite of you." What he said was, "We will assert our right to got into the place of meeting, but if you use force to prevent us we will submit quietly, and have the question tried in the Courts of Law." That took place in Ireland, but he (Mr. O'Connor) should call this an eminently English way of settling a matter of this kind. It was the course adopted by Mr. Saunders, lately Member for East Hull, in regard to a meeting in Trafalgar Square. Mr. Saunders had gone to the Square, made his speech, allowed himself to be arrested, and then allowed the Government of the day to bring him into Court in order that the matter might be settled in an English, constitutional method in the Courts of the country. The Member for North-East Cork adopted that view, and surely no step could have been taken more calculated to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, if his desire was to follow the English system. The hon. Member for North-East Cork approached the place where the police were; he kept the crowd back, so anxious was he to avoid even the appearance of disturbing the peace. There was a considerable space between the Member for North-East Cork and the crowd, as the hon. Member wanted to avoid giving even the semblance of an excuse to the magistrates for interrupting the meeting. He said, "I am going to hold this meeting—arrest me, commit a technical assault on me, and we will have the case tried in the Law Courts." If that had happened, the hon. Member would have turned round to the crowd and have asked them to disperse. He would have said, "I will try this case not by armed collision between you and the police, but in a Court of Law, and let a Court of Law decide between you and the police." He (Mr. O'Connor) asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to point out a more peaceful and legal method of deciding between him and the people of Youghal. But legal and peaceful methods did not suit the right hon. Gentleman and his Government of "law and order." Of all methods, those which were antagonistic to the right hon. Gentleman were those which were legal and orderly. Well, what took place! Captain Plunkett, in his usual braggadocio style, said—"You must take the consequences," and did not arrest him. He sent detectives around, and before a word of anger had been spoken on one side or the other, or a blow had been struck, one of these detectives struck the horse which was harnessed to the car on which the hon. Member for North-East Cork and Canon Koller were standing. Everybody who was at all well acquainted with an Irish jaunting car must know that at any time a standing position in one of them was an extremely unsafe position to be in, and that if this detective had wished to imperil the lives of the hon. Gentleman the Member for North-East Cork and Canon Keller, he could not have adopted a better course. The man struck the horse—a piece of wanton brutality which ought to have disgusted even Captain Plunkett and the Chief Secretary—and the result was that the crowd got excited, and Captain Plunkett get separated from his men and was assaulted. He (Mr. O'Connor) had seen descriptions of the injuries inflicted, and as a Christian, he must say he was sorry for them; but at the same time it must be evident to all, that Captain Plunkett had brought them on himself by his brutal behaviour. If he had taken the course pointed out by the hon. Member for North-East Cork, the people would have dispersed quietly, and he himself would have been able to go safely to his home, and that course would have been a better one in the interests of law and order, though it might not have so well pleased the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. He (Mr. O'Connor) did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was going to take proceedings against the Member for North-East Cork, but he did not think he would be so bold, since that hon. Member had become bettor known to the House and to the country than he had been. He thought the right hon. Gentleman would rather be inclined to run away from a prosecution, just as he had run away from the hon. Member's speech in that House, now that he knew that behind the Member for North-East Cork there were millions of English hearts who loved him as dearly as his own countrymen. The Chief Secretary had a few broken heads to his credit, and had bludgeoned a few people; but if that was his way of tranquillizing Ireland and making its people hug the idea of the Union, he (Mr. O'Connor) must say that if he and his Friends on that side of the House were Unionists, they would regard the Chief Secretary as the deadliest enemy of their cause, and if they were landlords they would regard him also as their deadliest enemy. They had within the last few days heard several speeches from the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell). He would not ask that hon. Member to say all he had in his mind, but he know that if he did say all he had in his mind he would say that, in his opinion, the policy most menacing to the Unionist cause in Ireland, and especially in Ulster, was the policy of the Chief Secretary with regard to the Land Question. [Mr. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.): Hear, hear?] The Chief Secretary was estranging the tenants and ruining the landlords of Ireland, and let thorn look at the picture he had given them of the condition of the landlords. The Chief Secretary had given them a Jeremiad instead of a pæan over the result of his policy upon them. All he had to say was to beseech for mercy on behalf of these landlords for whom he had been using coercion so savagely for months past. He (Mr. O'Connor) was not at all sorry to have the right hon. Gentleman in his present position instead of the Member for West Bristol (Sir Michael Hicks Beach), for the latter would have been a much more dangerous opponent. Such speeches as he made and the general policy of the present Chief Secretary in Ireland was calculated to put an early end to the present unhappy struggle.

said, he should not have taken any part in this discussion if it had not been for a remark of the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). In speaking of the Ponsonby estate, the hon. Member had made an attack on the Cork landlords, and more especially on himself (Mr. Smith-Barry), as head of an association known as the Cork Defence Union. He would tell the hon. Member—if he did not know it before—that that Defence Union was not an association of landlords at all. It was an association composed of all sorts and different classes of men, merchants, farmers, and landlords, and was in no sense a purely landlords' organization. He would tell the hon. Member, further, that the Cork Defence Union had not, and never had had, control over or management of the Ponsonby estate. That estate had from the beginning been under Mr. Ponsonby's own control. If it were not under Mr. Ponsonby's own control now, it certainly was not under the control of any association in the county of Cork. The hon. Member had made an attack on the landlords of the county of Cork and on himself (Mr. Smith-Barry) for instigating Mr. Ponsonby to exact such terms from his tenants as he himself would not ask, and as other landlords in the county of Cork would not venture to exact. He would like to tell the hon. Member, as he appeared to be somewhat out in his facts, that he noticed last night in a newspaper the hon. Member probably might have seen—an evening newspaper called The Star—an article entitled "Mr. O'Brien Interviewed," in which a good many of the facts stated by the hon. Member just now appeared, and that those facts were entirely out of accord with the true circumstances of the case. In the first place, with regard to Mr. Ponsonby—whom, he might say, was one of the most honourable and kindest-hearted gentlemen that he over had the honour of meeting, a gentleman who was as anxious as anyone possibly could be to do what was right and just to his tenants if they would let him—that gentleman possessed an estate in the county of Cork, the Poor Law valuation of which was about £7,000 a-year, and the rental of which was somewhere under £8,000. The Poor Law valuation in that part of the country, as everyone acquainted with the South of Ireland knew, was a high valuation, and the rental was by no means an excessive one. Mr. Ponsonby had been giving a reduction to his tenants for some years past, and he offered them 18 months ago, when they first put the Plan of Campaign on him, 20 per cent reduction on the old rents—the non-judicial rents—and 10 per cent on the rents judicially fixed. The tenants themselves demanded 35 per cent reduction on the old rents and 20 per cent on the judicial rents. The hon. Member (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) wished to compare those terms with those he (Mr. Smith-Barry) was at that time giving. He certainly was not giving, nor had he at any time given, such reductions as those, nor did he know of any landlords in the South of Cork, or in the South of Ireland, who would have volunteered such terms as Mr. Ponsonby was asked to give. These rents had never been raised in the memory of man. They were old runts, which had been paid regularly by the tenants for generations, and for seven years up to the time when the Plan of Campaign was put on Mr. Ponsonby, 18 months ago, not more than half-a-dozen evictions had taken place. He did not wish to detain the House. This was somewhat in the nature of a personal explanation. He was not prepared to address the House this evening, but he would say this—that the landlords of the County of Cork, and, as far as he knew, the landlords of the whole of Ireland, had been and were only too anxious to meet their tenants in any fair and reasonable manner. The landlords of the county of Cork, some weeks previous to the Plan of Campaign being put on Mr. Ponsonby, held a meeting and declared themselves anxious to do everything they could to meet the fair requirements of the time. The vast majority of them had acted on that principle. Mr. Ponsonby, who, as he had shown, had offered fair terms, had also given his agent instructions, in any special case where the circumstances demanded it, to grant a special reduction beyond that which he had already promised. In making these few remarks he hoped he had vindicated the honour of his friend Mr. Ponsonby and the landlords of the county of Cork. He would say again that Mr. Ponsonby had endeavoured over and over again to get this matter settled if it could possibly be settled, and the reason why it had not been settled was that the demands of the tenants, or, rather, not of the tenants themselves, but of their advisers, Canon Keller and the hon. Member for East Cork, who had been instrumental in getting the Plan of Campaign adopted in the district, had been so exorbitant that it had been impossible to concede them.

I gave way just now to my hon. Friend the Member for South Hunts (Mr. Smith-Barry), in order that he might reply to the personal attack just made upon him; and I think the House will be pleased with the brief, clear, and manly statement with which he defended not only himself, as an Irish landlord, but all the other landlords that have been aspersed by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool. But the hon. Member has not contented himself with an attack on my hon. Friend and on the Cork Defence Association; but he has gone in his usual style into topics concerning the government of Ireland. As I have no objection to his treating these subjects, neither do I object to the style in which he has chosen to do so; because never, in my wildest moments, did I expect that the hon. Member would show good taste or fairness in criticizing either the Government or myself. But I think that it would have been well if he had, before attacking the Government, and myself in particular, made up his mind as to the exact line which he intended to take. It appeared to me that in his speech he hesitated between two different lines of criticism. In one part of his speech he wished to assert that the Government were too violent, and then he turned round and desired to show that we are not now so violent in our policy in Ireland as we have been, because, as it seems, we are terrified by such speeches as that which he has just delivered. I can assure the hon. Member that so far as we are concerned on this side of the House, against whom those speeches are directed, they have not the slightest effect in inspiring terror. The hon. Member in the course of his speech proceeded to criticize the conduct of the Government in Ireland last winter in interfering, as he declared, with the liberty of the Press. The hon. Member went further, and said that he was very much horrified at my audacity, that in a speech I made elsewhere—at Stalybridge, on Saturday night—I had not refuted that accusation. What I stated on Saturday night with reference to the accusation of interfering with the liberty of the Press was that during the debate on the Address, no responsible Member had got up in his place and asserted that the statement was true; for if such a charge could be made and sustained against a Minister, it was one of the most formidable that could be advanced. How does the hon. Member attempt to fill up the gap left by the Home Rule orators who spoke in the debate on the Address? He stated that certain persons had been put in prison for publishing notices of prohibited meetings. Does the hon. Member know what the freedom of the Press really means? The liberty of the Press in this country is the right which enables a person to publish what opinions he likes, and defend them by such arguments as he hopes may influence the minds of others. That is the liberty of the Press, and that is a liberty which the Government has never interfered with in Ireland. We thought, in order to carry out the action of the Executive with regard to suppressed branches in a proclaimed district, it was necessary to prosecute certain gentlemen connected with Irish newspapers. We did so, and I am sorry if hon. Gentlemen should have been put to any suffering or inconvenience; but I am bound to say that these prosecutions have had the most salutary effect, and have carried out the object for which the Government initiated them. The hon. Gentleman went on to state that the League which was flourishing all over Ireland, was most flourishing in the proclaimed districts, and that meetings were being published in defiance of the law by various newspapers. But the Press prosecutions were instituted for a particular object—the effectual suppression of the League in these districts which we had proclaimed—and so long as that object is attained, we are not concerned with anything else. That object is thoroughly attained. The hon. Gentleman appeared to think there was a division of opinion between me and Colonel Turner on this subject. As a matter of fact, my information on this subject is chiefly derived from correspondence with Colonel Turner. The League may practically be said to be a thing of the past over Clare and those parts of Cork in which the branches have been suppressed. ["Oh, oh!"] I am perfectly aware that we do see bogus reports of imaginary meetings reported in the Nationalist Press; but we know—it is not a question of conjecture, but a question of fact—that those reports are absolutely written out by the ex-secretary of the branch in his own private room, sent to the newspapers, and then published as indicating what is going on. But, considering that the names of the gentlemen taking part in the meeting are known to the police, and that their movements are watched on the day the meetings are said to have taken place, it is not a matter of conjecture, but a matter of demonstration that the report of the meeting has no more foundation in fact than the majority of the statements which appear in the Irish Press. But not only are the reports of these meetings purely imaginary, but even the imaginary reports have altered in their tone. That is a circumstance which should prove interesting to hon. Gentlemen who are curious to watch the development of affairs in Ireland since last August. I do not know whether the House recollects that it was my duty, when certain districts were to be proclaimed, to prove that the National League was a dangerous association, by reading out a large number of reports of meetings of the branches from different parts of the country inserted in different newspapers which were of an intimidatory character, and which mentioned by name obnoxious individuals who were subject to the tyrannical action of the League. The House, or that portion of the House which is interested in the maintenance of law and order, will be glad to learn that that form of report has almost entirely disappeared from the Irish Press. The result of our action has been to enormously improve the character of the reports of those meetings, whether reports of meetings in suppressed districts or real meetings in other districts. It has tended largely to remove from them the stain of being the instruments of intimidation directed against special individuals. That is a satisfactory sign of the improved condition of the country. Then the hon. Gentleman went on to denounce as a peculiarly atrocious example of the action of the Government the proclamation of the meeting at Youghal on Sunday. The hon. Gentleman entered a good deal into the condition of Mr. Ponsonby's property; and, oddly enough, though he dealt at great length with that matter, not a single word fell from him which would have given anyone to understand, who was not already acquainted with the facts, that the Plan of Campaign has been practised on that estate for nearly two years. The hon. Member spoke of the strained relations existing between landlord and tenant; but he did not give any indication that the tenants on the Ponsonby estate—an estate managed with great liberality, judgment, and generosity—had been deliberately engaged in an illegal conspiracy against the landlord for nearly two years, during which time they had not paid 1s. of rent. The meeting was thus called on an estate in which the Plan of Campaign was in force, and by the man who, of all others, had made himself notorious in connection with the Plan of Campaign. Perhaps the House is not aware that the hon. Member for North - East Cork has not been seen for the first time on this occasion on the Ponsonby estate. They are not perhaps aware that the hon. Member, who, I think, told us in a speech that only on one occasion did he counsel resistance on the part of the tenants to the law, did counsel the tenants on the Ponsonby estate to resist by violence the process of the law, and advised them to take as an example for their conduct the notorious instance of Saunders' Fort—one of the most flagrant cases of deliberate and protracted resistance to the Sheriff and his officers which even the recent history of Ireland can furnish. I apprehend, when the House takes these facts into account, it will probably entertain no doubt that the Executive would have been failing in its duty had it omitted to prohibit this meeting from being held, and to disperse it if an attempt had been made to hold it in defiance of the proclamation. What is the avowed excuse given for the meeting? It is to protest, as far as I understand it, against the action of the landlord in preventing his tenants coming into Court to have a fair rent fixed. I wish the hon. Gentleman, when discussing this question, had explained to the House by what legal process it was possible for the landlord to prevent his tenants going into Court. [An IRISH MEMBER: By eviction notice.] If a tenant is turned into a caretaker it is no doubt true that he loses the privileges conferred by the Act of 1881, which are only given to tenants. But there are certain preliminary stages to be gone through before a tenant is turned into a caretaker. The hon. Gentleman led us to believe that the tenants in question had been leaseholders.

Some of them.

I think they were not; but it is not material. Whether leaseholders or tenants from year to year, no action that the landlord could possibly take would deprive them of the right of going into Court and having a fair rent fixed.

What is the effect of arrears in that case?

Arrears are not the point in question. The hon. Gentleman has raised a different issue. It is not pretended that on account of accumulation of arrears, the tenants were prevented from going in Court. The accusation is that they were turned into caretakers, and, consequently, precluded from going into Court. With regard to arrears, I will point out that those people, had they thought themselves aggrieved, at any stage of the preliminary proceedings, would have had the power not only of going into Court to have a fair rent fixed, but of asking the County Court Judge to give a stay of execution on the proceedings to evict them until a fair rent had been fixed for them by the action of the Court, and no action of the landlord could deprive them of the power of going into Court. Is there any evidence that this request for stay of execution was made, or that the request was refused? If there is not, does it not show that they had no case? The hon. Gentleman next says that the proclamation of the meeting came too late. But I gather that, however late the proclamation may have been, it gave ample time to the hon. Member for North-East Cork to make a written communication to Captain Plunkett respecting it. If that hon. Member had obeyed the proclamation, he could have prevented a not very creditable scene which, in consequence of his resistance, took place on Sunday. The hon. Gentleman also raked up the incorrect and oft exploded version of the telegram sent by Captain Plunkett with regard to the riots at Youghal. The hon. Member interpolated a sarcasm to the effect that that telegram had done a great deal to cause the Conservative Party to lose so many bye-elections. We have not lost so many bye-elections after all; but I will not go into that point. I would, however, ask the hon. Member, if it be granted that this telegram produced such an effect no constituencies in England, whether it was a true description of what the telegram was and of the circumstances under which it was issued that produced that effect, or was it the utterly incorrect and imaginative version which the hon. Gentleman gave of it in this House, and which I know was repeated in newspapers and on platforms in order to inflame the public mind against one of the most honourable, most distinguished, and most courageous public servants that the Government of the country possesses? ["Oh, oh!"] No man in this world is more anxious than Captain Plunkett to prevent the shedding of blood. ["No, no!" from the Home Rule Members.] But Captain Plunkett is aware, as every other man who has ever been responsible for this kind of transaction is aware, that the first condition of maintaining peace and averting the effusion of blood is to say that in case of absolute necessity violence will be resisted by violence. And I have more than once before pointed out to the House that the result of this telegram was, that a mob which might have become dangerous both to themselves and to the police, were man aged and dispersed without any bloodshed or destruction of life. ["No no!"] Hon. Members interrupt me apparently under the impression that the loss of life at Youghal was due to the telegram. But even in Ireland the effect cannot precede the cause. And unless my memory deceives me, the unfortunate man Hanlon was shot before the telegram was sent by Captain Plunkett; and I think that will not be contradicted now that I have given hon. Gentlemen an opportunity of recollecting the facts of the case. I think I have now dealt at as much length as the case deserves with all the circumstances of the proclamation of the meeting at Youghal. I have shown that we were well advised in proclaiming the meeting. I have shown that the circumstances of the Ponsonby estate made the meeting illegal. I have shown also, in my observations with regard to the influence of the National League generally and to its suppression in the proclaimed districts, that no man either in this country or in Ireland who is really anxious for the maintenance of law and order can be otherwise than satisfied with the course which the Government have taken or the policy which they have found it necessary to pursue.

said, he did not desire to take part in the debate which had been going on, as he believed the Question Mr. Speaker had put before the House was a much more interesting one—namely. "That this House do on its rising adjourn until April 5th; "but the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had made a statement soon after that Question was proposed, against which he (Sir Joseph Pease) desired to put in a caveat. The right hon. Gentleman was so sanguine as to imagine that the Local Government Bill would be brought up for second reading on Thursday, and that the second reading debate would terminate on Friday. He (Sir Joseph Pease) thought it would be paying a poor compliment to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie) if a Bill of such a complicated character, and with which the right hon. Gentleman had taken such great pains, were passed over in such a slighting a manner. He would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury to say whether, on reflection, he really thought that the Bill could be debated on second reading in the course of two nights? It contained questions which would rouse all their temperance Friends in the House and the country Gentlemen, and it would raise questions as to local divisions and local government. Whilst they all desired to get into Committee on the Bill and to make progress with it as fast as they reasonably could, the sentiments of those Members of the House who would be likely to desire to speak could hardly be expressed, even if those Members exorcised the greatest restraint over their loquacity, in two nights. He merely wished, as he had said, on the part of many Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House, to enter a caveat against the too sanguine estimate of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury.

said, that before the right hon. Gentleman rose, he wished to say that when they suggested that the time proposed by the right hon. Gentleman was too short, they did not mean that the time allowed between the introduction of the Local Government Bill and the second reading was too short, but that the second reading debate would be prolonged beyond the two days he had estimated. No doubt, they would be glad on all sides if two nights were found to suffice. He (Mr. Mundella) rose to ask when the right hon. Gentleman proposed to take the second reading of the Railway and Canal Traffic Bill; because, as the right hon. Gentleman knew, until they had had the discussion on the second reading the Grand Committee could not commence its labours?

There is no desire on the part of the Government to unduly press forward the Local Government Bill; but, inasmuch as the general principle of the measure has been practically accepted with almost practical unanimity, although there are points and details which may properly be raised for discussion at length in Committee, I should hope that we shall be able to take the second reading in two nights' debate. With regard to the Railway and Canal Traffic Bill, I will endeavour to make some arrangement for getting it read a second time as shortly after Easter as is practicable. The measure, it will be recollected, has passed through the House of Lords; and, therefore, the same pressure does not exist with respect to it as applies to the case of some other Bills. Sir, I think I may now venture to appeal to the House to come to a decision on the question of the Motion I have proposed to the House, as there are several Notices of Motion on the Paper, and hon. Members will be put to great inconvenience. To prevent that inconvenience, I will claim to move, "That the Question be now put."

Why do not you let us answer the Chief Secretary's speech?

Order, order!

You are afraid to be answered.

If the hon. Member persists in these unseemly interruptions, I shall have to take strong measures.

You are cowards.

Order!