As the House is aware, this Bill has been already discussed on two separate occasions at considerable length, and with no inconsiderable vehemence—[Cries of "No!"]—Yes; and I do not rise to prolong the discussion. The House is well aware that, this being a Money Bill, it has to be brought in in Committee of the Whole House. There were two Resolutions, and on each of these Resolutions hon. Members were in Order in discussing the principle of the Bill; so that, in fact, the Bill has already had a stormy youth at a period when other measures are languishing in infantile obscurity. I rise at the present moment for the purpose of making something in the nature of a personal explanation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley), in the earlier stages of the debate, accused the Government of having deceived the House in regard to this Bill, in having led the House to believe, as I understand the matter, that, in the first place, they did not propose to introduce a Bill in regard to the Office of Under Secretary, and that if they did introduce a Bill of that kind it would not provide for the payment of a salary. The right hon. Gentleman couched that accusation in somewhat vehement language. The debate was running rather hot, but I do not make any complaint of that. What I do complain of is the charge brought against the Government by the right hon. Gentleman of consciously keeping the House in the dark with regard to this Bill. Now, the Government are not aware of having done anything of the kind, but they took the House entirely into their confidence—[Cries of"Oh, oh!"] I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will be as pleased as I am to find that the Government have not been in any way guilty of keeping the House in the dark, but that there is evidence that the House was completely in possession of the intention of the Government with regard to this matter. I find that my memory has not deceived me in the matter; but it is clear that the right hon. Gentleman was either not in the House when certain Questions were asked on this subject, or that his memory has deceived him. I find that, on May 20, the hon. and learned Mem- ber for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) asked when it was intended to bring in the promised Bill to regulate the Office of Parliamentary Under Secretary, so that it was thoroughly understood at that time that the Office was about to be created. I replied that the Bill would be brought in as soon as practicable, and, consequently, I then clearly committed the Government to bring in a Bill. It remains to consider whether the Government are open to the second count in the indictment of the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that even if they intended to bring in a Bill it was not intended to provide a salary. On that point the evidence is equally clear. The hon. Gentleman the Member for East Donegal (Mr. Arthur O'Connor), on May 20, asked the following Question:—

"Is the Bill to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred of such a nature as that it will have to be founded on a Resolution in Committee?"—(3 Hansard, [315] 721.)

It is quite obvious that what the hon. Member meant to ask by that Question was, whether the Bill involved payment from the Exchequer, and whether the new official was or was not to be paid out of public money? The answer I gave to that Question was that in all probability that would be the case. If the right hon. Gentleman will search Hansard, he will find evidence upon these points. It will be seen, from what I have stated, that not even unintentionally have the Government bept the House in the dark, but that, on the contrary, they have stated that they would bring in a Bill, and that when it was brought in it would provide for a salary. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be satisfied with the answer I have now given, and that there will be an end to a controversy which is assuming a very unnecessarily bitter form. I will not reply to remarks which have been made by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I hope hon. Gentlemen will recollect that they have had ample opportunities of discussing this Bill, and that they have fully availed themselves of them. I move the second reading of the Bill. Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

I will not plead guilty to the charge of having used too vehement language on the earlier stage of this Bill. The strongest expression I used was that the answers of the right hon. Gentlemen (Mr. A. J. Balfour) and the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) amounted to an endeavour to hoodwink the House; and after hearing the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, and the reference he has made to certain answers given in the House on the 20th of May, I still think the attitude of the Government at the time I refer to was an attempt to hoodwink the House. It is quite true that the right hon. Gentleman gave the reply he has referred to in answer to a Question put by the hon. Member for East Donegal on the 20th of May; but on the 15th of April, in answering a Question put by me, the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury stated distinctly that no salary would be asked for. That was pretty plain; but I will give another answer which bears more directly on the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) asked a Question on May 12 on the same subject, and the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury answered that an arrangement had been made to meet the pressing demands made upon the time of the Chief Secretary at that time in connection with the discharge of his duties, and that no inference must be drawn from that arrangement, either that it was intended to be permanent, or that it would affect any other Department of the Government.

These answers referred to the Office of Under Secretary as it was constituted last Session, and as it remains at the present moment; but they do not refer to the new Office to be constituted by the Bill which hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite know had been promised.

I am anxious to give the right hon. Gentleman the benefit of all he has said; but when I reflect on the pains which the right hon. Gentleman takes in political matters—when the House considers how broad is the phylactery worn by the right hon. Gentleman—I am afraid I must say that this appears to be one of the most equivocal, evasive, and pitiful of manœuvres. Sir, what is the necessity for the Office? The answer which I have received from the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury shows the view taken by the Government of the necessity of this Office at the time when they had two important Bills—the Coercion Bill and the Land Bill—in hand, and when the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary needed a Colleague to assist him owing to the pressing demands upon his time. The right hon. Gentleman has compared his position with that of his Predecessors in Office. It cannot, therefore, be invidious if I follow the right hon. Gentleman. He has spoken of, and he said that Mr. Forster, when Chief Secretary for Ireland, was not in charge of any great Bill. That was perfectly true. But Mr. Forster was in the Cabinet, and being in the Cabinet was adduced as one reason why there should be an Assistant Parliamentary Secretary. Secondly, in Mr. Forster's time the Questions put to the Chief Secretary were three or four times more numerous than the Questions now put to the right hon. Gentleman. In the third place, in the then condition of Parliament, Motions for Adjournment were most frequent and prolonged. And, fourthly, Mr. Forster was—whether wisely or unwisely I will not say—constantly travelling to and fro between England and Ireland. Mr. Forster felt it was a most important part of his duty to see his own officials on the spot, and to be in constant communication with them. Therefore, the comparison of advantage and of ease is wholly on the side of the right hon. Gentleman. Then, with reference to his immediate Predecessors, the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Sir George Trevelyan) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), the right hon. Gentleman stated that when they were filling the Office of Chief Secretary the administration of Ireland was actually carried on upon the spot by a Cabinet Minister, Lord Spencer, who was Lord Lieutenant. But have we not now a Cabinet Minister resident in Ireland? What is Lord Ashbourne doing? Does he take no action in the Executive Government of Ireland; does he bold no consultations with the Irish Attorney General, and take counsel with him upon points of administration? It may not be so; but if it be not so, all I can say is that it is a most extraordinary thing. Moreover, in the Cabinet there is a third Minister charged with Irish affairs—Lord Cadogan, the Lord Privy Seal; and, therefore, the advantage in point of leisure and of the comparative ease of the Office is wholly on the side of the right hon. Gentleman. Now, Sir, what is to be the work of the new Minister in Parliament whom it is proposed by this Bill to create? He is to answer Questions, as the House has already found by experience, and it is apparently proposed to continue the practice. Now, I will venture to lay down two propositions in reference to practice. The practice of answering Questions by the Under Secretary is, in the first place, very bad, and very unsatisfactory to Irish Members, and to English Members who take an interest in Irish affairs; and, secondly, it is extremely bad for the Chief Secretary himself. On the first point, it needs no words to show how unsatisfactory it is that answers to Questions on administrative points put to the Chief Secretary for Ireland should come from an irresponsible Member sitting within a few feet of the Minister who is responsible. I hope the House will judge the importance of Irish Questions as they ought to be judged. The House has to remember that putting Questions to the Chief Secretary is the only means Irish Members have of effectually criticizing the Irish administration; and, therefore, for my part, I view with extreme jealousy any plan for releasing the Chief Secretary from all responsibility for answering those Questions. Secondly, it is bad for the Chief Secretary himself, because Questions put to the Chief Secretary, though they touch a great number of details and detached matters which, no doubt, the right hon. Gentleman—like his Predecessors before him—have found to be trivial and uninteresting—Questions touching the workhouses, evictions, and so forth—yet those Questions, although they may seem trivial and uninteresting, relate to matters which touch the feelings of the people whom the Chief Secretary has to govern; they go to the very core of the national life in Ireland. Therefore, I say it is no advantage, but a very grave and serious disadvantage, to the Chief Secretary, to be relieved from the necessity of having to look into these matters with his own eyes. I am very much inclined to think that this Bill, when I examine it and try to find out what it is, must have been framed with the view, if the Government had a Parliamentary Under Secretary on their hands, of artificially finding something for the Under Secretary to do. It is one of the most absurd, and irrational Bills which I think I have ever heard of. The Parliamentary Under Secretary is to be a Member of the Local Government Board in Ireland, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary in the course of the discussion said that it is desirable, because he is himself unable to attend. Then I want to know how is the Parliamentary Under Secretary any better placed for attending the meetings of the Local Government Board in Ireland?

I did not say that.

Yes; it was a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman.

I think what I said was that I could not attend the meetings of the Board; but the Board never meets.

The Board never meets. Then it is quite obvious that the Under Secretary, who is appointed to relieve him, could not attend them. It is equally obvious that the Under Secretary, who has been invented for the purpose of aiding the right hon. Gentleman, cannot attend the meetings of the Local Government Board. Therefore, the Government would have no more acquaintance with the details of the work and views of the Local Government Board in Ireland than they have at this moment. The Under Secretary will simply have to give answers furnished to him by the Local Government Board, and will have no more power of supervision over the details than the Chief Secretary has now. With reference to Clause 3 of the Bill, I think it is equally open to objection with Clause 2. The Chief Secretary has at present to sign transfers of children to reformatory schools, and also to sign tickets-of-leave. That may or may not be a function the Chief Secretary ought to perform; but, whatever it is, it is a function that ought not to be performed by a Parliamentary Under Secretary, but by an important responsible officer. The re- sponsible officer is there. Why should not the Lord Lieutenant undertake the duty? He, at all events, is not overburdened with work. When I was Chief Secretary myself, I found the transfers to reformatories shed a most interesting and instructive light upon the details of the conditions of Irish life, and I think it a great loss to the Chief Secretary not to have the advantage of acquaintance with those details. I am very unwilling to pass to the next point and to introduce the personal element, but it cannot be avoided. The Under Secretary is at present unfortunately absent—for a reason, as I understand, which the House must sincerely deplore. But it is impossible to criticize the Bill without considering that it has been brought in to create an Office for a Minister who has already been appointed; and, therefore, I have to consider how far in creating this Office Her Majesty's Ministers were furthering the purposes of good government in Ireland. I will not enter into the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's (Colonel King-Harman's) relations with his tenantry, but everybody knows that those relations are strained; and in view of that strain it was inevitable that, owing to this appointment, the Irish tenants should regard Dublin as taking sides in the new social war now being waged in Ireland. We are not left without evidence of that in the discussions which have arisen in this House. Not only the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) stated with great force the reasons why the Under Secretary is obnoxious to the great mass of the Irish population, but the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) has told us distinctly what the opinion of the Party he represents is. He told us something of the antecedents of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, and he asked what would be thought if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman were so placed as to have his hand upon the spring of the machinery in Dublin Castle? He went on to say it was his deliberate opinion that his constituents would regard the appointment as an open declaration of war. It is not immaterial that this view should be taken, but it is most material, because, from the peculiar position of the Local Government Board, in which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is to hold a high place, it is most important that we should have a Minister whom the Irish people should regard as above suspicion. The Irish Local Goverment Board is concerned, for instance, in the administration of those important Acts, the Labourers Acts, and one part of their duty is to appoint arbitrators in the disputes between landlords and Boards of Guardians who wish to erect dwellings. As it is, there is a constant complaint that these arbitrators are not impartial; how much greater would be the complaints when the Minister who has been placed at the head of the Local Government Board, and who has the appointment of these arbitrators, is so biassed and so prejudiced on one side, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who now fills the Office of Parliamentary Under Secretary undoubtedly is? There is another point connected with the relations between the Local Government Board and the Boards of Guardians. As it is, as everybody knows who is acquainted with Ireland, there has been pretty constant friction between Boards of Guardians and the Local Government Board—questions of Auditors, Inspectors, the conduct of Chairmen, and so forth, are constantly arising. Now, it is a great evil that in all these matters the Local Government Board, even as it is, is out of sympathy with the bulk of the Irish population. When it is known that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet has the main voice in these matters, and directs the administrative policy of the Board, will the sympathy between the people and the Local Government Board become any closer or warmer? I do not want to press what may appear to be minor points; but although they may seem to be minute they are most valid objections to such an appointment as that which this Bill asks the House to sanction. I will push the matter one step further, and see how the appointment which is proposed to be made under this Bill affects the general attitude of Her Majesty's Government towards self-government in Ireland. Now, Sir, on September 15, 1886, the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), who was then Leader of the House, made a very important declaration, even more important, to my mind, than the declaration which the noble Lord made in August when the Government was first formed, and to which the noble Lord drew attention the other afternoon in the very interesting, speech which he then delivered. On the 15th of September, 1886, the noble Lord, speaking in a discussion upon the Vote for the Local Government Board which had been going on for some time, and which he was endeavouring, if possible, to arrest, used these words—

"In regard to what has fallen from the hon. Member (Mr. Clancy) generally, as to the Board of Works and the Local Government Board, the functions of these Boards are matters which the Government consider call for from them the most practical consideration, with a view, if possible, of the development of the functions of those Boards in a manner in accordance, as far as may be, with the views of the Irish Representatives … It is the firm and decided intention of the Government to make a proposal to Parliament as early as may be, and we hope with a view of placing the control of all these questions of local government and public works more within the hands of the Irish people."—(3 Hansard, [309] 560–1.)

That was, and was felt to be, a most important declaration. If that declaration has not been adhered to, then it is clear that the Government have gone back from the pledges which they gave, not only upon the hustings, but also in this House, because it can scarcely be contended that the Government are going to develop the functions of the Local Government Board in accordance with the views of the Irish Representatives, when they were going to set over that Board a Gentleman against whom both groups of Irish Members—both the hon. Member for South Tyrone and the hon. and learned Member for North Longford—protested as being the most obnoxious Gentleman who could be placed in that position. Then, with what face can it be said that you are aiming at placing the Local Government of Ireland in the hands of the people, when you appoint a Minister who has committed himself absolutely against the improvement of local government? When I say that, what I mean is this—that in 1886, when the Poor Law Guardians (Ireland) Bill was before this House, not only did the right hon. and gallant Gentleman move the rejection of that Bill—as he had a perfect right to do—but he also declared that he was in favour of continuing the maintenance of the system of ex officio Guardians, and that it was only in proportion as ex officio Guardians were maintained in power that local government could be expected to work peaceably and well. But the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary may tell them that he has no alternative; that he is obliged to choose some Member who, like the right hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Thanet, has committed himself as a champion of the Grand Jury system. But what an extraordinary comment it is upon your whole system of government that when you want a Parliamentary Under Secretary for Ireland you cannot go to Ireland, but are obliged to go either to Thanet, or, possibly, to Cambridge Borough, or Huntingdon, or anywhere else in the world except to Ireland itself! The only men eligible for these posts are men who have every quality but one, and that is that they cannot find a seat in their own country. This Bill points in the same direction as the declaration made by the Government last Wednesday; this appointment is another sign of the indefinite postponement of the reform of Local Government in Ireland, which was the Unionists' pledge at the last Election, and which the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington has said was the foundation of the Unionist Party. I am sorry not to see the noble Lord in his place now, and I would also liked to have seen the right hon. Baronet the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) in his place, so that we might have heard from him whether he considers this appointment in harmony with the views which he expressed in his speech at Bristol. For my own part, I have never felt that that speech committed the right hon. Baronet in any degree to the cause of Home Rule; but it did perplex me how the right hon. Baronet could remain in a Government which, by this Bill and this appointment, are taking a very serious stop away from the direction in which he professes his desire that we should go. I will not dwell further on the Bill, but will move the Motion which stands in my name. I believe the creation of this Office to be wholly unnecessary on the merits—it is not called for by any need of Irish administration; and, instead of being a stop towards that reform of Dublin Castle which is admitted to be desirable by every part of the House—instead of being a step forward in the direction of reform, it is distinctly a step backwards. Instead of strengthening the confidence of the Irish people in the impartiality of your administration or in the excellence of your intentions and the sincerity of your pledges, it is a measure which destroys that confidence and plucks it up by the very root. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time on this day six months.

said, he thought it desirable, after the important speech which had just been delivered by his right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle - upon - Tyne (Mr. John Morley), that one of the rank and file of hon. Members above the Gangway should state his views on the question. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) had referred the House to a series of Questions and Answers which were given some time in the month of May last; but the right hon. Gentleman had abstained from referring to what preceded those Questions and Answers. The appointment of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Colonel King-Harman) to the post which he now held took place in the most extraordinary way, without any previous notice, and without any intimation from the Government of any such intention. The course pursued was a most unusual one, and altogether opposed to that which was generally taken in regard to appointments of that kind. The question of the Constitutional power of the Government to make the appointment at all without statutory authority had been raised more than once, long before the Questions to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred. The matter was raised, no doubt, in the form of Questions, but still it was raised, and it was parried by evasive replies, and none of the Law Officers of the Crown had ventured to express a decided opinion as to the right of the Government to create the Office. It was unusual, at least in modern times, to create a new Office without the authority of Parliament. Yet that was what had been done in the present case. What was the case of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant? He was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman had left his place, but he would say what he intended to say, notwithstanding the right hon. Gentleman's voluntary absence. What was it that the right hon. Gentleman had done? He parried the question of the right to create the Office without consulting Parliament. In the first instance, he told them that there was to be no pay attached to the Office; and he now told them that this Bill created a new Office to which pay was to be attached. He (Sir John Simon) did not know whether that was a Parliamentary proceeding, but he did not hesitate to say, if the usages of the House would permit him, that it was nothing else than a fraud upon the House. His right hon. Friend (Mr. John Morley) had called it trifling with the House, but he took it to be something worse. It was a course of deception practised upon the House. The Government had made the appointment without the usual statutory authority; they combated the question when the appointment had been made; and they said, by way of excuse, they were not going to attach a salary to the Office. Then a few months afterwards they come down to the House with a Bill cut and dried—in form making a new appointment, but in reality confirming the old one. He maintained that that was something more than trifling with Parliament, and that the Government had pursued a deliberate course of deception. He ventured to think that there must be hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House who, in their hearts and consciences, protested against this proceeding. Indeed, he would go further, and would say that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary himself would scout such conduct in private life. Then, with regard to the particular person selected for the Office, his right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne had shown how invidious the appointment of the right hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Thanet was. He had no personal acquaintance with the right hon. and gallant Member, but if he had he would be prepared to make the same statement that he made now—that a more ill - advised appointment could not possibly have been conceived. The right hon. and gallant Member was most obnoxious to the Irish people, who regarded him as as a political renegade, as an oppressive landlord, and as a man who had committed himself as an antagonist to their wishes, and to everything they most cherished. Yet that was the man who, as his right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne said, was to have his hands on the machinery of Dublin Castle. He (Sir John Simon) failed to see what object the Government had in pursuing the course they had adopted. They were told that the policy of Lord Salisbury was to rule Ireland firmly, but, at the same time, to treat her with justice and equity. Was this appointment a specimen of the equity with which the Irish people were to be treated? Was it calculated to bring about conciliation, or induce them to become loyal and contented? On every occasion when a chance was given, instead of consulting the wishes of the Irish people, instead of considering the direction in which their feelings went, they were treated with entire indifference. The Government said—"We will send whom we like to govern you, and appoint men who are obnoxious to you." And yet the Government complained that the Irish people were not loyal and contented. Such a course, he ventured to think, could only have one effect. He did not impute to the right hon. Gentleman and the Government that that was their intention; but, if it were their intention, they could certainly do nothing more than they were now doing to exasperate the Irish people, and to drive them into extremes. They had already greatly exasperated them by nearly a century of Coercion Bills since the Union, and they had driven them further and further away from this country; and on that side of the House they had begun to think it was high time that a different policy should be pursued. Long before the question of Home Rule was raised in 1886, he had voted for Mr. Butt's Motion in reference to Ireland. For many years hon. Gentlemen on his side of the House had been anxious to avoid coercion, and to try and govern Ireland by the ordinary law. The best way to do that was to consider the wishes of her people, and if they would not give them the Home Rule they desired, at least to treat them with consideration and show some desire to consult their wishes, and not to insult them and show their complete antagonism to them in every way. He heartily concurred in the Motion of his right hon. Friend, and begged to second the Amendment. Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. John Morley.) Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

said, he wished, in the first instance, to reply to the observation of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) that the discussion upon the Bill had been exhausted on a previous occasion. The right hon. Gentleman know very well that on that occasion the Budget stood as the second Order of the Day, and that important speeches were expected. Therefore, after discussing the present Bill for about 20 minutes he got upon his legs, and said that in view of the important matters that were about to be brought before the House it was advisable not to discuss the Bill any further, but to reserve the discussion for a future stage of the measure. He would not say that in taking this course he was anxious to consult the convenience of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, but he had considered more the convenience of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House (Mr. W. H. Smith), and, having consulted that convenience, the result was that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary now came down with a statement "that the Bill had already been exhaustively discussed." He thought the House must have noticed the unusual anxiety evinced by the right hon. Gentleman that night to vindicate the character of the Government. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman intimated that he would not have spoken at all if it had not been from a desire to vindicate the Government from the charge of breach of faith. The anxiety of the right hon. Gentleman was not at all astonishing, seeing that the political morality of the Government had got a little out of credit. The right hon. Gentleman, however, had taken a curious way of vindicating the superior morality of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman referred arbitrarily to a particular date, but he told the House nothing of what preceded or followed the Questions that were put upon that day. It would have been better if the right hon. Gentleman had made one or two references. He found that on the 19th of March last year the right hon. Gentleman said distinctly that no salary was attached to the Office of Under Secretary. On the 14th of April, in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), he said—

"I believe the grounds are that it is not an Office of profit under the Crown."—(3 Hansard, [313] 888.)

He (Mr. T, P. O'Connor) could quite understand the dialectical distinction the right hon. Gentleman now made; but on the 15th of April the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, in reply to a Question put by the right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) as to the authority by which the Office of Parliamentary Under Secretary had been constituted, and whether documents could be produced showing the nature and duties of the Office, and also whether the Government had power to create Parliamentary Offices without limit, the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury gave as the sole defence of the Government for establishing the Office that it was not a paid Office, and there fore implied that it was to remain an unpaid Office. The House was led to believe that the Government had had a right to create the Office, because there was no payment attached to it, and that certainly implied that there would be no right to attach a salary to it until authority was given by Parliament. [Cries of "Hear, hear!"] Then, why did not hon. Gentlemen say that last year? They first created the Office on the ground that it was unpaid—they created an Office which would be un-Constitutional if it were paid—and, after the Office had been created, they turned round and said they were going to transform it from an unpaid to a paid Office. Well, he contended that that was equivocation. [Laughter.] The right hon. Gentleman opposite laughed at that. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would pardon him if he said that he did not consider him the highest moral authority, although, in another sense, an authority on the doctrine of equivocation.

I wish to point out to the hon. Member that his last expres- sion exceeds the courtesies of debate, and should, therefore, be withdrawn.

said, that he would withdraw it. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary gave last year as a reason for the creation of the Office that he had too much to do. Well, the Parliamentary Under Secretary was now away from his work, and yet the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary did not seem to be a terribly over-burdened Minister in that House. He thought the right hon. Gentleman ought to be a little more consistent. When he was banqueted by his friend, the right hon. Gentleman spoke in a light and airy strain of the Parliamentary contests in which it was his daily lot to engage; but they did not seem to disturb the roseate calm of the right hon. Gentleman. It was his (Mr. T. P. O'Connor's) daily lot to engage in Parliamentary contests, but they never seriously disturbed his spirit, and he thought that nothing could be lighter or more easy. According to the right hon. Gentleman, however, his duties in that House were so onerous that he required the help of a Parliamentary Under Secretary. He was almost afraid to say anything with regard to the late Mr. Forster, because he knew the class of argument the right hon. Gentleman was likely to use against him. He thought, however, that that argument had become somewhat played out. At one period the late Mr. Forster, when Chief Secretary, made 13 journeys from England to Ireland within three months. He should like to know how many journeys the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary had made to Ireland, because he believed that the right hon. Gentleman was somewhat remarkable for the unfrequency of his visits to that country. The reason assigned for this Bill was the number of Questions put in the House of Commons to the Chief Secretary, and the business he had to transact. But the right hon. Gentleman, compared with other Chief Secretaries, had far less business to do. Whenever a Tory Member went down to the country he called attention to the altered state of the House of Commons. There was a time, he told the people, when the House was disturbed by disorder, and by constant Irish debates; but, under the happier régime, they were now enabled to get through the Business of Parliament, obstruction and disorder having ceased, and the Irish Business having been relegated to an Under Secretary. The Government were themselves responsible for the statement that Irish Business gave less trouble now than it did before. He concurred with his right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne that it was a matter of regret that they should have to allude at all to the personal part of the question. In regard to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel King-Harman), he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had no feeling of personal hostility towards him. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman and many others were paying the penalty of their sins in the past. He hoped to see the right hon. and gallant Gentleman back again in his place in that House, and he hoped that when all the present troubles were over he would be able to take that share in the government of Ireland to which his position entitled him. He, therefore, disclaimed being animated by any feeling of personal hostility. But the Government who appointed the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to a political position might fairly be asked to look at his political record. He had no wish to refer to the past relations of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman with the Nationalist Party. He would deal with that subject in a very summary manner, and he would only call attention to the fact that the first political address of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to a constituency in Ireland was written, revised, and composed almost entirely by Mr. Patrick Egan, the late Secretary of the National League. He did not think that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was any the worse for that, but he thought that fact ought to be known when Members of the Government were always condemning Irish Members for their criminality in associating with him in America. What would they say of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under Secretary for associating with Mr. Patrick Egan, O'Donovan Rossa, and other patriots of that kind? As a matter of fact, the present Home Rule movement owed a great deal to the Under Secretary—quite as much as to any other man living. It also owed something to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews), who at one time went down to Dungarvan to raise the glorious flag of Irish Nationality. He thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the awakening influence he had exercised on that occasion. The Home Rule movement owed a great deal to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under Secretary, but the fact that he was an Orangeman did not endear him to the Irish people. He was now in Office, and that, of course, made all the difference. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would only say one word as to the relations of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman with his own tenantry. The reductions made on his estate had been among the largest in Ireland, having ranged from 35 to as much as 60 per cent, and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was engaged in a constant war with his tenants. We sent to India officials who held the scales of justice evenly, and were absolutely impartial as between the warring races there; and his ideal of a Unionist Government was one which dealt with the Irish people in exactly the same way. He did not think a Government like that would, in the least degree, wean the Irish people from their Nationalist aspirations; but it would do much to restore law and order, and to put down angry passions. But what did Her Majesty's Government do? They appointed one of their most prominent and most obnoxious champions, and they took him from one class to help them to make war on another class. If they had taken a person from amongst those who formed the majority of the people, it might, perhaps, have been from their point of view wrong; but it would, at least, have been the lesser evil. They would not then have exasperated the majority, as they had now done, by selecting the right hon. and gallant Gentleman from the ranks of the minority. He could not imagine how an arrangement could be regarded as satisfactory when the Chief Secretary for Ireland, on the one hand, was a Scotch man, and his Parliamentary Under Secretary, on the other, a Representative of the landlords. Not only would it be impossible for the Under Secretary to get a seat in three-fifths of Ireland, but he could not get the representation of a constituency throughout the whole of the country. Let the right hon. and gallant Gentleman go down to Boyle, and he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) ven. tured to say that he could not get elected as a Chairman of the Board of Guardians of the Union. ["Hear, hear!"] An hon. Gentleman cheered that observation; but he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) repeated that that was the case; and yet the Bill made the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the head of all the Boards of Guardians, for he was to be at the head of the Local Government Board. The whole statement of the case seemed like an extract from Gilbert's representations of topsy-turvyism. As Parliamentary Under Secretary for Ireland, he would be largely responsible for the maintenance of law and order in Ireland. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) was not going to refer to some of the passages in the past of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman; everyone was liable to err, and he maintained that too much importance ought not to be attached to matters of that kind. But he had been present at a meeting in Dungannon, at which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was present, and was a member, and when the party of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman drove the Nationalists out of the square in the town where they had. appointed to hold their meeting, and took possession of the platform on which they were going to speak. It was the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who on that occasion deprived them of their Constitutional right of addressing the people of Dungannon, and he could tell the House that there was scarcely a man in the crowd who accompanied him who was not armed. He would not call that the best way of giving an example of the preservation of law and order in Ireland. But, further, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman made speeches which were a direct incitement to the use of arms. What did the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary think of that? Then, sentences of imprisonment were inflicted in Ireland for the most trivial offences against public order—if offences they could be called. If a policeman gave a howl for the Chief Secretary for Ireland it was thought nothing of; but if a man gave a howl for a Nationalist Member he received a sentence of three months' imprisonment, and while that was being done the Government placed over the heads of the Irish people a man who had incited to armed violence against his political opponents, He maintained that that was a most evil example to set the people of Ireland, and that the Government ought to have adopted a different course. For these reasons, Irish Members would feel it their duty to fight out this matter with the Government to the end.

said, he should not like that debate to terminate without expressing, for his own part, and on the part of the Party with which he acted, the views they held with regard to the appointment of his right hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel King-Harman). He (Colonel Saunderson) had one complaint to make with regard to the speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). The speech of the hon. Member was characterized by humour, as was invariably the case; and he had raised one objection to the appointment of his hon. and gallant Friend—namely, that he was not in perfect sympathy with all classes of the Irish people. But he (Colonel Saunderson) asked, where a man could be found who would be in sympathy with all classes of the Irish people? He supposed, then, that they would have to get a man who had belonged to all Parties. Perhaps, if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) were sent over to Ireland, he might more completely fulfil all the conditions he referred to. But there was one very remarkable objection taken by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, who said that they were treating the Irish people in the wrong way, and that they ought to govern Ireland as they governed India; in fact, that they ought to treat Irishmen as if they were Hindoos.

said, he had stated nothing of the kind. What he had said was, that in the appointment of officials, the Government ought to proceed in the same way as they had in the case of India—that was to say, send out those who were absolutely impartial as between the warring classes there.

They had it now from the hon. Gentleman that they were to deal with Irishmen as they dealt with the inhabitants of Hindostan. The hon. Gentleman then went on to point out, as a blot in the history of the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Ireland, that he could not get elected as a Poor Law Guardian for the town in which he resided. But the hon. Gentleman might just as well blame him (Colonel Saunderson), because he was not elected for the County of Cavan, in which he lived. He denied that any man who was not a Home Ruler could be elected Chairman of any Board of Guardians in Ireland, in any town in which the National League was supreme; and he maintained that the statement of the hon. Gentleman, that it was impossible for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to be elected Chairman of the Board of Guardians in the town of Boyle, was one of the very strongest arguments which could be urged against granting local self-government to Ireland. He could give many quotations to show, year after year, that the elections of Boards of Guardians were carried out strictly on the grounds laid down by the National League, and upon no other. Men had been boycotted, because they had voted for Guardians who were not supported by that organization. The hon. Gentleman asked how they could have confidence in a man who had been so objected to. There was no man that he (Colonel Saunderson) know in Ireland who had spent more money on his estate than his right hon. and gallant Friend, and no man that he was acquainted with in Ireland had borrowed larger sums of money and made use of that money to give labour and employment to the people amongst whom he resided. He thought the House was the authority to decide whether an Under Secretary for Ireland should be appointed. The mode of procedure on the part of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite and the Gentlemen below the Gangway was to make a personal attack on the character of his right hon. and gallant Friend. They said his record would not bear inspection. He (Colonel Saunderson) was willing to admit that there was one flaw in his record. His right hon. and gallant Friend was once a Home Ruler; but in the course of years he had ceased to belong to that Party, and no one could deny that Home Rule in former times was a very different thing from what it is now. It was because his right hon. and gallant Friend had ceased to be a Home Ruler and bad become a Unionist that he was called a traitor. But what did they call those who, during their whole lives, had been Unionists, and who; in advancing years, had become Home Rulers? He could not frame a Parliamentary phrase to answer that question, and he would leave it to hon. Gentlemen opposite. For his part, he looked upon it as a good sign when a man advanced in years took up a loyal and just policy. If his right hon. and gallant Friend had, on the contrary, abandoned the Unionist principles and become a Home Ruler later in life, it would have been said that, instead of learning wisdom, he had entered upon his second childhood. He thought it a great proof of his right hon. and gallant Friend having with advancing years also advanced in wisdom, that he had departed from the mistaken policy of his earlier days and adopted the policy which he held now, and which was adopted by men of sound common sense and patriotic principle. With regard to the other attacks made on his right hon. and gallant Friend of a direct personal nature, he should say nothing. He thought, as a rule, that that House was generally intolerant of personal attacks which had no connection with the political questions on which they might be made, and he thought his right hon. and gallant Friend might pass by those insults without notice. In his (Colonel Saunderson's) opinion, insults were governed by the law which affected falling bodies—that was to say, that the amount of injury which they inflicted depended upon the height from which they fell, and, therefore, upon that ground he did not think that his right hon. and gallant Friend would be injured. With regard to the statement made by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. T. W. Russell), that the appointment of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was very unpopular, even in Ulster, he might remark that nothing had astonished him more in all his life than to hear from the hon. Member for South Tyrone, that the appointment of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would be looked upon as a menace and insult to the farmers in the North of Ireland. Would the hon. Member get up now—[Mr. T. W. RUSSELL: Yes.]—and deliberately state that the Ulster Unionists were outraged by this appointment? He (Colonel Saunderson) absolutely denied it, and he thought he had just as good right to speak in the name of the Ulster Unionist Party as the hon. Member for South Tyrone. He was sure that his hon. Friend spoke in all sincerity; but he was, unfortunately, a Gentleman of very vivid imagination, and he had no doubt that was the reason why he was so successful as a speaker. He was quite sure that his hon. Friend believed in his heart that this would be an unpopular appointment; but the appointment of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had, at least in Ulster, met with almost universal acceptance, and he most distinctly stated that on behalf of those whom he represented in that Province. He believed that his right hon. and gallant Friend had shown himself thoroughly diligent in the discharge of the duties of his Office, that he had carried out his work to the satisfaction of the House, and that there would be unqualified satisfaction at the manner in which he discharged it in future. With regard to the payment of the Office, he would only observe that the labourer was worthy of his hire. He had understood when the Bill was brought in, that, although the Government did not propose then that it would be a paid Office, it would be so in future. That he believed to be the intention of the Government, and he considered that they had fulfilled their pledges in asking for the second reading of the Bill.

said, he believed that the Government had made this appointment because the Chief Secretary for Ireland wished to avoid meeting Irish Members face to face in that House on the subject of Questions. There was nothing which showed whether or not a man in Office know anything of Ireland more than the way in which he answered Questions in that House—not only those Questions which appeared on the Paper, but others by which they were supplemented. He thought the House would bear him up when he said that was one of the most difficult and trying Offices which had been performed by previous Chief Secretaries. He could quite fancy that when Lord Salisbury asked the Chief Secretary to undertake that work, the right hon Gentleman might have expressed his unwillingness to undertake the whole of it, and that he was then informed that he would be provided with a Parliamentary Under Secretary to relieve him of a portion of his duties. The appointment could not be justified on the ground of the immense amount of work which the Chief Secretary had to discharge. He recollected that the right hon. Gentleman had told the House last year that he had been engaged on two very important Bilis; but it had been declared over and over again that this Session was to be devoted to English legislation, and that there would be no legislation for Ireland. If, therefore, there was a reason last year for having an Under Secretary, the necessity no longer existed. The Chief Secretary wanted to combine two things absolutely incompatible; he wanted to have comfort and rest and indolence on the one side, and the hard Parliamentary work of a Cabinet Minister on the other. He could quite understand Lord Salisbury wishing to see the Chief Secretary assisted in his work; but he did not think the House should facilitate the work of the Department in that manner, seeing that all former Chief Secretaries had done their own work. There was no need of assistance in the present case, and, therefore, it was that the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson) had not for a moment alleged that it was necessary to make this appointment; he simply went on the personal question, and tried to show that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet Division of the County of Kent was suited for the post. He (Mr. M'Donald) was not present at the last discussion; but he had read the speech of the Chief Secretary in The Standard, and he found that the right hon. Gentleman gave as his reason for the appointment, that the Local Government Board in Ireland wanted looking after, and seemed to think that the Under Secretary would be able to do the work which he was unable to do, owing to his appointment as Chief Secretary. Did anyone believe that that was the motive of this appointment? Did anyone believe that the Chief Secretary was so very anxious about Local Government in Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman had shown his anxiety for it by procuring the rejection of the Bill for County Government, which was brought forward by the hon. Member for North Kildare (Mr. Carew). Those were nothing else than flimsy pretexts, and they did not represent the grounds on which the appointment was made, and hon. Members on those Benches wanted to know what those grounds were. As to the personal qualifications of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman he (Mr. M'Donald) quite agreed with the remark made by his hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) that a private passage in the life of the Under Secretary ought not to be alleged against him, and he did not want to allege it. Whenever he heard such an allegation, the words always rose to his lips, "He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone." But looking at the public acts of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, he defied anyone to disprove that he was a convicted rack-renter, and that he was regarded by the great mass of the people of Ireland as a renegade. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman was once in favour of Home Rule in Ireland, but now that he was a Member of the Government and wished to have his official position recognised as such, he was working against the class for which he once acted. He believed that the people of Ireland scorned such a character as that, and he maintained that the Government had no right to govern Ireland in absolute defiance of the wishes of the people. They know it had been the fashion to insult the people of Ireland, they know that they had been taunted with their brogue, and that it was said that a single Member on the Front Bench opposite was worth the whole of the 86 Irish Representatives, but he mistook the character of the English nation if they allowed that state of things to go on, which, to a people like the Irish, must be extremely distasteful. If they were fighting only for the interests of their Party and the cause of Home Rule in future, he was not so sure that they would have any great reason to object to this appointment, for he was convinced that the Under Secretary would lead the Government into serious blunders and mistakes which would far more than counterbalance any temporary advantage which the Chief Secretary might get from the appointment. He (Mr. M'Donald) was surprised at the use which the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh made of the argument of his hon. Friend (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) when he said that he had suggested that Irishmen should be treated like Hindoos. He objected to the burlesquing of his hon. Friend's argument. His hon. Friend had simply said that there were opposing races and creeds in India, some being Hindoos and some Mussulmen, and that the Government sent out to India officials who would hold the scales of justice evenly between those opposing classes, and that the same thing ought to be done with regard to Ireland. As he had said, if they thought only of the permanent interests of the Home Rule Party, they might welcome this appointment; but when they thought of the good of the Irish people, and the general principles on which the country ought to be governed, they said it was no less than a shame to appoint a man who was a declared partizan, and who was regarded as hostile to their interests by the great mass of the Irish people—a man who was once in favour of the principles of the majority of his countrymen, but was now against them. Further, when the right hon. and gallant Gentleman tried to answer Questions in that House, he spoke in such low tones that it was extremely difficult for Members on those Benches to hear what he said. It was very necessary that Questions put in that House should be answered in such a manner that they could be distinctly heard. Circumstances had made it necessary that he should use his hearing a good deal, and he could state most positively that when the right hon. and gallant Gentleman got up to answer his Questions it was with the greatest difficulty that he could catch his replies, owing to the low tone of voice which he adopted, and for that reason, if there were no others, he should object to his appointment.

said, after the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson), the House would, perhaps, allow him to state what he felt with regard to the appointment of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman as Parliamentary Under Secretary for Ireland, and notwithstanding the remark of the hon. and gallant Member, he should do that in no imaginative way whatever. He would not deny that his hon. and gallant Friend had as good right as anyone in that House to represent the tenant farmers in Ulster. He had no doubt that the appointment was approved by the landlords and by a large number of the Orange leaders, and by many of the Orange rank and file, and for those the hon. and gallant Gentleman was entitled to speak; but he (Mr. T. W. Russell) claimed to have a tolerable knowledge of the Ulster tenant farmers, both Liberals and Orangemen, and he adhered most emphatically to the statement he had made on the first night of the debate—namely, that these men looked on this appointment as practically a declaration of war against the tenantry of Ireland. What was the actual state of affairs? They found that his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was a great Irish landowner, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was a great Scotch landowner, and now they found in the Parliamentary Under Secretary another great landowner. That being the case, the tenant farmers of Ireland would have been more than human if they could look on those in Dublin Castle and expect to be fairly dealt with. He looked upon the appointment absolutely and entirely from a tenant farmer's point of view. He was not going back on the record of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, either in regard to politics or in regard to his private life; and he would declare that he had no other feeling towards the right hon. and gallant Gentleman except that of personal friendship—he viewed his appointment solely in the light of the effect it would have upon tenant farmers, and in that respect he felt that it was not good for Ireland. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Armagh was more entitled to speak for the people of the towns in the district which he ably represented than he was for the tenant farmers of Ulster. He (Mr. T. W. Russell) did not know that he had any right to make an appeal to those Liberal Unionists who sat around him, because they did not look for advice to the Irish Unionist Members who opposed this Bill; but if he might make such an appeal, it would be that they should leave the entire responsibility for this appointment to Her Majesty's Government. He thought the matter had now been sufficiently debated, and that they ought to go to a Division; but before doing so, he wished to state his belief that the ap- pointment of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would prove a disastrous one in every way, and as such he (Mr. T. W. Russell) should not lose a single opportunity of recording his vote against it.

said, he rose to conclude the debate so far as the Government were concerned. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. T. W. Russell) had said that his objection to the Bill consisted in the fact that the Government of Ireland was handed over to three great landlords, the Lord Lieutenant, his (Mr. Balfour's) right hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary, and himself. No doubt it was the misfortune and not the fault of all three of them to be owners of land. No doubt they would rather be owners of something else if they could. But he would ask the House, ought that fact to be visited upon them too severely? Was it not an offence that brought its own penalty, and did they not suffer sufficiently from being landlords without having visited on their own persons every description of political unfairness and injustice?

said, he certainly did not impute injustice to the right hon. Gentleman. What he said, was, that the tenants of Ireland would be more than human if they could regard Dublin Castle without some suspicion.

said, he wanted to ask the House this question. If an Under Secretary was to be appointed to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, ought he to be an Irishman, or ought he not? [An IRISH MEMBER: No, no!] He ought not to be an Irishman? Well, he certainly thought he ought, and he wanted to know whether human ingenuity could find anywhere an Irishman who was not the object of darkest suspicion to a very large number of his countrymen. It was suggested that a Member of that House should be chosen who was not a strong Party man, and who was unconnected with organizations in Ireland on one side or the other. But where was such a man to be found? The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, said the Irish Under Secretary ought to be selected as the Governors of India were chosen—foreigners who stood outside the different Parties in the country. But that was just what it was impossible to do with regard to Ireland. The men sent out to govern India were not Hindoos or Mussulmen.

No; they are often Irishmen. ["Hear, hear!"]

said, he endorsed those cheers; no doubt they were often Irishmen, but never Hindoos or Mussulmen. If they were to carry out the principles the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool advocated for Ireland, Irishmen must be for ever excluded from the government of Ireland. If they were to have an Under Secretary, the alternatives were, either that Under Secretary was not to be an Irishman, or, if he was to be an Irishman, he was to be selected on the same principles and to be open to just the same objections as had been brought against the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet Division of Kent. But he passed from the speech of his hon. Friend who had just sat down, and from the speech of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, to the only other speech in this debate delivered against the Bill which he thought required any notice from the Government, and that was the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley). He confessed he listened to the opening part of that speech with considerable pain. He had been divided from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne by very sharp differences of opinion through the whole of their common political lives. He had, nevertheless, up till that night, felt that he had in the right hon. Gentleman an opponent who, however severe he might be in his criticisms, however harsh his language might have been in the heat of debate, would not willingly and deliberately pervert, after repeated and clear explanations, any action or word of a political opponent in order to hold him up to public opprobrium. He had not hitherto classed him with some of those controversialists who were to be found among those with whom he acted, and he had never supposed the right hon. Gentleman would sink to the arts of which some among his followers were not ashamed. ["Oh, oh!" and Cheers.] That illusion he was sorry to say, and he could assure the House that he felt it deeply, had now for ever been dispelled. He came down to the House that day and gave, in as conciliatory a spirit as he could, what he then thought, and still thought, were conclusive evidence of the undoubted intentions held by his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury and by every one of his Colleagues, intentions to which they—all being honourable men—were prepared to give testimony, and he had showed that not only were those their intentions, but that there was clear Parliamentary proof that those intentions had been made known to the House. Those who were present and heard his few opening remarks would admit that he made that statement—a statement that he, foolishly it might be, but fondly believed the right hon. Gentleman would accept—in the most conciliatory manner possible, He said nothing that should have aroused irritation or would justify an embittered reply. But the right hon. Gentleman, apparently unwilling to waste the prepared sarcasms with which he had come down to the House, brushed that all on one side, and, in a manner that reflected very little credit on his candour, deliberately repeated an accusation that had been a thousand times refuted in that House. [Cries of "No, no!"] However, he would now pass from the personal part of this controversy, which was very painful to him. ["Hear, hear!" from the Nationalist Members.] Yes; much as it might astonish Members from Ireland, he could assure the House that it was with a great deal of pain that he thus spoke of a person for whom he had hitherto entertained so great a respect as the right hon. Gentleman. He could not complain of the controversial part of the speech, except that it put him in a difficult position, seeing that the right hon. Gentleman had brought forward arguments which rendered it necessary for him, in replying to them, to be more egotistical than he should desire. He was far from comparing himself with any of the eminent men who had been his Predecessors. He did not put himself upon an equality with them; but he thought that everyone of them since 1881, with the exception of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who, for reasons well known to the House, had a very quiet and easy time of it, would have done his work better and been a more effi- cient administrator, if he had had the advantage of some such assistance as that of an Under Secretary. The work, however, that fell to his (Mr Balfour's) lot was, in some important respects, different to that which fell to the lot of his Predecessors. Under the present arrangement every Irish legislative measure, large or small, was in the hands of the Chief Secretary. But that was not the system adopted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. The Land Bill of 1881 was not in the charge of Mr. Forster. He was not even the second in charge of it, though possibly he was consulted about it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was himself in charge of the Bill, and his right-hand man was the Irish Law Officer of the time. Then, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Sir George Trevelyan) was Chief Secretary, the Crimes Bill was introduced and passed during the Session of 1882. But that Bill was not in his charge, but in the charge of the then Home Secretary the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt). That might have been a good or bad arrangement; but it, at any rate, relieved the Chief Secretary of a good deal of work. Even during the easy administration of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne the two great Irish measures introduced were not in his hands. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian took charge of the Home Rule Bill and the Land Purchase Bill. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) did not complain of that arrangement. Having regard to the importance of those measures, it might have been right that they should be introduced by the Prime Minister himself. But that was not the present arrangement. All the Irish measures, whether big or small, brought forward by the Government since he (Mr. Balfour) became Chief Secretary were prepared, brought in, and worked through the House by himself. He thought that was the best arrangement; but, however that might be, it distinctly marked off his position from that of some of his Predecessors. There was also this difference between his position and that of two or three of his Predecessors—that they were not in the Cabinet. Mr. Forster was, and so was the right hon. Gentleman the Mem- ber for Newcastle-upon-Tyne. But the result of Mr. Forster having no assistance was that he suffered in health, and, besides, found himself unable to attend to anything whatever except Irish Business. That was not a proper position for a Member of the Cabinet to be placed in. A Member of the Cabinet was supposed to be able to pay attention to other matters which were outside the purview of his special office. Was it desirable that the Chief Secretary should be the one Member of the Cabinet who could not attend to other Business besides that of his own Department? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, when Home Secretary, took charge of the Crimes Bill, though it was outside his Department, and he was enabled to do so because he had the assistance of an Under Secretary, and, he (Mr. Balfour) believed, an Under Secretary at the time in the House of Commons. At all events, it was not uncommon for a Home Secretary to have an Under Secretary in the House; and if the House were to treat the Secretary for Ireland as it treated every other important Minister in the Cabinet, it was bound to give him an Under Secretary, who might relieve him of some of the less important part of his work. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. John Morley) spoke of the Bill as having been brought in for the purpose of finding something for the Under Secretary to do. Did the right hon. Gentleman suppose there was no work for such an official, or did he forget the enormous amount of detail that had to be got through in connection with the Local Government Board and other matters relating to Irish administration? The hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) had attacked the Bill probably with more bitterness than anyone else; but he admitted that his objection was not an objection to the appointment of an Under Secretary, but a personal objection. He was glad to find, however, that the personal element which was so painfully prominent in the earlier stage of the Bill had somewhat sunk out of sight; and he especially congratulated the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool in having abstained from attacking a man who was not present to defend himself. Everyone knew what was the real ob- jection to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman on the part of the Irish Members opposite—namely, that some 20 years ago he had changed his opinion with regard to Home Rule, that change having been conscientiously made, and at a time when Home Rule bore a different complexion from that which it bore at the present day, and when it was advocated by a Party having very different Leaders. Nobody pretended that he was not a man of ability, industry, and capacity, or that he was incapable of carrying on Parliamentary work efficiently; but hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway could not forget that he was once a Home Ruler. They had never forgiven him for being what, in their language, they described as a renegade and a traitor. After all, in their own opinion, it could not be a criminal offence to change one's opinion on Home Rule. It must be remembered that they were acquainted with statesmen and politicians of high honour who had very recently seen sufficient reason for changing their own opinions on this subject; and if that were so—he did not say it to embitter debate—surely they ought to forgive a change of opinion on the part of his right hon. and gallant Friend, which, as everyone who knew him must admit, was absolutely conscientious. He would not detain the House any longer; but he hoped they would consider the question as sufficiently debated, and allow the House to come at once to a final decision.

said, he was surprised that no comment had as yet been made on the position given to this Bill on the Order Book. Two Parliamentary nights ago they were engaged in discussing the Budget Bill in Committee, and on that occasion the Government made a piteous appeal to proceed to a later hour on the ground of the immense damage that would be done to the public interest if the taxes with which the Bill dealt were allowed to hang in mid air and not brought into operation. Acting on that intimation, after a little remonstrance, a Morning Sitting on Friday was agreed to, which entailed the sacrifice of half the time the House would otherwise have given to the consideration of a great educational question. But, when they opened the Order Book on Saturday morning, hon. Members found to their surprise the Budget Bill placed in the second rank in order that this Bill might take precedence of it. He thought there were only two explanations of this—the first, that the protestations on Thursday were insincere; and the second, that the Government wished to place this Bill in front of a Bill of the high importance of the Budget Bill in order to compress within a narrower limit than would otherwise be possible the power of debating this Bill. That was a manœuvre that might or might not succeed, but his experience was that even though a few days or hours were gained by a manœuvre of this kind, the result was never, in the long run, very satisfactory. He would rather have expected that the Government would have endeavoured to hide away this measure in the darkest corner of the Notice Paper than to give it a prominent position, for he should be much surprised if the great majority of hon. Members on the Conservative side were not heartily sick of it; and he would go further, and, although this involved a great stretch of imagination, express the conviction that even the Allies of the Government on the Liberal side of the House, who were less elastic in their opinions, and much less open to the influence of argument or circumstance, were somewhat lukewarm in its support. The Government must, he thought, have put the question seriously to themselves whether, after all, the game was worth the candle—whether from the creation of the Office any good that might come would atone for the waste of time and irritation that the Bill produced. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) had alluded to the misunderstanding on the point whether this was to be a paid Office or not. With regard to that he would not say there had been deliberate equivocation, but an impression was created in the minds of hon. Members on his side of the House, and no steps were taken to remove it. On the 14th of April in last Session they were told by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that a salary was not attached to the Office—[Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: Was not.]—Quite so; but why did not the right hon. Gentleman say it was the intention of the Government to attach a salary to the Office? Then, on the 15th of April, the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) was even more emphatic, and said—

"It is right to state distinctly that no salary or profit is attached to the Office."—(3 Hansard, [313] 1,003.)

Then his hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Hackney (Sir Charles Russell) the other day asked the Government when they changed their mind, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary said, they never changed their mind. All he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) could say was that in that case their language was most unfortunate. The impression created on any man's mind in looking into this series of quotations would be, that it would take a very clever man to find out under which thimble the pea happened to be at a particular moment. He agreed that it would be not only unreasonable, but also improper and unconstitutional that any such arrangement should continue as that a public Parliamentary official should discharge functions without receiving a salary, because in that case he would be withdrawn from direct Parliamentary responsibility, which was the keystone of representative government. He was, therefore, glad that the Government had introduced this Bill to regularize the situation, but would not it have been much better if the Government had cancelled the appointment and dropped the proposal altogether? As to the personal aspect of the case, as had been pointed out by the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell), the Irish Executive had already too much the appearance of being dominated by landlord influence, and it was deplorable that any steps should have been taken to aggravate it. In many cases it was as mischievous to seem to do a thing as to do it. It was most unfortunate that the Government should do anything to strengthen the impression of Irishmen that the administration of their country was dominated by landlords—an impression they could not help entertaining when they saw it contained not only three landlords, but three active, militant, and aggressive landlords. With regard to the political career of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Colonel King-Harman) it had been admitted by the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson) that he was unpopular in his own district and would not be elected to the Board of Guardians in the neighbouring town. The explanation which the hon. and gallant Member gave, was that no one could be expected to be elected to Boards of Guardians in opposition to the National League. Why, he thought that the National League was extinct, that it was in a moribund state, with its back broken by the Chief Secretary! But whatever force might be attached to these personal considerations, how much greater did it become when it was found that this Office was demanded by no public interest. He (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) would commend that consideration to the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) and his followers, who had been going about the Public Service seeking what Offices they might devour and what Establishments they might reduce. It was not always easy to abolish an existing Office; but it was comparatively easy to refuse to support a Government which you ordinarily followed when it proposed to create an Office which was superfluous. The case for this new Office was that the Chief Secretary was overworked, and they had to go back to Mr. Forster to find an analogous case—a case, that is, in which the Chief Secretary was the Cabinet Minister responsible for the Government of Ireland. But the case of Mr. Forster was not entirely parallel, because the business Mr. Forster had to do was much more difficult. The condition of Ireland was then very critical; murder and outrage stalked abroad, and secret societies were spreading everywhere; so that it was not merely with public meetings which were a little too demonstrative Mr. Forster had to deal; and it was not necessary for him, in order to put men in prison, to give the dignity of crime to acts which elsewhere would be held to be innocent and even praiseworthy. Mr. Forster had plenty of natural crime to deal with, and did not require to invent artificial crime. Yet, although he had constantly to be going to and fro between Loudon and Dublin, he conducted the Parliamentary Business with the help of his Law Officer. His Colleagues assisted him, no doubt, with the heavier Bills. But what was the case at present? Besides the Chief Secretary, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland is a Member of the Cabinet—an arrangement, by the way, open to great objection, for the less the Head of the Judiciary had to do with Executive work, the better. And yet another Cabinet Minister, the Lord Privy Seal, answers for the Irish Government in the House of Lords. So that in this economical Government it took five men to do the work formerly overtaken by two. In the discussions last year he ventured to raise a protest on this subject, and was immediately overwhelmed by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, who, in a tone of indignation and dignified rebuke, practically told him that he knew nothing about it; he said that "the circumstances and conditions were absolutely abnormal;" and the right hon. Gentleman added that—

"Some assistance must be given to the Chief Secretary to enable him to give due consideration to the preparation and submission to Parliament of measures which the Government deem to be of the utmost importance to the peace, prosperity, and happiness of Ireland."

But where were those measures now? The Coercion Bill of last year—which was deemed necessary to the peace, prosperity, and happiness of Ireland—and the Land Bill were, no doubt, large measures. Reverting to Mr. Forster's time, it must be remarked that if he thought it his duty to carry a stringent measure of coercion, he did not stop there; he took a broad view of the Irish Question; he was a man of warm, sympathetic feelings, and lie always applied a remedy as well as imposed a restraint. But the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had no remedial measures, and the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had told them that remedial measures should be put off until the Irish people should acquire such a frame of mind as the right hon. Gentleman thought proper.

said, that he had already stated to the House that ho would introduce certain Bills dealing with Public Works in Ireland before Whitsuntide.

said, it was quite possible some Bill of that kind might be brought in towards the end of the Session; but if so, it was very unlikely that it would pass.

said, that there were two very large and important Irish Bills on the Table that night—one relating to the Laud Commission and the other to the Supreme Court of Judicature.

said, that he had been speaking of the past and the present, and not of the future. So far as the Session had gone, the only Irish legislative difficulty had been the measure now before them, and as no one that he ever heard of desired this measure except the right hon. Gentleman, the difficulty was of his own creation. He had, of course, other Parliamentary difficulties to contend with, arising from his administration in Ireland; but he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) would make bold to say that half of them would have been avoided had his administration been marked by greater care. He was quite ready to admit that if the effect of this Bill would be to disengage the Chief Secretary from his Parliamentary duties, and to enable him to give his personal attention to the details of the administration of the law, on the spot, in Ireland—and especially of the Coercion Act—it would be some—though he did not say it would be a complete—justification for this proposed new Office. It was most essential that, in such a state of things as existed in Ireland, everyone, down to the humblest official, should feel the hand of the Government directly guiding and regulating. It was only too apparent that that was not the condition of things which now existed in Ireland. But this plea could not be urged by the Government in the face of our experience of the last 12 months. The right hon. Gentleman had had this auxiliary assistance for a year. Had he availed himself of it, to go over and direct affairs? No; he had remained in the House, exhibiting to their most genuine admiration his great dialectical skill and employing the subtlety of his mind in discovering excuses for the blunders of his subordinates. The abnormal circumstances which existed last year, and which might have been an excuse for the creation of this Office, had passed away, and now there was no Parliamentary, legislative, or administrative necessity for the formation of such a post. He hoped that the Government would find some decent pretext—he was sure it would be a welcome pretext—for dropping this Bill. It created an Office which was entirely superfluous, and for which no reason could be urged. The proposal was extravagant and wasteful, and if any further condemnation was necessary, they had it in the fact that the present holder, from whom it could not be dissociated, was the object of such distrust and dislike to the people of Ireland as could not fail to be a source of irritation and mischief.

said, he wished, in the remarks he was about to make with regard to the question before the House, to dissociate himself from all personal and political considerations. He should give his vote on this Motion on the grounds on which he should have to defend it before his constituents. In his opinion this Office of Parliamentary Under Secretary was absolutely unnecessary, and that being so, he regarded it as both inexpedient and unwise. He did not think it was so much the duty of anyone opposing the measure to state the ground on which he founded his opposition, as it was the duty of the Government to justify the creation of the Office. As one who had always opposed the Office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and who had placed on the Paper Motions for its abolition, he could not now assist in propping up a system to which he objected. If the Lord Lieutenant was not equal to the work which he had to perform, then it was for him to pay for the assistance he required by a reduction of his salary; if, on the other hand, he did perform his duties, the Chief Secretary should be able to do his work without further assistance. Another objection he had was that the Bill had been put forward by the Government in the first rank for discussion, and he wished to know what was the use of curtailing discussion on other Bills if this was always to be in the way? He believed that the Bill would be the greatest engine of obstruction throughout the Session, and on that ground he should, for one, be very glad to get rid of it.

said, he protested altogether against the notion that the Bill had been adequately discussed. The object of the measure was the creation of a new Office, and it was, in his opinion, not the kind of Bill that the Government ought to have brought in that Session in connection with the Government of Ireland. They were told that a Bill of the deepest in- terest to the Irish people, and one touching upon a Constitutional question first and foremost, must be considered to have been adequately discussed in a couple of hours. The right hon. Gentleman at a previous stage had induced the House to be satisfied with a small discussion, on the understanding that another opportunity would be afforded for full consideration of the Bill; and he had that night began his speech by expressing a hope that the debate would close immediately. He (Mr. Gill) did not wonder that he was anxious for that, because the measure was one of which the Government had every reason to be ashamed; but he thought that the development which the House had just witnessed in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage) was one that it had been worth while to wait for. They had a Liberal Unionist denouncing in strong terms the action of the Government, and preparing to vote against the Bill, and that was the first time such a thing had been witnessed since the Liberal Unionist Party had been formed. When a Member in such a position as the right hon. Gentleman got up and made such a confession, he (Mr. Gill) thought it was a proof that the Bill was one which no section of the House ought to support. He should not feel that he had done his duty, unless he entered his emphatic protest against the Bill, and the measures by which it had been sought to have it scrambled through the House. Question put. The House divided:—Ayes 226; Noes 177: Majority 49.—(Div. List, No. 84.) Main Question put, and agreed to. Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

said, he trusted that hon. Members would give him their attention for a few moments, while he introduced a series of new clauses which were of a highly technical character. The first clause he had put upon the Paper was possibly the most important, and he did not hesitate to say that if the Committee would accept the first clause, they would do more to promote that which they all professed to have at heart, a cheap and simple transference of land, than had been done by Parliament for a good many years. As there was occasion to point out last week, there was a wide difference between the laws affecting real and personal property in regard to Government duties. In the particular instance before them, the law operated hardly and harshly, not so much upon real property as upon the purchaser of real property. Suppose anyone died leaving an enormous quantity of personal estate, millions of stock, and hundreds and thousands of railway shares, his executors, after proving the will, could go into the market, sell the stock off, sell the shares, sell the bonds, and the purchaser in each case got an absolute title, free from all claims on the part of the Government, while the executors or the trustees who had sold the stocks and received the money could bolt the next day and the Government could not follow them. By reason of an old distinction inherited from the feudal times, it was not so with real property; when a man purchased real property he had to take care that the Succession Duty had been paid. That was no great hardship, if the purchaser was buying shortly after the demise of the testator; but, unfortunately, another old rule came in—namely, nullum tempus occurrit regi. No doubt, there was in most cases the 60 years' limit; but with regard to the claim for Succession Duty there was no limit at all. The claim of the Government went on for ever, and cases were cited two years ago in the House by Mr. Gregory, the Gentleman who took charge of these clauses, in which, after the lapse of 30, 40, and even more years, the unhappy owner of land had been come down upon for the payment of Legacy or Succession Duty with compound interest from the time it was payable. He (Mr. Sydney Gedge) did not hesitate to say that it was quite impossible for anyone to buy an acre of land or a freehold cottage and be sure he was free from the claim of the Government to Succession Duty unless his solicitor investigated the title up to 1853. No one who had bought land since the Act of 1853 was passed could be sure, at the present moment, but that at some day or the other the Inland Revenue Authorities would not come down upon him for Succession Duty which was payable some 30 years ago, with compound interest at 4 per cent, and it would be the duty of the authorities to do that if they found that the duty was owing. He proposed, in the first place, to get rid of that by introducing a Statute of Limitations. The clause, as it stood, set that limit at six years; but he proposed to meet objections which might be raised by altering the limit to 12 years, so that they might have the same rule with regard to Succession Duty as they had in regard to the ordinary charges on land. In March, 1886, Mr. Gregory moved an Amendment to the Motion that the Speaker should leave the Chair, to the effect that there should be a limitation in point of time to the liability to duty. The hon. Gentleman was supported by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds), and by the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Donegal (Mr. Arthur O'Connor), by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South-East Warwick (Mr. Cobb), and he was supported, and strongly supported, by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) who at that time was not Attorney General, and was, therefore, free to act in accordance with his convictions with regard to real property and its burdens. He (Mr. Sydney Gedge) was sure his hon. and learned Friend would, if he could, meet him to-night, and he hoped he would obtain a promise from the hon. and learned Gentleman, or from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the matter should receive immediate and favourable attention. The right hon. Gentlemen the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), in 1886, asked Mr. Gregory to put his ideas into shape, and not to press his Resolution as an Amendment to the Motion that Mr. Speaker should leave the Chair. Accordingly, the Amendment was withdrawn, and, just two months later, in Committee upon the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill then before the House, although there was no Succession Duty in that Bill at all, and the proposal of Mr. Gregory was, therefore, not germane to the question before the House, Mr. Gregory moved the identical clause which he (Mr. Sydney Gedge) had now the honour of submitting to the Committee. This clause had been drafted by one of the conveyancing counsel of the Court of Chancery. All hon. Members had expressed a desire to see a cheapening of land transfer, and he thought it was the duty of every Member who had pledged himself to his constituents upon this subject to give effect to his convictions, and to go, in case of need, into the Lobby with him. What had the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) said? The right hon. Gentleman was a solicitor of very large experience, and knew the evil effects, especially to the poor purchaser, of the present state of the law, and he said,—"We are not prepared to accept the Amendment, because it is not relevant to the Bill," and he asked Mr. Gregory to move some clause giving effect to his wishes in connection with an omnibus Bill to be brought in later on. The Amendment was not germane to the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill in 1886, because the Bill did not deal with Succession Duties, but it was germane to this Bill, because it did deal with Succession Duties. In this Bill, they were increasing the burden of the Succession Duty, they were making it heavier than before, and, therefore, these clauses were germane. The Government of the day (1886) being beaten on the Irish Bill, the promised omnibus Bill was not brought in, and, therefore, these clauses were not brought forward. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) said that if this matter should pass into other hands than Mr. Gregory's—because Mr. Gregory had announced his intention of not standing for Parliament again—he hoped the object that Gentleman had in view would be carried out, and he (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) would do all in his power to bring about that result. He (Mr. Sydney Gedge) was sorry the right hon. Gentleman was not present that day to do all in his power to carry the object that these clauses had, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would return in time to take part in the debate. Now, it was right he should explain shortly the effect of the clauses. The 1st clause,—

"Purchasers and mortgagees exempted from liability to Succession Duty after a specified period"—

was divided into three sections. The first stated that the claim to Succession Duty—

"Shall not, as against a purchaser for valuable consideration, or a mortgagee, remain charged with or liable to payment of any sum for Succession Duty after the expiration of 12 years from the date of the death, upon the happening of which the duty may (whether before or after the passing of this Act) have become payable."

The clause was made retrospective; but in order that the Authorities of the Inland Revenue might have ample time to look into all existing cases where duties were payable, it was provided—

"Or if such period of 12 years expires within two years from the date of the passing of this Act, then after the expiration of two years from the last mentioned date."

The Committee would see, by the second section of the clause, how much care was taken to prevent the Government or the State from losing the Succession Duty, for it was provided that—

"The duty (if any) unpaid at the expiration of such period of 12 years or two years, as the case may be, shall be payable and paid by the successor personally, and shall become charged substitutively upon any other estate or interest liable to the same duty and remaining vested in the successor, and in the case of a mortgagee upon the equity of redemption."

Therefore, it was not absolutely a bar against the claim of the Crown to Succession Duty; but it was simply a fixing of a time beyond which an innocent purchaser or mortgagee should no longer be liable. He appealed to the Committee whether that was not a fair and just proposition? Could they stand up and reject it, bearing in mind that the object that all had was as far as possible to assimilate the law and taxation upon real and personal property. Then the third sub-section said—

"This section is not to lessen or affect any liability of any successor to payment of duty, whether out of money received on any sale or mortgage, or otherwise, but a purchaser or mortgagee shall not, for the purpose of obtaining the exemption conferred by this section, be bound to see that the duty is discharged out of the money or other consideration paid or given as the consideration for the sale or mortgage."

Then the second clause which he bad the honour to propose gave great assistance indeed to the Authorities of the Inland Revenue in obtaining the payment of this Succession Duty. He could imagine that the answer which would be given by his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) to his contention that the claim of the Crown might fairly be, as he suggested, no worse off than the claim of a private subject, would be that the private subject was awake and would be able to ascertain through the relatives or friends when a certain sum of money was payable to him in the case of a death, but there was no way by which the Crown could tell that somebody had died upon whose death Succession Duty was to be paid. Supposing the testator left £5,000 to his daughter, which at her death was to go to A.B., A.B. know all about it from the first, and when the daughter died, he claimed the money. The State had not the same opportunity of obtaining information as to its rights, but when it did know them its authorities kept a good look out and enforced them. The State did know all about the matter with regard to Probate, but they had no information in regard to the Succession Duty unless it was furnished to them. Now, in the second clause—

"Power to deposit with Inland Revenue copies of documents not admitted to probate, and thereupon liability for duty after specified period to cease,"—

it was provided that—

"Any person may cause an attested copy, which shall be exempted from stamp duty, of any document which creates a liability for payment of any duty, other than a testamentary document admitted to probate, to be deposited with the Commissioners of Inland Revenue at their principal office in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, as the case may require, and such copy shall be received at that office."

The other day, when he was speaking on the subject of the Succession Duties, and having this clause in mind, he suggested that it would be an admirable thing if, as regards all settlements and wills, copies were sent to Somerset House. This clause, though it was not imperative, enabled trustees to do this, and it would have the same effect practically as if it were imperative. The result would be that the numerous evasions of the Succession Duty of which he spoke last week would not occur again, because the authorities at Somerset House would have the same means of ascertaining what money was payable by way of Succession Duty as they had with regard to the money payable by way of Probate Duty. In order to encourage trustees to send in these copies, it was proposed by this clause that—

"After a receipt has been given by an officer of Inland Revenue for a copy deposited as authorized by this section, of a document, no person shall, in the character of trustee, executor, or administrator, be liable for payment of any duty under such document after the expiration of six years next following the date of the deposit, or the date of the death by which the duty becomes payable, whichever date last happens."

A trustee would, for his own protection, do all in his power to give information to the authorites as to the person on whose death duties would be payable, and, having done so, he was to be exonerated at the end of six years after that person had died from all claim. He thought his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General would see that that clause gave ample security to the authorities; it certainly gave them far better security than they had at present. He believed that for every £1 they might lose under this arrangement they would gain £20 by avoiding the evasions which at present took place, because there was now no means of bringing to the knowledge of the authorities when Death Duties became payable. It was proposed also that—

"After a receipt has been given by an officer of Inland Revenue for a copy, deposited as authorized by this section, of any document, no person shall be liable for payment of any duty thereunder after the expiration of twelve years next following the date of the deposit, or the date of the death by which the duty becomes payable, whichever date last happens."

The 3rd clause carried on the same idea; it related to wills. The 2nd clause they would see related to documents which were not wills, not testamentary documents. The 3rd clause provided, among other things, that—

"No person shall, under a testamentary document admitted to probate, or under letters of administration, be liable for payment of any duty after the expiration of twelve years from the date of the duty first becoming payable."

Then came a clause which was further designed to assist the Inland Revenue authorities; it enabled an officer of the Inland Revenue to apply to any trustee of any document which had been deposited, for information as to whether any of the persons were dead upon whose decease duties were payable, and if the trustee did not give the information within two calandar months, then the burden of proof was to be thrown upon him that the person or persons were still living, otherwise the duty was payable. They could scarcely invent any machinery which would be better calculated to insure the State against loss, but that was not all that this clause did for the benefit of the authorities. The 5th clause—

"Statutory advertisements for creditors made applicable to claims for duty in like manner as to other debts of a deceased person—"

provided that—

"A claim against the estate of a testator or intestate for payment of any duty accrued due from such testator or intestate in his lifetime, or otherwise than under a testamentary disposition made by him, or otherwise than under his intestacy, as the case may be, shall be deemed a claim within the meaning of the twenty-ninth section of the Act twenty-second and twenty-third years of Her Majesty, chapter twenty-eight, and accordingly an executor or administrator shall not be liable to the Crown for payment of any such duty further or otherwise than he would be liable in case the same were a debt due to any other creditor."

And the 6th and last clause—

"Advertisements for information may be issued by Inland Revenue,"

provided that Inland Revenue authorities themselves might, if they thought fit, advertise at the expense of the estate for the information that they had been unable to acquire. He put it to his hon. Friends, whether they could really show any good cause for resisting these clauses? There might be some verbal alterations which it was desirable to make; but the effect of those clauses was an effect which they all professed to be anxious to secure, and which he did not think there was a single person who had not pledged himself to his constituents to endeavour, if he could, to secure. In the first place, these clauses enabled the transfer of real estate to be made without the present hardship entailed upon purchasers of being obliged to investigate the title to as far back as 1853. In the next place, they enabled trustees and executors, who had done their duty in the way appointed, to escape personal liability after a certain time; and, in the third place, they secured to the authorities that information with regard to the settlement of personal property which they had not at present, and without which they were every year losing large sums of money. He begged to move the first clause which stood on the Paper. New Clause—

(Purchasers and mortgagees exempted from liability to Succession Duty after a specified period.)

(i.) "Notwithstanding the forty-second section of 'The Succession Duty Act, 1853,' or any other provision contained in that Act, real property, or any estate or interest therein, shall not, as against a purchaser for valuable consideration, or a mortgagee, remain charged with or liable to payment of any sum for Succession Duty after the expiration of 12 years from the date of the death, upon the happening of which the duty may (whether before or after the passing of this Act) have become payable; or if such period of 12 years expires within two years from the date of the passing of this Act, then after the expiration of two years from the last-mentioned date.

(ii.) "The duty (if any) unpaid at the expiration of such period of 12 years or two years, as the case may be, shall be payable and paid by the successor personally, and shall become charged substitutively upon any other estate or interest liable to the same duty and remaining vested in the successor, and in case of a mortgage upon the equity of redemption.

(iii.) "This section is not to lessen or affect any liability of any successor to payment of duty, whether out of money received on any sale or mortgage, or otherwise, but a purchaser or mortgagee shall not, for the purpose of obtaining the exemption conferred by this section, be bound to see that the duty is discharged out of the money or other consideration paid or given as the consideration for the sale or mortgage,"—(Mr. Sydney Gedge,)

—brought up, and read a first time. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."

hoped his hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Sydney Gedge) would not think it was out of any disrespect to him, if he did not follow him through all the details of his argument as re- gards the subsidiary clauses. He did not deny that the clauses were framed with care, though he thought it was probable they would require further consideration when they came to be regarded from a detailed point of view. He assured his hon. Friend that he had no intention of going back from anything he had said on the last occasion when he addressed the House on this subject. Further consideration, however, had led him to the conclusion that, although his hon. Friend was perfectly right and justified in bringing the subject forward, it was impossible for the Government to assent to these clauses being inserted in the present Bill; but he was sure he could say, on behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the matter would receive full consideration. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Stockport would remember that in "another place" a Bill had been introduced with regard to land transfer. He would also remember that that Bill, and other proposals of the same kind, proposed to deal with the charges on land. It did seem to him (Sir Richard Webster) that the matter was one which required very careful consideration; he was not at all sure that the mere limit of 12 years, or any actual number of years, would be a sufficient safeguard. He admitted, to a certain extent, that the limit would be sufficient to insure a proper amount of duty being paid to the Revenue. His hon. Friend had referred, with force and fairness, to the question of the investigation of title. He (Sir Richard Webster) admitted that it might be well worthy of consideration whether or not some steps should be taken to relieve parties other than those beneficially interested from responsibility in the matter. The hon. Gentleman said that this was the proper place for introducing these clauses. In one sense it was, because the Bill did deal with the Succession Duties; but the hon. Gentleman would pardon him (Sir Richard Webster) if he pointed out that the Bill only dealt with the quantity of Succession Duty; it did not deal with the incidence of the duty—it did not say how far it was to be charged on land, how far it was to affect succeeding interests, and, in fact, did not deal with any of the difficulties which his hon. Friend had justly pointed out surrounded this subject. Therefore, while he (Sir Richard Webster) did not suggest that they had no wish to consider the question fairly, it was impossible for him, and he thought it was impossible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to accept these clauses at the present stage, nor could they give them the amount of discussion they were entitled to when they were brought up, as they had been, as new clauses to this Bill. He was sure his hon. Friend would not think he made any complaint against him for having brought up these clauses as new clauses. If it were necessary to go into greater detail, he thought he could make good some minor objections to the framing of the clause; but probably it would be more waste of time to do so. He would only say, in conclusion, that he recognized there was a grievance requiring to be dealt with; whether it was to be met in this particular way was a matter in which he must exercise his own judgment. The Government had every intention to look into the matter, and to deal with it; and, therefore, he asked the hon. Member, unless he thought he had not been sufficiently fairly met, not to press these clauses to a Division.

said, his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General had met him very kindly and fairly; but, after all, he had only promised, on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to give the matter full consideration. Of course, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government gave full consideration to anything a Member brought forward; but he wanted something more than full consideration—he wanted favourable consideration. He would like to know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer agreed with him in the object he had in view? [Mr. GOSCHEN: Hear, hear!] He was glad to receive that approving cheer from the right hon. Gentleman; and if he felt sure that the Government would endeavour to carry out the object of these clauses when the Land Transfer Bill was brought in, and would not put the matter off again, he would not think of dividing the House.

said, he had the greatest pleasure in giving his hon. Friend not only the assurance that full consideration, but that most favourable consideration would be given to this subject. Indeed, he should be glad to be a competitor with the hon. Gentleman not only in this matter, but in every matter which tended to cheapen the transfer of land to the utmost, and to cut down the charges. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. On the Motion of Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, the following Amendments made:—In Schedule 1, page 16, leave out—

"Mortgage of any stock or marketable security—

	£ s. d.
For every £5,000, and, also, for any fractional part of £5,000, of the amount secured	0 10 0;"
After line 27, insert—"Equitable mortgage.—Agreement or memorandum under hand only relating to the deposit of any title deeds or instruments, constituting or being evidence of the title to any property whatever (other than stock or marketable security), or creating a charge on such property—
For every £100, and any fractional part of £100, of the amount secured	0 1 0;"

Schedule 2, leave out page 17 and down to line 21 in page 18, inclusive (29 and 30 Vic. c. 64, s. 13); page 18, after line 21, insert—

34 and 35 Vic. c. 4.

An Act to amend "The Stamp Act, 1870," in relation to Foreign securities, mortgages of stock, and proxy papers.

In part, namely, section five.

in rising to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said, it was perfectly monstrous that the country should be paying something like £100,000 per annum in order that Irish landlords should be compelled to do what English and Scotch landlords did from choice; and, therefore, in any real effort to further economy and to reduce that expenditure he should be very glad to join. But while this Bill went a little way in the direction of economy, it contained proposals which amounted to a reversal in some particulars—and important particulars—of the Land Act of 1881; and it was because it contained those proposals that he now made the Motion which stood on the Paper in his name. The first part of the Bill dealt with the County Courts; and it proposed to set up these in lieu of the Sub-Commission Courts. At the present time the County Court Judges, with the aid of a Court Valuer, had the power of dealing with such cases as might come before them. This Bill proposed to take away the option or choice from the tenant as to which Court he would go into, and to compel him to go into the County Court whether he liked it or no. In the past, he and his solicitor had been able to decide which Court they would go into; but that would no longer be so if this Bill became law; and he said deliberately that such a reversal of one of the most important parts of the Act of 1881 was certain to produce the very worst feeling all throughout Ireland. It was very well known to everyone who had had anything to do with the Land Act of 1881 that the framers of that Act originally intended that the County Courts should be the Courts for dealing with those cases; but a little consideration convinced the framers of the Act that it was impossible for those Courts to do the work, and the Courts of the Sub-Commissioners were brought into play. What were the facts regarding the County Courts at this moment? He did not see how they were to do land work. In the first place, many of the County Court Judges were very old men. He knew that several of them were upwards of 80 years of age, and that the ordinary civil bill, criminal, and licensing business which came before them was as much as they could well get through, and how the Government could ask them to take up this new business passed his comprehension. In Kerry the County Court Judge was practically occupied six months in the year, and he took two months' holiday, which nobody would say was too much. He would leave the House to say how much time the Judge would have to dispose of the land business of the county. He contended that this part of the Bill would destroy the option of the tenant, and thus strike a blow at the Act of 1881. The County Courts were, at the present time, sufficiently occupied with civil and criminal business to tax the powers of the Judges; and to add the land business to what they already did would be to produce the block in those Courts which now existed in the Sub-Commissioners' Courts. In the Sub-Commissioners' Court the legal Commissioner did not interfere unless a point of law was raised, or unless the two lay Commissioners differed as to value. It was only when one of those two things happened that the legal Commissioner gave his verdict. All this, however, was precisely reversed by the Bill, and the two Court valuers who were to sit with the County Court Judge were not to have any power save that of reporting to the County Court Judge, who would have the sole power of giving the decision. It turned the whole thing upside down, and reversed the order of procedure. There was a third objection to the first part of the Bill. He had never attacked, and did not intend to attack that night, either the administration of the law or those who had to administer it. It was, however, one thing for him to have confidence in the County Court Judges as land Judges, and quite another thing to induce the people to have confidence in them. The mere fact that the tenants of Ireland had not chosen to go into the County Courts when they had the option was proof that they preferred the Sub-Commissioners' Courts, and that they had more confidence in them. On those three grounds he objected to the first part of the Bill, as he considered it contained bad proposals. As regarded the second part of the Bill, dealing with the question of the Appeal Court, he looked upon it as of the utmost importance. It was already a monstrous grievance and great hardship for the Irish landlord and the Irish tenant alike that so much time should elapse before the appeals from Sub-Commissioners could be dealt with. He believed that there were now before the Appeal Court decisions which were given as far back as 1885, and the appeals with regard to them had not yet been heard. What did the Bill propose to do? At the present time three members of the Land Commission must hear the appeals; but the Bill proposed that in future two should hear them. He did not see how that would relieve the block. He ventured to make a proposal to the Government on that point. If the Government admitted—which they could not but admit—the gravity of the situation, why should not they constitute a fresh Court of Appeal? Why should not Mr. Justice O'Hagan and Mr. Wrench sit in one Court, and Mr. Justice Monroe and Mr. Litton sit in the other? If the Government really meant to expedite the work by removing the block and do away with the present grievance, they had the machinery at their hands, without appointing a single new man, to furnish two Courts of Appeal. The most important part of the Bill, apart from the County Courts clauses, was that which abolished the Purchase Commission. He (Mr. T. W. Russell) looked upon that Commission as one of the few things in Ireland which had really worked well, and now the Government proposed to abolish it. In the year 1885 the House placed £5,000,000 at the disposal of the Irish tenants for the purchase of the fee-simple of their holdings. Since that time loans had been issued to the amount of £2,481,470; loans had been sanctioned to the amount of £1,475,801; and there were applications under investigation amounting to £509,417, making a total of close upon £4,500,000. These loans were spread over every Province of the country. To show how the Commissioners had worked, he might say that the total amount of interest and instalments which accrued to the 1st of November last was £50,910, and of this there was now unpaid £1,534, of which less than £60 represented instalments due on the 1st of May last. There had never been an Act of Parliament for Ireland passed in recent times which had worked so well as the Act which dealt with this point, and now the Government were going to abolish the Commission appointed to administer it. The work was to be handed over to Mr. Litton and Mr. Wrench, who were in arrear with the appeals to a tremendous extent, and they were expected to under- take the double duty. He urged the Government to pause before they did anything of the sort, and suggested that if they were bent upon abolishing the Commission the work should be given over to the Landed Estates Court, which had two Judges, and also a vast number of clerks and highly-paid officials doing practically nothing at all. He believed there was hardly an official who went over to Ireland who was not struck with it. At the head of this Court was Mr. Justice Monroe, who had the confidence of most people interested in this question. In five years that bloated establishment, the Landed Estates Court, had managed to deal with 1,057 abstracts of title, 2,084 conveyances, and £6,000,000 of purchase money had passed through its hands. Surely any mercantile establishment would be able to do that work. The Government would promote economy if instead of abolishing the Purchase Commission and handing the work over to Messrs. Wrench and Litton, they amalgamated the Purchase Commission and the Landed Estates Court, at the head of which Judge Monroe would be. The Court would certainly have the confidence of the people. It seemed to him that the Bill, looked at as a whole, had every appearance of not having been carefully thought out, and he was curious to know who had recommended it; and whether a single Irish Member, representing either the landlords or tenants, had been consulted with regard to it. He hoped that the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Madden) would get up and say whether the Land Commission had been consulted. He did not believe that they had. Then where did the Government get the Bill? This was one of the most important questions that could come before the House of Commons, and the Government, instead of pressing the Bill forward, should appoint some additional temporary Sub-Commissioners, in order that the block in the Land Court might be relieved at once. They might then put the Land Commission into the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill for another year, and that would give them time to face one of the gravest issues in Irish politics. The Government would have met with little or no opposition if they had looked to economy and amalgamation instead of bringing in a Bill which reversed the Act of 1881, did not expedite the hearing of appeals at all, and abolished the only institution which had been an unqualified success in Ireland. He begged to move the Motion which stood in his name. Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. T. W. Russell.) Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

said, he agreed with the observations of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell). He believed that the Bill was entirely unnecessary, and that the wisest course would have been to have put a clause in the Expiring Laws Continuance Act, continuing the Land Commission for another year, and to have appointed several additional Sub-Commissioners, with a view of removing the block which was admitted to exist both in the Appeal Court and the Sub-Commission Courts. Why had the Government not adopted that course? No explanation had as yet been offered why they had avoided so very obvious a course and had resorted to such a clumsy contrivance which this Bill presented. The first and second clauses of the Bill were about as objectionable attempts at legislation as he had ever known. Hitherto those who applied to have fair rents fixed had been able to choose a tribunal in which they had confidence. It was proposed by the first clause to take away this choice from the persons interested, and thereby to destroy with one blow all confidence in the administration of the Act of 1881. If people were forced into a tribunal in which they had no confidence, they would lose confidence in the administration of the law. The confidence in the administration of other Acts besides the Land Act could hardly afford such a rude shock as that now proposed to be given. He was sorry to say that the confidence in the administration of law in Ireland generally was very weak indeed. It was said every day that the people had no respect for the law. He quite agreed they had not. It would be extraordinary if they had. This Bill was a specimen of the way the law treated them. The choice which the people had hitherto exercised had been found to work well. They were to be deprived of that choice, and their cases were to be allotted between the Courts, just as the Lord Lieutenant might think fit. His Excellency might send the cases of particular individuals who might be obnoxious to the County Court Judges before County Court Judges. He might pack the tribunals in so far as he could send certain cases to certain Judges who would give such decisions as he desired. The decisions might be regulated beforehand. He did not say that such a thing was in contemplation, but he maintained that it was a matter of the greatest consequence to the Government of Ireland that they should completely preclude the supposition that they intended any such thing. They found these Tory Amendments in italics, though it was difficult to imagine why they were put in that way. The Lord Lieutenant was to have power, practically, to pay as he thought fit the County Court Judge in proportion to the work he sent him. How would that proposal work? If the County Court Judge was one the Lord Lieutenant could rely upon to give decisions, satisfactory to him and unsatisfactory to the tenant farmers, the Lord Lieutenant would send him a large number of cases. If, on the contrary, he could not rely on him to give satisfactory decisions, the state of things would be reversed. But the County Court Judge was the Chairman of Quarter Sessions—the Chairman of the Magistrates of the County—and, of course, could be relied upon to give such decisions as would please his confrères on the Bench, and, therefore, as a general rule, he would not only have as many cases as he thought fit, but he would have a very high allowance added to his salary. At present, as hon. Members were aware, these salaries were rather small. They were aware that the County Court Judges in England got from £1,500 to £2,000 a-year, and that in Ireland these gentlemen did not receive so much by at least £1,000 a-year. In spite of this fact, the County Court Judges were not without dignity. He had never known a County Court Judge in England tolerating any one calling him "My Lord," but that mode of address is not only tolerated by the Irish County Court Judges, but even encouraged. What did it matter to them that there was a difference of nearly £1,000 a-year between "His Lordship" and the plain "Your Honour" of England. These Irish County Court Judges, who were so underpaid, would have now a prospect of a very consider. able addition being made to their salaries. Public opinion in England with regard to these gentlemen was very likely to be led astray, because Irish County Court Judges would be looked upon in the same light as English County Court Judges, whereas their functions were very different. In England there was no County Court Judge who was Chairman of Quarter Sessions, and there was not one who occupied the position that the County Court Judges occupied in Ireland. It must be remembered that the County Court Judges in Ireland had to hear appeals coming under the Crimes Act of last year, and yet the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) practically took the power of making a considerable and almost a surreptitious addition to their salaries. That was a thing which would lead to the suspicion of corruption. He did not say that anything corrupt was contemplated, but clearly the people of Ireland would be inclined to think that these extra salaries were not being paid by the right hon. Gentleman to persons who had to hear appeals from his Crimes Act Courts without a corrupt motive. To the minds of the Irish people, that was the plain and obvious use to which these new powers would be put, and it was for the Government to say whether they would leave themselves open to the imputation that they were corrupting these Judges. The Bill was a bad one from beginning to end. It was brought forward under the plea of removing the strain upon the Land Commission Courts, but it simply provided a tribunal in which the tenants would have no confidence whatever. No doubt the landlords would have confidence in it, but certainly the tenants would not. Now, to come to the question of appeals, if the measure was bad so far as it affected the trial of land cases in the first instance, it was still worse in regard to the arrangement it made for the trial of appeals. At present there was an appeal to three Commissioners—Mr. Justice O' Hagan being practically Chairman of the Court. Well, what was it proposed to substitute for that simple tribunal, the only objection to which, as the hon. Member for South Tyrone had pointed out, was slow in operation, and could not overtake its work? It was proposed that the Lord Lieutenant should have power to appoint as a tribunal to hear appeals two of the Commissioners; that was the idea of the Government, instead of meeting the difficulty in a practical way and forming a second Court of Appeal, or by adding new strength to the existing Court. There were 14 or 15 Judges idle who could be sent to the assistance of Mr. Justice O'Hagan and a second Court of two or three Commissioners. Such a plan, however, never seemed to occur to the Government. As the hon. Member for South Tyrone had pointed out, the proposal they made, if carried out, would not have the effect of expediting the appeals by a single hour. The effect certainly would be to get rid of Mr. Justice O'Hagan, and the reason was that, obviously, his connection with appeals in cases affecting reductions of rent last year was not satisfactory. The object of the decision of the Government was evidently to enable the Lord Lieutenant to appoint as a Court of Appeal Mr. Litton and a gentleman with a very appropriate name, that is Mr. Wrench, and leave Mr. Justice O'Hagan out in the cold. But, however much the Government might succeed in their proposal, it would be found that they were not expediting the hearing of appeals in any shape or way. It was said that there might be special cases to hear. Hon. Members in this House probably had some knowledge of special cases. They know what appeals were on special cases from the County Court or from a Magistrates' Court. They knew that an appeal on a special case, no matter from what Court it came, was illusory, and rarely served the ends of justice. How was a special case got up? Why, the Judge on the Bench made out a statement of what he considered to be the case before him. He stated the facts as he thought fit—as they appeared to his mind—which might be altogether different from the real facts of the case, and altogether different from the way in which they would appear to a jury. The County Court Judge in his statement could state, if he liked, the appellant out of Court; and then, for fear he should miss the first shot, this Bill would absolutely give him power, which did not exist in any provision dealing with appeals that he (Mr. Commins) had ever seen before, because it was provided the County Court Judge could send up any amendment of the cases he had stated that he thought desirable. That would be a temptation to a Judge to state appellants out of Court in an off-hand way, knowing that they would have an opportunity of amending the statement afterwards if necessary. Again, having sent up a special case, if a Judge found that it had not sufficiently stated a suitor out of Court, and had not properly fortified the decision he had given in the first instance, there was a direct temptation to him to amend the case in order more effectually to state the appellant out of Court. In short, the County Court Judge would always have it in his power to render an appeal nugatory and illusory. This provision alone was sufficient to destroy the confidence of the Irish tenantry in the County Court Judge and to condemn the Bill. The Bill provided a kind of salve for the wounded vanity of Mr. Justice O'Hagan, who was to be shelved if the County Court Judge was to be empowered to state a case before a superior Court, and Mr. Justice O'Hagan was to be consoled by being allowed to sit on these appeals in the superior Court. This seemed of a piece with the rest of the provisions in the Bill. Mr. O'Hagan was the Head Commissioner of the Court as at present constituted, and had the place of honour; but his influence was to be destroyed, because he was to be turned over in a superior Court, where, instead of being one of three and the presiding authority, he would be one of four in a Divisional Court, which he would enter as a junior, and would be without influence at all, although his colleagues would know less about the matters with which they would have to deal under this measure than he would. His three colleagues would take precedence over him, and would be able to over-rule his opinion. Therefore, it might be said that Mr. Justice O'Hagan was got rid of in both Courts—he was got rid of in one, and might be overruled in the other. This Bill was bad altogether. It was a measure calculated to be turned to every bad purpose. It was full of suspicious objects, and it would seem as though it were intended to neutralize whatever good there was in the Act of 1881. It would destroy whatever confidence remained in that Act, and would do an immense amount of mischief, and, therefore, he agreed with the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone, who moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

said, he could not agree with the suggestion of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) and the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Roscommon (Mr. Commins), that the necessities of the present situation in Ireland as to the Land Court could be met sufficiently by merely increasing the number of Sub-Commissioners. He believed that if the Government took that course, they would be taking a course that would be lame and impotent. They had attempted, so far as he could gather, to deal with the matter in a more permanent way—in a manner which would give more permanence and uniformity to the Land Commission, and the decision of the Commissioners would meet with a very large amount of support. He, however, had no difficulty in understanding that no Bill dealing with the reconstitution of the Land Court or the powers of the Land Commission coming from that the Ministerial side of the House could be expected to satisfy hon. Members opposite. No doubt the Bill had entirely failed to satisfy the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Roscommon, but he (Mr. Macartney) would impress upon Her Majesty's Government that that was no reason why they should hesitate to deal with this question because there was a body of opinion in Ireland amongst all classes which were worth consulting on these matters, and which would entirely endorse the view of the Government. The hon. Member for South Tyrone had dealt with one or two objections to the Bill, and his observations had considerable force. He (Mr. Macartney) agreed with the hon. Member especially on one point, and as he (Mr. T. W. Russell) had made a suggestion to the Government with regard to the Bill, he (Mr. Macartney), if it was entertained, would venture to make another which he hoped the Government would equally consider. The hon. Member's first objection to the Bill was that the County Court Judges were at the present moment overworked. That might be so with regard to some of them, but it certainly was not the case with others. Even in the case of those who had sufficient work already to occupy their judicial capacity, they had the fact that under this Bill Sub-Commissioners already in existence, or some of them, would be there to assist the County Court Judges in dealing with any accumulation that might arise owing to the altered jurisdiction of the Court. The second objection of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, he thought, was one of great force, and was one which the Government, he trusted, would consider favourably—and the suggestion he had to make was with regard to this point. His suggestion would not, perhaps, altogether take away the objections of hon. Members opposite to the Bill, but, at any rate, it would deal effectually with the objections which were entertained amongst the large class of Irish tenant farmers who were desirous of seeing some settlement effected in this matter. The contention of the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone was, that the Bill upset the authority of the old Land Commission Court with regard to the power of the legal Commissioner in relation to the two lay Commissioners, and that it practically turned the Court topsy-turvy. He (Mr. Macartney) agreed with the hon. Gentleman that if the Bill were left as it had been drafted, and if the County Court Judge were left the sole authority for deciding upon questions of rent in Ireland, having a certain amount of regard to the advice of the two Assistant Commissioners who really acted as valuers, it would not be a tribunal that would sufficiently command the confidence of the people of Ireland, and that, therefore, he (Mr. Macartney) would be unable to give his support to it. But he would venture to suggest that the Government might meet the objection pointed out by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone by providing that in future the County Court Judge, when he sat as a Land Court for the purpose of hearing cases under this Act, the Court should be constituted exactly in the same way as the Special Commission Court was constituted at the present moment. Let the County Court Judge take the place of the legal Commissioner, but let him be assisted in Court by two Assistant Commissioners who would have the same power and authority with which the lay Commissioners were endowed at the present moment. He believed that if the Bill were altered to that extent, it would meet the views and reasonable desires, not of hon. Gentlemen opposite and those influenced, but, at all events, of a large proportion of the tenant farmers of Ireland. The third objection of the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone touched to a certain extent the credit of the County Court Judges, though the hon. Member had pursued that objection very moderately. He (Mr. Macartney) did not dispute that one or two County Court Judges were looked upon in Ireland as being, so to speak, landlords' men, and, on the other hand, there were some who were regarded with great suspicion by the landlords themselves. [Cries of "Name, name!"] If hon. Members would communicate with him, he should be happy to give them the names of the gentlemen he had in his mind. He did not like to give names openly in the House in such cases as this, as he thought that was a practice which ought to be put a stop to. The objection of his hon. Friend to the County Court Judges would probably be a great deal modified if the Court was reconstituted in the way he (Mr. Macartney) proposed. There was, no doubt, great objection to be taken with the Sub-Commission Court on this ground, that they might be in the same district of the country, the same Sub-Commission Court succeeding another and dealing on a totally different basis with rents. Nothing could be more unsatisfactory than such a state of things as that. It prevented, in the first place, settlements out of Court between landlords and tenants; and, in the next place, it created great dissatisfaction amongst the litigants when the decisions of the Court were not sufficiently sympathetic in character. He (Mr. Macartney) had endeavoured to acquaint himself with the feelings of those he represented on this question, and he believed their great desire was that there should be some permanence and uniformity impressed on the Land Commission and its operations in the country. He believed that a bonâ fide attempt was made in the Bill to affect these conditions; but while he was prepared to support the second reading, he should certainly reserve to himself the full right in Committee of moving an Amendment in the direction he had indicated with regard to the constitution of the County Court Judges' Courts. Now, the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone had spoken with regard to the clauses dealing with the Purchase Commission, and he (Mr. Macartney) certainly re-echoed everything the hon. Member had said. If he supposed for a moment that this Bill would put an end to the operations of the Purchase Commission, he should be against it; but what he gathered was that it only proposed to transfer the powers of those Commissioners. He did not think the proposed change was such as would induce him to oppose the Bill. He concurred with everything that had been said as to the desirability of giving greater power to the Landed Estates Court. He believed that the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone had suggested a solution of the difficulty with regard to appeals which might be adopted with a certain amount of benefit. The hon. Gentleman had put his objections to this part of the Bill very tersely and forcibly before the House, and the hon. Gentleman who followed had seemed to find his strongest objection to the Bill in the fact that the County Court Judges in Ireland had given way to too much vanity in encouraging persons to address them as "My Lord;" but that was not an argument which would weigh with him (Mr. Macartney) with sufficient strength to induce him to go into the Lobby against the Bill. He should support the Bill, because he believed that the Government had endeavoured to deal with this difficult and complicated subject in a straightforward manner. He did not agree with hon. Gentleman who suggested that the question should be dealt by the appointment of a large number of extra Sub-Commissioners, as he did not think the matter should be left till next year, when it might be more inconvenient, if not altogether impossible for the Administration to take it up.

said he was not surprised that the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Antrim (Mr. Macartney) did not intend to oppose the Bill; but the hon. Gentleman's attitude only emphasized the fact mentioned by the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell), that whereas all hon. Members, even of different opinions in the House, who in the slightest way pretended to represent the tenants' interests, were on the one side opposed to the Bill, there was yet an Irish Representative—one of the Irish landlords' Representatives—who would support it.

I am very sorry to have to interrupt the hon. Gentleman; but I must point out that I was not returned by landlords.

Will the hon. Gentleman have the hardihood to say in this House that he represents the views of the tenant farmers of Ireland?

Yes; 4,500 of them.

said, he would give the hon. Gentleman the greatest possible credit for the hardihood of that statement. If the hon. Gentleman was satisfied with the Bill as it stood, he probably was of opinion that the voice of the 86 Representatives from Ireland on the Opposition side of the House did not count for anything at all—that, probably, seemed to the hon. Member the strongest argument in favour of the passing of the Bill. He (Mr. Edward Harrington) recognized in the proposals of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) a means of improving the Bill, if they had to face it as a necessity; but surely the spirit of the Government in the construction of this Bill must have been a very bad one when they made up their minds to give to the County Court Judges of Ireland, who were landlords, and had entertained and exhibited the bitterest feelings against the protective combinations of the tenants, the power of fixing fair rents, and the power practically of overruling the opinion of the existing Courts. If they turned the County Court into a Sub-Commission and placed the County Court Judge in the position of the Legal President of the present Sub-Commission Court, it would be an improvement on the Bill, but it would be no improvement on the existing state of things, and such a proposal would be no answer to the objections the Irish Members raised against the Bill. The County Court, as a tribunal for the fixing of fair rents, had been tried and found wanting in Ireland. In only a few paltry cases had the County Court been entrusted with the fixing of fair rents, and he would presently tell them why. In certain districts in Ireland the block was so great in the ordinary Land Courts that some tenants who only paid small rents thought that they might run the risk of taking their cases to the County Court, and they had accordingly done so. The County Court Judges, in these cases, where the rent was a matter of paltry consideration and no big landlord had to be dealt with, had cut the rents down to the level at which the Sub-Commission were cutting them down on all sides. But that course had not been followed by Mr. Henn, whose name had been rather prominently before the public in connection with tha case of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt—Mr. Henn being a person who ought to be considered physically incapacitated for dealing with these matters at all, seeing that he was over 80 years of age. Three adventurous spirits had gone into Mr. Henn's Court to obtain the fixing of a fair rent, and with what result? Why, two of them had had their rents left as they were, whilst the third had had his raised. If it were left to the discretion of the tenants either to go to these County Court Judges or to the Laud Commission Court, the tenants would shun these County Courts as they would shun fire. Naturally, the County Court Judges who would have most time on their hands would be men like Mr. Henn, and these would be the men who would have the largest number of cases to dispose of, and would be more largely employed by the Government than anyone else, for two reasons. In the first place, because men of the disposition of Mr. Henn had taken care to raise the sentences of persons convicted under the Crimes Act who had appealed against their convictions, and were literally Bunting appellants out of Court; and, in the next place, because the experience the tenantry had of the action of these gentlemen in land. cases was in the highest degree unsatisfactory. The history of Mr. Henn in regard to the Land Act was that he had raised the rents of a hardy farmer who had gone before him. The Land Commission, rigged as it was proposed it should be by this Bill, would say—"Oh, here is a great chance to dispose of a large number of these rent applications; we will send them down to the County Court Judge, Mr. Henn, for he is the man who can dispose of them according to our desires." The hon. Member for South Antrim might say that the Bill was satisfactory to him, but he (Mr. Edward Harrington) might make bold to say that that was not as ufficient recommendation for the Bill to the Irish Party sitting on that (the Opposition) side of the House. He (Mr. Edward Harrington) would venture to give the House a sample of the knowledge and special fitness possessed by these County Court Judges for the duties they would have to discharge under this Bill, if it were passed in its present shape. Much had been heard recently about the burnings and levellings of houses at Glenbeigh; and would it be believed that County Court Judge Curran, who was one of these dignitaries addressed as "My Lord," had actually stated that the tenants of that district of Glenbeigh had nothing to complain of, for nowhere in that country did he see more comfortable and tidy farms, and more compact and well-built houses? Happily, in respect to this matter, he (Mr. Edward Harrington) spoke in the hearing of many hon. Members who had seen the Glenbeigh district, and of many who knew that the cabins of the peasantry, which had been necessarily built of sonic strength, to resist the storms prevalent there, had been built by the peasantry themselves, and that the productive part of the soil had mostly been dragged into existence on barren spots by the energy and perseverance of the tenantry. When they found tenants paying £54 a-year rent for land in respect of which, only a few years ago, no more than £2 was paid, and when they heard Judges expressing such opinions with regard to land of this kind as they had heard from Judge Curran, all he could say was that such gentlemen had too superficial a knowledge of the Land Question, or were utterly incapable of forming any opinion with regard to it. What experience of a judicial character outside, perhaps, a Dublin Police Court had such men as Judge Curran to give them the right to fix fair rents? None whatever, and the men who would go out to bring in reports to them would have no voice whatever in the decisions. The Irish Members might be beaten on this measure, and, if so, he should very much regret, for the peace of Ireland, that the Government had made this proposal. He should very much regret it if it was intended to persevere with the Bill; but yet he hoped, if they did persevere, that they would modify it in the direction indicated by the hon. Member for South Tyrone and the hon. Member who had just spoken—modify that special and odious clause in it which would give the County Court Judge an absolute and uncontrolled right of deciding what rent the tenant farmer had to pay. There was another part of the Bill to which he should like to call attention, and that was that part which sounded the death-knell of the Land Purchase Commission. It was not often that they (the Nationalist Members) found themselves in a position in this House to speak with anything like laudation, or even in a tolerant sense, of any judicial institutions in Ireland. They were in the habit of giving credit where they could conscientiously do so; however, he must say that though they frequently grumbled at judicial institutions, it was because they found them essentially wrong, partizans being appointed to preside in them, and not because they had any chronic disposition to grumble. The men who had been appointed to administer the Purchase Act could not be said to be partizans on the side of the Nationalist Members; on the contrary, if ever they had anything to do with these gentlemen at all, they were men who were opposed to them in politics, and yet they (the Nationalist Members) freely acknowledged that with the process which had been brought to bear upon them, Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Lynch had tried to exercise a useful discretion in the administration of the Purchase Act. What was the lesson the Government now sought to teach the people of Ireland? Why, it was this, that the moment the Government discerned that the people displayed confidence in a Court they proposed to abolish it. It must be remembered that this question of purchase was a vital one for the people. The spirit of the Purchase Act of 1885 was this, not that they should send two Commissioners to value a farm and say what was the fair purchase rent for the tenant to pay the landlord and report that; but what was done was to allow the landlord to keep a screw on the tenant, and hand to the Sheriff executing the eviction decree a document of agreement for the purchase of the land. The Government stepped in and did not ask the Purchase Commissioners to say—"What is the value of this land?" but what the debtors' security was. In appraising the land, the house that the tenant had built, the fences he had raised, and the fruitful industry he had bestowed upon the land was scored against him, because all that could be converted into money, and would represent his loathing and unwillingness to leave. He (Mr. Edward Harrington) only digressed into those matters to show that there was a great necessity that they should have upon this Purchase Commission men who were not suspected of being mere partizans, and if they took Mr. Justice O'Hagan away from the Commission what did they leave? They left two men, and those alone, who had given a fatal interpretation to a recent Act of Parliament, which interpretation, he ventured to say, was the cause of most of the trouble existing in Ireland at the present time. They know that Mr. Justice O'Hagan did not agree with those two Judges, and that his interpretation of the Act was favourable to the tenants, and they now took away that Judge in whom the tenants had some confidence—although not a strong, overweening confidence—and placed him in another Court to be overshadowed by other Judges, giving two landlord partizans the working of a very essential part of the Act of 1881—namely, the Purchase Clauses. There were many points which suggested themselves against this measure. He (Mr. Edward Harrington) had made out a list of County Court Judges in Ireland. He had made it out from directories, in order to find out whether they were Justices of the Peace, where their residences were, and what were the clubs they belonged to, as he had imagined that this would give him a very instructive guide as to the politics and prejudices of these gentlemen. He confessed, however, that the result of his search was not evidence which he could put forward in the House formally in debate, but it was strong enough to excite the prejudices of the people of Ireland against these Judges in the performance of the functions it was proposed to require them to discharge. There was evidence already of prejudice on the part of the people, in that they had abstained from going into the County Courts with land cases just as they would have abstained from plunging into fire. But the Government now sought to force the people into these Courts, regardless of the fact that the County Court Judges had endeavoured to strengthen the prejudice excited against themselves as they had in the process of law aped at Quarter Sessions the Judges of Assizes in making declarations against the political organizations and combinations of the tenants in reference to the payment of rent. It was only necessary to search the files of a few prominent English newspapers to which scraps of Irish news were sent, which it was thought by those who catered for those journals would be acceptable to the palate of the English people, to find that these gentlemen from time to time made official pronouncements and declarations against the National League.

The Pope agreed with them.

said, there were a great many phenomenal circunstances taking place just now. It was surprising indeed to find the Pope in agreement with the Conservative Party; but it capped the climax of all phenomena when they found the hon. Member opposite in agreement with the Pope. There was plenty of evidence to show that the County Court Judges had thought it to be their duty to utter tirades against the National League. The hon. Gentleman opposite had not been strictly correct in his interruption, although he had no doubt that the hon. Member was a sedulous student of the utterances of the Pope. It was to be hoped that the Pope was an equally sedulous student of the utterances of the hon. Member. But, as a matter of fact, the County Court Judges had condemned the National League when it was recognized as a legal organization, and there was this one fact he wished to call attention to—namely, that it could be ascertained and would be ascertained—because they were not going to run away with this Bill in a hurry—to what extent these County Court Judges were offshoots of the landlord Party and owed their position to such influence as was brought to bear upon the Government by haunting the Lobbies of this House and constantly importuning Members of the House and of the Party in power. He thought that the position of remonstrance that the Irish Members occupied in connection with this question was one consistent with their duty to Ireland. It was one consistent with the attitude they had assumed all along. It was the fashion to call them agitators; but the Government themselves took every trouble to add to the volume of agitation in Ireland. They took hold of that in which the people had confidence in order to demolish it, whilst, at the same time, they put in its place that in which the people had no confidence whatever—something which they were utterly prejudiced against. But the Irish Members were strong enough to meet the Government on these points, and if the Government disputed the wishes of those who represented the tenant farmers and sought to force the tenants to go before a Court in which they had no confidence, the Nationalist Party would take care of the tenants, in spite of them, if the tenants would rely upon themselves and their combinations. The tenantry would never be left without someone to lead them.

said, he did not like the debate to conclude without giving expression to a word or two. He was sure that the tenant farmers of Ireland would prefer that the Land Act should be altogether repealed rather than that they should have to depend upon the County Court Judges. Let them just take the case of Judge Henn. He was a very old man, and those who knew him where perfectly well aware that he was entirely unfitted by age to fulfil the functions of a Judge in the Land Court effectually. In addition, it so happened that he was a landlord, and was one of the most perfect types of the placeman who was governed by Castle rule. He (Mr. Harris) had often been appealed to by tenants previous to the passing of the Act of 1881, asking whether it would be advisable for them to go into a Court in order to try and get compensation for improvements, and to obtain the advantages which the Land Act of 1870 was supposed to confer upon the tenants of Ireland, and he had no doubt that that Act of 1870 would have done a great deal of good in its time had it not been for the fact that the County Court Judges had put themselves into direct opposition to it. Mr. Judge Henn, in a special manner, had ignored the rights of the tenants altogether. Judge Henn was, as he (Mr. Harris) had pointed out, a landlord, and in fulfilling his duties to the county he went from one landlord's house to another. He was of themselves, and the tenants would not all think of going into his Court, nor would they think of taking advantage of the Act of 1881 at all, if they were compelled to come under the jurisdiction of that gentleman. He (Mr. Harris) believed this Bill to be part and parcel of a system for the oppression and extermination of the tenant farmers of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) appointed the District Magistrates, and put immense powers into their hands under the Coercion Act, and, as they had heard to-night, he put these officials under a right hon. and gallant Gentleman as Parliamentary Under Secretary, who was an Orangeman, and, therefore, in enmity with people, so that it would seem altogether as if the right hon. Gentleman intended to give unity and adhesion to the landlords in making war upon the tenants of Ireland, and as though he did not wish to give any fair play at all to the tenants. It seemed as though his desire was to put down the tenantry and prevent them from obtaining the advantages of the Act of 1881. The right hon. Gentleman had made the most strenuous endeavours possible to crush down the friends of the tenant farmers, so that he (Mr. Harris) did not at all wonder at the new phase of the operation visible in this Bill. It was not to be hoped that the County Court Judges would assist the Irish people to any appreciable extent, or that they would afford any benefit whatever to the tenant farmers. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had any desire to facilitate the action and to save time, instead of introducing these County Court Judges, he would not, as the hon Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) had said, have appointed two Sub-Commissioners to act under the presidency of the County Court Judge, but simply have referred these land cases to a special jury of five persons taken from the ordinary jury panel, and left them to adjudicate as between the landlords and tenants. The expense of that system would have been very little. The adoption of this principle would, he insisted, be found to facilitate business in such a way that the present Bill would have been of some use to the Irish tenants, instead of being a nullity, as he was afraid it would be. He (Mr. Harris) was glad to hear the hon. Member for South Tyrone making such a cogent and liberal appeal as that which he had to-night addressed to the Government; and he had hoped that, with regard to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Mr. Macartney) and other hon. Members opposite, that gradually some right feeling would have come over them, and would have guided them in dealing with this matter—would have induced them to act together with hon. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House—so as to have induced them to act upon principles outside ordinary religious difficulties. If the Government was able to sustain itself by appealing to the Orangemen on one side in memory of King William, and then to the Pope on the other side—

The opinions of the Pope to which the hon. Member is referring have nothing whatever to do with the subject before the House.

That is just what I think. With reference to the ability of the County Court Judges to decide such leases as these, he had some knowledge of what the County Court Judges in Ireland were. Lawyers were a very ignorant set of men—[Laughter]—well, outside their profession, lawyers were the most ignorant men he had ever met with; and perhaps it was that, in order to be a good lawyer, it was necessary that gentlemen should give all their attention to the law. In the Land Courts there were other questions besides questions of law to be considered; questions such as the location and quality of a farm had to be taken into account; and the very worst body of men for the consideration of those questions which could be selected were, to his mind, lawyers. On the other hand, the presence of a lawyer amongst a jury of five such as he suggested, would be of great value is directing the verdict, so far as questions of law were concerned. The legal knowledge of the County Court Judges would be of service in assisting and directing the juries. He could safely say that there was the strongest desire amongst the peasants in the district in which he lived to settle down and attend to their domestic affairs. They desired to live in peace and comfort with the world and with their neighbours; but the introduction of change after change in such matters as the Land Law had the effect of unsettling and preventing them from becoming peaceful and quiet. He trusted that the Unionist Party would bear in mind the evils likely to arise under this Bill. There was one thing, at all events, they might be fully satisfied on, and that was that the Irish people would accept this Bill in conjunction with other measures of a coercive character. Hon. Members opposite thought that such measures as this were calculated to satisfy the Irish people, and make them turn round to the side of law and order; but such ideas were absurd. Finally, he appealed to the Government to pause ere they plunged such a county as Galway, which had shown signs of becoming again peaceful and orderly, but which, instead of being one of the quietest, was one of the most disorderly counties in consequence of the action of the judicial authorities, into a condition of fresh disturbance.

said, he did not wish to repeat the arguments of the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) in opposing the Bill to-night; but he desired to point out that there were one or two questions which the hon. Member had put to the House, to which he trusted an answer would be given. The first question wits that the Government would say where the Bill had come from. He was not at all sure that the Government would answer this question; but he could not help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour), who usually thought things out for himself, could not have done so on this occasion, or he would not have brought in such a Bill as this. He (Mr. Lea) desired to know whether the Government had in any way consulted or considered the Land Commission in connection with it, because surely the Commission which had been charged with so important a work, and had carried it out with considerable success, ought, at all events, to have been consulted when there was a block in the Land Court which it was sought to remove. It seemed to him that from every quarter of the House this measure met with opposition. The hon. Member for South Antrim (Mr. Macartney) stated that he was going to vote for the second reading, but, at the same time, pointed out that the Bill required amendment in several very important particulars. It was on condition that it would be so amended that hon. Members had promised to vote for it. The hon. Member had asked whether the Special Commissioners were to be associated with the County Court Judge in an equal manner as they were at present associated with the Legal Sub-Commissioner, and it was important that this question should be answered, as there was nothing whatever in the Bill to guide the House on the point; and if such information were not given, he took it that the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Antrim would join hon. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House in opposing the Bill. One of the reasons given for the Bill when it was first introduced was that the Government found great difficulty in obtaining legal Sub-Commissioners. He (Mr. Lea) had asked men well acquainted with the Bar of Ireland if that statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was really a fact, and he was bound to say that the opinion they had given did not support the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. This was undoubtedly one of the most uncertain of the Government offices in Ireland; but the desire to get public appointments that might lead to other things in the future would weigh with many of the members of the Bar; and, after all, the fact that a man had held the post of Sub-Commissioner for six or twelve months would give him a status afterwards which would induce some clients to offer him business. There were in every county of Ireland large numbers of leaseholders waiting for judicial decisions. They had been depressed by many years of bad seasons, and they looked last year for relief from the Government Bill, and yet none of these leaseholders had been able to get their rents fixed. It was regarded as a mockery that a Bill should be passed one year, and that even after a delay of 12 months people should be in no better position than they were when the Act was first passed. Then the proposal the Government now made, and which would apply to these leaseholders, was a different one to that under which relief had been given to tenants by the Act of 1881. The Government proposed to force the leaseholders who got the privilege of going into Court last year into the Courts of the County Court Judges, when for nearly the last 12 months they had the power of going into those Courts, but had positively refused to avail themselves of it. It seemed to him that the Government in so doing were not carrying out the spirit of the legislation of last year, and he believed that there was the strongest feeling against their proposal in Ireland. Since he had spoken the other day he had been informed that of the 60 valuers who had been appointed two or three years ago, but very few of them had been called upon to do any work—only one out of every four or five having been called upon to give evidence at all. Men were taken from Westmeath to Antrim, and from Antrim to Derry, and from Derry to Cavan, to value farms. In consequence of this considerable prejudice was felt against the Court valuers, and there was great objection to their reappointment. Then he should like to ask to whom the Government proposed to give this addition of £300 a-year in the shape of salary? Was it to be given to County Court Judges, who were already overworked, or to those who had very little to do, and would obtain work to keep them employed under the Act? If that was the line the Government were going to take, he would point out that they would be acting unjustly to the County Court Judges, who were overworked with ordinary Civil Bill business. It seemed to him that the Government were running their heads most unnecessarily against a brick wall in bringing forward a Bill like this. The tenant farmers had shown that they had confidence in the Land Courts by coming into them, and also that they had confidence in the Appeal Court by raising appeals before it, and he could not help thinking that it would be unwise to upset the existing arrangement in the manner proposed.

said, he thought that the main object of the measure, which was framed for the purpose of more rapidly clearing off the arrears in the Land Court, was a most reasonable and proper one. The block in the Land Court was a most serious one, and, at the present rate at which the cases were disposed of, it would take three years to clear it away. He thought, however, that the Government proposal would not only entail an enormous addition to the present heavy cost of the Land Court, already amounting to about £120,000 a-year, but the Bill would increase by £20,000 more. It would also fail to give satisfaction to the Irish tenants, who had no faith in the decisions of the County Court Judges, it being proposed to give them the power to override the opinion of valuers who were to sit as assessors. He therefore begged to press upon the Government the desirability of adopting the proposal which he had made last year—namely, that in the case of all holdings under £50 per annum, which constituted four-fifths of the holdings in Ireland, the Commissioners should have power to provisionally fix the rent at the same proportion to Griffith's valuation as the decisions of the Commissioners during the previous six months bore to their valuations, and that if within two mouths no appeal was lodged against it by either party, the decision so fixing the rent should become final. His belief was that if that proposal were adopted, there would not be one appeal out of every 10 cases, with the result that the arrears of the Land Court would be got rid of in a cheap and speedy manner. That proposal had met with what practically amounted to general approval last year, and the only objection that the Attorney General for Ireland offered to its adoption was that it did not come within the scope of the Bill, and that it was too late to be incorporated in it, as it was at that time before the House. He intended to bring forward his proposal again at the Committee stage of the Bill, and he trusted that between the present time and then the Government would consider whether they could not adopt it in preference to their own scheme, as he believed it would be gladly accepted by all the Irish Members, and give the relief that was so much wanted. He was bound to say that he hardly looked forward with any particular pleasure to the abandonment of the Bill or to the appointment of fresh Sub-Commissioners.

said, that he must confess that he had listened to the debate that had taken place on this Bill with great pleasure. The desire of the Government to deal with the subject of the arrears in the Land Court had been generally appreciated and approved of, and the difficulties which existed had been discussed without any spirit of partizanship being introduced. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had again advocated the adoption of the plan which he proposed last year, and which had been brought forward from more quarters than one. He was quite alive to the evils that resulted from the litigation with regard to the land in Ireland, and he would gladly consider any scheme by which the rents might be fixed automatically with power to either party who considered themselves to be aggrieved to appeal. The right lion. Gentleman opposite thought that his proposal had obtained a great body of support in Ireland, and in that case he should certainly most gladly consider the desirability of adopting some such scheme as he had suggested. His own proposal, of course, had been based upon the theory that each case where the rent was to be altered required due consideration on its particular merits. It was only because he was afraid of effecting too violent a change that he had abstained from proposing some elaborate scheme under which the rent might be fixed automatically, such as that proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. He might point out the extreme difficulty which would attend any attempt to deal with this question, because, whatever scheme might be proposed by the Government, it would be always open to debate, and to the objection that some more complete and perfect plan might be framed. Hon. Members who brought forward such schemes had not the responsibility thrown upon them of passing them. A larger scheme, which might be more perfect, would be far more difficult to pass. This Bill had many parents, and since it was laid upon the Table he had gladly and cordially consented to consider favourably any Amendments not proposed in a Party sense. With regard to Clause 1, which had created more controversy on both sides of the House than any other, the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) proposed to make a complete amalgamation of the Landed Estates Court and the Land Commission Court.

explained, that what he had said was that the only Commission Court which had worked satisfactorily within his memory was the Land Purchase Court, and it would be much better to join it with the Landed Estates Court than with the Land Commission.

said, that the Bill was not intended to destroy the Land Purchase Court, which was left so long as it had work to do. It did not prejudice the question whether any money should be added or not to that already given under Lord Ashbourne's Act; but while it did not prejudice the question against adding a further grant, neither should it prejudice the question in its favour. All that it was necessary for him to say on behalf of the Government was that they felt—and he felt himself, perhaps, more than anybody—that a Government which should break into the existing system of land purchase in Ireland would take upon itself a very heavy responsibility—a responsibility so grave that any Government might hesitate to take it upon its shoulders. Supposing further grants were made under Lord Ashbourne's Act, their administration would fall to the amalgamated Land Commission, including the two distinguished gentlemen, Mr. Lynch and Mr. M'Carthy, who were now occupied in working the Land Purchase Scheme, and who had deserved so well of the State. They would still be in office to carry out the existing loans, and also to administer the new loans, if new loans should be added. With regard to arrears, the hon. Member for Tyrone had pointed out very truly that not only were there very large arrears in the Sub-Commissioners' Court, but also in the Land Commission Court proper. He did not think his hon. Friend was right in saying that the proposals in the Bill laid before the House were in no respect calculated to deal with the arrears. These proposals might not be wholly adequate, but he thought they would do something to carry out his hon. Friend's object. If the Land Commission was enabled to economize its work so as to save time, it would enable then to deal better with the arrears. His hon. Friend had suggested that Judge Monroe should be added to the Commis- sion to assist in carrying out the scheme, and if his hon. Friend would put down an Amendment on the Paper to that effect, he should be glad to consider it. But he would remind his hon. Friend that Mr. Justice Monroe was a Judge of the High Court, and might object to the proposal of the hon. Member. Then he came to what he thought was the main objection which had been taken by hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House representing the tenants of Ireland, and that was to the proposal to make the County Court Judge the absolute arbiter of rent, having as advisers, but not as partners, the two lay Commissioners who are to be added to them. Well, of course, the Government were most anxious that any modifications they might make in the Act of 1881 should have the confidence of the tenants of Ireland. They would bo fools if they wore not. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) had carefully considered the suggestions which had been made on that point from hon. Gentlemen representing all parts of Ireland, and the solution which commended itself to his mind was to associate the lay Commissioners with the County Court Judges on absolutely equal terms. If that change were made in the Bill, it would not be fair to the County Court Judges to compel them to take the new work; they ought to have the option of refusing. His idea was that every County Court Judge who should consent to carry out the work on equal terms with the lay Commissioners should be paid for doing it some such sum as he had stated before—namely, £300 a-year, in addition to the ordinary salary he received at present. If the County Court Judge said, "These are not the terms upon which you engaged me," no pressure would be put upon him. If what he proposed were done, the County Court Judge would have nothing to complain of, and there would be a great accession of strength to the Courts engaged in the work of dealing with the arrears. Another suggestion had been made to him which he proposed to embody in a clause—namely, that if both landlord and tenant agreed, it should be in their power to have a fair rent fixed by the lay Commissioners going over the land, without the trouble or cost of appearing in any Court whatever. In other words, instead of 4 Court dealing with rents, there would be two gentlemen arbitrating between landlord and tenant, and possessing the confidence of both. He hoped he had shown the House that he had approached this matter in no hard and fast spirit of controversy; but that he had tried to meet the views held in the various quarters of the House, and he trusted that if the Bill were amended as he proposed it should be, it would deal with the vast mass of arrears now unhappily before the Head Commission Court and the Sub-Commission Courts, and would not frighten either party in the suits pending between landlord and tenant in Ireland at the present moment.

said, he was obliged to confess that the changes now suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland completely altered the form and character of the Bill. As it was originally introduced, the Bill practically amounted to an upsetting of the whole machinery of the Act of 1881, but now, the first occasion on which the Chief Secretary had addressed the House upon the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman proposed a total change in the measure. He had no objection to either of the changes the right hon. Gentleman proposed to make, as they went to distinctly improve the Bill. But he hoped that if the measure was to be pressed, the Chief Secretary would go a step further in the direction he had indicated that night. Though the changes would improve the Bill, the Bill itself was not an improvement on the present state of the law in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman would do very much to remove the objections felt to the Bill, if he would agree to leave to the tenants the power they now possessed of removing their cases from the Civil Bill Court to the Land Commission if they felt inclined to do so. Mark what the Bill proposed to do. After the passing of this Bill, the parties would not be entitled, as a matter of course, to have any proceedings transferred from the Civil Bill Court to the Land Commission—that was to say, that once a tenant was got into the Civil Bill Court, when he was sent there without any option of his own, as it was proposed by the second sub-section of the Bill might be the case, once he was sent by the Lord Chancellor or the Land Commission to the County Court, a Court most agreeable to the landlords, the door was to be closed upon him, so that he could not get out again. But, on the other hand, the door of the Land Commission was left open to the landlord. If a tenant had his case removed, according to the disposition of the cases provided by Sub-section 2, into the County Court, he must stay there, no matter whether he liked the tribunal or not; no matter whether he had confidence in the tribunal or not; but, on the other hand, if a landlord went into the Land Court, and he thought that Court would not take as favourable a view of the case as the County Court, he was left by the Bill the option of having his case removed to the Land Commission Court. The right lion. Gentleman would go very far to remove the objections which were entertained to the Bill, or he would at least mitigate the objections to the measure, if he would agree to leave the tenant the option of having his case removed from the Civil Bill Court to the Land Commission Court whenever he felt he had no confidence in the County Court. That would be a very simple proposal, and he did not see how it could be objected to on any ground, because the first element of the intention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was to increase, if possible, the confidence of the tenants in the tribunal which he proposed to set up. Surely, when a tenant felt he had no confidence in a Court, he ought not to be locked up in that Court, but ought to have the right to remove his case if he thought proper. At present the tenant had such power, but this Bill proposed to take it away from him. He (Mr. Gill) was anxious to understand upon what principle the new Court of Appeal was to be arranged. He did not see that the proposal of the Bill would facilitate the hearing of appeals at all. All that he could see the clause relating to appeals did was to practically shelve Judge O'Hagan, by removing him from the tribunal of which he was now the president and the most powerful Member, into a Court where he would sit with three other Judges and be their junior. He (Mr. Gill) did not see that any definite result could be obtained by such a step. What the object of shelving Judge O'Hagan was, he was not qualified to say; but a Pretty strong opinion existed in Ireland upon the point, and unless some more satisfactory explanation was given of these clauses than had been given tonight, the present impression would continue. They all knew that Judge O'Hagan, in regard to the schedule of rates of reductions which were adopted by the Land Commission recently in carrying out the Land Act of last year, differed from the two other Commissioners as to the amount of the reductions of rent, and differed in favour of the tenants. He, unquestionably, by his differing with that decision, and by the reasons which he gave for that difference, shook the confidence of the country in the Land Commission, and materially damaged the position of the Government in regard to the decision. Now, Judge O'Hagan, apparently as a punishment and as a precaution that he might not do the same thing again, was to be taken out of his position in the Land Commission, and to be deprived of his power of deciding cases in future. He was transferred to another Court where he would be almost a cipher, or where, at any rate, his position would not be so powerful as it was at the present time. The Land Commission would be left entirely in the hands of Mr. Wrench and Mr. Litton. The characters of both Mr. Wrench and Mr. Litton—especially of Mr. Wrench, who was the more powerful of the two—were well-known in Ireland, and the tenants of Ireland had no confidence in either of those gentlemen. They regarded them as enemies of their interests and as partizans of the landlords. In addition to all that, the House had passed a Bill to-night which would place in a position of power, as a permanent official, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet Division of Kent (Colonel King-Harman) who was, perhaps, the most notorious rack-renter in Ireland, and who would have a great deal to say, henceforth, in his new position in regard to the appointments that would be made by the Land Commission, and to the distribution of cases between the County Courts and the expiring Land Commission. The Bill, as originally proposed, and even as it now stood amended, by the suggestions of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief' Secretary, contemplated the complete extinction of the Land Commission Court as it had hitherto existed. There were phrases in the Bill which seemed to contemplate that the Sub-Commission Courts would cease to exist altogether, and that the entire business of the Land Act would be transacted by the County Courts. That, certainly, was the right hon. Gentleman's original view; but whether it was his view now, he could not say. At any rate, the power of rigging the County Courts would in the future be just as much in the hands of the Land Commission, from which the influence of Judge O'Hagan was to be removed, as that of rigging the Sub-Commission Courts was formerly, and was now. The provision in the Bill as to appeals, in respect to which he hoped the Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Madden) would offer to them some explanation in the direction of showing what use it was for the purpose of facilitating appeals, and also with a view of showing whether the comment he (Mr. Gill) had made on it was not justified—namely, that the only definite result obtained was the shelving of Judge O'Hagan. Those were the comments he felt called upon to make upon the Bill that night. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would see his way to retain the present provision of the Bill which gave the tenant the option of having his case removed from the Civil Bill Court to the Land Commission; because, if the right hon. Gentleman could not, the provision of the law would be the most one-sided that could possibly be framed, for it took away from the tenants the privilege which they now possessed and most rightly possessed, while it left the landlord still in possession of that privilege. He regarded the Bill as an unfortunate one, and he was against its principle altogether. There were many Amendments which might be made in the procedure of the Land Commission Courts, some of which had been alluded to that evening; but they did not at all touch the principle which had been aimed at by the Bill—namely, the forcible transfer of tenants' cases into tribunals the Judges in which were notorious partizans, whose characters and proceedings had been under the notice of the House during the past week. That principle of the Bill was an obnoxious and a wrong one, and, in his opinion, subversive of the best intentions of the Land Act of 1881. The crisis which the Bill was intended ostensibly to meet—namely, the glut in the Land Courts, could be met and met promptly and by a less expenditure of money than was now contemplated, by the appointment, temporarily, of a sufficient number of Sub-Commissioners, as was done in 1882, when a larger glut in the Land Courts prevailed. At that time 80 extra Sub-Commissioners were appointed, all of whom ceased to hold office as soon as the block was got rid of. The same thing might be done at the present time, and would be a much more prompt and efficient way of meeting the present crisis. He considered that that was the best course to adopt, and, therefore, he joined most heartily with his hon. Friends in thinking that every representative of the tenant farmers ought to oppose this Bill to the best of his power.

said, that when this Bill had been introduced, he had ventured to remark that it was a measure of a reactionary character, intended to carry out—as far as the Government dared to make any measure carry out—a policy of a reactionary nature, and one which, so far from alleviating or smoothing the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland, would tend to exasperate and make them still more difficult. The Government had pleaded then, as a ground for the Bill, that, in the interests of economy, it was necessary to utilize the surplus legal strength in Ireland, and they found in the Irish County Court Judges a large legal force which had never yet been availed of, and they desired to give these gentlemen technical assistance in the shape of Land Commissioners, to enable their knowledge of law to be brought into play for the decision of judicial rents; and it was difficult to find men with the requisite knowledge and capacity and position to fill the office of Sub-Commissioners under the Land Act of 1881, that was, to exercise the full functions discharged by the Assistant Commissioners with respect to the fixing of fair rents, and that, therefore, they would select and appoint persons not with the sufficient and adequate knowledge, but still with sufficient knowledge to report to the County Court Judges as to the technical questions connected with the valuation of land. That had been the only excuse given by the Government for not appointing additional Sub-Commissioners. Now, it appeared to him (Mr. Parnell) the Government, by the announcement made that night, that they would extend the functions of the Assistant Commissioners—whose functions would be under the Bill as it now stood, in the nature of those of assessors—to the functions of Assistant Commissioners under the Land Act of 1881, had completely cut the ground from under their feet as regarded their objection to increasing the number of Sub-Commissioners. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, in introducing this Bill, had distinctly stated as the foundation and reason for bringing the County Court Judges into the matter, that he could not get men easily or quickly of sufficient capacity and knowledge to fill the office of Sub-Commissioner.

Legal Sub-Commissioners.

If there was any difficulty in obtaining legal Sub-Commissioners, it must be more difficult to get men to fill the office of lay Sub-Commissioners. It was, he submitted, therefore infinitely more difficult to obtain men of sufficient trust, capacity, and knowledge to fill the various duties of lay Sub-Commissioners than those of legal Sub-Commissioners. With regard to the legal Commissioners, there was the whole Bar of Ireland to draw from. Questions of judgment did undoubtedly arise, but they were subordinate to the question of law. The number of barristers that would have to be appointed in order to provide a force adequate and sufficient to make up for the County Court Judges would only be something like 25 altogether. But surely the right hon. Gentleman did not pretend that it was impossible for him to select from the Bar of Ireland 25 barristers competent to discharge the duties of Sub-Commissioners? Then he had failed to make out a case for the Bill which asked the House to disturb the settlement of 1881, in order to admit the jurisdiction of a number of Judges in Ireland who were to be converted into legal Sub-Commissioners, and whose characteristics were to be of a reactionary nature. It was well known that the Irish tenants distrusted the County Court Judges, and that was evident from the fact that the tenants persistently avoided all reference of cases to them. That attempt to make County Court Judges arbiters in questions of fair rent was simply a corollary to the policy of the Government last Session when they had destroyed the Land Act which had passed through the House of Commons by Amendments introduced in the House of Lords. It was a matter that would be fraught with danger to the peace and tranquility of Ireland, and he contended that the reasons put forward by the right hon. Gentleman as excuses for the Bill were frivolous and unsound to the last degree. It was absurd to suppose that 25 barristers could not be found to discharge the duties of legal Sub-Commissioners. At any rate, if lay Sub-Commissioners could be obtained a fortiori legal Sub-Commissioners could. He would urge on the right hon. Gentleman to let things stand as they were, and follow the precedent of his Predecessors, and increase the number of Sub-Commissioners. The matter was not more pressing than it was in 1881 and the beginning of 1882, when Lord Spencer was Viceroy, and surely the work of the Land Commission was greatly in arrears. There were then something like 90,000 cases awaiting decision, and Lord Spencer appointed a considerable number of additional Sub-Commissioners, with the result that in the course of a year or two the arrears of work were wiped out. There was no such great amount of urgency now; because, in those days, the judicial rent dated from the fixing of the rent; but to-day the judicial rent dated from the date of the application by the tenant. Until the recent Act was passed, there was no power in the Court to allow a drawback in respect of rent paid after notice of application had been given, nor to extend the period for repayment, and therefore these were special reasons for urgency. But that was now all changed. The right hon. Gentleman might say that the County Court Judges were not using the equitable power which they possessed. But that showed how unsatisfactory a tribunal they were. He contended that the County Courts of Ireland were totally unfitted to decide upon the very delicate and important questions arising out of the fixing of judicial rents. Under the Bill the Lord Lieutenant could, with the consent of the Treasury, order extra remuneration to any County Court Judge. That was a monstrous proposition. The County Court Judges of Ireland at present were paid at least one-third more than they ought to be paid, for they had literally no functions to perform. How many days did they sit on the average in the course of a year? Did they sit 20 days out of the 365?

Yes.

Did they sit 30?

Certainly.

Did! they sit 40? Would it be right that an English County Court Judge had earned his salary, if he only sat on an average between 30 and 40 days throughout the year? [Mr. MADDEN dissented.] English Judges, whether Judges of the County Courts or of the Supreme Courts, were paid salaries which were known to be less than the amounts which they previously earned at the Bar; but none of the Irish County Court Judges earned at the Bar anything approaching the salaries they received as Judges. It was a monstrous thing that, at that time of day, the Government should attempt to raise the already bloated salaries of the County Court Judges of Ireland, which was one of the forms of bribery of the Bar of Ireland. He trusted that the House would reject the particular clause embracing that provision. What was the meaning of the clause relating to the subject of appeal? It would have been much better originally not to give a right of appeal from the decision of the Sub-Commissioners, because appeals had acted like a drag upon the working of the Act of 1881; it had almost overwhelmed it, and in many cases rendered it nugatory. If by this Bill they offered, as they were now proposing, further inducements to the landlords to swamp the Courts with appeals, they would simply stop the working of the Land Act of 1881 and of the Act of 1885. Were the Government acting in good faith in introducing the Bill and its predecessor and successor? They had understood from the Government that that Session was to be an English Session; that the British public were sated with Irish legislation, and that they wanted a little time to devote to the consideration of their own interests and grievances, and he (Mr. Parnell) and his Party had always been quite willing that their wish should be gratified. But the Government, by the introduction of the Bill, and the Parliamentary Under Secretary's Bill, were doing all they could to erect obstacles in their own path. The Bill was entirely unprovoked, and its introduction could only be viewed as an exhibition of sheer "cussedness." The Chief Secretary was so elated by his wonderful successes in Ireland that he thought right to emulate the typical Irishman of Donnybrook Fair, who went up and down with his coat tails streaming, saying—"Will nobody tread on the tails of my coat?" The measure before the House was not wanted, and the Government ought to withdraw it. There was urgency for an increase of Sub-Commissioners in Ireland, but there was no urgency for a Bill of that character. He recommended the Government to refrain from introducing provocative and exasperating measures, which indicated a reactionary tendency on the part of the Government, and which, if persevered in, would undoubtedly increase, instead of diminishing, the confusion in the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland.

said, the discussion which had taken place on the Bill had been productive of very substantial results. The Bill had been introduced to the House of Commons by the Government, not as the best possible theoretical solution of the difficult questions with which it dealt, but as an honest attempt to deal with questions of paramount importance which it was absolutely necessary to deal with by legislation in the present Session. It was absolutely impossible to avoid dealing with the matter, because the question of the continuance or non-continuance of the Land Commission, which was about to expire, must be dealt with by legislation during the present Session. They had now arrived at a period in the history of this Commission at which some definite arrangement must be made. Then Parliament was face to face with certain difficulties in the administration of that Act, such as the vast amount of arrears, in the fixing of fair rents, and in ap- peals. If the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) had been present in the House when the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour) delivered his very conciliatory speech with reference to the various suggestions which were made by various sections of the House of Commons, he would not have indulged in his comparison of the right hon. Gentleman to the traditional Irishman at Donnybrook Fair inviting someone to tread on the tail of his coat.

said, his remarks did not apply to the appearance of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary on the second reading of the Bill, about which he made a most interesting speech, but to the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman in the House.

said, that he assumed that the hon. Member (Mr. Parnell) in speaking on this Bill, referred to the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. A. J. Balfour) with regard to the Bill which was under discussion. The Bill made provision for clearing off the arrears of work which already existed in the Courts. There were arrears which could only be wiped off if the Land Commission were strengthened. He claimed that this Bill was an honest and fair attempt to deal by legislation with several important subjects. The first was the block in the Land Courts. The Bill proposed an enormous improvement in the machinery which existed in the Civil Bill Courts in providing the Chairman with two lay assessors. But if this suggestion which had been pressed on the Government were adopted, it would place the County Court Judge in the same position as the ordinary legal Sub-Commissioner; and what object could there be in giving the tenant an option between two tribunals similarly constituted? Then, it was said, if you appointed lay Commissioners, why not appoint legal Sub-Commissioners; if you could get one you could get the other? That was not so. It was by no means so serious a matter for a lay Commissioner to accept temporary duties as it was for a practising barrister, who would have to abandon his professional connections while his employment lasted, and afterwards to begin life over again.

said, that there had been no previous difficulty.

said, he did not believe there were 30 barristers in Ireland who would not accept the post.

said, then the hon. Member did not know much about the Irish Bar. No barrister in substantial practice would accept a temporary employment of this kind.

How many applied for the position of Sub-Commissioners?

said, that there was a substantial difference between getting lay Sub-Commissioners and legal Sub-Commissioners. It was somewhat remarkable that while the hon. Member for Cork said the Judges had not enough to do, the hon. Member for South Tyrone said they had too much work already.

said, he spoke of some; he did not say all.

said, the position of the hon. Member for Cork was that they were all nearly idle. He had dissented from all the figures of the hon. Member, and he considered the highest figures mentioned by him to be an absurd under-estimate of the days occupied by sittings of the County Court Judges. In common fairness, if the County Court Judges were called upon to do extra work they should receive additional remuneration. He could quite understand that so long as the ordinary judicial work only was increased—work which they undertook to do—the Judges had no claim for additional remuneration; but when they were asked to do work of a totally different character—namely, to sit as Sub-Commissioners, that was, to occupy a position they never undertook to occupy, he submitted the case was very different. In conclusion, he would point out that this Bill prepared the Land Commission for any contingency that might happen. The money was very nearly exhausted. There might be an additional grant of money. There might be a large scheme of land purchase. If the money should be exhausted the duties of the purchase department would come to an end, and if there were a large scheme of land purchase then the energy of the entire body of the Commission would be required. The last clause of the Bill simply provided for the continuance of the Commission for seven years, and made it effective for whatever class of work was put upon it. It was from that point of view that the Government submitted that provision to the House. On the whole, he submitted that the discussion of the Bill had furnished important results, and would enable the House to produce even a more beneficial and useful measure than that now on the Table, and that it was an honest attempt to deal with arrears and the hearing of appeals.

said, with the permission of the House he would say a few words explaining why he proposed to go to a Division, notwithstanding the conciliatory attitude of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He frankly admitted that the Government had made several concessions of great value during the debate. They had given way on the co-ordinate authority of the Assistant Commissioners with County Court Judges, they had made the question of the Purchase Clause perfectly clear, and they had expressed their willingness to strengthen the Court of Appeal. But what he considered the main principle of the Bill had been left intact, that was, the destruction of the option or choice of the tenant as to the Court where his case should be heard. That he held to be a reversal of the Act of 1881, and upon that he proposed to divide the House.

said, he would merely interpose a very few remarks before the House went to a Division. In connection with this Bill he had thought it his duty to ask the right hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland for some Returns giving information on that point as to which the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) and others had made objection. There were grave suspicions in the minds of the tenantry of Ireland as to the bona fides of the Government in the matter, and though the Solicitor General declared the Bill was an honest attempt to deal with the arrears of land business in Ireland, he (Mr. Flynn) and others contended that it was nothing of the kind, The Returns he asked for were to show the number of cases of application for the fixing of fair rents brought before the Land Commission, as distinguished from those brought before Civil Bill Courts. He found it impossible to get this information, and perfectly understood why the Government declined to give it. However, he had gone through the Returns for the last four months of 1887, and found figures which he thought the House should have in its possession before going to a Division. The number of cases for having fair rents fixed brought before the Sub-Commissioners during the months, September, October, November, and December, last year, amounted to 3,097, and the fixed rental amounted to £60,000. In the same mouths last year, the number of such cases before the Civil Bill Courts was 62, with a rental of £1,203. Those facts spoke for themselves more powerfully than hours of declamation and rhetoric. They put the case in a nutshell, and were a strong illustration of the contention of Irish Members, that the Government gave the Irish people nothing that they asked for, and insisted upon forcing upon them everything they did not ask for. Question put. The House divided:—Ayes 228; Noes 139: Majority 89.—(Div. List, No. 86.) Main Question, put, and agreed to. Bill read a second time. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be committed for Monday next."

asked that the Government would give due Notice of the intention to take the Committee stage, and whether Monday was set down merely pro formâ with the purpose of then fixing a definite day. If it was not the intention to take the Bill on Monday, would the Government give due Notice of when it was intended to take it, so that Irish Members might be in their places? Many Irish Members had business and professional engagements to fulfil, and had to sacrifice their own interests and those of their clients to attend the House on the bare possibility of Bills coming on. Could the Government give some substantial promise as to when the Bill would come on? The same remark applied to the Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Bill read earlier in the evening. Would the Government also arrange to make those the first business?

said, he would set the Bills down for the same day, and they should follow each other as first business. It would probably be more con- venient to Irish Members than to attend if the Bills were divided and made First Orders on separate days. He would take care that due Notice should be given. The Bill would stand now for Monday, and Notice should be given on Thursday should there be any change in the intention to take the Committee stage on Monday.