objected. This and another Bill were not down "by Order," and he presumed, therefore, that it was open to any Member to object.

^* : Does the hon. Member object? As a matter of fact, I understand there is no objection.

said, that if there was to be any lengthened Debate on Private Business to-day he would certainly object.

said, it was understood that there was not to be any lengthened Debate.

Then I do not object.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed.

Southwark and Vauxhall Water Bill

SECOND READING.

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

opposed the Motion.

said, he would ask leave to withdraw Clause 13 of the Bill, which gave power to take additional water from the Thames, and it would be understood that, under the pressure of the representations made by the London County Council and the Thames Conservancy, the clause had been withdrawn.

said, that if the clause was withdrawn he would withdraw his opposition.

said that, on the understanding that the clause which provided taking water from the Thames was withdrawn, he would not at this stage offer any objection to the Bill.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed.

v. Dunseath?" The majority of the Court held that 20 years' quiet enjoyment was full compensation to the tenant for his improvements. The effect of that was that the vast and overwhelming majority of tenants who had fair rents fixed felt that justice had not been done them. Especially was that so in Ulster. The tenants of that Province, under the partial security of the Ulster custom, were encouraged to improve their holdings. Where that custom prevailed in its entirety the tenant realised the full value of his improvements by the sale of his tenant right, but the desire of the tenant was to retain possession; and, in that case, what he looked to was the quiet enjoyment of his holding at a fair rent. Had he attained that object? It was a notorious fact that he had not. It was the practice of the Courts when fixing a fair rent to hold that all improvements made on the holdings previous to 20 years before the date of the originating notice were the property of the landlord, and should be taken into account on behalf of the landlord when fixing the fair rent. Let him illustrate his meaning. On the passing of the Land Act of 1881 a tenant gave notice to have a fair rent fixed. In evidence in the case it was proved that considerable improvements were effected subsequent to 1861, 20 years previous to the passing of the Act. When the case was being heard in Court the tenant got the benefit of those improvements, or, at least, was supposed to get the benefit of them in the fixing of his rent. Let them take the case of the holding of a farmer immediately alongside this man, but whose improvements were made previous to the year 1861, whose improvements had been completed in the year 1860. What was the procedure of the Court in this case? It was the second case that the Court had no objection in the matter under the decision of the case "Adams v. Dunseath," in which it was held that those improvements, although made by the tenant, were the property of the landlord, and should be taken into consideration in the fixing of a fair rent. That practice was known all over Ireland, North and South, as the confiscation of the tenants' improvements, and the present Bill was intended to do away with that gross injustice to the tenant farmers of Ireland. The Bill provided that 20 years' quiet enjoyment was not to be held by the Court as compensation for improvements. Improvements were defined as anything which increased the letting value of a holding, and they claimed that whatever increased value was given to the holding by the labour of the tenant or by his predecessors in title either in drainage, reclamation, manure, or otherwise, should be held to be the property of the tenant, and that no rent was to be fixed upon them. The Bill also provided for the presumption that the improvements were made by the tenant. No doubt he would be asked why he presumed anything at all of the kind. His answer would be obvious to any man well acquainted with the conditions of the Irish tenant-farmer. It was a notorious fact, and it would not be denied in the House, that in nine cases out of every ten that had come before the Land Courts it had been proved that the tenant had made the whole of the improvements. There was another reason which put the case on equitable grounds, and that was that the improvements ought to be held to be the property of the tenant, unless the contrary was proved. The tenant-farmers, as a rule, did not keep a very accurate account of the expenditure on their holdings, whereas, on the other hand, a very careful account was kept in the estate office of the landlord of any expenditure made by the landlord, and was easily able to make a case in Court in the matter of his expenditure on the holding. Again, this Bill was designed to give effect to the intentions of Parliament when they passed the Land Act of 1881, and other subsequent Acts, for the relief of the Irish tenant-farmer. One of the first things the Bill did was to shorten the statutory term and make it practically one-half of the existing term for which judicial rents wore fixed, and he might be asked why did he make such a provision? It had been found that no man could tell in the present condition of foreign competition what land would be worth in any part of the United Kingdom in 15 years to come. The friends of the tenants of Ireland in 1879 and 1880 were telling them from public platforms that foreign competition would ultimately lower the agricultural value of land so much in Ireland that 15 years was too long a term for the judicial rent to run. They found that since 1881 the value of land produce had been going down steadily. Any man, in 1879 or 1880, who was a practical farmer, and who would have said publicly that in 1894 the best home-grown beef and mutton would not produce 6d. per lb., would have been laughed at. Was any man in the House able to say that in 15 years' time beef, mutton, and other land produce would not be considerably lower than it was at present. Up to the present practically they had only to deal with competition from America; competition from Australia and from South America had not yet been developed. In the London markets, he was sorry to say, Australian butter was successfully competing against Irish produce. They found that New Zealand and South American mutton had practically destroyed that industry in Ireland and in Great Britain. In face of these facts they asked that the judicial term should be shortened to eight years. The Bill went on to deal with the question of town parks. Late decisions in the Land Courts in Ireland made it imperative upon any Member introducing a Bill of this kind to take notice of that important matter. He found, in looking back to the Debate in that House on the Land Act of 1887, that his hon. Friend the Member for Galway City (Mr. Pinkerton) proposed an Amendment that this question of town parks should not apply to the land in the neighbourhood of any town unless the town was over 10,000 population. During the course of the Debate that figure was changed to 5,000, and it was held, if he remembered accurately, by some hon. Members opposite, that this was a question of great importance to the people of Ulster, and that they did not see why because a farmer occupied a holding in the immediate neighbourhood of a town that that should prevent him from having a fair rent fixed. The then Chief Secretary for Ireland, the present Leader of the Opposition, accepted an Amendment which provided that this question should not apply to land in the neighbourhood of any town unless the town was over 2,000 population. That was carried by a majority of 53, but unfortunately, like a great deal of other Irish legislation that passed through the House of Commons, the Land Act of 1889 had to go through the ordeal of another place— the House of Lords, who, no doubt exercising their undoubted right, and following their ancient usage with regard to Irish affairs—a usage continued in the present Session—they rejected this Amendment altogether, with the unfortunate result that they found the Land Courts in Ireland at the present moment holding that land in the immediate neighbourhood, say, of a cross road where there was a smith's forge and half-a-dozen Irish mud cabins —that for this reason if that smith desired to have a piece of land that the value of it was thereby increased. This Bill did not say that land in the neighbourhood of a town or of a city should not bear any greater value than land situated in rural districts. That question was left altogether to the decision of the Courts—to the discretion of practical men acting as Sub-Commissioners. The next matter dealt with by the Bill was the question of pasture holdings, and in that respect the Bill provided that no holding should be held by the Land Commission to be a pasture holding unless it was held under a lease or other written instrument which expressly provided that the holding was to be so used. He was personally acquainted with a good many cases in Ireland where the tenant had been debarred from getting a fair rent fixed, because the Court held that the original intent of the holding was that the farm should be used wholly or mainly for the purpose of pasture. These holdings were held largely under leases made previous to the Act of 1887—leases in many cases granted after the Act of 1870, and which, unfortunately for the interest of the Irish tenant-farmers and the interests of social peace in Ireland, retained many of the worst provisions of the notorious Leinster leases. It was to the credit of the late Duke of Leinster that after the Land Act of 1881 he voluntarily broke every lease on his estate, allowed every one of his tenants to go into the Land Court to have a fair rent fixed, and did as much as lay in the power of one man to do to let the tenants on his estate get the full benefit of the Act of 1881. But such was not done by the other landlords of Ireland, who kept to the provisions of the Leinster leases, in many of which there was a proviso that only a small percentage of the holding could be used for agricultural purposes. He had seen many leases where a map of the holding was attached, 90 per cent. of the area of the farm being coloured red, and it was provided if any of that area so marked was broken up the tenant subjected himself to a fine of £10 per acre. Since the passing of the Land Act of 1887, which enabled leaseholders to go into Court, the Court had held that the men occupying holdings under such leases were debarred from having a fair rent fixed, on the ground that the original intent of the letting was that the farm should be used mainly or wholly for the purpose of pasture. It might be asked, why did the farmer accept a lease with such provisions in it? He knew a tenant-farmer who was offered a lease by his landlord in the year 1871, in which there was a provision prohibiting him from tilling more than 20 acres out of a farm of 250 acres. He refused to accept the conditions, and after a long correspondence and a great deal of worry and disappointment between the tenant and the agent, the tenant eventually signed the lease, with even more stringent provisions than it contained originally, because he was informed that if he did not do so the landlord would feel compelled to resume possession of the holding. That proved that the Irish tenant-farmers, in the acceptance of leases with penal clauses, were not free agents. The Bill also dealt with the question of sub-letting. Numerous cases had been turned out of Court because it was held that the tenant, having sub-let, was debarred from having a fair rent fixed. He received a letter a few days ago from a tenant-farmer in the County of Tipperary who rented a farm of 186 Irish acres, 16 of which were sub-let to four tenants, and were so sub-let when he entered into possession of the farm. His rent was £130 a year, which, he said, was considerably more than the fair rent which had been estimated by several valuers. This tenant went into the Land Court, but he was excluded from the benefits of the Land Act on this question of subletting. The Bill provided that in such cases the Court would not be permitted to hold that there was sub-letting unless one-fourth of the holding was sub-let. It also provided that no matter what area of a farm was sub-let, if the landlord was a consenting party to the subletting the tenant should not be debarred from having a fair rent fixed. A provision in the Act of 1881 provided that a farmer could sub-let half an acre in connection with cottages for labourers on the holding. Within the last couple of years the Irish Members had succeeded in carrying an Amendment to the Labourers Act which now permitted Boards of Guardians to annex an acre of land for labourers' cottages. It appeared rather absurd that while, by legislation passed in that House, it was permissible for a Board of Guardians to purchase an acre of land to be attached to a labourer's cottage, the Courts should hold that it would be sub-letting on the part of the tenant-farmer to annex an acre of land for that purpose. It must be clear that, in this connection at least, the Land Act certainly required amendment. The Bill proposed to repeal the 7th section of the Act of 1887, which was generally known as the "eviction-made-easy clause." He said that in the interests of peace, social order, and good government in Ireland, nothing more detrimental could be done than to facilitate the action of evicting landlords. On the principle of dual ownership they had acknowledged that the tenant-farmer possessed a very considerable interest in his holding. He remembered hearing the present Judge Madden, at the time he was Attorney General to the Conservative Government, declare from the Treasury Bench, during the passing of the Land Purchase Act of 1891, that the interest of the tenant-farmer in Ireland was as great, if not greater, than the interest of the landlord. He presumed there were many hon. Members who would be very indignant indeed if they heard any man say that the interest of the landlords of Ireland was not equal to 16 or 17 years' purchase of the rent. No man could safely say at the present moment what was the fair amount to give for the purchase of a farm, considering that the purchaser would have to pay annual instalments, and 4 per cent. for the next 49 years. The law as it at present existed enabled one of the partners in this concern of dual ownership to realise the whole of the property, because one of the partners happened to owe a certain amount of money equal to about l–16th or 1–17th of the interest he had in the whole concern. He wanted to know why the sleeping partner should be afforded extreme facilities, as against the working man in the firm, to acquire the whole of the property because of the non-payment of a year's rent? It was undeniably unjust that it should be in the power of one of the partners in the concern to take possession of the whole value of the dual property because of the non-fulfilment of one of the conditions. If they were to look to the equity of this case the landlord should be compelled by law, before he could resume the sole possession of the holding, to pay the tenant whatever the value of his ownership in the going concern was, minus whatever rent was due. It was because such was not the case at present that he proposed to repeal the 7th section of the Land Act of 1887. The second portion of the Bill dealt with the Land Purchase Act of the year 1891. He did not think there was any man who had the interest of the Irish tenant-farmers sincerely at heart who did not desire that purchase on a large scale and on an equitable basis should be largely carried out, and he had no objection whatever to the tenants purchasing their holdings provided that they only paid for that portion of the property which was the landlords and should not be compelled to pay for anything that already belonged to themselves. The Leader of the Opposition, when he was Chief Secretary, was over and over again told by the Irish Members, when the Land Purchase Bill of 1891 was before the House, that if he insisted on some of its provisions the Bill would be inoperative. He was told, for instance, that this question of the tenants' insurance fund would retard and prevent the working of the Act of 1891. And what had occurred? It had been found that under this provision it was impossible for the tenant-farmer of Ireland, for the first five years, no matter at what rate of purchase he might acquire his holding, to reap a greater reduction in his rent or instalments than 20 per cent., at the same time that he deprived himself of the benefit which he formerly possessed of the landlords' contribution towards the local rates, thus reducing his benefit very much under 20 per cent. The Bill, therefore, proposed to repeal this portion of the Land Act of 1891 which dealt with the purchasers' insurance fund. That was done just as much in the interest of the landlords as in that of the tenant-farmers. Those who were acquainted with the condition of the farmers knew that owing to the continued depression in the price of agricultural produce the tenant-farmers of Ireland required immediate relief, and if they did not get immediate relief in the shape of a large reduction of rent he feared that within the next few years they would find a general state of bankruptcy among the Irish tenant-farmers. They found that many landlords who were desirous of selling some of their property had been largely prevented from doing so by the extraordinary and totally unnecessary provisions of the Bill of 1891. It was a notorious fact that there was only one buyer for land in Ireland—namely, the tenant-farmer who was in occupation— and if the labours of the Irish Nationalists for the last 14 years had resulted in nothing else but in producing this state of things he said they would have been largely compensated for everything that they had done both in and out of this House in the interests of the Irish tenant. Looking at the Return as to the amount of money that had been applied for and issued under the Land Purchase Act of 1891 up to the end of November, 1893, he found that a very small sum indeed out of the £30,000,000 had been issued. He believed the smallness of this amount was largely due to the fact that the tenant-farmers, under this insurance fund, were debarred for the first five years from getting the full benefit that should naturally accrue to them from the bargain they had made with their landlord, and which every purchaser under the Ashbourne Act was in the enjoyment of immediately he made his purchase. They desired in this particular that both the landlord and tenant-farmers of Ireland should be put in the same position as both landlord and tenant occupied under the Ashbourne Act, and they proposed in the 19th section that the Exchequer contributions should go towards the provision of labourers' cottages. Why was this Exchequer contribution introduced into the Laud Act of 1891? When this large sum of money was granted by the House of Commons for land purchase it was supposed that every tenant-farmer in Ireland would be breaking his neck to get possession of the land and that the landlords would be anxious to get possession of the cash. But nothing of the kind had occurred. Only about £600,000 had been issued, and therefore there was no necessity whatever for the Imperial contribution to make up any deficiency. But as the money was already applied for that purpose, and as it was not wanted for that purpose, and as it was intended to go towards the benefit of Ireland, they proposed that three-fourths of it should be applied immediately towards the erection of labourers' dwellings. It would be admitted by all those who were acquainted with the conditions of the labouring population in Ireland, who knew the great benefits that had resulted from the working of the Labourers' Act—the social elevation of the people, the beneficent change in their habits in consequence of their being provided with decent dwellings instead of a mud cabin—that the money could not be applied to a better purpose. The Bill also proposed to do something for the landlords under the Land Purchase Acts. They did not think that the landlords should be mulcted in such heavy costs in connection with proof of title. Speaking for himself, he thought that the holding of 20 or 30 years' undisputed possession of an estate ought to be held to be sufficient proof that the holder was entitled to the possession of it. Having thus briefly explained the provisions of the Act as far as he could, he would ask the House to consent to have the Bill read a second time. The Government themselves saw that the working of the Laud Acts in Ireland was not satisfactory, and that acknowledgment being recognised on all hands it was the most natural thing in the world that the Representatives of the tenant-farmers of Ireland in that House should be the people to come forward with a scheme to remedy these defects. He believed that the whole of the tenant-farmers of Ireland were impressed with the necessity of its provisions being passed into law. He would ask those gentlemen who sat opposite, who were very anxious that the Irish Laud Question should be settled, who were very anxious that peace and order and good government should prevail in Ireland, to prove by their votes that their declarations were not from the lips only, but were the result of deep and sincere conviction. He appealed with confidence to the hon. Member for South Tyrone, and the hon. Gentlemen who sat with him, who represented rural constituencies in the North of Ireland. The hon. Member knew as well as any- body that the Ulster farmers were anxious to have large changes made in the administration of the Land Acts. He had no doubt from the indications which the hon. Member had given since the House sat that he approved of many, if not all, of the propositions of the Bill. Knowing, therefore, that this Bill would have the support of all the various sections of the House who represented tenant-farmers in Ireland, he appealed with confidence to gentlemen on both sides of the House to support the Bill, and to give the Land Acts for Ireland a decent chance of settling the Irish Land Question.

^* and, as they reclaimed, the rent increased, and the holdings were rackrented by the landlords in face of enactments passed by Parliament. Let any man go to the division represented by the hon. Member for South Down, and he would see evidences of improvements on every hand greater than could be pointed to in any district in England, and it could easily be ascertained that in these districts the landlords, taking advantage of certain legal technicalities, had prevented the tenants who had made these improvements from going into the Land Court and having a fair rent fixed. Yet despite the fact that they had grasped all the improvements of their tenants, Irish landlords were going about England at every election like sandwichmen carrying boards bearing the legend, "Pity the poor landlords of Ireland!" Yet it was an undoubted fact that English landlords had voluntarily and without any compulsion given reductions to their tenants which at the present moment amounted to more than the total rental of Ireland. The case was different as between the English and the Irish tenant-farmer. The English farmer was not confined to any particular industry. If one door was shut another was open, but the Irish tenant-farmer was bound neck and heel; and his opinion was that any Irish landlord who took advantage of a legal technicality was a man who thereby declared himself to be a man who was not ashamed to benefit himself from the labours of his tenants, or, in other words, pose as one who was not against picking his neighbour's pocket. He could only express his regret that the hon. and gallant Member for North Down, who was certainly one of the best landlords in Ireland, should oppose this Bill. The hon. and gallant Member objected to the Bill on the ground that it threw the onus of proving that they had effected the improvements on a holding upon the landlords. But by placing that onus upon the illiterate tenants the latter had been robbed of thousands of pounds. The tenants kept no records of the sums they expended upon the holdings, whereas the landlords kept books which showed every penny that was expended by the landlords in effecting improvements, and probably they showed thousands that had never been expended for that purpose at all. In his opinion, there was no injustice in throwing the burden of proof upon the educated landlord instead of upon the uneducated tenant. During the able and exhaustive statement of his hon. Friend he noticed that the English agricultural Representatives were absent—those Representatives who were so anxious to have a night set apart for a discussion on agricultural depression. It seemed strange that those high priests of Protection, who believed that, by sprinkling the portals of the nation with the blood of foreign cattle, they could turn aside the angel of destruction, were not there that day to give proof of the faith that was in them. Here they would have an opportunity of discussing agricultural depression in Ireland, and here was an opportunity of trying an experiment in a fair and just way—an experiment that these Members were afraid must in the near future be tried in England. He remembered very well the discussion that took place on the question of town parks in the House of Commons, which had been referred to by his hon. Friend, and he remembered that an Amendment accepted by the then Chief Secretary was afterwards rejected in the House of Lords. Indeed, the Bill was itself rejected on the Motion of Lord Macnaghten, although it would have conferred many benefits on tenants in many parts of the North of Ireland. But his Lordship took this step simply because it excluded towns like Bushmills, Downpatrick, Portrush, and others. He would make an appeal to the hon. Member for South Tyrone on this matter. That hon. Member could not admire the methods of some of his friends—

I should like to speak for myself.

^* said, that with all respect for the hon. Member, he would point out that he had spoken in many different tones of voice on this question. He would assert that there was not one Member for any part of the North of Ireland at present who could venture to address his constituents and go against the principles embodied in this Bill. At the present moment they had an object-lesson in North Derry. They had the Attorney General of the Tory Government coming forward as the friend of the distressed tenant, an ardent and impassioned advocate of compulsory sale, and they had another distinguished gentleman, Mr. Harrison, following suit. They had these two gentlemen going through the length and breadth of the country asking the support of the people not on their own merits, but owing to the fact that they were in favour of compulsory sale. Everything pointed to the fact that the eyes of Members representing, or seeking to represent, northern constituencies were being gradually opened to the necessities of the situation. For his own part, he was in favour of the Bill as it stood; but if it had any defects, they could be easily removed in Committee. As he had no desire to talk the Bill out, he should content himself by seconding the Motion of his hon. Friend that the Bill be read a second time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—( Mr. Kilbride. )

"That, in the opinion of this House, legislation affecting the Law of Laud Tenure in Ireland is inexpedient and unfair to the interests of all persons concerned pending the inquiry proposed by the Chief Secretary into the working of the Irish Land Acts."

He said, that he should shortly state his reasons for moving his Amendment. He took comparatively little objection to the speeches of the hon. Members who had moved and seconded the Motion for the Second Reading of the Bill, because no doubt from their standpoint the provisions of the measure were fair and legitimate. It appeared to him, however, that to read this Bill a second time pending the Report of the Commission which the Government had appointed to inquire into the working of the Irish Land Acts would involve the Government in a dilemma. He could assure the hon. Member who had paid him the compliment of describing him as being one of the best landlords in Ireland that he in no sense opposed the principle of this measure; he merely wished that legislation on the subject should be postponed until the Commission had reported upon the working of the Irish Land Acts. It appeared to him to be like the process of hanging a man first and trying him afterwards. His hon. Friend the Member for Galway, who seconded the Motion, had said he was the advocate of the Irish land-

An hon. MEMBER: Who blocked it?

said, he had not done so. Let those who were afraid of the inquiry block it. The Bill if passed would remove the whole ground for the inquiry. He and his friends believed that they would come out of the inquiry with flying colours, and he therefore would conclude by moving his Amendment.

said, he begged to second the Motion of his hon. and gallant Friend, and, at the outset, he would congratulate the hon. Member who had moved the Second Reading upon the very businesslike way in which he had addressed himself to the subject. While he (Mr. Kenny) seconded the Motion of his hon. and gallant Friend, he might say that there were several proposals in the Bill which would, subject to certain restrictions and conditions, have his entire sympathy. All that those in favour of the Amendment said was that, having regard to the fact that the Chief Secretary proposed that there should be an inquiry into the working of the Acts, it was unfair and inexpedient in the interests of both landlord and tenant that the House should now affirm not alone one principle, but the 20 principles which were contained in the Bill. What was the position in which they stood? The terms of the Motion of the Chief Secretary as it now stood on the Paper were these—

"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into and report upon the principles and practices of the Irish Land Commissioners and County Court Judges in carrying out the fair rent and free sale provisions of the Land Acts of 1870, 1881, and 1887, and of the Redemption of Rent Act of 1891, and to suggest such improvements in law or practice as they may deem to be desirable."

The Chief Secretary, he was bound to admit, had shown a most conciliatory spirit in settling the terms of the Reference. The inquiry, in the first instance, was to have had a more extended character to meet the objections of hon. Gentlemen both on the Ministerial and the Opposition side of the House. He regretted that early that morning that Amendment had not been accepted. The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Brodrick) had opposed it under peculiar circumstances, holding that the Leader of the Opposition—who was not present— ought to be consulted with reference to proposed Amendments.

The Leader of the Opposition suggested the course proposed.

said, he was aware of that, but the Leader of the Opposition was not in his place at a quarter past 12 that morning, and the hon. Member for Guildford asked that the Motion might be postponed for 48 hours in order that the right hon. Gentleman might be consulted. He hoped that to-morrow all opposition to it would be withdrawn. There was hardly a section of the Bill the subject-matter of which would not come before the Select Committee proposed by the Chief Secretary.

No, no.

All questions but the Purchase Clauses would come before the Committee.

And the statutory term.

said, he did not know that the statutory term would not come before the Committee—he rather thought it would, as the Committee would have power

"to suggest such improvements in law or practice as they might deem to be desirable."

If the terms of the Chief Secretary's Motion were accepted the discussion on this Bill would be useless and futile. It was said that the principle of the Bill should be accepted and that the House could deal with the details as it thought fit in Committee. Well, he could understand such advice if they were dealing with one great principle. If the Second Reading were passed to-day the House would be affirming not one general principle, but about 15 or 16 different principles, which were all embodied in the Bill before the House. He submitted that the acceptance of the Bill drawn as it was would lead to considerable friction. He was sure it could not be the intention of either the Mover or Seconder that the Second Reading of the Bill should be taken in any sense as a guide to the Members who were to form the Select Committee. If it was not to act in that way—and he did not think such a thing would be suggested for a moment —what was the use of discussing these various matters when every one of them, except the Purchase Clauses, would have to come before the Committee eventually? The hon. Member for South Kerry, who moved the Second Reading, probably found that time did not enable him to go through all the clauses of the Bill. He had omitted to mention four or five very important clauses. He did not refer to the question of demesne lands, nor to the creation of judicial tenancies by limited owners, nor to leases by Judges of the High Court in Ireland, nor to evictions by the head landlord where there was a sub-tenant in possession, nor to the land-lord's right of pre-emption, nor to the question of future tenancies. But when the hon. Member came to refer to one of the suggestions of his Bill—namely, the repeal of what he called the eviction-made-easy clause, he put it on a ground which could not be evolved from the section. The section was to repeal the clause of the Act of 1887, and the hon. Member submitted to the House an argument based on an observation of Mr. Justice Madden, formerly Attorney General for Ireland, to the effect that the tenant had as large, if not a larger, interest in the holding than his landlord. The hon. Member argued on that that on eviction the tenant ought to receive the amount of the value of his interest in the holding. But how did that question arise under the Bill now before the House? The only question with reference to eviction-made-easy was that the section of the Act of 1887 was to be repealed, and the only effect of that would be to leave the law as it was before 1887, and so it would fail to accomplish the object the hon. Member had in view. The hon. Gentleman said he moved the Second Reading in the interests of social peace and order in Ireland. There was no one on either side who would not like to promote the cause of order and good feeling in Ireland; but the method proposed by the hon. Gentleman was a futile method. The inquiry proposed by the Chief Secretary was the method most likely to lead to peace and order on the other side of the Channel, and therefore he seconded the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words—

"In the opinion of this House legislation affecting the Law of Land Tenure in Ireland is inexpedient and unfair to the interests of all persons concerned pending the inquiry proposed by the Chief Secretary into the working of the Irish Land Acts."—( Colonel Waring. )

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

said, the hon. Member for South Kerry, in the course of what he must call a very plain, businesslike statement, had made an appeal to himself (Mr. T. W. Russell). The hon. Member for Galway had also made an appeal, and bad charged him in a light, airy, way—though not in an ill- natured manner—with inconsistency on the Land Question. Well, he must point out that he was not the only person who had some difficulty in this matter, because whilst he had been forced into views on compulsory sale which he did not originally entertain he remembered that in 1888, when it was proposed to renew the Ashbourne Act—which everyone acknowledged to be the best Land Purchase Act ever passed—every Member of the: Party below the Gangway opposite walked into the Lobby against it. Inasmuch as the hon. Member opposite had accused him of inconsistency he should like to remind the hon. Member that those who lived in glass houses should not throw stones. He, however, did not wish that these retorts should at all influence the Debate to-night. As this was probably the most serious day for Ireland they should have this Session he wished to see personal matters thrown aside and the issue faced on its merits. He found himself in a position of some difficulty. The facts were these:—For the past 14 or 15 years that House had been engaged in passing Land Acts, which had conferred an immense benefit upon Ireland, but undoubtedly great legal difficulties had arisen on the construction of these Acts. When he found that the statutory term fixed in 1881 would expire in 1896 he came to the conclusion that there should be an inquiry into the working of the rent-fixing clauses and the effect of judicial decisions, and how far these had contravened the manifest intention of Parliament in passing the Land Acts. The Chief Secretary frankly accepted that proposal, and he had done his best since the Session opened to give effect to it in the House. The right hon. Gentleman had put down the Motion on one of the first days of the Session. Amendments were put on the Paper by the Member for South Hunts, Cambridge, and Mid Armagh. That by the Member for Mid Armagh had disappeared, but it had been re-inserted on the Amendment Paper by an English Member. The Leader of the Opposition suggested an amended Reference, and the Chief Secretary assented to it. Yet what did they find? The hon. Member for the Guildford Division, who was not a mere private Member, but who sat on the Front Opposition Bench with the Leader of the Opposition, im- mediately put a block on the amended form of Reference, and proposed to insert words which would not serve him one bit. What would it matter if he proved to demonstration that the Irish landlords during the last 15 years had lost 25 per cent. of their rent, or that encumbrancers found it more difficult to get interest on their money? That would not prove the Irish tenants had got any advantage. It would show that, owing to increase in the cost of labour and depreciation of agriculture, the landlords had suffered loss, but not that the tenants had got advantage. The Amendment, and the way in which the hon. Member had treated the Resolution, must be taken as a deliberate attempt to obstruct the meeting of the Committee; and that being the case, his own course in the matter became clearer than otherwise it would have been. It was quite true that to a large extent the Second Reading prejudged the issues that would go to the Committee. He was sure the Chief Secretary felt that as much as he did. But how was he (Mr. Russell) placed? He represented an agricultural constituency deeply and profoundly interested in this question. But would he be justified in taking his chance that the opposition to the Committee, which had been persisted in up to the very eve of the Second Reading of the Bill, would be withdrawn, and thus lose the only opportunity he was likely to have of stating his views on the whole question? He would not be justified in doing so, and, therefore, though he would much prefer to have the question sifted by a Committee, and to be guided by the opinion of experts in the matter, he must act upon the knowledge he possessed and vote for the Second Reading of the Bill. He would say frankly, however, it must not be assumed that he approved of every clause or proposal which the measure contained. He agreed that it was a large order, in view of the state of agriculture, not only in Ireland, but throughout the world, to say that the Irish Courts should in 1896 refix judicial rents for a period of 15 years, and he was not prepared to say that the period stated in the Bill was the best. Whether it should be 15 years or 10 was, however, a mere question of detail. The real kernel of the Bill was contained in the 5th and 6th clauses with regard to improvements made by tenants. He thought the House must agree that action was required in regard to the decisions of the Court of Appeal as to tenants' improvements. Even if the Judges were right in their construction of the Act, a mistake had been made, and Parliament ought to rectify it. He thought the Judges had failed to recognise that these Land Acts embodied a great policy, and had too often taken a technical view of questions that ought to have been treated from a wider standpoint. He would give one instance which had occurred in the case of a friend of his. It was the case of the Rev. Mr. Mares, a Presbyterian minister in County Antrim. He was not a Campaigner or anything of that kind, and wished to defraud nobody, and he was in a different position from other tenants who had taken steps that he was not prepared to take. He took a farm of 18 acres under a fee-farm grant, his rent being £18. The land was practically waste when he took it, and at his own expense he reclaimed 11 acres of it. In addition, he built a manse at a cost of £400. After the passing of the Rent Redemption Act of 1891 he went into Court to have his rent revised. The Sub-Commissioners reduced the rent to £11, holding that under the Act they were not entitled to fix any rent upon the manse, or in respect of the capital expended on reclamation. Well, that stood to common-sense. But the landlord, Mr. Letty, appealed to the Land Commission Court, and Judges Bewley and FitzGerald went down and tried the case. They deliberately decided that the Sub-Commissioners ought to have taken into account the expenditure upon the manse and upon reclamation, and fixed the rent at the original amount of £18. That case had occurred within the last few months. Similar cases were occurring every day in Ireland—he would mention two which had occurred in County Meath, "Mullen v. Dogherty" and "Mullen v. Kearns." Those cases were types of what was going on every day of the week in the Province of Ulster, and in these circumstances Parliament could not refuse to pass an amending Bill for the relief of the people, and in order to carry out its own intentions. He might be asked how he knew what the intentions of Parliament were. He conducted the negotiations with the Government with regard to the Rent Redemption Act, and knew that it was their intention to treat fee-farm grants in the same way as leaseholds were treated. In regard to tenants' improvements, he understood the decision of the Court to be that, while the tenant ought to get compensation for his actual expenditure, the inherent properties in the soil were to belong to the landlord. But this was a co-partnership, and surely nobody would dispute that the direct expenditure by the tenant ought, at all events, to be taken into account in fixing his rent. But on what ground was the other partner to get the whole of the inherent properties in the soil? He was not prepared to say that the landlord ought not to have his share of these properties, but he objected to his having them all. This was a matter in which a Select Committee would have been invaluable in arriving at the relative claims of the two parties. Then as to the presumption being in favour of the tenant. He saw no objection to the presumption in the matter of improvements being in favour of the tenant, because it would be less difficult for the landlord to prove from his books any expenditure he had made upon a holding. The landlord had an office and kept accounts, and every one familiar with the working of the Land Courts knew that, wherever a landlord had expended money, it could be proved in open Court. But the very opposite was the case with the tenants. Very few Irish farmers kept books, but the landlords had no right to take credit for the tenants' improvements on that account. The question of town parks was one of difficulty, but it ought not to be incapable of solution. If a man, even though he lived in a town, actually farmed agricultural laud contiguous to that town, there was no reason why that land should be regarded as town park; but, on the other hand, if a shopkeeper in the town had a field as accommodation land, there was a great deal to be said in favour of applying the town park system in that case. With regard to large grazing farms and pasture lands, he thought some changes ought to be made in dealing with them. He was not in favour of the large grazier living in Dublin having a fair rent fixed on being made a dual owner of the land on which he had never set foot, but in the case of partly agricultural and partly pastoral land on which a man lived there was no reason why that man should not have a fair rent fixed in the ordinary way. Nothing could be more preposterous than to talk about the intention of Parliament in the way they had heard. What could have been clearer than the intention of Parliament in 1870, when the Commissioners went down and deliberately excluded the town of Dun-drum by the most perverse ingenuity? The ninth clause of the Bill, relating to demesne lands, was, in his opinion, much too sweeping, though he admitted! that difficulties were involved in the matter. In respect to sub-letting, it must be borne in mind that the original intention of Parliament in placing difficulties in the way of it was to cope with the pressure of population in Ireland. That pressure, however, no longer existed. The whole reason for legislating against it had passed away, and consequently there was no longer the same objection to subletting. There, again, upon the question of consideration the Judges had narrowed the application of the principle as much as they could. He would mention the case of Scotch mills. Labourers were necessary in the mills, and houses must be built for them to live in. The farmers put up cottages in the immediate vicinity, and the moment they did that they were out of court and could not appeal. Would any reasonable man defend those things? It was because he had looked into the matter and saw the difficulties attending it that he was so anxious a Select Committee should be appointed to inquire and guide the House to a fair and righteous decision between the parties. Purchase was a considerable way off, but revision of rents was near at hand, and for that reason, and in order to remedy the injustices that existed, he was in favour of the appointment of a Committee. But the Committee could not be obtained, and in the circumstances he was bound to take the Bill and make the best of it. He would not, however, tie himself down to supporting everything in the Bill, but he was bound to recognise that it dealt with matters that ought in justice to be inquired into. Then as to the insurance clauses, he held that inasmuch as the Irish tenant-farmers were getting advantages and the British taxpayer was running enormous risks, the Irish farmer should be called upon, in working out his own redemption, to provide an insurance fund. He had his own views with regard to the progress made under the Act of 1891. Everybody knew that for the last two years the Home Rule controversy had stopped everything, but still it was a fact of enormous importance that £2,000,000 sterling should have been applied for under the Act. The Irish landlords, at all events, could not say that he had ever been an advocate of confiscation. They knew that he had run some risks, as a Representative of the tenant-farmers, in defending them. But he must tell the landlords that if it was proved, as he believed it could be proved, that under the sanction of the law and under the decision of the Courts—mistaken decisions, in his opinion—they had been enabled to appropriate the tenants' expenditure on their holdings and to exact rent on that expenditure, he should be as anxious to prevent them continuing that course as he had ever been to stop the tenants from doing what was wrong. He should therefore vote for the Second Reading of the Bill, as his hon. Friend the Member for South Derry would have done had he not paired.

^* said, the speeches made both for and against the Bill that afternoon had been of a very remarkable character, but the opponents of the Bill had mainly dealt with the circumstances under which it was introduced, and he wished, with the indulgence of the House, to state why he disapproved of the time, manner, and occasion in which this Bill was introduced, but also why he thought the Bill should not be accepted by the House. His hon. Friend the Member for South Tyrone had given an accurate history of what had occurred with regard to the appointment of a Committee on this subject, but he did not go far enough. His hon. Friend said that up to Thursday last an arrangement had been practically arrived at that if the Chief Secretary would withdraw a large portion of the wide Reference those on the Opposition side of the House would put no bar in the way of the appointment of the Committee. But his hon. Friend entirely omitted to say that this Bill, which was one of the largest Bills connected with Irish land that had ever been presented to the House, which meant a virtual reconstruction of all the principles on which Land Acts had been hitherto framed, was only put before the House on Monday evening, and that they had only had 36 hours in which to consider its provisions. Since 1880 a Land Act had been proposed nearly every year, and in no single case had there been so strong a proposal made as that which the House was now asked to adopt without having having had time, almost, to read the Bill. Hon. Members below the Gangway seemed to think that other hon. Members were to decide this question without consulting their friends in Ireland. There had been no opportunity of sending a single copy of the Bill to Ireland, and if it had not been that he did not wish to take a course obnoxious to the House, he would have risen immediately after the Mover and Seconder of the Second Reading to move the adjournment of the Debate. Thus this proposal was sprung upon them after the Reference to the Committee had been canvassed on the two sides of the House. He did not, of course, impute to his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary any collusion in the matter; but at the same time, his right hon. Friend would recollect that his amended Reference only appeared on the Paper on Tuesday morning, and that the House was asked to accept it in ignorance of the course the Chief Secretary had intended to take on this Bill. He said last night that as the Reference was now drawn he had no objection in principle to the appointment of the Committee, and all that he asked was that the Opposition might be allowed till Thursday to consider the Reference, seeing that the Leader of the Opposition was absent at the time the Committee was moved.

He had been present all the evening.

of 1881, had been given for small holdings for which the tenants had paid nothing, and on which they could show no improvements; but what he did press on the right hon. Gentleman last night was that they should not set up in that House a Court of Appeal to review the judicial decisions of the Commissioners. What was wanted was not an investigation into individual cases of hardship, but a general inquiry into the effect of the Act on landlords, tenants, and encumbrancers respectively. That was not the position taken up by the hon. Member for South Tyrone.

What I tried to point out was this—that even if the hon. Gentleman succeeded in proving that the landlords had lost 25 per cent. of their rents of the last 50 years, that proved nothing against the tenants, who by reason of falling prices and the increasing cost of labour have probably lost more than 25 per cent.

^* said, it might be shown that while the landlord had lost 25 per cent., the tenants had got valuable interest for which they had never paid a farthing, and those interests had increased in a way which was never intended. What was the position that day? They had had a Bill moved which covered a good deal of the ground to be taken by the investigating Committee, and they were to be asked, after a few hours' discussion, to read it a second time. Secondly, they were invited to accept a Reference to a Committee which, although narrowed, was still wide enough to enable the House to constitute itself a Court of Appeal for individual cases of hardship; and, thirdly, they were asked to go in for a Committee which would be incomplete. Was it not absurd, if this Bill was to be passed that day, to appoint a Committee to suggest improvements in the law and practice, when hon. Members below the Gangway, some of whom must sit on the Committee, had pledged themselves by backing this Bill as to the changes that were desirable? Why should they go through the solemn farce of appointing a Committee to discover remedies as to which hon. Members had already declared in specific terms what required to be done? How could a Committee be expected to try out the whole Land Question when it was already prejudged? It was true that, although strong speeches had been delivered on the other side of the House, the Government had not stated their views. If the Chief Secretary treated his Committee as an effective Committee; if he said "No" to the Second Reading of the Bill on the ground that he was about to appoint a Committee to inquire into the subject, then, as far as he, speaking as an individual Member, and his hon. Friends behind him were concerned, they would raise no objection whatever to the appointment of the Committee. The action of Irish Members had superseded the previous negotiations as to the Reference, and the Government could not complain of the action of the Opposition. If there was any complaint to be made, the persons against whom it should be made were the hon. Members—the Irish Members—below the Gangway, who did not, until 6 o'clock on Monday evening last, furnish the House with their intended Bill. If the Opposition went into the proposed Committee unfettered the Committee might have a fortunate result, but he did not see how they could be asked to go into the Committee with the Chairman and the majority pledged, when they knew beforehand what would be the result. This Bill made a most serious change in the whole history of Irish land legislation. It recasted very nearly all the most important provisions of the Land Act of 1881; it changed the judicial term and recast the whole of the arrangements as to improvements; it did away with the notice, which had prevented so many evictions; it removed the main security against compulsion in the matter of land purchase; and threw into the net, as a sort of bonne bouche, town parks and pasture holdings. He objected to the Bill because of the enormous amount of litigation which it would promote, and regretted that the hon. Member who introduced it had not adopted the principle of the Act of 1887 in regard to change in prices.

I did not do so because the Act of 1887 did not take produce into account.

^* said, he must urge the Chief Secretary not to assent to the Second Reading of the Bill, because the principle of a revision of judicial rent every eight years was fundamentally un- sound. The object was to lessen litigation, and the Bill would promote litigation; for every individual rent would have to be fixed twice as often as at present. The question of improvements had been dealt with in discussion in an extremely partial and narrow sense, although in the Bill it was dealt with in a manner only too comprehensive and partisan. He never knew any principle adopted with more deliberation by the House than the one that improvements other than buildings and the reclamation of waste lands, were to be included after 20 years in the fair rent. That was the deliberate affirmation of Parliament, and the principle was affirmed time after time by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, and in most specific terms by Mr. Bright.

On the contrary, the Member for Midlothian stated in 1881 that he did not intend to adopt that principle of the Act of 1870. He would find the reference in Hansard.

^* said, that under the present Bill not merely was the tenant to be paid for every improvement, but the presumption was that every improvement must have been made by the tenant or his predecessor in title. On the same principle they might argue that because the tenant did not keep accurate accounts it was for the landlord to prove that his title to the land was good, and in default that the fee-simple should belong to the tenant. If the landlord did not consider the improvements made by the tenant suitable for the holding, and protested against their being made, he would nevertheless be bound to pay him on going out.

This Bill does not amend the Act of 1870 in that respect.

said, that what had occurred in 1881 was this: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian said that in the Act of 1870 Parliament recognised the principle that the tenant might be compensated by a reasonable lapse of time in respect to improvements which he had made, but in the Act of 1881 they had not recognised that principle.

^* of the right hon. Gentleman was this: He specifically allowed words to be inserted in the Act of 1881 which were subsequently found by the proceedings to be governed by the Act of 1870. Again, if the tenant proposed to make certain improvements in consideration of having his rent reduced, the Bill said that, after the improvements had been made in pursuance of the contract, the Court was to come in and ascertain the value of the improvements and the amount of rent the landlord was to forego and decide whether the contract, perhaps made many years before, had been fair. Thus the landlord was to be called upon to pay for improvements for which he had already given adequate compensation. Then, if the tenant desired to erect a dwelling upon his holding, and insisted upon building a large house in spite of the objections of the landlord that it was not suited to the holding, and if the tenant left or became a bankrupt, the landlord would have to pay compensation based on the cost of the house he had objected to. Again, if the tenant built a house of moderate size, and if the landlord had made a corresponding allowance in the rent, nevertheless, at the close of the term or in case of bankruptcy, the question of compensation must be decided by the Court. And yet the Court would have no means of determining what was the condition of the land at the time the tenant entered upon the holding, although in 10 years the tenant might have completely ruined it. Again, there was nothing to prevent a tenant from obtaining compensation for improvements which he had himself exhausted by ordinary wear and tear. In fact, the clause of the Bill tore up nearly all the decisions that had been given by the Courts with regard to improvements; yet they were asked to give it a Second Reading without time to consult a single Irish lawyer about it. It was at variance with the professions of the late Leader of the House and those who sat with him when the Acts were passed. [Mr. J. MORLEY: I was not in the House.] There were other points which were not touched by the Bill. In 1881 he protested against the sums that were to be given for tenant-right, and experience had justified what he then said, because payments for tenant-right had done more than anything else to impoverish tenants. When a tenant had paid nothing and had made no improvements he had nothing to sell. A case occurred the other day in which it came out that a tenant's rent was £48 and his valuation was £25. The tenant went into Court to claim a fair rent, but before the case was tried the tenant sold the tenant-right to a neighbour for a capital sum of £630, or, including costs, £661. In that case there had been no outlay for improvements and no expenditure on entering upon the farm; and the outgoing tenant simply sold the £48 rental at a price which added £25 of interest to the rent for the incoming tenant, who was saddled with the extra £25 simply that he might occupy the holding without being called a land-grabber. Could such payments be regarded as an economic solution of the Land Question? There was no provision in the Bill for the rare cases of English-managed estates, on which, of course, all improvements belonged to the landlord. He objected as much as anyone to putting rent upon improvements made by a tenant; but, still, it must be recognised that all improvements did not necessarily belong to the tenant. No reason had been given for the very stringent clause with regard to demesne lands; and town parks were the subject of a bogus agitation in favour of butchers and meat salesmen. This was simply a proposal to give a man for 30s. an acre what he could let for £5 or £6 an acre. He regarded the agitation in regard to town parks as being a bogus agitation. It was an agitation which served very well to fill up gaps in the speeches of Members below the Gangway, but there was no bottom to it at all. The settlement arrived at in the Land Act of 1887 he had heard spoken of time after time as a fair compromise. Town parks must remain, and a man who owned a town had a right to the natural development of that town. He ought not to have agricultural tenants planted on him right up to the houses of the town if he required to let the land to those who were responsible for the markets of the town. Was it to the advantage of those who had to take their cattle to a town from a long distance that they should not have a place in which to house them the night before the sale? The promoters of this Bill wanted to carry out their views by Act of Parliament, although they could not get a lawyer in Ireland to support them. He hardly thought that the hon. Member who moved the Second Reading wished the House to take him seriously in the few arguments he advanced as to pasture farms. The hon. Member said he knew cases in which 90 per cent. of farms were broken up, and which were yet held to be pasture farms. Such cases were utterly at variance with the legal decisions given by the Court of Appeal. In one case the Court of Appeal affirmed a decision of the Land Commission holding not to be a pasture farm one of 195 acres, of which the tenant was not allowed to break up more than 40 acres, and from which he was not allowed to remove any hay. In another case the Court of Appeal, presided over by Lord Ashbourne, then Lord Chancellor, decided that a farm of 150 acres, all in pasture, of which 20 acres might be broken up, was not a pasture farm. Under Clause 11 of the Bill it was proposed that lettings beyond a life interest should be legalised. He thought that this would lead to very great inconveniences and complications, and it would cut at the root of all agreements with regard to limited owners. Until the law of limited owners was abolished altogether it would be impossible for any Law Officer on the Treasury Bench to support the clause. Again, nothing could be more inequitable than to enable a man who had been evicted for nonpayment of rent and had been reinstated to come back as a present tenant on the same terms as men who had paid their rents from first to last and had never been evicted. This Bill would put an end at one stroke to the written notice which had been called the "eviction-made-easy" notice, but which could not be shown by statistics to be such a notice and which could be defended on the ground that it conduced to peace and good order in Ireland. This was a deliberate attempt on the part of Members below the Gangway to substitute for amicable relations between landlords and tenants those embittered and hostile feelings which Parliament had to a large extent endeavoured to remove by the Act of 1887. Those Members wanted to see the battering-ram in operation and Land League huts full, whilst those who opposed this Bill wanted to see the Land League huts empty and peace and good feeling prevailing between landlords and tenants. If it were only in the interest of the peace of Ireland, and solely because the Bill contained such a provision, he, for one, would never consent to its passage. He had endeavoured to show the House that this Bill was not the innocuous, small, and insignificant measure that had been suggested in the extremely dove-like speech of the hon. Member who introduced it. He had endeavoured to show that, if passed, it would entirely change the policy of Parliament. He had tried to point out that it would preclude the Opposition from assenting to that Committee which otherwise they were prepared to assent to. If the Opposition were determined in their opposition to that Committee, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Morley) might count upon a couple of nights' Debate with regard to it. He ventured, however, to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to prejudge the question, but to say that this Bill, which had been produced hurriedly, which would promote litigation and must burke inquiry, was a measure that ought not hastily to be accepted and was one which he was justified in declining to vote for.

^* said, he had paused for a moment or two before rising in the expectation that this remarkable and far-reaching Bill would have obtained more support from Members below the Gangway than had yet been forthcoming. The Bill had been printed and circulated only a few hours before its Second Reading had been moved. It was full of all sorts of deep, legal questions and it required very long and careful consideration. That the Second Reading of such a Bill should have been proposed on a Wednesday and that not a single leading Member of the Party below the Gangway should have risen in support of it were facts that must fill English and Scotch Members with amazement. He objected to the Bill on two or three grounds. In the first place, he objected to everlasting tinkering with the Irish Land Question. That question had now been before the country for 23 or 24 years. Land Act after Land Act had been passed, only to give rise to fresh demands. We were told that the tenants were no better off for all the legislation that had been adopted on their behalf, and certainly the landlords were not. It was most indecent to rush Bills of this kind through the House of Commons. As to the proposed Committee on the Irish Land Question, he had no desire to burke discussion on the subject or to throw unreasonable and unnatural obstacles in the way of it; but he thought Members had a right to some Debate upon the question before appointing a Committee, and he felt that if this Bill were read a second time any inquiry by a Committee afterwards would be simply a delusion and a sham. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Pinkerton) had quoted, or rather misquoted, a private conversation he (Mr. Smith-Barry) had had with him in the Lobby. The hon. Member had Stated that he (Mr. Smith-Barry) had said that his tenants in Ireland were better rent-payers than his tenants in Huntingdonshire, and that the Huntingdonshire farmers were very bad rent-payers.

^*

^* said that, begging the hon. Member's pardon, he had never said anything of the kind. What he had said was that more rent was obtained from the Irish tenants than from the tenants of Huntingdonshire, because, whilst the tenants of Ireland had suffered very slightly indeed from the agricultural depression, and their rents had been very considerably reduced by law, the depression in agriculture in the Eastern Counties of England, and especially in Huntingdonshire, had been such that it was almost impossible for the tenants to make a living there at all. His statement had been that the tenant-farmers of Ireland were relatively in an exceedingly prosperous condition. As to the provisions of this Bill, all who were in the unfortunate position of being Irish landlords must look upon them as being exceedingly injurious to their interests, inasmuch as they went further in the direction of robbing the Irish landlords than previous Acts. As far as he could gather, no arguments whatever had been put forward in favour of the first provision— namely, the change in the statutory term. He did not think there was any special virtue in a term of 15 years, any more than there was any special -virtue in a term of seven years. When the Bessborough Commission was sitting, it was recommended that the statutory term should be 31 years, and the usual term in Scotland was, he believed, either 14 or 19 years. The same objection applied, however, whatever the length of the term. If the term in Ireland were changed now from 15 to seven or eight years, the probability was that two years hence it would be said that the latter term was too long and that there must be a further reduction to three years or two years, even if they had not to go back to annual agreements. There was no doubt that the present system of fixing fair rents was a cumbrous, an inconvenient, an expensive, and an objectionable system. He himself, and all the Irish landlords he knew, would be very glad indeed if some simpler and possibly more automatic system could be devised by which the present expense, irritation, and annoyance could be avoided. It was not his business to suggest the alterations that were desirable, but he said that the alterations of the statutory term from 15 years to seven would not meet the difficulty. The only effect of such an alteration would be that the expense and annoyance of the present system would be doubled, inasmuch as the parties would have to go into Court twice in 15 years instead of once. As to the question of tenants' improvements, he would say at once that no landlord had the slightest wish to rob any tenant of his improvements. The case that had been brought forward by the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) was a very scandalous and bad case, and if provisions could be made to meet such a case none of them in that quarter of the House would have any objection whatever to the adoption of such provisions; on the contrary, all of them would be only too glad to support them. These proposals went a great deal further than that. They gave a pre- sumption to the tenant of being the owner and creator of these improvements from time immemorial. It was all very well to say that the landlords kept books, and that the tenants did not. He was sorry to say that all the landlords did not keep books; or if they did, the books very often disappeared, or were not available when estates changed hands. It was the most difficult thing in the world for landlords to produce evidence on these matters. There was nothing under such a Bill as this to prevent tenants coming forward, as they constantly did, and claiming compensation for every sort of improvement, real and imaginary, which they might assert had been carried out either by themselves or their predecessors years and generations before. The landlords were at the present moment most severely mulcted under the Land Acts, and if such an amendment of the law as this were effected the robbery would be increased and multiplied to an enormous extent. Besides that, it had always been considered that the owner provided the land and the tenant the labour. The tenants after a reasonable time were able to recoup themselves for their labour and the money they had spent on their holdings, and it was supposed that the arrangement would work out equally. But if this was to be upset a great deal of injustice would be done. It was taken for granted by Members below the Gangway on that (the Opposition) side of the House and by many English Members that improvements on Irish farms had always been made by the tenants. He maintained that that was a perfect fallacy. The fact was, that in heaps of cases what improvements had been made in past years, at any rate, had been made conjointly by landlord and tenant. Timber and other material had been given by; the landlords—

An hon. MEMBER: And charged for.

said, that probably some bad landlords had charged for these things, but in the enormous majority of cases no charge had been made.

An hon. MEMBER: Where?

said, that before the Land Act of 1881 landlords had been in the habit of supplying the material and the tenants the labour for improvements on farms; but naturally since that time landowners had not been such fools as to do so. Under this Bill the tenant was to have the benefit of the improvements. They were to enjoy, as it were, the "betterment;" but how about the worsement? Anyone who knew anything about Ireland was aware that on a great many small farms the land had been entirely worked out and would not produce anything like the crops it formerly did. Farmers would tell them, "Oh! the land is not so productive as it used to be; it will not bear the same crops." Why not? Because those farmers and their predecessors had worked out the land. And then, having worked out the land, they went into the Land Court and obtained a reduction of rent in consequence. He (Mr. Smith-Barry) maintained that if the tenant was to have the benefit of the improvements he had made since the time of the Flood, the landlord ought to have some compensation on his side for the damage and injury done to his land. He was entitled, at least, to have restored to him the prairie value of which hon. Members were so fond of talking. He saw in the last Report of the Congested Districts Board that there was an admission of this kind. It said—

"In many instances, owing to previous exhausting of the soil and the want of proper tillage, the crops are very bad."

He would not go at length into the question of town parks and pasture holdings, of demesne lands, but, clearly, it was necessary to leave ample room for the natural expansion of towns. When they got a Home Rule Government it might be expected that Irish towns would grow smaller instead of larger, but at present he knew of cases where the reverse process was taking place. The town of Tipperary, for instance, with which he had a great deal to do, was extending, and he maintained that to lock up the land in the neighbourhood of such towns would be to inflict the greatest injury on the shopkeepers and inhabitants generally. No doubt there were some provisions in the Bill which were good, but in the main it was a bad Bill, and an attempt to cut out of the land legislation of Ireland every provision that offered any fair protection to the rights of the landlord. Further than that, it broke the last thread that remained of freedom of contract. It was another plan for whittling away the property which belonged to the landlords, many of whom had bought in the Landed Estates Court, and had been given a Parliamentary title to their land. In these days of agricultural depression it was most important that all persons interested in agriculture should pull together, and that no attempt should be made by one class to rob another. He himself lived in Ireland as much as he could, and he intended to continue doing so, whatever legislation might be brought forward. He hoped, however, that he might be allowed to live there in peace and good fellowship with his neighbours, but he was certain that such legislation as this would not tend to the welfare of Ireland.

The hon. Member who has just sat down has not been quite consistent. He began by saying that the first and fundamental objection to this Bill is that it is another piece of that everlasting tinkering with land legislation which, in his opinion, has done so much mischief in Ireland. But I was astonished to hear the hon. Member afterwards commit himself to the doctrine of the expediency, if not the urgency, of having some automatic device—such, for example, as a sliding scale—for the purpose of dealing with one of the very mischiefs with which this Bill professes to deal. In his closing remarks, also, he admitted that there are in the Bill proposals with which he finds little fault, and in which I presume, therefore, he discerns some germs of advantage to Ireland. There was, therefore, some inconsistency in the hon. Member's speech, but I think the House will feel that in that speech, as in every speech that has been delivered to-day, we have heard a note of moderation which is not very often heard in discussions on Irish Land Questions. Excepting the hon. Member who has just sat down and the hon. Member for the Guildford Division of Surrey, nobody, not even the Mover of the Amendment, has declared an antagonism to the proposals in the Bill, and we have even had the unwonted pleasure of hearing the hon. Member for South Tyrone make an excellent speech strongly in favour of a measure promoted by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on the other side of the House, and announcing his intention to vote for the Bill. The hon. and gallant Member who moved the Amendment said—the way he put it was a little Hibernian— "I do not oppose the Bill; I only do not want to pass it now."

I said I did not oppose the whole Bill.

I do not suppose that the hon. Member agrees with every proposal in the Bill, but he is not an opponent of it, and he does not move his Amendment on account of the faults of the measure, but on the ground that it is inopportune at the present moment. The Amendment only declares that Bills of this kind are

"inexpedient and unfair, pending the proposed inquiry into the working of the Irish Land Acts."

We may take it, therefore, that, although the hon. and gallant Member's Amendment if carried would destroy the Bill, he does not disapprove this particular measure.

The right hon. Gentleman may take it that my words mean exactly what they express, and nothing more.

Just so. I presume that the language is used in its ordinary meaning, and that no esoteric sense is to be ascribed to it. Considering what has been the history of Bills relating to Irish land, especially Wednesday afternoon Bills, it is certainly an important fact that there has been no thorough-going antagonism to the proposals of the Bill, taken as a whole. What is the argument of the hon. and gallant Member who moved the Amendment? It is that as a Select Committee to inquire into the working of Irish land legislation has been moved for we ought not to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill. The hon. Member for Guildford made me an offer which I do not consider at all a generous offer, and for which I do not thank him in the least. He said that if I would promise to vote against the Second Reading he would graciously—

^* : No. What I intended to say was that if the right hon. Gentleman would not commit himself to the provisions of this Bill I would withdraw my objection to the Committee.

Then my hon. Friend wishes on an occasion when a very important proposal is made to the House, when a Bill is brought forward which it is admitted contains meritorious provisions, that I, who am responsible for Irish administration, should take the course of walking out. That is a course which I cannot consent to take. But let me recall to the House the curious history of this proposed Committee, on which so much stress is now laid. A proposal was made for a Select Committee, which, in my judgment, did not go one inch beyond the ground and area which such an inquiry ought to cover. However, I found that in some parts of the House there was a feeling strong enough to prevent the Committee from being appointed, and that the view was entertained that the proposed terms of Reference were too wide. I do not share that opinion in the least degree, and I would not have been a party to the mutilation of the Order of Reference if I did not believe that the topics covered by the original Order would be certainly dealt with in a future Session. But so anxious was I that the Committee should be appointed and should get to work that I accepted Amendments, gave way along the line, and agreed to an Order of Reference which the Leader of the Opposition himself said would be received in all quarters of the House without opposition. Then the hon. Member for Guildford says, "You only gave us 48 hours' notice." But it was not a new Motion. The Motion had been before the House ever since the beginning of the Session, and it had been on the Paper since Monday. And then the hon. Member says that he had no opportunity of consulting his Leader, though his Leader himself advised the course I took, and had been sitting at his side all through the evening. I must say that to pretend that a full opportunity was not given of considering the Order of Reference, as I put it on the Paper, is not a very reasonable or a very candid position to take. He says, "All those who vote for the Second Reading of the Bill will go into the Committee pledged." There are some who are pledged against the Bill. Are we all to walk out? Does the hon. Member seriously mean that we are to talk the Bill out or in some way adjourn the consideration of it? [Mr. BRODRICK: Certainly.] The hon. Member wants to use our votes now to destroy the Committee, and to use the Committee to destroy the Bill.

^* : If the right hon. Gentleman will consent not to take the decision on this Bill to-day, and so not to prejudge the whole question, we will make no objection whatever to the appointment of the Committee.

I am in a position when I am not bound to make any further bargain. I have accepted the suggestion made by the hon. Member's own Leader. It is a suggestion approved by everybody in the House, excepting, perhaps, the hon. Member himself; and therefore I am not going to make any further bargain about it. I shall propose the Committee, and if hon. Gentlemen will not let us have it, so be it. Meanwhile I shall certainly say what I have to say, and take the action which I think proper upon the Bill. What would a vote in favour of the Second Reading of this Bill really mean with respect to the Committee? The Bill is brought in to deal with certain difficulties and defects which were pointed out by the hon. Members who in moderate speeches moved and seconded the Second Reading. They were further pointed out and described with clearness and ample illustration by the hon. Member for South Tyrone. The fact is—as everyone who is at all acquainted with what is going on in Ireland is aware—that a certain construction has been put upon words in the Acts of 1870 and 1881 by the Courts—a construction of which I have no intention, as I am not competent, to make any complaint. But the effect of this construction in some 50 cases has been to overlay the subject with a number of doubts and difficulties which everyone would wish to see settled. The object in view is to put into more simple and definite form on the Statute Book what is believed to have been the true intention and policy of Parliament when the Acts of 1870, 1881, and 1891 were passed. In voting for the Second Reading of this Bill we shall affirm the proposition that these difficulties of construction should be removed, and in the direction of a certain policy which we believe to have been the policy of Parliament in 1881 and 1891. I am going to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill. I cannot see that by so doing I am in any substantial way prejudging the inquiry for which I have asked the House to appoint a Committee. I regard the case as one of those which are perfectly familiar to the House—the case of a Bill being read a second time subject to reference to a Select Committee. My point of view is that, though there are provisions in the Bill which I cannot accept, we are appointing a Select Committee to inquire mainly into the points raised by the Bill. There are, indeed, points in the Bill which are not, I suspect, covered by my Order of Reference. But, roughly speaking— and this is the justification of the vote which I am going to give— having moved, and intending to continue to move, the appointment of the Select Committee, I contend that this is the ordinary process. This Bill cannot get through its stages before the Select Committee which I have moved for has reported. Of that there cannot be a doubt, and therefore, in assenting to the Second Reading, I am not in the least prejudging the issues into which I have invited the House to appoint a Committee to inquire. The hon. Member for Guildford gave what I cannot but regard as an extremely exaggerated description of the purport of this Bill. He said that it recasts the whole Land Code of Ireland. [Mr. BRODERICK: Hear, hear!] When he goes through the Bill chapter by chapter and clause by clause he will find that description to be a gross exaggeration. There has been an enormous amount of litigation to the disadvantage of both the landlords and the tenants; and many of the sections of this Bill are framed with a view to remove difficulties in the construction of the law. They put the policy of the Land Code since 1870 on a definite, assured, and unmistakable ground. But that is not recasting the Land Code. It does not touch the organic provisions of the legislation of 1881 and of the Purchase Act of 1891 to alter the terms of the tenants' insurance fund. There are some provisions in the Bill of a far-reaching character; but, taking the Bill as a whole, these proposals are proposals of reform in detail, affecting mainly, certainly not minor or secondary points, but points which do not go to the root or principle of the legislation from 1870 to 1891. Take the statutory term. There is a provision in the Bill to reduce the statutory term of 15 years. I think that provision is open to a great deal of criticism. I do not see how Irish landlords or tenants are to carry on if the statutory term is to be made too short. But, at the same time, in the Crofters Act of 1886 the statutory term was fixed at seven years. Therefore, there is nothing revolutionary in the present proposal. A term of 15 years may too long, and a term of seven years may be too short; but it is a matter for discussion what is the proper term. I should have said that this Committee is not appointed, so to speak, in the air or out of the Minister's own head. It is appointed because next year applications will be lodged for the revision of judicial rents. Therefore, it is perfectly certain there is not a Member in this House from Ireland—not even the right hon. Member for the Dublin University, nor even the hon. Member who spoke last—who will deny that it is important that the attention of Parliament should be directed now, while you have yet time, through a Committee and through other means by which you can force Parliament to legislate, to the expediency of considering whether you cannot hit upon some scheme less costly, and which shall lead to less litigation than the present conditions. I now have to show that my hon. Friend has entirely exaggerated the present Bill. Take the proposal about town parks. I am inclined to concur with the hon. Member for South Tyrone in saying that the Bill goes a little far in that direction. But, on the other hand, it can hardly be denied, in view of what was intended when the Act passed, that the Courts, in some of their decisions, have gone too far in the other direction. I will not go into cases—I have them here—but I will say that I think probably this clause goes too far. Even if it does, that does not justify the statement that this is a complete recasting of the Code of Land Legislation. The same remark applies to the provision in regard to demesne lands. Then again, where the owner of a demesne makes a distinct letting of a substantial piece of his land for a term, it does then seem to me a great hardship, and not within the view and intention of Parliament when passing the Act, that the occupier of the land should be so debarred from the benefits of the Act, and I do not gather that the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has moved what practically amounts to the rejection of the Bill will demur to that proposition. So with reference to sub-letting. That proposal may be right or it may be wrong, but it does not overthrow any precedent, nor does it introduce into this Bill anything deserving the name of revolutionary, disorganising, or confiscatory. It is a matter upon which experts may differ as to important details, but, by altering the provisions in this clause, you are not inviting such a description as the hon. Member gives to the Bill. [Mr. T. W. RUSSELL: Speak up.] There are certain legal points of great importance. I think one of them was referred to by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, and in reference to this proposal I have to say it may be a right or it may be a wrong thing, but it is not a proposal that entitles you to call the Bill revolutionary and confiscatory, and I do not regard it as going so much to the root of the Bill as to justify even those who disapprove of the particular proposal in voting against the Second Reading of the Bill. I will not go into further details of the Bill as to pastures and so forth. I have said enough to show that I do not regard the Bill as a revolutionary or disorganising Bill. I regard it in substance as it is named, an amending Bill, as a Bill calculated in its proposals to undo much mischief that has been done. I have no doubt in good faith, by the decisions of the Courts, and as enabling us to place on record definitely after these many years of experience, what is the view which the Government of the day and Parliament take of this Land Code. It has been said that this is an attempt to tinker with the Irish Land Law. I can only say was it to be expected, dealing with land in Ireland, dealing with it in a way that in many respects was novel, that a code of that kind was not to be open to amendment or revision, was not sure to disclose from the very necessities of the case errors in construction? and as this Bill calls attention to that fact and makes proposals which are not, as a whole, calculated to overthrow or impair what is sound and good in the successive steps of legislation with reference to Irish land since 1880, I do not feel that I am taking a rash step either in view of future legislative action on my own part or in view of the Inquiry which I hope the House will assent to, in announcing that I intend to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill.

We have heard a good deal in a recent Debate in this House about the usefulness or otherwise of the functions of private Members and of the injury or the advantage of abolishing their opportunities of interfering in the business of this House; but I am sure if any enemy of the functions and privileges of a private Member desired an object-lesson in support of his views, he would certainly have obtained it by the proceedings of this day, and if I may venture to say so, by the attitude which the right hon. Gentleman has now assumed with regard to these proceedings and with regard to the fate of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman stated, and stated truly, that there had been a tone of moderation in the speeches which had been delivered this day. I think he might have added also that there was a tone of unreality, for everybody knew and felt that happily the proceedings of this day, though, indeed, involving serious considerations if they were seriously dealt with, can have practically, as the case stands, no effect whatever, and that the whole of this Debate will leave the question really where it stood before the Debate began. But the right hon. Gentleman took advantage of this tone of moderation that he referred to to fasten upon those who had spoken in support of the Amendment which is now before the House an admission on their part that they were not opposed to the principles of this Bill. What are the principles of this Bill? There are a dozen or a score of principles in the Bill, and some of these principles I, for one, quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman, if fairly and justly dealt with, are proper subjects for consideration. A few of the clauses as they stand—and these are not the important ones—I should be prepared to agree with, hut together with these clauses, to which no objection has been taken by my hon. Friend, there are other clauses involving principles of the most important and, as I consider, the most unjust character that have ever been proposed in any of the various Bills which have been introduced on this subject by hon. Members who sit below the Gangway; and the most remarkable part of the speech to which we have just listened is this: that while the right hon. Gentleman adverted to a few of the proposals of this Bill, with which he said he was not in entire accord, and the greater number of which he said, in their present condition, at all events, he could not approve, he said nothing whatever of that which is, as was well said by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, the cardinal principle of this Bill, and that is this 6th clause, which deals with and proposes a new legislation with reference to the question of improvements. The right hon. Gentleman must have known, and felt, well that it is really the pith and marrow of the Bill. Be it right or wrong, that is the part of this Bill which excites real interest in Ireland. On this subject the right hon. Gentleman has not said a word. I would ask leave in a minute or two to refer again to that part of the subject, and I will now ask the House to consider under what circumstances this Bill is introduced, having within it not only moderate, but comparatively narrow proposals, of narrow interest and importance, but having also proposals which would absolutely revolutionise in the most delicate and important parts the conclusions at which this House has again and again arrived with the support of the Government of the day—whether it belonged to the Party opposite or to those who sit on this side of the House? The House has again and again refused to give its assent to such proposals, and this will be the first time that ever one of these Bills has passed the Second Reading with the assent—even the qualified assent we have heard, to-day—of the representative of the Government which deals, as this Bill proposes to deal, with that great subject of legislation—the tenants' improvements, and many other subjects. How does the case stand? We have been trying for I do not know how many years—certainly now for a quarter of a century— to deal with this Irish Land Question. It is admitted on all hands that the Irish tenant has been better dealt with and more favourably dealt with by the legislation of this country, that he has been more protected and more assisted financially as well as in other respects by the Government of this country, than the occupiers of land in any other country, I believe, in the civilised world, and, as a matter of fact, the Irish tenant is now in a better position to discharge his duty and pay his rent than the tenants of this country and of Scotland. That rent—which has been ascertained by the tribunals established by land legislation to be payable— can be paid, has been paid, and is being paid, except when the unfortunate tenants are instigated by agitators for their own purposes to refuse to pay the rent which these agitators admit themselves they are well able to pay. It is under these circumstances that we are asked, one fine Wednesday afternoon on short debate, having had this Bill before us only a couple of days, to reverse in its most essential particulars, so far as a decision taken on such an occasion as the present can affect the issue, the main principle and the principles of the legislation which has thus been deliberately arrived at. I have no intention of following the hon. Member through all the clauses of this Bill. They have already been most ably dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for the Guildford Division, and many of them by my hon. Friend the Member for South Hunts; but I wish to be allowed to call attention to what I have described as the real backbone of this Bill, and to ask the House is it prepared to affirm, by giving a Second Reading to this Bill, the principle there laid down? What is the proposal as regards tenants' improvements in this Bill? It has been stated by the hon. Member for South Tyrone—who, although he has always fought a fair and gallant battle for the tenants, was obliged to say he himself would not go all the length of the proposals of this Bill as regards the improvements—that the purpose of this Bill is that not only shall the tenants in the future fixing of fair rents have a full return for all the improvements which he has himself made in the land by his own money or labour, but that he also shall claim to have and shall be given, if this Bill were passed into law, the whole of the improvable value of the land which was demised to him by his landlord. I ask hon. Members for England, Scotland, and Wales—I do not care how extreme are their views on the subject—are they prepared to adopt that view? The right hon. Gentleman has not said one word upon the subject. I will venture to make one or two brief references to the opinions which have been expressed on former occasions by some who, I think, will be admitted to be high authorities on this subject, and who lay down principles which are in direct and diametric opposition to the principles proposed in this Bill. Let us see what was said by Mr. Isaac Butt, who was certainly a very strong advocate of the tenants' claims. Here is a quotation from Mr. Butt, which was used by one of my hon. Friends in a former Debate upon this subject, and which I quote from Hansard. Mr. Butt said—

"The additional value is not the creation solely of the tenant. It is the creation partly of the expenditure of the skill of the tenant and partly of the inherent capability of the soil."

Mr. Butt pointed out cases in illustration of this contention, and went on to say—

"These powers of the soil were the property of the landlord, and he has the right to have them returned to him when the tenant's interest expires. He has not the right, however, to appropriate the expenditure which the tenant has incurred in making them productive."

With that view of the law I venture humbly and entirely to concur, but I say that the provisions of this Bill will directly reverse and destroy the principle which is there laid down. I will only ask leave to quote one other authority, because I think the right hon. Gentleman who spoke just now can scarcely be aware of the doctrine which has been laid down and the principles which have been proclaimed by the present Lord Chancellor of his own Administration. This subject, as I have said, has been for many years before Parliament, and there was a Debate on this subject in 1883, when a Bill was introduced into this House which dealt with this matter, though not exactly in the same language, in precisely the same terms as this present Bill does. This is what the present Lord Chancellor, who was then the Solicitor General (Mr. Herschell) said. He first dealt with the supposition that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, who was at that time Prime Minister, had given some sanction to this new view—that is to say, to proposals similar to those in the present Bill. Mr. Herschell said—

"It is, in effect, a complete revolution of the provisions of the Act of 1881."

And now let me observe that the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has said that his object in assenting to the Second Reading of this Bill was that the provisions of the Bill should be considered with the view to their alteration, if necessary, in the direction indicated by the provisions which the Bill contains.

I am afraid I must not have expressed myself clearly. What I said was that the Select Committee would consider these decisions of the Courts, in connection with its construction of the various Acts, with the view to seeing what was the intention and policy of Parliament.

It does not seem to me that the right hon. Gentleman can very clearly explain to us what is the object of voting for the Second Reading of this Bill at all. Here is a Bill crammed full of principles, and these principles are to be developed by the adoption of a certain manner of treating them. "Oh," says the right hon. Gentleman, "I think these principles ought to be considered, but I mean to affirm nothing at all by voting for the Second Reading of the Bill," which is really full of provisions for giving a practical and specific direction for the treatment of these very principles. In the Debate from which I am about to quote the present Lord Chancellor it was stated that the object of the Bill then before the House was to restore as far as possible the intention of those who were the original framers of this system of land legislation—that was the Land Act of 1881—and subsequent Acts as far as they affected it; and it was alleged by someone in this Debate that the right hon. Member for Midlothian was in favour of the change that was proposed by that Bill. His Solicitor General declared that that was not the case, and went on to say, after the words I have quoted, that—

"He might claim to know something of that Act, as he was present during the whole of the discussions which took place upon it, and he said the Bill was deliberately brought forward for the purpose of re-opening matters which were settled by the Land Act (1881) and to completely revolutionise the character of that settlement."

He went on to say—

"They had heard about the prairie value. Hon. Members opposite had contended that all the landlord was entitled to was the prairie value, and this was a Bill for depriving him of anything but the prairie value. It proposed that prairie value should be the test of fair rent, and that anything beyond that should be the property of the tenant in occupation of the land."

He puts the principle very clearly here. He says—

"Suppose two tenants paid each £100 for a farm and applied equal skill and energy to their work, in the case of one farm making it worth £100 more and in the case of the other only of the enhanced value of £5. What made the difference? It was the inherent capabilities of the land that gave the extra value, and this no more belonged to the tenant than did the land itself. Therefore the judgment in 'Adams v. Dunseath' on that point was perfectly correct. He maintained that the provision in Clause 5 was not only opposed to the decision in that case, but was manifestly unjust. They must take this scheme as a whole, and, taking it in that way, it came to nothing but this— that everything beyond prairie value would be deemed, unless the contrary was proved, to be the property of the tenant, and on the basis of that alone ought fair rent to be fixed."

The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary says—

"Although I vote for the Second Reading of this Bill, I know very well it can never come to anything. I know very well there is not the i smallest chance of the Bill passing into law until after the Committee has reported, at all events, on this portion of its investigation."

He might have added, if he would remember what was said by his own Lord Chancellor, that if it were carried through this House and were sent up to another place, his own Lord Chancellor would find it impossible, after the quotations I have LOW read—skilful as I know politicians and statesmen are to reverse their opinions and act in direct opposition to the opinions which they had formerly expressed—to support it, and I do not believe that Lord Herschell would do anything of the kind. I am perfectly satisfied if this Bill ever passed through its stages in this House, and were to reach another place, Lord Herschell himself would be bound by the principles there laid down to reject what has been admitted on all hands to be the cardinal feature and main principle of this Bill. What position are we left in by the attitude taken up by the Chief Secretary? I might refer to other provisions of this Bill almost as important as this, which have on former occasions been as decidedly opposed and rejected and denounced, I might say, by the Representatives of the Government over which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian presided from time to time. I am satisfied, however, if the House will allow me to take that individual principle as an illustration of what I mean, and in what position is the House placed? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary gave in his adhesion to certain less important principles of the Bill, and to some others of what I may describe as of second-class importance, he has given a very qualified assent, but upon this main and leading feature of the Bill he said never a word. Then, I ask, what is the meaning of this voting for the Second Reading of the Bill? He admits that it has no chance of passing. Has ever anyone heard that a Member, much more a Minister, can approve of the Second Reading of a Bill without expressing any opinion one way or the other upon its leading provision. I can put but one construction upon the attitude taken up by the right hon. Gentleman, and it is this: that while he feels it is absurd to give such reasons as he has given for voting for such Second Reading, he desires to keep himself quite unpledged as regards the future on all its main principles, and as to the Committee on this Bill, he says it is not in any way to trammel him or any person else in the course they may take. So far as that goes it is satisfactory. We understand now that the view of the right hon. Gentleman is that if that Committee should be appointed and should sit, he will find himself quite unfettered by the Second Reading on this Bill. Then why on earth has he encouraged this House to spend all to-day in discussing these principles? The right hon. Gentleman has tried to place the construction upon the Amendment which has been moved by the hon. and gallant Member for Down that it was an acceptance of the principle of the Bill. It was nothing of the kind. I say it was simply another form of moving the adjournment of this Debate, and I submit to the House and to any candid man in this House was not that a reasonable, and fair, and natural course to suggest to this House to take under the circumstances which I have now stated? Here is a Bill to the principles of which the right hon. Gentleman does not desire to commit himself in any way. Here is a Bill which others may think, if the Second Reading is adopted will, to a certain extent, affect the proceedings of the Committee which he is anxious should sit. Is it not the most natural course to suggest that the further consideration of this question should be postponed until the House has before it the result of the inquiries of this Committee. There is a wide difference of opinion between Members sitting in different parts of this House as to the reality of many of the grievances which have been put forward; there is still a wider difference, supposing that these grievances really exist, as to which course legislation should take to deal in any necessity of that kind which may exist. Is it not a most reasonable and natural course to suggest, is it not the ordinary practice of the House, under the circumstances, that the further consideration of the question should be postponed until we shall have before us the result of the inquiry of the Committee which is to inquire into every matter included in the Bill?

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 254; Noes 165.—(Division List, No. 22.)

Main Question put, and agreed to. Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.

^* said, he moved the Second Reading of this innocent measure for the identification, and for the regulation and sale of foreign and colonial fruit. He was sure the House would, after the recent political Debate, welcome this social measure, which was for the advantage of British fruit growers, British jam manufacturers, and the consumers of British fruit and British jam. The sole object of the Bill was to put a stop to fraud in fruit in exactly the same way as the Margarine Act of 1887 put a stop to fraud in butter. He purposely excluded from the operation of the Bill all fruits which were not grown out-of-doors in the United Kingdom, such as oranges, pine apples, and grapes. The Bill would not prevent foreign and colonial fruit from coming into this country, and anyone who wished to get foreign or colonial fruit could do so; but he was anxious that those who desired to purchase British fruit should be able to do so without being cheated. His Bill was founded on the provisions of the Margarine Act, which had proved in operation, especially in Ireland, to be very popular. It was, as he had said, an innocent measure, and was solely intended for the benefit of honest-dealing people and for the suppression of fraud. He begged to move.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—( Mr. Hozier. )

I think that of all the extraordinary measures that have ever been submitted to the House of Commons this is the most extraordinary. It is described as a Bill for the identification and for the regulation and sale of foreign and colonial fruit, and it makes it a condition that no foreign or colonial fruit shall be sold, either wholesale or retail, without being branded.

The packages, not the fruit.

The Bill says—

"Every package, whether open or closed, containing foreign or colonial fruit shall be branded or otherwise durably marked on the top, bottom, and sides in capital letters not less than three-quarters of an inch square."

That is copied word for word from the Margarine Act.

Margarine and fruit are two different things. The Bill goes on—

"And if such foreign and colonial fruit be exposed for sale by retail there shall be attached to each parcel thereof so exposed, and in such manner as to be clearly visible to the purchaser, a label marked only in printed capital letters not less than one and a-half inches square, 'Grown abroad,' and every person selling foreign or colonial fruit by retail, save in a package duly branded or otherwise durably marked as aforesaid, shall in every case deliver the same to the purchaser in or with a paper wrapper, bag, or other receptacle, or accompanied by a ticket or label, on which shall be printed in capital letters not less than a quarter of an inch square the words 'Grown abroad.'"

Thus, every coster with his barrow or every old woman keeping an apple-stall, if she sells a pennyworth of apples must put them in a bag duly branded with letters a quarter of an inch square showing that they were grown abroad. If she does not do so she is liable to a penalty of £50, and if she is an habitual offender she is liable to three months' hard labour. But that is not all. The presumption is to be against the vendor. The fruits scheduled in the Bill are apples, apricots, asparagus, blackberries, cherries, cobnuts, cranberries, cucumbers, currants, damsons, filberts, gooseberries, mulberries, nectarines, peaches, pears, plums, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, and walnuts, and the vendor must prove that all these are grown at home or abroad. At every fair and market in this country these fruits, imported from all parts of Europe, are sold in pennyworths, and in London thousands of costers earn a living by selling cheap fruit. To say that these men should label each package with the name of the place of origin is ridiculous.

^* : The words are, "or accompanied by a ticket or label." It is all word for word in the Margarine Act.

Imagine a boy who goes to a stall for a pennyworth of apples requiring a ticket showing the country in which the fruit is grown! I hope the hon. Gentleman will have the courage of his convictions, and, as we still have five minutes before half-past 5, take a Division on this Bill.

^* said, his hon. Friend who introduced the Bill could not do better than take a Division, if only to show how sincere was the interest which Her Majesty's Government took in agricultural ques- tions. Perhaps the President of the Board of Trade was a little too much occupied with other affairs to know that at the present moment fruit culture was the only source of profit on which the distressed agriculturist could rely; or perhaps he was ignorant that in the County of Kent—in the constituency which he had had the honour of representing for 29 years—there were thousands of acres of fruit land on which a very large number of people had to depend for a living. The object of this Bill was to protect the fruit-growers of this country from the fraud that was now practised on them by the foreigner. If the right hon. Gentleman would go to the quays at Antwerp, or any other foreign town, he would find thousands of English baskets and packages for bringing over indifferent foreign fruit to the English market and to be forced on the consumer as English fruit, thereby robbing English producers of the price they would naturally get for home-grown produce. There was no protection in the proposal of the Bill. It was merely an effort to give the struggling farmers of this country a fair chance, and to allow the consumer to know what he was purchasing. He hoped his hon. Friend would go to a Division, and thus secure him a safe seat for his life.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 110; Noes 210.—(Division List, No. 23.)

said, he begged to move the Second Reading of this Bill. The object of the measure was to substitute for the present arrangement of certificate for proficiency for evening schools a certificate of attendance at school, under Rules framed by the Education Department. That was the object of the Bill which was promoted by the National Union of Elementary Teachers of England and Wales, and therefore supported by the best professional educational opinion in the country. He hoped it would receive, more or less, the coun- tenance and sanction of Her Majesty's Government.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—( Sir R. Temple. )

The subject dealt with in this Bill is a most intricate and important one, and I could not accept the Second Reading without a full discussion. To do so would be most unfair to the teachers and to the children. I must object to the Bill being taken at an hour which does not allow of an adequate discussion.

Objection being taken to Further Proceeding, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

said, he wished to move the Second Reading of this Bill. It differed from the Bill of last year, inasmuch as the Amendment put into that Bill in the other House had been incorporated with it. The present measure contained an alternative—protection of area or protection of species.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—( Sir H. Maxwell. )

said, he did not object to the Bill, but he thought the Tory Party should agree amongst themselves in regard to their Bills. The House had a right to expect some agreement between the Tory Party in the House of Commons and the Tory Party in the House of Lords. Hon. Members were asked to support the Bill last year, and they did so, but when it reached the House of Lords their Lordships fell on it, and the Amendments they made had to be kicked out subsequently in the House of Commons. If they engaged themselves with the Bill this Session, what security would they have that the Lords would not attack it again, and send it back in a mutilated form? Their Lordships had esoteric views as to wild birds, and the Commons had a right to know what those views were.

Objection being taken to Further Proceeding, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed on Friday.

asked what was to be the business tomorrow, and what business it was proposed to take at the Morning Sitting on Friday?

In the absence of the Leader of the House, I cannot make a positive statement, but I think the Navy Votes are to be taken tomorrow, and that they are to be followed by the Army (Annual) Bill. If there is then time, the Second Reading of the Equalisation of Rates Bill will be taken. On Friday I think the business will be the introduction of the Registration Bill.

An hon. MEMBER asked when the Adjourned Debate on the Standing Committee for Scotch Bills would be resumed?

said, that perhaps the hon. Member would repeat the question to the Leader of the House tomorrow.

asked at what period of the evening the Army (Annual) Bill would be taken tomorrow? The Government had given a pledge that it would not be taken except at an early hour.

said, he hoped the Navy Votes would be disposed of in good time, so that they might enter upon the Army (Annual) Bill at a reasonable hour.

said, he supposed that if the Army (Annual) Bill was not reached in good time, it would not be taken to-morrow.

I cannot say.

Question put, and agreed to.

House adjourned at three minutes before Six o'clock.