^* rose to move the Second Reading of this Bill. He should not, he said, make a long speech, because he did not think there was a single Member of the House who had not made up his mind how he should vote on the question. Not only was that the case, but the last General Election was, to a great extent, fought on the policy embodied in the Act he now asked the House to repeal. There was one large party in England and a very large party in Ireland whe were for a policy of conciliation towards Ireland. Another powerful party in England, and a comparatively small party in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, wished to govern Ireland by brute force, for as long as the Act which he sought to have repealed— and which was commonly known as the Coercion Act—was in force the people of Ireland would consider they were being governed by brute force. The party that triumphed at the polls was the party of conciliation. One great point of the English Constitution was individual liberty for a man to go about his private affairs and individual liberty to take any political action he chose. When a man in England was tried for any offence he bad certain guarantees that he would get a fair trial. The Judges were among the very best of the lawyers, and were practically irremovable. But, good as these Judges were, they were not the sole guardians of the people's liberty, for there was a jury of 12 men empanelled to try an offender, and they were drawn from the very district in which the offence was alleged to have been committed. This had been found a great guarantee of liberty. Further than this, it was only one of the highest of the High Courts of Justice that could step in and change the venue. In Ireland the Act which he asked the House to repeal took every one of these guarantees away. Ireland was not a free country, and whilst the Queen was a Constitutional Sovereign in three-fourths of the United Kingdom, in the remaining one-fourth she was an un-Constitutional Sovereign. How did affairs stand in Ireland? They had had Members of Parliament and others who addressed public meetings on political questions prosecuted for offences under the Coercion Act. If a man was accused of a disgraceful crime he did not boast of it in his constituency. He did not wish it referred to; but in Ireland if a man had been convicted under this Act it became a subject of boast and congratulation. ["Hear, hear!"] He was glad to hear that cheer from the hon. Member for Carlisle opposite, who once apologised for him (Colonel Nolan)—and that before an English audience, too—because he had not been imprisoned in Ireland. Offences committed under the Act were not considered crimes either in England or in Ireland. How were these offences tried? By removeables—by gentlemen who were appointed to the Bench at salaries of £700 a year because of some claim, public or private, upon a Minister, it might be in regard to a battle in South Africa. These gentlemen did not know much about law. Of course, they could work up enough law to meet their ordinary and proper requirements, but they were absolutely unfit to try the Constitutional questions that were brought before them under this Act. It was, therefore, absurd to send Members of Parliament to be tried before such men. It was inviting a miscarriage of justice. The great thing was that such men were removeable, and that they were liable to lose their £700 a year. £700 a year was not a large salary, but it might be a great deal to them and to their wives and children, and they knew that if they stuck to their own opinion under the Coercion Act as against that of the Attorney General and the Law Officers they were in danger of losing their appointments. They might be, therefore, not so obstinate as to stick to their opinions and lose £700 a year. He objected to a Star Chamber system of in- quiry in Ireland, which was utterly unknown in England. The last time it was attempted in England it materially assisted in bringing about a revolution. They were told that it took place in Scotland, but he contended it would be very much out of place in England as it was in Ireland. The Irish law was founded on the English law—or as much as they were allowed to have of it. It was not founded on the Scotch law, and he believed if it was attempted to establish it in England Members would rise in revolt against it and destroy the Government. Why, then, should it be allowed in Ireland? He also complained that the Attorney General had too much power in Ireland in regard to change of venue. In England a motion had to be made in Court, but in Ireland the Attorney General had only to write his name upon a paper when he wished to make changes, and it was done. As a rule, the Attorney General was a gentleman who was on the look out for a Judgeship. He was appointed for his political services, and if he did not take a Judgeship it was because it was not good enough; and this was the gentleman who was entrusted with this important power. The Coercion Act was an infamous Act when they came to look into it. If it had been inflicted upon England the people of Ireland might have submitted to it; but it had not, and he contended that it was atrocious to impose it upon those who were too weak to fight against it. There had been nothing like it since ancient times. Coming down to a late period, they found that the United States once suspended the Constitution in the South, but only after a tremendous war. The Constitution was restored after a short period, and the men from Alabama were now as good citizens of the United States as the men of New York. Lord Salisbury had an idea of repealing this Act at the end of 20 years, but that period did not count when the Liberal Party were in Office, but only when the Conservatives were in power. It had been imposed upon Ireland because it was a weak country and unable to resist it. He thanked the present Government for not having used the measure, although they had a great temptation to do so, and believed that by refraining to put it into force they had done a great deal of good. Had Ireland ever been as quiet during the last 20 years as it now was? The present Government had administered Ireland now for two years without the Coercion Act, and there had been extremely little crime in that country. No class had suffered. That was one reason for supporting a Liberal Government. They called themselves a free people, but directly a Conservative Government came into power the Coercion Act would be again enforced. The question was one that required very little discussion. He believed every Member had made up his mind now to vote on it. He, therefore, left it to the decision of the House. He knew that a large portion of the House were opposed to its provisions, and he trusted that the year would not go by without having this horrible and wicked Act removed from the Statute Book.

in seconding the Motion, said, everyone knew what this Coercion Act was. It was a measure that had not been applied to England, to Scotland, to Wales, or to any other part of the British Empire except Ireland. To expect that the Irish people would have an Act of such a character imposed upon them under such circumstances was to expect too much. He must say that, while he quite agreed with his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Nolan) that the present Government deserved a certain amount of credit for not having put the Coercion Act in force, the Irish Members had every reason to expect that the Government would have proceeded to repeal the Act long before now. They all knew that when the Chief Secretary and his friends were in Opposition they denounced both in England and Ireland the Coercion Act, and he did not think he would be going too far if he said that the return of the present Government was largely due to the fact that they had pledged themselves to repeal that Act, and to govern Ireland with the ordinary law. The right hon. Gentleman would not find fault with them now for being anxious that it should be repealed. He did not think the Chief Secretary would put the Act in force again, because it would be quite contrary to all his professions upon the subject, but they all knew that it was not an impossible contingency that he might at some time or other cease to be Chief Secretary. They were aware that under certain circumstances another Government might come into power, and that then, without a single day's notice, all the terrible machinery of the Act of 1887 could be put into force by the new Government without reference to this House at all. That was a very dangerous state of affairs, and the Irish Members could not be blamed if they asked for the repeal of the Act in order that it might not in future be used—at all events not without full discussion in that House, and after the matter had been thoroughly ventilated. The Chief Secretary might tell him that the Government had been very well employed since it came into Office, and that really there had been very little or no time for taking the action they were now asked to take. He granted that last year the Government occupied most of the time of the House in endeavouring to pass a Home Rule Bill. For that they deserved credit, but he was only expressing the opinion which he believed existed among the Irish people, when he said that there was a great deal of disappointment existing that the Government had not taken some step in the direction to which he was now referring. The Government had been nearly two years in power, and they had made progress with various English Bills of an important character, but they had given no sign with regard to this Coercion Act. If they had stated that they would take the earliest opportunity of repealing it that would have been something, but they had said not one single word to that effect, and under those circumstances his hon. and gallant Friend was justified in bring forward his Motion. There was no matter of higher importance to the Irish people than to secure the repeal of this Act, because if in the future they should find it necessary —as was not impossible—to enter into a combination once more for protection of their property and themselves against landlords, as they had so successfully done in the past, they would be confronted with this Coercion Act, and hampered thereby in every possible way. He contended that the Government ought to assist them in repealing this Act. They would then be able to say that they had been sincere when they were denouncing Coercion. He would not go into details with regard to this proposal. He would only say it was a measure which, if the Irish people had a means of settling is for themselves, would not have been brought before that House. He did not believe the Coercion Act could have existed in any other country in the world. As an Irishman, he felt absolutely humiliated to think that they had to come to that House to make such an appeal to it. It was almost like begging to ask that they might have restored to them the commonest principles that had prevailed in every portion of the British Empire. It was humiliating to Irishmen in this, the 19th century, to have to ask Englishmen and Scotchmen to repeal an enactment which could not exist in any other part of the world. In 1887 the Coercion Act was passed by the aid of the Closure of the most drastic kind, and on the Second Reading the most tremendous fraud of the century was perpetrated. Forgery was actually' brought into it in order to influence the House in passing the Bill. He did not hesitate to say that some Members were influenced into voting for the Second Reading in consequence of the publication in The Times of the letter which led them to believe that Mr. Parnell and his associates were in correspondence and in connection with men who had committed most desperate crimes in Ireland. He asserted that the Liberal Party owed it to the memory of the late great Irish Leader (Mr. Parnell) to vote for the repeal of the Coercion Act. A number of Irish Members were sent to prison under that Act, but it had not altered their opinions or views, or lowered them in the slightest degree in the estimation of their countrymen. He could understand the Coercion Act being continued if it could be pointed to as a success, but it had done nothing. In his own constituency of Clare the Act had been absolutely of no avail. Inquiries were made there and Magistrates' Courts were set up, but to all intents and purposes the Act had been a failure. It had been a failure also, he believed, all over Ireland, but particularly in Clare. The late Chief Secretary for Ireland would tell them that they had succeeded in tranquillising Ireland before the Coercion Act; but any student of Irish history must know that coercion never tranquillised a country. On the contrary, it had been the greatest possible stimulus to further agitation. The late Chief Secretary knew very well that he had put a large number of representative men in Ireland into prison, but that he had failed to change the opinion of any one of them. He knew also that public opinion supported the men he had put into gaol. With regard to the treatment accorded to prisoners under the Coercion Act, the Irish people would never forget that some individuals actually lost their lives under it. He, for one, could not forget that the Coercion Act was distinctly responsible for the death, at least, of John Mandeville. Hon. Members knew how he was fed on bread and water day after day until he was reduced almost to the point of death, and how he actually did die shortly afterwards. He himself (Mr. Redmond) had had the pleasure, or rather the advantage from the point of view of his constituents, of being in prison. Some hon. Gentlemen who were put in prison objected to wearing prison clothes. He did not care what particular clothes he wore as long as they were clean clothes, and he was not a bit ashamed of wearing the prison dress. He, however, refused to associate with the ordinary prisoners. He was asked to go out into the prison yard, and to walk shoulder to shoulder with the common prisoners. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour) what good he expected to effect by subjecting an Irish Member to such treatment? He was in prison in Wexford Gaol. He belonged to Wexford, had spent most of his life there, and had been Member for Wexford, his father having been Member before him. Every man, woman and child in Wexford knew him. Two of the prisoners who were in the gaol with him were soldiers, who had deserted from their regiments, and committed a series of burglaries in the county. Amongst other places they had broken into was a convent in the town of Wexford. In that convent they had committed what almost amounted to an act of sacrilege in the eyes of the people, as they had taken a statue of the Blessed Virgin and hung it by the neck on to a gas-bracket. These men had been sentenced to three months' imprisonment, which was the same sentence as had been inflicted upon him for expressing his approval of the action of men in defending their houses against an eviction which had been admitted to be unjust even by the Resident Magistrate who carried it out. Well, he was asked to practically associate with these men, and because he would not do so he was put upon bread and water. He had not the slightest complaint to make of the officials of the prison. The Governor was a friend of his, and the doctor was a most respectable gentleman, who, he believed, was very sorry for what occurred. But according to the instructions of the Government of the day he was put upon bread and water for 24 hours and had 24 hours' solitary confinement, without any exercise. The next day he was asked whether he would go out with the ordinary prisoners, and because he again refused he again got 24 hours of bread and water. A third time he was asked to exercise with the common criminals, and as he again refused he got a third term of bread and water. The doctor then interfered. The bread and water meant practically nothing to him (Mr. Redmond), because he felt so indignant at the way in which he was treated that he simply ate nothing at all. The doctor, treating him as no doubt he would have treated any other patient who was brought under his notice, stopped the bread and water, and shortly afterwards sent him to the infirmary. Many hon. Members who were imprisoned under the Coercion Act went through more than he did, and he wished to know what the late Government gained by it all. After all, what was the use of putting people into prison unless as a mark of shame and degradation? Every one knew that when a man was put in prison for a genuine crime he was ashamed on regaining his liberty to hold up his head. How was he (Mr. Redmond) treated on being released? So far from being disgraced in the eyes of the community, he found on leaving the prison that the Mayor and Corporation of Wexford and all the representative men in the place were waiting for him, and he was presented on behalf of the municipality with an address of congratulation and thanks for having gone into prison under such circumstances. All the Nationalist Members who had been imprisoned were returned at the next election, and not a single soul in Ireland was affected by this treatment in the slightest degree, except in the way of being strengthened in his Nationalist opinions. Whatever may be said by the apostles of coercion, nothing could be said by anybody for such coercion as absolutely failed. If English politicians were determined to govern Ireland by coercion, they should go in for a kind of coercion that would have the result they desired. Six months' imprisonment would not stop the mouth of any man in Ireland. If they were determined to have coercion, they should repeal the present Act and introduce a drastic law which would give them the power of sending men to penal servitude for the term of their natural lives. Such coercion might succeed. The present Act would not succeed in stopping agitation in Ireland; it would only succeed in outraging the feelings of the people and in stimulating them in every possible way to continue the struggle for self-government. A Coercion Act like that now in existence, if it was enforced, was actually an incentive to crime. He was perfectly certain that there were people in various parts of Ireland who, if such a Coercion Act were in force, would, in order to resent it, break the law. Therefore, even from the point of view of those who thought that Ireland must be governed by exceptional laws, this Act was no good at all, because, while it irritated the people and outraged their feelings, it was not drastic enough to stop agitation. He appealed with confidence to the Liberal Party in this matter, because he knew perfectly well that there were Members of that Party who had denounced coercion just as strongly as the Irish Members themselves had denounced it. One English Member had gone over to Ireland and been imprisoned himself. He did not expect that the Conservatives would support the appeal that was now made to the House, because they might have some notion that in future they might want to put the Act in force for their own purposes. It might be said that the discussion was a mere waste of time, that the Bill could not become law, and that, even if it went through the Commons, the House of Lords would not pass it. Still, the fact of the House of Commons registering a vote in favour of the repeal of the Act would have a good effect in Ireland and in every portion of the world. If no Bill was to be introduced which the House of Lords would not pass, he should be glad to know what Bill could be introduced. It was the House of Commons that in the first instance initiated the Coercion Bill and passed it, and it was Ministers sitting on the Front Bench in that House who administered it. The House of Commons was, under these circumstances, the proper authority to repeal the Act, and it was for the present Government to let the Irish people understand that they were in earnest. If they were in earnest, they would leave no stone unturned to enable his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Nolan) to pass his Bill into law.

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

said, he felt sure that many Members would have listened—as he had done—with sympathy to that part of the speech of the hon. Member with regard to his own experiences in prison. He did not think anyone was likely to accuse the hon. Member of want of manliness or courage, either physically or politically. But he would remind the hon. Member that his experiences in prison were regulated by the Prison Rules, and had nothing to do with the Bill. He would also remind him that the late Government had no monopoly in prosecuting Members of Parliament. Under the administration of the present Chief Secretary colleagues of the hon. Member had been prosecuted, and if those prosecutions had resulted in convictions the hon. Gentlemen to whom he referred would have been under the same Prison Rules as the hon. Member.

An hon. MEMBER: Those Members were tried by a jury.

said, that had nothing to do with his point, which was that in this important Debate as to whether the Crimes Act should be repealed, the hon. Member had introduced an element which had no relation to the Crimes Act alone, but related to every Act bearing upon crime in Ireland. Passing from that, no one who heard it could say that the speech of the hon. and gallant Member in moving the Second Reading of the Bill was not a good-humoured speech. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had told them that to be imprisoned under the Crimes Act was an honour, and that in his own case it had been necessary to apologise for having never been in prison. Furthermore, he told them that at the present moment the Bill was not in operation in any part of Ireland.

An hon. MEMBER: One provision is.

Only one provision was in operation. Looking at the good-humoured character of the speech of the hon. and gallant Member, it was plain that he was not suffering under that burning sense of wrong that he would have them believe. The speeches of the Mover and Seconder might have made a greater impression upon him were it not that he knew of hundreds of thousands of Irishmen whom the Act of 1887 had saved from intolerable tyranny.

The Coercion Act has not been put in force in your part of Ireland.

said, that the measure might be properly called an Act that saved loyal men from coercion. In one thing he agreed with the hon. Member for Clare—namely, that if that Act were to be repealed, the Bill to repeal it ought to be proposed by the responsible Government, and not by a private Member. What were the facts? The Act of 1887 took more than three months to pass— namely, from the 1st of April to the 7th of July, but now it was proposed to carry the Second Reading of a Bill repealing it on a Wednesday afternoon. The present Chief Secretary himself brought forward an Amendment, in the course of the Debate which took place upon the Crimes Act, proposing a limitation of the Act to three years; and he then said that, if not so limited, but put on the Statute Book as a permanent Act, the difficulty of repealing it would be very great, because anyone proposing its repeal would have to prove a negative. If the present Bill were to pass, then the Chief Secretary ought to prove that negative, for the right hon. Gentleman should know better than anyone else the true state of Ireland at the present time. The hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Nolan) had said that the passing of the Crimes Act was not justified. He (Mr. Barton) would not argue that point or re-open it, but he would remind the House of one set of facts, and one only, which lingered in his memory. In the 15 months preceding its adoption there were 10 unpunished murders and 350 unpunished serious crimes in Ireland. The hon. and gallant Member had spoken of the Coercion Act as humiliating to Ireland, but to his (Mr. Barton's) mind it would be much more humiliating to allow crime to go unpunished in that country. The evils the Crimes Act was meant to meet were the difficulty of detecting crime and the breakdown of the jury system. These were points that the Act met. Never did an Act more speedily accomplish its object of restoring order to Ireland. There had been a good deal of cant and exaggeration used in connection with the contents of the Act of 1887, which really effected only a small alteration in the then existing law. A great part of the complaint as to coercion during the last Administration had nothing whatever to do with the Crimes Act. What was complained of even by the Chief Secretary was jury packing and lending the forces of the Crown at evictions.

I did not complain of lending the forces of the Crown to protect officers in carrying out the law.

said, that Members of the right hon. Gentleman's Party referred to that matter. The complaints were not so much as to the administration of the Crimes Act as to the administration of the ordinary law. Besides, the Crimes Act contained much less alteration of the law than was supposed. It only introduced the Scotch preliminary inquiry and the Scotch system of change of venue and of special jury. It extended summary jurisdiction to certain cases in which juries had been found inapplicable, and it gave the Lord Lieutenant power to prohibit and suppress illegal and dangerous associations. But though the change in the law was small, and the interference which it effected with liberty was also small, the Act comparing very favourably with previous Coercion Acts, it touched the weak spots—namely, the failure of the ordinary jury system and the failure in the detection of crime. He would remind the House of the nature of the former Coercion Act. The Act of 1881–2 was of a very different character. It suspended the habeas corpus and gave unlimited power of suppressing news- papers and public meetings, and committed the trial of murder and treason-felony to a Commission of Judges. There was a real invasion of liberty in that Act and of what the right hon. Gentleman called the rights of the Constitution. Such could not be said of the Crimes Act. It did not contain a suspension of the habeas corpus or a right of search or power to suppress newspapers. It contained no unlimited power of arrest; it did not interfere with the essential rights of citizens. All it did was to strengthen the administration of the law in places where experience had shown that it was faulty and needed strengthening. The hon. Member for Clare had told the House that the Act of 1887 was so intolerable that not a day longer should be allowed to pass before removing it from the Statute Book. But, speaking in Dublin at a meeting of the National League, the hon. Member had said that the revocation of the Coercion Act would not benefit the people of Ireland because it had fallen out of use. The hon. Member spoke truly when he said that. But the Act was not in operation. It was now out of use and did no harm to anyone; and it only remained on the Statute Book in case necessity should arise, by a revival of disorder, for its employment. Reference had been made by the hon. Member for Clare to the case of Mr. John Mandeville, but the Unionist Party never admitted that there was any shadow of foundation for the suggestions made in that case, or in many other cases. They were misrepresentations, and were part of the attacks made upon the measure at that time for reasons which would be fresh in the recollection of the House. Reference had also been made by the right hon. Gentleman to the Resident Magistrates; but the Chief Secretary himself had appointed several Resident Magistrates, who were, he said, removable, and he seemed to wish to substitute for existing Magistrates others who would be removable by popular vote.

I never said so.

would make no criticism upon those appointments. Two of the gentlemen appointed were friends of his own, and he asserted that they were of the same standing and class at the Bar as the gentlemen appointed by the late Government, and it therefore did not lie in the mouth of any supporter of the Government to make the fact of the appointment of Removable Magistrates a special slur upon the administration of the Crimes Act or the administration of justice in Ireland. What were the facts with regard to the success of the Act? How many people were convicted under it? The House would remember with what organised resistance it was met, and the men who were convicted under it. The figures were—in 1888, 1,082; in 1889, 597; in 1890, 391; in 1891, 186; and in June, 1892, there were only four prisoners in Ireland under the Crimes Act. It seemed to him that these figures were a record of the steady progress and success of the measure in reducing disorder and preventing breaches of the law. In 1887 there were 870 persons wholly boycotted and 3,665 persons partially boycotted, but before the end of 1891 there was not a single man or woman in Ireland either wholly or partially boycotted. That meant that 4,900 persons were relieved from intolerable persecution. Who would deny that that had been accomplished by means of the Act? During the same period agrarian offences fell off by 50 per cent., and at the end of it ordinary crime was lower than it had been for 20 years. But that was not the only result of the Unionist policy. It was said that the Act was used for the purpose of assisting the landlords in carrying out evictions. But evictions decreased during the five years of a Unionist Administration by 75 per cent. There were 13 per cent. fewer paupers in Ireland and 18 per cent. less emigration from the country at the end of that period than at the beginning.

Was that due to the Coercion Act?

admitted that other causes were operating beneficially in Ireland at that time, but these results would have been impossible but for the operation of the Coercion Act, which restored the elements of order and thus helped to prevent emigration and to remove pauperism. They were told by the right hon. Gentleman that there was peace in Ireland at present. But could it be said that there were the elements of permanence in the peace? Was it not a peace which was purely conditional, which was essentially temporary, and upon which even the Chief Secretary himself could not rely for the maintenance of order? They knew from the speeches of hon. Members that their attitude both in Ireland and to the Government depended upon the performance of certain promises, some of which they must know it was impossible to perform. The Chief Secretary himself would be slow to say that the present peaceful condition of Ireland was of a permanent character on which Parliament could rely in justification of the repeal of this Act. There were already signs of a revival of boycotting and intimidation, and he feared they were becoming more serious every day. The state of Clare and of some other places in Ireland at the present moment not only formed an argument against the repeal of the Crimes Act, but would justify the Chief Secretary in applying some of its provisions to those parts of the country.

Clare is now in a better condition than it has been for years.

That is not saying much.

could not accept the hon. Member for Clare's statement. At the Spring and Summer Assizes of 1893 there was a scandalous failure of justice in that county, and the Judge described it as a travesty, and declared that a great responsibility rested on someone for that state of things. At the Winter Assizes there was an automatic change of venue, and then several convictions were obtained. At the Spring Assizes there was again a failure of justice. One hundred and seventeen cases were reported, but only five prisoners were tried, and only one was convicted of common assault. The Judge stated on that occasion that it was not possible to try any cases in that county without open contempt of the law. Yet they were told that the condition of Clare was satisfactory, and that it never was in a better state.

said, what he bad stated was that the figures showed that there was less crime in Clare now than there had been for a long time. How long that would remain the case he did not know, if evictions went on at Bodyke and other places in the county. If the evictions continued he would not answer for the future.

said, the hon. Member's interruption confirmed his statement, that the peace in Ireland did not stand upon a permanent foundation, and if that was the case who would argue that there was any ground for repealing the Crimes Act? The Chief Secretary himself had described Clare as a "black area," and as a disgrace to civilisation.

That was a long time ago.

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us it is in a more satisfactory condition to-day?

Yes.

said, he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the failure of juries to convict was one of the elements to be dealt with. When juries failed to convict, prosecutors were afraid to prosecute. The Judge, in his Charge at the Assizes last year, said that one of the worst results of the failure of justice that had occurred at Assizes after Assizes was that no man would undertake an abortive prosecution, which would only throw fresh odium and hatred upon himself. He greatly feared that that might be a reason for the Chief Secretary's statement that the number of prosecutions was falling off. But had the right hon. Gentleman himself shown that the Crimes Act was one which he would take the responsibility of repealing? He told the House on the 7th of July last that

"If he were persuaded that the power of change of venue and of securing special juries would put an end to this state of things, which all deplored, no amount of things he had said in the past, and no sense of mortification at having to unsay them, would prevent him from taking those powers."

The Chief Secretary would be willing, if necessity arose, to take these powers. Was he going to deprive others of them? Would he take the responsibility, in the face of these facts, of removing this Act from the Statute Book? But they had better and more direct guidance on this question even than that given by the Chief Secretary. Looking to the future, they had to ask whether there was likely to be any necessity for using this Act again. They had the plain answer from the hon. Member for Mayo, who had clearly declared his views, as to the nature of the present order, why it existed, and how long it was likely to last. He said the reason why they had not encouraged agitation in Ireland was because they had a Government in power who were doing their best to give the whole government of the country into the hands of the Irish people. That, again, was another proof that this peaceful state of Ireland was absolutely conditional, and could not be relied upon as an argument for repealing this Act. The hon. Member for Mayo went on to say that if the Tories got back to power before Home Rule was passed there would be one of the biggest land agitations that had ever been seen yet, and that there would be more necessity than ever for dealing with the evicted tenants. What did that mean? That meant that if the Unionist Party should be placed in Office there would be boycotting and disorder followed by crime, a state of things no Government could contemplate as the result of repealing this Act. He did not doubt the ability of the hon. Member to do much in the direction pointed out; but if that were to follow the repealing of this Act of Parliament, the next time an attempt was made to get up an agitation the English people would not be so easily humbugged, nor the Irish so easily aroused, nor Irish tenants so easily duped. There must be mischief if such a threat were carried out, and at all events it was sufficient warning of the sheer madness of repealing this Act. He based the defence of the Act upon the ground that it accomplished its object and that it restored order and prosperity in Ireland. It had been admitted that it did no harm to anyone now; and it could not be brought into operation without the House having the opportunity to stop that operation if it wished to do so. It was far better that it should remain on the Statute Book than that there should be, as there had been in the past, a succession of spasmodic and fitful Coercion Acts, which were a scandal, caused agitation, and led to bitter conflicts in that House and the loss of time required for other business. How many Coercion Acts had there been in the present century? No less than 28 had been introduced by Liberal Governments in 63 years. Such measures were by no means a monopoly of the present Parliament or of the present Chief Secretary. During Grattan's Parliament there were 14 Coercion Acts before 1795, and many more before 1800. So far as the experience of the past went, whether in the United Parliament or in the Irish Parliament, they would see how necessary it had been to introduce continuous measures of this kind, and he believed their spasmodic character had been the real obstacle to their success. It was far more statesmanlike and far more calculated to effect the purpose to let the Act remain on the Statute Book, and then months of weary waiting would be saved if it were required to be put in operation. Everyone hoped the time would come when there would be no necessity for exceptional legislation for Ireland; but in the face of recent history, of what they all knew of the present condition of Ireland, and of the threats he had quoted which had been held out, nobody could say that that time had yet arrived. He felt satisfied that in resisting this Bill he was not open to any charge by hon. Members from Ireland, while he was convinced he was discharging his duty to his Irish fellow-countrymen and his constituents. No Act of recent times had been of greater public benefit than this, and it would be a mistaken and most unwise course to entertain for a moment the notion under present circumstances of depriving the Irish Government of the means of once for all restoring order and peace in Ireland.

seconded the Amendment for the same reason which prompted him on the passing of the Bill in 1882. It was not often that an English Member had the opportunity of intervening in an Irish Debate. He admitted that the Act was an exceptional piece of legislation, and he did not support it simply because it was brought in by the Leaders of his own Party: but he supported it because he believed it was absolutely necessary for the welfare of Ireland. What was the grievance on which Irish Members rested this demand? No case had been made out now for repealing it. It could never have touched a single honest man in Ireland.

I beg your pardon; it touched me.

hoped he had not inadvertently touched the hon. Member, but in that case it probably was the misfortune and not the fault of the hon. Member; he must have been in bad company. It had never touched any man who did not deserve it. They were asked to vote for the repeal of this Act on the ground that it was an exceptional measure. But why need it be exceptional? He would make this offer: that, if either the Government or any Irish Member would propose to extend the Act to the rest of the United Kingdom, he would support, them. If that were done a great cause of complaint would be removed. But the one thing that convinced him that the Act was necessary in Ireland at the time it was passed was that trial by jury did not operate in that country. The present state of Ireland justified the passing of the Act, and it would be better to keep it and so save the time that would have to be spent in passing another Act if the weapon of exceptional legislation again became necessary. It was said that Parliament could pass the Bill if necessary in another Session; but there had been a sufficient waste of time last year, when every Member of the House was impressed with so great a scandal. No responsibility had been brought home to the men who necessitated that situation; and the result had been that the English Members, representing five-sixths of the interests of the United Kingdom, had all their measures of domestic reform thrown back or shelved. He offered that argument to English Members in every part of the House, and they should not deprive themselves of a weapon which had been so successful in dealing with an exceptional state of things in Ireland in the past which they had been threatened on good authority might recur. He believed that in the present condition of affairs English Members would be false to the interests of their constituents and their country if they allowed even the possibility of such waste of time. If a Unionist Government came into power it was quite possible, were the Bill repealed, that they would have a return in Ireland of the state of affairs which prevailed in 1887; they would have a fresh agitation set on foot, and the loyalist minority would be threatened and boycotted. Another Coercion Act would then be required, and what in such circumstances would become of the legislative reforms which English Members desired to see carried? All the time of the House would again be taken up with the question of coercion. It was therefore in their own interest that English Members should oppose the repeal of the Act. Let the Act remain on the shelf to be brought down only as necessity might require. Irish Members might believe him when he said that he had no desire to assist in passing what were called coercive measures for Ireland unless there was absolute necessity for it. He thought the case had been amply made out, and, as far as he was concerned, he should be only too glad to support universal legislation of this kind were it thought to be necessary. But bearing in mind the time, trouble, and responsibility incurred in passing the Bill in the past, and the fact that its operation had so redounded to the benefit and prosperity of Ireland, as well as of the United Kingdom, he did trust every English Member would oppose the repeal of it.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—( Mr. Barton. )

Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

hoped he would not be guilty of discourtesy if in the absence of the Mover and Seconder of the Bill he pointed out that their speeches had afforded convincing proof of the inconvenience and even absurdity of approaching questions of that magnitude on a Wednesday afternoon. He would be the last person to disparage those speeches, for they all enjoyed the breezy geniality of the hon. and gallant Colonel, and they also listened with respectful attention to the hon. Member for Clare; but he put it to both hon. Gentlemen and to the Chief Secretary for Ireland as well, whether those speeches were calculated to induce the House to reverse its decision upon a great measure of policy solemnly undertaken some years ago? The hon. and gallant Mover dilated on the question of trial by jury, but the Chief Secretary knew that he (Mr. Wyndham) could bring forward sheaves of quotations from speeches by the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues referring to the difficulty of obtaining convictions in Ireland. The present Secretary for War, in 1885, said they could not be sure of getting a conviction on the clearest evidence, and it was not merely reasonable but it was necessary to provide some measure to overcome that difficulty. The right hon. Gentleman added that such a measure might very well be made part of the permanent law of the land. He quoted this to show that the measure before the House dealt with a vast question of policy upon which both Parties in the House had held opinions antagonistic to those put forward by the Mover of the Bill. Both Parties in the State had at one time or another encountered the difficulty of not being able to secure verdicts in accordance with the evidence, and both sides had been forced to resort to exceptional and repressive legislation in order to fill up that defect in the social condition of Ireland. But could they discuss the social conditions of Ireland during the last 30 years in the course of a Debate of three or four hours? Were they to be asked to give their verdict on the two speeches they had heard, followed by what seemed to be a conspiracy of silence? Could they be expected under such circumstances to reverse the definite and deliberate policy of the Unionist Party with regard to Ireland? What subjects did the hon. and gallant Member deal with? Trial by jury, change of venue, special juries, prison treatment, capabilities of Magistrates, the discipline of the police, and a thousand other matters which had nothing on earth to do with the principle of adopting repressive legislation for Ireland. The House was being asked to reproduce in four hours a three months' Debate on the Crimes Act, and long and protracted Debates on the Irish Estimates of six years. Anybody who remembered the Debates on jury-packing, prison treatment, the unfortunate death of Mandeville, and many other topics, would feel the absurdity of asking them to determine a principle of policy in a Debate hampered by faint echoes of ancient controversy. They had become faint, and hon. Members had been sitting like Rip Van Winkles listening to references to topics the mere mention of which at one time produced storms of angry recrimination. But now they were met with good-tempered laughter, not because their moral nature had been reformed, but because they had learned the emptiness and hollowness of such proceedings. He had been glad to forget the minor details—such as the weight and ages of prisoners—which were so impressed on his mind when these controversies raged; he hoped nothing said that afternoon would rescue them from the oblivion into which they had passed; and he certainly had no wish to stir up ancient memories by criticising the acts of men which the Unionist Party held to be blameworthy and illegal, but which were deliberately done as a protest against the Crimes Act. He wished to take advantage of that lull in the storm of controversy and to ask the House to look upon these matters in the light of the relation of law to social order, and to look upon this Act as one event in an historical series of events. If they did that the first thing which must strike them would be the ludicrous similarity between the position of the Government to-day and that of the Tory Government of 1885. Both were in Office by virtue of Irish votes. The Tory Government allowed the Crimes Act to lapse, but he did not think that by reason of that action they were open to the charge of cynicism so often levelled against them by the present Administration. A Government took Office in order to do more things than one; it sought to achieve many matters of the highest importance, and it could not sacrifice itself upon one matter which constituted only an item in its programme. No doubt if right hon. Gentlemen opposite voted that afternoon in support of the repeal of the Crimes Act they would be voting in accordance with their consciences. Now, he would like to consider this question in the light of the alternations between Acts of Coercion and measures of conciliation. This was an old story, because they found both Parties during the last 25 years alternatively passing exceptional legislation and men announcing that they were going to give it up in favour of a policy of conciliation. This see-saw policy had gone on all that time, and would go on until both political Parties adopted finally one plan or another of a sufficiently drastic and adequate character. They were asked this evening to repeal the Crimes Act of 1887 simply because it had conduced to social order in Ireland. They passed the Crimes Act of 1887 in order to bring the law into harmony with social order in Ireland. The Home Rule Bill, according to its author, was introduced for the same pur- pose. It was then, and was still, a question how social order could be reconciled with the law in Ireland—how just verdicts from juries could be secured, the rights of property protected, and the intimidation of the subject prevented. Two alternatives had been presented to secure this object—exceptional legislation and Home Rule for Ireland. Parliament had adopted the former, and rejected Home Rule in 1886. It would be fatal if the Government that afternoon went back from the point at which Parliament arrived in 1886—the point of deciding between effective and permanent legislation of an exceptional character and an ample measure of Home Rule. If the Government, in spite of the experience of 1885, reverted to a policy of endeavouring to govern Ireland under the ordinary law, whilst withholding from it the demand for Home Rule, they would be doomed to meet again with disappointment and failure. He admitted that the Chief Secretary for Ireland was entitled to vote for this Motion to-day, but only on the condition that he introduced a Home Rule Bill on Monday. His Party had recognised the fact that in Ireland you could not be sure of getting juries to convict, and that there were some convictions that were justifiable, some that were not, and cases in which they were indeed sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes indifferent. But the fact stood the same. It was true, then, that in 1886 you could not be sure of getting a conviction from a jury. Was the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary sure that they would be able to get a conviction now? The late Prime Minister said it was not to be denied that there was great interference with individual liberty in the shape of intimidation. He asked whether there was no intimidation now, and whether, if the Chief Secretary and his Party should be driven from Office, they might not get more intimidation, and be unable again to protect the property of the landlords or to get convictions from juries? He said that the old difficulties were still there, and if there was any difference it was only a difference of degree, and one upon which they could not count. These were the three glaring defects in the social order in Ireland which no responsible Minister could look at with equanimity. The late Prime Minister laid down as the fruit of ripe experience that there were only two alternative cures for social disorder in Ireland. One was Home Rule, and the other was repressive legislation of a permanent character— that was to say, if they could not get juries to convict, they must have it in their power to institute tribunals which would convict, and to change the venue of trial. He was not going this evening to argue upon the merits of the Crimes Act which they were asked to repeal. He said, in the first place, without deciding upon its merits, it was their plan for dealing with these defects in the social condition of Ireland, and that it was the late Prime Minister's alternative plan, and that by implication he was bound to maintain the Crimes Act, which contained a great many of the provisions which he himself had stated were necessary. The Secretary for Scotland had admitted also that a good many of the provisions of the Crimes Act were the settled policy of the Party to which he belonged in the absence of Home Rule. Therefore, some kind of Crimes Act, closely resembling the Crimes Act in question this evening was the second string of the Government bow, and they could not repeal that Act unless they were prepared forthwith to introduce a Home Rule Bill again. Again he would point out that one of the alternatives had more authority drawn from the sanction of that House than the other. The Crimes Act was passed by a majority of 101 on its Second Reading. The Third Reading was passed by a majority of 87. They knew that if the Government drummed up all their supporters they could not command a majority such as that this evening. They might say that the country at the last General Election voted against the plan of the Conservative Party for dealing with social disorder in Ireland. That was a plausible argument; but if the late Prime Minister was right in laying down that these were the only two surviving alternative plans for governing Ireland, it became necessary to find out which plan was accepted by the country with any authority. But they knew perfectly well that the only reason which prevented the Government from adopting that alternative policy was that they felt they dared not go to the country on the question of Home Rule. Therefore, if the Government voted for the Motion, knowing that they could not get the country to agree that Home Rule was better than exceptional legislation, they did so simply to please their Irish supporters by allowing exceptional legislation to lapse. He argued that the Government were committed to the Crimes Act of 1887 or to something like it; and they were especially committed to some of its provisions because they had declared that unless Home Rule was granted some such legislation was necessary. He believed that if the Coercion Act lapsed, the Government could not even prevent the carrying of arms, and so would be unable to keep order in Ulster. He knew that his argument was an opportunist argument, not dealing with the merits of the Act. He must say that he believed that the Act was a good one, and that the Bill now before the House was a mischievous one. Mischievous as it was, it was also inopportune. Upon one thing they were agreed, and that was as to the value of Parliamentary time. They saw that for two years practically all English legislation had been bung up. [Mr. J. MORLEY: The Parish Councils Bill.] Well, that was the only measure. They had failed either through their fault or their misfortune to pass any Bill but one. The waste of time hitherto had been caused by the merely negative method of bringing in Bills of such a character and in such numbers as to prevent all chance of any of them passing. But there were far more drastic methods of wasting time. They wasted only the present time if they failed to pass Bills. If they passed bad Bills, they wasted the future time needed for their repeal; while if they repealed good laws they wasted the time of the present and the past, and also time in the future, which would be needed for their re-enactment. That was the plan of the hon. and gallant Member this afternoon. [Colonel NOLAN: I am repealing a bad Bill.] Of course, his hon. and gallant Friend was entitled to say that. But to support his argument he might refer to The Daily News. That newspaper explained that it was not sufficient for a measure to be a good measure, but that measures of positive legislation must be given precedence in accordance with urgency. Consequently, bad Bills could only be repealed if there was urgency. He asked whether this was the time of day to look up the Statute Book in order to find bad laws, so that they might set themselves to repeal them? If they wanted to repeal bad laws, there was the Lord's Day Observance Act, with which they might; very well dispense. Before they could vote for the measure brought forward this evening it must be proved that the Crimes Act of 1887 was injurious, and that it was inflicting present injury, and that that injury was of so grave a character that it raised in the minority upon which it was inflicted a deep and passionate sense of injustice, and that the people of the country should have given unmistakable signs that they preferred the policy of the Government to the plan of the Conservative Party.

^* said, that but for the speech of the hon. Member for Clare, he should have been content to have given a silent vote upon this Bill. He was perfectly content to rest his vote on the speech of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid Armagh. But he wished to draw attention to a statement of the hon. Member for Clare. That hon. Member had said that the Crimes Act had been a failure. He wished to show from a Parliamentary Return that one of the most important provisions of the Act, so far from having proved a failure, had proved a great success. If he asked any Member below the Gangway opposite to which clause of the Act he had the greatest objection, he would undoubtedly say the 1st clause, which authorised secret inquiries. ["No, no!"] At any rate, that was the clause most fiercely resisted in the House. It was quite accurate to say that that clause had not had any effect in County Clare. The inquiries held with reference to the commission of gross offences resulted in the defeat of the authorities. But he would take another county which for a long time rivalled Clare in disorder — the County of Kerry. Six inquiries were held under the first section of the Crimes Act. What was the result? In five out of the six cases prosecutions took place and convictions followed. He did not want the House to run away with the idea that these were trifling offences. The first case was one of firing at and wounding, and the inquiry resulted in a prosecution and conviction and a sentence of 20 years' penal servitude. The second case was one of attacking a dwelling-house and firing at the person. In that also a conviction was obtained. The four others were cases of murder. In the first there was a conviction and execution; in the second, he admitted, the inquiry was abandoned; in the third a man was convicted and executed; and in the last two men were convicted and sentenced to death. In all these cases secret inquiries were held only because it was impossible to get evidence in any other way, and if the Crimes Act had not contained that clause it would have been impossible to prosecute. Was it not a good thing, a righteous and wise thing, to get evidence even by these means in order to punish and convict these criminals? The Chief Secretary was now asked to part with that power; but nothing was more certain than that, if an outbreak of crime should again occur in Ireland and this Repeal Bill was carried, such atrocious criminals must escape, or the House must pass months in passing another Act. The Chief Secretary said that the state of County Clare was tolerably satisfactory. [Mr. J. MORLEY: I said, "Much more satisfactory."] He thought that the right hon. Gentleman went a little further than that. But not long ago the right hon. Gentleman admitted that a part of Clare, Limerick, and Cork formed a black area which was an absolute disgrace to civilisation. What was the position to-day? Was it not the case that in this area agrarian crime could be committed with absolute impunity? In the first place, a most effective police force was unable to detect it, and in the few cases in which it was detected and offenders were brought to trial the only chance of getting a conviction for an offence committed in County Clare was to have the case tried out of the county. Assizes were held year after year in the County of Clare, and evidence was given, but a jury failed to convict. [ A laugh. ] He knew what hon. Gentlemen were laughing about. They were laughing about Mr. Justice O'Brien. Ever since 1882, when he presided over the Phœnix Park trials and the Lough Mask murder trials, he had carried his life in his hand. That was why hon. Members laughed. What happened universally in the County of Clare was this—that at the Spring and Summer Assizes it was absolutely impossible to get any conviction for agrarian offences no matter what the evidence was. ["No, no!"] What was the use of saying ' No, no" when the records were before the country?

Is it not the fact that the great majority of prisoners brought up at these Assizes are charged with ordinary crime, and that the difficulty of obtaining a verdict of guilty from the jury arises from the fact that Mr. Justice O'Brien is in the habit of passing outrageous sentences?

^* said, he knew nothing of the kind; therefore he was not going to answer the question. The Chief Secretary knew that the only chance the Crown had in the County of Clare, or had had for some time back, had been that these special agrarian or political offences should be tried out of the county, and, fortunately for the Crown and for society, the Winter Assize Act furnished a means for that. The Chief Secretary knew that he had secured convictions for offences committed in Clare when they were tried in Cork, which he never would have secured if they had been tried in Ennis, County Clare. As far as these three areas were concerned, agrarian crime could be committed in them with absolute impunity, and in face of that state of things the House was asked to part with the Crimes Act. He maintained that the Chief Secretary ought to have used the measure in these areas before now. It was cruel to the people in the parts of the country affected to ask them to live under the conditions they had been forced to live under during the last two years. The right hon. Gentleman had compelled them to do so simply and solely because he declined to use the powers which this Act gave him. It was too much to ask Parliament to give up these powers which could be used in the areas indicated with such effect now and which might have to be used in the future in Ireland. The hon. Member for Armagh had pointed to a speech made by the hon. Member for East Mayo, and had said that that hon. Member had given them a warning in his speech at Lurgan in December last. He (Mr. T. W. Russell) did not complain of that speech. Probably it was the most foolish speech that the hon. Member for Mayo ever delivered—

And that is saying a good deal.

Order, order!

^* said, the speech was foolish from that stand-point. It was also foolish to threaten in advance. While he did not doubt the hon. Member's willingness to embarrass any future Government in Ireland that would not do his bidding, he was not quite so sure of the hon. Member's power to carry out his threats. In his (Mr. T. W. Russell's) opinion, one set of evicted tenants was quite enough for this century. He believed that the Irish tenants would think twice and thrice—would think a very long time—before they repeated what they had done in the past at the hon. Gentleman's bidding. The whole country had seen the suffering of those people; the whole country had realised their losses, and no matter how the hon. Member for East Mayo might threaten any Government in the future he (Mr. T. W. Russell) thought he would find that he was the fugleman of an imaginary army when he called the tenants out. Therefore, he did not attach much weight to the hon. Member's threat of land agitation and the country being filled with crime and disorder and the Crimes Act being taken down from the shelf. But these times might come round again in Ireland; and not being in favour of an Irish Parliament managing Irish affairs, he was not prepared that they should go through the Session of 1887 again solely because of the doctrinaire opinions of hon. Members sitting on the Front Ministerial Bench who were opposed to the Crimes Act. He (Mr. T. W. Russell) opposed the repeal of this Act because he came from a part of the country where they did not feel the grievance of it, and never had done. He thought it was of importance for them to realise that there were at least a couple of millions of people in Ireland who, practically, had never known that there was what was called a Coercion Act in force there. Why did they not know it? Simply because the people in those parts of the country did not seek to coerce other people. Hon. Members below the Gangway opposite were the greatest coercionists who ever existed in Ireland. They spent their time in coercing people who did not agree with them, and carried their coercion to such an extent that it was absolutely necessary that they should be coerced in turn, so that other people might have freedom. He (Mr. T. W. Russell) came from a part of the country —be represented it—where the grievance of this Act had never been felt, where no man had been tried under it, because no man had broken the law that would have brought him under it, and, not being engaged in coercing other people, there was no reason why hon. Gentlemen opposite should be at liberty to coerce them. The great mass of the people of Ireland had not been touched by this Act. The Act was passed for the purpose of stopping people from doing things that they had no right to do, and he held that it would be absolute folly in the face of the work this Parliament would have to do in the future to repeal this Act—which was not in operation in any part of Ireland, and was hurting no one—when they might in the course of a few years have to devote months to the work of re-enacting it. He should vote for the Amendment.

The hon. Member for Dover in his very interesting and, I may say, witty speech, congratulated the House on the fact that we are only listening to the faint echo of ancient controversies of which I have no wish to revive the memory. The hon. Member who has just sat down characteristically endeavours to make the echo more than faint. He has talked about the doctrinaire opinions that prevail on this Bench, and I presume that in using that word, with which I am only too familiar, he intends to apply it to me. I think that, on the whole, the condition of Ireland today under the doctrinaire rule contrasts very favourably with its condition under any other rule that it has passed under for very many years. But before we go into the larger and more apposite question raised by the hon. Member for Dover, I should like first to say a few words as to some of the details raised in the speech —of which I do not complain—of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. The hon. Member talked about the enormity of dropping Section 1 of the Crimes Act, which authorises courts of secret inquiry. The hon. Member quoted—and be was quite right in doing so from a controtroversial point of view—the one case which no doubt does seem to show that the conviction followed from holding this secret inquiry—

I admitted that these inquiries had failed in County Clare.

He quoted the case of Kerry. But you cannot have regard to this clause without viewing its operation as a whole. Now, according to the Return moved for by the hon. Member himself, there were 31 of these inquiries held, and convictions were obtained in 11 cases, and in 11 eases only, and of these 11 five were obtained in County Kerry. I do not say for a moment that 11 convictions out of 31 cases are not worth having; but in the worst places, especially in County Clare, the three inquiries which were held there under the very skilful magistrate who held the inquiries in Kerry and who held the inquiry in Dublin the other day, these inquiries brought nothing to light and they might just as well never have been held. Take Dublin itself. I have been reproached, I think by the hon. Member for Clare, with myself authorising the holding of courts of secret inquiry.

Hear, hear!

There have been, in all, three courts of secret inquiry held in Dublin from the winter of 1891 under the Explosives Act, one under the late Chief Secretary and two during the time we have been in Office. First of all, I point out that these inquiries were held under the general law, a law prevailing as much in England and Scotland as it does in Ireland. Secondly, I felt that it was not open to me in case of crimes of this enormity—dynamite crimes—to abstain from using any weapon that was Constitutionally within my reach. I had no faith in these courts, and I call the attention of the House to this fact—that in no one of the three inquiries was any person made amenable, or was any evidence brought into them which could be available for that purpose. And an administrator like Lord Spencer himself, who admits that, except in the case of the Phoenix Park murders—I of course allow a very remarkable exception—to his knowledge and belief, the secret inquiry is not a valuable one in the hands of any Government. The hon. Member for Tyrone talked about the state of a certain disturbed area, and I might call the attention of the House to the fact that the Crimes Act was introduced in 1887 with a view practically to that area alone. As I reminded the House in the Debates on the Bill of 1887, it was really only for the sake of one-sixth of the area of Ireland that this extraordinarily powerful engine was constructed and passed through this House. It has been doubted, and no one who heard the Member for South Tyrone would doubt, whether the condition of that area is not as bad or almost as bad as it ever was, and is not bad enough to resort to exceptional law. The hon. Member says that agrarian crime is prevalent in Clare—in that dark area of a corner of Kerry, a corner of Limerick, a piece of Cork, and a good deal, but not all, of Clare. He says I ought to have used powers which I could have used by issuing proclamations under the Crimes Act long before now. Well, the proof of these things has been the result. I do not hesitate to say that supposing for a year or two years I had placed Clare again under proclamations under the Crimes Act—I do not believe that the condition of Clare would in these circumstances have been nearly so satisfactory as it is now, and the hon. Member blamed me for not doing that. If you did introduce special criminal law with all the effects which what is called coercion bears on the minds of the peasantry, you would not have, you could not have, upon your side any of those moral forces which I have endeavoured to attract to my side. You would have all the old prejudice and passion raised instead, as circumstances seem to show, of finding the state of things in County Clare, and in the disturbed area becoming certainly alleviated to a degree which a year and a-half ago, when I took this responsible office I hold, I did not dream of as being possible. The hon. Member for Mid Armagh (Mr. Barton) talked rather at large about the condition of this disturbed area, and the Member for South Tyrone seemed to be under the same impression. I am able to state here on the responsible authority of officers who have known Clare for years and years, who have been in contact with the disorderly elements of its population, who have had to investigate offences against the law in that county, that Clare is quieter than it has been at any time since 1886. Since the 1st of January of the present year—that is to say, a full quarter of a year—there have been in Clare only 12 cases of crime of all kinds. That is a very remarkable result; and when the hon. Member says I ought to have done something which I did not do, I do not believe anything I could have done would have produced a more satisfactory result. But let us go on. Let us see how far doctrinaire opinions are justified or not justified in the various parts of that dark area. The hon. Member mentioned a corner of Kerry. Well, during the 20 months —the present Government has been in Office 20 months—therefore, I offer our period of 20 months so compared with the preceding 20 months—in the 20 months 1890–92, ending August, 1892, the recorded outrages were 235. In our 20 months from August, 1892, till April, 1894, the figure of 235 has sunk to 147. In the County of Cork in the first quarter of 1892 there were 18 reported cases over the disturbed area. In the same period in 1893 there were 10 cases, and I would call the attention of the House—and I am sure they will take it from me when I state it with full responsibility—it is not merely the decline in the numbers of these offences, it is the fact that there is a more marked improvement, if I may so, in the nature of the crimes themselves The crimes were bad enough taken as a whole, but in the language—mark you the technical language—of the official experts, crime is now far less serious than it has been at any previous time since 1886. I would like to say one word or two as to how this has been effected. It has been effected largely, no doubt, by the fact that there is to a certain extent a sympathy with the present Government. I am well acquainted with the fact that I am reproached with governing Ireland by the aid of gentlemen below the Gangway and by the aid of the clergy. Well, Mr. Speaker, all I can say is, that I think a man is very unwise who attempts to govern Ireland unless he has got the clergy and those who are the leaders of popular opinion on his side. If it is a disgrace to have the moral leaders of the community on the side of the Executive Government, that is a disgrace I am quite willing to face and encounter. But how has this improvement been effected? Not merely by the fact that certain moral and popular forces have been on the side of the Executive Government, but also because I knew perfectly well that if you were to attempt to govern Ireland by exceptional law, that was all the stronger reason why you should resort to every means that the ordinary law and vigour of administration placed within your reach. And what has been done? There has been consistent vigilant patrolling. All the resources of police foresight, police caution, police supervision have been used to the full, and that is what I have always urged since 1880, when I first ventured to press upon the attention of this country the question of the government of Ireland by exceptional law. If the hon. Gentleman will search the records he will find I opposed the Bill of 1880, and I opposed the Bill of 1882. I never pretended that Ireland is a very easy country to keep quiet. I have never said that a weak, nerveless Government will do well in Ireland, but I have said that you will do more by using vigorously, discreetly, and watchfully the powers and instruments that the ordinary law and the ordinary machinery of the Administration placed in your hands than by resorting to violent measures, and to a law that permanently suspends trial by jury in those very cases where trial by jury is most essential as a guarantee for the freedom of the subject. That is the only alternative course you have. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman opposite will not agree with me when I say he will find there is more force in this position than there is in the almost automatic resort to exceptional Criminal Law. Resort to expedients, such as the suspension of trial by jury, weakens the nerve, if I may so speak, of the ordinary Executive officers. They know they have got this tremendous weapon within grasp, and that makes them indisposed to use to the best and the full extent the ordinary powers of the law. There is only one more argument of the hon. Member for Tyrone to which I shall refer. He says he speaks for 2,000,000 of the population of Ireland. [ Laughter. ]

^* : I did not say so. That may do to raise a laugh, but what I did say was that there were millions of people in Ireland who never knew that there was a Coercion Act in force.

I did not wish to raise a laugh. I spoke seriously. He said that 2,000,000 people did not know that the Act was in force. That is the argument of despotism all over. I might suspend trial by jury for all kinds of offences, in England I mean, and the ordinary citizen would not be affected. It would not affect the hon. Member or myself, but would any hon. Member dare to get up to propose for England laws such as this which we are asked to repeal for Ireland? Twenty millions of people in England would never know a Coercion Act had been passed; it would not come home to them, but let them try it at the polls. The hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Wyndham) in his excellent speech dealt with the question before the House with a certain amount of breadth which enables one to attempt to deal with it. But the hon. Member made one very momentous admission, and he repeated it over and over again. He said, and based his whole argument on this, that the alternative to Home Rule is coercion. That was the basis of his whole argument. He took to himself and ratified the proposition which he attributed to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, that the alternative as between this permanent and perpetual coercion is some such proposition of Home Rule as we have recommended to the House. The hon. and learned Member for Mid Armagh quoted some remarks of mine made in 1887 while this Bill was in progress through the House, and he reminded me that I had moved an Amendment in effect limiting the operation of the Act to three years. That was a very good Amendment unfavourably received. That Amendment, unlike most of the Amendments to the Act of 1887, was fortunately discussed—most of the Amendments to that Act were summarily dismissed. I think they were not put, and whether they were put or not they were not discussed—the very course which so outraged hon. Gentlemen last year, was then practised in this case. Now, Sir, I should be content to argue on the principle which I brought before the House in 1887, but the hon. Member for Dover says the whole question which we are discussing turns upon our view of the law to social order. I do not much quarrel with that way of stating the case. He says the see-saw between Parties will go on. In fact, he says very much what Lord Salisbury said when he remarked that the failure of our government in Ireland is due to the effects of temperature at Westminister and not to the effects of a temperature in Ireland itself. The hon. Member means the same thing. I cannot suppose that anything is worse if you want to improve a population like the population of Ireland, who have been accustomed to bad conditions and bad government. They unfortunately have not the same feelings towards the law and its administrators as we have in this country. I quite agree that you have to look into the roots of social order. I cannot imagine anything less calculated to inspire the population of Ireland with respect for the Criminal Law than the fact now admitted by the Member for Dover — and sufficiently obvious without the admission —that the Criminal Law in its most important aspects, in those parts which go deepest into the daily life of the community, is to move up and down, and that there is to be trial by jury enforced one day and not another. I cannot, I say, conceive anything less likely than that to inspire the Irish people with respect for the law. If you had passed a Crimes Act which suspended trial by jury for good without allowing the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant to intervene, I could imagine that there was something to be said for the hon. Member's position, though it would be very difficult. But in this case the question whether this Act is to be operative or not, whether it is to be called into life or left dormant and dead, is dependent on the political changes at Westminster. I do not believe there could be anything less calculated to inspire people with respect for the gravity, the majesty, the constancy and steadfastness of the law and its administration. The hon. Member for Dover says it is monstrous to attempt to undo in one afternoon what the House took three months to pass. I do not follow that argument at all. If you were going to specify particular provisions to which you object, or do not object, then I could understand that there was some force in the argument of the hon. Member; but it seems to me that we have plenty of time this afternoon to affirm the principle—and we on this side of the House should be eternally disgraced if we hesitated to affirm it at the first available opportunity—that Ireland is not to be placed under permanent exceptional criminal repressive law in perpetuity. The hon. Member for Dover says that I may be entitled to vote for this Motion if I bring in a Home Rule Bill on Monday. Well, I shall not bring in a Home Rule Bill on Monday, because we have other business to do. I should vote for this Bill in any case, whatever I thought of the date on which a Homo Rule Bill should be brought in. I do not deny, as I have already said, the difficulties and dangers of Irish government. I recognise to the full the necessity of a firm government in Ireland, but let us look for a moment at the history of previous recognitions of the maxim that Ireland needs firm government. First of all, you do not get it. You get alterations in the government and policy of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. A. J. Balfour) and of us who sit on this Bench. I think that is not well calculated to strengthen the Irish belief in the firmness and uniformity of government. It came out in 1887, in the Debates on the Coercion Bill—I do not wish to use a more exasperating word — that never before was a Coercion Bill brought in without a Preamble. The Crimes Act of 1887 occupies what I must say is a bad pre-eminence in the unfortunately long list of Coercion Acts; it has no Preamble, and it starts in all its naked beauty without any explanation. No Government ever before embarked upon the proposal of a Coercion Bill without specifying in it the conditions which made such a proposal justifiable. That is true of the Act of 1847, of the Peace Preservation Act of 1870, and of the Coercion Act of 1882. In these cases the Preamble set forth some special reason why a resort to exceptional legislation was necessary. It is instructive, as showing the condition of Ireland 60 years ago and to-day, that when the Coercion Act of 1832 or 1833 was passed there were no fewer than 248 agrarian homicides in that year, whereas since the present Government came into power there has not been a single agrarian homicide. My point is this—that if, when crime swept over the country, it was thought necessary to justify this kind of legislation by chapter and verse, so to speak, so much the more unjustifiable is it now, when Ireland is perfectly tranquil, that we should say to her, "We impose upon you for ever this stigma—we take from you for ever your guarantees for freedom." It may be said by hon. Members opposite that the policy of the Crimes Act of 1887 was that if Ireland became tranquil the proclamation could be revoked. But that does not go to the root of our objection to this perpetual Crimes Act. The root of our objection to it is that it takes for granted that Ireland is, and will continue to be for an indefinite length of time, irreconcilable to our ideas of law and order. I, for one, have never denied that in an emergency, such for instance as arose in Ireland in 1867, it may become necessary for the Government to suspend the guarantees for the liberty and equality of the subject. You may use a Coercion Act without offence against the principles of the Constitution—you may use it to deal with an active emergency. That is one thing, but to alter the whole Criminal Law of Ireland in its most vital, organic respects, and to alter it for always, is another thing, and is to put Ireland in a position which I, for one, will never be a party to. The hon. Member for Dover or the hon. Member for Mid Armagh referred to the value of this Crimes Act in certain times, and the argument has been used again and again since the present Government came into power, and since the beginning of the Session of 1893, that we were guilty of really criminal conduct in stripping ourselves of the powers under the Act. I have been looking into the percentage of per- sons made amenable to indictable offences in Ireland under the present Government and the percentage made amenable during the active existence of the Crimes Act. Under the late Government the percentage was 41, and under the present Government, in spite of having stripped themselves of those extraordinary powers, the number of persons made amenable was 46 per cent. I am not going to weary the House with figures, but everybody will see that these are figures which bear upon the argument. I will just give one other figure as to proceedings on indictment before a jury by the present Government, and I contrast these proceedings with proceedings by summary jurisdiction under the Crimes Act of 1887 by the late Government in respect of the three following offences:—Firstly, riot and unlawful assembly; secondly, forcible possession; and, thirdly, assaults on or resistance to the sheriff, constable, or bailiff. Under the Crimes Act the percentage of convictions was 72, and 25 persons were discharged or acquitted. Under indictment by the present Government we have obtained 78 per cent. of convictions, and only 15 persons have been acquitted or discharged. These figures, I believe, are a means of testing what we have lost by dropping the provisions of the Crimes Act. Well, Sir, whatever may be said by hon. Members opposite as to the merits of the Crimes Act, we to-day shall without any scruple or hesitation support the Bill to repeal that Act. We will not be parties to retaining on the Statute Book longer than we can help a law which in one portion of the Three Kingdoms withdraws the protection of jury trial from persons accused of certain offences. The Act withdraws that protection from persons accused of combination, and from persons under certain conditions attending public meeting. It executes a special repressive procedure in cases of trespass under the guise of forcible possession, and it withdraws trial by jury from persons charged with belonging to an Association which the Lord Lieutenant may make illegal by a stroke of his pen. All these conditions are such as to make the people dislike and distrust the law. As to change of venue, I do not deny that a provision of that kind may be convenient. But my view is that by retaining this Act on the Statute Book, if you go to-morrow to the Court of Queen's Bench to apply for a change of venue on ordinary grounds, you make it very easy for the Court to say to you, " You have the Crimes Act. What more do you want? You can get this thing by a stroke of the pen." In that way I think that the existence of this Act has a mischievous operation on the mind and procedure of the Court of Queen's Bench. As to the other points in the Act, I have nothing to say beyond what I have already said. It unjustly places a stigma upon Ireland. If you insist upon retaining this Act on the Statute Book this afternoon, you are by your attitude branding with the deepest condemnation your own British government in Ireland. You cannot have a more complete admission that your government in Ireland has failed than the insistence by the Party opposite on retaining this astounding violation of Constitutional Law, this violation of the Treaty of Union which, according to Mr. Pitt himself, promised to give equality of law in a practically identical form to the two contracting parties to the Treaty. It is on that ground that I shall with peculiar pleasure vote for the Second Reading of this Bill.

said, he must confess it occurred to him, who was not very long a Member of that House, as a peculiar phase in their Parliamentary procedure, that they should be calmly asked, on a Wednesday afternoon, at the suggestion of a private Member, to repeal a Bill the Second Reading of which took seven long days of this House; and he must say he thought when the Government, through the mouth of the Chief Secretary, had practically adopted the Bill as one the Government were prepared to support, there was all the more reason in demurring to the suggestion made by the hon. and gallant Member who proposed it, and the hon. Member who seconded it, that they should, by a vote of the House to-day, in any wise attempt to alter or repeal the Criminal Law and Procedure Act of 1887. As regarded the case that had been made by the right hon. Gentleman, he said at the very outset of his remarks that he did not for a moment quarrel with regard to what the right hon. Gentleman had said as to the condition of Ireland under what he pleased to call this doctrinaire régime being a different condition to what it was in 1887. If he thought that any future Unionist Government would, in their attempt to govern Ireland, be treated as the right hon. Gentleman had been treated in his attempt to govern the country by hon. Members below the Gangway and by English Members, too, he would have no hesitation in voting in favour of this Bill. But he knew well that just as the condition of Ireland in 1887 was a manufactured and artificial condition for Party and political purposes, so the present quiet condition of Ireland was a manufactured and artificial one for like purposes. [ Ironical cheers. ] He heard hon. Members below the Gangway ironically cheer that statement, but at the same time he noticed that no answer had been given to the quotation which the hon. Member for Armagh read from a speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo delivered within the past few days, and in which the hon. Member for East Mayo told them that the only reason why they were not encouraging any agitation in the country just now was because they had a friendly Government in power; but he went on to say—

"If the Tories ever get back into power before we get Home Rule, I believe there will be one of the biggest land agitations that has ever been seen yet."

["Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members said "Hear, hear!" but did that or did it not bear out his proposition that the condition of Ireland depended not upon the fact that particular laws were being administered, not upon the fact that they were going to Ireland in what had been termed a foreign garb, but upon the particular Government which happened to be in Ireland to administer those laws? If that was the case he wanted to know what stronger argument could there be for not repealing this measure, which was added to the Statute Book with great trouble in 1887? It was clear from the speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo that the question of order or disorder was to depend not upon the condition of the law, or whether there was or was not Home Rule, but upon the particular Party that happened to be in power in this House. He could conceive no stronger argument in favour of the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Armagh, who asked the House to reject this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman said that the reason of his success in Ireland was that he had on his side the priests and the leaders of public opinion. No doubt he had the priests upon his side to a very large extent; but what did the statement of the right hon. Gentleman prove? It was proof of the vast responsibility that rested upon the shoulders of these same priests for all the terrible times in Ireland from the year 1880 down to 1867, when his right hon. Friend (Mr. A. J. Balfour) took charge of the Irish Government. When the Chief Secretary told them that the country had improved, and that Clare and the darker parts were in a better condition than they had been since 1886—with which he was inclined to agree—he should like to ask what was the reason of the improvement? Were the present Land Laws different to the Land Laws of 1887? They were identically the same. Were there fewer evictions now? It had been shown that under the régime of the Leader of the Opposition evictions reached a lower point than they had touched for many years. Had other laws been passed? The best thing that could have happened to Ireland was that since the present Government came into power not a single Bill for Ireland had been passed. It was significant, too, in connection with the improved condition of Ireland, that the Returns of crime were least not at a time when Home Rule was granted, but in the very quarter of the year succeeding the rejection of the Home Rule Bill by the House of Lords. These facts, he eon-tended, conclusively proved that the condition of Ireland depended not upon the laws passed by this Parliament, nor upon the fact that this Parliament was governing Ireland instead of a Home Rule Parliament, but depended solely upon what in the interest of a political Party was the best condition to have Ireland in at a particular moment. What happened in 1887? Why was the Crimes Act passed? One would think that a Conservative Government wished for and worked a Crimes Act with the greatest possible zest. ["Hear, hear!"] That was, in other words, that they wished to afford an argument so that hon. Members opposite could go down to the constituencies and abuse them, and thereby lose their seats. That was the case of hon. Gentlemen opposite, but might he remind them of this: The Unionist Government was in power a whole year before the Crimes Act was brought in at all, and why did they bring in a Crimes Act? Because hon. Members below the Gangway said that if England was able to govern Ireland without exceptional legislation, then the whole case of Home Rule would be "up," and that it must be demonstrated to the English constituencies that it was impossible for England to govern Ireland without coercive or oppressive legislation. He would quote, as appropriate to the passage or the Crimes Act of 1887, what was said by the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond) towards the end of 1886. The hon. Member said—

"Mr. Gladstone told the people of England they had to choose between coercion on the one side and Home Rule on the other. Home Rule was defeated at the last Election by Great Britain, and I say advisedly that if, in place of that defeat, the Tories had been able to rule Ireland with the ordinary law, the result would have been in England and Scotland to throw back our cause, perhaps for a generation, and to give the lie direct to the prophecy of Mr. Gladstone. We have achieved a victory without breaking any law or committing a single outrage. Now is the time when outrages are fewer than they have been in the last five years. We have been able to force the Government to give up the ordinary law and to fall back once more on coercion."

He had, he submitted, demonstrated that the peace at present prevailing in Ireland was due not to any law passed by this House since the present Government came into power, and he had also demonstrated by the quotation from the speech of the hon. Member for Waterford that the Irish Nationalist Members during the year 1886, when the Unionist Government were in power, determined to make government by the ordinary law im- possible, and it was in view of doing that that they manufactured such a condition of social chaos in Ireland as to render it necessary for the Government to pass the Act of 1887. The Chief Secretary, having said so much about the condition of Ireland, proceeded to give them some statistics of certain crimes under the Crimes Act and under his own régime. The absence of one class of crime was very remarkable—namely, the crime of boycotting.

May I point out that at this moment there is only one case of partial boycotting; therefore I cannot give statistics of boycotting which does not exist.

observed, that he did not at all say the right hon. Gentleman was keeping back statistics on this head. He was quite aware that since the right hon. Gentleman came into Office there had not been, so far as he knew, a single prosecution in Ireland for boycotting. That was one of the faults he was going to find with the right hon. Gentleman. It was not because there had not been boycotting in Ireland, and that of a ruinous kind too. The right hon. Gentleman told him the other day, in answer to a question, that the business of a certain miller at Kells had been, as he put it, materially interfered with, but as he (Mr. Carson) was instructed, absolutely ruined in consequence of the boycotting and denunciation to which he was subjected because he had taken an evicted farm. So far as he could see, the right hon. Gentleman did not look upon boycotting as a serious offence, and he was well aware that within the past few days the hon. Member for East Mayo went down to Nenagh in the County of Tipperary, and announced —he did not know upon what authority, but the hon. Member was looked upon as the right hon. Gentleman's guide, philosopher, and friend in Ireland—to the people that, as far as evicted farms were concerned, they might go on boycotting in the old way, and they might be perfectly certain the Government would not interfere with them. When they had a Return of statistics of crime in this House, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman were the statistics reduced because he was pleased to look upon this terrible crime of boycotting as no crime at all? He knew it had been contended that there was no illegality about boycotting. He rather thought that some hon. Members had got up in this House and had pat forward boycotting not only as being no crime, but rather a merit. Those who lived in Ireland knew what boycotting was, and what it led to. It was not necessary for him to state his opinions on this point. The question of the doings of the Land League in respect of boycotting and the allegation of the harmlessness of boycotting was one of the matters inquired into and found upon by the three eminent Judges who constituted the Special Commission. The Judges had placed on record their decision on this question in the following terms:—

"We are of opinion that the combination of which boycotting was the instrument was illegal both in its objects and the means which were adopted. The object of this elaborate and all-pervading tyranny was not only to injure the individual landlords against whom it was directed by rendering their land useless to them unless they obeyed the edicts of the Land League, but to injure the landlords as a class and drive them out of the country.… It was not contended before us by the respondents that actual intimidation could be justified, but it was argued that the Land League did no more than direct the force of public opinion against those whose conduct was deemed injurious to the interests of the tenants. It was, however, put before us that the action of the Land League far exceeded this limit, and that the effects of boycotting were such as might be expected to and did create a well-grounded terror in the minds of those who suffered under it, and we come to the conclusion that this was the intention of those who devised and carried out this system. It is further to be observed that though boycotting led in many cases to actual outrage, yet it was persisted in for years against the same individuals, and was generally recommended notwithstanding the evils which plainly resulted from it."

Notwithstanding that — and the right hon. Gentleman knew just as well as he did what the sanction of boycotting had been in Ireland—the hon. Member for East Mayo went down to Nenagh and told the people that under the régime of the present Government it was not the Government's fault if people were not boycotted according to the old ways and old methods. It was easy for the Go- vernment to reduce their statistics of crime if they passed over the crime of boycotting.

I think I informed the House and the hon. and learned Gentleman that the system of classifying and reporting boycotting is exactly what it has been heretofore; therefore if I find there are no cases at the present moment except one of partial boycotting, I think I am justified in stating that.

should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman did he contend that incitement to boycotting was not a crime? Did the right hon. Gentleman read the speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo? He should think that a Minister had to do something more than punish crime actually committed, and had to see that there was not a recrudescence of crime. If the right hon. Gentleman had read the speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo had he taken any notice of it? So far as he could see, within the few months there had been a recrudescence of this crime of boycotting to a very alarming extent in Ireland, and he would be perfectly prepared on any day to show the right hon. Gentleman on what he based this statement. Passing away from that, he would ask were they perfectly sure that there was not going to be boycotting in future; and if they were not sure there was not going to be boycotting in future, were they going to-day to weaken the effect of the only Act on the Statute Book that would enable them to deal with it? He said, in face of the conduct, of hon. Members from Ireland, and in face of their threats, it would be simply childish—unless they were prepared to say they were determined no longer to allow boycotting and to look upon it as a crime—to contend that there was any justification in the present condition of Ireland for acquiescing in the repeal of this Act of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman said that the proceedings under the first section of the Act, commonly known as the Star Chamber section, had been unsuccessful. He had something to do as a lawyer with the administation of the Crimes Act. [ Cheers. ] Hon. Members cheered that. He did not make any secret of it. It was the business of a lawyer, and particularly one holding the position of Attorney General's Counsel, to do his duty, even if he were attacked for doing so. He always thought that one of the greatest mistakes of hon. Members opposite in attacking the Crimes Act was that they did not attack the Crimes Act itself and the Members of this House who passed it, but they attacked the officials who were bound and compelled to do their duty. As regarded this first section of the Crimes Act, he believed the right hon. Gentleman was entirely wrong in saying that it was not a valuable weapon for the detection of crime. The right hon. Gentleman said that Lord Spencer, who, no doubt, had great experience in the administration of the law in Ireland, said that except in the one case of the Phœnix Park murders it never proved of any use. But was it not worth having on the Statute Book if only it served to bring to justice those miserable miscreants who were guilty of the wilful murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke. As to the cases mentioned by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, these were all cases in which men were brought to trial for the most heinous offences against innocent persons. He remembered the two men who were brought to book for the murder of Quirke, and he did not believe anybody who sat in the Court and heard the piteous tale told by the widow, an old lady of 80 years of age, who saw her husband shot in her presence, would say that that case alone was not important enough to justify the retention on the Statute Book of this first section of the Act. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that he himself had instituted two inquiries under the Explosives Act since he had come into power. Yes, but he did something more. Having instituted an inquiry into the Explosives Act the right hon. Gentleman put the men on trial, on the evidence procured under that Act, on an entirely different charge, that of murder, which did not arise out of the explosion at all, and although the prosecution was not a successful one it showed how the right hon. Gentleman was anxious to have at his hand at the time some weapon to enable him to thoroughly investigate the matter, so that, if possible, the criminals might be brought to justice. The right hon. Gentleman said that these two cases under the Explosives Act failed just as under the Crimes Act. Was that a reason for abolishing the Explosives Act? Though it might fail in certain cases, the cases under this first section were only desperate cases where they could not get evidence in any other way or secure a clue to the perpetrators of crime except by holding these secret inquiries. It was exactly in the class of cases in which they would not expect to obtain any large percentage of success in eventually bringing criminals to justice, that these secret inquiries were likely to prove useful. He said it had been sufficiently successful in protecting many peasants in Ireland against the coercion of the League to justify its retention on the Statute Book. The right hon. Gentleman did not say much against the change of venue or special juries, and he rather thought he would like to keep these provisions. If the right hon. Gentleman had got up and said, as representing the Government, he would consent to the Bill, providing it was understood that the provisions as to special juries and change of venue were to be retained, he would have made an entirely different case. As regards this question of special juries and change of venue, there was a great misapprehension amongst many English people. In England, in civil cases they never saw such a thing as a person challenged at all; but in Ireland in every civil case, no matter how small, be it only for goods sold, each side challenged almost all its full numbers. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said the law was different in England and Ireland. [Colonel NOLAN: Under this Act.] The people of England and Ireland were different. They would never make the slightest progress in dealing with Ireland in looking upon Ireland in the abstract and not Ireland in the concrete. What was the reason that it had been necessary to insist so much upon this question of special juries and change of venue in Ireland? The Irish people had been educated by agitators, and sometimes so-called leaders of opinion, to disregard their oaths upon a jury case in Ireland. They had not been allowed to differ and express their opinions freely as they wished. In 1886, long after the Home Rule Bill was brought in, a Nationalist gentleman, Mr. Rolleston, wrote to United Ireland complaining that in a previous issue it had stated that Protestants and Catholics, if on the Nationalist side, should unite in defeating Government prosecutions. Mr. Rolleston protested against that, and asked if it was liberty that a man should not be allowed to go into the jury-box and find a verdict. Here was a note upon Mr. Rolleston's letter by the editor of United Ireland, who was a Member of that House—

"In a self-governed Ireland it would, of course, be intolerable that men should not be allowed to differ freely in the jury-box and everywhere else; but, in the state of chaotic conflict to which English rule reduces us, he who is not with us is against us, and must expect to be dealt with accordingly. That is not liberty, but it is the way of winning it."

Therefore, the way they were going to win liberty in Ireland was to go into the jury box and act not according to the evidence, but according to political opinions. All he could say was that if the English people adopted similar ideas and acted upon them the present system of juries would not be tolerated in England for a moment. He would ask the Chief Secretary this: If they found the jury system did break down what were they to do? He was reading the other day a non-political essay of the right hon. Gentleman in which he made one statement which appeared to him entirely consonant with the views he was now putting forward. The statement was this—

"It is said that the great end of the British Constitution is to get 12 honest men into a box. That is really a very sensible way of putting the theory that the first end of government is to give security of life and property, and to make people keep their contracts."

If they found they could not get twelve honest men into the box by reason of the political teaching and education they had received to disregard their oaths, then he asked, were they to give up the great end of the British Constitution and not put 12 honest men into the box at all? Let him refer to a specific case. The right hon. Gentleman thought it necessary recently to prosecute three Members of the Parnellite Party, having no doubt been advised that they had broken the law. Did the right hon. Gentleman ever think, in his calmer moments, of the kind of ridiculous farce he went through? What did the right hon. Gentleman do? These gentlemen were prosecuted in relation to certain evictions on the De Freyne estate in County Roscommon. What happened? They were tried before a jury of the very evicted tenants whose cause they had championed. [" No! "] He did not say they were all evicted tenants, but they were in that venue, and might or might not have been on the jury. The jury did not convict. He believed one juror held out, but the 11 disagreed, and the right hon. Gentleman was so convinced that it would not be worth while to further consider the case, that the Attorney General instructed the Crown Prosecutor to at once enter a nolle prosequi, and there was an end to the prosecution against the hon. Members. But suppose this class of cases rose in number, as they were told by the hon. Member for East Mayo they would rise in number if a Unionist Government came into power, would the right hon. Gentleman tell them that the way they were to carry on the Government of Ireland was to have a similar fiasco to what he had in Roscommon? Anything more absurd could hardly be conceived. The right hon. Gentleman boasted of the improvement in Ireland in dealing with crime under the ordinary law. He wanted to know, had the right hon. Gentleman convicted in a single case in Ireland under the ordinary law and without change of venue? Not one. The right hon. Gentleman called the ordinary change of venue under the Winter Assize Act the ordinary law. It was statute law, and what more was the Crimes Act than statute law? What more conclusive argument could be brought forward in favour of the change of venue than had been given by the Chief Secretary, who had stated that he had been successful in obtaining a larger number of convictions in agrarian cases in which there was a change of venue? It had long been conceded by Liberals and Conservatives alike that they never could, and never would, secure convictions in agrarian; cases in Ireland before ordinary juries. Since O'Hagan's Act in 1870 there had never been a successful prosecution for agrarian crime in Ireland conducted in the ordinary venue and before an ordinary jury. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, upon the first introduction of the Home Rule Bill, said—

"With certain exceptions in the case of winter juries it is impossible to depend in Ireland upon the finding of a jury in a case of agrarian crime according to the facts as they are viewed by the Government, by the Judges and by the public, I think, at large. That is a most serious mischief, passing down deep into the groundwork of civil society."

In face of these facts, and in face of the efficacy of these provisions, were they seriously now, on a few hours' Debate, going to pass this Bill, and not merely affirm the principle that they were against perpetual coercion, but also affirm that it was perpetual coercion to have a tribunal which would carry out the law of the land? The other sections of the Crimes Act, which provided for summary process before Magistrates, were, of course, very important. These clauses had been abused over and over again by no one more heartily than by the right hon. Gentleman. He did not blame him. It had been said that these Magistrates were Removable Magistrates. He would only say this: they might or they might not think they were a good tribunal for trying these cases, but he ventured to assert that never had a body of men more honourably or justly carried out the duties cast upon them than those Magistrates had done. The Chief Secretary, when sitting in Opposition, used to lend himself to these attacks on the Resident Magistrates. Since 1887, he bad had the opportunity of dismissing any who had been guilty of misconduct, but he had never dismissed a single one of them, nor inquired into their conduct since he had been in Office, for the simple reason that they had fairly and honestly done their duty. The fact was that the whole of the outcry against Resident Magistrates in Ireland had been got up as a Party cry. It had been suggested that the Magistrates were under the thumb of Dublin Castle, but would the Chief Secretary tell the House that he had ever ventured to suggest a decision to those Magistrates, or that they had ever given a particular decision because they were afraid of being removed from their posts? Let those who cried out against the Magistrates bring before the House any particular decision which they alleged to have been wrongly given, and let the House then deal with it. Their decisions had, in fact, been brought before the superior Courts in Ireland, and the record of decisions of the Resident Magistrates which had stood this test of appeal would compare favourably with the record of decisions of any other Courts. They might think that these matters ought not to be left to the Magistrates, and that there ought to be a jury in all those cases, notwithstanding what he had pointed out; but, at all events, let them not do an injustice to the body of men like the Resident Magistrates, who had done their duty with a fairness, a sense of honour, and a sense of justice which had not been equalled by any body of public servants in the country. The object of hon. Members in bringing in this Bill was, of course, to make it impossible for any future Unionist Government to govern Ireland. That object had been boldly stated. They would make government under the ordinary law impossible, and drive the Unionist Government to come to Parliament for another Crimes Bill. But they would find that the cry of "Coercion" had grown stale after all that had gone on under the régime of the present Chief Secretary. If they were to have Ireland disturbed— artificially disturbed during a Unionist Government; and if they were to have Ireland quiet, artificially quiet, during a separatist Government, all he would say was that the English people had very much less intelligence than he gave them credit for, if they were not able to see the unreality of the cry of coercion. This Crimes Act had proved efficient in the past to free innocent men from the coercion of the League and its associates, and he asked the House, in the interests of the humble peasants of Ireland, to pause before they gave their sanction to a Bill which proposed to repeal such a measure.

said, he understood the Chief Secretary to view the Crimes Act with feelings as strong as those he entertained for any of the other political questions now under discussion. If that were so, he thought the promoters of the Bill had reason to complain that the Government should not have taken up the Bill for themselves. But now that they had adopted the Bill, the House had a right to know, not only what the Government were going to do that afternoon, but also what course they intended to pursue afterwards. If the measure were read a second time, was it to be given the facilities of a Government measure? The right hon. Gentleman said, in a rather ambiguous phrase, that he proposed to affirm the principle of the Bill. But if he affirmed the principle did he propose, if the Government continued in existence, to assist in passing the measure into law this Session? The right hon. Gentleman had also said that he was opposed to the continuance of the Crimes Act on the ground that it was an absurdity to keep on the Statute Book an Act that was operative or inoperative according to political changes at Westminster. But that was an argument that could be applied to the most recent proposal of the Government to the House on which a vote was taken the previous night—the proposal of a constitutional change which affected not only one portion of the Kingdom, but which affected the very central machinery of government, and which would be operative or inoperative according as a Conservative or Liberal Government was in power. The Chief Secretary had quoted statistics to prove a diminution of crime in Ireland, and had said that the Unionists were in the habit of charging him with that diminution as if it were an offence. He failed to recollect any Unionist Member—and certainly any Unionist Member from Ireland—who made such a charge, and he should be the last person in the world himself to make such a charge against the right hon. Gentleman. But he must remind the right hon. Gentleman that crime statistics were not taken as the foundation of the case on which the House was asked to pass the measure in 1887. The Leader of the Opposition stated, when as Chief Secretary for Ireland he introduced the Crimes Act, that he did not rely upon statistics of crime as the basis of his policy; but on the principle which had been laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, that it was necessary to consider the amount of crime in Ireland in conjunction with its source and character; and on that ground it was useless for anyone to urge that there was not ample reason for retaining the Act on the Statute Book. When the hon. Member for East Mayo prided himself on having paralysed the operation of the law in East Mayo, and stated that he would do the same thing again under another Unionist Government, what was the value of any number of statistics of crime as an argument for the removal of the Act from the Statute Book? The Chief Secretary had said that he governed Ireland with the aid of the Bishops and popular politicians. But a Government might come into power in a very short time that would not go cap in hand to Archbishop Walsh: and it would be absurd for such a Government to place themselves in a position in which they could not rely on the assistance of a measure which had proved so effective in freeing Ireland from those crimes, which for Party purposes were perpetrated in the time of the late Unionist Government. The right hon. Gentleman prided himself on the fact that they had governed Ireland with the ordinary law, and without the aid of the Crimes Act. It was easy for the Chief Secretary to boast in the House that he was not a coercionist, because he did not use the Crimes Act. But from the Irish point of view he was still governing Ireland by brute force, because he was using, when he thought necessary, all those administrative instruments for preserving peace and order which the Leader of the Opposition had been denounced for using. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman, who boasted that he was a non-coercionist, had been denounced by the followers of the hon. Member for East Clare—who had spoken that day in such whispered humbleness—as one of the worst coercionists that ever went to Ireland. The hon. Member for East Clare had told them that to be arrested under this Act was to have established a claim on the gratitude of the Irish nation. Indeed, if they were to vote for the repeal of the Act they should be removing from the path of young ambitious Irishmen the easiest method for obtaining political distinction; for a man had only to be prosecuted by the Government under the Coercion Act to become a public hero. Therefore, the repeal of this Act would deprive Irish Members of the easiest way of obtaining a crown of glory, a crown, however, which was not free from thorns. The hon. Member for East Clare had found that out for himself when he was imprisoned in Wexford, and put on prison fare. It was not surprising that the constitution of the hon. Member for East Clare broke down on water. In fact, no Irish constitution could stand bread and water for 72 hours.

Talk sense.

said, that there was practically no grievance in the continuance of this Act on the Statute Book. If there was any grievance at all it was a mere sentimental grievance, that had been greatly exaggerated. The Crimes Act did not hurt any Irishman, whether he dwelt in his constituency (South Antrim) or in the constituency of the hon. Member for East Clare. The hon. Member objected to the Act because it was confined to Ireland, and the Chief Secretary had said it would be impossible to carry it for England; but if the state of things existed in England which existed in Ireland when the Act was passed, a Government that did not cope with it would be swept away at once. In America, under similar circumstances, the people did not wait for legislation, but adopted summary measures. In the case of the Kearney riots, the people of California did not wait for any Government action, but took the matter into their own hands and dealt out justice to Kearney and his followers. The hon. Member for East Clare had also contended that the Act had failed, because he said he had not been converted by being sent to gaol. Of course, the enforcement of the Act did not change the views of those who suffered under it, as the hon. Member appeared to think it should. They did not change the opinions of a thief by sending him to gaol, for it was a well-known fact that the gaols were largely filled by old criminals.

I know nothing about thieves; I suppose you do.

said that, of course, he was arguing generally, and without any personal reference to the hon. Member. He looked upon the hon. Member not as an ordinary but as an extraordinary burglar, who regarded it as meritorious to have been put in prison. As they could not convince a thief, so they could not convince a political burglar. At all events, the hon. Member had been kept out of mischief for six months, and if no other good was done, they would have to thank the operation of the Act for that very small mercy. The promoters of the Bill ought to have gone a step further than they had done. They should have shown that not only was the Act not necessary now, but that in no possible future circumstances, whether remote or near, would such an instrument for procuring the punishment of those who broke the law in Ireland be necessary. The supporters of the Bill, including the Chief Secretary, had carefully abstained from noticing the suggestion that it was possible there might be a recrudescence of crime in Ireland which would call for exceptional legislation. It had not only been admitted but suggested that in the near future it might be possible that the hon. Member for East Mayo and his friends would attempt, for political purposes of their own, to create in the districts of Ireland in which they had influence those agrarian circumstances which had led in the past to so much crime. The Chief Secretary had not attempted to deal with that point; and he certainly could not admit that the right hon. Gentleman had made out the slightest justification for the action he proposed to take in voting for the Second Reading of the Bill.

I have often reflected how curious is our procedure in this House with reference to those ambitious schemes for legislation which private Members in the exercise of their undoubted rights bring forward for discussion on a Wednesday afternoon. The Government of the day may bring forward measures even of the second class, not specially controversial or important, and the Forms of the House secure that such measures shall be adequately discussed at every stage, not only on the Second Reading, and on the different later stages, but on the First Reading also. These are the safeguards to prevent rash legislation on the part of the Government, but they are not thought necessary in the case of the irresponsible private Member, who introduces a Bill without anyone objecting and obtains a First Reading. Yesterday there was introduced three such Bills— one to abolish the House of Lords; a second to abolish the Universities; and a third to abolish—I forget what, but I think it was to abolish one of the other ancient institutions of the country. Nobody said a word, and if the introducer of any of these Bills can get the first place on a Wednesday he may occupy four or five hours of the valuable time of the House, and obtain a decision of the House on the main principle involved. If that procedure lends itself to criticism there has never been an occasion on which criticism would have been more appropriate than it is to-day. Think of what we are asked to do, and of the conditions under which we are asked to do it. We are asked to repeal an Act, and the Members who ask us to do so, although they made long and interesting speeches, did not go to the root of the matter and discuss the principles and details which the Act involves. One half the speech of the Seconder was devoted to autobiographical experiences of prison life and views of prison discipline. Is it conceivable that the House is to take seriously such a proposal when it is laid before us in a spirit so wanting in serious- ness? When I turn to the conditions under which the measure is brought before us it appears to me that the case against asking the House to decide a question of this kind on a Wednesday afternoon becomes absolutely overwhelming. As has already been pointed out by my hon. and learned Friend who moved the rejection of the Bill, the Crimes Act took three months and seven days in passing through this House, and even that was not thought sufficient time by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Yet that which took three months and seven days to pass this House we are asked to deal with in its most important stage in four-and-a-half-hours. With regard to the Chief Secretary's reply to that point, I absolutely deny, in the first place, that this measure can be properly dealt with unless you have details before you. If there is a stage at which principle, and principle alone, is supposed to guide the action of the House of Commons, it is that of First Reading. Yet the First Reading of the Act which this Bill is intended to repeal took four nights, and the Second Reading took seven nights. In these circumstances, I must enter my protest against such an invasion of the rights of private Members as would require this House to come to any decision upon so momentous a case as this within the brief space allotted to us on a Wednesday afternoon. The Chief Secretary admitted that to govern Ireland successfully you require a strong Government, but he seemed to think that a strong Government was able to do all the work without anything in the nature of special provisions for enforcing the ordinary Criminal Law of the country. I listened with interest to see how he was going to defend and develop that position, but not one single administrative action did he put before us which could be adopted by the strong Government in question except the system of energetic control. But the value of that system depends upon the legal machinery by which criminals can be brought to justice when they are caught. What is the use of control? It is to prevent those committing crimes who are afraid of being caught and to catch those who have already committed crimes; but why should any human being be deterred from committing any crime he pleases if he happens to know he will not be brought to justice for the crime? Control is an admirable additional help to a system by which criminals can be tried and convicted; but if for any reason, political or other, it is not backed up by adequate legal machinery, no amount of control in the world will give that security to Her Majesty's subjects which everyone has a right to demand. The right hon. Gentleman's argument seemed to be reducible to one solitary proposition, and that was that he, without the Crimes Act, had got on exceedingly well with the administration of Ireland. I have never contested the facts of the right hon. Gentleman, but I do contest the validity of the argument which he rests upon them. We have over and over again pointed out that you cannot judge of the efficacy of your legal system by itself; you must judge it in comparison with the forces to which it is opposed. Now, we contend that under certain special circumstances at the present hour the forces arrayed against legal authority in Ireland are far weaker than they were under the régime of those who preceded the right hon. Gentleman. Great political and social organisations, which in other times were used for the promotion of disorder and, indirectly at all events, for the promotion of crime, have now been used in order to support the Government, from which they have expectations in the future. "But," says the right hon. Gentleman, "is this a thing of which we need be ashamed? Ought you not to govern in sympathy with the moral forces of the community?" Well, I will not discuss whether the forces of which he speaks can properly be described as moral, or how far they are moral, but what is the origin and basis of the present alliance with forces which he describes as moral? Is it sympathy with the mode of administration which he has thought it his duty to use in Ireland? No; we have irrefragable proof that it is not sympathy with the administrative methods of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman has done, and has been obliged to do, every thing in an administrative sense which his predecessors did. The basis, therefore, of this alliance is not common agreement as to how Ireland should be governed at present. What is it? It is the hope of some Bill in the future which is to remove the whole responsibility of governing Ireland on any principle from gentlemen sitting on the Treasury Bench. I do not call that an alliance with the moral forces of Ireland. I call it an alliance for a definite political object, entered into by gentlemen with a definite political end, and it no more deserves the flattering epithets he applies to it than any other combination of persons of very different principles, and having very different objects, to carry out a temporary purpose. If that analysis of the present situation be true, what element of permanence has it? Assume that a Unionist Government comes in, then this alliance with the moral forces of Ireland must on the hypothesis vanish. I do not think it is even necessary to wait for the advent of a Unionist Government. Once let the Liberal Party in this country come round to the late views of the present Prime Minister, and the alliance again will vanish. Is it not unreasonable and intolerable to ask us to abandon a method of enforcing the Common Law of this country, which, by the admission of the advocates of the present law, will become necessary as soon as Irish patriots see the prospects of Home Rule receding into space? I am certain that must come sooner or later, and then we will find ourselves face to face with the old problems and difficulties, but without the present methods of meeting them when they arrive. The right hon. Gentleman told us that by retaining this Act as a permanent part of the Statute Book we were taking it for granted that Ireland would for an indefinite period take a view of the law different to the view which prevails in this country. I have never believed myself that the ancient traditions of agrarian disturbance, which did not begin with the Union, could be wholly got rid of in a generation or in two generations. But I will make this concession to the right hon. Gentleman. I believe that, in spite of this inherited perversion of view with regard to agrarian crime in Ireland, you could govern Ireland under the ordinary law of this country on one condition, and that condition is that you could guarantee that no political Party would every again use crime for the purpose of advancing their political views. The right hon. Gentleman must know perfectly well, if he had the courage to tell us his whole mind, that political Parties in the past used crime, directly or indirectly, to further their ends, and that at this moment they are threatening to use crime again. We had two quotations this afternoon from one Member of the largest of the Irish sections below the Gangway. One of these quotations encouraged boycotting, and stated that the Government, of which the speaker was a supporter, would never punish boycotting. The other said that as soon as a Unionist Government came into Office a land agitation such as had never been known in Ireland before would be got up by political agitators. A land agitation means agrarian crime, and it means nothing else but agrarian crime, and I wish to know how any responsible politician in this House, with that menace staring him in the face, with the knowledge that those with whom he is in moral alliance at this moment may, as soon as a change of Government takes place, resume all the old methods for all the old purposes with all the old results—I wish to know how any responsible politician in these circumstances can say that the Government of this country is to be left defenceless and powerless, deprived of every method by which the criminal can be pursued, and that these gentlemen are to be left to pursue their own course at their own sweet will. The right hon. Gentleman may be fortunate enough during the remaining portion of his Irish career to be able to guarantee that these moral forces shall be on his side. But when the moral forces become immoral forces when he leave Office, when different political objects are to be gained at Westminster and different political methods have to be pursued in Ireland, then a condition of things may arise again under which we shall have, for the very purpose of conferring the most elementary rights and liberties upon the poorer peasantry, to have recourse to instruments to carry out the ordinary law which nobody likes to employ. I and those who act with me are supposed to have some special love for coercive legislation and coercive practices. No- thing could be further from the truth. Nothing would be more in accordance with the passionate desire of those who sit upon this side as well as of those who sit upon that side than that Ireland should in every respect—in her love for law as well as in other respects—be in precisely the same position as every other part of the Kingdom. But because we desire that, are we to shut our eyes to the plain teaching of facts, and are we to say that, because during a year and-a-half it has suited certain politicians to support a Government which they formerly opposed, to make that, easy which they formerly made difficult—are we to say for that reason that for the future the Administration is to be rendered perfectly helpless in the face even of the most outrageous attempts to produce crime and disorder in the South and West of Ireland? I cannot believe that the House of Commons will come to a decision of that kind; and of this I am certain—that if they mean to come to a decision of that kind it should only be after the fullest debate and the maturest consideration, and not after the perfunctory discussion on this extraordinary proposal which is all we have been vouchsafed this afternoon by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, " That the Question be now put."

The House divided:—Ayes 255; Noes 196.—(Division List, No. 27.)

Question put accordingly, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 254; Noes 194.—(Division List, No. 28.)

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Friday, at Two of the clock.

Sir, on the question of the Adjournment, would the right hon. Gentleman inform us what it is proposed should be the course of business to-morrow? I do not know how long the discussion of the Board of Conciliation and Railway Rates Bills will occupy, but it may be important to know the course of business.

said, that the Bills mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman would be the second and third Orders of the Day to-morrow.

House adjourned at one minute before Six o'clock.