I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to recent decisions of the High Court of Justice in cases affecting Trades Unions, and particularly to a decision in the case of "Lyons v. Wilkins," arising out of a strike, and to a decision in Chambers in the case of Bailey and another v. Pye and others, arising out of a lock-out by the plaintiffs. Is he aware that injunctions have been granted restraining officers and members of Trades Unions from inducing persons not to enter into contracts; and that, in the first-named case, the Judge found that the pickets had not been guilty of intimidation; and that, in the second case, all charges of a breach of the law, brought in the Police Court against the defendants, had been dismissed by the Police Magistrate: And whether, seeing that the effect of these judgments is to prevent workmen on strike, or locked out, from using mere persuasion to induce their fellow workmen not to take work from the employers with whom the dispute has arisen, any further legislation on the subject is contemplated?

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, having regard to the great importance of the decision as affecting the relations between capital and labour, he will lay upon the Table Copies of the. Judgments of Mr. Justice North and of the Court of Appeal in the case of "Lyons and Sons v. Wilkins?"

My attention has been called to the decision of the Court of Appeal in the case of "Lyons v. Wilkins," but I have no information as to the other case mentioned by the right hon. Member. There can be no doubt as to the importance of the decision in the former case, but at present I have only seen a short summary of the case in a law journal and the report in The Times of March 19th, and I am advised that the consideration of the effect of the judgment given must await the full reports of the case in the usual legal publications, and probably, as the judgment was given on an application for an interim injunction, of the decision on the trial of the main action. It is, of course, possible also that the case may be carried on appeal to the House of Lords. It would be premature, therefore, for me to make any statement with regard to it at present. I may add here, in reply to the question of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green, that if authentic reports can be obtained, I can see no objection to their being laid on the Table of the House when the case is finished.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury—(1) whether the Government propose to appoint a Committee to consider the question of Old Age Pensions; and, (2) if so, whether they will refer to such Committee Mr. William Stokes Cottew's Scheme for an "Old Age Pension Fund and Government State Bank," which has been lately submitted to them?

The only answer I can give to the first paragraph of the Question is that the Government have the matter under consideration. Any Committee would, I think, be impressed by the originality of Mr. Cottew's scheme. The batches of printed copies with which the author has kindly provided me show that the copyright of the scheme alone would cost the Government £20,000. Its purchase would enable them to create a president of the proposed bank, who must have a seat in Parliament (apparently for life) and a salary of £5,000 for the first five years and £3,000 afterwards, to be followed by a pension of £800 a year on reaching 65. As the first president is to be the originator himself, it seems a little invidious to read in the next paragraph that the salary of his successors must never exceed £2,500.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether his attention has been called to a report in the Belfast Irish News of 23rd March last, of a meeting of farmers in Coleraine, whereat it was declared, by a unanimously adopted resolution, that the statement as to reductions in rent, having been freely given by the landlords was misleading and contrary to fact; (2) whether he is aware that, notwithstanding the low prices and the failure of the flax crop, no such reductions have been generally given by the landlords in Ulster; and (3), if he can now state on what estates these reductions have been freely given?

In the absence of my right hon. Friend, and with the permission of the House, I will reply to this and the other Questions on the Paper which are addressed to him. Attention has been drawn to the report of the proceedings at the meeting referred to in the first paragraph. The speakers at the meeting appear to have questioned the accuracy of the statement of my right hon. Friend, who spoke of rent reductions in Ulster, generally, on the ground that they had not heard of a similar concession in their own neighbourhood. Such an assumption is unwarranted and erroneous, and I repeat that it is the fact that abatements in rent have been granted in Ulster, in some cases solely owing to the failure of the flax crop, and in other cases because of the depreciation in prices of agricultural produce, generally, including the flax crop. It would be quite contrary to practice to indicate the particular estates on which these abatements have been granted, but I may state that they vary from 10 to 25 per cent., and were given on certain properties in the counties of Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down, Londonderry, and Tyrone.

asked the hon. and learned Gentleman to name one single large estate in county Down in which reductions had been freely given?

That is precisely what I refuse to do.

I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works, whether any unusual and extensive felling of timber has recently taken place in Richmond Park; and, if so, whether any herons' nests and eggs have been destroyed thereby?

No unusual or extensive felling of timber in Richmond Park has recently taken place. In connection with the ordinary thinning, several trees were marked for felling in the Penn Ponds plantation, and were sold in the usual course last January. The contractors who purchased them commenced felling them soon afterwards, but in the meanwhile herons had built in some of them, and I regret to say two nests were thus destroyed. The cutting of timber within this plantation was thereupon stopped, and no further felling within close proximity to trees where birds are nesting will be permitted until the close of the nesting season. T am glad to assure my hon. Friend that there are still a large number of nests, and that the birds disturbed appear to have again nested.

I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, if the Government are willing, before the Second Reading of the Education Bill, to lay before the House a copy of the various Statutes, provisions of which are amended or repealed by, or incorporated in, or otherwise referred to in that Bill?

I fear that I cannot see my way to adopt the very unusual course suggested by the hon. Member. I may remind him that the Schedule to the Bill gives a list of the parts of Statutes which it is proposed to repeal.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether Clause 2, Section 2 (b) of the Education Bill, if passed into law, will allow the Education Department to limit the present powers of the Technical Instruction Committees of County Councils to spend their Educational grants in the forms of instruction which they think best for the interest of scholars and students in their respective localities?

The Question asked is one of the construction of the language of a proposed statute upon which no layman is qualified to give an authoritative opinion. (Laughter.)

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, whether he will consider the desirability of appropriating the £1,800 per annum, which it was proposed to give to His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge as a retiring pension, in providing pensions for the large number of soldiers who gave distinguished service in the Army and who are now inmates of the workhouses of Great Britain and Ireland and a burden on the rates?

It has been explained recently in the House that pensions to soldiers with campaign service, but who have not completed the term of service entitling them to pensions, are being given in as numerous cases as can be at present justified; 1,047 special campaign pensions have been awarded in the last financial year, of which 214 were in the last three months. They will continue to be granted on the existing system, without reference to excesses or deficits on other Votes.

asked what was going to be done with the £1,800?

said that if the £1,800 appeared on the Estimates he should be sorry to see the pensioners deprived of it, but it would be impossible, with such a sum, to start a new system which would involve, not £1,800, but probably £50,000 or £100,000.

asked if it was not the fact that an Estimate was put down on the Paper for this £1,800.

asked if, without the consent of Parliament, the money would be devoted to other purposes?

said the whole Army Votes were available for other purposes if the whole of the sums voted were not expended. There were numerous cases in which excesses on Votes went back to the Treasury. But in the present case the simple position would be that the total Vote would be £1,800 short.

asked if the Under Secretary would agree to a return showing how many Crimeran veterans were in English or Irish workhouses?

That is very remote from the Question on the Paper.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether he can state what was the number of inquests held on railway servants killed in discharge of their duties during the year 1895; at how many of such inquests the Board of Trade was represented by an inspecting officer, a sub-inspector, or other representative; and in how many instances the coroner applied for an official of the Board of Trade to attend as an assessor, in pursuance of Section 8 of the Regulation of Railways Act 18711

Two hundred and seventy-six coroners' returns were received by the Board of Trade in 1895; in no case did the coroner apply for an assessor in pursuance of the Act, but in three cases coroners asked for technical assistance and in two cases such assistance was given—in one by an inspecting officer and in the other by a sub-inspector. In the third case the coroner asked for scientific evidence, and this the Board of Trade were unable to give.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he can now accede to the desire of the trustee savings banks to have their powers of investment for the purposes of Section 16 of The Savings Bank Act, 1863, extended so as to enable them to invest on the security of county and borough rates or other authorised securities of local authorities?

This matter has been under my consideration, and I am now in communication with my hon. Friend the Member for the South Division of Islington upon it. But, up to the present, I have not been able to see my way to agree to the proposal.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether the Government of India have largely increased their contribution to the Imperial Institute; and, if so, will he state the purpose for which the grant is made, and its total amount, and see that the money is devoted strictly to promoting the interests of Indian arts, industries, and economic resources by the expenditure being entrusted to a body of experts, acting in consultation with Sir Frederick Abel, and not to the ordinary administrative officials of the Imperial Institute; and, whether he will place on the Table any correspondence that has passed on the subject between the Government of India, the India Office, and the Imperial Institute?

The Government of India have increased their contribution to the Imperial Institute, from £500 to £750 a year with the object of promoting the interests mentioned in the hon. Member's question. A Committee of gentlemen of Indian experience has been appointed to co-operate with the staff of the Institute, and to secure the application of this contribution to the purposes for which it was intended. I shall have no objection to the publication of the correspondence which has passed on this subject if the hon. Member will move for it.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether it is usual for the National Board of Education in Ireland to order official investigations into the private life of school teachers on the information of anonymous accusers; and, if so, whether he will take steps to put an end to the practice?

The Commissioners of National Education state that as a general rule investigations are not made in respect to the private affairs of teachers on receipt of anonymous communications. But should it appear from the allegation of facts and circumstances that there is a primâ facie case for inquiry, the Commissioners would not hesitate to make such inquiry as they may deem necessary in the public interest to ascertain the truth upon information so derived. It does not seem desirable to interfere with the practice when so guarded.

In any special case submitted to the Government would an inquiry be made?

Yes.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether any Report on the hostilities in Cuba has been received by Her Majesty's Government from the Consul General or other agent; and, if not, whether the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will call for a Report on the condition of Cuba, with special reference to the state of war alleged to exist?

Reports have from time to time been received from Her Majesty's Consular Officers in Cuba, in which reference is made to the insurrection in the island, and to the steps taken for its repression. There is, accordingly, no need to call for a special Report.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if he could state when work will be begun on the Shannon Drainage at Battlebridge?

The vendor's title to the necessary land and water rights required for the works on the river Shannon, near Battlebridge, having now been reported as complete, arrangements will be immediately made to start the works,

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is in a position to state the amount of public money paid by the Treasury to the Clogher Valley Tramway Company since 1887, and also the amount paid by the scheduled townlands in Fermanagh and Tyrone during the same period?

From the half year ending 30th September 1887 to the half year ending 30th March 1895, inclusive, the amounts paid by the County Grand Juries for guaranteed dividend and loss on working have been as follows:—

Grand Jury, Fermanagh,	£8,468.
Grand Jury, Tyrone,	£42,339.

The amounts paid to the Grand Juries by the Treasury in respect of guaranteed dividend during the same period, have been:—

Fermanagh,	£3,254.
Tyrone,	£16,271.

The Treasury payments represent part of the payments made by the guaranteeing areas to the railway company, and are therefore included in the amounts paid by the Grand Juries.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that a native in a small canoe was recently chased by the launch belonging to the Royal Niger Company at Akassa, and was shot at by order of the officer in charge of the launch; that in endeavouring to escape he was drowned; and that, in consequence of this, and because of their disapproval of the cruel treatment of the natives by the Company, several of their servants have resigned; and, whether the Government will take steps to secure better treatment for the natives?

In October last a boat in the Brass Creek, endeavouring to escape the customs launch of the Royal Niger Company, was chased by the latter. The man on board was not fired at, but jumped overboard and could not be found. A search was made, but it could not be ascertained whether he sank or reached land. After a full inquiry before the Chief Justice, the decision was given of death by misadventure. Nothing is known of the resignation of the employés of the Company; but I shall be glad to receive any information on the subject from the hon. Member, who presumably would not have described it as a fact had he not possessed the requisite evidence.

Would the right hon. Gentleman be willing to see one of the officers of the Company who had resigned?

Yes, that is the information for which I am asking.

Will the right hon. Gentleman say how the death was established, inasmuch as the man was never found or seen? [Laughter.]

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will order an Inquiry into the conditions of the enamel industry with a view to dispense with the use of lead, so that the large percentage of deaths through lead poisoning may be averted?

The hon. Member will, no doubt, remember that the various lead industries formed the subject of an exhaustive Inquiry by a Departmental Committee three years ago, as a result of which stringent special rules have been established for factories where lead is used in plate enamelling. Considerable difficulty is, however, experienced in getting the workpeople to obey the rules, nor am I satisfied that they might not be amended, I propose, therefore, to have a further Inquiry made.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, with regard to the fact that the Eastbourne Voluntary Schools Extension Committee, after having provided, at the suggestion of the Education Department, more than 1,700 additional school places, at a cost of about £11,000, have again been called upon to make further provision, and this time for infants only; whether he is aware that there is ample provision in the existing schools at Eastbourne for infants of five and upwards; whether the Department's new statistics of alleged deficiency contemplate provision for infants under five and as young as three; and, whether there is any statutory authority for imposing on the school managers at Eastbourne or anywhere else the heavy burden of providing accommodation in their schools for infants of three years old?

The facts are as stated in the Question, but no notice directing further accommodation to be provided has yet been issued. The statistics do contemplate provision for infants between three and five years of age. Under Section 5 of Elementary Education Act 1891, public school accommodation without payment of fees must be provided for children over three.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, what steps, if any, have been taken to bring to trial Patrick M'Quaide, of Gola, county Monaghan, who has been under arrest since the end of January last for alleged trespass upon his evicted farm; is he aware that M'Quaide has expressed his desire to be tried; and, will steps be taken to bring him to trial or order his release without further delay?

I must refer the hon. Member to my reply in answer to his Question on the 19th March, to which I have nothing to add.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has seen the Report of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, wherein it is stated that there were investigated last month 1,965 complaints of neglect, starvation, ill-treatment, and other wrongs upon children, that 1,837 of those complaints were found to be true, and affected the welfare of a large number of children of various ages, and that 18 of the children so affected died; and, will the Government consider the propriety of making more stringent the laws in existence for the protection of helpless children?

My attention had not previously been called to the Report referred to. The Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act of 1894, which consolidated and extended previous legislation on the subject, was passed after much discussion in Parliament, and I have not as yet seen any reason to suppose that it is ineffective for its purpose. No representations to the effect that the law requires strengthening have been made to the Home Office by magistrates or others concerned in its administration, but, should any such representations be received, they will, of course, be carefully considered by me.

T beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the resolution passed by the priests of the Deanery of Westport on the 7th instant, requesting the Government to provide compulsory purchase powers for the acquisition of the waste lands in the congested districts of the Westport Union for migratory purposes; and whether he will make provision for such a clause in the coming Land Bill, or see that such powers be given to the Congested Districts Board?

Attention has been drawn to the Resolution referred to, but I can give no undertaking of the nature suggested in the second paragraph to introduce the Measure.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education what the duties of the director of the Museum of Medieval Art at South Kensington are; and whether he can see his way to entirely separating and detaching the control of the Museum from the officials who have charge of the Science and Art schools?

The Director of the Art branch of the Museum at South Kensington is responsible for the staff of that branch, for the arrangement of the collections, and for making purchases or recommending objects for purchase. He is not under the control of the officials who have charge of the Science and Art schools, but I will make further inquiries on the subject.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is now able to account for the extreme length of three and a half years' delay which has elapsed since the site for a new post-office in Weston-super-Mare was acquired at an expense to the State of about £5,000; what is the estimated expense of the building proposed to be erected by the Postmaster General which the Treasury disagree with; what is the amount of saving which the Treasury estimate should be effected by reduction of that estimate; and what is now being done to make progress?

The erection of the building has hitherto had to be postponed in favour of more pressing cases. The estimate referred to was £7,000 for the building and £600 for fittings and furniture. This was greatly in excess of the original estimate. The question of its reduction is now under consideration between the Postmaster General and the Treasury. Arrangements are being made temporarily to rent and fit up an adjoining shop, which will provide a good parcel and sorting office as well as storerooms and retiring rooms for the clerks and postmen, in lieu of the present temporary sorting office on the other side of the street.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, if he is aware that on the 27th ultimo the Canadian House of Commons passed a resolution with reference to the Diseases of Animals Bill, now before this House, in which, after referring to previous regulations as to the importation of Canadian cattle into the United Kingdom, they respectfully protest against the permanent exclusion of Canadian cattle on the ground of the existence of pleuro-pneumonia in Canada, and express in the strongest possible manner their belief that pleuro-pneumonia has not existed in the past and does not at the present time exist in Canada; and, if, in view of this strong expression of Canadian opinion, Her Majesty's Government could see their way to postpone legislation on the subject until further experiment has decided the point at issue?

asked whether it was not a fact that the Board of Agriculture had received a very large number of resolutions urging the vital importance of this Bill to the agricultural community in Great Britain and Ireland, and praying that no exception should be admitted?

I have received the resolution to which the hon. Member refers, but, while deeply regretting that upon any question we should find ourselves unable to accede to the wishes of the Dominion Government, we feel that it is not possible for us, consistently with the interests of agriculturists at home, to adopt the suggestion which the hon. Member is good enough to make. We have received a large number of resolutions and representations in the sense indicated by my hon. Friend. ["Hear, hear!"]

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he has any information with regard to the Iradé, recently signed by the Sultan, but not hitherto promulgated, the effect of which would be to bring about the expulsion of Christian missionaries from Asiatic Turkey, and to interfere with the administration of relief?

Her Majesty's Vice Consul at Mush telegraphed on the 27th ultimo that the local authorities in virtue of an Imperial Iradé had required all missionaries to leave Asia Minor at once viâ Alexandretta. In reply to representations made by Sir Philip Currie, His Excellency was informed that the terms of the Iradé did not specifically refer to the missionaries, but merely to persons implicated in seditious movements, and that the missionaries would not be in any way molested so long as they conformed to the laws of the country. The United States Chargé d'Affaires, who also made representations on the subject, was informed that the Iradé had been repealed.

asked whether it was not the case that Mr. Knapp, one of the missionaries, had been expelled from Bitlis?

It may be, but I have no information on the subject.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether Her Majesty's Ministers will be in a position to lay any further Papers upon South Africa upon the Table of the House within the near future, in order to put an end to the period of suspense which has given rise to so many conflicting rumours?

I cannot say at present when further Papers on South Africa can be produced, but they will be laid as soon as the interests of the public service will permit. In the meantime great caution should be exercised with regard to rumours on South African affairs, which are frequently set afloat with interested motives. [Cheers.]

In view of the state of affairs in South Africa, may I ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will put down the Colonial Vote for an early day?

That does not arise out of this Question.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) whether he has received information of a public meeting of the residents of Norfolk Island, at which protests were made against the proposed placing of the Island under the direct authority of the Government of New South Wales; and (2) whether, in view of the large amount of hostility the proposal has evoked, he will consider and suggest some compromise which, while securing the desired reforms of civil and judicial administration, will preserve the essential features of the system of local self-government the community has enjoyed for the past 40 years?

said, I have heard indirectly that a protest of this nature has been made, but I have no detailed information on the subject. As the hon. Member has already been informed, the future Government of Norfolk Island is at present the subject of communications with New South Wales and with New Zealand, and I am not as yet in a position to make any definite statement on the subject.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether Irish Grand Juries are legally bound to advertise for tenders for the various contracts for the departments of the public service which they control, and which are paid for out of the public funds; whether he is aware that the Grand Jury of the county of Kilkenny recently gave a printing contract for a term of seven years without having invited tenders by advertisement in the local press, and at a cost of several hundred pounds to the rates more than the work would be done for if left open to competition; and whether he proposes to take any and what action in the matter?

There is some doubt owing to a decision delivered many years ago whether Grand Juries are bound to advertise for tenders for printing. They are undoubtedly bound to do so in the case of all other contracts. The Government have no power to take action in the matter, but it is open to any ratepayer to appear before the Judge of Assize or the Auditor of the Local Government Board and take exception to the action of the Grand Jury in the matter.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he had received any reply to his last Dispatch to President Kruger, and, if not, whether he had telegraphed inquiring as to the President's delay in sending his reply?

I must refer the hon. Member to the answer given by me to the hon. Member' for the Ecclesall Division of Sheffield on Thursday, the 9th instant, to which I have nothing to add.

I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether in view of the important Colonial and Imperial interests now at stake in South Africa, Her Majesty's Government will decide at once to reinforce the Imperial troops there?

Sir Hercules Robinson has offered, after consultation with the General Officer commanding the troops at the Cape, and after hearing from Messrs. Rhodes and Duncan and Lord Grey, to send up at once to the disturbed districts 300 cavalry and 200 mounted infantry from Natal in addition to the Volunteers and police already arranged for. He will also raise a force of 250 Basutos to aid in quelling the insurrection. I am considering with the War Office what steps will be necessary to replace any troops which may be ordered into the interior. [Cheers.]

asked whether this country or the British South Africa Company would be asked to pay the expenditure involved.

Undoubtedly, under the existing arrangements, I should expect the British South Africa Company to pay. [Cheers]

asked what business would be taken at 2 o'clock to-morrow, and what class of Estimates would be taken on Friday.

With regard to to-morrow, it is impossible that I should give a definite answer as yet, as the answer must depend upon the nature of the business disposed of to-night. But I shall take none of the larger controversial Measures to-morrow—no stages of the bigger Bills. If we do not get through the Committee stage of the Military Manœuvres Bill to-night I shall put it down as the first order to-morrow. Then Ways and Means will have to be taken, and we shall put down the Berriew School Bill, the Public Offices (Site) Bill, and other Bills of that kind. As to Friday, I think that, as the Irish Members are now over here for the introduction of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill, it would be convenient to bring forward the Irish Estimates on that day.

asked when the question of the Christian Brothers' Schools would be brought on.

I think it was understood that the question should be brought on some night after 12 o'clock, and I believe it will be brought on in a few days.

asked that a map of Egypt might be put in the Tea Room for the use of Members.

thought that the request was a very reasonable one.

Will the right hon. Gentleman include the Soudan in Egypt? [Laughter.]

wished to say a word or two as to the circumstances under which this Motion was brought forward. When the House adjourned for the Easter Recess they were told that the first business on the Paper for that evening would be the Irish Land Bill. Members had come up from the country expecting that that business would be the first order, but if the Debate on this Motion lasted but three-quarters of the time that similar Debates lasted when the Opposition was led by the present Leader of the House, there was no chance that the Land Bill would be reached before a very late hour. Hitherto, it had been customary to give some kind of notice of Motions such as this. [Mr. BALFOUR: "I did give notice."] The right hon. Gentleman no doubt gave notice on Friday that he was going to introduce a Motion relating to Tuesdays that afternoon, but as hon. Members were not made acquainted with the terms of the Motion it was impossible for them to prepare Amendments.

If the hon. Member was present on Friday night he will remember that I stated distinctly that the Motion was one for taking morning sittings on Tuesdays, and that I should be glad to give the terms of the Resolution to any hon. Member who wished for them on the Motion for the adjournment of the House. No hon. Member, however, did ask for the terms.

contended that even if notice of the terms had been given at the time of the adjournment, it would still have been impossible to put down Amendments on the Paper for to-day. In future, they would, he trusted, be given longer notice of Motions of this character. When the late Government submitted a similar Resolution, the Opposition put down four different Amendments. They had just given up their Fridays, and now they were asked for the Tuesdays, though the expectation had been that Tuesdays would not be demanded until after Whitsuntide. The right hon. Gentleman had not said on what he based this demand. When previous Motions of the kind had been made, the Leader of the House had always made out some special case. As far as the state of public business was concerned, there was no reason for passing this Resolution. What did the right hon. Gentleman say himself in 1894 when a Motion similar to this one was made by the present Leader of the Opposition. He said:—

"The right hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that in however soft and tender accents he makes this proposal to us, the substance of his request is of such a character as to make it impossible for us to give a willing assent to the policy he asks us to assent to."

Then last year the right hon. Gentleman observed on a similar Motion:—

"I think it is very likely that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has done the very best from his point of view, but if that is the way to manage the Liberal Party it is not the way to manage the House of Commons."

Those words were used at the beginning of the Session when it was proposed to take all Tuesdays.

said, the right hon. Member was trying to confuse the issue. The circumstances of the occasion when the right hon. Gentleman used those words and the circumstances of the present occasion were almost identical. Private Members were now to have Tuesday evenings only, then they were to be left Friday evenings only. The result was the same as far as the interests of private Members were concerned. The right hon. Gentleman had made no complaint whatever with regard to the manner in which the business of the Government had been transacted since the beginning of the Session. Neither the Bills of the Government nor the Estimates had been discussed at any undue length, In fact, Supply had progressed with exceptional rapidity, and on Friday night quite an unusual number of Votes had been agreed to. He was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman had not given any indication an to what he was going to do with the time for which he asked. When this Motion was brought forward by the late Government, the right hon. Gentleman himself complained that the Government were asking the Opposition to give them a blank cheque, and urged that it was customary to give some indication as to the manner in which the time asked for was to be occupied. At the beginning of the Session the House was told that certain Measures were to be brought forward; but while they had been waiting for the Measures promised in the Speech from the Throne, the Government, day after day, brought forward Bills of which no mention was made at the beginning of the Session. First of all, there was the Diseases of Animals Bill. That Bill in no way altered the law so far as the powers of the Government were concerned; yet the Government wasted the time of the House in discussing a Bill which would practically give them no more power than they had at present. Then a Bill was promised at the beginning of the Session to give assistance to Voluntary schools; but the Government had brought in a Bill of an entirely different character, which raised the whole of the Education Question over again. Then with regard to the Military Manœuvres Bill, nothing was heard of that Bill at the beginning of the Session. He thought that the House was entitled to some explanation as to why these Bills were being brought in day after day, when other Bills, which had been promised to the House, had not been introduced. He would like to know when the Bill dealing with prison-made goods was to be laid on the Table. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies would remember that during a Debate in the previous Parliament, when the previous Administration were challenged to state their policy with regard to prison-made goods, he said, "We have a prescription. Give us the fees and we will give you our prescription." The present Government had since come in with a vast majority, and still not a whisper of the Bill was heard. Votes were won and seats were captured on the faith that this question should be dealt with. Why did not the right hon. Gentleman now give the House his prescription? Then there was to be a Bill dealing with old age pensions. Where was that Bill? He should hope that before the Debate closed the House would have some assurance that an Old Age Pensions Bill would be brought in. Then there was the Employers' Liability Bill. Did the Government intend to pass that? If they would give the House a pledge that they did, it would, he believed, materially affect the vote of hon. Members on this Motion. He would also like to know whether it was intended to bring in a Bill dealing with alien immigration? Having regard to the opinions expressed by the Prime Minister on this subject, the House was anxious to know whether he intended to take advantage of the present Session to deal with it. He wanted also to know in what way the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House was going to arrange the Votes in Supply, and especially when the Vote for the Colonial Office would be taken. So far as many Members on his side of the House were concerned, they were perfectly satisfied up to the present point with the administration of the Colonial Secretary in regard to the Transvaal; but no one could fail to see that there was a deep-rooted distrust of the right hon. Gentleman's policy on the Benches below the Gangway on the Ministerial side of the House. Day after day most embarrassing questions were put to the right hon. Gentleman from that quarter, which showed, at any rate, that some doubt was felt as to whether the right hon. Gentleman was pursuing the right line of policy with regard to South Africa. He contended, on behalf of the independent Conservatives, that the Leader of the House ought to afford at the earliest possible moment, an opportunity to the Secretary for the Colonies to make clear his policy with regard to the Transvaal, and to once more rehabilitate himself with the Party below the Gangway on his own side. Then there was the Foreign Office Vote. Would an opportunity for discussing Foreign Affairs be afforded within a reasonable time? No matter what questions were put to the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he always answered that it was against the public interests that these matters should be discussed. The right hon. Gentleman, at any rate, did not approve of the policy of the Secretary for the Colonies of taking the public into his confidence. The House had a right to know when the Foreign Office Vote would be taken, and when they would have an opportunity of discussing the policy in the Soudan. The Foreign Secretary had been away for a fortnight and would probably not be back for another ten days, and he thought that in view of the position in the Soudan, and in view of the number of important questions affecting the Foreign Office, the House was entitled to a promise from the Leader of the House that at no distant date he would take the Foreign Office Vote. He hoped that before the House agreed to this Resolution the right hon. Gentleman would give some information on the various points he had raised.

said, he ventured to put in a plea for private Members that afternoon, because he thought this Motion was distinguishable absolutely from its predecessors, both in respect of the condition of public business at the present moment, and also in respect of the arguments put forward in its support. He had not sat very long in that House, but he had heard many such Motions made, and he never remembered one of them being brought forward except upon the allegation that some definite reason of urgency existed, and upon an elaborate comparison between the conditions of the Session in which it was brought forward and the conditions that existed in other Sessions. Only last year, when the right hon. Gentleman the present Leader of the Opposition moved a similar Motion on the 9th of April, he based his claim on a definite ground of urgency. The right hon. Gentleman said that the De-hate on the Address had taken a fortnight. This year it had taken only a week. The right hon. Gentleman also said that a new practice, which he deprecated, had sprung up, of prolonging the discussions on First Readings of Government Bills. This Session there had been no prolonged discussions of the sort. In the second place the right hon. Gentleman founded his Motion on a careful and elaborate comparison of the practice in former years, and pointed out that in the previous year the Government had committed this outrage three weeks earlier. Perhaps it would be fairer to compare the action of his right hon. Friend that afternoon to his own action in 1892. In 1892, when the right hon. Gentleman had asked for morning sittings, he limited the business to be taken at these sittings to questions of finance and the First Readings of Bills, and he certainly never dreamed of taking them for the general business of the Government. Yet even that comparatively moderate proposal was severely criticised by Mr. Gladstone, who always showed the greatest consideration for the rights of private Members, and who never subscribed to the recent doctrine that the rights of private Members constituted a public nuisance. It could not be alleged that the right hon. Gentleman had based his present Motion on the ground of urgency because no financial exigencies existed at the present time, seeing that the new financial year had only just commenced, and that greater progress had been made with Supply than had been the case within the recollection of the oldest Member of that House. The Debate upon the Address had been brought to a conclusion within a week, and the very next day the right hon. Gentleman had brought forward his Motion relating to the new procedure, with the result that the very first private Members' Tuesday had been wiped out. The right hon. Gentleman had taken the Fridays without argument, without excuse, and without plea, and had then taken one-half of the time to which private Members were legitimately entitled. Now the right hon. Gentleman, by his present Motion, proposed practically to take away the other half of the private Members' time. They had been told that the Debate upon the Address afforded sufficient opportunity for private Members to bring forward subjects in which they were interested, but if that were the case, their opportunities had been curtailed by one half this year, seeing that the Debate had only lasted a week instead of a fortnight, as in previous years. This Motion was a complement to the action of the Government at the commencement of the Session, and therefore they were bound to look back and ascertain how it was that the Government obtained the sanction of the House to their new procedure proposals. With the view of obtaining that sanction, the Government held out certain distinct inducements to the House. In the first place there was an understanding—he did not put it higher than that—that if the proposals were accepted the lights of private Members to Tuesdays would be held sacred. Their confidence in that understanding, which had been shaken a week ago, was now altogether crushed to the ground, because it was clear from the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman that it was intended practically to take the whole time of private Members for the remainder of the Session. It might, however, be said that that inducement amounted merely to an understanding that could not be enforced against the Government. The next inducement that had been held out by the Government took the form of a very distinct and explicit pledge on their part. The right hon. Gentleman had declared that the new Rules of Procedure would not limit but would extend the opportunities of private Members for bringing forward subjects in which they were interested, and now that the right hon. Gentleman proposed to take away half of the Tuesdays as well as the whole of Fridays, the obligation upon him to redeem his pledge to which he had referred became the more stringent. The right hon. Gentleman had said that one result of the new Rules would be that private Members would have greater opportunities in Supply for criticising the action of the Government both at home and abroad. The right hon. Gentleman had offered that constant opportunity for criticising the conduct of the Government, and for demanding explanations from them in exchange for the great concession he had asked for, and he had, moreover, pledged himself distinctly that the Government would always put forward on each day devoted to Supply some Votes of public interest and importance, and he went on to say that it was not necessary or desirable that the discussion upon any particular Vote should be finished before another Vote came on, and that the interrupted discussion could be resumed on any convenient occasion. The right hon. Gentleman was even more explicit in the assurance which he had given to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition on the last day of the sitting of the House before the Recess, when he said that the Colonial Vote would be put down for discussion on the first day after the Recess. That was a distinct bargain entered into by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, that upon a subject of public policy of very wide interest, an opportunity was to be afforded to hon. Members to discuss it. Hon. Members had certainly performed their part of the bargain, but the Government had neglected to fulfil their part of the engagement. The right hon. Gentleman had said that private Members could not resist the temptation to prolong the Debates upon a certain class of Estimates, and yet the whole of that class had been passed in less than a single sitting of the House. He thought that the Government should, and indeed he believed that they would, adhere to their bargain in the future. Of course, he should perhaps be out of order if he ventured to argue that the interests of private Members in certain particular Votes was discreet and judicious. It was, doubtless, impossible to pretend that any contribution on the part of private Members in the House to a discussion upon Colonial Affairs could carry with them as much weight as leading articles in The Times or The Chronicle, which were repeated in every newspaper in Europe, but nevertheless hon. Members had a right to discuss such questions. To illustrate the matter he would take the Egyptian policy of the Government, of which he was a warm supporter. Did anyone apprehend that that policy was so obvious that it had been foreseen, or that it was so unattended by danger that there was no necessity to discuss it? With regard to our foreign policy if the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs were to say that it could not be for the public advantage that he should answer this or that question, did the Government not know that such a plea would always be received with respect in that House. But what was necessary was that such matters should be discussed, and that hon. Members should not be left to be the victims of rumours, which the right hon. Gentleman said came from interested sources, and for which there was no foundation, and which formed the pabulum upon which they had to feed. He thought that it was the duty of the Government to put an end to such baseless surmises. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies, on the other hand, gave the House every information in his power; in fact, he fed the House with stimulants which gave rise to a craving for further information. He had explained that he did not wish to criticise the policy of the right hon. Gentleman in the past, but to make suggestions as to his policy in the future, and his action in this respect was analogous to that of the man in the gallery who stamped when he wanted to hear a popular favourite again. [Laughter.] He was content, therefore, to ask that the Government should endeavour to discover whether the interest of the House was widespread, because if they did he was confident they would put down the Colonial Vote first for next Friday. If they did not he must suppose that they believed that Members opened their papers in the morning, and, skipping the page of heavy-leaded type with the exclamation, "Oh! bother the Matabele!" or "The Transvaal again!" plunged with the keenest anticipation of pleasure into a discussion on the salaries of school teachers or the merits of the metric system. [Laughter and cheers.]

thought the House was to be congratulated on the interesting and refreshing speech of the hon. Member. The questions which the hon. Member had referred to had been exclusively, he thought, questions of foreign policy, and he failed to see how, by taking away one portion of the sitting at 3 o'clock on Tuesday from private Members, and giving them another portion at 9 o'clock, would interfere with the discussion of the foreign affairs in which the hon. Member was interested. The questions which the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy desired to have discussed were in regard to Bills relative to prison-made goods, old age pensions, employers' liability, and alien immigration, and he had complained, not that the opportunity of discussing these questions would be taken away, but that the Government had not included all these subjects in their programme. But if they were to be included in the programme of the Government, he should have thought that the time at the disposal of the Government should be increased. He maintained that, there was a definite reason of urgency for this Motion. The Government were pledged to introduce a Measure dealing with the Irish Land Question, which might, or might not, be a great comprehensive Measure, but at any rate it was of vital interest to Ireland that there should be sufficient time for this question to be discussed, if it were capable of amendment, and passed into law this year. But this would be impossible unless a certain portion of the time of private Members was taken from them. Very nearly half the discussions on private Members' Resolutions had been counted out, and with a few exceptions, such as the ballot question, there had been very little result from these discussions on Tuesdays, which were really opportunities for private Members to air their fads.

Was the question of amnesty a fad?

said, the question of amnesty had been brought on, and would be brought on again, but if the hon. Member thought it was a fad, he should like to know what his Irish constituents in Kirkcaldy would think about that opinion.

said, the hon. Member had alluded to certain Motions brought on by private Members as fads, and he wished to point out that the question of amnesty was brought on by private Members. Therefore, he supposed, the hon. Member should call that question also a fad.

said, he desired in every way to shield the rights of private Members, but it would be impossible for the Government to devote sufficient time to the Irish Land Question unless they took a certain portion of the time of private Members, and therefore he should support the Motion.

said, he felt a considerable difficulty, and he dared say many other Members of the House did also, in deciding what vote he should give on this Motion. The reason was this, that, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Dover, the First Lord of the Treasury departed from the usual custom in Motions of this kind, and did not give them any indication of the causes why he wanted this time of private Members. Nor did he back up his demand by any argument drawn from the course of business during the Session. He rose at the same time as the hon. Member for Waterford, because he wished to state that if the First Lord of the Treasury could have based his demand for this inroad upon the time of private Members on two claims he should have been prepared to support him. If he could have postponed his Motion until after they had been made acquainted with the terms of the Irish Land Bill, and had been in a position to say whether that Bill gave any prospect of relief for Irish farmers, or did not give it—if they had teen, in fact, in a position to know whether the time was being demanded for what might be made a valuable Trish Land Bill, that would have been a strong argument for supporting the right hon. Gentleman. Secondly, if he had said that he required and was prepared to use honestly any of the time he was demanding for the purpose of forwarding the Irish Land Bill, then he, as an Irish Member—much as he objected to these inroads upon the time of private Members—should have thought that he had made out his case. But neither of those claims had been substantiated, still less made, and they were asked to give this blank cheque to the Government without the slightest indication as to what use the Government proposed to make of this time. While he entirely agreed with the hon. Member for Waterford that if this time were asked for the purpose of passing a valuable Land Bill it would be reasonable, he did not at all agree with him that they should support the right hon. Gentleman without knowing if that was to be the case. He thought Irish Members were peculiarly bound to be jealous of inroads on the time of private Members, and he entirely differed from the hon. Member for Waterford that the time of private Members was useless, and was devoted to what he described as fads. He thought many of the most valuable reforms which had been ultimately placed upon the Statute-book, had originated in this very shape. Therefore, unless some strong solid reason was given for this inroad, he did not see why the Government should have this time given them. There was one other point. He did not understand that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy complained so much of the Government not having introduced a number of Measures which he alluded to, as of the fact that they had introduced a number of Measures of which they had given the House and the constituencies no warning, and had not applied the ample time which had been at their disposal up to the present period of the Session in such a way as to give the House the idea that they were earnestly desirous of pressing forward those great Measures. For his own part, he felt bound to dissociate himself from the attack made on the hon. Member on the question of amnesty, for, if he mistook not, the hon. Member had always been a constant supporter of amnesty in that House. He thought it was a great mistake to make these attacks and assaults.

said, he made no attack or assault with regard to amnesty. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy interrupted him by calling out amnesty, and he then said that if the hon. Member called amnesty a fad, some of the Irish electors in his constituency would have something to say to him.

continued, that every hon. Member saw quite plainly that the hon. Member did not allude to amnesty as a fad; and he was bound as an Irish Member and a supporter of amnesty, to say that the hon. Member had been a consistent supporter of amnesty, and the attack upon him was made amid the cheers of those who had constantly voted against it. He did not believe that the cause of amnesty was served by observations of that kind. If the Leader of the House would give an undertaking that the Committee stage of the Irish Bill should not be pushed behind the Committee stage of the Education Bill, and that the time they were now asked to give to the Government would be devoted in large measure to getting the Irish Land Bill through Committee, then he should be glad to support the right hon. Gentleman.

said, that it was strange to see Her Majesty's Government getting their only encouragement from hon. Members opposite, while for prudent criticism they were obliged to rely on their own side of the House. It was to him surprising and astounding to find the Leader of the House coming down and claiming Tuesdays as a matter of right, and saying that he had no explanation or apology to give. This was most unprecedented and improper—[laughter]—yes, improper. Let hon. Members remember that the time of the House was allocated by Standing Orders, two-fifths to the official Members, and three-fifths to private Members. He did not say there might never be a case for interfering with this official allocation, but that case must be made out as in former times it always had been. The right hon. Member for West Monmouthshire had always shown that in this matter he respected the rights and privileges of the House, and when he came down and asked for Tuesdays or Fridays he was always deferential and caressing—[laughter]—putting them on the hooks as though he loved them. [Renewed laughter.] The First Lord of the Treasury treated them as if they enjoyed it, as if it was what they had to expect; he had no explanation or apology to offer; but the Leader of the House had no right to these Tuesdays, and, for one, he meant to vote against the right hon. Gentleman [Ironical Ministerial cheers.] He was sorry to see Her Majesty's Government taking this mistaken course; what could be the urgency, what the cause for pressure? The House was most tractable; the new Members did as they were told; the Government had experienced, and would experience, no difficulty in passing any reasonable, or, in fact, any unreasonable, proposition they might lay before the House. Why was it the right hon. Gentleman came down and, without suggesting a reason, asked the House, which had given up Fridays, to give up Tuesdays too? He was afraid the right hon. Gentleman had been taking bad counsel. [Laughter and cheers.] If he had consulted with the "old men who stood before Solomon," they would have advised him as the old men did Rehoboam; they would have said, "Be kind to this people, speak good words to them, and they will be thy servants for ever." This was what the old men said. But the hon. Gentleman had gone to the young men of Birmingham at the Colonial Office—[laughter]—and they had given him some bad advice; and so he came down without explanation, without apology, without reason, and said, with Rehoboam, "My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins; my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." Was the time wanted for Supply? That never was so forward; never had so much money been voted in so short a time and with so little discussion. Here was his old Friend the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hanbury), an old poacher turned gamekeeper—[great laughter]—he had taken to the business as if he had been born in the velveteen—[continued laughter]—he had reared a head of game of the most marvellous description for the time of year, and was strictly on guard against all suspicious characters; the Members for Aberdeen, Ross, and King's Lynn dare not so much as look at a rabbit, much less set a snare. [Renewed laughter.] What was time wanted for? It was not for administration, or Foreign Affairs, or Colonial Affairs. Foreign Affairs were quite safe; there was the Under Secretary (Mr. Curzon) to look after them; he could always give the soft answer which turneth away wrath — and information—[laughter]— except when he was going about the country uttering prophecies or writing letters to explain the meaning of his book. [Laughter.] He did not know whether the House remembered there was a programme before it, that this Government was pledged to a policy of constructive legislation made in Birmingham and adopted and improved upon at Manchester. This programme included a good round dozen of matters, such as old age pensions, provisions of workmen' s dwellings without expense to them, compensation for injuries to be borne by the trade. These and other Measures which need not be named would take a long time, and would absorb the Tuesdays of this year and many a year; but meanwhile they offered no justification for taking away what little remained of the time of private Members. He had looked into the celebrated precedent for this. When Joseph was first brought into the Government — [laughter]—of Egypt — [renewed laughter] —he, too, adopted a policy of construction, and it was interesting to see how he worked it out. The first thing he did was to bring in all his brethren and plant them down in the land of Egypt—[great laughter]— and "in the best of the land," the land of Goshen; and he received the commandment that if among his brethren there were any "men of activity" he was to "make them rulers over my cattle'—a sort of whip—[great laughter]—" rulers over my cattle" [the hon. Member pointed to the Liberal Unionist Benches]. [Renewed laughter.] What were the next steps in Joseph's policy of reconstruction? He deprived the Egyptians themselves of all their money, of all their cattle, and of all their land, and finally of their own liberty, and made them servants, slaves, bondsmen of Pharaoh, which meant, of course, of Joseph. [Laughter.] He trusted that the borrowed policy of the First Lord of the Treasury was not going to be pursued to its bitter end. He was not prepared to be anything less, but it was his ambition to be an independent Member of Parliament—[laughter]—prepared to do what he believed his highest duty, and to keep in check, so far as he could, the depositories of power whether Crown or Minister. He was not prepared, without a protest and a struggle, to give up the little opportunity that was left to him of endeavouring to perform his duty as a Member of Parliament. The claim to the whole time of the House rested on the assumption that the Government possessed all the knowledge and wisdom to be found in that House, whereas it had been acknowledged again and again that useful Measures often owed their initiative to private Members. Many things had been called "fads" which bore the germs of beneficent legislation. What was Home Rule at present but the "fad" of a private Member? Private Members might be feeble folk, like the conies, but they should not be treated as if they were non-existent. He appealed to Joseph and to Pharaoh not to deprive them of all opportunity of doing the duty for which they were sent to the House; and he appealed to new Members and to old ones not to make the sacrifices that were asked of them without any plea of urgency.

said, they had heard witty if not flippant speeches on this Motion. But he was not sure that it had gratified the supporters of the Government to hear the suggestions, as he had called them, of their "familiar friend" the Member for Dover, or the friendly smitings of the righteous and unambitious Member [laughter] for King's Lynn. But what were the Government and their supporters returned for at the last election? What did they put prominently forward as their policy?—to settle the Education Question for one thing, and to redress the injustice under which denominational education has been suffering. To the agricultural interest they made some appeals and promises. [Opposition cheers.] Were the Unionist Party sincere in their promises, and did they intend to carry them out? If so, he hoped the followers of the Government would have no hesitation in supporting them in spite of the hostile and unfair attitude of certain hon. Members.

complained that the Motion, which had been brought forward without excuse, reason, or argument, would be a precedent which would guide the House in future on the principle which always guided the House, and the Government would "go one better" in future years, and the time would come when the annual farce of discussing the liberties of private Members would be abolished, and private Members might as well be abolished altogether. This would be the result, if the present Motion were adopted as a precedent for depriving private Members of the time certainly guaranteed to them by the First Lord of the Treasury, as an argument for passing the Procedure Rules in connection with Supply.

The chief gravamen of the various speeches against the Motion appears to lie in the fact that I did not introduce it in a long explanatory speech dealing with the peculiar necessities of the Session, and quoting a whole list of precedents as showing what had taken place in previous Sessions. I confess I thought the circumstances and the justification for the Motion we have made was known to every human being in the House who paid the slightest attention to the course of public business, and I did not think it necessary to waste the time of the House, as I thought by going through the well-known precedents of the past or explaining that the amount of work that lay before us in the present Session was of such magnitude and character that it was absolutely necessary we should follow the example of our predecessors and ask for an increase of the legislative time at our disposal. I have stated our reasons, but I will state shortly what the precedents were. During the time of the late Government in 1893, Tuesday mornings were taken from March 7 to March 28, and afterwards all Tuesdays were taken for the rest of the Session. Friday mornings were taken from March 3 to the end of the Session, except when the whole of Fridays were taken. Wednesdays were taken from April 12. In 1894 all Tuesdays were taken from April 10 to August 21; Friday mornings from April 13 to May 25, and afterwards the whole of Fridays until the end of the Session. In 1895 the whole of Tuesdays was taken for the whole of the Session with the exception of two, and Friday mornings were taken from March 5 to April 5, and from May 3 to the end of the Session. When I have enumerated all these precedents I hope I have infused some balm into the anxious soul of the hon. Gentleman who preceded me who says:—

"If you pass this Motion, next Session you will be expected to make even greater sacrifices."

As a matter of fact the sacrifice, if sacrifice it is, is less now than that asked for by those who preceded us in office. Let me point out that it is a great misuse of Parliamentary terms, technical and substantial, to say that what we have done is to take away Fridays from private Members. It is not technically correct, because Fridays have always been Government nights; and devoting Fridays to Supply gives private Members an opportunity of carrying on the very discussions which they may desire to carry on at other times. Let me give an illustration. The hon. Member for Dover had a Motion on the paper a few days ago to call attention to affairs in South Africa. The same hon. Gentleman begs me to put down Supply for an early Friday that he may discuss that very subject. Can there be more conclusive evidence or a stronger example of the fact that at this moment, by devoting every Friday to Supply throughout the Session, we have given private Members facilities for the discussion of subjects in which they are interested greater than they have ever enjoyed before in the whole of my Parliamentary experience, whatever may be said of the conduct of public business by the Government, I hope it will not be said that we have been more neglectful of the rights and privileges that ought to be enjoyed by private Members than other Governments that have preceded us in office. The hon. Member for Dover described his speech not as a criticism but as a suggestion. His principal suggestion was that we should take next Friday for the discussion of Colonial matters, and he reminded the House, with perfect accuracy, that I had stated, when bringing forward the new Rules, that it would be my desire so to arrange the business of Supply that the fullest opportunity might be given to private Members of the House to discuss the large questions of policy in which they might feel interested. But with regard to discussing the Colonial "Vote on Friday the position of the South African question is this—that the Colonial Secretary, if that Vote were put down, would not be in a position to make any full or complete statement of the policy of the Government. Therefore the House has to determine whether it will have the Colonial Vote put down at a time when the discussion of Colonial questions must be unsatisfactory and incomplete—if not worse—or else defer it to a time when, without injury to the public service and with fuller knowledge, it may be discussed. I believe I am consulting the general wish of the House when I say hon. Members would rather not have the Colonial Vote put down on Friday. If evidence to the contrary is brought I shall be glad to consider it. I do not think it is necessary to dwell at length upon the legislative necessities which require us to ask for these facilities from the House, for, in truth, every single Member who has risen to criticise the action of the Government has himself, in the course of his speech, incidentally and parenthetically—possibly not knowing what he was about—advanced conclusive arguments in favour of this Motion. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy occupied half of his speech complaining that Bills not promised in the Queen's Speech had been brought forward and the other half in complaining that the Bills which were so promised had not been brought forward.

I asked for information as to what was to be done with those Bills. [Laughter.]

I do not desire to enter into controversy with the hon. Gentleman, but he must be well aware, as an experienced Parliamentarian—[laughter]—that if we are to deal with any success with the legislation which has been, or is about to be, put before the House, facilities must be given to pass those Measures. He said we came in with certain promises and pledges, and he asked when we were going to fulfil them. We are going to fulfil them as rapidly as Parliamentary time and opportunity will permit, and it is because we do not desire to postpone for one day the fulfilment of those pledges that we invite the House to give us the facilities asked for by the Resolution before it. [Cheers.] I turn from the speech of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy to that of the hon. Member for King's Lynn, who, incidentally, in the course of his remarks, said if we were to deal with half the Measures which we had promised it would not be the Tuesdays of this Session but the Tuesdays of all Sessions and for all time that would be required. I do not know whether he intended that as an argument against the Motion, or whether he intended to make a speech—not wholly, I think, in very good taste—[prolonged Ministerial cheers]—designed with the object of relieving the tedium of Debate and affording amusement to hon. Gentlemen opposite. [Cheers.] If he got up with a view of seriously, arguing the Proposition before the House, could there be a more conclusive argument in favour of the proposal than his own statement that not only the time we ask but much more would be required to carry out the programme of the legislation which we have laid before the House? [Cheers.] I agree with my hon. Friend, and, holding that view, and holding the view that we are not stretching precedents but keeping well within them, I ask the House with some confidence, having heard the arguments on both sides, to give us, without undue delay, the small privileges which we ask. [Cheers.]

I have myself taken part in too many of these Debates to find in them a great deal of novelty. The fact is that these are demands which are always made, which are always opposed, and which are always carried. [Laughter.] I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite that he has not introduced some novelty into his proposal, both in the character of the proposals themselves and in the manner in which they have been introduced. As to the character of the proposals in the precedents the right hon. Gentleman quoted, I do not believe that at so early a period of the Session all the time except Friday night has been taken. Of course every Government will always get as much time as the House of Commons will give it. That is natural. Every Government in the inroads upon the territory of private Members will be governed by a strategy which will be limited only by the resistance with which they meet. I do not find that private Members seem disposed to offer great resistance to this demand of the Government. I have never myself taken the view which is adopted by the hon. Member for Waterford that all private Members' motions are fads.

I never said that all private Members motions are fads. There are private Members and private Members, and there are motions and motions. [Laughter.]

The hon. Member said that Tuesdays might be taken as they were given to the fads of private Members. I have never taken that view of private Members' motions The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House rather dissents from that view because on a former occasion he urged as an argument against giving Tuesdays to the Government that the House lost the advantage of counts out. This is, I think, an advance in the appropriation of the time of private Members upon any former precedent, except that of 1893, when the time was given for the Home Rule Bill at an earlier period of the Session. Complaint has been made of the manner in which this demand has been put forward. I must say I do think that when private Members are having their time taken from them they are at least entitled to have it said to them "By your leave." ["Hear, hear."] After all it is depriving Gentlemen of a privilege which they highly value, and if in the crowd of your Measures you are obliged to tread upon Gentlemen's toes, the least you can say is, "I beg your pardon for what I am doing." ["Hear, hear."] It has always been customary for the Leader of the House when he asked for this time to point out the Measures which the Government have before them and the amount of time which they think ought to be devoted to them. I do not wonder the Government are now feeling they will be pressed for time. It is perfectly true, as the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy said, that they have introduced a good many Measures that they did not promise, in order to make up for not introducing Measures they did promise. I might include in that the Education Bill, because the Education Bill they have introduced is not the Education Bill they promised. It is a wholly different Bill. The Government announced in the Queen's Speech that they meant to do something for Voluntary schools, but they have introduced a Measure which is to destroy the whole of the existing system of education in this country—[Ministerial cries of "No" and Opposition cheers]—and put a brand new system in its place. Having done that, of course they want time, and it will not be only Tuesday that it is likely they may want. ["Hear, hear!"] If the Government had any notion whatever of bringing forward in the present Session one-fourth of the Measures they introduced in the Queen's Speech, it is not Tuesday mornings they will want, but weeks of fourteen days apiece, in order to give effect to their Measures. The right hon. Gentleman might, for the satisfaction of his chief supporter the hon. Member for Waterford, have said that one of the main Measures was to be the Irish Land Bill, but he took care not to say so. We shall know very soon what that Bill is to be, and whether it is a Bill of the proportions of the Education Bill; and, if so, in what manner and time it is to pass. In all the precedents to which the right hon. Gentleman referred us there have been reasons alleged why the time of private Members should be given up, and under such cir-stances the House has never refused to give it. There is one important point to which I would ask the attention of the right hon. Gentleman, and that is the question of what is to be done with the Votes upon Friday. I did not understand his observation when he said the House had rejected the proposal that when a Vote like the Foreign or Colonial Office Vote was brought on that it should be postponed so that it might be brought up at a later period. He entirely misunderstands the observations I made at the time the question of procedure was under discussion. I asked if you brought on this Vote at an early period of the Session what opportunity we should have of discussion at a later period, and the right hon. Gentleman suggested that the Vote need not be disposed of then, and that there would be a further opportunity if the Vote was adjourned. I understood that suggestion was accepted, and in that manner we were from time to time, if the necessity arose, to have an opportunity of discussing these matters, which at the present time are of paramount importance. I say it is perfectly impossible in the present state of affairs abroad and in the Colonies that this House should not have an opportunity of such discussion. Do not let us be under any misunderstanding upon this subject, otherwise the House will be inevitably driven to those measures, which I have always objected to, and which have been very improperly used on former occasions, by which the House has a safety-valve, and must obtain that information which the country ought to receive through the House of Commons. I hope, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman will not consider that the suggestion he made has been put out of court by anything that took place upon that matter. With reference to the business that is to be taken next Friday, if the Government say, upon their responsibility, that they do not think that Friday next is the time at which colonial questions can be discussed, that the Government are not able to give that information which the House is desirous to obtain, and that a discussion of that character is likely to embarrass the situation, of course it is impossible for the House to press a demand of that kind. But the Government ought to recognise the fact that there is a feeling of deep anxiety in the country; that there is a situation in South Africa of the most perilous character, and that the House of Commons does desire in some form or other to have information, with reference to the condition of things in South Africa at this moment, which it does not possess; and I am quite sure it must be the desire of the Government, as it is their highest interest, to give to the House all that information which it is possible safely to give, and to relieve the country from an anxiety upon that subject which is very deep and very real. [Cheers.]

rose to move, as an Amendment, to insert before the word "do" the words "after this week" with the object of saving to-morrow (Tuesday) from the Resolution which the right hon. Gentleman had moved. He would remind the House that the question which he had hoped to raise to-morrow was not one which could be raised on the Estimates in the ordinary course, and if, owing to circumstances over which he had no control, the House should not have the opportunity of considering the question to-morrow night, it would be absolutely impossible for him to bring the question forward at any other period of the Session. This question was one in which Members on both sides of the House were interested, and though they might be a small section, and though they might be very deeply affected in the question, and profoundly affected by it, still, if it did not affect the whole of the House, it might be difficult for them to make a House. There was also on the Paper for to-morrow night a Motion of a very important character in the name of the hon. Member for St. Helens. He did not see the hon. Member in his place. The probability was that he had been unable to take part in the Debate owing to the excessive shortness of notice that this Resolution was to come on to-day, for he had in the past been such an ardent and eloquent supporter of the rights of private Members that he was sure he would have been present on an occasion of this kind if it had been possible. The probability was that if the right hon. Gentleman's Motion was carried, the hon. Member for St. Helens would be entirely unable to bring forward the important Motion of which he had given notice. The Motions which were to come forward to-morrow night could not, he thought, be called "private Members' fads." One question affected the interest of Wales very deeply, another was a great imperial question, and the third was a question relating to their national food supply, and he ventured to think that the Military Manœuvres Bill was hardly an efficient substitute for them. Welsh Members had lost two Fridays already, and the right hon. Gentleman's Motion affected not only next Tuesday but also Tuesday three weeks, when an important Welsh Motion would also come on. No section of Members had suffered more severely by the inroads that had been made by Government this Session than the Welsh Members, and it was on that ground and as a protest against the abstraction of to-morrow that he begged to move the Amendment.

formally seconded the Amendment.

said, that as this Motion would give the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury the opportunity of rising again, he would respectfully suggest to him that he should make some reply to the hon. Member for Waterford. That hon. Gentleman had made a contribution, not only to the Debate, but to the forces of the Government, and, although his forces were small, yet, he imagined, the widow's mite in the war-chest of the Treasury was not unacceptable. But, as he tinder-stood, the hon. Member for Waterford added his forces to the Government on a very distinct position, namely, that the Government Land Bill was going to be a very large and useful Measure, and also that the Government were going to press it forward with all the vigour at their command. The right hon. Gentleman, in the course of his very careful reply, carefully avoided replying in any degree to the very remarkable support he got from the hon. Member for Waterford. He would ask him were they to assume from his silence on this matter that, as some of them had suspected, the Government Bill was really intended to be used as an extinguisher upon the hopes of Irish agrarian reformers, some of the enthusiasts of whom, such as the Solicitor General for Ireland, the Member for Guildford, and the Under Secretary for the Admiralty, occupied so distinguished a position on the Committee of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mont-rose. The Government were in the position of step-fathering the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman, and there was always a suspicion attaching to the functions of step-fathering. The Bill of the right hon. Member for Montrose——

reminded the hon. Member that the only question before the House was whether the words "after this week" should be inserted in the Motion—that was to say, whether the time proposed to be taken by the Government should begin on Tuesday of next week. The hon. Member would not be in order in referring to the question of the Irish Land Bill on that Amendment.

said, he had hoped he should be in order in referring not only to the Amendment itself, but also to the main question to which it was an Amendment.

The hon. Member will not be in order.

said, he would suggest to his hon. Friend the Member for Flint Boroughs that there was no likelihood of the success of his Amendment as distinguished from the main question. Those who desired to oppose the Motion of the Government had better take a Division on the main question.

said, the only ground on which he understood his hon. Friend wished to press his Amendment was that Welsh Members had a particular grievance against the Government this Session. The Government had already taken three or four nights which had, by the luck of the ballot, been secured by Welsh Members, and they wished to take the opinion of the House upon this particular point. He hoped the Amendment would be pressed unless the Government could give some sort of pledge that they would at any rate assist the Welsh Members to keep a House to-morrow night to enable them to discuss a matter of considerable importance.

said, he did not quite understand the grievance of the Welsh Members, because they would have three hours to discuss the Motion which they had on the Paper. If he had been depriving them of the whole day he could have understood them feeling aggrieved, but, as he did not intend by his Motion to take away from them the right of having the opportunity which the luck of the ballot had given them, it was not possible for him to make the exception aimed at by the Amendment. He could not accept the Amendment.

said, that whenever an attempt was made to encroach upon the rights of Members, it was always the Welsh Members who suffered. His hon. Friend the Member for Flint Boroughs had obtained first place to-morrow for a Motion dealing with a subject which was a burning question in his part of the country; but that was not the only important Motion on the Paper, and he did think that his hon. Friend and the other hon. Members in whose name those Motions stood had a right to complain that the First Lord of the Treasury, on very insufficient grounds, and without pleading urgency, should ask them to give what was practically the whole of Tuesday. In no year during his experience in Par- liament could he remember when Supply was in so forward a condition as it was this Session, and in the circumstances he thought his hon. Friend the Member for the Flint Boroughs would be strictly within his right in pressing his Amendment. If Welsh questions were neglected or overlooked it was the duty as well as the right of the Welsh Members to show that they, at least, were alive to the interests of their constituents, "Hear, hear!"]

having put the main Question,

rose to speak.

claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

I understand the hon. Member for North Louth merely desires to repeat the question he was asking when I interrupted him while speaking on the Amendment. If he only desires to ask whether there is any answer to be given to that question I will not stand between him and the House, otherwise I shall accept the Closure.

Do I understand the Closure has been moved?

Yes. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"]

rose amidst cheers to ask leave to introduce a Bill to further amend the law relating to the occupation and ownership of land in Ireland, and for other purposes relating thereto. He said: Mr. Speaker, in asking the House to sanction yet another Measure relating to what may well seem to be the interminable question of Irish land, I am fully conscious of the difficulty of the task I have undertaken, and of how greatly I shall need the indulgence of the House in executing it. The subject is, indeed, in itself one of great difficulty, and any legislation dealing with it cannot be easy either to frame or to expound. The difficulty is immensely increased by the extreme intricacy and complexity of the Act already on the Statute-book which constitutes at present the law in regard to Irish land, and without some knowledge of which the provisions of any fresh Measure must needs be to a considerable extent unintelligible. Any Irish Land Bill at the present day must of necessity be in the nature of an amending Bill. He who desires to build on that ground must follow not only the lines of the existing foundations, but practically the lines of the existing structure also. He may add here and take away an excrescence there. He may remove defects which experience has brought to light. He may increase conveniences and facilities, but he is not and cannot be in the position of an architect planning and constructing with a free hand on vacant ground. [Cheers.] The result is that any Irish Land Bill must to a very great extent run into details. It must be more like the collection of small Bills than a comprehensive Measure framed in order to carry out a single well-defined principle. To use a proverbial expression, "one is apt to lose the wood in the trees." In addition to those difficulties arising from the complexity and technical character of the subject, I am aware that there is another difficulty against which I shall have to contend. In view of the immense amount of time that Parliament has spent during the last 15 years in dealing with the question of Irish land, it is inevitable that any fresh demand upon the attention of Parliament in order to deal once more with the same subject should be met with a feeling of weariness and impatience.

No, no!

If the hon. and learned Gentleman had kindly waited a moment he would have seen that I do not altogether sympathise either with the weariness or with the impatience. I think the feeling is a natural one, but it does not seem to be altogether reasonable. ["Hear, hear!"] I should remind the House that when Parliament consented to pass the Act of 1881 it gave its sanction to what was nothing less than an agrarian revolution—a transformation of the system of land tenure which up to that time had existed in Ireland. Now, a revolutionary transformation of the land system of a country is not a thing to be accomplished at a single stroke. It could not be accomplished at a single stroke even under the most favourable circumstances; and the more anxious the Legislature is not to do injustice in individual cases, the more impossible it becomes to carry out such a revolution at one stroke. But as a matter of fact the circumstances were not favourable. They were most unfavourable. I do not refer particularly to political difficulties. There were such difficulties, no doubt, but I will not dwell upon them, as I wish to avoid as far as possible topics of a controversial character. But, in addition to political difficulties, there were economic difficulties of a serious kind. During the last 15 years we have had to face a reduction in agricultural values which certainly nobody had anticipated. We have had during that time to face a reduction in the rate of interest which no one had anticipated. The seasons have, on the whole, been bad seasons. Looking, then, to all the obstacles to a smooth carrying out of the policy of the Act of 1881, I am on the whole disposed to think that its success, limited as it has been, might very easily have been more limited still. But, Sir, there is another consideration which I wish to put before the House. The Act of 1881 does not exhaust all the aspects of the land question in Ireland. It is no part of my business to-night to criticise the Act of 1881, or to discuss the principles which it embodied. The Act is a fact, and we must be content to accept it as such. If it is defective in detail, then it might be a wise policy on our part to remove these defects so far as we can. If we refuse to do so, we do not, at any rate, cure any of the faults of principle that may be inherent in that Measure; and we leave these defects and faults of detail to cause friction, to create irritation, to prevent the smooth working of the Act, and ultimately, probably to give rise to demands for more extensive changes than were ever contemplated by those who were the authors of that Act. But, side by side with the establishment of a system of joint or dual ownership there has been from the first a desire for what I venture to consider a better and more excellent system—namely, the establishment of a peasant proprietary in Ireland. This desire found expression even in earlier Land Acts, and since 1881 it has been, I may say, the key-stone of the Unionist policy in regard to land in Ireland. The goal—the final goal, at which in our judgment land reform in Ireland must aim—namely, the substitution of simple ownership for dual ownership, is far distant, and it would be still far distant even if the Purchase Acts had worked more rapidly and more effectively than, as a matter of fact, they have worked. The moral effect, indeed, of those Acts has not been exaggerated, and where the tenant farmers have purchased their holdings the testimony is invariably that it has tended to make them thriftier and better citizens than they were when they were mere tenants. ["Hear, hear!"] That is all the more pity that the Acts have not worked more satisfactorily; and if we study the figures it unfortunately appears that the Ashbourne Acts of 1885 and 1888 seem to have been more efficacious in bringing about purchase than the subsequent Act of 1891. During the first year of the Act of 1885 there were 3,021 applications for loans received. The next year this number was doubled, the applications received being 6,195; and in the following year there were 4,786. An additional fund having been provided by the Act of 1888, the applications in the following year were 5,533. The year after that they fell to 3,813; but in the next year they increased again to 4,526. In other words, the average annual number of applications during the six years these Acts were in operation was 4,645. Compare that with the transactions that have taken place under the Act of 1891. In the first year after that Act was passed, there was still available a small residue under the Acts of 1885 and 1888, and in that year the applications were about 3,000. The number in the following year was only 2,503. In the year after that they were 2,782, and in the year now closing they were about 1,800 only. It will thus be seen that the average number of applications during the four years of the Act of 1891 is only about 2,600, against 4,645 under the Ashbourne Acts. I hope the House, in view of those facts to which I earnestly call their attention, will feel that, quite apart from the fact that we stand pledged, and have been pledged ever since the Government came into Office, to deal with the question of Irish land, that quite apart from that we should still, pledged or unpledged, be bound not to neglect it. As Unionists we have always maintained that the Imperial Parliament is capable of legislating for the legitimate wants of Ireland. As Unionists, most of us, at all events, believe that the land question is the root of much of such vitality and force as the demand for Home Rule in that country, as I freely acknowledge still possesses. [Ironical Nationalist cheers.] No Measure is more keenly desired by the people of Ireland than one dealing with the defects of the Land Acts; and though I suppose that any Minister who has to do with legislation for Ireland, very early in the day discovers that the expectations which are formed in that imaginative island— [laughter]—very much outrun any Measure possible, still it is our duty to give effect to the wishes and desires of the people of Ireland so far as it is possible to do so consistently with justice and expediency. [Ironical Nationalist cheers.] At this point I may say a few words in reference to the Bill that was introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose (Mr. J. Morley) last year. That Bill was avowedly founded upon the Report of the Select Committee which investigated the working of the Land Acts during the year before, and which reported at the end of last year, not without some heat of controversy. The Committee was confined by its terms of reference to the fair rent and free sale provisions of the Land Acts, and in their Report far more attention is devoted to what I may describe as miscellaneous amendments of the Land Law, than to amendments of practice and procedure. But the right hon. Gentleman's Bill went very much further in that respect, because it was devoted entirely to miscellaneous amendments of the Land Law, and did not deal with procedure in any one of its clauses.

I said in my speech I was open to consider the matter.

It is perfectly true that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in his speech that he was prepared to deal with procedure; but there was nothing of that kind in the Bill itself. At the end of the Report of the Select Committee this recommendation was made:—

"The Committee beg to express their opinion that it is highly desirable that they should be reappointed in the next Session of Parliament for the purpose of inquiring into the working and administration of the Purchase Acts; the working of the Land Judges' Court, and the distribution of business amongst the various departments of the Land Commission."

That recommendation was not, as a matter of fact, acted upon; and the Bill of last year left all those important subjects untouched. In fact of the three main divisions of the Irish Land Question—namely, amendment of the Land Law, amendment of procedure, and purchase, only one—and that I humbly venture to think not the most important—was dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. We have not thought it possible to follow the right hon. Gentleman's example in this respect; and accordingly the present Bill not only traverses the ground covered by the Bill of last year, but also contains a series of provisions designed for the amendment of procedure and for facilitating the working of the Purchase Acts. I will now take these three main divisions in order, and endeavour to describe as succinctly as I can the proposals which we intend to bring forward under each head. So far as the present Bill deals with the question of the amendment of the Land Law it must, of course, challenge comparison with the Bill brought in last year by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. There are, however, several provisions in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill which we regard as practically non-contentious, and which, therefore, we have included in our Bill. In this category we place the provision for the legal position of the tenant at the end of the statutory term—a provision which everyone agrees to be necessary in order to settle the question of the revival of the old rent if no proceedings are taken at the end of the statutory period. Such a revival is defended by no one, but the question requires to be dealt with. Another proposal which we have substantially incorporated is one making valid the sub-tenancy—notwithstanding a clause in the contract prohibiting subletting without the consent of the superior landlord—where it appears that there has been a tacit consent or acquiescence on the part of the superior landlord. Since the Committee reported some time during 1895 a singular case occurred showing the necessity for this provision. It was the case of a middleman who had received rent from a subtenant for no less than 37 years, and who afterwards defeated proceedings for the fixing of a fair rent by proving that his lease from the superior landlord contained a prohibition against sub-letting without consent, and that, therefore, there was no legally subsisting tenancy on the part of his sub-tenant. Another provision which will be regarded as non-contentious in principle, and which is common in both Bills, has for its object the saving of the sub-tenant's interest when the interest of the middleman is determined by notice to quit or the effluxion of time. Where the middleman's interest is terminated by surrender, then the position of the subtenant is already protected by the law; and there seems to be no sufficient reason for making a distinction between that case and the former. The fourth provision common to both Bills is for amending the Redemption of Rent Act, so as to prevent the lessee or grantee, after the fair rent is fixed on this holding, from being rented on his improvements—a thing which is obviously in accordance with the general principle of the Act of 1881. We have adopted two proposals contained in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill which are of a somewhat more contentious character—though in both cases we have safeguarded and limited them by means of some not unimportant modifications. The first of these relates to turbary and other such privileges. The Bill of last year gave power to the Court, where the tenant enjoyed these privileges, either by right or by the permission of the landlord, to secure them to the tenant in perpetuity. Where there is a right of this kind already existing, no amendment of the law is required to secure it to the tenant. It would be secure by the ordinary proceedings of the Land Commission. But where this privilege is only enjoyed by permission of the landlord, it will be seen to be a somewhat harsh proceeding and not altogether just to the landlord to give it in perpetuity to the tenant, when it may have been intended as an essentially temporary privilege. The Report of the Select Committee stated that the, tenant is sometimes compelled to pay back for turbary as much as he gains in the reduction of rent. [Nationalist cheers.] It may be so. I do not know where the Select Committee got it from. Not from the evidence—at any rate, I have not been able to discover it there. What we propose—and I think the suggestion will commend itself to the House—is that where the enjoyment of such privilege is necessary to the reasonable enjoyment of the holding itself, there it shall be secured to the tenant, and not otherwise; and we have introduced saving words of that kind. The second of the two proposals of the right hon. Gentleman's Bill which we accept with modification refers to lettings by persons who are not absolute owners. At present a tenancy from year to year created by a tenant for life comes to an end at the expiration of the life tenancy, notwithstanding that a fair rent may have been fixed. On the other hand, when a leaseholder creates a tenancy from year to year on a holding under the Acts, the tenant, at the expiration of the lease, becomes the tenant of the next superior landlord. This distinction, again, appears untenable, and we provide that the lettings by a life tenant shall be binding on the remainder-man. But we do not go as far as the clause in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. We have not applied this provision to lettings by a Judge of the High Court, and by the Chancellor sitting in lunacy. These lettings are of a temporary character, and injustice might be caused by including them in the provision.

What about mortgagees?

They are included in our Bill. The Bill of last year contained an arrears clause which we cannot accept as it stands. The clause in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill would have had the effect of wiping out all arrears of rent extending beyond two years, but the provision was not to come into operation until after a two years' period of grace. The limit of two years would appear to be a drastic proposal, and I am not surprised that the right hon. Gentleman thought it necessary to give a period of grace before that proposal should come into operation. But I am afraid that that period of grace would, in practice, constitute a direct invitation to the landlord to evict for arrears while it was still in his power to do so. ["Hear, hear!"] We propose to deal with this question by providing that the tenant shall be able to redeem in all cases by payment of two years' arrears, but that it shall be left to the landlord to recover any arrears beyond those by any procedure open to the ordinary law. I must refer to three provisions in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill which we have not been able to accept. The first is the abolition of the landlord's right of pre-emption. The second is the conversion of certain future tenancies into present tenancies, and the third is the establishment of the presumption that holdings in Ulster are subject to the Ulster custom of tenant-right. [Ironical Nationalist cheers.] With regard to the right of pre-emption, it has to be noted that this is the one provision in the Act of 1881 which put any check whatever on the extravagant prices constantly paid in Ireland for the tenant-right. It is a curious instance of the topsy-turvydom of the land system in Ireland that, whereas the Act of 1881 was passed in order to neutralise the evil consequences of what is known as the "land-hunger" by means of fixing the fair rent, that Act is only a back door to the introduction of those very evils of free sale. All the evidence goes to show that, in the majority of cases, the landlords in the past have not exacted from the tenants the competition rent. [Nationalist laughter and Ministerialist cheers.] That is the effect of the evidence given before all the early Commissions, and that was stated by Mr. Gladstone himself when he brought in the Bill of 1881. The tenant, on the other hand, invariably seeks to obtain for his tenant-right the full competition value, and he generally obtains it. The effect is that the purchaser of the tenant-right has generally to pay in interest on his purchase money much of what he gains by reduction of rent. ["Hear, hear!"] The only check upon this by the Act of 1881—and it was, I believe, deliberately provided as a check—was the existence of the landlord's right of pre-emption. This check we are not prepared to give up. Similarly, with regard to the compulsory conversion of future into present tenancies. If we were to consent to this provision, it would destroy the clause which the authors of the Act of 1881 sedulously designed for the preservation of free contract between landlord and tenant. As to the presumption in favour of the Ulster tenant-right custom, the difficulty in Ulster in that connection has been this. The Ulster custom differs in different parts of Ulster, and it has never been defined. Definition was carefully avoided by the Act of 1870, and was never attempted in any later Act. If we are to enact that there shall be a presumption in favour of the existence of the Ulster tenant-right, it is necessary to define what we mean by it. If we define it, we shall have to do so in reference to the minimum form of that right. I am inclined to believe that the minimum form of that right is something less valuable than was absolutely given in the Act of 1881 to all tenants in Ireland. Therefore, if we were to attempt this definition, it would rather injure the Ulster tenants than otherwise. ["Hear, hear!"] I now come to the question of exclusion from the benefits of the Act and sub-letting. These are subjects which are very intricate, and very difficult to grasp, and I must be content with a general outline of our proposals, pending the opportunity which Members will shortly have of examining the actual words of the Bill. And first with regard to exclusion. Under the existing law the benefits of the Acts of 1881 and 1887 do not extend, first, to holdings which are not agricultural or pastoral; secondly, holdings consisting partly or wholly of demesne land; thirdly, holdings coming under the description of town parks; and, fourthly, holdings valued at over £50 a year, let or used wholly or mainly for pasture. With regard to the last class we extend the limit to £100. The Report of the Select Committee, I believe, proposed £200, and that was also the limit named in the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman. The limit of £200 does not seem to me to be called for; I think £100 a more reasonable limit to fix. With respect to holdings not agricultural or pastoral, I may point out that, while the substantial part of the holding may be agricultural or pastoral, or mixed, nevertheless a substantial part of it may be non-agricultural. To meet such cases we propose to give relief to the tenant by allowing the Court to treat the non-agricultural part as a separate holding, and to fix a fair rent upon the remainder. The same provision we also apply to cases where part of the holding consists of demesne land. Where, on the other hand, part of the holding is non-agricultural, but that part is non-substantial and trivial—in that case we propose to enact that the holding shall be treated as if this trivial sub-letting did not exist. As to holdings consisting of demesne, we have attempted to define demesne land in such a way as to make the law clearer than it is at present. Next, as to town-parks, this is a most thorny and complex subject, as anyone who has had to do with the Irish Land Acts very well knows. To be a town-park, a holding must, at the present time, fulfil three conditions. It must adjoin a city or town; it must bear an increased value as accommodation land; and it must have been occupied at the time of the passing of the Act of 1881 by a person residing in the town or neighbourhood or in its suburbs. A holding may be in all essentials a town-park, and yet it might be excluded from the category by the mere accident that in 1881 the occupier was not residing in the town or in its suburbs. There was one very curious case where a holding was brought within the Land Acts and excluded from the category of a town park because it happened that the occupying tenant in August 1881, was an inmate of a lunatic asylum. We propose to do away with this condition; at the same time, we protect what I may call vested interests by providing that wherever the fair rent has already been fixed upon a holding it shall not be excluded from having a fair rent refixed by the mere fact that this third condition is no longer to be in active operation. The other two conditions we retain, but in 1887 it was felt that a holding might come within the definition of a town-park, and yet be in all essentials an agricultural holding. The problem is—How are you to deal with holdings which are let and used as agricultural holdings which are agricultural or pastoral, and in all essentials really are farms, but which, if included within the benefits of the Act may hinder the development of the town in their immediate neighbourhood? The Act of 1887 provided one way out of the difficulty. It excluded holdings of that description if in the opinion of the Court their inclusion would injure the development of the town. We have adopted a somewhat different proposal. We reverse the practice under the Act of 1887. That Act provided for the exclusion of such holdings unless in the opinion of the Court their inclusion would not interfere. We say "Let a fair rent be fixed upon them, and then, if afterwards it is found that they interfere, the landlord shall be entitled to resume possession." The other two conditions remain, and we do not propose to define a city or town.

What about the 2,000 limit under the Act of 1887?

We do not propose any limit; we leave that to the Court. I next come to the question of sub-lettings, which, in Ulster especially, are the frequent causes of exclusion from the Act. The Legislature, in pursuance of what is no doubt a wise and proper policy of getting rid of middlemen, has declared sub-letting to be a bar to the fixing of a fair rent, unless the sub-letting has been made with the express consent of the landlord, or unless it is trivial or for the benefit of labourers required for the cultivation of the estate. But the last two relaxations only apply to sub-lettings before 1887. In the case of sub-lettings made subsequent to 1887, though they may be trivial and for the benefit of labourers required in the cultivation of the estate, yet, unless the express consent of the landlord has been obtained, such sub-lettings are excluded from the benefit of the Act, and that although the sub-lettings may have been in substitution for sub-lettings that have taken place before 1887. This state of the law has been found to inflict great practical hardships, and we propose to amend it accordingly. We suggest that sub-letting by a tenant should be divided into two classes. I think also in this we follow the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. Sub-lettings of dwelling-houses are the first class. Where a dwelling-house, not being the dwelling-house of the tenant, and not having been erected in breach of a contract of tenancy or a statutory condition, is sublet to or in the occupation of another tenant, that subletting is not in future to be a bar to the fixing of a fair rent. In the other class of sub-lettings, that of sub-letting of part of the holding other than the dwelling-house, we retain the limit of date; we do not give exemptions where a subletting comprised in this second class has been made subsequent to 1887, unless it has been in substitution for subletting existing before that date. Sublettings of this second class are not to be excluded from the benefits of the Act, provided two conditions are fulfilled—first, that seven-eighths of the holding still remain in the occupation of the tenant; and, secondly, that the subletting is in substitution for a subletting made before the passing of the Act of 1887. These provisions, I think, meet, as far as I know, almost all the real cases of hardship in connection with subletting by tenants; but to guard against any possible abuse of them, we have further provided that the Court shall not entertain applications of this description unless it considers them reasonable. There remain the cases where sub-lettings have not been made by the tenant, but found by the tenant. In these cases we provide that the Court may treat the part so sublet as a separate holding, and fix a fair rent upon the remainder of the land which is in the occupation of the middleman. I have next to ask the attention of the House to a subject which has been more fruitful of controversy than all the rest of the Act of 1881 put together—I mean the protection of tenants' improvements. Subsection 9 of section 8 of the Act of 1881 provides that no rent shall be allowed in respect of any improvement made by the tenant or his predecessor in title to which no payment or their compensation has been made by the landlord or his predecessor in title. What are improvements? What is compensation? On what principles is it to be ascertained in doubtful cases what may be improvements? These questions and another which is more or less connected with them—namely, whether the occupancy right of the tenant is something which is to be deducted from the fair rent or not—have been debated forwards and backwards, backwards and forwards, till they have become the despair of everybody who has had anything to do with the Land Acts. It is impossible for me in a preliminary statement to enter into all these controversies or to argue whether the Court in the famous and terrible case of "Adams v. Dunseath" were right in reading into the Act of 1881 the provisions of the Act of 1870. I must be content to touch briefly on the direct issues involved and to explain in what way we propose to amend the law where it seems doubtful or defective. Everyone is agreed, I believe, that the tenant ought to be protected from being rented on his improvements; but the questions to be answered are, "What are improvements, and on what principle is the ownership of those improvements to be ascertained?" The answers given to these questions, both by the Select Committee and in the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman, would do far more, in my judgment, than merely protect the tenant's improvements. They would transfer from the landlords to the tenants a large slice of what always has been, and still ought to be, the property of the landlord. [Ironical laughter from the Irish Members.] According to the report of the Select Committee and to the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman, improvements should be held to include not merely the work done, but also the whole increased value which is due to the tenant's expenditure of labour and capital [Nationalist cheers], in conjunction with the inherent capacity of the soil. Further, both the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman and the Report of the Select Committee agree in this that all improvements, however ancient, are to be presumed to have been made by the tenant or his predecessor in title [Nationalist cheers], unless the landlord has satisfied the Court to the contrary. [Ministerial cheers.] I say, without hesitation, that those two propositions taken together reduce practically all agricultural rents in Ireland to what is called prairie value. [Ministerial cheers and "No, no!"] The first of the two propositions taken by itself—that which makes improvements include the whole increased value due to the tenant's expenditure — would not necessarily of itself bring about this result, but it might still be open to the landlord to claim in respect of improvements made before 1850. Or again, doing away with the present presumption limit would not of itself reduce rents to prairie value, because it might still be open to the landlord to claim that the capacities of the soil had something to do with the value, and to the increased letting value arising from the inherent capacity of the soil the landlord is entitled. But, if you take the two propositions together there is no escape whatever. The two propositions taken together reduce the rent of the holding to prairie value. This is not merely opposed to equity, but contrary to the spirit of the Act of 1881, and the intentions of those who framed that Act. ["Hear, hear!"] In this connection I should like to refer to the Debate in this House on a Bill introduced by the late Mr. Parnell in 1883. The Bill was drawn avowedly in view of the decision of the Court in "Adams v. Dunseath," and the intention of the Bill was to undo the effect of the judgment in that case. In fact, the definition of improvements contained in the Bill was, I think, almost the same definition as that which had been adopted by the right hon. Gentleman in the Bill of last year. But we are considering whether the proposals contained in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill did or did not carry out the intentions of the authors of the Act of 1881. We could not have a better source of information than the Debate which took place in 1883, in which those questions are directly and specifically raised. First of all, what had Mr. Gladstone to say on this Bill of Mr. Parnell? He said—

"I am bound to say that we differ organically from the Bill as it stands. The Bill, as I look at it, amounts to a virtual reconstruction of the Irish Land Act in its most important provisions."

And again—

"We have at no time since the passing of the Land Act used any word or done any acts which would justify in any way any one in supposing that we are prepared to concur in or, so far as we are concerned, to allow any disturbance of its fundamental provisions."

But the real opposition to the Bill and the grounds of it were most fully developed by the late lord Chancellor, at that time Sir Farrer Herschell. The late Lord Chancellor said:—

"As to the Bill before the House, what were its main principles? It was, in effect, a complete revolution of the provisions of the Act of 1881. He might claim to know something of that Act, as he was present during the whole of the discussion that took place upon it, and he said that the Bill was deliberately brought forward for the purpose of re-opening matters which were settled by the Land Act, and to completely revolutionise the character of that settlement.… Suppose a tenant spent £100 upon his land, and, by reason of its improvable character, which was part of the value of the land, made it worth £20 a year more; that was not all to be regarded as the property of the tenant, because it was not all produced either by his money, his industry, or his skill. It resulted from that which was the property of the landlord—the improvable character of the land (itself. Suppose two tenants spent each £100 upon his tenancy, and applied equal skill and energy to the work. In the case of the one the £100 so invested made the land worth £20 more, but in the case of the other it enhanced the value only by £5. What made the difference? Simply the inherent qualities of the land. That gave the extra value, and these no more belonged to the tenant than the land itself. Therefore, the judgment in 'Adams v. Dunseath' on that point was perfectly correct. He maintained that the provision in Clause 5 was not only opposed to the decision in that case, but was manifestly unjust. They must take this scheme as a whole, and, taking it in that way, it came to nothing but this—that everything beyond prairie value would be deemed, unless the contrary was proved, to be the property of the tenant, and on the basis of that alone ought fair rent to be fixed."

I think, in face of these quotations, the right hon. Gentleman will hardly maintain that he is carrying out the intention of the framers of the Act of 1881. I know that the right hon. Gentleman holds some strange doctrine with regard to the logical development of a principle. In his judgment, as the Act of 1881 was the logical development of the Act of 1870, so the Bill brought forward last year was to be regarded as the logical development of the Act of 1881. I am bound to say I have a little distrust of the logical development of political principles. At the best the logical development of political principles appears to me to mean the carrying to an exaggeration a principle which may be good enough up to a certain point, but which is mischievous when carried beyond. According to the right hon. Gentleman, not only is the thick end of the wedge a logical development of the thin end, but the logical development of the thick end is a second wedge twice as thick as the first. I am as anxious as the right hon. Gentleman, or anyone else, that all legitimate protection should be given to tenants' improvements, and I believe that is done by our Bill; but I cannot follow the right hon. Gentleman in those somewhat dangerous courses. As regards the question of presumption, I think it is necessary to have some limit, otherwise it is impossible to put a bar against fictitious or obsolete claims. The year 1850 appears to me, on the whole, not to be an unreasonable date to fix for that purpose. As regards the term "improvement," we must decline to give it that extended meaning which it had in the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman, but, in order to guard against all possibility of injustice, we propose to expressly declare that rent shall not be paid on improvements merely by reason of the fact that they are unsuitable to the holding, and we are also prepared to declare in the Bill—what I personally believe to be the law at the present time—that theobiter dicta of the Judges in "Adams v. Dunseath," giving to the Court, in cases where they thought the tenant had not received his fair share of benefit accruing to the holding from the labour expended by him, power to make such further allowance as they, having regard to the nature of the improvement and the interest of landlord and tenant respectively, may consider just.

HOW do you define obiter dicta [ Laughter.]

I define a good deal in this Bill, but I do not think that I am called upon to define the obiter dicta of the Judges.

I do not quite understand what the effect of the obiter dicta may be. I do not follow the right hon. Gentleman.

I have no doubt it is my fault that I have not put it with sufficient clearness. What we propose is this: If, after an allowance has been made to the tenant by way of interest in respect of any improvements that he has made, it appears to the Court that the tenant has not received an equitable compensation for the benefit which that improvement has conferred upon the holding, the Court shall be, in such a case, allowed to make such further allowance as they, considering all the circumstances and the nature of the improvement, and the interests of the landlord and tenant respectively, may consider just. It is practically indicating what I believe Lord Justice Fitzgibbon declared was the judgment in "Adams v. Dunseath,"

It would be an apportionment of a margin of increased letting value left after the allowance?

The right hon. Gentleman has interpreted my meaning correctly. As to the subject of compensation, I find myself more in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman. It appears to us that neither the mere letting of the land nor the mere enjoyment of improvements for a certain length of time, apart from other considerations, should count for compensation. We have, therefore, followed the right hon. Gentleman and adopted the term "money or money's worth," and we define it so as to exclude the mere letting of land or the mere enjoyment of improvements. Under our Bill a tenant is not to be held to have been paid or compensated for an improvement unless money or money's worth in this sense has been given for it. If the improvement has been made in pursuance of a contract entered into for money or money's worth compensation is to be held to have been given. If the improvement is not the subject of any contract then the Court is to inquire, not merely whether money or money's worth has been given in respect of the improvement, but also into the question of the extent to which money or money's worth may have been given. Now, as to the length of the statutory term. The Select Committee reported in favour of shortening the term to ten years, and they also considered, but rejected a proposal to make this shortened term retrospective and to allow any tenants of whose current term ten years had already expired to re-enter the Court in order to have a fair rent fixed again. I think this last proposal was rejected by the Select Committee by the casting vote of the right hon. Gentleman himself, but it reappeared, nevertheless, in his Bill. I may say at once that we consider it inadmissible. It is no doubt true that rents fixed between 1881 and 1887, if now refixed, would in all probability be fixed lower than the figure at which they stand. I believe that would probably be the case, but the existing term of 15 years represents one of the conditions of a statutory contract deliberately imposed upon tenants and landlords by Parliament, and to break such contracts simply because prices have fallen and the contract has turned out less favourable to the tenants than was expected would be an extremely grave step to take. It would not be any less grave because something in the shape of a precedent can be quoted in favour of it from the Act of 1887. It will be found that the revision of rent clauses under that Act, though they may have been justified by the necessities of the time, were in themselves objectionable and dangerous, and if to that dangerous precedent we were to add a second the sanctity of statutory contracts in Ireland would be destroyed altogether. That is one ground for resolutely rejecting the proposal; but there is another ground of equal urgency. If tenants whose rents were fixed ten years ago and upwards were all now to come into Court the machinery provided by the Act of 1881 would be totally inadequate to cope with the work. The Land Commission have supplied me with some figures on this point. It appears that, if this shortened statutory term with a retrospective effect were to come into operation during the autumn of the present year, the applications to refix rents that might conceivably come in would amount to a gross total of 238,720. I do not say that all these applications would come in, for many of them might be anticipated by voluntary agreements between landlords and tenants. That, however, is the total possible figure. It is estimated that the legal assistant commissioners cannot efficiently dispose of more than 2,400 cases in a year, and, supposing that 200,000 new cases came into Court, in order to dispose of such cases within the year we should require 83 legal assistant commissioners and 664 lay assistant commissioners, or in order to dispose of them in five years we should require 16 legal and 133 lay commissioners. Even if only 100,000 cases were to come into Court in one year, it would be impossible for the Land Commission to get through the work. [Cries of "No, no!" from the Irish Members, and laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but I think I shall have the sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman opposite when I say that I should be very sorry to have the task of finding and appointing so many commissioners. It appears to me, then, that this administrative objection is by itself enough to justify the rejection of the proposal. Future cases are on a different footing, but, on the whole, the balance of consideration appears to be against the ten years' term even in future cases. A ten years' term is, in fact, either too long or too short. The example of 1887 shows us that it is too long to give the tenant immunity from the effects of falls in prices of agricultural produce. Then the shortness of a ten years' term would certainly tend to keep both landlords and tenants in a state of constant unrest, with the result that their mutual relations and the proper cultivation of the land would suffer. Litigation would also increase proportionately. On the whole, therefore, we have come to the conclusion that it is undesirable to shorten the term of 15 years. During the discussion of the Bill of 1881 some expressions of opinion were heard in favour of a longer term than 15 years.

What is meant exactly by the profitable margin of rent?

I think it is rather unfair to ask me to go into a question of that kind, which is a very difficult and abstruse question. ["Hear, hear!"] I have come to the conclusion, after considering this subject with very great care, that no system of fixing rents according to prices can be satisfactory which leaves out of account the peculiarities of the particular holding. ["Hear, hear!"] I will now proceed to describe the scheme which I have endeavoured to think out, and, in order to disarm criticism as far as I can, I can only begin by saying that it is not proposed in this Bill that the scheme should be imposed compulsorily on tenant or landlord; if adopted at all, it must be adopted by the common consent of both parties. The term that I propose is to be of 30 years' duration; the rent in the normal case is to be fixed by the Land Commission in the ordinary way at the outset—that is to say, that it is to be fixed after inspection, and, if necessary, after hearing in Court. But it is to be variable every five years, on the application of either party, if the variation in. prices in the opinion of the Land Commission justifies a variation in the rent. At the end of 30 years either party is to be entitled either to have a fair rent fixed in order to enter upon a new 30 years' term or to apply to the Court to fix a rent for the ordinary term of 15 years; or, if they like, they may continue the agreement for quinquennial periods, with variations from time to time, without having the new rent fixed upon inspection or by hearing of the Court. Suppose an application is made under this section of the Bill to fix a fair rent for a period of 30 years. The Assistant Commissioner will then have to determine, not merely the fair rent which is to be the standard for the period of 30 years, but he will also have to determine what are the accustomed, products of the land and what are the relative values of those products. These terms are, of course, defined in the Bill. The definition of customary products practically leaves it open to the parties to include or exclude what they will. All these matters may be fixed, if the parties prefer it, by voluntary agreement. At the commencement of the 30 years' term they may, if they please, by arrangement fix the fair rent which is to be the standard during the term; they may also fix the customary products by agreement; they may also fix the proportions in which those customary products are to be reared upon the land. Let us suppose that a fair rent has been fixed in this way, and the parties have agreed to another 30 years' term; five years elapse; then upon the application of either of the parties, within 12 months of the termination of the five years, the Land Commission, having before them the record made by the Assistant Commissioner who has inspected the holding, may, without inspection and without rehearing by the Court, compare what in this Bill is called the gazetted prices of the year in which the standard fair rent is fixed with the gazetted prices in the year in which the application is made to vary the rent. In varying the rent they may have regard to two things—first, to the variation in prices, and, secondly, to the effect which that variation, in their judgment, has had upon the fairness of the rent of the holding. It will be observed that, according to this system, the Land Commission has not to vary the rent necessarily in the same proportion in which the variation of prices has taken place. Let us say that the variation in prices has been 10 per cent.; on one holding it may be a fair arrangement to vary the rent in direct proportion—that is to say, by 10 per cent; on another holding it may be fair to vary it by 15 per cent.; on a third it may be fair to vary it by 20 per cent., while the prices have fallen 10 per cent.; all that is to be left in the discretion of the Land Commission. By gazetted prices I mean not the average prices of the particular year, but the average prices of the five preceding years. For instance, for the year 1896 the gazetted prices will be the average of the average prices for the years 1890–95. If an original rent were fixed in 1896 and a revision were demanded in 1901 the Commissioners would have to compare the gazetted prices of the customary products of the holding in 1896—the average of the prices for the previous five years—with the gazetted prices of 1901—the average for the preceding five years. It will be observed that the scheme I have sketched is strictly automatic—it is left to the discretion of the Land Commission to determine what should be the variation corresponding to the variation in prices. At the same time this decision of the Land Commission is to be taken without reinspection of the holding and without a rehearing by the Court, which immensely simplifies the operation. I conceive there may be cases in which one party or the other would not like to leave so much discretion as is implied in this arrangement to the Land Commission; and accordingly I have introduced a provision whereby, if the landlord and tenant prefer it, they may make a variation in rent proportionate to the variation in prices, not necessarily in direct proportion, but in any proportion they choose to fix.

The Land Commission are to make no general order, but they are to give a decision on each application.

On each individual application, without reinspecting the holding and without rehearing. In order that this scheme may be adopted as widely as possible, I have also provided that it may be adopted under certain conditions, notwithstanding that a judicial rent is current. But if the landlord and tenant agree to break the judicial term in order to adopt this system I propose this condition—either that they must agree together upon the preliminary matters—that is to say, upon the standard rent, the customary products of the holding, and the proportionate value of these customary products—or else as regards the fair rent that it is to be calculated from the actual rent fixed upon the holding exactly as it would be calculated by the Land Commission at the end of the quinquennial period. It will be clear, from what I have already stated, that it would be impossible to allow the 15 years' term to be broken in order to adopt this system if the breaking of the term involved a full inquiry by the Land Commission into what the fresh judicial rent ought to be. That would present administrative difficulties it would be impossible to overcome. Therefore, if this automatic system is to be adopted in breach of a statutory direction, the parties must agree together and the standard of rent must be fixed exactly in the same way as a variation of rent would be fixed at the end of a five years' period. If tenants who have had fair rents fixed between 1881 and 1887 can agree with their landlords — [Mr. T. M. HEALY: "Hear, hear"]— to adopt this system— [Mr. T. M. HEALY: "No such jackasses are to be found"]—they will obtain many of those advantages that they would secure by a revision of rent. I very much think that system, although difficult to describe, will nevertheless not be by any means impossible to work; on the contrary, I am rather inclined to think it would work well; I hope there will be many such arrangements between landlords and tenants; and I venture to recommend it to both classes on those grounds. It is a practical attempt to accomplish what we are constantly asked to do—namely, to vary rents according to variations in prices. Tenants availing themselves of this system would have the full benefit of all their improvements for 30 years and possibly for much more. Landlords would gain if this system were adopted by saving those expenses which are now thrown upon them by the necessity of fighting applicants in Court. To the House at large I may recommend the scheme as likely, if it were generally adopted—[ironical cheers]—to save a great deal of what I can only describe as expenses unnecessarily incurred in the administration of the law. I now pass to the question of general procedure in cases of application to fix fair rent. Everybody will admit that some reform is possible whereby unnecessary litigation, with all its consequent delay, expenses to the parties and to the State, and friction between landlord and tenant, may to a considerable extent be avoided. The Report of the Select Committee spoke with no uncertain voice on this question. They recommended that in any case in which the parties so desired the holding should be inspected by one or two valuers, and if the valuation were accepted by the parties it should be fixed as a fair rent. If either party declined to accept the valuation the case should then be heard by the Sub-Commission in the ordinary course. In this event the Committee were of opinion that, where the valuation did not exceed £20, and where the judgment of the Sub-Commission was unanimous, there should be no rehearing by the Land Commission of any question of value. With respect to the latter part of the Committee's recommendation, I shall have something to say presently, but, as regards the first part, I have no hesitation in accepting the view they express. Although the former Chief Secretary did not include any provision of that kind in his Bill, I understand he would have been prepared to accept some arrangement of the kind.

"Would have been," but I informed the House of the exact way in which I proposed to carry out the recommendation of the Committee, although it is true the scheme was not in the Bill.

I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says—that he was prepared to bring forward some scheme of the kind. The result, I believe, of the practical working of the Act of 1881 is conclusive that in the great majority of cases which have come before the Sub-Commission no real question of law requiring the adjudication of a legal member has arisen, and disputes, even as regards questions of fact, have been infrequent. But, notwithstanding this, in ordinary cases where no question of value has arisen it appears that, as a rule, the expenses of the parties have amounted to between £4 and £5, due to the fact that both sides have been represented by solicitors and counsel.

Turn them out.

It appears to me that what is wanted is some form of procedure to save the parties where there are disputes in fact or law by provision to obtain the decision of the Court as at present constituted upon such questions. Under the procedure proposed in this Bill the fair rent of the holding must be determined in the first instance by a conditional order of the Land Commission made in pursuance of; a detailed report after inspection of the holding by one or two Assistant Commissioners. This Report has, among other matters, to contain the statements following. First, the fair letting value of the holding as between the parties, inclusive of the value of all the improvements thereon.

Including buildings?

Yes, including buildings. Secondly, it must contain improvements made wholly or partly at the cost of the tenant which require to be recorded by the Act, in respect of which rent be allowed or made payable. Thirdly, the full sum which should be the fair rent of the holding; fourthly, the improvements made wholly or partly at the cost of the landlord are required to be recorded. The Assistant Commissioner has to report all these matters at length and in detail to the Land Commission. If no objection is made to the fair rent so fixed by the valuer sent down to inspect the holding, then, in the ordinary course, that would become the fair rent of the holding, and the Commissioners will make an order forthwith. If, however, either party serves notice of objection to the order's becoming absolute, then the Chief Commissioner may hear the parties and dispose of the case or remit it to the Sub-Commissioners, as is now done. In this way there is reason to hope that the great majority of the simple cases will be sifted out without coming before the Sub-Commissioners at all. ["Hear, hear!"] Suppose, however, a case did come before the Sub-Commissioners, then, under the procedure we propose, if either party is dissatisfied with the decision of the Sub-Commission it will be the duty of the Chairman of that Sub-Commission to certify whether or not any question of law or of mixed law or fact arises. If such is the case, then the question may be heard by a Judicial Commission sitting alone or with others. If, on the other hand, the decision of the Sub-Commission involves value only, an appeal is to lie to the Chief Commissioners. But they may arrive at a decision without rehearing the case, unless one of the parties insists on the case being reheard and lodges a sum for costs.

Monstrous!

I am sorry to hear that exclamation, but in practice I do not think it will be found to be so. The effect of these changes in procedure will be to sift out simple cases and enable them to be decided without coming before the Sub-Commission at all. The appeal from the decision of the Sub-Commission will be twofold—first, to withdraw all questions of law from the jurisdiction of the lay commission— a most important object to attain—and, secondly, to discourage the rehearing of questions of fact. We do not prevent the rehearing of questions of value, but short of that we do everything we can to discourage it. Sir, the Report of the Select Committee, which I have already quoted, recommends that in certain cases there should be no appeal from the decision of the Sub-Commission on questions of value. I hope that such appeals will not be numerous, and that when made the parties will be content with the decision of the Chief Commissioners when requiring that there should be a rehearing. The conclusion I have formed is that the existence of the power of appeal has a steadying effect on the Assistant Commissioners, and that without it great injustice might be done in individual cases. I may call the attention of the House to this —that we shall probably have to appoint a large number of additional Commissioners. There is one other important provision in the Bill, which has reference to the jurisdiction of the County Courts. It is quite clear that either this jurisdiction must be reformed or abolished. The practice of the County Court has been severely criticised in the Report of the Select Committee, which reported to the effect that the number of cases heard in the County Courts was comparatively small, and the practice was not always uniform Under the County Court system only one valuer goes on the land, and he is not, as a lay Commissioner is, a member of the Court with a voice in its decision. He fills a consultative position, is paid by the day, and not by salary. One County Court Judge informed the Committee that the Judge knew nothing of the facts himself, and had no other mode of arriving at a conclusion as to the value of the land than adopting the Court valuer's opinion; and he felt himself morally bound to accept the valuation of the Court valuer. Notwithstanding this criticism the Report goes on to recommend that landlords should he deprived of the power they at present possess of having a fair-rent application transferred from the County Court to the Land Commission. These two utterances of the Select Committee appear somewhat inconsistent. Certainly it is an inequitable thing to give the tenant uncontrolled choice of the tribunal in every case. I have considered this question as regards County Court jurisdiction, and I have had great difficulty in coming to a conclusion. On the whole, I am inclined to think the County Court jurisdiction had better be abolished altogether. I admit that there is a great deal to be said on the other side, but the reason which has principally determined me in coming to a conclusion is that it would be difficult to fit the new procedure into the procedure of the County Courts. But this not a vital point, and if the procedure of the County Courts can be accommodated to the new procedure under the Act, I should be prepared to consider whether that jurisdiction should continue or be brought to an end. I am afraid I have detained the House at great length—[cheers]—but I must still bespeak its indulgence while I explain the part of the Bill that deals with purchase. It is our policy to stimulate the purchase of holdings by the cultivators of those holdings as far as possible. But the question may be asked, and has been asked in Ireland, if that is our policy would it not best be gained by making purchase compulsory and universal. ["Hear, hear!"] Propositions of this kind have been so much mooted of late that it may be desirable to state a few of the reasons why I consider it impossible to proceed on those lines. If purchase is to be compulsory and universal, it would involve a financial operation upon a gigantic scale. To carry out such a scheme of purchase, applicable to all the agricultural land in Ireland, would certainly require more than £100,000,000, possibly more than £200,000,000. The sphere of the State in the case of universal and compulsory purchase would be to fix the price, and presumably it would have to be an average and uniform price, based upon the existing rents. This of itself would undoubtedly create inequality of treatment between one tenant and another and between one landlord and another. On the other hand, the alternative of inquiry into the merits of each case would involve a very long transitional period and cause awkwardness and trouble. But, if an average price were fixed in view of the fact that the sale by the landlord was to be compulsory and in order to avoid injustice to individuals, it is obvious that an average price would have to be fixed somewhat higher, probably, than the average of the transactions entered into voluntarily between landlord and tenant, and, I think, the guardian of the public purse might very well look askance on a proposal of this kind, quite irrespective of the political danger that would be involved if the State were constituted the sole landlord of agricultural holdings in Ireland. But that was not all. Even if a high average price were fixed and the tenants were willing to pay it—which is by no means certain—such a provision would work most oppressively in regard to individual cases. If the purchase money were fixed at even so large a figure as 25 years—[Irish laughter]—I am not for a moment suggesting that, but if it were fixed at 25 years it would represent something like 4 per cent. to the landlord at present in receipt of the rents. Supposing it were fixed at what I think a more reasonable figure—namely, 20 years' purchase—the landlord who sold his estate at the present time to the tenants in occupation may be calculated to have practically invested his money at 5 per cent. But, in the place of his lands and the rents he obtains from them, he now has the money to invest. In a large number of cases he would be unable to invest the money at more than 3 per cent. Suppose such a landlord has charges upon his estate. In a large number of cases this difference between the 5 per cent., at which his money is practically invested so long as he is in receipt of the rents, and the 3 per cent., that is all he might be able to get if he were to take the money instead of the lands, represents the |entire margin upon which such a land- lord has to live, and if you compulsorily deprive him of this, compulsory purchase would mean compulsory ruin. ["Hear, hear!"] I have thought this subject over and over again, and I have never seen my way out of these difficulties. Suppose you try to get rid of the financial difficulty by retaining the compulsory principle but only applying it partially instead of universally, you will not have got rid of the second difficulty, which consists of the compulsory reduction of the landlord's income to 3 per cent. on his capital instead of 5 per cent. But, apart from that, if the operation is no longer to be universal, but only partial, you have imposed upon yourselves the necessity of determining the matter upon a principle of selection. How are you to select the holdings which are to be favoured and which are to be left out? It appears to me that if, instead of making purchase universal you make it only partial, the difficulty in the way of making it compulsory would be almost impossible to overcome. I am not prepared to prophesy what may happen in the future, but at present, at all events, I am convinced we must be content to proceed gradually and by arrangement between the parties. It is only in this way that the financial difficulties can be overcome and, at the same time, that a kind of national selection may be effected of cases which are most suitable for purchase, having regard to the interests of all the parties. What is the present position? There are some £30,000,000 available for advances to tenants, and at the present rate of procedure it would take 60 years or more before the whole of this money was advanced. How are you to quicken the pace? First of all we must try in every way we can to oil the machinery. We must study the various impediments in the existing system which make tenants slow to buy and the landlords slow to sell. We must, if possible, remove those impediments and try to make purchase more attractive to the tenants and sale more attractive to the landlords. We have in this Bill made various proposals with a view of effecting this object. I may divide the proposals into three classes. The first are those which are designed in the interest of both parties, the second those which are intended to encourage landlords to sell. The first of these consists mainly of amendment of the procedure, so as to obviate delay and cheapen the expense. Avoiding technical language, I may say that from the commencement of the transaction by agreement to purchase, down to the time of the conclusion, the registration of title and the distribution of money, we have done our best to cheapen and quicken the procedure. ["Hear, hear!"] The proposal we have to make in order to encourage purchases demands more attention. In the first place we wish to promote purchase by making the terms of repayment as easy as possible, so far as can be done consistently with proper security. We accordingly intend to extend the term. ["Hear, hear!"] But the mere extension of the term ab initio, which has been constantly pressed upon me, is open to one grave objection—namely, that it will diminish the sinking fund in the earlier years of the advance, and therefore diminish the amount of the principal repaid during those years. This will not be financially sound, and accordingly we have sought a plan that will give relief to the purchasers, not at first when their needs less require it, because after the purchase transaction the effect will be to reduce the rent by 20 per cent., but to give relief when they are more likely to require it, namely, some years after the advance has been made, and when the purchasers may be suffering from the effects of a fall in agricultural values. ["Hear, hear!"] Under the existing Irish Land Acts advances are repaid by an annuity of 4 per cent. on the amount advanced, payable for 49 years, after which the tenant is relieved of all further obligation, whether the actual operations of the sinking fund have been sufficient or not. The present Bill proposes to modify the existing arrangement. First of all it provides for the reduction of the amount at the end of the first three decennial periods by the amount of the accumulations of the sinking fund during those periods, making the tenant to pay his annuity of 4 per cent. on the outstanding amount. Thus, supposing the advance to have been £100, and the accumulations of the sinking fund to have amounted in the first ten years to £14, during the second ten years to £12, and during the third to £10, the effect would be that the purchaser would during the fiart ten years have to pay 4 per cent. on £86 instead of £100, at the end of the second ten years, 4 per cent on £74 instead of £100; and at the end of the third ten years 4 per cent. on £64. It will be seen that this is a material reduction, and, if prices have fallen in the meantime, will be very welcome to the tenant. ["Hear, hear!"] The Bill provides that from the 31st year—that is, after the three decennial periods—the purchaser shall continue to pay the annuity on the outstanding debt, not for a fixed term of years, but until the actual accumulations of the sinking fund have equalled the original advance. These two proposals are to be taken as part of a whole. The effect of the first will be to relieve the purchaser of his part of the burden at the end of the first, second, and third decades of the period of repayment, but it will of course lengthen the term of repayment from 49 to something like 70 years, or perhaps a little more. The second provision is intended to protect the guarantee fund from any loss. I was asked by an hon. Member whether this arrangement was to apply to past as well as to future cases. Yes, it is intended to apply to past as well as to future cases, and therefore the House will understand that it will give immediate relief to all those purchasers from the State from the time of the Church Acts onwards who have paid their annuities for ten years or upwards. [Cheers.] If this scheme is adopted by Parliament the annuity of every purchaser who buys on less than 20 years' purchase will start with a reduction of not less than 20 per cent. upon the rent which he now pays. This annuity will be further reduced in 10 years time by not less than 10 per cent., and again at the end of each period of 10 years. This is the proposal which we have to make in order to make purchase more attractive to tenants than it has hitherto been. But we also propose to give further relief to purchasers by abolishing the purchasers' insurance money—[Irish cheers]—and by diverting the county percentage to the sinking fund. As regards the purchasers' insurance money, I think there is a great deal to be said for it in principle, and if the arrangement had worked well in practice, I, for one, should have been unwilling to surrender it. But it has not worked well in practice. [Irish cheers.] As a matter of fact it has complicated arrangements under the Act of 1881, and it has to a very large extent prevented the tenants from purchasing. Not only that, but as a matter of fact, it has failed of the object intended, because in practice the Lord Commissioners have so administered the Act that the amount of purchasers' insurance money has been practically a negligeable quantity. ["Hear, hear!"] It has not been, to any extent, what it was intended to be—a real insurance in case of the inability of a tenant to pay his annuities regularly. The Commissioners have generally fixed the true annual value at such a figure that as a matter of practice the annuities of tenant purchasers under the Act of 1891 amounted to something like £80,000, while the amount of insurance money up to the present time has been only between £3,000 and £4,000. Under these circumstances, it seems hardly worth while to continue a system which has greatly complicated the working of the Act, which is extremely difficult to understand, and which, undoubtedly has had the effect of deterring tenants from purchasing. As regards the county percentage, when the arrangement was made that the county percentage should be paid out of the tenants' annuities, it was probably anticipated that the money provided by the Act of 1891 would be applied for by the tenants much more rapidly than, as a matter of fact it has been. This fund also, is up to the present time very small in amount. I do not think that, so far, more than a sum of £5,000 a year has been received to be divided among the different counties from this source. During this year, the annual sum of £40,000 becomes, for the first time, available for the purpose to which the county percentage was to be devoted—namely, the erection of labourers cottages, and therefore anything taken from the resources of the county in this respect will be very much more than replaced by the Exchequer contributions which now begin for the first time. As I shall presently explain, there exists special reasons at the present time why we should divert this county percentage from the purposes to which it is at present devoted, to the strengthening of the sinking fund. I think the House will agree that these are important and valuable concessions to the tenant-purchasers. We also propose to make some not unimportant concessions to the vendors. The Bill provides that in future guarantee deposits shall only be required where the Land Commission are of opinion that the security is insufficient without them. I have no doubt in practice it will be found that this will mean that the guarantee deposits will be dispensed with in future altogether. ["Hear, hear!"] As regards the guarantee deposits which have already been made under the Act of 1891, it is proposed to give power to the Land Commission to release these deposits where they have not, as a matter of fact, been utilised for the purpose of meeting their debts. The Act of 1885 forms a somewhat different case. Under the Act of 1891 the real security to the State is the guarantee fund. Under the Act of 1885 there is no guarantee to the State except the guarantee deposit itself; but, seeing that we intend to allow the tenants who have purchased under the 1885 Act, after ten years have elapsed, to pay only on the outstanding amount of principal at that time, we think it only right that the guarantee deposit paid under that Act should be released to a corresponding amount. I believe that that corresponding amount will be something like half of the guarantee fund. In other words, where the tenants under the Ashbourne Acts of 1885 and 1888 have paid their annuities for ten years, the guarantee deposit in respect of those advances will be released, at the end of ten years, to the amount by which the tenants have repaid the principal of their debt. I think these proposals with respect to the guarantee deposits are amply justified by the experience which we have actually had under the Ashbourne Acts. ["Hear, hear!"] The total guarantee deposits under the Ashbourne Acts up to March, 1895, was £1,938,446. This was in respect of 24,900 tenants, and the total amount applied in discharge of irrecoverable debts up to December, 1895, was the insignificant sum of ƒ3,625—(Irish cheers) and this only in respect of 22 defaulters on 18 estates. ["Hear, hear!"] The application to make a guarantee deposit has largely discouraged landlords from selling, and I trust this provision will have a corresponding effect in encouraging selling. ["Hear, hear!"] Another concession which we propose to make to landlords selling to their tenants has reference to the redemption of tithe rent-charge in case of sale. Under the Act of 1887, the Land Commission were empowered to allow the landlords to redeem the tithe rent-charge in case of sale at less than the statutory period of 22½ years provided the Treasury gave their consent. The Land Commission have, as a matter of fact, repeatedly applied to the Treasury to give their consent, and the Treasury have always refused it. (Irish cheers.) Under this Bill the Land Commission are to be empowered to allow the landlords to redeem the tithe rent-charge at anything over 20 years' purchase without asking the consent of the Treasury.

At whose cost? The cost of the State?

Does the Bill provide compensation for those who have redeemed at 22½ years' purchase, for I am one of those myself? (Laughter.)

The right hon. Gentleman has anticipated what I was about to say. There are many cases in which landlords are now redeeming tithe rent-charges by means of annuities. We propose, where the landlord sells to tenants, that, where the tithe rent-charge is in course of redemption by means of annuities, the outstanding amount which has to be compulsorily redeemed is to be calculated on the basis that the annuity will discharge the debt in 45 years instead of 52 years. This is to be taken as an admission of a general principle. There is no doubt whatever that the landlords have been very harshly dealt with—[Nationalist cries of "Oh!"]—in this matter. When the landlords redeemed tithe rent-charge, what is supposed to be redeemed is the net tithe rent-charge, exclusive of the poor rate. As a matter of fact, the annuity which they now have to pay— namely, £4 9s. for 52 years—would, on the supposition that the interest is calculated at the rent of £3 10s. per cent., pay off not the net, but the gross tithe rent-charge. ["Hear, hear!"] That is, to my mind, a manifest injustice, and, if I could have done it, I would have introduced into this Bill a provision by which, not merely in case of sale to tenants, but in all cases, the period should be reduced from 52 years to 45 years. In other words, I should have introduced a provision by which the amount to be redeemed should be the net tithe rent-charge and not the gross tithe rent-charge; but I think it may be taken that the proposal we have inserted in this Bill is an acknowledgment of the general principle, and that at some time or other that general principle will be given effect to by legislation.

Does the right hon. Gentleman make any provision for compensation to the Church Fund?

No. I do not see that there is any compensation due to the Church Fund. I think I have already referred to the loss of income which the landlord may sustain by selling to his tenant. It may happen that instead of receiving 5 per cent. on the capital value of his property he may receive only 2¾ per cent. On the other hand, in cases where there is a mortgage on the estate, say, of 5 per cent., by paying off that mortgage the landlord would really be investing his money at 5 per cent. Let us take the case of an estate where a mortgage is not up to its full value. In such a case the landlord may be willing to sell his interest to his tenants, partly in consideration of cash down, and partly in consideration for the rent-charge when he could not afford to pay cash down for the whole. The Bill recognises transactions of this kind, and allows the Land Commission to advance money, under certain limitations, to the extent of the cash payment to the landlord. I am not without hope that this provision may be taken advantage of to a considerable extent, especially in Ulster. I must not omit to mention a change we propose to make in the financial arrangements of the Act of 1891, not with a view to promoting purchase, but in order to secure the solvency of the guarantee fund. It will be remembered that the guaranteed land stock when first issued was considerably under par, and the view which was then expressed by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton and other Members that this stock would rise considerably above par has been realised. Of course, the landlords have reaped advantage by the appreciation of this stock, but the dangers of this appreciation were not foreseen by anybody in 1891. Arrangements between the landlords and the tenants are on a cash basis, and between the State and the vendors are on a stock basis. The appreciation of stock above par obviously involves the result that the sinking fund portion of the tenants' annuities could not be invested at 2⅓ per cent., and consequently could not be accumulated to redeem the stock. Therefore the stock would not be redeemed in 49 years, although the annuities of the purchasers would end at that time. Again, the tenant purchaser is entitled to redeem in cash, but the cash so paid cannot purchase an equivalent amount of appreciated stock, nor can it be invested at a sufficiently high rate of interest to pay a dividend on the stock. At present the loss falls upon the guarantee fund—that is to say, that it will ultimately fall on the Irish ratepayer. Such a state of things was clearly never contemplated, and a remedy must be found for it. We provide a remedy in the first instance by requiring the annuity payers to continue paying their annuities until the debt is discharged, and not merely for a given period. But this would be hard on the annuity purchasers unless other measures were taken to succour the sinking fund. The throwing in of the county percentage will help to a considerable extent, but the real remedy is to issue no more land stock, but to revert to the system of cash payments. Under this Bill, therefore, we propose to give up issuing guaranteed land stock and to revert to cash payments. The only other proposal we have to make in connection with purchase has reference to the Congested Districts Board and the Landed Estates Court. At present, if the Congested Districts Board purchases land with a view to reselling to tenants, it has to purchase it out of its limited income, and it is obliged to sell it again to the tenants as quickly as possible in order that it may realise its available funds for other purposes. We propose to extend the powers of purchase of the Congested Districts Board by allowing it to borrow money for that end to the extent of the capital sum—namely, £1,500,000—from which it at present derives its income. As regards the Landed Estates Court, we have proposals to make which I think as important, if not more important, than any others in the Bill. We think it desirable that more should be done than has yet been done to promote the sale to tenants of bankrupt estates. To do that, and also in order to strengthen the legal element on the Land Commission, we propose not exactly to amalgamate the Land Commission with the Landed Estates Court, but to make provision for the interchange of functions within certain limits between the Land Judge and the Judicial Commissioners, and also between the officers of the two Departments respectively. The statistics for 1894 showed that there are, in round numbers, about 1,500 estates pending for sale in the Land Judges' Court, and that there are 1,266 estates over which receivers have been appointed. Excluding the estates of minors, the rent-roll of the estates represented by these receivers is at least £648,000 a year. Most of them have been in the Court for years, and have been vainly offered for sale to the public. It is clear from these figures that the Court has, to a large extent, ceased to exercise the functions of a Court to facilitate the sale and transfer of land—[Nationalist cheers]— and has drifted more and more into a State department to collect the rentals of bankrupt estates. ["Hear, hear."] This state of things is clearly not in the public interest—[Nationalist cheers]—and much will be gained in every way if sales of holdings on these estates can be effected under the Land Purchase Acts at prices which are reasonable, having regard to all the circumstances of the case. Under present arrangements I see no prospect of this being brought about. It is not to the interest of the Receivers who are appointed by the Court to pro-mote sales. [Nationalist cheers.] What, then, do we propose? We propose briefly this—that where an absolute order for the sale of an estate has been made, and either a Receiver has been appointed, or the estate is so circumstanced that it would in any case be sold without the consent of the owner, it is to be the duty of the Land Commission, at the request of the Land Judge, to report as to the price at which, and the conditions on which, the estate might properly be offered for sale. The Land Judge, after considering this report and giving an opportunity to all parties interested to be heard, is to make an offer to the tenants. We have added a provision that if the tenants to the extent of three fourths in number and in valuation of holdings accept the offer, the Land Judge may, if he thinks it expedient, declare the remainder to be purchasers under the Act. It will be seen that we have modelled our proposals on the sale clauses of the Irish Church Act of 1869 rather than on the Bright clauses of the Act of 1870. The Bright clauses have proved a failure, whereas the Report of the Church Commissioners issued in 1876, conclusively shows the success which had attended their plan. They point out that the secret of that success was, first, the advantageous terms which were offered to the tenants, and, secondly, the fact that the farmers themselves were relieved from taking the initiative in the negotiations for the purchase of their farms. In short, the Church Commissioners acted as administrators in their dealings with their tenants, and, therefore, they succeeded, while the Land Judges' Court has from first to last acted as a Court, and consequently has failed. Some idea seems to have got abroad that the Government intended to deal with encumbered estates, and the landlords have jumped to the conclusion that our intention was to sacrifice the estates by making a forced sale to the tenants at any price the tenants thought fit to give. That is not our intention. [A laugh.] We have taken every precaution—[Irish ironical cheers]—that all interests shall be consulted. In order to show how groundless the fears of the landlords in this respect are, I would again refer to the Report of the Church Commissioners for the whole period of their administration from 1869 to 1880. It appears that the total number of purchasing tenants was 6,057, the annual value of the holdings sold to tenants was £73,759, the purchase money was £1,674,841, the average years' purchase under this system which we now propose to adopt was no less than 22⅔, and the average price realised by the Church Commissioners by sale afterwards was about 22⅓. I am perfectly willing to state that there is no clause in the whole Bill on which I build higher hopes than this clause. I have now only to trouble the House on one more topic—that of the evicted tenants. We have already made it clear we will not consent to the expenditure of public funds in order to help the evicted tenants to stock their farms and pay up their arrears. So far as money is required for that purpose we think it ought to be provided from private sources, and I for one would be very glad to see it provided; but I intimated in the course of the Debate on the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Waterford that we were prepared once more to re-enact the 13th Clause of the Act of 1891, and also to empower the Land Commissioners to act as mediators between the parties. We propose the 13th Clause should be re-enacted for a further period of twelve months, and in connection with this I may mention that under the re-enactment of the 13th Clause at the end of the last Session of Parliament there have been 104 applications to purchase, and that, so far, none of those applications have been refused. The powers of the Land Commissioners to act as mediators are to be exercised either on the application of both parties or on the application of one party with the tacit consent of the other; and when these conditions have been fulfilled the Land Commissioners are empowered to ascertain and inform the parties what, in their judgment, would be a fair rent in the case of re-instatement, or what advance they would be prepared to make in case of purchase. I hope and think the question is settling itself, but if we can quicken the settlement, so much the better. Now, Sir, my task is ended. It only remains that I should thank the House for the patient attention with which they have listened—[cheers]—to what has been a long and, I fear, inevitably a tedious statement of so technical a subject matter. I have no doubt that this Bill will be criticised, and severely criticised by hon. Members representing Ireland on the Benches opposite. The fate of the Bill or, at all events, the fate of the Bill as it stands, having regard to the state of public business in this House— [Irish ironical cheers]—will lie entirely in their hands—[laughter]—and I would like to remind them, howeer, that this Bill will probably be criticised no less severely by the friends of the landlords both in this House and in another place—[cries of "What for?"]—and that although it may not give to hon. Members opposite all that they ask for, still it does confer boons of substantial value on the tenants of Ireland. To the House at large I would commend the Bill as being, on the whole, a fair and beneficial Measure for both parties, and as being, at all events, an honest endeavour to do what it sets out to do—[cries of" Oh!"]—namely, to amend the defects which experience has brought to light in the working of the Act of 1881, to cheapen and simplify the procedure under that Act, and last, but not least, to promote and facilitate the gradual substitution of peasant proprietary for dual ownership, which appears to be the one great object of public policy in connection with the Land Acts on which all parties in this House are agreed. [Cheers.]

It is in no conventional sense that I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon the patience, the skill, the clearness, and the ardent candour and sincerity with which he has laid these very important, almost, I may say, momentous, proposals before the House. I had to travel last year, in the Measure to which he has so often referred, over only a portion of the same ground, and therefore I am well able to judge of the skill that has been required to enable him to cover his much larger area of ground with so much success, and to travel through most intricate and complex matters in a way in which, on the whole, we were able to comprehend what the purport of the Bill was likely to be. At the same time, of course, it would be most irrational for any one, without seeing these proposals in the Bill, to say how many we should approve of and how many we should dissent from and why we dissent. ["Hear, hear!"] At this point I am afraid that congratulations must end and disappointment begin, because the right hon. Gentleman in his closing sentences referred to the state of business as to the future prospects of this Bill this Session. What does the Bill do? It is not like the Bill of last year, which only attempted to deal with one particular section of a large subject, and yet I was warned by the present Leader of the House and taunted with overlooking English agriculture; and he prophesied that June, July, and August would be passed in the arid discussion—those were his words—of the everlasting claims of the Gentlemen below the Gangway. But our Bill last year was a trifle compared to this Bill. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has placed his speech broadly, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Louth when he impatiently ejaculated "Why?" after the remark of the right hon. Gentleman that he was afraid the House would be wearied of the subject. We have a right to say "Why?" too. You insist upon governing Ireland—[Irish cheers]—and in making all these arrangements for Ireland. I agree that the Bill to a considerable extent concerns the British taxpayer. Nevertheless, by bringing in a Bill of this scope and magnitude the right hon. Gentleman admits that the whole of this great Irish land problem needs consideration by Parliament in the fixing of Fair Rents, in the department of Land Purchase, in the Congested Districts Board, in the problem of the Evicted Tenants, and in the reorganisation of the Land Department. Here are five or six ample topics, every one demanding the attention of the House. I say it does not depend on the Gentlemen below the Gangway whether this Bill, in any of its larger and more organic portions, shall make its way through this House in time to go to the other House. [Irish cheers.] If it is to make its way then it will have to be put before the Education Bill—["hear, hear!"]because no one who knows anything of our procedure can suppose that we shall not have a very long Committee stage on the Education Bill. [Cheers.] After the Second Reading of the Land Bill we shall have the Committee stage on a Bill covering so many topics, and away will go all those visions of the House rising at the beginning or middle of August. The right hon. Gentleman asked last year why I did not bring in a small Bill which would pass with comparative rapidity. Does anyone suppose that this Bill will pass with comparative rapidity? The right hon. Gentleman dealt for the last half-hour with the most serious interests of the landlords, and therefore every one of those financial details which he explained so clearly will deserve consideration. Unless we are to have an enormously prolonged Session, four-fifths of the contents of the Bill, which he has so industriously and to his honour prepared, will have to be thrown overboard. The right hon. Gentleman left off with the evicted tenants, and the proposals he makes were in our Bill of last year.

Not quite the same.

No. I am sure that those who advised him were acute enough to alter a comma here and there. [Laughter.] Yet my proposals met with determined opposition from learned and hon. Gentlemen opposite. Amendments were proposed; and now the learned Gentleman sits opposite, as if nothing had happened, and is a party to a Bill which brings in nearly all the important proposals in our Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] As to the Member for the University of Dublin, I may remind him that we had a Committee last year, and the minority brought forward a Report of their own, and walked out, leaving us, not entirely to our disadvantage, to go on with our Report. The one recommendation of those three Gentlemen who are now sitting on the Bench as Her Majesty's Ministers, and who are parties to this Bill was, after 30 sittings, that the status of the judicial tenants should be properly and authentically defined. [Laughter.] Those three Gentlemen have travelled a very long way since those days. [Laughter and cheers.] Yet, I dare say, some of them still talk of the political profligacy of the Home Rule Party; but we need not look to that Party for something which deserves to be called by a not much milder name than that. ["Hear, hear!"] Then there is the hon. Gentleman whom I will still call by the old familiar designation of the Member for South Tyrone. I am bound to say that this Bill covers most of the demands—though not quite all—of that hon. Gentleman. There are some points which I believe that at the time of the Committee he considered important, which I did not gather from the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman to be included in the Bill; but, still, I freely admit that the Secretary to the Local Government Board has not much to reproach himself with. It would be cruelty to go at this time through all the provisions of the Bill; but I would say generally—and I hope it is not over-complacent—that so far as the fair-rent portion of the Bill is concerned—which is by far the most important portion of it, and which most interests the population of Ireland, and not least, but perhaps most, the population of your own favourite province of Ulster—it is taken, as the right hon. Gentleman very candidly admitted, from the Bill I had the honour to introduce last year. As for the other parts of the fair-rent department of this Bill, which were not included in the Bill of last year, I will very cheerfully make the right hon. Gentleman a present of the copyright of them, because I do not conceive that they are in any sense improvements—but rather the reverse—upon the proposals which were made last year. One of the most important points of all, undoubtedly, was and is the question of procedure. Every one that has considered the Irish land question and the operation of the Land Courts, must feel that there can be no object which a Statesman ought to have more at heart than the simplification and cheapening of that procedure. I ventured last year to explain to the House a plan which had been suggested to me for an automatic readjustment of rents. But I told the House candidly that I did not believe it would work. The right hon. Gentleman has expounded a scheme very complex in itself, which is to come into operation upon detailed individual applications, not by any automatic process at all, but according to the judgment and discretion of the Land Commission. I think that plan is even more unworkable than the scheme for which I was responsible last year. Then, so far as I could understand, the proposal of the Bill in regard to procedure in ordinary cases is exactly the same as that which I myself explained last year to the House. But, as I have said, I believe the elaborate so-called automatic procedure described by the right hon. Gentleman will prove unworkable, and that you will have to fall back upon the scheme which I proposed last year, and which, I gather, the right hon. Gentleman himself regards favourably. There are two great branches of the fair-rent question—the question of exclusion and the question of the tenants' improvements. So far as I understand, the question of exclusion—that is to say the exclusion of holdings the tenants of which were not allowed under the Act of 1881 to have fair rents fixed—is to be largely modified by the Bill, and modified in the main as we proposed to do it last year. In regard to the legal status of the tenant, sub-letting, the middleman's interest and the redemption of rent, there is no difference of opinion between us. As to the question of turbary, I do not think that the extra qualification by which the right hon. Gentleman has guarded it is an improvement. Indeed, I think it is the reverse. Then as to arrears, we know the mischief that has been done in Ireland in the past and is done every day now by allowing great masses of arrears to accumulate. I regret that he has not accepted that proposal. What I understood his alternative proposal to mean is this—that the tenant is able to buy himself in by paying two years' arrears; but I did not understand that he was to have a clean receipt. If he does not provide that, the right hon. Gentleman is simply playing with the subject. My object was this—and I believe it is the object of all those, whether landlord or tenant, who know Ireland and who are impartial—that these tenants should have the millstone of arrears removed from their necks. I do not think that this provision will have that effect; and, if not, the right hon. Gentleman might just as well leave it out of the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] As to the landlord's right of pre-emption, we proposed to abolish that last year, and the right hon. Gentleman insists upon retaining it. I am quite familiar with, and recognise the force, of all the points which the right hon. Gentleman made as to the paradox—if you like to call it so—of forbidding competitive rent, and allowing competitive prices for the tenant-right. But it is not the only paradox in Ireland. [Laughter and "Hear, hear!" from the FIRST LORD of the TREASURY.] I wish it were. [Laughter.] But I call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to two facts. The first is that in Ulster the landlord's right of pre-emption does not exist; and the second is that in the rest of Ireland, where the right does exist, it has hardly in a single case been resorted to or relied upon. I think that decision is a serious error; and it will be felt as an error in Ulster, because there are estates there where the custom does prevail, and where the retention of the landlord's right of pre-emption will not smooth the reception of this Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] If the tenant has an interest called tenant-right, why on earth should he not sell it for the best price he can obtain? I regret that the Ulster custom is not to be presumed. I know that it is very difficult to define it; that if you attempt definition you will probably have to take it on its narrowest footing; and that if you did that it would not have a satisfactory effect on the Irish Land question. As to town parks I am not sure that I clearly gathered what are the provisions of the Bill. Is the population limit retained in the definition of a town?

There is no population limit.

Then I am bound to say that I think that an improvement. We had a population limit in our Bill, but I indicated that if I had to bring in a new clause I would provide that wherever within the prescribed zone a holding was occupied with the bonâ fide intention of making a profit by farming the tenant might claim to have a fair rent fixed.

That is practically the provision of the Bill.

I am glad to hear it; but, of course, I doubt the word "practically" in dealing with Irish Land Bills. [Laughter.] It is these "virtual" and "practical" intentions of Ministers which leads to disasters like "Adams v. Dunseath." I hope the intention will be expressed verbally and legally; but I have never understood why the landlords have made such a case of this whole question of town parks. What is there to hinder a landlord within the zone from insisting that every one of those tenants shall hold as annual tenants? As to sub-letting, though there is a great deal to be said on details, and though Amendments in abundance are likely to be moved in Committee, I think that on the whole the right hon. Gentleman, who has followed in the main the clause of last year, has fairly met the difficulty. I do not know whether it is satisfactory that he should define a "substantial portion" of the holding as seven eighths; but that is a detail. As to improvements, there are, as the right hon. Gentleman says, two questions to be answered. What are improvements? And upon principle are you going to exempt classes of improvements from having a rent fixed upon them? The right hon. Gentleman went into that most thorny and difficult subject, and even he, with his metaphysical and philosophical aptitudes, must have found perplexing the problem of increased letting value. Practically it is a considerable improvement; I admit; but you will never get to the points of real importance by going into these quasi- metaphysical discussions. The right hon. Gentleman fairly quoted against the Bill of last year the speech made by Lord Herschell in 1883. I was thoroughly familiar with those points; but Lord Herschell, as a member of the Cabinet, was as responsible as I was for the Bill of 1895; and therefore the right hon. Gentleman pays no compliment to Lord Herschell's astute and accomplished mind if he does not discern that Lord Herschell detected no discrepancy between the propositions which he advanced in 1883 and our Bill of 1895. There is no irreconcilable antagonism between the position taken up by an authority which the right hon. Gentleman rightly rates so high and the position taken up in the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman taxes me with being what I have too little pretensions to be—a logician; and he said that if I could show this or that proposition to be the logical development of certain other propositions I was content. That is not so. I have been 13 years in this House, and I have become tolerably indifferent to logical developments. [Laughter.] But it is upon practical observation of the fact of which we have to deal that I have come to the opinions on increased letting value in last year's Bill, and from that, after all, the right hon. Gentleman himself does not largely dissent in principle. As I understand, the right hon. Gentleman's Bill upon this vexed and difficult point is to embody the suggestions of Lord Justice Fitz-Gibbon, made in his evidence before our Committee. Now, Lord Justice Fitz-Gibbon said that when the Land Commissioners fixed the rent they looked, amongst other things, at the tenant's improvements, they found out what addition those improvements made to the letting value of the land, how much was entirely due to the expenditure of time, labour, and so forth by the tenant, they put a certain exemption of rent upon that, and then there was an apportionment by the Commissioners of the margin of the increased letting value over the portion so far allowed for and yet still remaining. That principle of increased letting value found its way, as clearly as words could do, into our Bill of last year, and I understand from the right hon. Gentleman his Bill is to embody it too. That is a very remarkable advance, and, though we shall have to watch very carefully the interpretation put upon that principle and the way in which the principle is to be carried out in valuation, still it is a great thing to have got a Conservative Government to have made this advance. On another point I thought it was agreed last year that an abridgement of the statutory term was indispensable. Now, the Cowper Commission recommended an abridgement of the statutory term, and the right hon. Gentleman himself gave away his case, in fact, for maintaining the term at 15 years when he allowed that rents fixed in the earlier of the 15 years' statutory term now expiring were excessive rents.

No. To say that those rents have been reduced is not equivalent to saying that the term ought to be shortened, unless the right hon. Gentleman means to imply that whenever a particular bargain or contract turns out in favour of one party it ought in the interests of the other party to be revised.

The right hon. Gentleman was very emphatic. He said that these judicial rents are statutory contracts. Yes; but what became of the statutory contracts of 1887, 1888, and 1889? For three years you entirely suspended your statutory contracts. Apart from that, what is the right hon. Gentleman's position? His position is this—I agree, he says, that the rents fixed in the earlier years were too high; nevertheless, a contract is a contract.

No, Sir; not were too high, but ought to be reduced if revised now.

I see the right hon. Gentleman's distinction. They must have been too high or else they would not have been reduced in 1887, 1888, and 1889. I traverse entirely what the right hon. Gentleman is assuming now, that though rents might happen to be too high for the agricultural circumstances of 1887, 1888, and 1889, and though they might be too high for the agricultural circumstances of to-day, yet you ought not to break a statutory contract. I say you reduced rents in those three years because they were too high, and therefore you admit in full the principle which we thought on the Committee and which I thought in framing the Bill of last year

Not on the Committee.

I beg pardon. I am wrong about the Committee, but there can be no logical consistency in refusing to allow rents to have the benefit of revision now if you admit that in 1887, 1888, and 1889 they ought to have been revised. The altering of the purchase provisions is a serious affair, and there was something fratricidal in the operation which the right hon. Gentleman performed. [Laughter.] When the Leader of the House brought in his Bill in 1890, and which became law in 1891, I am sure he has not forgotten that we, sitting on this side of the House, then as now, warned him that the device of the tenants' insurance fund would prove a complete barrier to anything like an extensive set of operations under the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] The Chief Secretary now admits that, and I understand the tenants' insurance fund is to go. The landlord's guarantee deposit of one-fifth is to go; and, thirdly, the landlord is to have cash instead of stock. Those are financial operations which will need very careful observation. The term for repayment also is to be extended from the present period of 49 years to something over 69 years, perhaps over 70 years. The British taxpayer insists upon governing Ireland, and he must look out for himself; but I think he will be told that his security is not exactly improved by these operations. Take one point only—the extension of time. I think one may feel that if one's security is to be improved for the better the end is scarcely attained by giving about 45 per cent more time in which to pay the debt off. The guarantee deposit of the landlord was a very considerable security and safeguard. The tenants' insurance fund I always thought a very ingenious but useless device. All these matters will come up for abundant and copious consideration. I am greatly pleased with some portions of the Bill — those portions which were in our Bill of last year. [Laughter.] Other portions of the Bill are disappointing. Some of the methods of dealing with points we attempted to deal with are also disappointing, and I cannot prophesy for the fight hon. Gentleman anything like a smooth passage for his Measure. I suspect we shall find at the end of the Session that we shall have a fair-rent proposal possibly passed through this House in a largely improved form, and all the rest of the Bill will be left, like many scores of other proposals for the good of Ireland, to such time as this Parliament has spare time to deal with them. ["Hear, hear!"]

remarked that the English Parliament had been engaged now for 96 years in the attempt to legislate upon the subject of Irish land. It was a very significant, striking, and instructive fact that at the end of this period the House should have to listen to the longest, most complicated, and most difficult to follow of all the speeches ever delivered in connection with Irish land. What had become of all the statements made in the speeches of Unionists, including the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who, in December, 1894, had addressed a manifesto to The Times? The best proof that this Parliament was not capable of legislating for Ireland and removing grievances in connection with the land was to be found in the speech of the Chief Secretary. If this question had been dealt with at any time this last half century by the Irish Members in Committee upstairs, if not in Ireland itself, it would have been settled as peaceably and set as much to rest—[ironical laughter]— as the English land question had been. A sinister observation fell from the right hon. Gentleman at the close of his speech. He spoke about the condition of public business, indicating that it was doubtful whether this Bill would be allowed to pass into law. Did the right hon. Gentleman mean to use that as a threat to the Irish Benches, and that it would depend upon them whether the Bill passed? Was that a fair observation to come from a Minister with a majority of 150 behind him? In reply to that obser- vation he said that it would be the duty of the Irish Members to attempt to improve the Bill in some important particulars. But why ought there to be this danger as to the future progress of this Bill? He could conceive of no reason except that it was to be put behind the enormous and complicated Education Bill. While the Irish Members were determined to claim justice for the Roman Catholics in respect of that Bill, he said that it would yet be their duty to protest against the action of the Government if they proposed to postpone the Committee stage of the Land Bill until after the Committee stage of the Education Bill had been brought to a close. The Committee stage of the Education Bill was likely to take up considerable time if an attempt was to be made to pass it in its present form. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman would cause great disappointment in Ireland. The Land Acts Committee said in their Report that the evidence brought before them as to prices and the cost of production proved that the rents fixed between 1881 and 1885 had been since 1886, and were at the present time, materially excessive; and they added that the statement was applicable in a still higher degree to the agreements made before 1886. In that paragraph to which the hon. Member for South Tyrone was a party, it was placed on record that a body of tenants, numbering he should say, upwards of 200,000, had been paying excessive rents ever since 1886. Yet this Bill, which was supposed to settle the land question, offered no remedy whatever to those tenants. The right hon. Gentleman, using a singular expression, had said that this Parliament would deal with the position of the Irish tenants so far as was consistent with justice and expediency. What did the right hon. Gentleman mean by this use of the term "expediency"? The Dublin Daily Express had warned the right hon. Gentleman that, if he listened to the proposals of the right hon. Member for Montrose Burghs and his Nationalist allies, he would alienate the support of every Loyalist in Ireland. He supposed that was what the right hon. Gentleman had in his mind when he determined to qualify justice by expediency. To judicial tenants who were over rented this Bill offered no relief. It did not shorten the judicial term and it did not break the judicial contract, which was not a real contract, but an obligation enforced by the State upon the tenant, who was entitled to ask the State to relieve him from it. The second main point in considering the question of fair rents was the question of improvements, and while the right hon. Gentleman on that question had made some slight concession and advance in the direction of the recommendations of the Land Acts Committee, he had only gone a very short way. No doubt the proposal in the Bill was an improvement on the present condition of things, but only a very limited improvement. It certainly would not settle the question, for as long as Irish tenants were compelled to pay rent in respect of the value they had added to their holdings by their labour, they would never rest contented. He was perfectly convinced that the day would come when the provision in Mr. Parnell's Bill of 1883, which was one more proof of the great foresight of Mr. Parnell, would become recognised as the law of the land. It was said that it would produce a prairie value in Ireland. Was the right hon. Gentleman aware that when this question of prairie value was raised before the Land Acts Committee, one of those learned in the law who were engaged in the administration of the Land Acts— Mr. Doyle—stated in evidence that in his opinion if a prairie value were introduced into Ireland it would raise the rents of the landlords. In the paragraph of the Report of the Committee which dealt with this question it was strongly recommended that the full added letting value due to the work of the tenant should go to the tenant, on the ground that owing to the condition of the law and the established practice of Irish landlords no improvement would be made in the country except by the tenant. If a landlord who had land of an inherent capacity which would return a fair interest for the labour and capital laid out on it, deliberately abstained from laying out his labour and capital, he had no moral right to come down on the tenant who did risk his labour and capital and take away the benefit of it from him. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to make one alteration in procedure, which he confessed he thought a great improvement, in the shape of a report to be made by the sub-commissioner or valuer, in which he was to set forth what would be the fair letting value of the farm between man and man and from that he was to deduct the allowance made in respect of improvements, but in connection with this matter there was one all important question which the right hon. Gentleman had not touched. The right hon. Gentleman did not give the House the principle on which these deductions were to be made. They must fix upon some principle of valuation of improvements if they desired to make the Measure in any degree a satisfactory one. There were only two ways by which valuation could be arrived at—either they must look to the value of the improvement as it stood, or else they must look at the amount of the cost of the improvement. In the case of thousands of farms, if the tenant were to receive anything like 3 per cent. interest upon his outlay not only would the whole of the rent disappear, but the landlord would be found to be indebted to his tenant. The Land Acts Committee in their Report had said that it was of great and urgent importance that the law with regard to the tenant's right to improvements should be made clear, because agricultural improvements were of the utmost consequence to the country. It was not only in the interests of the tenants alone, but also in the interests of the landlords that the tenants should be encouraged to invest their capital in the land, and that they should be secured the value of their capital and of their labour. The Report further said that it often happened that the cost of improvements was not repaid by the result. Indeed, those who were well acquainted with Ireland knew that such was often the case. The fact that when an improvement turned out successful the landlord could claim an increased rent as a consequence of the improvement was not encouraging to the tenant to invest his capital in the land, but the reverse. It sometimes happened that by a stroke of good luck an improvement brought in a return of from 10 to 15 per cent., and sometimes it happened that the investment turned out to be a dead loss. Was it to be said that in the former case the landlord was entitled to share in his tenant's good luck, but he was not to bear his share of his ill fortune. Was such a proposition just, or was it calculated to encourage the tenant in his industry. He said on the contrary, that, to adopt such a principle would be to penalise industry amongst Irish tenants and to prevent them from investing their capital and labour in the land. Up to now the Irish tenants had been absolutely deprived of all the advantages that had resulted from their outlay. It was in the interests of the tenants and of the country, and it certainly was not against the interests of the landlords, that the former should be secured the fruits of their investment of capital. There was another question of very great importance to which he desired to draw the attention of the House, and that related to the subject of the presumption with regard to who had effected the improvements. He must say that upon this point the Measure would be received with great disappointment in Ireland. He knew that tens of thousands of pounds had been invested by the Irish tenants in their land without their having any record of the fact, and by all principles of moral law the value of those improvements ought to be vested in the tenants. They were, however, told that the onus of proving that they had effected improvements ought to be thrown upon the tenants. Commission after commission had recommended that all improvements should be treated prima facie as though they were the tenants, improvements. The Commission of 1843, which certainly was not a tenants' commission, it being representative of the landlords' interests, had reported that the improvements in Ireland of that day were the work of the tenants and not of the landlords. In that case he asked why the tenants should not have right of presumption. The rich landlords would in all probability have kept a record of their expenditure upon improvements if they had made any, whereas the poor tenants would be most unlikely to have kept such a record. The landlord would of necessity be fat more capable of proving his case, therefore the presumption ought to be unlimited in favour of the tenant. It was notoriously the fact, and had been stated by Earl Cowper in the House of Lords, that improvements in Ireland were, and always had been, made by the tenants, and not by the landlords. Why then should not the poor tenants in Ireland have the benefit of the doubt in this matter. With regard to the Ulster tenants, very strong feeling existed in Ulster. They had been informed by the Commissioners who had administered the Act in Ulster, that in Ulster, practically speaking, the Ulster tenant was compelled to prove that he held under the custom. He did not propose to go at any length into the details of the other provisions of the Hill, which, of course, would be discussed in Committee. It would be impossible, after listening to so lengthy a speech, and before they had read the Bill carefully, to say whether certain exclusions were satisfactory. There was one point, however, in regard to which the right hon. Gentleman's statement was very unsatisfactory, and that was the question of town parks. He did not understand why they should be excluded from the operation of the Act. The Cowper Commission recommended that no question of town parks should be allowed to arise in respect of a town of less than 30,000 inhabitants; then in 1887 the Tory Government proposed a limit of 2,000 inhabitants, and now the right hon. Gentleman, as far as he could understand, proposed to make it lower still. Of course they all knew that there was a provision in the Bill giving to the landlord ample power to resume the town parks if they were required for an extension.

Not for accommodation?

said, in the whole of Ireland there was no land which had been so immensely improved at the expense of the occupiers as had town parks. He did not see why these occupiers should not be entitled to enjoy the same protection as the country farmers, always reserving to the landlord the increased rent he was entitled to ask on account of the proximity to the town. There never had been in the world any set of towns so barbarously treated as the Irish towns had been by the Irish landlords. The idea that they should have the power of resuming the town parks for the benefit of the town people, and not for their own benefit was the greatest hypocrisy. With regard to the changes in procedure, of most of them he strongly approved; but as they were technical in character he would leave the discussion of them to members of the legal profession. One change set forth was that the value at starting was to be ascertained and improvements allowed for, and what was desirable was that the statement of value should be made evidence in Court. Most of the provisions suggested with regard to purchase would he was sure secure support from all sides. Alluding to the Bill of 1881 the right hon. Gentleman said it was an agrarian revolution; so it was; and it was unfortunate that they could not have justice done without revolution The right hon. Gentleman stated that from 1881 the Unionist Party had had a policy which was the substitution for dual ownership of peasant proprietorship. But he remembered the time when they opposed tooth and nail every proposition of the kind. That principle, when first introduced, was opposed by the Tory Party in every possible way. It was first proposed by that much abused organisation, the Irish National League, The Nationalists had always held that there would never be peace and prosperity in Ireland until landlordism was brought to an end. Therefore they had always supported and would support any well-considered measure of purchase, lie would not go into the details of purchase except in answer to what was said about the estates which were in the Land Judges Court. The people of Ireland were justly discontented with the action of that Court. It had ceased to be a Court to facilitate the sale and transfer of land in Ireland because it had refused to sell estates, and it had become a machinery for the maintenance of the price of land by refusing to allow estates to go on the market. A Court set up for the sale of the estates of bankrupts had become choked and held 1,500 estates with a rental of £600,000, excluding the estates of minors. Why was this? Because at a certain period, in the interests of landowners, the Court refused to sell; it exercised a jurisdiction never contemplated, that of withdrawing estates from compulsory sale if it considered that fair prices were not offered. The judges had delivered orations from the Bench declaring that the prices that were offered they could not accept. He had always advocated that measures should be taken to inaugurate a system of compulsory sale, and he could not share the alarm of the right hon. Gentlemen at the idea of compulsory sales unless it were accompanied by machinery for securing a fair price. The right hon. Gentleman said the Irish Church Commissioners had sold with celerity the farms committed to their care; but so well safe-guarded were the interests of the landlords that the farms were sold at an average of 22 years purchase. It was an outrage to talk of such a price as that now; and if the Government had a plan for selling estates he hoped it would be a popular one.

I said nothing about the prices likely to be paid under this scheme.

continued that the observations of the right hon. Gentleman would be received with alarm, because he quoted the prices obtained, and unless he had some idea of realising them again it was difficult to see the point of his argument, which was apparently that as landlords had previously got 22 years purchase they would again get a high price. Let him consult the unfortunate tenants who had bought, ascertain their view of their position, and see whether it came up to the pictures of the earthly paradise he described. The tenants were in a state of desperation and many of the Irish Members had received petitions to come to their relief. The Chief Secretary stated that the Land Commission was to report to the Judges of the Land Court on what terms they thought these estates should be sold. Seeing how that Commission was composed it could not be expected that Nationalists would have much confidence in it to settle the matter. He did not base his views as to the competence of the Land Commission to fix rents or their right to the confidence of the people on his own opinion, but on that of the Member for South Tyrone. That hon. Member asked anyone who knew anything about Ireland to imagine an Irish tenant standing before such a tribunal. Where was he to look for sympathy? Mr. Justice Bewley he said was an accomplished lawyer, and he impeached neither his rectitude nor ability. Mr. Wrench was simply a land agent. Mr. Fitzgerald's appointment as Chief Commissioner was received in Ulster with dismay. In Armagh and Tyrone, where he was known, the tenants were in revolt against such a man.

"The fact that the Irish landlords, aided by the evil brood of high placed lawyers which infested Dublin Castle, had succeeded in capturing the tenants' seat on the Commission would not be forgotten in Ulster. "

[Nationalist cheers.] The most urgent and pressing question was that of fixing fair rents, they could not have satisfactory purchase until they had disentangled the landlord's property in the soil from the tenant's property, and it was certain that the tenant would not be compelled to buy back his own improvements as well as the landlord's interest. The first thing necessary to promote purchase under a satisfactory and just basis was to fix a fair rent in a satisfactory way. In his opinion the Bill fell short of giving them a promise that this would be done. As to the guarantee deposit, the tenant's interest being fully half of the value of the holding, the State ran no risk in advancing the full price of the landlord's interest, because the tenant's interest would secure payment. He regretted that the Bill did not do more for the evicted tenants, and that the Chief Secretary had not made up his mind to give a moderate sum of money to make a really effective settlement. The Chief Secretary refused assistance to the evicted tenants out of the Irish Church funds, whilst in the same breath he practically offered the landlords a considerable sum of money out of the same funds. He regretted the right hon. Gentleman had not made an effort to settle the question of the evicted tenants in a satisfactory manner, and expressed the hope that the Government would give the Bill a fair chance of passing into law and the Irish Members an equal chance of proposing Amendments. ["Hear, hear!"]

hoped that hon. Members would now allow the present stage of the Bill to be taken. The Chief Secretary had given a clear exposition of the Measure, but owing to its necessarily complicated character it was absolutely impossible for hon. Members to understand the whole bearing of the proposals until they had the print before them. ["Hear, hear!"] Bill to further amend the Law relating to the Occupation and Ownership of Land in Ireland, and for other purposes relating thereto, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gerald Balfour, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland; presented accordingly, and read 1° to be read 2° upon Monday, 22nd April, and to be printed. —[Bill 177.]

asked if it was intended to make effective progress with the Bill on the 22nd.

was afraid he could not hold out any hope that the Bill would be effectively proceeded with on the 22nd, nor could he fix any time just now at which it would be taken.