formally seconded the Motion.

, who was received with Ministerial cheers, said it was little short of lamentable, on an evening when there was a Measure of first-class importance, with which all sections of the House were anxious to make reasonable and substantial progress, that they should have the time of the House practically squandered with the discussion of a small matter of this sort. [Mr. MUNRO FERGUSON: "Oh, oh!" and Ministerial cheers.] The character of the Motion of the hon. Member for Leith was such that he might almost call it a misuse of the forms of the House. ["Hear, hear!"] This Bill had been before the Committee upstairs for 12 days, and had undergone the most careful and ample investigation; and the House was now asked, on a single point which had received the closest examination, to reverse the decision of the Committee, and thus stultify their action. Was the House going to stultify its own forms of procedure by reversing a decision arrived at by one of its own Committees after ample and sufficient investigation? The city of Edinburgh had promoted this Bill to extend its frontiers—first by the absorption of Leith, and secondly by the unification of its own parishes, parts of which had hitherto been within the limits of the county. In the first object Edinburgh had failed, and he would not say whether Leith had merely been struggling against what was ultimately inevitable; but in the second object Edinburgh had succeeded, and yet it was now proposed to detach from the parish an area of 124 acres, because in a remote corner of that area Leith had built or was about to build an hospital. That was no cogent argument, for Edinburgh possessed an hospital within the boundaries of the parish of Leith, and another at Colington, which was in the county of Midlothian; and yet it had never been proposed by Edinburgh to annex these areas simply because they had hospitals there. Leith, indeed, had no locus standi. The parties were the city of Edinburgh, the county of Midlothian, and the ratepayers, who were practically unanimous in desiring to get this Bill as it left the Committee. The truth was that this was an attempt to prove the preamble of a Bill which as yet existed only in the imagination of some people in Leith who desired to extend their own boundaries, and had adopted this expedient as one which might afterwards save them the expense of proving the preamble when the Bill appeared. He hoped that the facts he had stated would be borne out by the hon. Gentleman who presided over the Committee, and that the House would be able to come to a speedy decision.

said that in the Committee Edinburgh had arranged the rating difficulty in connection with the Leith Hospital, and that had removed one objection which he at first entertained to giving this triangular area to Edinburgh. Another objection in Committee was that this seemed to be hemming Leith in on the west. But the consideration of drainage overcame his objection. This ground was feuing land, and ought to cease to belong to a county authority, and become part of an urban authority, either Edinburgh or Leith. Leith had no Bill before them, and there were strong reasons for putting this area into Edinburgh. It was not brought before the Committee that Leith had come to an agreement with the owner of this feuing land to carry the drainage of the district through the Leith drains, as the Member for Leith stated. Leith had chosen to leave its case on that point to the county of Midlothian, and when the county came to an agreement with the city of Edinburgh the county did not carry on the case further. Therefore it was the fault of Leith in joining with the county if its evidence was not heard. This triangular portion would be very advantageous to Edinburgh, enabling it, instead of sending its drainage into Leith sewers, to conduct its drainage down to within 400 yards of the sea, and thence out into the middle of the Firth. That was one reason for giving that area to Edinburgh; and another was that the inhabitants in and around that area were shown to be in favour of amalgamation with Edinburgh. On all these considerations he thought the House would see that the Committee had acted rightly in this matter.

said he was a member of the Committee who considerd this Bill, and to his mind there were overwhelming considerations why this area should be excluded from the Edinburgh Extension. For a long time there had been antagonism between Leith and Edinburgh, and the authorities of the latter had declared again and again that they would either absorb Leith or hem it in on every side, so as hereafter to force Leith to come within the Edinburgh boundary. The Committee had safeguarded Leith on the east, but on the question of this particular area, it was only by the casting vote of the Chairman that it was given to Edinburgh. On that land Leith had built its hospital, and under the Public Health (Scotland) Act of 1890 it was laid down that the hospital, for public health purposes, was part of Leith. If that land was included in the city of Edinburgh, the result would be that the portion on which the hospital stood, and the hospital itself, would be for public health purposes in Leith, and for other purposes it would be in Edinburgh. There would thus be two jurisdictions, which would be a most inconvenient arrangement. The House had a strong precedent for adopting the course proposed by the Member for Leith, in the case of the attempts made by Glasgow to incorporate Govan.

said that, as Chairman of the Committee, he wished the House to understand that this area was a portion of the landward part of the parish of Edinburgh. The whole of the landward parts of the parish had, by agreement with the county, now been absorbed in the city of Edinburgh, and when they came to deal with this particular portion the Committee had these considerations before them. At present the county had no sanitary or building regulations, and no power to make them. They had also the fact that this land was at present being devoted to feuing and building, and, therefore, if it were built upon, a nuisance might be created in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh if houses were improperly built, or no proper sanitary regulations were made. Another fact should also weigh with the House, and that was that the western portion of the burgh of Leith was favourable to incorporation with Edinburgh. Indeed, at a recent municipal election in Leith, the candidate opposed to amalgamation was defeated. The only question, therefore, was whether there were any circumstances which should prevent them assenting to an arrangement made between Edinburgh and the county of Midlothian, which was perfectly satisfactory to those parties, because of some prospective interest the burgh of Leith might have in this property. All the circumstances were thoroughly gone into by the Committee. His opinion was very strongly in favour of the decision of the Committee, and he hoped the House would support that decision.

said he wished in a few words to give expression to the feeling of Edinburgh in the matter. The hon. Member for Leith had spoken very strongly on the other side of the question, and he must say that he was surprised that a gentleman of the hon. Member's traditions should undertake, upon such slight grounds, to oppose what was the general rule of the House—that a vote of a Select Committee should be accepted by the House. ["Hear, hear!"] And he ventured to put forward that general principle as one of the strong prevailing reasons why the House should reject the proposal made by his hon. Friend. Further than that, great weight ought to be attached by the House to the general consensus of opinion in Edinburgh in favour of the proposed extension. One hon. Member who opposed it had mentioned that 70,000 people—the population of Leith—were opposed to it; but on the other hand there were 270,000 persons in Edinburgh who were in favour of it. ["Hear, hear!"] Surely, that fact ought to be taken into account. He was satisfied that there was no injustice whatever involved in the desire by Edinburgh to acquire the extension in question. All that Edinburgh was asking for was that with the extension of its boundaries should go the power over its own water supply. For him that was a very important consideration, and he would point out further that there was no diversity of opinion whatever among the representatives of Edinburgh on both sides of the House on the matter. Under those circumstances he confidently appealed to the House to follow the general rule and affirm the decision of the Select Committee. [Hear, hear!"]

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, in view of the facts that the Commissioners to administer the £250,000 granted by Parliament out of the surplus of the Irish Church Fund for the building of piers and harbours in Ireland recommended a free grant of £10,000, or thereabouts, for the improvement of Greystones, that the expenditure has been more than double this sum, and that an additional amount has been provided for by a free grant, will he explain from what fund the extra grant was provided; were the Commissioners appointed under the Act, or the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries consulted as to such additional grant; what was the original estimate of the Board of Works, and how was the amount proposed to be provided when the work was sanctioned by the Treasury; what is the actual amount expended on it up to the present, and how has this money been provided, and under what authority; and, why have the Kinsale Harbour authorities been differently treated by the Government?

The original grant was of £8,500 from the Sea Fisheries Fund. The extra grants, which were mainly due to the construction of the North Groyne, were provided from the same fund. Those extra grants were not sanctioned until the Piers and Harbours Commission had ceased to exist, so it was impossible for them to make recommendations on the subject. The Fishery Inspectors did not recommend the construction of the North Groyne; but the Treasury, with the concurrence of the Irish Government, decided that it must be built for engineering reasons, in order to save the existing works from being destroyed by the movement of the shingle, that movement having been dangerously accelerated by the removal of the railway after the original works had been constructed. The original estimate was £10,000, and was provided for by the £8,500 grant, together with £1,000 loan and £500 local contribution. The actual amount expended up to date has been £20,649, of which all except the local provision of £1,500 has been provided by free grant out of the Sea Fisheries Fund. I can trace Treasury authority for the whole amount of the free grants, except about £680, as to which I am making inquiry. The circumstances of Kinsale and Greystones are not, of course, identical; but apart from that, I have already explained to the hon. Member that the apparent absence of any bona fide desire on the part of the Kinsale Harbour and Town Commissioners to meet their obligations has rendered it difficult for the Treasury to consider further concessions; but that if they should make any real effort to meet their obligations to the Government, the Government, would on its part be prepared to take the circumstances again into consideration.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether he has received a memorial from the inhabitants of Goodwick, Pembrokeshire, in regard to the alleged powers proposed to be exercised by the Fishguard Bay Railway and Pier Company; and whether he has taken any and what steps, in accordance with the prayer of the memorialists, to preserve to the fishermen and inhabitants generally the existing access to the seashore so necessary for small craft at all states of the tide?

I have received the memorial referred to by the hon. Member. The Fishguard Bay Railway and Pier Company have submitted plans of the works which they propose to construct in Fishguard Bay under their Act of 1893, and I am in communication with the Company with the view of obtaining further information as to their proposals. When the necessary information is received from the Company, the representations contained in the memorial will receive my careful consideration.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether his attention has been drawn to the Reports of Dr. F. J. Waldo, Medical Officer of Health to St. George-the-Martyr, Southwark, which state, among other matters, that, on the occasion of a night visit to the Blackfriars Salvation Army Shelter, the air therein was not only dangerous to health but also to life itself; and, whether the Government will make provision so that Salvation Army and other night refuges of a similar nature be placed within the purview of the Common Lodging Houses Act?

I am aware of the Report of Dr. Waldo with reference to the Blackfriars Salvation Army Shelter. On the night in question, when Dr. Waldo reports that the shelter was overcrowded so as to be dangerous to health and to life itself, there were 1,031 inmates of the shelter. Proceedings in consequence were taken by the vestry of the parish, and an order of prohibition of the overcrowding was made by the magistrate, who considered that 500 should be regarded as the limit of accommodation. Subsequently, an application was made to the High Court with a view to the order of prohibition being quashed. A rule nisi for a certiorari was granted, but after argument the rule was discharged. The decision of the High Court shows that the shelters are subject to the provisions of the Public Health (London) Act as regards overcrowding, and that those provisions can be enforced in the case of a shelter in like manner as in the case of overcrowding in a dwelling-house. The existing law is, therefore, adequate to meet the case of overcrowding in these shelters, and it is not necessary for this purpose that it should be provided by legislation that the shelters shall be common lodging-houses.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, (1) whether he is aware that in 1895 a petition from the 94 inhabitants of Crodromin, Brocklagh, Carrick, Kilmahon, Lettergeeragh, Lettergullon, and Barnagh, in the parish of Drumlish, county Longford, was presented to the Commissioners of National Education, setting forth that in consequence of the number of infant children in these townlands and the distance of the three nearest schools, a new school was urgently required; (2) is he aware that the landlord has given a lease of a plot of ground, and that the inhabitants have collected a considerable quantity of building materials; (3) in view of the fact that the Board's Inspector visited the place and promised the inhabitants that he would recommend the site, will he explain why, in a letter to the parish priest dated 21st June 1895, they refused assent to it, in consequence of which refusal a large lot of poor weak children have to travel five miles a day in going to and returning from school; and (4), will he advise the Board to withdraw their opposition and allow the school to be erected?

The facts are as stated in the first and second paragraphs. The site of the proposed school is not objected to, but it is less than three miles by road from several existing schools, and the Inspector states that the completion of an unfinished road in the locality will materially increase the facilities for reaching the existing schools. Under the Board's rules no grant can be made in respect of a new vested school where the site is within three miles by road of an existing vested school, except under special circumstances. The establishment of the proposed new school would seriously injure the existing schools, and, in the opinion of the Commissioners, the school-going population in the locality would not warrant a grant for the building of an additional school. Should, however, school accommodation for infants be provided either by loan from the Board of Works, or otherwise, the Commissioners would be prepared to consider an application for grants of salary.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, (1) whether complaints have been made to the Board of Education of the system of marking examination sheets adopted by the Board's Inspector of the Cavan No. 23 district; (2) is he aware that this gentleman uses a lead pencil to mark results in the marking paper; and, (3) whether all other school Inspectors are allowed to do similarly?

The reply to the first paragraph is in the negative. The Inspector of the district mentioned in marking the examination sheets does not use a lead pencil, but a blue pencil. The Inspectors are not strictly uniform in the description of the pencil used, and some of them even use ink in marking. No occasion has arisen to call for the interference of the Commissioners.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, how many extra police are in county Clare, and what is their cost; and, whether their number could be reduced?

There are at present in County Clare 143 men of the extra force, whose cost to the county is, approximately, about £5,000 per annum. These men are practically all engaged in affording special protection, and as the necessity for such protection disappears the extra force will be reduced or altogether withdrawn. In this connection, I may add with reference to a statement of the hon. Gentleman in the House on Tuesday last, that when the late Government acceded to office the strength of the extra force in the county was 121 men. The force was increased to 171 men by the late Government in March, 1893, and when it quitted office the number stood at 143, as against 121 when it entered office.

asked whether protection, in the case of a man like Maguire, was afforded by the free force or the paid force of the county, and also how this matter was determined?

said he must ask for notice.

desired to know whether Clare had got its full quota of the free force.

I presume it has, but I will inquire into the matter.

would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he was not aware that a great part of this police force was used for the protection of Maguire, and if his reason for—

Order, order! The Question on the Paper has been fully answered. If the hon. Member wishes to ask another he must give notice.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether he has received the Report of Sir Edward Reed's Manning Committee; and, when it will be laid before Parliament?

I have not yet received the Report of the Departmental Committee on the Manning of British Merchant Ships. When it is received I propose to lay it at once upon the Table of the House.

Would the right hon. Gentleman ask that the evidence should now be circulated? It has been ready for nearly a year.

I think perhaps it would be a pity to circulate the evidence, because I understand the Report will be very shortly ready.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Educa- tion, (1) whether, under Clause 10 of the Education Bill, the powers of management which must be delegated to a local body include the appointment and dismissal of teachers, the determination what shall be the qualifications and number of the staff; (2) what subjects shall be taught, e.g., manual instruction or cooking; (3) whether it will be competent under the Bill for local managers, without the consent of the Education authority, to require teachers to be members of any particular church; (4) whether local managers may require their teachers to give the religious instruction provided for under Clause 27; and (5), how local managers are to be appointed in a school district co-extensive with a parish but not co-extensive with an urban district, and which is not a rural district?

The delegation under Clause 10 of the Bill would be subject to Section 15 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870. This section would enable the education authority to delegate such of their powers as they thought proper, subject to any condition they imposed. The second paragraph calls attention to a case not provided for in the Bill, which will be considered before the clause is reached.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, if he will say whether, under Clause 4 of the Education Bill, the managers of a Voluntary School are or are not at liberty to join or to refuse to join an association without prejudice to their receiving the special aid grant?

I must refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave last Monday to the hon. Member for Monmouth Boroughs (Mr. Spicer).

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, (1) whether any legal proceedings were taken by the Board of Works against the sureties of the original contractor for Kinsale Pier, who failed to carry out his contract; and, if so, whether there was anything realised by such proceedings; was the sum of £2,231 lost by such failure an estimated loss, or a loss made up of several items; and, if the latter, what were the several items of such loss; (2) whether the additional sum of £821 charged for additional works was paid to such original contractor or to the second contractor, and at what stage of the progress of the work were such additional works found to be required and authorised by the Board of Works; (3) what amount had been paid to the original contractor when he retired from the contract, and what the value of the work done by him before such retirement or the cessation of work by him; and, did he throw up the contract and refuse to proceed with it, or retire upon terms allowed by the Board of Works; and, (4) if the latter, what were the terms upon which he was allowed to retire?

The original contract was not secured by sureties but by provision for retentions. There were, therefore, no such proceedings as the hon. Member refers to in the first paragraph. No portion of the payments was retained, as undoubtedly ought to have been done; the figure of £2,231 representing the loss arising from the failure of the original contractor is the difference (after deducting expenditure on extras) between the amount of the original contract, and the ultimate cost of the work done. It is not arrived at by the addition of several items. All the payments for additional work were made to the second contractor. These works were authorised as the necessity of each became apparent during the progress of the second contract. The amount paid the original contractor was £1,115. The value of the work done by him up to the determination of his contract was £1,179. The Board, on the determination of the contract, seized and appropriated to the work plant belonging to the contractor to the value of £919 4s. 11d. The original contractor did not throw up or retire from the contract. The contract was determined by the Board of Works (July 1884) in consequence of his failure to proceed with it through financial difficulties which subsequently resulted in bankruptcy. No terms were allowed him by the Board on the determination of the contract. He subsequently (16th June 1887) pressed for some allowance of the plant seized by the Board, but this was refused.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that letters posted in Belfast on Sunday do not arrive in London before Monday night, although a train leaves Belfast for Dublin at two p.m. on Sundays conveying passengers in time to catch the Sunday night mail boat from Kingstown; and, whether he will consider the desirability of having English letters, posted in Belfast before one o'clock p.m. on Sundays, dispatched by this train to Dublin and thence viâ Kingstown and Holy head to their destination?

It is the fact that letters posted at Belfast on Sunday do not arrive in London until Monday evening. With the view of restricting Sunday labour as far as possible, it is the general practice of the Post Office not to make more than one dispatch on that day. If a departure from the rule were sanctioned at Belfast, no doubt similar applications, which it would be difficult to refuse, would be received from other places. The Postmaster General does not, under the circumstances, consider it desirable to grant the additional dispatch suggested.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Code of Instructions to the National School Teachers of Ireland in relation to the Results Programme, which was promised to be issued by the late Chief Secretary to the end of 1895, has not yet appeared; and, whether he will carry out the promise of the late Chief Secretary before leaving office by issuing these instructions?

The Code of Instruction to Inspectors regarding the Results Programme and examination has already been issued to Head and District Inspectors, and to the Authorities of the Training Colleges for Teachers. The rules, with appendix, of the Commissioners are at present being reprinted, and the instructions are embodied in the appendix.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it is in contemplation to consolidate various Factory and Workshops Acts so as to remedy the confusion and uncertainty arising from their numerous and, in some cases, apparently conflicting provisions?

I am not aware of any conflicting provisions in the Acts, but I agree with the hon. Member in thinking they are so complex that their consolidation is eminently desirable. A Bill for this purpose has already been drafted, and I hope it will be ready for presentation to Parliament by the beginning of another Session.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether, before prosecutions are raised by Factory Inspectors for neglect of sanitary regulations, the attention of the proprietors or managers of factories is first called to the defects, so that they may have an opportunity of remedying them; and, whether, if this is not always done, he will recommend inspectors to give reasonable notice in such cases before entering on prosecutions?

It is the general rule to give ample notice, and to allow full opportunity of remedying defects, before proceedings are taken. The rule, however, does not apply to default in such matters as limewashing, which are required by the Acts to be done annually, and in which the occupiers' duty is definite and well-known.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, how many patients were treated in the County Carlow Infirmary during the last five years, and how many of them were treated on the written order of a governor, as directed by the law which established these institutions?

also asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether, when he stated that 90 per cent. of the patients treated in the County Carlow Infirmary were poor and destitute, he referred only to patients who were actually received into the institution for medical care and treatment, or did he also include those persons who attended at the dispensary in the morning, and who were not actually received into the institution; would he also state whether he included in the 90 per cent, of poor and destitute the domestic and other servants of the local gentry; and, by what authority the governors of the institution use the public funds, which are provided by law solely for treatment of the poor and destitute, for the medical care and treatment of a large proportion of the patients who they acknowledge are not poor and destitute?

In reply to this and the next following Question, the number of persons treated in the infirmary during the last five years was 4,647. It cannot be stated how many of these were admitted on the written order of a governor. The reference to 90 per cent, of the patients treated included persons actually received into the institution for medical care and treatment. The proportion of domestic servants treated in the institution is small; none of this class are treated at the cost of the public except the poor. The remaining 10 per cent. comprised police constables and others who paid for their treatment. The rules of admission are the same as in all similar institutions.

asked if the right hon. Gentleman was not aware that it was law that nobody should be admitted except the poor of the district.

said he should inquire further into the matter, but he imagined that it was not so.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) whether he is aware that the Irish Land Commission requested the tenants on the Bath Estate, South Monaghan, who purchased their holdings under the Ashbourne Act, to send the deeds of their farms for registration; (2) whether he can state how many deeds were received by the Irish Land Commission during the years 1883–4 from the Bath tenants, and how many of those deeds have since been returned to the tenants; (3) whether he is aware that the delay of the Irish Land Commission in not returning the deeds to the tenants mentioned is causing uneasiness and inconvenience; and (4) what course will he take to relieve the congestion that seems to exist in this department of the Irish Land Commission Office?

This question appears to have been framed under a misapprehension of the provisions of the Registration of Titles Act, the object of which is to do away with proof of title by production of title deeds, and to substitute therefor the register of the title in the local office of each county, which is open to inspection. The fact is substantially as stated in the first paragraph. The title deeds had been retained by the Commissioners at the time the sales were completed, and pursuant to the rules issued under the Registration of Titles Act all title deeds must be lodged with the Registrar of Titles with the application for registration. During the years 1893 and 1894, 145 title deeds from this estate were lodged with the registrar. In 84 of these cases the titles have been registered, and full particulars of the registration can be obtained at the local registration office of the county. Copies of the land certificates have been sent to the purchasers. The remaining 61 cases are still pending for registration, but the delay in completing the registration in these cases does not rest with the Land Commission.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if he will consent to make a Return showing the names of district inspectors of the Royal Irish Constabulary who have been passed over for promotion to the rank of county inspector during the last two years, and the length of service of such district inspectors respectively?

I could not consent to the proposed Return, and I do not think such a Return would be fair to the officers concerned.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) whether he is aware that of the district inspectors holding the following appointments, viz., adjutant, musketry instructor, secretary to inspector general, detective director in Belfast, and staff officers attached to the Divisional Commissioners, to all of which special allowances are attached, only one is a Roman Catholic; and (2) whether steps will be taken, as vacancies occur, to give a fair proportion of these appointments to the Roman Catholic officers of the force?

The reply to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. I may, however, observe that the two previous private secretaries to the Inspector General were Roman Catholics, and were transferred from his office on promotion, and that the predecessors of the present adjutant and musketry inspector were also of the same religious persuasion. With regard to the second part of the question, I can only repeat what I have already more than once stated, that appointments to these and other positions are not regulated by considerations of religion, and that whilst it would be both impracticable as well as inexpedient to create religious tests in the selection of officers, no officer will be rejected for promotion to a higher position on account of his religious belief.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether the commutation of the sentences on the Reform Leaders to a money fine and banishment or an undertaking to abstain from politics in the Transvaal was, under the Dutch law under which these leaders were condemned, illegal, and therefore ultra vires on the part of the Transvaal Government?

I am not aware that the course taken by the South African Republic is illegal under the Roman Dutch law. Commutations of sentences are frequently, in effect, matters of agreement between prisoners and Governments, and in this case I do not think the persons concerned will desire to raise any objection. [Opposition cheers.]

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, if his attention has been called to the judgment of Mr. Commissioner O'Brien as to the action of the Treasury as to the redemption of tithe rent-charge; and, whether, as Mr. Commissioner O'Brien states, the application purporting to have been made by the Land Commission to the Treasury to reduce the redemption price was sent at the instance of a single Commissioner and without consulting the entire body, the Treasury will reconsider the matter; if not, will the Treasury also reduce the interest paid by the Church Fund to the National Debt Commissioners, which varies from 3½ to 3¼ per cent?

I have seen a newspaper report of this Judgment. The Treasury acted in the matter on a recommendation made in an official letter signed in the usual way by the Secretary to the Land Commission, and written by direction of the Land Commissioners. The Treasury have, therefore, no reason to suppose that the application came from one Commissioner only, and they obviously could not reconsider the decision except upon another similar official letter. As regards the last sentence, the rates of interest are payable under old contracts made with the Savings Banks Funds, which have not yet expired.

asked if the right hon. Gentleman intended to leave such an important question, which resulted in a loss of £10,000 a year, unsettled?

said, as he had explained, that the Treasury acted on an official letter from the Land Commission.

asked if the letter from the Land Commission stated that the agreement was arrived at by a majority?

said it was an ordinary official letter signed by the Secretary of the Commission, and purporting to give the opinion of the Commissioners.

asked if the right hon. Gentleman would have any objection to lay the letter on the Table, together with the letter of the Treasury in reply?

said he could not answer that now.

asked if it were not the fact that the Treasury had on more than one occasion refused the application of the Land Commission to make these abatements, and whether the right hon. Gentleman would lay on the Table the Treasury Minute on the subject of three or four years ago together with the previous correspondence?

That is a separate Question, of which notice should be given.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether male shorthand writers and typists are denied by the Treasury privileges as to position and pension in the Civil Service which are accorded to women; and, if so, will the sexes be placed on an equality in those respects.

A very few male shorthand writers, but, I believe, no male typists, appear on the establishments of the various Public Departments. The shorthand writers are each paid according to the nature of the work they perform, but there is in the Civil Service no distinct class of men shorthand writers or typists. Such duties, when not performed by women, are generally provided for by the employment of boy copyists or personal clerks, and in such a case no question of pension can arise. The Question only appeared on the Paper this morning, and I have not had time to ask the various Departments what is the number of adult male shorthand writers or typists employed, but I think I can assure the hon. Member that in no case is their remuneration inferior to that of women employed on similar work.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether it was with the knowledge and permission of the Postmaster General that a junior telegraphist in the Dublin General Post Office, who, on 15th January last, applied for leave to attend an examination for men clerkships of the Second Division, and offered to forfeit his salary for the time absent, and to pay for substitutes provided by the Department at overtime rates, was, on 21st January, informed that he must obtain his own substitutes in accordance with instructions recently issued; and whether, seeing that these instructions practically debar telegraphists from exercising their right to sit at Civil Service examinations, it being frequently impossible for them to obtain substitutes by reason of the changeable nature of the duties and the fluctuations of the work, the Postmaster General will consider the advisability of conceding to all telegraphists a privilege similar to that recently given to boy clerks and boy copyists, viz., the concession of full pay and leave of absence while attending Civil Service examinations?

The Postmaster General has no knowledge of the circumstances alleged at Dublin, but he will have inquiries made on the subject, and will communicate the result to the hon. Member.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) whether he is aware that the town commissioners of Boyle, where there is no system of public lighting, have been refused a loan by the Local Government Board for the purpose of providing electric lighting from the water power available in the town, and that this refusal was owing to a technical difficulty raised by the Electric Lighting Act that they are not the urban sanitary authority; and, (2) whether he will be prepared to give facilities to a short non-contentious Bill to remedy this defect in the law, and to enable town commissioners, who are not the urban sanitary authorities, to borrow money for the purpose of electric lighting?

The statements in the first paragraph are correct. As regards the second paragraph the Government would not oppose in principle a Bill to remedy the defect in the law referred to in the Question.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, having regard to the repeated recommendations of many Military and Departmental Committees, that the number of battalions at home and abroad should be equalised, as nearly as possible, in order to relieve the tremendous strain on the regimental and territorial system caused by men having to be taken from every battalion in the Army to complete a regiment when ordered abroad, which causes confusion and disturbance throughout the Service, whether he can assure the House that some steps, and, if so, what, are being taken to remedy this great anomaly in the course of the present financial Military year; and, failing this, whether he proposes to carry out this most important improvement in the Army Estimates of next year?

I must refer the hon. and gallant Member to my reply of the 4th instant, to the right hon. Baronet the Member for North-east Manchester, in which I stated that the subject was engaging the earnest attention of the Secretary of State

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the remarks made by Mr. Justice Hawkins in the course of the hearing of a case at the Central Criminal Court, on the anomalous state of the Law in relation to the detention of juries; and, whether he is prepared to take steps to remedy it?

Yes, Sir; I have seen a report of the Judge's remarks. The point appears to me to be one which is well worthy of attention, but the Government are not prepared to deal with it in the present Session.

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can now fix a certain day, or if not that an approximate day, when the Committee on the Finance Bill will be taken; if not, whether he can undertake that it will not be postponed to the end of the Session; and, whether, in any case, he will undertake that two or three days' previous notice shall be given before the Committee on this Bill is again taken?

Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that Question, I should like to ask him whether it is the fact that if the Finance Bill does not receive the Royal Assent before the end of June the Tea Duty will expire on July 1 and the Spirit and Beer Duties will expire on July 31?

That is an unpleasant suggestion, but to the best of my belief it is not well founded. The Tea Duty expires on July 31st. The Spirit and Beer Duties do not expire at all, with the exception of the extra 6d. on the latter, which expires on June 30th. The Duties are levied not upon the Act, but upon the Resolutions of the House, and, of course, they have been levied since the passing of the Resolutions, as has often been done in similar circumstances in past years. As to the Question on the Paper, of course, the hon. Member is aware it is impossible at present to fix a time at which the Bill will be taken, but I hope it will be a long time before so remote a period as the end of the Session. Reasonable opportunity for discussion will be given.

Can the right hon. Gentleman undertake that the Bill shall be taken before the middle of July?

That is hardly a Question for me. It does not rest with me to arrange the Business of the House.

May I ask the Leader of the House that the Finance Bill shall be taken, at any rate, before the middle of July?

I understand my right hon. Friend has repeated the pledges he has already given to the House that the Bill shall be taken at an hour when there will be an opportunity for reasonable discussion, but I am afraid I cannot name the time of the year when such reasonable discussion shall take place.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether two staff clerks of the Accountant General's Department of the Admiralty who have recently been promoted to the higher division have, in consequence of their promotion, had their salaries reduced by nearly half; whether their new salaries have been determined in accordance with Clause 5 of' the Treasury Minute, dated 1st May 1890; and, if not, will he explain on what grounds; and, what is the difference between their case and that of the staff clerk in the same department promoted to the higher division in January 1895, who did not suffer any reduction in salary on his promotion?

The commencing salary of the class to which the clerks referred to have now been appointed is £150. They have been allowed to enter it with initial salaries of £231 and £208 respectively, being the rates to which they would have attained if they had continued serving as clerks of the second division until the date of their new appointment. Within the last two years, however, both these clerks had been specially appointed to Staff Posts, in which they were receiving salaries of £365 each. There is no difficulty in obtaining competent clerks of the Upper Division at a commencing salary of £150, and the Treasury cannot sanction the appointment to such places of persons at at a rate of salary altogether above that which will provide for the duties of the office. The merits of the two clerks referred to had been liberally recognised by their appointment to staff posts carrying salaries of £350 to £450, and it was for them to consider whether it was for their advantage to accept the appointments on the conditions on which they could be offered. The circumstances attending the appointment of the staff clerk in 1895 do not appear to have been fully appreciated at the time, and I cannot accept it as a binding precedent.

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, whether the difference in the scale of police pensions in England and Scotland will be made the subject of legislation at an early date, in view of the fact that owing to the present state of business no immediate legislation can be proposed; and whether the conclusions can be stated at which the Secretary for Scotland has arrived as the result of the serious attention which he has given to the matter?

I have nothing to add to the answer I gave the hon. Member yesterday. The Secretary for Scotland considers it would be premature to state his conclusions at this time.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, whether he has any information as to the accuracy or otherwise of the statement recently made by one of the special correspondents in the Soudan dated Monday last, in which he states that, after the defeat of the Dervishes at the battle of Firket, most of the women have already been triumphantly appropriated by the blacks, meaning the black troops who formed part of the force commanded by Major Burn-Murdoch; and, whether, if he has no information, he will cause inquiry into the facts to be made?

Before the hon. Gentleman answers that question, may I ask him if he can also say how many Dervishes were killed in the battle of Firket?

May I also ask the hon. Gentleman if he can say whether it is under the British or Turkish flag that these military operations are being conducted?

Perhaps, as the Question on the Paper concerns the Foreign Office, the hon. Gentleman will allow me to reply. No information of the character has been received.

Will the right hon. Gentleman cause inquiry to be made as to this statement which appeared in one of the principal morning papers?

No, Sir; the information appears to me extremely unlikely to be true, and if we were to telegraph from the Foreign Office respecting every newspaper report that appears the wires would never be idle. [Laughter.]

I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is not aware that all these Dispatches from the Soudan are subjected to a military censorship before they are sent to this country? ["Hear, hear!"]

No, Sir; I am not a military authority, and I am not acquainted with military matters.

Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Secretary of State for War?

The hon. Gentleman has not answered my question—under what flag?

I was not there. [Laughter.] I have no knowledge.

asked whether, in view of the interest taken in the matter and of the fact that several Members desired the right hon. Gentleman to make inquiries, he would do so?

Order, order! That question has already been asked and answered.

rose to put a further question, when—

interposed, saying, notice must be given.

On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Monmouthshire (Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT), I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether it is understood that Mr. Rhodes is at present invested with no legal or official authority in regard to the administration of the territory of the South Africa Company, and whether the Government have communicated this view to the Company; whether Mr. Rhodes still remains nominally the Managing Director of the Company in South Africa, and what are his present functions and powers in that capacity; whether the power of attorney given to Mr. Rhodes to do all acts which the Company might do in South Africa is still in force; what is the effect of that document; and, whether he will lay a Copy of it upon the Table?

I have had no communication yet with the Company on the subject of Mr. Rhodes's powers. I was not till yesterday in a position to form an opinion on the subject, and I gave the right hon. Gentleman yesterday the earliest information in reply to his Question; but I shall no doubt hear from the Company on the subject, or will write myself. As regards the further Questions, the scheme of administration of the territory of the Chartered Company is contained in the Matabeleland Order in Council of July 1894, and does not provide for the intervention of a director, either an ordinary or a managing director, so that Mr. Rhodes appears not to be at present invested with any legal or official authority in regard to the administration of the territory. Mr. Rhodes, so far as I am aware, still remains nominally the managing director of the Company in South Africa, and I am not in a position to define the extent of his functions and powers in that capacity, and I am not acquainted with the instructions which the Company may have given to him during their six years' working. I have placed a copy of the power of attorney on the Table. It is still in force so far as I know, but I am unable to give a legal opinion upon its general effect. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to know what its effect may be with reference to any given state of facts, I shall be obliged if he will state the facts and address his Question to the Law Officers.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that a large number of decrees were granted last week at the Quarter Sessions of Roscommon for amounts assessed on occupiers of land alleged to be improved by the River Suck Drainage, and that, in addition to the amounts assessed under the award, the full legal costs have been insisted upon by the Board of Works; and, whether, in view of the fact that the tenants, whose consent under the old Drainage Acts by virtue of which those awards were made was not required, consider the tax a hardship, he will consent to receive a deputation from those concerned, which would place the grievances of the occupiers before him?

I should be glad to be furnished, in writing, with a full statement of the grounds on which this tax is considered a hardship. Upon receipt of such a statement, I will further consider whether any public advantage would result from my receiving a deputation, as suggested.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether he is aware that the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland could not make an application in the promised proportion of nine-eightieths, as the Supplementary Estimates had not been arranged or granted; and, whether the Treasury will grant the large sum due as arrears to the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, calculated on the nine-eightieth basis for the past years?

The hon. Member can hardly be aware that the Education Commissioners did actually make an application for nine-eightieths of the English Supplementary Estimate for 1895–6 before the year had expired, and that their claim has been allowed. I have repeatedly stated that the grants for 1894–5 and previous years were definitely settled by the late Parliament in accordance with the Act, and that it is impossible for the present Government to reopen the account.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether he can now state when the extra officers of Her Majesty's Customs, London, may expect a reply to their memorial of February 1895, and whether the permanent extra officers may hope for any improvement in their position?

The Customs Board have now formulated their proposals, which are to be submitted forthwith for Treasury approval. I will see that the matter is expedited as much as possible.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, upon what authority have the Government been informed that the tenants on the O'Hara estate, Tulla, county Clare, were not in treaty for the purchase of their holdings when John Dwyer purchased it; and, can he ascertain the difference in the amount paid by Dwyer and offered by the tenants?

The Government have not been informed that the tenants on this estate were not in treaty for the purchase of their holdings when Mr. Patrick, not John, Dwyer purchased the property. What I stated yesterday was that I believed the tenants were anxious to buy, but that I had no knowledge of their having made an offer of 13 years' purchase as alleged in the Question of the hon. Member for North Kilkenny, and that the sale to Mr. Patrick Dwyer was a private one, the terms of which were unknown to the police.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, as there appears to be much uncertainty as to the nature and amount of the increase of pay and advantages of pension lately announced as granted to Dockyard employés, if he will cause a copy of the circular issued to the Superintendents of Her Majesty's Dockyards, bearing on this subject, to be laid upon the Table of the House?

I shall be glad to lay on the Table the circular to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, whether he is now able to state what will be the constitution of, and terms of reference to, the Committee on Old Age Pensions, which he expressed the intention of Her Majesty's Government in August of last year of constituting as soon as possible; and, whether the Proceedings of the Committee and the Evidence taken before it, as well as its Report, will be laid upon the Table of the House?

We expect very shortly to be able to make a statement to the House on the subject.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, whether his attention has been called to the assurance given upon 24th February 1888 by the then First Lord of the Treasury, that it was only upon extraordinary occasions, with a view of affording opportunity for the closing of a great Debate, that it was intended that a Motion should be made for the suspension of the Twelve o'clock Rule, and that he could hardly suppose that a Minister of the Crown could desire to prolong Debates beyond the period decided for the closing of business?

I have looked into the quotation of my right hon. Friend, and find it is correct. I also find that Mr. Smith had the same quotation brought to his notice by the Member for Northampton, and he explained that it was not a fair interpretation which was put upon it by the hon. Member; but I may say, with reference to this subject, that, as I understand that the suspension of the 12 o'clock rule to-night is not looked favourably upon by some gentlemen interested in Irish land on this side of the House, and as I am given to understand from the ordinary sources of information that the Leader of the principal section of the Irish Party opposite does not propose to support it, I shall not put the House to the trouble of a Division. [Loud cheers]

To move:—

"That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision for the inclusion of cottages and lands in the occupation of labourers paying rent for the same to boards of guardians."

To move:—

"That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision empowering the Land Commission, out of the moneys provided by the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act, 1891, to make to landlords who are proved to have suffered loss of income through the operation of the Land Law (Ireland) Acts advances, in the prescribed manner and within limits fixed by the Committee, for the redemption of incumbrances affecting their estates; but so that any such advances shall be a first charge on such estates and shall not exceed in the whole one-half of the amount which in the opinion of the Land Commission is the value of such estate."

There are on the paper two Instructions, the first standing in the name of the hon. Member for the Yarmouth Division. That is out of order. It is of the highest importance that instructions should be perfectly clear in their terms, that the Committee may understand definitely what provisions the House desires that it should take into consideration. In the present Bill there is a reference to labourers' cottages under Section 33, and to certain regulations that may be made to facilitate the purchase of land for cottages, and this Instruction merely states—

"That the Committee have power to make provisions for the inclusion of cottages and lands in the occupation of labourers paying rent for the same to boards of guardians."

That gives no intimation to the Committee what the provisions are which the House desires the Committee should take into their consideration; so I think the Instruction is bad for want of clearness and definite direction. The next Instruction is in the name of the hon. Member for South Dublin, and proposes that the Committee have power to make provision empowering the Land Commission, out of money provided by the Land Purchase Act of 1891, to make to landlords in certain cases advances for the redemption of incumbrances. That may be a subject of great importance and worthy of discussion, but it cannot in my opinion, be properly entertained upon an Instruction to the Committee on this Bill, which deals with the relations of landlord and tenant; I think it is beyond the scope of the Bill, and on that ground out of order.

ruled that three Amendments which stood on the Paper in the names of Mr. Dillon, Mr. Clancy and Mr. Kilbride could not be moved as a commencement to Clause 1, but might be moved subsequently.

said the Bill would make "present tenancies" and "future tenancies" statutory terms, and it was therefore necessary to have a definition of them. He moved the insertion of the words "as they are defined by the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881."

referred to a later clause of the Bill, to show that the Amendment was unnecessary.

said the object aimed at was to prevent a landlord raising a point which could have been raised by him on the first application, and was not raised; it was not to be competent to him to raise it in order to prevent the fixing of a judicial rent for a second time. He appreciated the spirit in which his right hon. Friend had referred to the attitude of the landlords towards this Bill; he accepted the assurance that it was not the intention of the landlords to treat the Bill in anything like an obstructive manner. The right hon. Gentleman desired that objections which had been raised and overruled should be raised a second time. He believed as the law now stood it would not be possible for a landlord who derived from an original landlord to raise a point which had virtually been decided by the Court in the first instance. There was, perhaps, some doubt whether a landlord who did not directly derive from the first landlord could raise the point, though he thought the answer would be in the same sense. As regarded objections which might have been raised and were not raised, there was something more to be said in favour of the Amendment than as regarded objections which had been overruled; but still, on the whole, it was better to prevent litigation as far as possible.

desired to put the case of, landlords who were out of the country when the first application was made, and the case of a minor who was not as capable at the time of seeing that justice was done to himself as he was since he came to years of discretion. He thought that in the cases of a minor, or a man who was absent, the Chief Secretary might concede them something, either by a future Amendment or on Report.

said the hon. Member seemed to forget that a rent could not be fixed in the case of a minor.

thought the Committee would agree that as far as possible there ought to be fair play on both sides. But if they turned to the 42nd Clause, they would find that they did not propose to deal in the same way with the landlord. In that clause they would find these words:—

"An application to fix a fair rent for a holding shall not be refused on the ground of any previous decision with reference to the holding of any part thereof, whether between the same parties or otherwise."

That is not all.

It continues:—

"If such application can be sustained under this Act or any of the Land Law Acts as amended by this Act."

He thought that meant that a tenant might have been debarred originally from having a fair rent fixed, yet he might come in and claim it any number of times, while the landlord was to be debarred.

, referring to what had been said by the hon. Member for North Louth, pointed out that the case of a minor was one of the very cases which they wished to submit to the right hon. Gentleman. He would propose the case of a minor who was served with a fair rent notice—[An HON. MEMBER: "Bad service!"]—but who came in and did not raise the point that it was bad service, was he to be debarred by this section from coming before the Courts and putting forward any matters that might be pertinent? There might be an agent who was in league with the tenant —[loud Nationalist laughter]—there had been cases of agents who had acted dishonourably, and there had been many cases in which lettings by agents had been set aside when minors came of age because they were not fair lettings. Was not a minor in such a case to be allowed to raise any of the points which might not have been raised in the previous hearing?

said the case raised by his right hon. Friend would really be one of fraud. With regard to the point raised by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Armagh, if he looked closely at the subsection of the 42nd Clause which he read, he would find that the important words were the last words. [" Hear, hear!"] As regarded the question of unfairness of treatment between landlord and tenant, he would point out that there was no question in this first section as to whether the applications were made by a landlord or tenant, although, no doubt, applications were, in the great majority of cases, made by the tenant. It would be undesirable that a tenant who had now got a fair rent fixed should be put in the position of having to prove his claim over again, and the Government had no desire to increase litigation.

said he did not wish to see this matter disposed of on the ground of convenience to the tenant only, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give them some other reasons.

rose to move to insert after the word "over-ruled," the words:—

"unless an applicant satisfies the court that in support of such objection he has appeared to give evidence, oral or otherwise, that was not produced in the application for a previous judicial rent."

submitted, on a point of order, that that was exactly the question which had been decided.

said that was so, and he could not accept the Amendment.

recalled the fact that on the occasion of the First Reading, he stated that the Government objected to allowing the tenants in question to apply to the Court to have a fair rent fixed a second time at the expiration of ten years, principally on two grounds—first, that there seemed to be no justification for breaking a contract entered into with Parliamentary sanction; and, secondly, that a policy of that kind would create extreme difficulty in administration, making it quite impossible to fix fair rents, unless a perfect army of Sub-Commissioners were appointed. He did not deny, however, that there was considerable force in the hon. and learned Gentleman's contention; but, on the other hand, it must be remembered that if the concession asked for were made the number of tenants who would in the next few years demand to have a fair rent re-fixed would be very much increased, and therefore the administrative duties cast on the Commissioners would be correspondingly increased. He was not prepared at the present time to give a definite answer, one way or the other, whether the Government should be prepared to accept the Amendment. If the Procedure Clauses were passed in such a way as to make it reasonably probable that the Commissioners would be able to dispatch their business much faster than at present, he would consider on Report whether it would be possible to adopt either this or a similar Amendment.

thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the manner in which he had met the Amendment, and asked leave to withdraw it. He added, however, that his objection to the Procedure Clauses was unalterable. He would rather see no Bill passed than the 13th Section enacted in its present form.

moved at the end of Sub-section (2), after the word "expires," to insert the words,

"any statutory term beginning after the passing of this Act in a present tenancy shall be ten years, and in sections 4 and 8 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, 'ten' shall, as respects any such term, be substituted for 'fifteen.'"

(2) "Where a statutory term in the tenancy of a holding is current at the passing of this Act, an agreement or application to fix a fair rent for the holding may be made at any time after the expiration of the ninth year of that term, and the new judicial rent fixed by the Court and the further statutory term shall, notwithstanding that the statutory term current at the passing of this Act has not expired, begin on the gale day on which the tenth year of the current statutory term expires or the gale day next after the application, whichever is latest."

As to the general question of shortening the statutory term, there was amongst those who had given any study to the working of the Land Acts practically no difference of opinion. It was a remarkable fact that with one single exception every official witness examined before the recent Committee on the Land Acts, from the Judge of the Land Court downwards, gave evidence that the judicial term was too long. Some favoured a five years' statutory term, others seven, and others ten. As to the proposal that the present statutory term should be so shortened as to allow of all the tenants who had rents fixed before 1886 entering the Land Courts, there was no point in connection with the present Land Bill which excited more interest in Ireland. [Nationalist cheers.] If this part of the Amendment were not agreed to, between 200,000 and 300,000 tenants in Ireland would be absolutely debarred from any benefit under this Bill for some time to come, in a large number of cases ruin would overtake them before they became entitled to the benefit of the Bill. Accounts of the sufferings of Irish farmers were apt to be discounted by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and, therefore, he would quote an independent authority. He referred to the amended resolutions drafted by the Committee of the General Assembly of Presbyterian Churches in Belfast. Those resolutions did not adequately express the opinion of the great majority of the body, since they were the work of a Committee appointed to draft more moderate resolutions, which would secure unanimous assent, after far stronger resolutions had been passed in the Assembly by sweeping majorities. The prayer of this memorial was entitled to most respectful consideration, especially from Unionists; because those who framed it for the most part were not, as they boasted, Nationalists. The memorial began by expressing deep concern for the present depressed state of agriculture, produced by the continuous fall in prices and the pressure of rents, and declared the conviction that immediate relief was necessary under the alarming conditions. A resolution was unanimously passed by the Assembly approving of the memorial, and, while expressing satisfaction at the production of a Land Bill by the Government, regretting that it had been given such a place in the order of business as to preclude discussion and amendment. The resolution also said:—

"The General Assembly is strongly of opinion that the rents judicially fixed between 1881 and 1887 are, in the present circumstances, impossible rents [Nationalist cheers], and that no land Bill can be deemed just or satisfactory which does not afford immediate and substantial relief in these cases."

Those who passed that resolution were entitled to speak of the whole of the Presbyterian and Unionist farmers of Ulster. [Nationalist cheers.] Was the Government going to send back to their faithful friends the answer that, although the rents were impossible, they must be paid? It was idle to answer such contentions by urging the iniquity of breaking contracts. In Ireland that plea had been parted with for ever. Judicial rents were not contracts; and the State, when it fixed those rents, bound itself to see that they were just. Roughly speaking, the 200,000 or 300,000 tenants excluded from the Bill divided themselves into two classes. There were the tenants, numbering about 130,000 whose rents were settled in open Court between 1881 and 1887; and there were the tenants whose rents were fixed largely in the years 1882 to 1885, by private agreement. Could it be doubted that in these cases the rents were excessive? The Report of the Morley Committee stated that the rents fixed by the Courts between 1881 and 1885 had been, since 1886, and were now, materially excessive. The evidence given before the Committee to this effect was overwhelming. Mr. Bailey, Assistant Legal Commissioner, said that he thought the statutory term of 15 years too long, and that seven years would be fairer to all concerned. Mr. Justice Bewley stated that he was decidedly of the opinion that the rents fixed before 1886 were now too high; and lately there had been an opportunity of testing the truth of this evidence. Some first-occasion tenants had come into Court, and the result had been most startling, proving that, if anything, the Morley Committee had understated the case. In Down, the other day, several of these tenants obtained reductions of from 20 to 40 per cent, on the previous judicial rents; and in Waterford one man's rent was reduced from £150 to £104, and another's from £32 to £22. In Kerry there was a case in which the old rent was £110; the judicial rent, fixed in 1881, was £72 5s.; and the new rent was fixed by the Court of Appeal at £49 10s., after having been fixed by Judge Shaw at £40. it was perfectly manifest from these figures that tenants were compelled to pay nearly double what, in the opinion of the Land Courts, was the fair and reasonable rent of their holdings. Nearly 2,000 tenants were being evicted from their holdings every year for non-payment of these rents, which were now admitted on all sides to be grossly excessive. In other cases from Kerry the judicial rents had been reduced from £18 to £10 10s., from £31 to £27, from £28 to £13, from £60 to £25 (which was confirmed on appeal), from £90 to £75, from £78 to £56, and from £130 to £105. He had quoted sufficient cases to show that, roughly speaking, the rents fixed in 1881 were from 25 to 40 and 50 per cent, over what was now recognised to be the value of the land, and those cases which were fixed in 1882, 1883 and 1884 were far worse. ["Hear, hear!"] For in those years a rise had taken place in the standard of value put upon the land by the Commissioners, and he was, therefore, entitled to assume that those tenants, for whom in the Amendment before the House he was seeking relief, were labouring under greater injustice and more grossly excessive rents than those tenants who went into Court in 1881, and who were now able to get relief. ["Hear, hear!"] These cases included 130,000 tenants who were now under rents fixed by the Courts between 1881 and 1887. Before passing away from the cases of these tenants he would refer to a quotation from an article written by the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) which was very important testimony, coming from a man who had all along professed to be most scrupulously just towards the Irish landlords. In that article the hon. Member said:—

"The British landlord, hard pressed as he often was, does his best to stand by his tenants, and generally aids them in fighting an uphill battle. It was altogether different in Ireland. The Irish landlord, as a rule, stands by the judicial rents. He says, and says truly, you have abolished contract, you have fixed the rents by a State tribunal; it is not my fixing, and what the law gives me I must have."

The hon. Member went on to say that Parliament was bound to see that the policy of the Act of 1881 had free scope and fair play. That was the object he had in view in moving his Amendment. He now came to the cases of the 127,000 tenants who held by judicial agreements, who had, subsequently to 1881 agreed to fair rents without going into the Courts. It was provided, most unfortunately, in the Act of 1881, that landlord and tenant might come to an agreement as to the rent outside the Court.

The Amendment was inserted in the House of Lords.

said it was a most unfortunate Amendment. After some experience of the frightful costs to which they were put by the landlords, who, in the early days of the administration of the Land Acts, appealed in nearly every case with the avowed intention of intimidating their tenants from going into the Courts by piling up costs upon them as punishment, and also from the cruel use which was made of the pressure of arrears which prevailed largely over Ireland, owing to a fatal custom that still existed of keeping arrears hanging over the tenants, the tenants were induced to avail themselves of this agreement clause. The result was that, while in 1882 only 12,000 agreements were entered into, in 1883 there were 36,000, in 1884 24,000, and in 1885 there were only 11,000, which showed the tenants had abandoned that mode of fixing the rents, and in later years there were practically no agreements at all. He thought they were therefore entitled to assume that the argument of the oppressiveness of the rents was far stronger in the case of tenants who had their rents fixed under agreement than in the case of tenants who had their rents fixed in open Court. He then quoted, in support of this view from the evidence of Mr. W. F. Bailey, Legal Sub-Commissioner, before the Lands Acts Committee, with reference to the cases of 50 tenants who within the period from 1882 to 1887, had entered into agreements outside the Courts; but as the landlord's legal adviser had omitted to file the agreements, the tenants found that they were not statutory tenants at all, and that they had still the right to go into Court to have their rents fixed. They did go into Court in 1893 and 1894. The old rents amounted to £790. The reduction made by the agreements was £142, leaving the rents agreed upon £648. When the tenants went into Court, the £648 was further reduced by £168, bringing down the judicial rents to £480. That showed how enormously excessive the rents arrived at by agreement were compared with the rents fixed in the Courts. His Amendment, therefore, raised an issue of enormous and wide-reaching importance, and if it were rejected, it would, in his judgment, go a long way towards destroying the benefits of the Bill for the great mass of the tenants. His language in regard to the Bill had been much discussed. He had always freely admitted that there were many clauses of the Bill which, if they stood alone, would be good clauses, and which would extend the benefits of the Land Act to a large section of the tenants who were now excluded. But what he objected to was that the Bill left out of its provision, and would debar from its benefits, the great majority of the Irish tenants at least for many years to come unless his Amendment were accepted. Before concluding, he would like to have the opinion of the Law Officers as to a legal point which was recently raised in the county Kerry. The question was, whether, in the cases of agreements fixing fair rents not having been filed for some time after the agreement had been signed, the statutory term was to commence from the date of the agreement or from the date on which the agreement was filed.

said that the hon. Member for East Mayo had recited from the evidence given by the various sub-Commissioners before the Lands Acts Committee, and stated that with one exception they were in favour of reducing the judicial term. If the House remembered how these Gentlemen were appointed, and the object they had in shortening the judicial term, it would agree that they were not absolutely dispassionate witnesses. ["Hear, hear!" and "Oh, oh!"] It was his first object, and it was in conformity with human nature, that a sub-Commissioner whose lucrative employment depended on the continuance of an influx of business should desire that the term should be shortened, and that the process of establishing fair rents should be begun all over again. ["Hear, hear!"] It must be remembered that the evidence quoted by Mr. Dillon was altogether one-sided evidence; and all evidence on the other side was for some reason or other refused. [Cries of "No!"] All evidence tendered on the part of the landlords was refused by that Committee. [Cries of "No!"] That was an absolute fact that might be denied but could not be refuted. [Laughter.] He hoped the Government would repudiate the principle suggested by the hon. Gentleman's Amendment. He said that contracts in Ireland had absolutely disappeared, and that contracts no longer existed. If an Englishman, a Scotchman, or a Welshman, agreed either with the State or anybody else to do something for 15 years, he was supposed by the morality which existed on this side of the Channel to keep that contract, but according to the hon. Gentleman an Irishman was justified by the morality which existed in his country, if it suited him, to repudiate any contract which he found did not pay. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] He hoped that in the interests of Ireland the Government would absolutely refuse to consent to the supposition that doctrines of that kind obtained in Ireland. He had never found the Irish people more averse to keeping contracts than the people who lived on this side of the Channel. He believed they were as honourable a people as could be found, and he repudiated the idea that they had discarded to the winds all idea of keeping contracts. ["Hear, hear!"] If they wished to permanently destroy all value of property in Ireland, they could not set about it in a better way than by establishing these shortly recurring periods for deciding what property was worth. ["Hear, hear!"] He said deliberately that, if they again broke the contracts into which they had entered in Ireland, they would unsettle the value of property, which was at the present moment rising, and they would prevent their chief commodity attaining that value in the open market which he believed ought at any rate to be one of the sources of wealth in that country. If, under the law as it stood at present, the Irish tenants could by going into court obtain these immense reductions mentioned by Mr. Dillon, he wanted to know what was the necessity for a Land Bill at all? If they could get 20, 30, 40, and 50 per cent, off their rents now, so far as justice to the tenants was concerned, this Bill was absolutely unnecessary. ["Hear, hear!"] How came it that in Ireland at the present day, with these so-called exorbitant rents, enormous prices were paid for tenant right, especially in Ulster? Did they mean to tell him that an Irishman was such a fool as to invest his money in such a hopeless speculation as buying a farm with a rent which at the start he knew it would be absolutely impossible for him to pay? ["Hear, hear!"] He ventured to hope that the Government would not accept Mr. Dillon's proposal, and that they would maintain the contract which the State proposed to make between the landlord and tenant for the period of 15 years; and he believed that in doing so they would confer a benefit, not only on the landlord, but also on the tenant. ["Hear, hear!"]

said that one would suppose from his speech that the hon. and gallant Member had entirely forgotten the Act passed by his own political friends in 1887. [Colonel SAUNDERSON: "I mentioned it. I condemned it, and voted against it."] He did not hear his hon. and gallant Friend condemn that Act; but did not the hon. and gallant Gentleman see that in all these questions of contract between landlord and tenant in Ireland the enforcement of contract in relation to land had become a matter not of abstract consideration, but simply and solely of policy and expediency? There was no doubt that the Act of 1887 was passed by the Government of the day most reluctantly, only after the severest pressure both in and out of the House, and upon grounds and considerations of policy. The hon. Member for East Mayo asked the Committee to consider whether this was a politic and expedient Amendment to accept or not? The evidence given before the Committee over which he had the honour to preside, was not, as the hon. Member for East Mayo said, unanimous in favour of shortening the term. The Committee would remember that all the gentlemen who gave evidence were officials. [Ironical cheers.] That might or might not be an error in the conduct of the Inquiry, but it did not affect the validity of the argument or the evidence given. The witnesses were officials without bias as far as he knew, and the fact that they were officials without bias gave to their evidence very great weight indeed. The Chief Secretary would not deny that it was a very serious thing to get all those gentlemen to come before a Committee of the House of Commons, and, with the exception of Mr. Justice Bewley and, perhaps, Mr. Doyle, to say that in their opinion, after experience, the statutory term was too long. Mr. Cunningham, in answer to question 4,595, which was put by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, said:—

"I consider a term of 15 years a great embarrassment to men engaged in fixing the rent. It involves so much of prophesy, that I have often had, and I know other men have had, great anxiety in deciding whether what has obtained for 15 years shall continue or whether we should hope for a change. If it was only for five or seven years men would feel they could deal more freely with the facts as they exist to-day."

In answer to Mr. Sexton, question 4,708, the witness said he considered the rents fixed in 1885 were too high. Mr. Sexton asked,

"If the present statutory term holds these tenants would not be entitled to have their rents revised until the end of this century—the year 1900;"

and the witness said, "I suppose that is so." Mr. Macafee, who was undoubtedly one of the ablest lay commissioners who gave evidence, and who was in no way prejudiced in favour of the tenants, was asked what his view was with regard to the 15 years' term, and he said, "I agree with the other witnesses. I think it should be shortened." He was asked upon what ground he formed that view, and his reply was, "On the ground that there is so much fluctuation in prices." Another witness, Mr. Neligan, was a member of the Cowper Commission, and he recommended a reduction of the statutory term not to ten or seven years but actually to five years. Mr. Neligan signed the Report of the Cowper Commission, but he stated he signed that Report upon a sort of understanding that an attempt would be made to have an automatic variation, according to price, made every five years. A County Court Judge of great experience gave it as his opinion that the statutory term ought not to be longer than ten years. He could not suppose the Committee would pass over all that remarkable evidence as if it were of no account. Personally, he thought the Chief Secretary and the Government would be well advised if they faced the difficulties which might arise from making, first of all, an abridgment of the statutory term; and, secondly, making that abridgment retrospective. They had much better face those difficulties than leave behind a deep feeling of resentment and grievance in the minds of some of the best tenants in some of the most orderly parts of Ireland, that the early rents were too high. He did not know what political or party arguments might weigh with the Chief Secretary; but if the right hon. Gentleman regarded the tranquillity and order of Ireland as well as the justice and merits of the case, he could not help assenting to the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Mayo.

said the hon. Member for East Mayo threw some doubt on the statement of the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh, that the evidence which was tendered on the part of the landlords was excluded from the purview of the Committee. Speaking accurately, that might be true—[Irish cheers]—but he was a member of the Committee, and if he mistook not the Committee commenced their sittings on May 1st, finished them on July 31st, and it was not until July 30th that they took any evidence on the part of the landlords. If the Committee had been re-appointed as proposed, landlords' evidence might have been heard and many different clauses might have been arrived at.

said the evidence taken was not tenants' evidence, but evidence of officials.

admitted that the evidence was official evidence, but when the Committee commenced their sittings it was understood they were to take the evidence of practitioners and of disinterested persons on both sides. The hon. and gallant Member for Mid Armagh had referred to the enormous value which the tenants in Ireland attached to the possession of the land, even with the so-called "impossible rents." He would give a case or two illustrative of this. A few days since a farm of eight and a half acres in Antrim was put up to auction. The old rent was£8 and it had been reduced judicially to £7 5s. 9d. There were five or six persons seeking to buy it. The bidding was started at £150, but eventually £710, exclusive of auction fees, was given for it, or a price at the rate of 98 years' purchase of the rent. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: "Who bought it?"] The purchaser was a lady [Nationalist laughter]; but ladies in Ireland were quite as shrewd in those matters as men. A week or two ago a price at the rate of 25 years' purchase was given for a farm of 25 acres in the county of Longford; and very recently in another county £10 a statute acre was paid for a piece of bog-land and 10s. an acre for future tenancy. It could hardly be supposed that the shrewd tenant-farmers of Ireland would pay such prices as those unless they placed a very different value on the land to hon. Gentlemen opposite and the Court valuers. ["Hear, hear!"] He had called attention to those facts in order that English Members might see that there was another side to the question as stated by the Nationalist Members. ["Hear, hear!" and Nationalist laughter.]

said the Amendment embraced two distinct questions—the abridgment of the term in future, and the abridgment of the current term to ten years. On neither of those points could the Government give way. [Cheers.] His attention had been called by the hon. Member for East Mayo and the right hon. Member for Montrose to the evidence given before the Committee which sat in 1894. He did not for a moment deny that that evidence carried great weight; but he would remind those hon. Gentlemen that Judge Bewley, a very important witness, did not concur with the majority of the official witnesses in thinking that the term should be shortened. ["Hear, hear!"] It was easy to perceive why the official witnesses in general should have desired to see the term shortened. The fixing of fair rent was their business, and it must be obvious to anybody who gave the matter a moment's consideration that a valuer would have greater confidence in fixing rents for ten years than he would have in fixing them for 15 years. He thought the right hon. Gentleman might have called the attention of the Committee more decisively to the circumstance that many, if not the majority, of the valuers preferred the term of seven years to ten years; and, if this was the opinion of the official witnesses, he presumed the right hon. Gentleman himself must have had some good reason in accepting, not the seven, but the ten years. He must have perceived and admitted that there were very important considerations to be set on the other side. ["Hear, hear!"] However, if the period which was judicially arrived at was to be reduced to even ten years, the inevitable effect would be to largely increase the cost both to the State and the parties. It would undoubtedly lead to a great increase of litigation, and that additional litigation would increase the friction between landlords and tenants—a condition of things which they all desired to avoid. ["Hear, hear!"] Another point, and not an unimportant one, to be considered was that, if there was refixing of rents at short intervals, the attention of the tenants would be distracted from the proper cultivation of their farms. ["Hear, hear!"] There had been a tendency, even if it were not so at the present time, on the part of tenants to let down the cultivation of their farms towards the end of the fixed period in order that the Commissioners, seeing the state of the farms when they came to fix the rents, would put the rents at a lower figure than they would otherwise do. He did not say this was the practice of the Commissioners, but undoubtedly the shortening of the intervals for the refixing of the rents had a tendency to lessen the interest of the tenants in the cultivation of their farms towards the end of the period. ["Hear, hear!"] Those considerations had weighed with the Government, and, although they had fully taken into account what had been said on the other side, they held that the balance was distinctly in favour of the 15 years' rather than of the ten years' term. [Cheers.] No doubt, if, by some cheap and easy method, and without litigation, they could have shorter intervals for the revision of rents, that, in the opinion of everybody, would be the preferable system to adopt. He had put before the Committee a plan for achieving that object, but the difficulties in the matter were such that he was bound to make it voluntary in its operation. That plan would have necessitated a five years' term, but without litigation, without expense between the parties, and without additional cost to the State. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Member for East Mayo had read a Resolution which had been passed by the Presbyterian Assembly in Ireland a few days since, and he said, no doubt justly, that that Resolution represented the earnest desire of the tenants. Of course it was the earnest desire of the tenants that they should be enabled to enter the Courts earlier than in the ordinary course, because it was admitted that if they entered the Courts again their rents would in all probability be fixed lower than in the first instance. ["Hear, hear"! from the, Nationalist Members.] But the House had to consider not merely the desire and interests of the tenants, but also what was fair between the parties, and also whether, by adopting the suggestion of the hon. Member for East Mayo, it would not be setting up a very evil precedent. The hon. Member had quoted from the resolutions of the Presbyterian Assembly the words "impossible rents" as applied to the present rents. Those rents doubtless would be "impossible rents" if they were to be continued indefinitely, but no one entertained that idea, for under an arrangement made by Parliament in 1881 the tenants would be entitled to come into Court in due course for the refixing of their rents. A Parliamentary contract had thus been entered into between landlord and tenant; and the tenants by going into Court acquiesced in the arrangement Parliament made in their behalf. The terms fixed by Parliament were voluntarily entered into between landlord and tenant, and in the interests of public morality the arrangement ought to be adhered to. [Cheers.] Let them consider for moment to what the contention of the hon. Member for East Mayo would lead. The hon. Member said that rent should be fair rent. Well, the State entered into an undertaking to settle the rents between landlord and tenants at intervals of 15 years. The State did not engage to rearrange the terms in the interval between the fixing of the rent and the conclusion of the term, however much the circumstances might change. If the State entered into an arrangement of that kind it would have been necessary whenever there was a fall in prices, or again, whenever there was a rise in prices, year by year to refix the rents. The arrangement was simply that for 15 years rents should remain unaltered, and when the right hon. Gentleman opposite said it was not a question of principle, but one of policy and expediency, he thought he might fairly urge as against that that principle was not necessarily inconsistent with policy. ["Hear, hear!"] It was a matter of principle and of policy and of expediency. The right hon. Gentleman took an opposite view, but he could not help falling back on the view he had himself expressed when, in the closing words of his speech, he appealed to them to judge of the question on the justice and merits of the case. Therefore, according to the right hon. Gentleman himself, it was not merely a question of policy and expediency as distinguished from principle, if that distinction was legitimate and proper. Speaking on behalf of the Government, he could not be a party to allowing this arrangement, deliberately entered into, to be brought to an end simply because it so happened that circumstances had been unfavourable to the tenant. Nobody supposed that there would have been any plausibility in setting up a claim on behalf of the landlords for refixing the rents if prices had risen and circumstances had been more favourable to the tenant. He could not himself see that there was any justice or expediency at the present time—though, no doubt, it might gain the Government a certain transient popularity in Ireland—in making the concession which was now demanded. Reference had been made to the Act of 1887, and they were asked if they did not break a Parliamentary contract at that time. Undoubtedly they did, but everybody recognised that there was the greatest objection to doing so, and had they foreseen in 1887 that in 1896 they would be asked to do exactly the same thing over again he thought they would probably have stiffened their backs and refused to do it then. [Derisive Irish cheer.]

Parnell was alive then.

said that was his opinion. Over and above that, he should just like to lay this before the Committee. When they spoke of 1887 and said that possibly the circumstances of the time might have justified the course they took, they were immediately met by the argument that when there was agitation they gave in [Irish cheers], and that when Ireland was quiet they declined to do so. [Renewed Irish cheers.] He ventured to say that the circumstances of the present time were entirely different from those of 1887. No doubt there was a heavy fall of prices then, as there was now, but that was not the only matter that had to be taken into consideration. In 1887 Ireland was, quite apart from any political question, in a desperate condition. Credit was almost at an end; seasons had, for many years in succession, been exceedingly bad; and the Cowper Commission, on whose Report the Act of 1887 was based, urged as a reason for adopting the policy they did, not merely the fall in prices, but the total disorganisation of credit in Ireland and the succession of bad seasons, which had reduced the yield to a minimum. He should admit there was some analogy between 1887 and the present time if Ireland was in that miserable condition now, but that was not the case. He could assure the Committee that at the present time rents were paid, he would not say without the slightest difficulty, but thoroughly well—[cheers]—and the farmers, as compared with 1887, were in a contented and prosperous state. If he were asked the reason for that, seeing that the fall in prices was quite as heavy now as in 1887, he would say—and he believed it to be the true reason—that since that date farmers had paid more attention to the cultivation of their farms and less attention to politics—[cheers and Irish laughter]—with the natural result that they were able to make more off their farms than they were then. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman opposite only perfunctorily referred to one important point—that of the administrative difficulty which would be created if Parliament was now to retrospectively reduce the term to ten years. He would remind the Committee of the figures he put before the House on the First Reading. He calculated that the suggested change would create 238,000 applications. As an assistant legal Commissioner could only dispose of 2,400 cases a year, the Committee could easily calculate how many assistant Commissioners it would be necessary to appoint to dispose of this enormous number of cases in one year, or even in three, four, or five years. He estimated that of these 238,000 cases 200,000 would have to be disposed of, and he calculated that it would require 83 legal assistant Commissioners and 664 lay assistant Commissioners to do so in one year, while to dispose of them in five years would require 16 legal and 133 lay assistant Commissioners. If these cases were to be disposed of even in two years it would be necessary to appoint such a number of sub-Commissioners that he unhesitatingly said it would be practically impossible to find men who were really adequate to the work. This was a most serious difficulty, and the right hon. Gentleman opposite had not told them how it might be got over. No doubt something might be done by an improved form of procedure, and in the Bill he proposed a form of procedure which he was given to understood by the Land Commission would enable them to dispose of cases about twice as quickly as they did now. [Irish laughter.] But then the hon. and learned Member for Louth told them that if that proposal were adopted he would oppose the Bill through thick and thin. In these circumstances he thought they had a right to ask the representative of the late Government, who must have had this problem before him, how he proposed it should be solved. ["Hear, hear!"]

said the Bill of the late Government abridged the term and made that change retrospective. He did not carry in his mind all the figures connected with Irish administration, but he did know that he consulted those whom he supposed the Chief Secretary had consulted, and that he was never led to suppose that the administrative difficulties to which he had called their attention were insuperable. He quite agreed that the figures of the right hon. Gentleman were extraordinarily formidable, but he could only say that he was not led to suppose at that time that these difficulties were insuperable.

said the answer to the Chief Secretary was that where there was a will there was a way. He would also point out that all the rents did not require to be fixed in one year, for the new rent, whenever fixed, would date back to the gale day after the application, and the tenant would he entitled to the return of any money that was found to be overpaid. ["Hear, hear!"] How miserable must be the case of Scotland, where the term was only seven years! Where were the administrative difficulties in the operation of the Scotch Crofters Act? ["Hear, hear!"]

How many cases are there?

said the right hon. Gentleman was a Scotchman and ought to know. [Laughter.] He found the same Commissioners going about to all the same crofting parishes, and giving, in almost every case, a substantial reduction even on the rent fixed only seven years ago. In Scotland, too, tenants had had their arrears wiped out by the Crofting Commission, so that they had not to stagger under a burden of debt as the Irish tenants had. Furthermore, there had been an Adams and Dunseath point in Scotland under the Crofters Act, but there it was decided in favour of the tenant, because under the Act the presumption with regard to improvements was in favour of the tenant. [Irish cheers.] There was this further remarkable fact, that when the Crofters Act was brought forward in 1886 the term of 15 years was reduced to one of seven years at the instance of Mr. Chance, then an Irish Member of that House, and that was done in consequence of the Irish experience. It was not the Irish Papists the Chief Secretary was now attacking. It was the whole of the Presbyterian divines of Ulster, who, when they came the other day to the conclusion that rents should be reduced, were practically attacking their own incomes, because they were largely derived from investments in Irish land. When a body of learned men, met for the consideration, not of lay but of ecclesiastical affairs, deemed it their duty to come to a unanimous conclusion of this sort, then it was a matter in which Irishmen might say if they had a Parliament in College-green they would legislate in accordance with the opinions thus expressed by this Presbyterian body. The Chief Secretary said that these were binding contracts, and that the tenants having invoked the law were bound by it. Considering that the Irish Members, as a body, protested against the fixing of rents for a term of 15 years in the Act of 1881, he did not think any law of that kind could be given the term of a binding contract. ["Hear, hear!"] He declared that this clause, unless amended, would inflict a new feeling of injustice upon the tenants. It was utterly untrue to say there was any Parliamentary contract in the matter. The Irish Members did not vote for the Act of 1881; their advice was rejected, and it was, therefore, absurd to say they were bound by what Parliament had done against their will. ["Hear, hear!"] He did not wish to say anything to accentuate the position of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who must be suffering considerable unhappiness, not wholly assuaged by the fact that his salary was paid quarterly. [Laughter.] The hon. Gentleman very fairly supported the Bill of last year.

I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman does not wish to misrepresent me. I speak in the presence of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who, I think, will bear me out when I say I opposed the proposal in the Select Committee.

You opposed the retrospective part, but not the shortening of the term.

It is the retrospective part I am dealing with, and I opposed it, as did also the right hon. Gentleman. So far as the Committee was concerned this proposal was thrown out. When it appeared in the Bill I stated in my speech on the Second Reading the difficulties on both sides of the Question, and said that I could not actually support such a proposal, but that, if Parliament sanctioned it, of course, I should acquiesce in it. I never gave any active support to a proposal of this kind, neither in the House, in the Committee upstairs, nor in Ireland. ["Hear, hear!"]

had been under the impression that the hon. Gentleman had declared in favour of such a proposal in Ireland; but, as that was not the case, he withdrew what he had said, and asked the hon. Gentleman to accept his respectful apology. ["Hear, hear!"] They had, at any rate, the important fact that a large body of opinion in Ireland which the hon. Member would admit represented Ulster—namely, the Presbyterian divines, had unanimously passed the Resolutions to which reference had been made. He reminded English Members that the late Government brought in a Bill shortening the term which unanimously passed this House on the Second Reading, that Irish opinion in the South went in a similar direction, that the Ulster Members who wore returned by the farmers took a similar view, and that the Presbyterian Assembly had declared that the rents fixed from 1881 to 1887 were unjust. The latter fact alone ought sufficiently to weigh with any Government which had Irish opinion, at heart, and was an adequate reason for supporting an Amendment of this kind. ["Hear, hear!"]

did not desire to take up time at any length for if the Government had made up their mind not to give way, nothing he could say would persuade them in an opposite direction. There were two branches of this question, one retrospective and the other future. As to the retrospective branch the right hon. Gentleman had promised to give attention to the Amendment which stood in the name of the hon. Member for North Louth, and if on Report of the Bill he could accept that Amendment, it would do away with some of the injustice with regard to the retrospective portion of the 10 years. With regard to the other part of the question the Chief Secretary was not, perhaps, aware how greatly opinion had changed in this matter. In 1881 public opinion was all for lengthening the term. He had himself at that time, an Amendment down to make the term 31 years, and three or four other Gentlemen representing Ulster Liberal opinion had tabled similar proposals to extend the tenure. The term of 15 years was ultimately accepted, but the tendency of public opinion in Ireland was undoubtedly in favour of shortening the period of tenure. He thought that 10 years would be much more acceptable to general public opinion than 15 years and he intended to vote for the shorter term.

observed that the Chief Secretary had based his refusal to accept the Amendment on three grounds. The first of these was that the shortening of the term for judicial rents would create friction between landlord and tenant, the second that if the term was shortened, admittedly the so-called judicial rents would be reduced, and the third reason the right hon. Gentleman advanced was that rents were now being paid. It struck him that some of the reasons given by the Chief Secretary were rather unfortunate; and, apparently, the lesson the Irish tenant-farmer had to learn was that so long as he paid his rent so long would he get no redress. The Government stated that the term of 15 years fixed by the Act of 1881 was a sacred contract, and could not be disturbed. But in 1887 a Conservative Government brought in a Land Act which dealt with existing contracts, and reduced the rents very considerably. If the amount could be reduced, why not the term of years also? The Chief Secretary had defended the introduction of the Bill of 1887 on the ground that in that year the price of agricultural produce was extremely low, and the previous season of 1886 was one of the worst that had ever been experienced. But were the prices of agricultural produce better now than they were in 1887? They certainly had not materially—if at all—improved since 1887, and in some instances were even lower. As to the objection that the Government did not like to create friction between landlord and tenant by shortening the term, that was really a strong argument in favour of land purchase and of doing away with the present system of dual ownership. He should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, whether in his opinion the refusal of the Government to accept this Amendment would not create friction between the landlords and the tenants in Ireland. Each Land Act that had been passed had resulted in a reduction of rent being made of 25 to 30 per cent. on the average, and therefore the tenant-farmers in Ireland would come to the conclusion that the Government had refused to accept the Amendment in the interest of the landlords. The right hon. Gentleman had said that one of the reasons that had induced the Government to refuse to accept the Amendment was because of the great difficulty there would be in setting up a sufficient machinery and of obtaining a sufficient number of competent men to act as assistant Commissioners. But how many applications for such posts were now in the pockets of hon. Members opposite who represented the north of Ireland. The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone had been followed, and pestered, and worried by gentlemen from the North of Ireland who were not Nationalists, but were tenant-farmers fully competent to discharge the duties of assistant Commissioners, for such appointments. He did not believe therefore that any difficulty would be found in obtaining the necessary number of competent men to fill those positions. Neither was it a very difficult thing to find in Dublin a sufficient number of gentlemen connected with the law to preside over the Land Courts. The hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh had said that national politics only flourished when Ireland was in hot water, but of course the hon. and gallant Gentleman did not desire that any politics should flourish but his own. He would ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman whether in his cooler and calmer moments the present policy of Her Majesty's Government was not calculated to bring Ireland into hot water. He believed that before this time 12 months he state of affairs in Ireland would show considerable friction between the landlords and tenants owing to the refusal of the Government to accept this Amendment. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had also given as a reason why the rents were not unfair the fact that tenants were obtaining in particular instances 20 or 30 years' purchase for their holdings. But Judge Madden had stated from the Treasury Bench in 1891 that the interest of the tenant in the holding was as great as that of the landlord. In that case, what was there surprising in the fact that the tenant obtained 20 years' purchase for his share in the holding? What the tenant sold was his share of the co-partnership in the land. Hon. Members opposite might contend that the tenant was not a co-partner in the land, but the Land Acts had established the fact that he was. He should very much like to see this Amendment accepted, because it had been admitted by all who were qualified to judge of the state of things in Ireland that it was perfectly impossible for the tenant-farmers to pay their rent out of the profits derived from the land. It was true that the rents had been paid, but they had been paid either out of capital or out of money that ought to have gone to the shopkeepers and tradesmen for the necessaries of life, and for goods supplied by them to the tenants. That could not long continue, and would bring about a state of things which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary himself had admitted had led to the passing of the Land Act of 1887. ["Hear, hear"]

said that he was going to vote in favour of the Amendment, and with the permission of the Committee he would state the reasons that led him to take that course. When the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary rose to say that he would not accept the Amendment, he gave his reasons for not doing so, and had the right hon. Gentleman been able to furnish any good reasons which he could have believed or understood, ho should have voted with the Party with which he usually acted. One of the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman was that a 10 years' limit would increase friction between the landlords and the tenants of Ireland. But what would happen under a 15 years' limit, if, at the end of 10 years, the tenant was unable to pay his rent? A revision of rents every year, instead of leading to friction, would, he contended, have the opposite result. The Chief Secretary seemed to think the refixing of rents would largely increase legal costs. If that were proved, it would be a strong argument against the 10 years' limit. He was always willing to see legal costs diminished. He referred rather to solicitors' costs and not barristers' fees. He had received a very large number of letters from candidates in his constituency for Land Commissionerships, but not one of the writers would make a capable Land Commissioner. [Cheers.] He was obliged to inform each gentleman that if he did not succeed in obtaining a Land Commissionership it was because so many thousands had applied. He had not heard the name of any gentleman outside his own constituency who had applied for a Land Commissionership who was not fairly fitted, so that argument, to those who knew the country districts of Ireland, went for absolutely nothing. He should vote in favour of the Amend- ment with the entire approval of the Chief Secretary. His position was that last year this question came up before the people of Ulster. He addressed several meetings in his constituency upon it, and in all parts of the division he said he understood that the 10 years' limit was to be in the Bill to be brought forward, and that he would support the 10 years limit. No Member of his Party charged him with committing himself to anything he ought not, and it seemed to be thought that without harm to himself or his Party he could vote for the 10 years' limit. The Bill containing the limit passed the Second Reading. Little opposition was given on the Conservative side to the limit proposed. The opposition was connected with other Members. He was elected pledged to vote for the limit, and how could he possibly change his view because his Party happened to be in power? He felt obliged to support the Amendment. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Armagh spoke of the high prices given by farmers in purchasing farms, and he asked if they would be such fools as to take farms at prices they could not pay and undertake obligations they could not fulfil. The hon. and gallant Member thought this proved that rents were not too high and the obligations were not too great. It was not conclusive proof at all. Would they be such fools? Yes, they would. Other men were equally foolish in the same direction. He was himself a tenant in the Temple. A large number of men took holdings there who were never able to pay their rents at all. Their rents were paid by their relatives. Because tenants in Ireland gave high prices for farms, that was conclusive proof that the terms were low. He wished the tenants could be prevented from undertaking obligations they could not fulfil. His hon. Friend the Member for North Armagh said he was not returned by the tenant-farmers. That was not the case with him. He could not be a Poor Law Guardian in county Down but for the tenant-farmers' vote.

I said at the same time that the tenant-farmers of Armagh did vote for me.

Certainly, every man of intelligence would vote for you. [Laughter.] But my gallant Friend does not depend on the tenant-farmers for his return. I, a faithful follower of his, was returned by the tenant-farmers. Continuing, Mr. Rentoul, said he had just received something by way of proof of his statement—a lengthy memorial signed by 1,000 people from the barony of Lakale in East Down. They were men of the highest intelligence. [Laughter.] In the first place they were Unionists to a man; secondly, he might only delicately refer to the gentleman whom they returned to represent them. [Laughter.] The substance of the memorial was that, in consequence of the extraordinary decline in the price of all kinds of agricultural produce which, in the last 10 years alone, had fallen on an average one-third, it was impossible to pay the existing judicial rents. There seemed to be no prospect of an arrest in the direction of lowering prices, and, unless an immediate reduction of all agricultural rents be obtained, ruin threatened an industrious and deserving class of tenant-farmers, who desired to live, as they had always done, in peace. These men undoubtedly gave themselves an excellent character, but it would be given to them by all who knew them. He was backed up on the vote he was about to give by those whom he represented, and he must vote on this occasion just as he voted last year.

assured the Chief Secretary that there was no point connected with the Bill in which the tenants in Ireland were so vitally interested as in this question of 10 years. Anyone who had read the Irish newspapers since the Bill was printed must be aware that meetings of tenant-farmers had been held in every part of Ireland. They had been held in county Down, in Derry, in Antrim, and Tyrone, and at all the meetings resolutions were passed, and foremost among them was one that, unless some Measure shortening the term and giving relief to a tenant whose rents were fixed between 1881 and 1886 was carried by the House, legislation would be useless. Unquestionably that, was one vital point in the present Bill. He was in the same position as the hon. and learned Member who spoke last. He, too, pledged himself to his constituents that he would do his utmost to have the Bill read a Second time and carried into law which contained this provision. The hon. Member for South Tyrone would admit his accuracy when he said that he himself, in addressing his constituents, expressed general approval of the Bill read a Second time last year, and one of the first clauses in the Bill was about the 10 years' limit.

General approval.

said he would not distinguish between general and special.

said that if the hon. and learned Member could not, perhaps he would read the words of his right hon. Friend in connection with the Amendment he put on the Paper to that Bill.

said he could not make these nice distinctions. He quoted the hon. Member as a high authority on the Irish Land Question. The main objection to this change seemed to be that it involved what was called a breach of Parliamentary contract. He did not understand what was meant by that. An Act of Parliament was passed making 15 years the term, but that Act, like any other Act, required to be revised according to circumstances. That argument ought to carry no weight in view of the strong feeling that, unless something was done to shelter the tenants of Ireland from the improvident contracts they had entered into, ruin must come upon, the country. The whole Code of the land law involved more or less an interference with contract, commencing with the Act of 1870. There was no magic in the statutory term of 15 years fixed by the Act of 1881. It was admitted that in principle this Amendment was right, and the only reason given against it was that some inconvenience would be entailed by the alteration. He did not think such an answer was worthy of the House of Commons. Was there no precedent for this? When the tithe rent-charge was fixed under the Tithe Rent-Charge Act in Ireland, which was a great interference with the tithe owners, there was a provision made that it should be revised every seven years; and in the still more modern Act, the Crofters Act of Scotland, the rents were only fixed for seven years. He, for one, could not give a silent vote on this occasion. He trusted the Amendment would be pressed to a Division, for he thought the responsibility of refusing this reasonable demand of the Irish tenants should be cast on the right shoulders.

said he had hoped that, after the remarkable speeches of the hon. Members for South Derry and East Down, the Government would have reconsidered their position. The Member for East Down told the Government that even if he wished to follow them into the Lobby he dared not do so as an honest representative of his constituency. He thought the Government must feel they were taking a very serious step in resisting the unanimous demand of the Unionist farmers of Ulster. The Chief Secretary had admitted that the fall in prices this year was as heavy as in 1887, and the only reason he gave for refusing this reasonable and just demand was, in the first place, that friction might be created between landlord and tenant; secondly, that it would entail a large amount of expense; and, thirdly, the old objection that the shortening of the term might lead the farmers to deteroriate their land with a view of getting their rent reduced. The real reason came at the end of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, when he said that the farmers of Ireland were paying their rents and beginning to pay more attention to business. That was a very interesting reason, and the Committee now knew that if there had been a plan of campaign or violent agitation in Ireland last winter this Amendment would have been accepted.

said that anyone who had given any regard to the Irish agrarian question, looked to the ultimate settlement of it to purchase. It was quite obvious that if the arrangements between landlord and tenant were continually being thrown into the melting pot, the road to arrangements by purchase must be blocked. Certain offers had been made to the tenants of Ireland, which were withheld from Great Britain, for the most part out of British money—

Give us our own money back.

said he did not in the least see the point of that observation. He was not approaching the discussion of this Bill in any hostile spirit. He was putting the matter before the House as an English Member, and he repeated that offers of British money—of money of the United Kingdom, if hon. Members preferred it to be put in that way—had been made to the Irish tenants which had not been made to the tenants of Great Britain. Those offers having been made in the desire that they should be effective, the point was, would continual alterations in the terms of judicial rent encourage or discourage purchase. Obviously they must discourage it. If there was one continual agitation for a reduction of rent, purchase must be deferred. The great evil and the great danger before Ireland was the steady deterioration of the land, and the present system was pushing forward instead of retarding deterioration. He knew a property in the richest part of Ireland, in the county of Limerick, on which the landlord expended a considerable sum in drainage works. Down to the Act of 1881 the tenants regularly cleared the watercourses, and the land was kept in good condition. After 1881 the watercourses were not cleared, and he drew the attention of the tenants to the fact that they were choked. They replied,—

"Why on earth should we clear the watercourses? If they are left choked the rushes will grow and the land will deteriorate, and then we shall go into the Land Court and have the rents reduced."

["Oh, oh!" and "Shame."] If hon. Members meant shame on the tenants, he agreed with them. It was undeniable tenants were fast getting it into their heads that they should look to Parliament and not to their own exertions. ["What about your own tenants?"] Well, they held the common opinion that the predatory instinct in human beings was strong in both landlords and tenants, and required to be checked. [Laughter.] Parliament was attempting to do what it had never done with success—namely, to fix prices, instead of leaving them to free contract. The late Mr. Parnell and other Irish leaders had been in favour of fixing rents for long periods. Now Irish Members came forward against their leader in a former period and pleaded for a reduction of the term which Mr. Parnell would not have supported—["Oh, oh!"]—at all events, he had left it on record what his opinions were. The late Mr. Litton, a man of vast experience, also declared against short periods. It was the present Lord Chief Justice of England who proposed to substitute 15 for 31 years; why should it be altered now? Having fixed 15 years in 1881, why should the House alter the term in 1896? If 10 years were adopted now, why should not the term be reduced to five years in 1898? ["Make it five now."] That ejaculation proved that you must adopt an average as a fair term and stick to it. You could adduce no more reason on commercial grounds for making it 10 than you could for making it nine, and no more for nine than for eight. Therefore he was delighted to hear that the Government were not going to give way. The Amendment would work retrospectively; it would affect men who had paid their rents according to the scale fixed 15 years ago; and thus it would completely upset the existing arrangements with many tenants throughout Ireland. It was not in the interests of the country to alter the term.

said he recognised that the time had arrived for the Committee to come to a decision. As to the difficulty of finding the right time when rents should be fixed, he could state what it was in a sentence; they ought to be fixed whenever it was palpable that revision was required by justice. The Chief Secretary had made a most important admission; he said it was very likely that the rents would be reduced if they were refixed now. That meant the Government admitted to the Irish people that even in the opinion of the Government the rants were such that if the cases were reheard the rents would in all probability be reduced; it was telling the Irish people that they must rely for redress of grievances, not upon any feeling of justice in this House, but upon their own exertions. [Cheers.] In 1866 Mr. Parnell did exactly what the Irish Members were doing now; he warned the Government that the people would find it impossible to pay judicial rents. The Government refused to listen to him; but afterwards they were obliged to do what he asked them to do and what at first they refused to do. History was repeating itself; it was the old story, Measures of relief deferred and not passed gracefully and in good time. To plead as an excuse that rents were being paid was to tell the people to resort to a no-rent agitation. He appealed to hon. Members opposite who were going to vote against the rehearing of these cases, to consider the effect upon the tenants of the declaration of the Chief Secretary that their rents would probably be reduced if their cases were reheard. Was it likely these tenants would continue to pay rents which they knew were too high? If he was a tenant-farmer and read the startling admission of the Chief Secretary, he certainly would refuse to pay rent until his case had been reheard or his rent had been reduced. If a number of English tenant-farmers were told they were paying rents which would be reduced if justice was done, they would soon act so as to compel the House to pass the necessary legislation. He regretted that the Chief Secretary had not acted boldly and wisely, and consented to do at once what he or his successor would be compelled to do.

moved in Sub-section (3), after the words "or to his," to insert the words "heirs, assigns, or," so as to provide that over-payments by tenants might be recovered by them from their landlords' heirs and assigns. The clause, he explained, only provided for recovery from the landlord himself or his personal representatives. Let them suppose a case in which it took them three years to fix a fair rent. Provision was made in this clause for the protection of the tenant's interest if the landlord should die in that period, or if his estate should determine; but no provision was made for the tenant's protection in case the landord should assign or convey his interest. Then the tenant's right of recovering an over-payment in the case of the death of his landlord was limited to recovery from the deceased's personal representatives. But in many cases it happened that a landlord had no personal representatives, and in those cir- cumstances the tenant ought to be entitled to recover from the heir. There being no privity of estate between a tenant for life and a remainderman, he recognised that it might be unfair to give a landlord the right to deduct the amount that he had overpaid a tenant for life from the rent payable to the remainderman. The case was different where the estate passed by descent to the landlord's heir. The heir ought to be placed in no better position than the person from whom he derived the estate; he ought to take the estate subject to all equitable burdens. After the usual interval, Mr. STUART-WORTLEY took the Chair.

said his hon. Friend's Amendment was very moderate. This sub-section proposed to alter the existing law to the detriment of the tenant. It was an iniquitous and fraudulent provision. The 5th Section of the Act of 1887 provided that the tenant might deduct from any future rent the excess rent paid between the date of application and the fixing of the fair rent. Under the Bill the tenant was to find out the personal representatives of the person to whom the excess rent had been paid, and sue them for repayment. Suppose a rent of £3 or £4 a year reduced by £1, and a return of 15s. to be due to the tenant after the fixing of the new rent. How long would he be in getting that 15s. by process of law? The Government had deliberately altered the law as provided in Section 5 of the Act of 1887, in order to enable the poor tenant to be cheated.

said that the date of application by the tenant was to be the determining point as to when the new rent was to begin; but until the new rent was fixed, the old rent had to be paid. The clause provided that if the new rent were higher than the old, the landlord might recover the arrears due from the date of application, and he had the tenant-right in the holding as a security. The Amendment simply asked that the tenant, on the other hand, when his rent was reduced by the Court, should also have a security in the holding for the recovery of the excess rent paid by him. The clause gave him no such security, but compelled him to go into court against the landlord or his personal representatives. The law compelled the tenant to pay the old rent till the new one was fixed, and therefore the law ought to protect him in the recovery of any excess so paid. It would be perfectly easy to give the successors of the old landlord, who had received the excess, a right of recovery against him; but the tenant ought not to be obliged to go outside his holding.

said that the effect of the argument for the Amendment was that a man should pay a debt which he did not owe. The purpose of the clause was to make a man who owed a debt pay it, and to relieve the man who did not owe it. In the interval between the application of a tenant and the fixing of his rent, the tenant might have paid more than he ought, owing to the backward operation of the Order. But that excess had been paid to a particular person, and the clause provided that that person, or his personal representatives, should repay the money. It would be inequitable to require that the heir or asignee, who had never had the money, should have to repay it. The clause provided that, if the estate of a landord had determined, the tenant could deduct from the landlord so long as the man who continued to be landlord was the same individual who got the overplus.

That would be so if the words were not there at all.

said the tenant would probably be entitled to set the overplus off against the rent. The clause gave the tenant the right to deduct it from the landlord who was overpaid so long as that landlord continued to receive the rent, and also from the personal representative in the case of the death of the landlord, if the personal representative happened to be the person who was entitled to receive the rent. But they did not think it right that the tenant should be able to deduct it from the heir or the assignee.

said the difficulty would be avoided if the clause in the Land Bill of 1894, which was read a second time in the House, dealing with this question, were adopted.

said that if this was the spirit in which reasonable Amendments were accepted, he doubted whether any rapid progress could be made with the Bill. It would be easy to demonstrate the hollowness and absurdity of the argument of the Attorney General for Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman said that the clause was a clause to prevent a man being made liable for money which he did not owe. That was an attack upon the law of the land which had existed for nine years, or since the Act of 1887 had been passed. For nine years the state of the law had been in harmony with justice; and the Act of 1887, which had brought the law into harmony with justice, had been passed by a Conservative Government. The right hon. Gentleman said it was not fair that the successor of the landlord should pay. But what happened if, in a like case the tenant died? Could his successor say: "It was my father—you did not have from me." There were estates constantly passing through the Courts. Take the O'Hara estate in Clare. O'Hara sold his estate to a scoundrel named Dwyer, who had seven policemen as a bodyguard, and who was costing the country £500 per annum for police protection. The tenants could not recover from Dwyer if their rents were reduced; they would have to look to O'Hara, and goodness only knew where O'Hara was. This provision did not hit the existing landlord at all, it only hit a possible assignee. Whatever the Government might say in regard to the case of the heir, the case of the assignee stood in a different position. To say that there was any other mode by which the tenant could recover from the landlord except by deduction was an absurdity. It was the desire of the Government to protect the landlords, but they wished to plunge the tenants into a lawsuit in order to get a pound or two reduction, and to file a suit in Chancery. He did not hesitate to characterise it as scandalous. [Cries of "Order!"]

was understood to say that the expression was hardly in order.

said he was not referring to the right hon. Gentleman in his official capacity, but to the scandalous conduct of the Government. He hoped that future Governments might so act that they should never be called scandalous again.

did not think much would be gained by debating the matter; it was a very small Amendment. The hon. and learned Member had said that the Act of 1887 practically created the same state of law as by this Amendment it was desired to bring about. But, as he understood it, the object of this Bill was not to extend either the Act of 1881 or 1887 in favour either of a landlord or a tenant, but to remedy any injustices which might have been done. What they really had to do in the present case was to see whether the proposal in this Bill was just, and to examine it on its merits. It occurred to him that the assignee stood in a somewhat different position to the heir. He must, or ought to be aware of the condition in which any obligation for rents stood in regard to the tenantry over whom he was about to become the landlord, and he thought it was his duty to inquire whether the tenants were judicial tenants or not. The assignee would purchase with full notice of the claims that might be made against the estate. He would suggest that a fair way out of the difficulty would be to accept the words "his assigns" without accepting the word "heirs."

supported the Amendment. He understood the right hon. Gentleman had no objection to the new landlord pocketing an increased rent.

said that, under the clause as it stood, the tenantry had a right to deduct the rent even from an assignee whose assignment was not made until after the rent was fixed, and he would suggest as a compromise that a right should be given to recover against the assignee. If the Amendment was withdrawn, he should be quite willing before the Report stage to make an Amendment to the Act to that effect.

said the case of the heir was a stronger case than that of the assignee. Surely it was stronger to have notice that the rent had been actually reduced than to have notice that action was pending.

said they had listened to a more elaborate and technical discussion than had taken place for some time. He was prepared to accept the suggestion of the hon. Member, and they would consider the whole subject before the Report stage.

said it was very necessary to amend the clause in this respect. There was the case not only of the heir and of the assignee, but of the remainderman and the mortgagee. It appeared to him that the adoption of the clause either of the Act of 1887 or of the Bill of 1894 would answer the purpose.

said that, having regard to the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman, he would ask leave to withdraw his Amnendment.

asked what would be the effect of the delay if a tenant, by oversight, forgot to file an agreement for three or four years.

said the point had been decided by the Lord Chief Baron. The agreement was not valid until it was filed, and, when it was filed, it operated from the date of the agreement.

moved the omission from Sub-section (a) of the word "substantially,"—a word he said which did not appear in previous Acts, and the introduction of which was likely to lead to litigation. It differed largely from the phrase "wholly or mainly" which had been interpreted by the Courts.

said "substantially" had the same meaning as "wholly or mainly," but would read rather awkwardly in this connection.

said that "wholly or mainly" had been already interpreted by the Courts.

said they were told the Bill had been carefully considered; had they not better leave "substantially" alone?

said he could not understand why the Government should introduce the word and open the door to fresh litigation as to tenancies which were agricultural, or pastoral, or partly agricultural and partly pastoral. The point was one of material importance because, under the recognised description, many tenancies which were not of the farming class had been excluded; and this change would open the door to renewed applications. Many tenancies that were never intended to come under the Land Acts and that ought not to come under them had attempted to come in under the wording of the Acts as if the holdings were ordinary farms let for ordinary agricultural purposes. Cases had occurred in which gentlemen who had residences near towns had come to the Commissioner and said, "I hold 40 or 50 acres; it is true we have a residence; but as the holding is agricultural or pastoral or partly one and partly the other I claim to come under the Act." Was it the intention of the Government that these cases should be reconsidered? If so upon what principle was the change in the law to be founded? The change proposed would open up a vista of litigation which it ought to be the object of the Government to avoid if it was possible. So far as the official evidence given before the Committee went, he did not recollect any evidence of hardship to be remedied by introducing this word "substantially"; and, if there were one or two cases, the introduction of the word might do grievous injury in a direction not contemplated in letting in a great many tenants who had been properly excluded. You could hardly select a worse word than "substantially." What was the idea of the Government as to a holding being substantially agricultural or pastoral, or partly the one and partly the other. Was the interpretation of the word to be left at large to the work of a sub-Commissioner, or was a landlord to be put to the expense of ascertaining the idea of the Chief Commissioner? And was he further to test the matter by going to a Court of Appeal? He must press the question—what are the particular holdings which are meant to be included under this sub-section? He would like to have put forward some examples of what, in the view of the Government were terms and conditions of contract which would render a farm which was not agricultural or pastoral in its character, substantially pastoral and agricultural in its character. Then they might be able to see some reason for modifying what had been the whole basis of the law for 26 years. He supported the Amendment of his hon. Friend, and unless some very satisfactory reasons were given he should vote with his hon. Friend if he went to a Division.

said he had been asked whether, by this clause, he intended to change the existing law. He did intend to change the existing law, because he thought it operated harshly—[Irish cheers]—and it did not matter to him whether the word substantial, or mainly, or wholly was used. Clause 58 of the Act of 1881 dealt with exclusions, and the expression was "any holding which is not agricultural or pastoral in its character, or partly agricultural and partly pastoral." The effect of that had been that a farm, a trivial portion of which had not been agricultural or pastoral, had been excluded from the operation of the Act. That appeared to the Government to be an injustice, and they sought to remedy it.

did not know any cases which ought to be let in. Would the right hon. Gentleman give them a case?

I will give an instance.

I have not asked the hon. Gentleman to do so.

But I will give it all the same. [Cheers.] There was a case at Freshford. There a man was excluded from having a fair rent fixed because he had the tolls of a fair.

said that it was a very important matter whether they were going to admit a new and perhaps large class of tenants to the benefit of the Act of 1881. Everyone who was familiar with Ireland knew that there were a great many cases which were not of the class of cases in which hon. Gentlemen opposite were specially interested, but which might possibly, if the word substantial were allowed to stand, become cases of present tenancies with houses on them. Undoubtedly, it was never intended that those tenancies should become tenancies within the meaning of the Act of 1881. The presence of the word substantial would let in a person who was not a bona fide farmer—one who held land not used for the ordinary purposes of farming. It was a curious fact that, although the hon. and learned Member for North Louth had given the Committee one instance in which "substantial" would apply, the Chief Secretary had not mentioned a single case. He could see many cases to which it might apply, but to which it ought not to apply. Before they consented to the alteration of the law suggested, they were entitled to hear from the Chief Secretary an instance of the case the word would cover. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to Sub-clause 3, and he understood him to say that where a substantial part of a holding was not pastoral or agricultural it would be competent to separate it from the other part which was pastoral or agricultural, thus dividing the tenancy. But he wished the right hon. Gentleman would give the Committee some instance of the kind of case he contemplated dealing with—the sort of case which, being at present excluded from the benefits of the Act of 1881, he intended to bring within the Act. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of cases in which small or trivial exceptions had operated against the holding coming under the Act, and he presumed that he only intended to deal with such cases, for it was difficult to imagine that he contemplated bringing within the Act any holding which was not a farm in the ordinary sense of the word. Nevertheless, it would be well if the right hon. Gentleman stated an instance of the class of holdings which he intended to deal with in this manner.

said the first sub-section of the clause was to be taken together with Sub-section 3, and they were to be substantially read together in fixing a fair rent. There were cases, as he had said, in which the holding was pastoral or agricultural, or partly pastoral and partly agricultural, and in which the exception from either was trivial. It was intended to cover those cases in which holdings had hitherto been excluded from the benefits of the Act through a trivial part of those holdings not being either pastoral or agricultural; to separate the parts, and to bring the substantial portion which was pastoral or agricultural, or both, within the Act. They might, for instance, take the example of a small mill holding. The mill might be a substantial part of the holding, and it would be legitimate under the Bill for the Commissioners to separate it from the holding, and fix a fair rent on the remainder. Such cases had hitherto been excluded from the benefits of the Act in consequence of the exception preventing a fair rent being fixed for the agricultural or pastoral part, and it was the object of the Bill to include those and similar cases.

said he wished the Committee to understand that the objection of his hon. Friends and himself to the word "substantial" was not of a merely captious nature. They objected to it on the solid ground that it would lead to great litigation. They could not, and ought not, to regard the language of a Bill in the ordinary way as ordinary persons; they were bound to consider how it might be interpreted by the lawyers, who were quite a different set of people from ordinary individuals. [Laughter.] It would be most unwise to insert in this Bill any word which was unknown in other Acts. [Mr. T. M. HEALY: "It is in the Act of 1887."] That might be; but it had no connection with such cases as were now being discussed. What they wanted to do by excluding the word in question was to prevent the clause being made a happy hunting-ground for the lawyers, and it was evident, from the various explanations that had already been given of the meaning and application of the word, that if it was retained in the Bill it would afford immense employment to the members of that great profession. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] They had asked for a concrete case of the kind contemplated—a case that had actually arisen, and to which the word in question and the Bill would apply, and hon. Gentlemen opposite, with all their ingenuity combined, could give only one instance, and that was by the hon. and learned Member for North Louth.

How many do you want? Do you want a legion?

Not from the hon. and learned Member. But even the case given by him—that of a man who could not get a fair rent fixed for his land because he had the tolls of a fair—was not a case in point, for a case of tolls was not affected by the question. The right hon. Gentleman had been asked to give a case, but in reply had only given suppositious cases that might arise under conditions which he did not explain. Under the circumstances, he urged that it would be very unwise to retain the word "substantial" in the Bill.

hoped the Chief Secretary would not give way on the point, but resolve to retain the word, the meaning of which was perfectly clear. There were many cases in which the presence of a small mill on a holding, though the mill might have fallen into disuse and was of little or no value, had had the effect of excluding the entire holding from the benefits of the Act of Parliament. In the county of Tyrone there were, according to his information, several instances of small mill holdings in which the Acts had worked unjustly, and the effect of their being on an agricultural or pastoral farm had been to exclude the whole farm from the operations of the Act.

desired to put this case before the Chief Secretary. There were a great many villa residences in Ireland bordering on ornamental water, and having some 80 or 90 acres of land attached. Over and over again he had had offers for some of these places provided they could be brought within the construction of the Act. He wanted to ask the Chief Secretary whether it was his wish that all of these villa residences, so many of which were now empty, should be brought in and made part and parcel of an agricultural holding. If that was his intention he should vote against him. These places could now be let provided they were brought within the cognizance of the Acts of Parliament so as to allow the holder to go into the Court; and he would like to know whether that was the intention of the Government.

said nothing was further from his intention than to exclude a mill holding such as the hon. Member for North Tyrone had alluded to. Where a mill had ceased to be used as a mill it had ceased to be used as an attached portion of the farm.

said the hon. Member had just given them the very best reason why the word "substantially" should remain. It was exactly with reference to mill holdings of that kind and to other cases which might be enumerated that this sub-clause was drafted.

Have they ever been excluded?

said they had. If, on the other hand, a mill holding was so substantially a part of the holding that it should be, in the opinion of the Land Commission, treated separately, it had been treated separately under Clause 3. With regard to the case mentioned by his hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, the case of a tenant of a holding who lived in the house but who did not cultivate the ground around the house—