reported from the Committee on Group B of Private Bills: that the parties promoting the Norwich City Water Bill had stated that the evidence of Mr. Joseph Parry, of the Town Hall, Liverpool, civil engineer, was essential to their case; and it having been proved that his attendance could not be procured without the intervention of the House, he had been instructed to move that the said Mr. Joseph Barry do attend the said Committee to-morrow, at half-past Eleven of the clock.

I rise to move—

"That it be an Instruction to the Committee to provide that the point of measurement be at Penton Hook Weir as provided by the Staines Reservoir Act, 1896, and that the minimum flow to be left at that weir be at the rate of 300,000,000 gallons per diem."

I have to state that the Instruction which I am proposing to-move is only done as a public duty, because the first obligation imposed by Parliament upon the Thames Conservancy is to regulate the flow of water so that the navigation cannot be interfered with; and, after the navigation has been provided for, Parliament has given to certain water companies certain rights that they may take a certain amount of water, which amount is prescribed by Statute as long as the navigation is not interfered with. This question very naturally and properly has been the constant study of the Conservators of the river Thames, and they have a very highly trained staff whose duty it is to see that this navigation is thoroughly preserved, and they have more power of doing so, and are better able to do it, than any other body, because their attention is always being called to it, and they can do it with an independence and a skill which no other body can apply, and simply for this reason—because they represent public interests and do not represent any commercial body which has as its only object to provide dividends and to make profits for the benefit of their shareholders. Undoubtedly these views of the Conservancy have been recognised by the House of Commons on more than one occasion, and that is the reason why I venture to bring forward this Instruction. The House of Commons has on two occasions affirmed the principle which I am asking them to do again to-day. Two Acts of Parliament have been passed; one was passed in 1896, called the Staines Reservoir Act, and the other was passed last year on behalf of this very Company, who are now asking for different powers from those which they obtained last year. I wish to say that the Conservators naturally look upon Water Companies as their friends, and, as far as possible, they would like them to take as much water as can be properly taken from the river, because they derive a very considerable income from these companies which enables them to carry out the necessary works in the upper river in promoting navigation, which otherwise they would not be able to do. But they feel very strongly that all the Companies should be treated alike, and that one Company should not have any advantages given over all the others. Now this is just what the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company are endeavouring to do under their present Bill—they are asking for an advantage, and I am moving this Instruction so that they shall not obtain that advantage, and I hope that the House will lend me its assistance in order that I may properly perform the duty which I have to perform. I should like to say a few words with regard to the Southwark and Vauxhall Company. The whole of the Water Companies, with the exception of the New River Company (which has only recently come in) draw their water from the river Thames, and they all have power to take a certain amount of water from the river Thames. The amount which the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company can take is 24,500,000 gallons per day. Every one of the other Companies has acted honourably and straightforwardly with reference to these powers, with the exception of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company. Every one of the Companies has acted honestly in not taking more than the amount of water that was given to them by the order of Parliament. But year after year the Southwark and Vauxhall Company not only put the Conservancy to defiance, but they put the House of Commons to defiance—they utterly disregarded the Orders of the House of Commons. The House of Commons had fixed that a certain amount of water should be taken by this Company, but this Company found it a great deal cheaper to take water without buying it than to come to the House of Commons and ask for permission to take more. This I consider was nothing more nor less than stealing the water which belonged to the river and selling it to their customers, and this state of things reached such a pitch that at last, by the orders of the Conservancy, I consulted one of the Departments of the Government and asked what course we ought to take with regard to this Southwark and Vauxhall Company. The answer of that Department was clear—it was that we ought to go to law and stop them doing that which was illegal, because they were putting an Act of Parliament in perfect defiance, and if they were not stopped every other Company might go and do just the same. We went to the Courts, and, eventually, the judges granted an injunction which stopped this Company from doing anything which was illegal. A very singular thing exists with regard to the Staines Reservoir Act. Under that Act there are three separate Companies who carry out the scheme, and they brought it in because they looked at it in this way—they saw that before long they would want to have more water, and they came in an honest way to the House of Commons, and they said—

"We want more water to perform our obligations, and we ask you to give us this means of getting it."

Staines Reservoir Act was passed. But this House does not know that the Southwark and Vauxhall Company was one of those first associated with the other three in the Staines Reservoir Act, and they went out of that partnership because they thought we should not be able to stop them, and that it would be a great deal cheaper to get their water in the way they did than by obtaining it by Act of Parliament in the same way the other Companies did. And now they come to this House, and they ask this House to give them a Bill which is inconsistent with that undertaking which they gave to the Conservators when they introduced their Bill last year, and inconsistent with the pledge upon which they obtained the Conservators' aid to help them to pass it and to withdraw our opposition. They not only do that, but they ask for an advantage over the whole of these other Companies, and particularly over the three who have acted fairly—they want to draw a larger quantity of water than the other three are allowed to do, which quantity of water has been fixed in this House and has become an Act of Parliament. Now, I want to put this very strongly to the House. It is not a question of the supply of water to their customers—to save a water famine—it is simply to make money themselves. It is not a question of water at all to enable them, as stated in their objections to my Instruction, to perform these statutory duties, but it is only a question of the expense of water storage and of reservoirs, and those in reference to this Bill are, in my opinion, not sufficient. The Southwark and Vauxhall Company want more water, and so far as they are concerned the navigation can take care of itself, but the Southwark and Vauxhall Company are to have just as much water as they want, perfectly irrespective of the public convenience. After all, this is a mere question of expense. If they make the reservoirs which we think they ought to make, there is no doubt about it there is plenty of water in the river Thames for all the Companies who require it, but it is to be taken at a proper time and in a proper way, so that the river is not denuded of more than a proper quantity. I again say it is only a question of reservoirs and a question of expense. The Conservancy have carefully come to the conclusion that 300,000,000 gallons a day at Penton Hook is the very minimum which we can safely allow, and this would give 230,000,000 gallons at Teddington; but if the plans of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company are allowed to pass, in dry seasons it may get down to as low as 73,000,000 gallons a day, and then we shall get the river in the same state as it was opposite the Terrace of the House, which can be remembered, and well remembered, by so many of us a few years ago. I do hope that this House will at once re-affirm the principle that a certain amount of water is to be left in the river, the same as was settled before. I hope that the House will adhere to the principle laid down, so that all Companies may know in the future what will be done. It may be said that if this is all so necessary, why do you not raise these objections before a Committee and let a Committee decide it. I have no objection at all to this going before a Committee, because I have perfect confidence in what a Committee will do, but I have this to remember—the Conservancy is a very poor body. They have an enormous amount of duties cast upon them, the whole of the navigation of the river, the locks, and innumerable other things fall under their powers and duties, and it would be a great strain to cast upon the resources of that body the very large sum of money which would be required to fight this Bill in Parliament before a Parliamentary Committee, and which money could be so much better employed elsewhere. I think what I have said deals with the question of quantity which we claim should remain in the river and be necessary for navigation. Then I come to the other part of the Instruction. This has already been dealt with by Parliament who has ordered the Staines Reservoir Company to pay us £5,000 in order to construct a weir at Penton Hook, with special appliances, for the purpose of securing accuracy, and this is because they are in a position there, where no disturbance from pumping would take place, as it would if it were taken at Molesey weir, and where there are not the same quantity of orders to take the gauge at one place, to take it at more than one. I do hope that the House will not think I have detained it too long, and I trust that it will agree to my Instruction, which only contains that which will be fair to the navigation of the river, and to the advantage of the great trade which is carried on in the Port of London. It has the largest trade of any Port in the Kingdom—it is the richest one, and it is one which should not be jeopardised in any possible way. I think also it is necessary for the people living on the banks of the river below the place which this Company proposes to take, and I think it is for the interests of the other Water Companies that they should feel that no preference is given to one Company above the other; and I hope that all those interests will be considered by this House, and that they will not allow a Company which comes with any but clean hands, to ask for preference, to have that preference simply in order to enable the public interests to be made subservient to the profits and interests of the shareholders.

formally seconded the Instruction.

I ask the House not to accept this Instruction, and in doing so I must express regret that my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Thames Conservancy thought it proper to use expressions and to advance assertions which, however little connected with the issue before the House, could only have been mentioned for the purpose of imparting prejudice into this discussion. What is the position in which the House finds itself? There is hardly a single statement of fact in the speech of my hon. Friend which I am not prepared to dispute. How is the House to decide between us? Even assuming that these allegations are relevant, how is the House in a mere Debate upon a Second Reading to decide on the accuracy of what has been said upon one side and denied upon the other? Sir, I deny that the views of my hon. Friend are correct. I deny that the principle embodied in this Instruction has ever been accepted by this House before. I say that the principle accepted by the House in the Staines Reservoir Act was the exact reverse of that embodied in this Instruction. The principle of that Act was the principle of gauging the quantity of water to be taken at the place where it was natural and proper that it should be gauged, namely, below the point where the Company propose to take the water, and not above it. My right hon. Friend has said that in the short, temporary, transitional, and provisional Act which was passed last year, this particular point of gauging now demanded in the Instruction was inserted in that Bill. So it was. Why was it? The answer appears in my hon. Friend's own evidence, and not only is it in his evidence, but in the express words of the Acts, whereby all these questions were left entirely free and open for the future decision of Parliament. The only reason why that point was taken was because it was convenient to take the existing form of the words in the Act of 1896. It was of no importance to us whether they were taken or not, because the Staines Reservoir had not come into existence. It did not at all matter whether that minimum amount was required to flow over Pen-ton Hook. I am in a position to deny, and I do deny and repudiate with indignation, any idea that we have at all departed from any undertaking given by the Company. Our undertaking which, fortunately for us, is in writing, was to bring in a Bill in accordance with the Orders of this House, to legalise our position—a Bill which was to be mutatis mutandis in the terms of the Staines Reservoir Act. What do those words mutatis mutandis mean? They can have meant only that our Bill should provide, as the Staines Reservoir Act provided, a gauging below the intake and not above it. I may say that we have much reason to complain of my hon. Friend for the entirely unnecessary and injurious expressions which he has thought proper to introduce into his speech, and for the manner in which I am afraid he has been guilty of trying to prejudice the decision of this House. The past history of the taking of water by this Company from the river is not relevant to the present issue. All I have to say is that the Company always has desired to respect the wishes of the Conservancy and the Orders of this House of Commons, and I am bound to say that directly the Company found that their interpretation of the law was wrong, and that a Court of Law was against it, they came, as they were in duty bound to do, to this House to give them the necessary powers, and I may here say that my hon. Friend did not explain why the Conservancy did not earlier seek the decision of a Court of Law. It is not as if we were asking to get our water for nothing. We have been laid under a scale of payment in our Bill by which water which we have been allowed to take for nothing, will be paid for upon the most expensive modern scale. Another assertion of my hon. Friend, which I entirely dispute, is as to the minimum of 300,000,000 gallons a day over Penton Hook, which the House may know is a weir rather high up the Thames, and above the present intake of the water companies. This doctrine that 300,000,000 gallons at Penton Hook represents an equivalent of 230,000,000 over Teddington is unsound; and how is the House to try such a question? I respectfully submit to this House that it has a procedure whereby this sort of question can, and always has been, and in this case certainly should be, tried. There is another matter which my hon. Friend might have mentioned to the House. It is that the Staines Reservoir Act expressly provided an excess of 15,000,000 gallons a day to go over Penton Hook weir for the express purpose of providing water for the future needs of the companies having their intakes below. The Southwark and Vaux-hall Company was one of the companies expressly mentioned in the arrangement, and the Committee before whom that Bill came had its attention directed to this Act, and, having their eyes open, ordered that there should be this excess of 15,000,000 gallons a day. And now my Friend comes to this House and asks the House to compel us to see that 15,000,000 gallons a day go entirely by us and run down to the sea. Sir, it is not only that Parliament has not sanctioned this principle of gauging above the intakes, and, I venture to say that I defy any advocate of this Instruction, or my hon. Friend himself or anybody else, to point to any Parliamentary precedent for gauging above the intake. It is a highly controversial matter. The Engineer of the London County Council has recently been telling the Royal Commissioners on the water supply of the Metropolis, who are now sitting, about the point of gauging at Teddington weir. There you have an authority just as high as that of the Thames Conservancy—at all events, second only to it, which is in direct conflict with my hon. Friend's proposition. And yet my hon. Friend asks the House to accept his proposition merely because he thinks it is practicable, and that all his assertions ought to be taken as conclusive by this House. Sir, I hope the House will show its usual confidence in its own Committees. I hope the House will not allow its common sense and fairness to be perverted by these injurious imputations, every one of which can be rebutted by evidence if necessary, and I hope that the House will keep this as really what it is—a purely engineering question. It is new to me that the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company were ever in any kind of partnership with the other three companies. They never consented to join the Staines Reservoir Company. I have said, Sir, once that this is purely an engineering question only to be settled with maps and engineers who have observed the flow in the reservoir. It is a question not to be settled by the casual predispositions of this House, but, on the contrary, can be done by the express words of the Act of Parliament passed last Session. This instruction is entirely contrary to all legislative precedent. It is an entirely new departure, and it comes as an after-thought. They never mentioned it last year, and they never mentioned it this year at all, and, as I said, it is a highly controversial matter.

I received it signed by the Chairman.

Indeed, did not. There is nothing in writing, and there is nothing signed, excepting that which I have read, which was that we were to bring in a Bill mutatis mutandis, the same as the Staines Reservoir, can only mean a Bill with respect to which you take water from the Thames gauging below, and not above, the point of intake. I respectfully submit to this House that, according to the principle of many long years, during which the Committees of the House have proved themselves a proper tribunal for the consideration of such questions as these, if ever there was a question which should go to a Committee it is this question.

There are a few words which I should like to say upon this question, because I can speak from an entirely impartial point of view. I do know something about London water companies. I will not repeat the arguments which have been already used upon this question, but there can be no doubt that this is entirely a question for expert evidence; and I cannot help feeling that, where we have a question of expert evidence to be settled, that expert evidence ought to be given before a Committee upstairs, and not before this House by hon. Members. Now, Sir, as regards this question, it seems to me to lie in a nutshell. The whole question is this: the Thames Conservancy say, We want a certain quantity of water to go down the Thames for the navigation of that river. On the other hand the water companies—the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company, for instance—say they leave enough for the purposes of that navigation. Therefore the point to be decided is one for engineers and evidence, and that decision should be given by a Committee of this House upstairs; and if that Committee should, in the opinion of the hon. Members, make a mistake, an opportunity is given to this House to afterwards discuss the subject on the Report of that Committee. The Member for Uxbridge brought forward two or three very controversial points, and the only reason that he urged for this Instruction being given was that the Thames Conservancy could not go upstairs before the Committee. Why? Because, he said, it is a question of expense. Now, Sir, the Members of this House ought to remember that under this Bill, which is really a correlative Bill to that of last year, the Southwark and Vauxhall Company have to pay far larger sums of money for their water than they have yet had to do, and, therefore, that further income will go to the Thames Conservancy. I cordially congratulate my hon Friend in looking after the pecuniary interests of the Thames Conservancy, but at the same time I do feel that this is distinctly a question for engineers. It is, of course, a great convenience, both for the Conservancy and also for the companies, that the gauging should take place at a fixed point like Penton Hook weir. The Instruction is a very rigid Instruction, and practically ties the hands of the Committee too tightly—and I, at any rate, looking at this question from an entirely unbiassed point of view, hope that it will be threshed out in Committee, and certainly not before this House.

I hope that it will not be necessary for me to detain the House for more than a few minutes in dealing with this question, and I quite agree with my hon. Friend that this question appears to be in a very narrow compass. This is a Bill which is asked for on the ground that further powers are needed for the purposes of the business of this company; and it would not get the sanction of this House if it were likely to interfere with or prejudice any of the weirs. But I think there is another principle which the House must bear in mind. It is well recognised in connection with the Private Bills that where a number of arguments are introduced which are mutually destructive of each other the House of Commons is not in a position to decide and give a decision upon arguments of this kind. Now, we have heard many different contentions upon the point of gauging being above the intake, and another that it should be below the point of intake. Again, we are told that the quantity of water taken out of the Thames simply at certain points is not more than 300,000,000 gallons a day. But somebody else says it is only 250,000,000 gallons a day. And, again, we are informed of other controversial matters. I submit with great respect that these are all points upon which it is absolutely impossible for us to pronounce a technical opinion, and that we should do, as we do in the great majority of cases, let the Bill go before a Committee for the purpose of having this conflicting evidence threshed out in a satisfactory manner. Under these circumstances, I am very much disposed to ask my hon. Friend behind me to allow this Bill to go before a Committee.

The hon. Gentleman opposite has done good service, as representing the body of which he is a Member, and as representing other bodies interested in this question, because my hon. Friend opposite me seems to desire to approach this question by preventing any misunderstanding between the Company and the House. But I think that anybody who has looked at this particular question must feel that we are not in a position in this House, and we ought not to be in a position, to hear evidence for or against the South London Water Company. We know what has been their action with regard to taking the water out of the Thames, and we do feel that in an inquiry of this kind some supervision should be exercised over the actions of the Company, but I am bound to say that the hon. Gentleman's Instruction is an absolutely mandatory one when he says that the gauge must be taken at certain specified points of the Thames, and that the minimum flow at that point must be no less than 300,000,000 gallons per day. I have little doubt that the public body which he represents knows all about both these points, but, not possessing the expert evidence which my hon. Friend has referred to, I am not in a position to say whether he is absolutely right in regard to this point, and if you will allow me to say so, while agreeing with him in all he says, and agreeing with them in the views that he has expressed, I think this discussion will show the opinion of this House in regard to this matter—that is, it is absolutely essential that nothing should be done by these Water Companies in arty way to prejudice the navigation of the Thames. Also, I think, it has been shown that it is quite necessary wherever the gauge is taken, that that must be taken at a point which will show the absolute flow, and therefore these matters should go before a Committee. It may be that Penton Hook weir is far above the place at which we take that measurement, but I do not think the House is in a position to judge over this question from a mandatory point of view, and therefore I hope my hon. Friend will not proceed in his mandatory Instruction, although with the general views which he has expressed I most cordially agree.

After the appeal made to me by the President of the Local Government Board, and also by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, I do not think I can persevere in this Instruction, but I hope that the discussion of this subject has not been a waste of time of the House. I only thought it a public duty. I have no personal feelings in the matter whatever, and now I leave it with perfect confidence to the decision of the Committee upstairs.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the consideration of the proposed Military changes in India connected with those recently proposed for the Home Army is sufficiently advanced to enable him to state what will be the estimated cost to India in the coming financial year of the proposed Military changes, and what the cost in future years?

The Government of India have under their consideration the question as to the application to British troops in India of the proposed changes in their pay, but the matter is by no means a simple one, as it is mixed up with the issue of a grocery ration, which in India is on a wholly different footing from what prevails here. I have as yet received no final Report from India. It is therefore impossible for me to place before the House an Estimate of the additional charge which will be thrown on Indian revenues.

I beg to ask the hon. Member for the University of London (1) if he can state the circumstances under which some ancient Irish gold ornaments came into the possession of the British Museum; and (2) whether, in view of the strong feeling in Ireland that these things should be exhibited in Ireland, he will see if means can be taken to transfer them to the National Museum, Dublin?

In reply to the hon. Member's first Question, I am afraid I cannot add much to the answer given by the Secretary to the Treasury on the 1st inst. The gold objects in question were exhibited and described at the Society of Antiquaries, and some months subsequently were purchased by the trustees of the British Museum in the ordinary way. The second Question suggests an arrangement under which all Irish antiquities would be kept in Ireland, Scotch antiquities in Scotland, and English antiquities in England. Such a proposal would not be conducive to the progress of science; it would, I believe, be disapproved of by archæologists generally, and I hardly think would commend itself to my hon. Friend. At any rate, as the law now stands, the trustees are precluded from parting with any object purchased for or presented to and accepted by them, unless, indeed, they are duplicates or unfit to be preserved in the museum. The course suggested in the Question could, therefore, not be adopted unless, indeed, the House thought fit to alter the present law.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether under the provisions of the Act passed last year, which enacted that Loans should be repaid within such period, not exceeding 60 years, as the Guardians with the sanction of the Local Government Board might determine, the Local Government Board have declined to sanction any period exceeding 30 years for the repayment of Loans raised for the purpose of building union-workhouses; and what are the periods fixed by the Police and Sanitary Committee for several years past, and sanctioned by Parliament, for the repayment of Loans for the erection of public buildings by local authorities?

The terms of the Act referred to with regard to the period for repayment of Loans are similar to those of the Public Health Act, and the Local Government Board (in the case of Loans to Boards of Guardians under the Act) are adopting the same course as they have for many years followed with regard to Loans to the local authorities of urban and rural districts. Thirty years is the period usually sanctioned by them for buildings; but a term of 50 or 60 years is allowed in the case of Loans for land. It appears from the Reports of the Police and Sanitary Committees during the last 12 years, that with respect to buildings which can be regarded as public buildings, in some cases it has been left to the Board to determine the period for the repayment of the Loan, whilst in others the period has varied from 25 to 35 years. I understand that there are only five cases during the 12 years where longer periods have been sanctioned for these buildings, and it is not improbable that in these cases the Loan included not only the buildings but also the cost of the site.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a resolution passed by the Town Commissioners of Ennis, in which they direct the attention of the Chief Secretary to the fact that the control and management of the tolls, customs, fairs, and markets of the town of Ennis are in the hands of an individual, and express their opinion that the passage of the present Local Government Bill through Parliament will be an opportune time to confer compulsory powers of purchase of such tolls, customs, and markets on the new urban local boards on an equitable basis of fair value; the purchase money to be provided by the Government at a moderate rate of interest; and whether the Government will consider the desirability of meeting the views of the Ennis Commissioners in this matter?

I have seen the resolution in question. I am afraid I could not undertake to deal with the matters referred to in the Local Government Bill.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, if he can inform the House whether the Great Eastern Railway Company have in any way fulfilled the promise made by him last year with regard to improving the present dangerous conditions under which passenger and goods traffic is worked at their station at Peterborough; whether the traffic at that station is conducted in all respects in conformity with the existing regulations laid down by the Board of Trade; and whether he will use such power as is possessed by the Board of Trade, and also his good offices with the company, to urge on them admitted and much needed reforms in their station and traffic, especially in at least doubling the width of the central (or island) platform, which has considerable traffic from four great railway companies on each side, and is only nine feet wide?

The matter to which my hon. Friend refers has not been lost sight of, and is still receiving the attention of the railway company. I understand that the company is in correspondence with the local authority in regard to the station arrangements generally, and I shall be glad to show the hon. Member a letter which I have just received from the company on the subject.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether more than one member of a family in need of relief, in the distressed districts in Ireland, is allowed to obtain employment on relief works under the arrangements sanctioned by the Local Government Board; (2) whether, in the instance of a family of eight or ten persons, the employment of one member would only mean the earning of a sum of 1½d. per head per day; (3) what precedent, if any, exists for the enforcement of the labour test upon women applicants for relief; and (4) whether he can see his way to recommend the increase of the amount given for a day's labour in all cases, and the abolition of the labour test in the case of destitute women?

No application has been received from the guardians of any union, in which works have been opened, for authority to employ a second member of a family in exceptional cases. Any such application, if made, will receive consideration. The reply to the second paragraph is in the affirmative. Women were employed on works in 1891, and again in 1895, on both occasions at a lower rate of wages than men. Women are only employed on the works at Belmullet, where there is no male head of the family fitted for work. This was also the principle followed in 1891 and 1895. Relief from the rates may be given, without any return in the form of work, to any woman who is unfit for work. I cannot see my way to adopt the suggestions in the fourth paragraph of the Question. It must be borne in mind that the rate of wages for labour in the congested districts at this time of the year is only very slightly in excess of the relief given to persons on the test works, and also that peasant women in the west of Ireland are accustomed to field labour on their holdings at home. I should very much doubt if their labour on test works is at all as heavy as the work on their own holdings.

May I ask whether women in the west of Ireland are accustomed to work at a distance from their own homes under gangers?

The only previous occasions on which relief works of this kind have been started were in 1891 and 1895, and on both these occasions the principles were adopted which are now followed.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the Great Western Railway Company are projecting a railway through the ground recently purchased by the Government for the purpose of a drill ground on Salisbury Plain; whether the military authorities report that this railway, if made, will deprive the ground of the greater part of its value as a drill and manœuvring ground; and whether, under such, circumstances, the Government intend to oppose the Bill for this projected railway in Parliament?

The Great Western Railway Company are promoting a light railway from Pewsey to Salisbury which would pass through the ground on Salisbury Plain recently acquired for the purposes of military training. The military authorities are of opinion that the value of the ground for these purposes will be most seriously diminished by the proposed railway. If the line requires the sanction of a Bill in Parliament, the War Office will oppose the Bill; but, being a light railway, it is proposed to construct it under an order of the Light Railway Commissioners, as provided by the Light Railway Act of 1896. Notwithstanding the objections made by the War Office the Commissioners have issued their order; but it cannot take effect until approved by the Board of Trade, who have directed that an inquiry be held on the subject. The War Office will oppose the Order before that inquiry, and the Secretary of State is advised that the land, as Crown property, cannot be taken compulsorily for railway purposes, and unless it can be taken compulsorily it will not be surrendered.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that, on the outbreak of hostilities on the North-West Frontier of India last autumn, a number of officers who were then on leave at home were telegraphed for to rejoin their regiments forthwith; that some of these officers had only just arrived on a year's leave, and were obliged to return within a week or so of their landing in this country; and that they have been refused repayment of their passage money by the Indian Government; and whether he can see his way, as a special case, to relax any regulation, should such a regulation exist, which forbids such repayment?

I understand there are some officers who rejoined their regiments under conditions which do not, under regulations, permit of the payment of their passage money. I propose to send out those cases to the Government of India, so that they may consider if any change is advisable as to the procedure to be adopted in connection with the recall of officers on leave.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, under the existing law, income tax is chargeable both by the Colonial Government and the Home Government on revenue derived from the Colony of Victoria by persons resident in this country and remitted to them; and, if so, whether any steps will be taken by the Home Government towards providing a remedy for such double taxation of the same revenue?

All income received in this country from abroad is charged with income tax here without regard to any taxation which it may have borne in the country from which it is derived, and I can see no ground for making any alteration in the law.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will grant, as an Unopposed Return, the Return in reference to Irish Rates which stands on the Paper to-day?

The Return asked for would cost £500 to prepare, and could not be ready for several months. Moreover, the materials for the year 1897–98 are not yet available, nor could the figures for that year be checked till after the audit of the Local Government Board at the end of the year. The following figures, taken from the Local Taxation Returns, may, I think, be taken as an indication that if, instead of adopting 1896–97 as the standard year, we had taken the average of the preceding years, the result would probably have been to diminish, and not to increase, the amount of the Agricultural Grant. The total amount of the Poor Rate in 1894 was £997,090; in 1895, £1,025,619; and in 1896, £1,083,965. The amount of the County Cess in 1894 was £1,217,426; in 1895, £1,263,839; and in 1896, £1,259,496. In 1896–97 the assessment to Poor Rate amounts to £1,049,857, and to County Cess, £1,323,206.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that the account of Henry Stirling, baker, Govan, for provisions furnished to Navy men on board the ship Isis, built on the Clyde in 1896–97, is still unpaid; and whether, as the supplies were furnished in January, 1897, he will now see that the account is paid?

The Department has no record of any account from the person mentioned in the Question.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that Mr. Henry Savage Landor, a British subject, and two native servants, also British subjects, while travelling peacefully in Thibet, in August, 1897, were arrested, imprisoned, sentenced to death, and cruelly tortured by high Thibetan authorities; and that Mr. H. S. Landor's scientific instruments, baggage, and other property were seized; whether Mr. Larkin, Deputy Collector at Almora, made an inquiry into Mr. Landor's case, and sent a Report to the Government of India; if so, will the right hon. Gentleman lay that Report upon the Table of the House; and whether he will take steps to procure compensation to Mr. H. S. Landor and his servants for the wrongs done to them?

I have received from the Government of India on account of the arrest and illtreatment of Mr. Savage Landor whilst attempting last year to penetrate to Lhassa, and I have also seen him personally. An inquiry was held into the case by the magistrate at Almora, and I shall be happy to show a copy of the Reports to the hon. Member, should he desire to see them. Mr. Landor's arms and ammunition, with other property belonging to him, have been recovered, and forwarded to his agents at Bombay. It appears that Mr. Landor was warned by the Thibetan authorities that he would not be allowed to travel in the country, and that he persisted in doing so, notwithstanding this prohibition. His attempt to enter the country was made entirely on his own responsibility, at his own risk. Under these circumstances, I fear that it will not be possible to obtain from the Chinese Government the compensation the hon. Gentleman suggests.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the French authorities having increased the duty upon British manufactured cotton goods imported into Tunis above the rate expressly arranged by Treaty, what steps are being taken by Her Majesty's Government in connection with this question, which is prejudicially affecting the trade of the country; and, when do they expect to have it rectified?

The duty at present levied in Tunis on some classes of cotton goods is in excess of the rate of 5 per cent. specified in the Treaty. The difficulty arises in connection with the meaning to be attached to the word "cotonnades" in the French text. Representations have been addressed to the French Government on the subject, but their reply has not yet been received.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to Mr. Justice Grantham's remarks at the Central Criminal Court on 10th March, at the trial of Amelia Hollis, with reference to the present system, of putting away still-born children; and whether, seeing that the Report of the Select Committee on Death Certification in 1893 expressed the opinion that the absence of legal requirements that such births shall be registered prior to the disposal of the bodies is fraught with very serious danger to child life, he will bring in a Bill to amend the Law in the direction recommended by the Select Committee.

My attention has been called to the remarks of the learned Judge, and I may say that one of the recommendations made by the Select Committee—namely, the equalising of the burial fees for stillborn children with those for children not a month old—has long been the rule of the Home Office in, its administration of the Burial Acts. The general subject of death certification is engaging my attention, and I am at the present moment in communication with the Local Government Board.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he has considered the advisability of waiving local inquiries by inspectors of the Local Government Board upon application from parish councils for leave to raise money by loan, when the amount is small and it can be shown that the County Council has held a satisfactory public inquiry into all the circumstances, and that there is no opposition to the proposals of the Parish Council?

This question has been carefully considered by the Local Government Board, and they are of opinion that, as a general rule, it is necessary that before they sanction the raising of a loan by a Parish Council, a local inquiry should be held by an inspector of the Board. The Board have stated that there will be no objection to the attendance at this inquiry of a representative of the County Council when this is desired by the Council. It is certainly undesirable that there should be a double inquiry.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government have protested against the cession of Port Arthur to Russia?

We have not heard of any proposal for the cession of Port Arthur; and Her Majesty's Government have not accordingly protested.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War what information as to the effect of Dum-Dum bullets on men or animals was in the possession of the War Office before those bullets were issued to the Army. I may also at the same time ask the right hon. Gentleman whether any Dum-Dum bullets have been served out for use in West Africa?

The Dum-Dum bullets are made in India by the Indian Government, and issued by it to the Army in India. They are found to inflict, when they strike soft tissues, a wound sufficiently severe to stop an enemy. They do not in any way infringe the Convention of St. Petersburg. Some of these bullets have been specially manufactured at Woolwich for one of the West African colonies at the request of the Crown Agent.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the correspondence with the Government of Canada on the question of reducing the Dominion postage to Great Britain and Ireland and also to the Colonies of the Empire from five cents to three cents per letter; and whether, if not, he will allow the Member for Canterbury, or any other Member of the House of Commons, to see the Papers in question on formal application being made?

In view of the fact that further negotiations will take place on the subject of Imperial postage, it is not considered advisable to publish the correspondence piecemeal.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there have been any cases within the experience of the Prison Commissioners in which a Court of Summary Jurisdiction ordered that a person convicted before it of a criminal offence, and sentenced by it to imprisonment, should be treated in prison as a misdemeanant of the first division; if so, have the Commissioners recognised and given effect to such orders?

I hope the hon. Member will give me a little more notice in future, for it is not easy always to get answers to Questions which appear on the Paper for the first time on the morning of the day they are to be put. The Commissioners inform me that they have no knowledge of any such case.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether all the Reports of the Inspectors of Prisons made to the Prison Commissioners are published unaltered and without omissions in the Annual Report of the Prison Commissioners presented to Parliament; and whether the short Report signed by the Inspectors and published in Appendix No. 14 to the Report of the Prison Commissioners for the year ended 31st March, 1897, is the only Report made by the Inspectors during that year?

No, Sir; in addition to the short Annual Report to which the hon. Member alludes, and which is published in full, each Inspector on each periodical visit to a prison furnishes a detailed Report on that prison which is not published.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether with a view to enable hon. Members to appreciate the operation of the draft prison rules, he will lay upon the Table all Standing Orders and other general regulations respecting the treatment of prisoners?

I am afraid I do not see my way to complying with the suggestion of the hon. Member. The Standing Orders are very voluminous, regulating as they do the details of administration in every branch of the Department, and most of them are of a purely Departmental character. Any that are of more general interest, such as the rules respecting juveniles awaiting trial, are always made public in the Reports of the Commissioners or in other ways.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it is in contemplation to withdraw H.M.S. Galatea from the Humber; and, if so, whether the Admiralty will reconsider the matter in view of the importance of maintaining a guard ship in the third port of the kingdom?

There is no intention to permanently withdraw the guardship from the Humber. The Galatea will return to her station after she has undergone the usual examination in dock.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if he can state whether it is the intention of the Department to raise the minimum wage of the unskilled labourers employed in the Royal Victualling Yard at Deptford to that of the unskilled labourers employed under the War Department at Woolwich and elsewhere?

It is not intended to raise the minimum wage of the unskilled labourers at Deptford. In Woolwich, where our workmen are doing practically the same work side by side with the workmen under the War Office, the concession has been made, but the change could not be made at Deptford without taking into consideration the rate of wages paid to labourers in the other dockyards and naval establishments. In 1893 it was decided to give the men at Deptford an additional shilling a week, which appeared justified by the careful inquiries then made, but I am not prepared to still further widen the difference as compared with the large number of our labourers in other parts of the country.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can now state when he will be able to lay before the House Copies of Correspondence in continuation of Parliamentary Paper [C. 7932] relating to British Bechuanaland?

I have laid the Papers before the House to-day. They will be distributed early next week.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if in the giving of contracts for projected new ships of war he would see that a due proportion of the work found its way to ship-building firms in Belfast?

I should be delighted that Belfast should have its share of shipbuilding for the Navy. Two firms there are in the Admiralty list, including a large and very famous firm, and it has been a source of great regret to me that this firm has not tendered for Admiralty contracts in recent years. Invitations have been, and will be, sent to the Belfast firms in the usual course.

On behalf of the hon. Member for North Fermanagh, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what the position of the county infirmaries will be under the Local Government (Ireland) Bill; and how it will affect their administration?

As the Bill stands at present the constitution of the county infirmaries will not be affected, and County Councils will have the same powers to subscribe towards their maintenance as the Grand Juries have hitherto possessed.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when he will affxord an opportunity for discussing the new rules affecting the pensions of Irish teachers?

My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this Question. I understand arrangements will be made by which the Vote will be taken at an early date.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the number of Members of the Senate, Fellows, and Examiners of the Royal University of Ireland who are Roman Catholics and who are Protestants, and how much each section receives as salary or emolument; whether it is the case that the President of the Queen's College in Cork is a Roman Catholic, and that 116 of the 206 students in that college are Roman Catholics; and whether the President of the Queen's College of Galway is also a Roman Catholic, and 46 of the 105 students in that college belong to the Roman Catholic faith?

The religious denominations of the Senate of the Royal University of Ireland, consisting of 36 members, exclusive of the Chancellor, are equally divided, one-half being Roman Catholics and the other half Protestants. The Chancellor belongs to the latter denomination. There is no official record at the University of the religions of the Fellows, Junior Fellows, or Examiners, and I have no official means of obtaining information on this point. I have, however, gone to the trouble of classifying them according to their religious beliefs, assisted by the unofficial information at my command, with the following result, which may probably be taken as accurate. Of the Fellows, 19 are Roman Catholics, in receipt of emoluments amounting in the aggregate to £6,168; and 16 are Protestants, of different denominations, with emoluments amounting to £2,606. Of the Junior Fellows, 4 are Roman Catholics in receipt of £800, and 3 Protestants in receipt of £600. Eleven Examiners are Roman Catholics in receipt of £835, and 19 are Protestants with £1,181. The President of the Queen's Colleges at Cork and Galway are both Roman Catholics. The number of students at the former College is 181, of whom 98 are Catholics. At Galway College there are 90 students, of whom 36 are Catholics.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the acceptance by the Government and the House of the Resolution affirming the importance of maintaining the independence of Chinese territory, and of the fact that Manchuria is an integral part of the Emperor of China's dominions, it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to support the Imperial Government of China in retaining full possession of Manchuria, the three provinces of which have a special value in Chinese eyes through its being the cradle of the reigning dynasty; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the conditions under which the Trans-Manchurian Railway is being constructed?

The Russian Government is understood to be in negotiation for a lease of Talienwan and Port Arthur, and for a railway to one of those ports, but we have not heard of any attempt being made to deprive China of the possession of Manchuria; and the Chinese Government has not, in consequence, had occasion to invite our support towards its retention. I promised yesterday to lay the conditions of the Trans-Manchurian Railway.

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he could undertake to lay the Science and Art Directory upon the Table of the House early each Session, as is now done with the Educational Code?

The transfer of Science and Art Administration to the Scotch Education Department does not take place until the new financial year. The Science and Art Directory has not hitherto been issued till August or September, and the present Directory must regulate the grants for this year. The course indicated in the Question of the hon. Member has been under consideration, but it is impossible at present to come under any obligation in regard to it. The hon. Member will have observed that the regulations as to drawing and manual instruction have been included in the Code for 1898.

I hope that within the time permitted by the standing order I shall be able to explain the Government proposals—to explain the changes which are made in the laws relating to vaccination by the Bill which, according to promise, I ask leave to introduce to-night. There are various reasons for these changes which, in my humble judgment, make them eminently desirable. Prominent among them is the fact that the Royal Commission, appointed so long ago as 1889, after many years, has presented a Report which was published towards the end of 1896. Another and not less cogent reason is to be found in the de-deplorable outbreaks of smallpox which have recently occurred in Gloucester and Middlesbrough, and which must be fresh in the recollection of the House. Now, I do not stop even for a moment to dwell upon the views pronounced upon the necessity for vaccination, and its efficacy in either preventing or greatly diminishing the evils of smallpox, they appear to me to be conclusive and unanswerable; but I do desire, with the permission of the House, very briefly indeed to refer to one or two of the recommendations made by the Commissioners. Some of them relate to administrative changes in the methods and procedure under which the practice of vaccination is conducted at present. Others refer to modifications of the existing law under which children are required to be vaccinated whether their custodians desire it or not. In the first category, there are some which seem to me to be of primary and cardinal importance. One of these relates to the kind of lymph which the Commission recommend should be used in future, and on this point I may remind the House that there have been some very remarkable scientific discoveries in recent years, and if we take advantage of them, as I hope and believe we shall, they will go far to revolutionise the whole system of public vaccination. I am referring now to the results which, it is proved, are obtained by the preservation of calf lymph in glycerine. The views of the Royal Commission have been greatly strengthened and confirmed by further investigations made upon their recommendation and since their Report was published. These investigations were conducted by Sir Richard Thorne and Dr. Copeman on behalf of the Local Government Board. Since the report of the Commission upon the systems in practice abroad—in Paris, in Berlin, Dresden, Cologne, and Geneva—was published it appears that calf lymph preserved in this way possesses remarkable properties and advantages. In the first place all extraneous organisms, when the lymph is mixed with glycerine in this way, are destroyed. We are told that such organisms as the microbes of tubercle, erysipelas, and diphtheria, and other diseases, and this is very remarkable (even when they have been added for the purpose of experiment), very rapidly disappear although at the same time the lymph retains its full activity for vaccination purposes. In the second place, I am advised that it can be made in great quantities, and retains its faculties for a considerable period of time. Thirdly, and, perhaps, this is the most important of all, the necessity for arm to arm vaccination, and, consequently, all risk and possibility of inoculation with syphilis, whatever it may have been heretofore, wholly disappears. On this point the Commission make two recommendations—that the lymph shall be placed within the reach of all, and secondly, that no parents shall be required to submit their children for vaccination by means of anything but calf lymph. We accept their recommendations. By arrangement with the Medical Institute of Preventive Medicine the Local Government Board have acquired the necessary accommodation, and preparations for the supply of lymph are now in progress; and while the Bill provides that vaccination will continue, as at present, to be obligatory, vaccination by anything but calf lymph will cease to be compulsory. This change in the law carries with it another change perhaps even more important to the comfort of parents and children, and is a distinct advance on the present method. At present the statute for vaccination in England and Wales provides that the child shall be vaccinated with humanised lymph from arm to arm. This necessitates the attendance of parents with their children at the various vaccination stations throughout the country on two occasions—on the first occasion for vaccination, on the second, a week afterwards, for inspection when the attendance of the child is also required for another purpose, which is, that the lymph may be taken from the arm of the one child, if necessary, to be used upon another. Under this Bill vaccination from arm to arm will cease to be obligatory, and with lymph supplied from other sources there will be no necessity for the attendance of children at the stations to provide the required lymph for others. This point we adopt. The next recommendation of the Commission is that vaccination should be domiciliary, and that instead of requiring the attendance of children at the stations, the vaccinator will be required to attend at the house of the child. In other words, instead of sending the child to the doctor, the doctor in future will go to the child, and in that way we shall assimilate, as nearly as possible, the law of practice in England to the law of Scotland where vaccination has never been the difficulty that it is sometimes with us. There is one more point that I might mention. Children must at present be vaccinated within three months after birth. We extend that period to 12, on the ground that all authorities agree that there is greater immunity from any risk of undesirable consequence from vaccination at 12 months than at three. There is only one other subject upon which I may detain the House for not more than a moment, and that is with regard to the existing penalties for non-compliance with the law; and here I am unable to accept the recommendation of the Committee that anyone who conscientiously objects to vaccination may escape the obligation by simply making a statutory declaration to that effect. The effect of this, it seems to me, would be to make the law a dead letter wherever people wish and chose to do so. Nothing could be more unfortunate or injurious to the community in my opinion than the discontinuance, on any considerable scale, of the practice of vaccination, and I observe that the Commission themselves were not united upon that point. Where they are agreed, and where we are disposed to meet them, is in another recommendation which they make, that where a person conscientiously objects to vaccination, he or she may be relieved from the imposition of repeated penalties. This recommendation was unanimously made in an interim report, published six years ago, and it is also the unanimous recommendation of the Select Committee of 1871. I am the more disposed to agree with it for the reason that, so far as I can learn, this provision of the law does not appear to have attained it object. Repeated penalties have often been enforced without securing the vaccination of the child on the one hand, and, on the other, they have a tendency to bring the vaccination law into bad odour, and to rouse opposition to it which could not otherwise exist. Now, there are many provisions in this Bill which I shall ask leave to introduce to-night by which we have sought, to the best of our ability, to remove any reasonable objections that we can to the existing Act, and at the same time to give greater facilities for its operation in future, and, on the other hand, to modify the law where its operation appears to be uselessly harsh. These changes will be, as we believe, especially in the interests of the poorer classes of the community who have not always the same facilities for the vaccination of their children as their richer neighbours. It would be manifestly impossible to allow vaccination to fall into disuse, and we have good reasons, I think, to hope that full advantage will be taken of the changes we propose to make which may be instrumental, if not in preventing, at least in lessening the prevalence and minimising the effects of smallpox which is one of the most loathsome and terrible diseases which afflict the human race.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon the practical Measure he has sketched out to the House. After the statement which we have heard tonight, one cannot criticise the Bill at any length. It appears to me that the salient points of the Report of the Royal Commission have been adopted in the Bill which it is proposed to introduce to-night, and which will be a very useful Measure for aiding the public health. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that he hoped to make progress in some quarters by using the new form of lymph to which he refers, and which, I believe, both from his statement and from the experiments which have been made, is free from many of the objections which are raised to the present vaccine matter. If we can only impress on the public mind that we have the means of vaccinating children without communicating any disease, we conquer one of the greatest obstacles to the use of the benficent preventive which we believe we have got. I am glad also to see that he proposes to do away with the attendance of the poor at the vaccination station, and make domiciliary vaccination the practice throughout the land. That will be done gratuitously. Then I also understand the Bill will do away with cumulative penalties. I am not quite clear whether the right hon. Gentleman meant us to understand that if under this Bill anyone made a statutory declaration that he had a real conscientious objection to having a child vaccinated he would be able to avoid the penalty for non-vaccination.

No, that was a recommendation I said I could not accept. Repeated penalties will be abolished. He will still be liable to two prosecutions, as under the existing Act, but no more.

Then, in that respect, I do not sympathise with this section. I do not think it will do away with the opposition to vaccination. We shall still have difficulty in obtaining that full effect which we might obtain, if we do not rely upon these penalties. I do hold this, that while it is necessary for the benefit of the public and for the safety of the general health that we should vaccinate everybody, perhaps the worst method by which we can bring about universal vaccination is by injudicious compulsion. There exists in the minds of many people a very strong objection to this method of enforcing the law, and I am afraid—I do not say that it will be so—that there will exist in the minds of some, on this ground, opposition to the measure, and, that, moreover, it will be the means of keeping up what is a most mischievous and hurtful agitation against a beneficent method of avoiding disease. On the whole, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the method he has sketched to the House, and I think it will be a great improvement on the law, matter. If we can only impress the as it has hitherto existed.

Mr. Speaker, I beg to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, in order to relieve the congestion of business in the Imperial Parliament and in the various Public Departments, and in order to give speedier and fuller effect to local requirements, it is urgently necessary that there should be devolved upon bodies representative of the different, parts of the United Kingdom a large measure of self-government."

In moving the Resolution which stands in my name, I am conscious that it raises a question of general interest and of great importance—a question which is not only important in itself, but important also in its relation to a solution of the settlement of a political question of very great value and importance. It appears to me that this is a good opportunity for the Party opposite to discuss the question, for there happens to be sitting upon the opposite Benches one of the strongest Governments of modern days; a Government which has at its back a sufficiently large and strong majority to deal successfully with any question, however complicated or difficult it is. And, Sir, further than that, the Government has within its ranks a certain statesman, holding a responsible position in the Government, who in days gone by expressed a view in favour of the Resolution which I now submit. I refer particularly to the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary. I am only going to take one of the many declarations which he made in his anti-Liberal Unionist days upon this subject, and that is from a speech of his at Dundee in 1889. What did the right hon. Gentleman say in reference to the principle of my Motion? He said—

"I believe that it is in the interests of Scotland and of Wales and of Ireland, in due time, that not only local government should be conceded to them in the amplest sense, not only that their municipal and county institutions should be completed and perfected, but that we ought to go beyond that. We might create greater authorities, with wider scope and larger powers."

And then he goes on to describe specifically what he calls—

"The great provincial assemblies to whom might be entrusted the power of initiating legislation, preparing it in the shape of Measures which might be passed at Westminster, and passed without discussion, unless they raised principles of a very contentious character."

Sir, I think that it would be interesting for us in the House to-day, later on, to have an opportunity of hearing from the right hon. Gentleman whether he still holds those views. I have very little doubt myself that he will be prepared to re-affirm it. Coming, Sir, to the main proposition which lies under my Motion, it is this: that the growing needs of the country and the increasing complexity of our social system have imposed duties upon Parliament and the Public Departments during the last 30 or 40 years which they cannot perform. It seems to me, Sir, that upon these points there will be a practical unanimity of opinion; it is a fact, I think, admitted and bewailed on all hands. A remedy of some kind must be found, and I submit, Sir, that that remedy is to be found in the principle referred to in the Resolution, viz. a delegation of some of the powers of Parliament and the Public Departments to various portions of the United Kingdom. There arise here, Mr. Speaker, one or two considerations to which I should like very briefly to allude in passing. First of all, there is the question of the areas in which these bodies are to be constituted. I hold, Sir, that the principle of nationality will determine in the main the boundaries of those areas; and as to the bodies themselves—or the local assemblies, as they are termed by the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary—it seems to me that it will be sufficient for us at the present moment to say that the decision in regard to that should be that they should be thoroughly representative of the districts. Now, Sir, I come to two other rather more important points, to which I should like to call the attention of the House—the question of the priority of claim, and the question of the measure of delegation. Sir, these two questions must be decided by the strength of the sentiment in the mind of the various localities or areas, and by the special circumstances of each case. It will, of course, be out of order for me to refer in any detail to the Amendments which have been placed upon the Paper in reference to this Resolution. It may be convenient for me, in one or two words, to express the view which I take in reference to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr has placed an Amendment on the Paper raising the question of the prior claim of Ireland for self-government. Now, Sir, as regards that, I wish to declare in the clearest possible manner that, so far as I am concerned, I am willing to admit, and admit to the full, the special urgency of the claim of Ireland for self-government. But what I say is this: that that question, however important—and it is very important—it may be, is entirely without the scope and purpose of the Resolution, which I beg now to move. The only issue in the Motion which I rise to move, is the issue as to whether it is desirable or undesirable to apply the principle of delegation to the solution of the congestion of public business in Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr has also another verbal Amendment on the Paper, suggesting that the word "desirable" should be substituted for the words "urgently necessary." Now, Sir, whilst I have said, a moment or two ago, that I admit to the full the special urgency of the claim of Ireland, I am not prepared, by accepting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Merthyr, to admit—which I would do if I did accept it—that either the claim of Scotland or the claim of Wales for self-government is not urgent. Sir, I cannot accept the Amendment, on the ground that it is totally irrelevant to the question raised by my Motion. I would like now, very briefly, to refer to the central principle of my Motion in reference to the four chief nationalities involved. I come first to the case of Ireland. The question of Ireland in regard to self-government has played during the last quarter of a century such a dominating part in British politics that it is, happily, entirely unnecessary for me to refer to-night in any detail to the strength of the demand, or to the special conditions of the case. The Liberal Party, Mr. Speaker, are pledged, under conditions which are well known, to satisfy the aspirations of the Irish people for self-government, and there is nothing in the Motion inimical to, or derogating in any way from, the strength of the Irish position. Coming next, Sir, to the case of Scotland, I will, of course, leave the details in the very competent hands of my right hon. Friend (Sir Robert Reid) who is going to second the Motion; but I should like to refer for one moment to the remarkable progress which this movement has made in Scotland during the last few years. Sir, about 12 years ago, that great Scottish journal, the Scotsman, in its better days, published a series of most able articles advocating the cause of self-government in Scotland. It laid down the contention that—

"The Imperial Parliament cannot adequately cope with legislative requirements in the different parts of the United Kingdom;"

and it declared that it was—

"Simple fatuity to suppose that a farther and wider delegation of self-government can be longer delayed."

Following that agitation, there was in 1889 a very important Debate initiated upon the subject by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark)—a Debate which has always been memorable because of a very weighty declaration made upon the subject in the course of the Debate by Mr. Gladstone, who was then the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and the Leader of the Liberal Party in the country. Now, what did Mr. Gladstone say in reference to the subject on that occasion? He said—

"If I am to suppose a case in which Scotland unanimously, or by a clearly preponderating voice, were to make a demand on the United Parliament to be treated not only on the same principle, but in the same manner as Ireland, I cannot deny the title of Scotland to urge such a claim."

A very weighty declaration in favour of this movement. I can sum up in one or two words the subsequent history of this movement, as far as Scotland is concerned, by reminding the House that a Motion in favour of self-government for Scotland was brought forward in 1890, 1892, 1893, and 1894, and earned by substantial majorities. I should like to say one word in passing as to Wales—a case in which I naturally take a special interest. Now, Mr. Speaker, if the claim of Wales for self-government is to be judged by the strength of the demand and by the special conditions of the case, then I do not hesitate to declare that the claim is a very strong one indeed. It is not my purpose, Sir, to balance in any way these claims for priority of treatment, but I would point out one or two conditions in the case of Wales, which give that country a very special interest in this Vote. In the first place, there is the fact that the elements of nationality, as there shown in language, in mode of thought, in institutions, in literature, and so forth, are more distinct than in any other portion of the United Kingdom. Secondly, there is the fact that sentiment of nationality in Wales is a growing, and not a declining, force. Sir, judged from the standpoints of legislation and administration, Wales has very strong reason to complain of the action or inaction of the Imperial Parliament. Well, Mr. Speaker, coming to the case of England it seems to me that it is possible that hon. Members who represent England, may think that if the Imperial Parliament were relieved of Scotch, Irish, and Welsh business, they might be able to deal with purely English affairs, without further delegation. But that question, so far as my Motion goes, is left entirely in the hands, and for the decision, of English Members themselves. In order to complete, by one further point, the historical summary of the question, I would remind the House that in 1895 a Motion embodying the principle which is popularly known as "Home Rule All Round" was carried in this House with the assent of my hon. Friends behind me, and by a substantial majority. [Mr. J. E. REDMOND: No; I spoke against it.] Well, coming for one moment to the claims of my Resolution, I should like, in a very few words, to refer to the congestion of public business both in Parliament and in Public Departments, and I think that the preliminary observation which I am going to make will meet with general favour: that the question of the delegation of legislative powers and the devolution of certain powers of the Public Departments must go hand in hand. If a decision is given in favour of the one principle, then I think it may be generally admitted that the other principle must be adopted at the same time. Now, Sir, as regards Parliament, how do we stand' I do not think it is necessary for me in any way to try to prove to the House of Commons to-day that it is, as a legislative assembly, over-burdened with work. A most superficial acquaintance with Parliamentary life will, I think, write that indelibly upon the minds of anybody who inquires into the question. And it is natural that it should be so, if you consider the immense development which has taken place in the country, and the immense expansion of the Empire during the last half-century. When you think of the growth which has taken place in the social life of the country, and of the change in the whole social environment of this country in consequence of these developments, it seems to me that it is hopeless to expect Parliament to satisfy the demands and necessities of the country. There lies now upon the Table of this House a vast accumulation of arrears of work, and if some of it were completed, it would result, in untold good to the life of the country. And Parliament has been conscious of all this, and has made many attempts to reform itself. Alteration after alteration has been made in the Standing Orders, and the decision with regard to the Twelve o'clock Rule has practically caused the disappearance of the legislation of private Members. Conscious of this, the House has appointed Select Committees from time to time to inquire what are the best means to adopt to remedy this congestion of public business, and I would refer especially to the Select Committee appointed in 1878. There has been in all these reforms and alterations the setting up of a system of grand committees, but in spite spite of all these devices and attempts at reform the congestion of business remains, and there are at least two evils resulting from the present state of things. In the first place, legislation, which is demanded in, innumerable directions, and demanded in many places by pressing evils, is denied altogether or indefinitely postponed, and the evil of the present state of things with regard to legislation is, that if such legislation be passed it has to be passed in a hurried manner, and is, therefore, liable to be very defective and a source of needless and endless litigation in the courts of law. I need not, therefore, again refer to the question of the strain placed upon Parliament by private Bill legislation and the enormous cost to the public which this system of carrying on private Bill legislation in this House entails upon, local authorities. I find, Sir, from returns in the libraries, that during the years 1872 and 1882 there was expended by local authorities in England and Wales the gigantic sum of £1,200,000 in the promotion of private Bills upstairs. Taking the period from 1886 to 1891, the expenditure in this direction by local authorities upon this work was £656,000, and the expenditure by public companies during that same period of five years amounted to the huge sum of £2,000,000. I do not think anyone in this House is prepared to say that this work cannot be done better and more efficiently and more economically elsewhere than in the Committee of this House. I venture to say that the Government are conscious of this, as shown by their effort to remedy the case of Scottish private Bill legislation this year, and this proposition as to the removal of private Bill legislation I am sure will carry with it the general consent of the House. Sir, I do not intend to trespass many further minutes upon the time of the House, but I should like to refer for one moment to the case of public Departments. What is true of Parliament is also true of public Departments, and I would remind the House that there is a very close connection between the transaction of public business in this House, and the additional duties imposed upon public bodies, and I will explain what I mean. Under the present conditions legislation is to be carried on, as the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has more than once himself admitted, in the briefest possible way, and the work of explaining legislation and of making it really operative is left in the hands of a Department. Sir, it seems to me a very unfortunate fact that so much of the real legislation of this country has to be done through regulations, imposed and issued by public authorities outside the control of Parliament. In 1894 the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division brought forward a Motion calling the attention of the House to the desirability of bringing one of these Departments—the Charity Commission—more directly under the control of Parliament, and a Committee was appointed to inquire into this. What was the reason of that? What was the main ground underlying the proposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe Division? During the last 30 or 40 years the work of the Charity Commission had increased to such an extent that a large number of subjects are now placed in the hands of this Department which it was never designed to place under its control when Parliament gave it those powers. Take the case of the Education Department. It is admitted, Mr. Speaker, that the recent Education Act has imposed innumerable burdens upon this Department, and the development of our educational machinery during the last 25 years has made it most difficult for that Department to cope adequately with the burdens. Many hon. Members will remember the bitter cry of the Vice-President in 1896, when he referred to the Education Bill, and made an earnest appeal to the House of Commons to sanction the proposition of further decentralisation in education. Then there is the case of the Local Government Board, and the same holds good of this Department. The Acts of 1888 and 1894 have imposed an enormous number of difficulties and new duties upon this Department, and, Sir, I believe that the time is not far distant when this Department will have to take some steps to relieve itself of the immense amount of work which it has to perform. Before I leave this subject of Departments I think it will be generally admitted that with regard to the control of these Departments over local authorities in the country, that control in many cases is needlessly meddlesome, and in many cases it is imperfect, and that what you might call virtue of central power, which ought to be reserved in order to settle vital questions and to do away with real abuses, is squandered and dissipated upon minute things. Sir, I had intended to make special reference in this regard to the position of Wales, but I find I have already trespassed too long upon the indulgence of the House. I will only say that the congestion of public business in Parliament is of very vital interest to Wales. The position of Wales has often, from a legislative standpoint, been placed before the House, and it is not unnatural, I think, that we have in Wales come to the conclusion that we have not much chance of receiving satisfaction upon certain important legislative questions until the principle of my Motion is carried into effect. There are at least two main questions upon which we in Wales have made up our minds that it is necessary for us to obtain special legislation. We claim, Mr. Speaker, in the first place, to obtain legislation which will enable us to legislate in regard to the liquor laws of the country, in accordance with the view and judgment of the vast majority of the population, and, Sir, we claim, and claim, strongly, the right to obtain legislation which will place the whole educational machinery of the country in the hands of the Welsh people. Neither do we give up our claim in any way to the right to have legislation to deal with land reform, and with the question of Church Disestablishment, in accordance with the judgment of the overwhelming majority of the people, and I repeat that this Motion is of vital interest, particularly in Wales, because they see in it the only hope of receiving within a reasonable time satisfaction upon these important points. Mr. Speaker, before I conclude this statement of the case, which I have endeavoured to place before the House, I wish to point out that the views we take in regard to this important principle of the delegation of legislative powers is not held alone by private Members, either on this side of the House or on that. It is a view of the question in which some of the leading statesmen of the Liberal Party and of Cabinet rank have more than once declared themselves strongly in favour of. I will only make two quotations. In the first place, Lord Rosebery, speaking at Cardiff in 1895, said—

"The more I see of your political system the more I am convinced of this, that in a large measure of devolution, subject to imperial control, lies the secret of the working of the Empire. The Liberal Party will never, in my opinion, find its full strength until it has enlisted the power, sympathy, and freedom which it would gain in every part of the United Kingdom by the systematised devolution of local business to the localities themselves."

There is one more reference I should like to deal with. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose, speaking in Scotland in February, 1896, made a very important declaration upon this question.

"He referred to what stood in the way of the effective discharge by the House of Commons of its vast and important duties, the difficulties arising from the enormous congestion of work, the vast accumulation of business lying upon the Table of the House. He laid down as a fundamental principle of the Liberal Party that the laws should be made, and that the administration should be carried on in accordance with the wishes and the judgment of those whom they most specially affect. It was perfectly clear, when they looked upon these two principles, that there must be a large extension and a bold extension of what was known by a very long name—delegation and devolution."

Sir, it seems to me, in the light of these declarations that the position of those who are competent to speak as to the future policy of the Liberal Party is made perfectly clear. Sir, in concluding, I would sum up the case as follows: We stand to-day face to face with a great problem, for which, in justice to the country we represent, and for the honour and dignity of Parliament, some remedy must be found. There are only two possible policies to adopt. We must either go in for further centralisation, or for further decentralisation, and, Sir, it seems to me, to adopt the former policy would be contrary to the spirit and development of an age in which there has been constantly growing a recognition of the place and power of self-government in the life of the country. The explanation of this principle has already brought with it a harvest of good results to the people. I think that, through its influence, many social evils in the localities themselves have been grappled with, and it has acted very beneficially in this respect, and if this principle were adopted, I think it would be the means of restoring this Parliament to its true position as the sovereign power of the realm, and as an effective guardian of the interests of the Empire. The main objection of the First Lord of the Treasury, judging from his previous speeches, is, as I understand it, that he objects to the principle, and he thinks that the adoption of it would have the effect of dividing the country, and creating rival interests, instead of unifying and keeping together the Kingdom as a whole. I venture, Mr. Speaker, to predict that the right hon. Gentleman opposite will live to see the day when he will have been taught by national experience that that view is entirely wrong. I speak, as I have the right to speak, on behalf of Wales, and I say that there is no portion of the United Kingdom which is prouder of the British Empire than Wales. Wales has played an important part in the building up of the Empire, and it values and claims the privilege of having had an active participation both in the responsibility and glory of the Empire, and I wish to make it perfectly clear, and there should not be even a momentary impression or suspicion that there lurks within this Motion I am now making, so far as Wales is concerned, the shadow of a desire to impair the supreme authority of this Parliament, or to advance one single step along the road to separation. We advocate this view because we believe it will be the means of strengthening the bond between Parliament and the country generally, and of giving that country a more real part in the welfare of the country as a whole. So far, it seems to me, it is high time for us to take steps in this direction. Parliamentary life has become, under the present condition of things, more or less to hon. Members who take part in it, a pastime, instead of being, as it ought to be, an earnest effort to understand and to guide the 'affairs of the nation. It seems to me that the House of Commons has but very little effective control over finance or over foreign affairs, and for these general reasons I particularly urge this principle upon the mind of the House, and I do so, Sir, because I feel that, in the long run, the progress and contentment of this country and the consolidation and maintenance of the British Empire depends upon the application of the principle which is involved in this Motion. Mr. Speaker, I beg to move as on the Paper.

I have listened with much interest to the able and interesting speech of my hon. Friend, and I think it raises a matter of very grave importance. At the present time, these kind of topics are somewhat in backwater, but they will not be in backwater always, and it is time for us, who are in the habit of bringing these things before the public on platforms and in our constituencies not to hesitate to do something on the floor of the House of Commons, which, in my opinion, is the right place for elucidating difficulties and differences, and for educating und instructing the people whom we represent. Now, Sir, many hon. Gentlemen in this House spent their holidays in Scotland, and I hope they spent them in reading the electioneering speeches which abound about the autumn. If they did they will find that there is no more constant grievance alleged by speakers on the Liberal side of Scottish platforms than the difficulty and the inability of Scotland to get her business transacted in a temperate and reasonable spirit in the House of Commons, and to get that predominance which we think we are entitled to in regard to Scottish affairs in matters affecting the representation of Scotland. Now, Sir, that is the condition of things, and under those circumstances my right hon. Friend has put down this Motion, which is different from previous Motions in several ways. In the first place, this Motion applies to all parts of the United Kingdom, and I will ask leave for the present to refer to Great Britain. I want to say something about Ireland presently. In the second place, the Motion does not speak of Home Rule, as it is called; it refers to self-government generally. Further than that, it bases the demand upon a specific cause, namely, the necessity of relieving the congestion of business in the Imperial Parliament. Now, Sir, I want to speak in regard to the congestion of business in the Imperial Parliament. I can hardly imagine that it can be a question of political or Party controversy whether such a congestion exists or not. How you are to remedy it is a matter upon which we may very widely differ, but that the congestion exists I can hardly think that any gentleman in the House will deny. It has been the subject of repeated Debate, and I do not want to traverse old ground. I have taken a note of a few subjects which have recently been referred to Royal Commissions, because I wish to refer only to those matters of great public importance. There have been Royal Commissions during the last 10 or 12 years in regard to the housing of the working classes. I do not know if the hon. Gentlemen have read the Report of that Commission, but it is to the effect that death, disease, incest, drunkenness, and every kind of horror is due to overcrowding in London and other large centres of population. Very few gentlemen on either side of the House will deny that it has done, and can do, something to mitigate the horrible state of things due to the land system in London, as revealed by that Commission. Very little has been done since 1886, when we reported. I do not say this as a matter of reproach. That state of things, as revealed by that Royal Commission, exists in the present day, but this is not the time to refer to it. Then there is the Sweating Committee of the House of Lords, which revealed another state of things; that there is a large number of helpless people, mostly women, in want of food, who are ground to death in some cases by excessive hours of labour for a most inadequate subsistence. Now, I do not say I know a remedy for that; I do not know that any Gentleman will presume to say that he knows a remedy. But I believe that if this House—containing as it does a very large number of most able gentlemen, who are dangling their heels for want of something to do in Parliament—fully discussed the matter, and had time to consider it, we might at least do something to remedy it. There are also Commissions in regard to joint holdings, and in regard to agriculture. There has been a most interesting Report by a Royal Commission on Labour, full of suggestive and valuable information and most interesting experiences. If we had time for Members to apply their intellect to those different subjects, and to discuss them in the House, we might do something to alleviate the evils. More than that, in addition to Commissions and Committees, there has been an inquiry into the condition of the poor, which reveals a state of things most discreditable to this country. Three out of every ten of the population in England and Wales receive in the course of the year parish relief. I know there are attempts about to be made to alleviate that state of things. It is my candid belief that this question would not have lasted so long, and would not have grown into a sore in the social system, if it had been possible to deal with the business of the country as we ought to have been able to deal with it, if we had had time and opportunity to deal with these things. I will conclude with one last illustration—that of the liquor traffic. Now, Sir, in Scotland, that part of the country from which I come, that is a most crying grievance. It is worse than the land system in the great towns, for it produces more bad results than all the other evils put together; and anybody who knows Scotland and the opinion of Scotchmen will corroborate that statement. We have for the last 10, 12, or 14 years been making attempts to get that evil remedied. I recollect that in 1884, Mr. Maclagan, who was Member for Linlithgow, succeeded in getting the Second Reading of the Local Veto Bill, which had the support not only of the Liberals in Scotland but of many of the Conservatives there also; and on the back of that, Bill was the name of the Member for Kirkcaldy, a Conservative. Unfortunately, the Bill was not passed the second time. From that time to this the Scotch Members have been trying to pass that Bill, or a, Bill like it. We are now in the year 1898, we were then in the year 1884; and this Bill, affecting the most vital interests of the people of Scotland, has never been able to reach a Second Reading. I wonder the people of Scotland are not complaining of the want of opportunity they have of having their grievances inquired into and considered. They have made their demands in that sober and temperate spirit which is a trait of my countrymen when they ask for reform. The business of this House has been more and more monopolised by the Government of the day. Three years ago Members were obliged to sacrifice their Fridays; in point of fact, now we have had to sacrifice our Tuesdays for many Sessions past and often Wednesdays also. The private Member has been absolutely extinguished. There is not the slightest doubt that the opportunity given to private Members of carrying their opinions into legislative effect is practically abolished, and the result is that Gentlemen coming to the House in the hope that they may be able to carry some Measure of importance into law, or amend the law in some particular, find themselves, after the experience of some years, sick at heart, and they feel that for practical legislation the House to them is almost useless under the present conditions. Parliament, at the present time, is absolutely unable to discharge the volume of business which comes before it, to say nothing of the neglect with which we have to treat foreign and Colonial affairs. We have very often to overlook matters which it would be well to discuss. That is a state of things which I do not think is really disputed. But now what is the remedy? Surely there ought to be some remedy proposed. I, for myself, have not the slightest objection to state what I think upon the subject. In regard to Scotland, the best way, I think—and the way which will be ultimately adopted—would be the delegation to some legislative assembly in Scotland, consisting of, by preference, Scotch Members—though it does not matter whether they are Scotch Members or not—of such powers as Parliament thinks ought to be delegated, so that they might pass laws, subject, of course, to the control of the Imperial Parliament, which might, on the advice of Ministers of the Crown, reject those Measures if they thought fit. That is what, some day, I believe we shall see. I hope to see it some day, both in regard to Scotland and in regard to other parts of the United Kingdom as well. Really, that cannot be called an heroic proposal; it is, after all, a modest proposal. I have confined myself to Scotch business. There has been repeatedly a proposal of Grand Committees of this House to deal with Scotch business, and no Unionist ought to treat a proposal of that kind lightly, for the person who made a proposal of that character was the late Mr. John Bright. We have asked for it, and it has been proposed and urged in this House during the last 10 years, not only by myself but by other gentlemen who are still Scotch Members. We have received no satisfaction. In 1892, when our Government came into power, about 40 Members memorialised Mr. Gladstone and asked him to give a Grand Committee with power to read a Bill a second time and to present it when thoroughly thrashed out to the House of Commons. We did not get that; we only got, in 1894, a very inferior kind of Committee of Scotch and English Members. Even that was better than nothing. There is another idea, if the House is willing to assist in the dispatch of Scotch business. There is an assembly in Scotland, which has very little to do now, called the Convention of Royal Burghs. If you were to make that a real representative assembly, and you were to add to it Members representing the counties, and confide certain business to their charge, you could, when you found that they deserve confidence, extend the list of subjects committed to their care. By that means you would be able to get the business of the country transacted, and some part at all events—although not much—of our grievances removed. That is a view that I would venture to suggest. I should like to know very much from those gentlemen who cannot approve of the views I have suggested whether they have any measure they can suggest for the purpose of relieving the congestion of business, and enabling us to get through our work. That is the reason why the language of the Resolution was framed in the gentle way which provoked the mirth of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House. I have no doubt we shall hear some airy badinage upon our proposals; but I shall be grateful to him if he will tell us if he agrees with us or not, that the congestion of business in this House of Commons is of such a character as to be prejudicial to the interests of the country. Will he tell us, if he says it is so—and I can hardly think in his candour that he can deny it—whether he has got any proposal of any sort in his mind by which we can alleviate the difficulty? Much as I admire the oratory and eloquence of the right hon. Gentleman, I should admire him still more if he would come forward on this occasion in the light of a reformer. I have said that this Resolution is couched in gentle terms for the reason I have indicated, and that I think will explain to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merthyr why I am not able myself to vote for his Amendment. His Amendment might be appropriate if this was a Resolution confined to Home Rule. Even then I think it would be superfluous; but it is inapplicable to a Resolution of the character which appears on the Paper. That is the reason I cannot agree with him. There is another Resolution in the name of the hon. Member for Clare, which, as I understand it, asks for the re-establishment of Grattan's Parliament. Well, Sir, all I have to say is that if the Amendment were incorporated in the Resolution, the net result will be that we, the representatives of Scotland, are not to ask for any sort of self-government until there is a restoration of Grattan's Parliament in Ireland. I do not think that can be the real intention of the hon. Gentleman. [Mr. P. O'BRIEN: "Home Rule blocks the way."] I was told, to my surprise, yesterday that this Motion was intended or might be considered as levelled against the proposed doctrine of Home Rule. All I can say is that neither the hon. Gentleman who framed it, nor myself, who assisted in the framing of it, had the slightest idea of any thing of the kind; and I say at once that I would not be a party, and never will be a party, to any shabby attempt to steal priority in regard to the question of Home Rule from those who—if any one is entitled to it—are entitled to priority. I think the case of Ireland stands upon a different level from the case of all other parts of the United Kingdom in this matter. I think that the case in regard to the requirements of that country are stronger than in any other part of the United Kingdom; and further than that, you have historical reasons which no wise man will disregard. Further still, there are to my mind historical reasons for endeavouring to remove the only discontent from the only place under British rule where discontent exists—reasons which are of a very serious character. But I am not about to enlarge upon the well-worn subject of Irish Home Rule. What I am anxious to do is to say that I do not read this language, and that we never intended in the least degree to put for ward any prior claim or any ideas on the subject of self-government for other parts of the United Kingdom in competition with the admitted priority which belongs to Ireland. Moreover, I must address myself to one other subject, namely, what is the bearing of the case of Ireland upon the case of other parts of the United Kingdom. It is impossible for anybody who looks at the constitutional question involved to refrain from saying a few words upon that subject. I believe that not only are projects for extending Home Rule to other parts of the United Kingdom perfectly compatible with carrying that project for Ireland, but I believe they are the inevitable complement of any scheme for Irish Home Rule. I think that if the Bill of 1893—and I said so in this House at the time—were passed into law it was absolutely impossible to refrain from extending, not the same necessarily, but a similar proposal to other parts of the United Kingdom. Allow me to work it out in a very few sentences. In 1886 the proposal was to exclude the Irish Members altogether. In a very short time it became apparent that that proposal was not satisfactory to the people of this country. The people of Ireland were perfectly prepared to assent to it, and thereupon Mr. Gladstone—I won't say surrendered, because that would impart a note I don't mean to imply—deliberately assented to that which rallied the Liberal Party and brought us together in the year 1892; and that was that Irish members should be returned to this House. That was the scheme of the Bill of 1892. Further, I say that more than that, you must extend the system to the other parts of the United Kingdom. If you have Irish Members here, either they must be present at all Divisions, or they must be present at only some of the Divisions. [The FIRST LORD of the TREASURY: "Hear, hear!"] If they are present at all the Divisions they will be able to take part, for example, in the educational Bills of the Government without being able to take part in the Educational Bills for Ireland, which is a manifest injustice. If, on the other hand, they are only to be present at Divisions on some Bills, then you run the danger of turning the majority of Monday into the minority of Tuesday. [Laughter and Cheers.] Hon. Gentlemen cheer that as if it had not often been said. If any of them were not present during the Debates of 1893 I may tell them that I said that myself on one occasion. I say it necessarily follows that if this project of Home Rule is granted—and I hope with my whole heart it will be before long—you will have to extend, not at all the same, but similar powers to other parts of the United Kingdom, and that is a thing to which I believe the people of this country will not have any objection. You will be doing nothing by that except facilitating the transaction of public business. Now I am very sorry I have occupied so long as I have. I have endeavoured to point out the very great importance of the subject, and given my own opinion as to the various methods in which the difficulty might be solved; and I say again that if there is a grievance—and it is an admitted grievance—it is for the Government to tell us what proposals they have for the purpose of remedying those evils. Well, is it not the part of the Government to see to the good government of the people, and to take steps to redress evils if they exist. If those evils do exist it is the duty of the Government to ask not only me or any other Member what our ideas are, and then it is their duty to tell us what proposals they have for carrying their projects into law. Mr. Speaker, I beg to second the Resolution.

Those of us who were followers of Mr. Gladstone in his Home Rule policy, and who are still followers of that policy, have listened with much satisfaction to the declaration of my hon. and learned Friend when he stated that he is as strongly convinced of the truth of the principle that underlies that policy to-day as ever, and that in this Motion there lurks nothing that is in the slightest degree calculated to interfere with the pursuit of that policy. It would be well if, in the course of this Debate, we confined ourselves to the intention of my hon. Friend who moved and seconded the Resolution. There are many difficulties in the way of the transaction of public business which can only be tackled by handing over a considerable portion of that business to be dealt with otherwise than in this House. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that the want of time in this House is the only reason why many of those questions which urgently require solution have not been dealt with. Take, for example, the question of the liquor laws of Scotland which he spoke of as urgent. I venture to say that that question would have been dealt with if those interested in the subject could have made up their minds as to what they desired. Take, again, the question of the land. That is a question which has not been pressed upon Parliament; and why? Because the people who are interested in reforms connected with that question cannot agree as to the shape of these reforms. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that there must be some considerable devolution to local bodies in the country of powers of self-government. Having gone so far, I will say further that I am not perpared to put any limit upon this devolution. Having said so much, I must recall the House to what it is we are here to debate. We have got before us a Motion, and that Motion proposes not to delegate business to Grand Committees of this House, not to delegate business to bodies such as that Convention of Royal Burghs to which my hon. and learned Friend referred, and which is not, in any form with which I am familiar, in the least a representative body; but to devolve a large measure of self-government upon bodies representative of the different parts of the United Kingdom. That being the condition of things, I ask myself seriously what does this Motion mean? I think I understand in a vague sense what is the mind of my hon. and learned Friend who has just addressed the House. He at least means to say a policy which Mr. Gladstone inaugurated for dealing with the question of Home Rule. Having read the speeches in the country of some of my hon. Friends who have addressed their constituents, it strikes me some people at least may vote for this Motion in the opinion that the time has come to substitute for the principle of Mr. Gladstone's Bill some other principle, some system of granting Home Rule all round in such a form that it shall go in an identical and simultaneous shape in each of the different parts of the United Kingdom. Well, feeling the danger of a misunderstanding that exists, I am constrained to put before the House as shortly as I can what are the reasons why I cannot assent to this Motion, subject to the amendment which I understand my hon. and learned Friend for Morthyr is to move. This Motion proposes—taking it according to its literal wording in the sense I have indicated—to give to the various parts of the United Kingdom some measure of self-government. All I can say is, I cannot separate a Motion of this kind from the context in which it has been discussed, and the discussions which have taken place on Home Rule were such as to lead to confusion in the public mind on that topic. But the question in regard to Home Rule is wholly different from the question with which we are dealing in this country, and if the Motion means anything it means that it is part of what my hon. and learned Friend says would be a wholly different policy. You are to give Ireland a large measure of self-government devolving the work upon a representative body. Is that the same representative body as was proposed by Mr. Gladstone or is it another? The question of Home Rule is one that must be considered apart from the problems discussed by my hon. and learned Friend. What were the sources of this question? In 1885 the problem of Home Rule did not arise from a desire on the part of the Irish Members for specific powers for dealing with specific business, but the old question of social order. You found Ireland in such a condition that some statesmen came to the conclusion that the only remedy to be adopted was to bring the people into harmony with their Government, and the mode by which it was stated the people could be brought into harmony with their Government was the giving of satisfaction to that sentiment of nationality which undoubtedly then existed in Ireland, and which exists far more strongly and more markedly there than in any other part of the United Kingdom. Why, Sir, the efforts which have been made on behalf of my own country and other parts of the United Kingdom compare with the zeal, self-sacrifice, and enterprise which distinguish the action of that body of representatives who come from Ireland. The question has become their creed in Ireland; it has become a question of social order; and it was with a view of giving some recognition and some satisfaction to that sentiment of nationality that the policy of Mr. Gladstone's Government in that day was laid down. The question was a question of social order, and not a question dealing with a particular kind of business, not a question of relieving the congestion of business in this House. Our policy in regard to Ireland, I say again, was not undertaken for any of the reasons in the preamble of this Motion, but as a matter of social order, based upon the fact that it was necessary to satisfy national aspirations. That being so, you had another plan with regard to other parts of the United Kingdom. Take the case of Scotland. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that there is a very great problem to be dealt with in Scotland. It may be dealt with by some form of Executive in the future. I cannot tell. In Scotland there is a sentiment of nationality which started in 1892, but it is a sentiment which so far remains dormant and quiescent, and has not yet assumed political form. What we have to deal with in Scotland at present is a business problem as to how we are to transact our own affairs more efficiently than at present. In Wales, I understand from what I can gather from speeches made in this House and elsewhere by hon. Members for Welsh constituencies, and from what I gathered from the able speech of the hon. Gentleman who moved this Resolution, there are four problems which occupy the people's mind—education, land, the Church, and temperance reform. Of those, three at least are much more problems of a business character than questions connected with any sentiment of nationality. Nobody can say they are questions connected with social order. They are questions which have to be dealt with, but there is very little amalgamation between them and the question of Irish Home Rule. The question of the Government of Ireland is a very large question and a very serious one, the largest and most serious which this House has ever had to deal with outside foreign affairs. It is dormant just now, it is asleep, but how long will it remain so? You have got a huge Unionist majority, a majority with which you can do what you please. You are trying to govern Ireland with the best endeavour to do what is best for her, and you have laid down the principle that she must be content if she gets as much, or more than the benefits given to the rest of the United Kingdom. You are pouring British gold into Ireland: £700,000, which it is proposed to give under the Local Government Bill, is not an inconsiderable amount; but I do not think it will have a much better effect than if you dropped it into an Irish bog. You are doing all you can for a country which has a long record of neglect and bad treatment behind it, with the hope of instilling into the minds and hearts of the people that a new era is dawning for them. The population of Ireland has dwindled from 7,000,000 to 4,000,000, and there has arisen in the minds of the people, to an intense degree, the belief that the only problem with which they are concerned is how to emancipate themselves from our rule. I should feel it myself if I were an Irishman. It was because that desire existed in 1885 that I was a Home Ruler. It is because that desire is in their minds to-day that I distinguish the Home Rule feeling of the Irish people from this Motion to-day, and I express my conviction that, however long we may have to wait, you will only solve that problem in the same manner as you solved the question of Canada and the question of Quebec, by giving them full freedom, and recognising their right in their existence as a people to be free. There we have to deal with something quite different from what is the topic of this Motion; I would vote for a Bill which would give all these things. The last thing I desire to do is to deny the sentiment of nationality which exists in these portions of the Empire. They all have legitimate grievances to be dealt with, but in Ireland it is not a question of specific reform. In Ireland it is a question of dealing with a large problem of social order. I have never believed in the paper contract of the so-called union of hearts. I believe in dealing with Ireland with such a drastic measure that by giving them self-government you get rid of the roots of their grievance. Knowing that the Irish question is a large question of social order, and believing that in taking such a course as I have suggested within safe limits you have the only way of preserving social order, I feel I must support the Amendment of my hon. Friend who sits near me when that Amendment is moved. I believe by so doing I shall be following the best traditions of the Liberal Party, and I believe if the Motion which is proposed to-day be accepted we shall be going back upon the best traditions of the Liberal Party.

I do not think that Wales has any special grievance. If this Motion had been brought by any hon. Member for Ireland I should not have been surprised, although I might have disagreed, but I am surprised that the Motion should be seconded by one of the hon. Members for Scotland. It was only last night that we were dealing with two Scotch Bills, one of which was talked out by an hon. Member from Scotland, and a week ago we spent the whole of one evening on the question of trawling in Scotch waters, and it was only by the help of English legislators that we were able to carry the Vote. I do not know where the Scotch Members would be if it were not for the assistance of the English. The hon. Member, the mover of this Motion, seemed to have in his mind the Scotch when he moved it. He reminded us that in 1894 a Motion was passed in this House for a separate Parliament in Scotland. A year ago a Motion was passed to give separate Parliaments to Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and, if I may say so, nothing so helped the Unionist Party as those two Motions. With regard to Ireland, in 1886 we were to have the Irish Members excluded from this House; the next version was that they should be here on Mondays and not on Wednesdays, and then, finally, that they should come here for all purposes, and not only should rule Ireland, but rule here as well. I am perfectly certain of one thing—the Government is not prepared to take a retrograde step. We are not prepared to break up a united nation into its component parts. I am not prepared to admit that business in this House is congested at all. It may be so under the present system of procedure, but I venture to say the speeches in this House are far too voluminous. If it were not for the inordinate length of the speeches in this House we should have plenty of time to transact whatever business properly falls within the scope of its deliberations. I supported the Resolution brought in last year for shorter speeches, and I hope the time will soon come when effect will be given to it. It is not exclusion we want. We desire that the business of this House should be conducted with decorum and dispatch, and the only way of doing that is to have short speeches. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion said, with reference to Home Rule for Ireland, that it was dormant and asleep, but we have been told the Home Rule has been dead since the last election. I do not myself know what the conditions are under which Home Rule is to be proposed to this House. One cannot help noticing that the whole of the candidates who stood at the bye-election gave the go-by to Home Rule, or that they were exceedingly tender in their references to that subject, and if they referred to it at all it was only at the fag-end of their speeches. It has been extremely difficult to get the gentlemen to take up that subject at all, and it is exceedingly difficult to say what is the precise form of Home Rule in the minds of the hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House at the present time. The hon. and learned Member who moved the Motion is not prepared to say what form he supported, yet he has voted for several forms. He voted for the Bill of 1886.

Indeed, I did not. I was not a Member of the House then.

Then allow me to say I have no doubt he would have voted for it. I do not think we can form any opinion of what is the dominant idea of Home Rule which prevails on the opposite side of the House at the present time, and upon the vain belief that we shall have a definite idea put before us we are going to set up separate Parliaments in the United Kingdom. A large difficulty will then crop up—what business are you going to say devolves on the subsidiary Parliaments? How are you going to define what is Scotch, what is Irish, and what is Welsh business? I do not wish to take up the time of the House any longer with discussing this Motion, but I think it is a singularly inopportune one to bring before the House. I do not think the country has quite got over the shock of the last Home Rule recollection, and if the Party opposite were to go to the country again with the same ideas on the subject as they proposed to the nation, then the same result would ensue, and their proposals would be rejected by an overwhelming majority.

I do hope that this afternoon we may look for some light and leading from some right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench. I have already made up my mind, and put down an Amendment on the Paper, but there are many on both sides who naturally look for guidance to the Leaders of their respective Parties. I do most respectfully and most earnestly urge that we may have an expression of opinion from some hon. Gentleman upon the Front Benches, and that we shall not be left entirely for guidance to irresponsible and inexperienced Members below the Gangway. [Mr. LLOYD GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs): Or above the Gangway.] And I hope my right hon. Friend will remember that he is not now at the Welsh National Convention. I am in no way opposed to devolution in principle, and I have sympathy with the Motion in so far as I understand it; it is rather indefinite, and, after the speech of the Seconder, I am not sure whether I really do understand it or not. My Amendment is not intended to be hostile to the Motion, but while I say that I very much question the wisdom of moving the Motion at the present time, it is not opportune, in my judgment, and I do not think the purposes of the Liberal policy are served by bringing it forward. If, however, my hon. Friend will only, as I heartily hope he will, even now, at the eleventh hour, accept the Amendment, I shall be most happy to vote for it. The Amendment has a twofold purpose: first, it is intended to qualify the urgency expressed in the Motion, and, in the next place, I want to clear up one point. I wish to define relation hon. Members on this side of the House have in their minds of the question of Home Rule all round to the question of Home Rule for Ireland. I want to remove from the minds of our Irish colleagues any suspicion that English, Scotch, and Welsh Liberals have any desire to supersede the question they have so much at heart. If two men ride one horse at the same time, one must ride in front. I have always favoured separate legislation for Wales, within certain limits, based upon the wishes of the people of Wales themselves, and I fully recognise, not only the difficulty of securing adequate attention for Welsh demands in the congested state of business in the Imperial Parliament, but this, to me, obvious proposition that no one can know so well as the people of Wales what they most require. But this is the point, I dispute the degree of urgency which is attached to this Motion. When a similar Motion came before us three years ago I think the terms of the Motion were nearly in the same phraseology. When a similar Motion was brought forward three years ago, the word then used was "desirable," and I wish to return to that word as adequately expressing the opinion and the feeling in Wales with regard to the Motion. I object to the use of the words "urgent necessity," Mr. Speaker, because it exaggerates the whole position, and it not only exaggerates the need for this particular reform, but it is calculated, in my mind, to prejudice the position of questions of far greater urgency by placing this question on an equality with them. The matter which Welshmen intend to secure is religious equality, and I, for my part, decline to countenance any even seeming attempt to supersede that question, and to depose it from the position of priority it holds in the Welsh programme, or to weaken our demand by placing any other reform upon an equality with it. If a Welsh legislature could be secured more speedily, and if power were conferred on such a legislature to deal with religious matters, I should be the first to vote for it, but there is no hope that Home Rule for Wales would be got more easily, and still less hope that when that Home Rule comes it will empower us to deal with Disestablishment. If this were a meeting of the National Liberal Federation the choice of words might not much signify, for the great fear of that august body is lest they be taken too seriously, though I do not see, Mr. Speaker, any immediate cause for their alarm. But the weakness of the Welsh Members collectively is that the House of Commons does not take them seriously enough, or, at any rate, as seriously as they consider they are entitled to be taken. They should be careful, therefore, in their choice of words, and in the impression the wording of their resolutions leaves upon the House. My experience of political life, Mr. Speaker, convinces me that in order to secure any measure of reform it is necessary for the time being to focus and concentrate all our mind and energies upon the main purpose we have in view, if we wish to bring it to a successful issue, and not to dissipate those energies and raise up and stimulate fresh opposition by adding new items to our programme. Now what, Mr. Speaker, is the common feeling among the more thoughtful members of the Liberal Party throughout the country? Is it not that the weakness—yes, I wish to be frank; I am not going to let the other side into any secrets they do not know—but is it not a fact that the weakness of the position occupied by Liberals in Parliament is due to the too-substantial, too-sumptuous bill of fare laid before us at the last election by our leaders? And yet it is now proposed to add to it. The coach is already over-loaded, yet it is now seriously proposed to invite up a few more passengers. I hope we shall have some light and leading on the subject from the right hon. Gentlemen on the Bench in front of me. I do not know whether we shall get it or not, but, at any rate, I do hope that we shall get an expression of opinion from the Leader of the Welsh Party. Though I am not a member of the Welsh Parliamentary Party, I hope the Leader of that body, the Member for East Glamorgan, will, before the Debate closes, give us, with the authority which he in his position alone can authoritatively do—and I say this with every respect for my hon. Friend the Member for West Denbigh, upon whom, by the choice of the ballot, has devolved the duty of bringing this Motion forward on behalf of the Welsh Parliamentary Party—I hope, I say, that the Leader of the Party will not fail before the close of the discussion to voice the feeling of his followers in regard to the Motion. I am the more anxious to hear his views because, if the report in the Freeman's Journal is correct, they differ from those expressed by the hon. Member. I hold in my hand an extract which is contributed by the London correspondent of that very responsible journal, who, speaking of the manner in which the Welsh Members will Vote, says—

"As to whether Mr. Herbert Roberts, in moving Tuesday's Motion, will consent to make a similar declaration, remains to be seen. I should judge not if, as was rumoured in the Lobby last evening, Mr. Herbert Roberts and his friends resent the interposition of Mr. D. A. Thomas's amendment. But whatever may be the feeling of these gentlemen, I am in a position to say that Mr. Alfred Thomas, the Chairman of the Welsh Party, supports the prior claims of Home Rule for Ireland, and is prepared to state that fact in the course of the Debate."

And now, Mr. Speaker, let me return to the second and more important purpose of the Amendment, to define precisely the relation of the Motion to the Irish demand. When a similar Motion, strongly resembling the present one, even in its wording, was under discussion in 1895, the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy indicated very clearly that there was no intention on the part of his friends and himself to substitute Home Rule All Round for Irish Home Rule in the programme of his Party, and, in fact, during a speech of the hon. Member for Water-ford he expressed his readiness, in which I presume my Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, who seconded the Motion, concurred, to make the proposition clear by amending it in that direction. The words suggested by the hon. Member for Waterford were—

"That, after a national Parliament shall be established in Ireland, to devolve upon legislatures in Scotland, Wales, and England the management of their own affairs."

But, unfortunately, the Motion of the hon. Member being an Amendment upon going into Supply on a Friday evening sitting, it was not competent for him to amend it. The Vote was, however, naturally taken upon his interpretation. Under these circumstances, I confess I am a little surprised that the framers of the Motion this afternoon, inspired, as I presume they are, from the same source as were those who formulated the Motion of 1895, did not remedy the defect which was then discovered, and I can well understand—though I do not know how far such is actually the case—that the omission may have created some little annoyance, if not suspicion, in the minds of the Members for Ireland. The omission has, nevertheless, I feel sure, only to be pointed out in order to be rectified, for I contend that on the ground of right, no less than that of expediency, Ireland has a paramount claim to precedence, and that, so long as the honourable alliance between the Liberal and Irish Parties is maintained, and while the Irish representatives insist on priority of treatment, it will be dishonourable on our part to question that claim, and, moreover, disastrous to the prosperity of the Liberal Party as at present constituted. I think we can say, Mr. Speaker, that it is the intensity of the feeling in Ireland, the dogged determination with which they have pursued their purpose, the arguments and eloquence they have brought to bear, that have stimulated Scotch and Welsh Members late in the day to follow in their wake. When the alliance between the Parties is discontinued, then our obligation will naturally be at an end; but if that is the wish of English, Scotch, and Welsh Liberals, then let it be plainly stated, and let us first count the cost. Hon. Members opposite will pardon this little domestic conversation I am holding with my Friends, for I fear I cannot hold their interest with any information that they do not already fully possess; nor do I ask them to follow me into this matter when they speak. But I wish to be quite frank on this question of expediency. Thorough frankness is always the safest, least vulnerable, and wisest policy when you know your opponents to be completely informed. I fully recognise that the differences between Irish Members have created annoyance, and that their attitude on the Education and Roman Catholic University questions has given rise to grave dissatisfaction among many Liberals, and especially among Nonconformists, who now, as we all know, constitute the backbone of the Liberal Party, and that it is openly asserted, with alarming and increasing energy, that while, by abandoning the alliance, the Liberal Party might lose a few seats, we shall win back many on this side of the Channel. But that is only one view of the matter. Consider the position in the House of Commons. The alliance is at present in a minority of something like 140. If the Irish Nationalists were alienated—and that, I understand, would be the result of substituting the proposal contained in this Motion as it stands for Irish Home Rule—we should find ourselves in a minority of 300. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but can they deny it? We should have to win back 150 seats to put ourselves on a bare equality with our opponents. We should have to win back 175 to give us a fair working majority. The rank and file of the Liberal Party are pulling themselves together in a splendid manner, notwithstanding the absence of strong leadership. How far that is due to the return of confidence in our policy or growing disgust at that of our opponents, or whether it is more due to love of Liberalism and dislike of Toryism, I will not attempt to decide. But, under the most favourable circumstances, how long will it take the Liberal Party to win back 175 seats, which will be necessary to overtake our possible minority of 300, and give us a working majority? I ask you seriously to consider how long it will take us to do this before we come to a rupture with our Irish friends. I beg to move the Amendment.

In seconding this Amendment I wish to dissociate myself from the bitter allusions which the hon. Member has made to the Liberal Party. Nor can I follow him into any domestic difficulties of the Welsh Party. I see no reason why its Members should dispute. I would like to be friends with everybody. The Amendment divides itself into two parts. The first is merely to substitute the word "desirable" for "urgently necessary." I do not attach very much importance to that, but still the word "desirable" is more correct than the two words which stand in the original Motion. But the serious part of the Amendment is the latter part, which claims to give priority to Ireland in this matter of self-government. I desire to acknowledge the kindly references which have been made towards Ireland, for nearly everything we wanted is conceded in the speeches that have been delivered. It may be asked, therefore, why we do not rest satisfied. The reason is, Mr. Speaker, that these are grave matters, and that sometimes effects arise from such action in this House which are not seen at the time, and which produce very serious results in after time. About nine years ago a subject came up akin to the one we are now dealing with. A Conservative Government was in power, as strong as the one in office to-day, and a suggestion was made that a Committee should be appointed to inquire into the financial relations of the United Kingdom, but it was resisted on the grounds that if such an inquiry were instituted, it should also apply to Wales and Scotland. The result was that no inquiry was made into these financial questions, and when we came to discuss Home Rule we were placed in a most considerable difficulty, because we had not those facts which we should have had if that Committee had been appointed. More serious results may arise than hon. Members may think from treating these questions in such a spirit, and it is, therefore, with great deference to my hon. Friends that I would just say a brief word or two in support of the present Amendment. The first point is, we deny that legislation is so urgently necessary for Wales and Scotland. Wales is the best-off part of the United Kingdom with regard to legislation, because, owing to the great energy of my hon. Friends from Wales, they get a good many special Acts of Parliament passed for the benefit of the Principality, and they get the full benefit of all English Acts of Parliament. A book has been published upon the subject of "Federation and the Empire," and some very useful statistics were given in it which prove that this Parliament is still in heart and essence the English Parliament, and that a large share of the business done is English business. Now, all the English business is Welsh business also. I will quote from that book one figure to show how this is increasing. In 1830 25 per cent. of the Acts passed in this House applied to England; in 1890 47 per cent. applied to England—I should say to England and Wales—therefore twice as much Parliamentary time is devoted to that part of the Kingdom as was the case some 60 years ago. The second reason I will urge is that Wales has received a good deal of attention, and has made a great deal of progress in settling Welsh questions. I desire to associate myself with the hon. Gentleman on my right, who said he would put no limit to the aspirations of Wales or of Scotland. Neither would I. But a great deal of progress has been made in satisfying the immediate wants of Wales, more than the other parts of the Kingdom have secured. Take Welsh education. What has been done? We have got a sort of Welsh Parliament established. There is a body which brings in its Estimates in the autumn, in whose hands the whole question of secondary and university education for Wales rests. This is a body of a representative character, and contains representatives from all the Welsh counties. Wales has got her Parliament in this respect, and has got power to deal with all those subjects to which Welsh Members attach so much importance. Then there is the question of the Church in Wales. A Bill has been passed giving great satisfaction to Welsh Members on that subject. I do not wish to go too far in saying that the wishes of the Welshmen have been satisfied, but the facts I have alluded to show that great progress has been made in dealing with the questions which they have raised. I hope I shall not be dissociating myself too violently from the opinion expressed on my right—that this is a question of nationality—when I suggest that it is also a business question, and we ought to have regard, in dealing with it, as to how the different parts of the United Kingdom live under the present system. Wales lives extremely well. She shares the prosperity of England. Anyone who looks at Great Britain as an island could not draw a line and say, "This part is cut off from the rest." Scotland and Wales share evenly with England the full prosperity of this country, especially during the last quarter of a century. I do not wish to enter into particulars to any extent on that point, but I may give to the House one fact that will illustrate my meaning. The wealth of this great island depends more than anything else upon the fact that it is a great exporting country, and these exports amount to £240,000,000. They are distributed between England, Scotland, and Wales almost exactly in proportion to the population, but if there be any difference Wales has the advantage. Therefore we see that so far as those great sources of wealth which enable a country to bear the burden of government are concerned, England, Scotland, and Wales stand upon an equality. Let me contrast with this the exports from Ireland to foreign countries. The reports from Ireland to foreign countries are only a quarter of a million per annum. It may be said that this does not include the Irish exports to England. Neither does it include the Scotch or Welsh exports; therefore, for the purpose of comparison, the fads I have stated rest upon a sure foundation. So we find that in one island this element of national wealth is equally distributed. But it is not so in Ireland. I turn to Scotland. I do not pretend to be an authority on the point, and I will only quote an allusion which I think is justified by the speech that my Scotch Friend has made. The remark I would venture to make is that Scotch Home Rule is not progressing very rapidly at the moment. [An hon. MEMBER: Why not?] Well, I do not want to be offensive, but it strikes me that that vigorous association which exists for pushing this particular item of politics forward has not been in quite so flourishing a condition lately. There is one reason wiry the interest is somewhat flat, and that is because, after Welsh legislation, this Mouse seems to be constantly buried in Scotch legislation. Take last night. Last night we had six Scotch Bills on the Order Paper out of 11 or 12, and for the convenience of the Scotchmen the Estimates were stopped at an early hour, and the Lord Advocate proceeded to push his Bills through with extraordinary rapidity. Scotchmen seem to be jealous of the prominence which this question of the financial relations has got in Ireland, and the Glasgow and Edinburgh Chambers of Commerce, have inquired into the question. I read the report of this Committee, and I find that although Scotchmen pay a little too much they think they get a quid pro quo. We must recognise that conditions common to all the three countries exist. The countries have been united in prosperity, and the financial burden of the country does not rest with peculiar weight upon any one part more than the other. I must make an exception, of course, in the case of the Highlands of Scotland. I believe that this is the only population within the island of Great Britain which is enabled by its disadvantages and sufferings to compare with the conditions of Ireland. Now I will tell the House, which has listened to me so patiently, why it is that I cannot put the case of any part of Great Britain alongside the case of Ireland. I will just quote one figure more from that book which deals with the way in which this House discharges its legislative duties. In 1830 20 per cent. of the legislation was Irish, but in 1890 only 15 per cent. was Irish, so that a smaller amount of time and a smaller number of Measures are passed now than there used to be passed before. Many events have recently occurred which tend greatly to increase the demand for self-government in Ireland. In the first place, there was the publication of the Report of the Royal Commission on the Financial Relations. I believe that this is the greatest event upon this question which ever happened. When we were discussing the Home Rule Bill in 1893 I heard the present Leader of the House put to Mr. Gladstone this question a hundred times—

"Can the right honourable gentleman, or anybody on that side of the House, tell me of any grievance now that Ireland labours under which is not shared by the other parts of the United Kingdom?"

I must say that the Front Liberal Bench of that day was not able to give a complete and satisfactory answer to that question. I hope I have given no offence with that remark. I gladly followed my Leaders as far as they went upon that question of Home Rule; but I always thought they based too much importance on the historical side of the question. Now, history does not appeal to me so strongly in dealing with practical politics. If we could promote a happy condition of public affairs, say, for seven years, in Ireland, it would go far—I do not say to remove entirely—but it would go far to heal that feeling of bitterness in the minds of the people. But are we proceeding in that direction? The Report of the Financial Relations shows that the most terrible grievances rest upon the people of Ireland to-day. These are constantly increasing as Ireland diminishes in population. This country is always demanding increased financial burdens, while the ability to bear such burdens is constantly diminishing. Look what has happened since the Report was presented. Not only has the Report not been dealt with, but the situation has got far worse; the number of people has diminished, while taxation has increased. If the Liberal Leaders had been able to point to those growing financial burdens on the diminishing numbers and diminishing wealth of the Irish people the results in regard to Home Rule might have been very different. Another point that I would like to make in favour of Ireland's particular claim is the failure of the Unionist Government to satisfy the demands of the Irish people. Nothing is more striking than the discontent which exists in the minds of the Unionists of Ireland at the efforts of the Unionist Government. A most distinguished Unionist on the other side of the House said to me—and I hope he has not changed his mind—some few months ago that if what the Government are doing is all that the Unionist Government can do for Ireland, then his mind was severely shaken on the question of Homo Rule. Everybody's mind is now open to the thought that Unionism provides no solution of the situation. What has happened in the 13 years since Lord Salisbury asked for 20 years of firm and resolute government for Ireland? You have had 13 years of it. How far have you gone towards its solution? Look at Ireland; what do we see? Why, one of the most serious famines that have existed since the beginning of the century on the west coast of Ireland. We see a most terrible increase of lunacy. [Laughter.] I am sorry that the question excites any merriment on the other side of the House. I will not attribute it to the want of heart of the hon. Members opposite. It is to their want of knowledge. If they had looked only to the last Report of the Lunacy Commissioners for Ireland for 1897 they would have been struck by the terrible and serious facts reported by their officials. The ratio of increase in 1896 is double as great as ever it was in any previous year in Ireland. Now just think of that fact. The Royal Commission direct attention to the increase of lunacy. Everyone is familiar with the alarming increase for 20 years past. How terrible must the figures be when I say that the ratio of increase is doubled in the last year! There is a total breakdown on the part of this House to provide government for the people. The Poor Law system has broken down, the Congested Districts Board has also broken down, the system of saving the people by building labourers' houses and constructing light railways is completely played out, and this policy is no remedy. That is the reason why I stick to the Home Rule faith. I believe that the government of the country was never so bad, never so inadequate, to meet the requirements of the Irish people as it is to-day. Mr. Speaker, I do not suppose hon. Members opposite will agree with me, but I am quite sure that not one of them will say that I am not perfectly in earnest in what I have said, and that it is not consistent with all that I have said in this House. For these reasons I have much pleasure in seconding the Amendment of my hon. Friend.

I rise to support the Amendment, because I have a two-fold objection to the original Resolution as it stands on the Paper. In the first place, it is so drafted as undoubtedly to convey an impression to the public outside, as well as, I believe, to Members of this House, that it is the object of the mover and seconder, so far as the character of the demand is concerned, to place that demand for Ireland upon an equal footing with the demand of Wales and Scotland, which is for a devolution of powers. And I object, in the second place, to the wording of the original Resolution, because by introducing the words "urgently necessary," as it is upon the Paper, it will convey undoubtedly the impression that the Resolution is desired to take away from Ireland that priority for her claim which has been the programme of the Liberal Party for many years. It will be noticed not only in the Resolution itself, but in the speeches of the mover and seconder, which, in my judgment, make the wording of the Resolution worse, that they base their claim, not upon a, historic national right, but on grievances and inconveniences. After listening to the speeches of the mover and seconder, I would hardly dignify them by the name of grievances. What has been that history of Ireland? When we claim from this House the right to legislate for our own country, we might have based the Irish claim on grievances; we might have pointed to a long series of years during which, in Ireland, under the control of this House, every conceivable evidence of misgovernment was rife on every side; we might have pointed to a diminishing population, which had dwindled from 8,750,000 to 4,750,000; we might have pointed to increasing and deepening poverty, to ruined manufactures, to decaying trade, while all the rest of the civilised world was advancing by leaps and bounds; we might have pointed to a race which had been scattered by the Government of this country over every portion of the civilised world, and which is characterised by nothing but hatred and animosity to English rule; we might, I say, have claimed Home Rule for these reasons; we might have claimed it also by pointing to this fact—which in itself alone would condemn beyond the power of redemption a government that has been carried on under the sanction of this House in Ireland for 98 years—the fact that for 98 years society in that country was rent and torn by class war and religious hatred, all of which is the direct outcome of the misgovernment of England. Had we based the Irish claim on these grounds, it would have been irresistible; but that was not the main ground on which we bused the Irish claim in 1886 and the years that went before. We based it on historic right and the indestructible resolve of the people to have the liberty of governing themselves, and we told you frankly in 1886 and 1893 that if the impossible were to be done, namely, if good government were to be given to Ireland through the instrumentality of this House, even then you would not destroy the passion of the Irish people for the right to govern themselves. Therefore, I say the Irish claim stands first of all on historic right and the indestructible desire of an ancient people to have the government of their own country in the hands of their own countrymen on their own soil, and I support this Amendment because it seeks to preserve the priority of the Irish claim over any claims that may be put forward for Scotland or Wales; and, in the second place, by using the well-known expression describing the Irish claim as a Measure of Home Rule for Ireland, the Amendment proposes, to place the claim of Ireland on such a footing as will recognise the national character of that claim. I may say, in passing, that with regard to the other Amendment on the Paper which may be moved at a later stage, I will not deal with it until it is before the House. Now, it has been pointed out by the mover and seconder of this Resolution that it was entirely foreign to their intention to put Home Rule into the background. I fully accept that declaration on their part, but we are entitled, and we are bound, to judge a Resolution of this character by the meaning it will convey to the ordinary man who reads the newspaper, and I say that if passed in its present form it could convey no other meaning to the ordinary citizen than that it was the desire of those who supported it to abandon the policy of giving Ireland a National Legislature as the primary object of the Liberal Party, and to substitute for it an undefined and unknown policy of giving certain undefined bodies in parts of the Kingdom certain undefined powers, leaving Ireland to be distinguished as a part of the United Kingdom. Dealing with this question of the effect of this Resolution in its present shape over the minds of people outside, I turn for a moment, to the language used by a very able Irish correspondent of the Sunday Observer, and I desire to read a short extract from his comment on this Resolution, because I believe that in the language I am about to read he expresses admirably what would be the feeling of the great mass of the Nationalists of Ireland towards the Resolution the House is now considering. He says—

"O'Connell asked for repeal of the Union in the early thirties, and again in the middle forties. His principles then, in a more advanced form, were taught, after he died, by the Young Irelanders. Twenty years later, in a more advanced form still, they were preached by the Fenians. Then came the movement of Isaac Butt, in which, modified to suit the scruples of the Protestant gentry who felt outraged by the disestablishment of their Church, they were again revived; and, finally, on the top of all these came the Parnell movement and the Irish Home Rule claim as we know it to-day. Here we have a period of between 60 and 70 years, during which Ireland has been agitating and conspiring, while scores of her bravest sons have gone to the scaffold, and hundreds with broken hearts to the grave or exile, to restore her national independence; and yet Scotland and Wales, whose people, as yet have shown little desire for legislative authority, and who have certainly suffered nothing for such a cause, seem to think—or rather a section of their representatives—that it is legitimate politics for them to play the dog in the manger to Ireland after her two generations of travail for this idea."

That may be strong language, but it represents the feelings of Irish Nationalists. And then there is the question of priority between the claim of Ireland and those of Scotland and Wales—with which I heartily sympathise. I ask the Scotch and Welsh Members, when did they think of asking for Home Rule? Not until on the floor of this House—not to speak of the previous movements in Ireland—year after year the Irish Party had fought and struggled for the cause. It was from our action that they first learned of Home Rule and put forward this claim which I shall be always prepared to support because they were inspired by the example of Ireland. Could anything be more ungenerous than to say to Irishmen, after all these years of suffering and coercion, that their cause, which they had fought for, as the hon. and learned Member for Haddington had said, with dogged fidelity, should be shoved into the background in order to make way for some indefinite proposal of devolution? The proposer and seconder of this Motion desire Home Rule—a very laudable desire, but one which is not crystallised into a definite shape, and has not come before this House with the definiteness which has characterised the Irish demand. I put it to them, do they think they are serving their cause by moving this Motion? Their only chance of getting an increased measure of Local Government for Scotland and Wales is to carry Home Rule for Ireland, and if it works successfully in that country the other will probably follow as far as the people of Scotland and Wales are desirous. But, as the hon. Member for Merthyr said, the first essential for success is concentration, and if the Liberal Party fondly imagine they are going to advance the interests of the Party or the interests of Local Government in Scotland or Wales by breaking away from their traditional policy on the Irish question and adopting a new policy of Home Rule all round, then I say no Party ever made a greater mistake. In March, 1895, the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy proposed a motion—

"That in the opinion of this House, and in order to give speedier and fuller effect to the special desires and wants of the respective nationalities in the United Kingdom, it is desirable to evolve on Legislatures in Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales, respectively, the management and control of their domestic affairs."

That is a totally different Motion from the one now before the House, because it says "the respective nationalities in the United Kingdom." He used the word desirable, and I think it is specially desirable, but for fear there might be any doubt or ambiguity, he agreed with the Irish Party to make the following statement with regard to priority. He said in his speech, referring to the fact that some people thought this Resolution was calculated to put Home Rule in a back place, "he took a very different view." He quoted from the speech of the Chief Secretary to the effect that—

"the settlement of the Irish question was the primary policy of the present Liberal Administration;"

and then he added—

"There was no Member on the Liberal side of the House who would not heartily agree."

Subsequently, when the hon. Member for Waterford proposed to place in front of his Resolution the words, "after a National Parliament shall have been established in Ireland," the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy in his speech said, "I accept the Amendment." The forms of the House rendered it impossible for the hon. Member for Waterford to move his Amendment, but the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy recognised the unquestioned priority of the Irish claim. Now, Sir, I come to the last point on which I desire to trouble the House. The right hon. Gentleman, who sits below me, who seconded the Motion spoke at some length on the question of federation. He pointed out that, in his judgment, if Irish Home Rule were granted it would be an inevitable consequence that the whole constitution of this country should be recast, and that largely similar rights should be granted to England, Wales, and Scotland. I have never held that view, and I have never stated it, because I have never held that the British Constitution was a logical constitution. It meets the urgency of urgent cases, and it goes along in the most illogical fashion from year to year until some fresh emergency requires some fresh measures. I am prepared to point out—and it is an interesting fact—that in this opinion as to the probable result of Home Rule the hon. Member is entirely supported by the hon. Member for Waterford City, because, in a speech delivered mi the 29th March, 1895, on the motion of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy, he used these words—

"Care ought to be taken that Home Rule should be conceded of such a shape that it would be possible to fit it in afterwards with a complete system of federation for all these islands."

So that, so far as a desire to see a federal system follow upon Home Rule was concerned, the hon. Member for Waterford City was in complete accord with the right hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion. We base the claim of Ireland on historic right and on the determination of the people, which I believe the Government, strong as it is, and this House will find to be absolutely indestructible, to obtain the management of their own affairs. The hon. Member for Merthyr, in moving this Amendment, alluded to the fortunes of the Liberal Party and their relation to the Irish demand, and drew a rather humorous picture of what would be the condition of the Liberal Party if they were left entirely to themselves. I do not desire, nor intend, to follow the hon. Member in what he said. Possibly there would be a reformation of Parties; but I tell all whom it may concern that, so far as we are concerned, our hope of winning Home Rule from this House does not depend on the action of any Party. We are absolutely convinced that if 80 Irish Members hold together in the House for a sufficient length of time Home Rule must eventually be granted, no matter what Party is in power. For my own part, I have always said—and I say it frankly—that what I believe is delaying Home Rule is not the fact that one Party is in power or that another Party is not in power, but the fact that the Irish Party is not united. If the Irish Party are united, and hold together for a sufficient length of time, it is my deep conviction that, no matter what Party is in power, Home Rule will have to be granted by this House. I say so much for the attitude of the Irish Party. As regards the Liberal Party, they are masters of their own destiny and keepers of their own conscience, they are free to act as they think fit; but I share the view expressed by the hon. Member for Merthyr, that it was more honourable and more wise for a great Party, having put their hands to a great task, and undertaken a great cause, to persevere in that cause, even though that perseverance should condemn them to exile from office for a considerable time.

I venture to interpose for, I hope, a brief period in this Debate, in my capacity as a Scotch Member, and with the melancholy authority upon me which attaches to the Scotch Member of by far the longest experience of business in this House. In that capacity I wish to give my warm support to the Resolution moved by my hon. Friend the Member for West Denbighshire. His proposal seems to me to be a plain and simple one. He points out an evil, he indicates a grievance, and he shows the line which he thinks the remedy must take. Across the path of my hon. Friend there have been drawn one or two Amendments, no doubt with an intention more or less amiable, but we do not require any Amendment to give variety and interest to this Debate. I have seldom heard a more interesting discussion, and if I rise somewhat earlier than I at one time thought of doing, I do so mainly that I may be able to speak with the recollection in my mind of some of the speeches to which we have listened. They came so fast upon each other, and were so varied in their character—the light shed came from such different quarters, and occasionally the light from the same quarter varied so much in colour, that I thought I had better speak now while they were fresh in my mind than wait any longer. The hon. Member for West Denbighshire put his case as I should have expected he would—in a clear and business-like way; and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dumfries again, as we might have expected, infused a little more sentiment into the subject. As we know, my hon. Friend always feels strongly upon public questions in which he takes an interest, and I am sure the whole House could sympathise with the earnest way in which he dealt with this question. Then we have my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Haddington, who is nothing if not a philosopher. I confess that his philosophy is so abstruse that when he sat down I was not very sure what view he took of the question. I therefore have to fall back upon history, and I find that in 1895 my hon. and learned Friend voted for the Resolution which has been so much referred to to-night—

"That, in the opinion of this House, in order to give speedier and fuller effect to the special desires and wants of the respective nationalities constituting the United Kingdom, and with a view to increase the efficiency of the Imperial Parliament to deal with Imperial affairs, it is desirable to devolve upon Legislatures in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England, respectively, the management and control of their domestic affairs."

So I can hardly believe that my hon. and learned Friend can be at all shocked by the proposal which is now before the House, which is not nearly so explicit or so extreme in its character as the Resolution for which he himself voted in 1895. And then we had a most racy speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr. My hon. Friend expressed a desire, and he amply spoke up to his own desire, to be perfectly frank. He wished to be frank, he said, because everybody knew everything, and there was nothing to conceal. He lives in a glass house, and it appears to me that he has a new reading of the old proverb, and that he thinks it is the duty of those who live in glass houses to throw stones through the roof in order, to do their own house as much damage as possible. What my hon. Friend wishes the House to agree to is practically this—I do not dwell on the little point of the word "desirable" or the word "urgent," for they both really come to the same thing—that if any devolution of public business, such as is indicated by the hon. Member for Denbighshire; is attempted, priority to the national claim of Ireland for self-government should be given. I am one of those who, in the course of this long controversy on the subject of Home Rule, have again and again given the fullest recognition to the priority of the Irish claim in the matter of devolution and self-government. I regarded, and I continue to regard, the claim of Ireland as not only higher than that of any other part of the United Kingdom, but as on an altogether different plane. I rest this estimate of the Irish claim partly upon events connected with the history of that country, partly on the ripeness of the subject and of opinion in Ireland on the subject, but chiefly on the attitude of the great body of the Irish people towards social order. It appears to me that it is nothing less than a disgrace and a danger to us that a people so near to us, and so closely connected with us, and for whose welfare we have assumed to so large an extent the responsibility, should be, if not in chronic disaffection, at all events liable to periodic outbursts of disorder which, if they indicate anything, indicate that their government is not good, that there is some fault in the mode of government. If I think I know of a remedy for such a state of things, I say I feel it to be urgent that that remedy should be applied. I am well aware that any lessons to be drawn from the history of the relations between England and Ireland may differ according to the ideas and prejudices of the student. Even the estimate that may be formed of the present attitude of the great bulk of the Irish people may also vary according to the prejudices of the onlooker: and, therefore, I am content to discard opinions and to base myself upon fact. The fact upon which I should be content to base this question of the priority of the Irish claim is this—and it is amazing how often it is ignored in the consideration and discussion of the subject—that the Irish people, not once or twice, but four times, have in a constitutional fashion put forward their constitutional demand for this remedy for the evils from which they suffer by using the machinery of the Constitution at the polls. We have created a system of representative government. We invite them to use that system of representative government, and, having directed them to use it, we are surely bound to give some recognition to it. Four time—in 1885, 1886, 1892, and 1895—they have preferred this claim; and this fact alone, if there were no other, differentiates the position and the claim of Ireland from that of any other part of the United Kingdom. The priority thus given to the Irish claim—I am not discussing whether the Irish claim is right or wrong, and I am not discussing the question of Home Rule in the least—rests upon the nature of things, and therefore cannot be affected by a word more or less in some abstract resolution passed by the House of Commons. Let the House, then, consider what it is we are discussing. We are discussing an abstract Resolution, which it is admitted and known to us all cannot possibly become operative during the present Parliament. If I carry my speculations further, and impure whether it may become operative during the Parliament that will follow, I am aware that any view that I might express would immediately be called in question, and therefore I prefer to leave it alone. My hon. Friend thinks it reasonable and wise, and even worth while to affirm, against a contingency necessarily so distant, a certain precedence as obligatory upon the Parliament of that day. Why, Sir, the circumstances will enforce the precedence if they are not changed in any direction at that time. My hon. Friend thinks it reasonable, also, to go further, and to say not only that this precedence, when the time comes, must, necessarily be maintained—and. I agree myself that it will be maintained if circumstances do not alter—but that no alleviation what ever to the congestion of public business, no devolution whatever, however modest, shall be allowed to any part of the United, Kingdom, however small and poor a remedy it may be, nothing shall be allowed until this great, work of creating an Irish body of the kind spoken of so often is accomplished. Now, Sir, strongly—

May I point out that the Motion speaks of "a large measure of self-government"?

There again we are dealing with adjectives. The adjective is the enemy of the substantive. I do not think we should let our course of conduct rest on the adjective we use. My point is this: Strongly as many among us—and I am sure I speak for most of my hon. Friends on this side, and certainly for myself—strongly as we appreciate the claim of Ireland—and I can say with the most perfect sincerity there are few people who appreciate it more highly than I do—I cannot think it reasonable to pledge and tie the hands of Parliament to a particular course of action in an abstract Resolution which can only come into operation at some future time. Now, Sir, turning to the main Resolution, I approach it, as I have said, from the point of view of Scotland. I was a Member of the House of Commons in the golden days when it was supposed that Scotch business was disposed of with so much celerity and satisfaction to all concerned. Scotch business in those days was managed by the Scotch Members, in co-operation and consultation with the Lord Advocate of the day. Meetings were held upstairs, at which they discussed Scotch business, and they came to some arrangement over it, and the Bills put into shape in that fashion were brought down to the House. This was considered an excellent method of managing Scotch business, and so it was for those who did not wish to take part in it. It was excellent for Englishmen and Irishmen; but about that time household suffrage was granted, and, popular interest becoming much more acute in Scotland with regard to public affairs, then it was soon found that this way of conducting business could not be continued. And from that time to this I have never known a time when there has not been bitter complaint, both in the House and in Scotland, about the delay of Scotch business. I speak of Scotch business because I know it best; but no doubt the same state of fact applies mutatis mutandis to Welsh business. The complaint we make as regards Scotch business is twofold. In the first place, we complain that there is insufficient time given for the full discussion of Scotch affairs owing to the pressure of public business. Of course, Mr. Speaker, the intensity of the pressure is not always uniform—it depends upon the humour of the constituencies and on the appetite of the Ministry of the day. We have heard of a Government which was exceedingly gluttonous and almost omnivorous for legislation, and which produced a very extensive programme, which it endeavoured to carry out, following probably too much the method which is said to prevail in America in hotels and other places where refreshments are provided, and where, I understand, the dishes are all laid on the table together, and a person is invited to eat them with as much rapidity as he can—a process which has the evil effects, at all events, of impairing the appetite of the consumer. But at present we have fallen upon easier and more sluggish times. Even now the Government, whose Party contains many Members who have no desire for legislation if it can possibly be avoided, find themselves in this position, that the Session will not be long enough; and a Parliament with very many Sessions would not be long enough to fulfil all the promises they made before they came into power. So that we see no prospect of any immediate relaxation of the pressure of legislative business. Nowadays so much time is taken up with discussion of foreign and colonial affairs, in the face of all the difficulties we are encountering all over the world, that for that reason alone business like Scotch or Welsh business is apt to be put aside. I will not dwell upon this, but there can be no doubt that Parliament is overtasked, and that this is a growing evil. The Estimates are not fully examined—they are much better examined now than they were before the right hon. Gentleman introduced his scheme of Fridays, of which scheme I am a warm supporter—but still there are complaints that the private Member is crowded out, and, what is more unfortunate still for him, counted out, and the work of Parliament, especially towards the end of the Session, is scamped. Undesirable compromises and unworkable arrangements are arrived at which would otherwise be avoided. As to Scotch, business in particular, I wish to say most frankly, in dealing with some of the remarks of my hon. Friend behind me, that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House and the Lord Advocate are always disposed to deal well by the Scotch Members and by Scotch business; but still the business does not proceed with that degree of attention we think desirable, and it is no compensation to us to be told that we may occupy ourselves, or interest ourselves, in the details of English or Irish business. That is not the special purpose for which we are sent here. But then, again, this is not the principal ground upon which I, for my part, base my adherence to this Motion. Our principal grievance is that on purely Scotch matters Scotch opinion is by the present system allowed to be overborne. In the House a discussion takes place, and we have an opportunity of stating our views, but when it comes to the decisive vote Members come in who have no knowledge of Scotch affairs, and who have not heard the Debate, and it is they who determine the conclusion of the House. But, Sir, there is more than this, because the result is that purely Scotch questions affecting no part of the country but Scot-laud are looked upon by Ministers, and also by Members, not according to their merits, but according to the probable reflex influence upon subjects in England. That, I think, is a more serious grievance than the other, and I will take in illustration of this two questions, bah of them of great importance and involving, perhaps, more acute controversy than any others with which we have to deal at the present day. I take first the question of the Church in Scotland. I am not now going to enter into the merits of the question, but I believe that every Scotch Member on both sides of the House will agree with me that it is a question upon which there is a large body favourable to the position of the Church, a large body wishing to see it disestablished, and another large number of people who are neutral or indifferent. It is claimed by many of my hon. Friends opposite—and I believe myself that it is a perfectly just and righteous claim—that nothing shall be done in this matter until the opinion of the Scotch people on the subject is thoroughly ascertained. When that opinion is ascertained those hon. Friends of mine, some of whom I see sitting opposite, say that they will be ready to bow to the expression of the will of the Scotch people in this matter. If, however, we had an opportunity of dealing with this matter by ourselves, as Scotch Members, or through some body in Scotland better than ourselves, if such a body could be found, we should be able to get the real opinion of the Scotch people. There are two inferences that I would venture to draw from that. The first is that in that case it would be found (hat a great deal of the acerbity would be taken out of the questions which we discuss, which comes from a Party spirit not native to Scotland, but because of other interests outside Scotland which are supposed to be affected; and, in the next place, I would ask my hon. Friends who take the line which I have described, and who say that this question ought to be left to the decision of the Scotch people, if they think it would be intolerable for that great change to be made in the position of the Scotch Church, without ascertaining that the people of Scotland desire it, whether they would not think that there is also something intolerable if the majority should happen to be the other way, that they should be kept away from year to year without being able to bring the matter to a decisive test? With regard to the other subject referred to by my hon. Friend, namely, the question of the liquor traffic, we in Scotland differ from England in several most material particulars. In the first place, we are more advanced in our law and practice. We have Sunday closing and early closing, which has now been improved upon and carried further, and this dates from so far back as 1857. Then we have also a greater desire on the part of the mass of the people for some reasonable restrictions being imposed. In the last place—and this is a homely point, but one of great importance—the particular commodity most dealt with in Scotland, under the mime of intoxicating liquor, is one that does not suffer deterioration by being kept in a bottle. This in itself puts the case on a totally different footing from that of the English or Irish. This is a matter which we have been able to deal with in Scotland apart from politics, and we are ready to deal with this question in a reasonable, temperate, and satisfactory manner if we are left to ourselves. The only reason that it has not been dealt with long ago is because of the influence of what in England is known as "the trade," and which, being afraid of the sympathetic effect in England of Scottish action, used that influence to prevent it. These are the sort of cases from which I affirm of my own knowledge that there is a strong, widespread, and underlying feeling in Scotland that the present system is unfair. This feeling in favour of a larger measure of independence, as it were—at all events in the action of legislation in Scotland—is not confined to one party. Nay, if Scotch affairs were determined by Scotchmen—and probably in Scotland—many questions which are now the battlefield of parties would be settled in a very short time by general consent. That is the reason, Sir, why I support my hon. Friend and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dumfries, who, as a Scotch Member, was perfectly justified in seconding the Resolution. When we come to the cure for this state of things, I quite admit that it is not easy to state any cure which would not be open to some objection, I never knew any large question for which a remedy could be found without raising difficulties. But if we see such a considerable grievance as this, and we see our way to adopt some measure of cure, I hope we shall not be hindered from it by being afraid of the objections and difficulties which may be raised. It is hardly for us to prescribe what the particular remedy should be, for we are not in a position to do so. For myself, personally, I have already shown how far I am prepared to go. I was one of those who three years ago voted for this definite Resolution for setting up Legislatures in the different parts of the Kingdom. But something very far short of that might satisfy, or go far to alleviate the evil of which we complain. My hon. Friend has done good service by bringing forward this Resolution and letting this complaint of ours be heard. I can only hope that the discussion will have the effect of showing the reality of the evil of which we complain—the temperate and reasonable view that we are disposed to take of it, and the strength of the grievance—and when these are recognised the first step will have been taken towards some new order of things which will be more in harmony than I conceive the present system is with the rights and interests of our country.

It seems to me that the interesting Debate—indeed, the rather singular Debate—that we have listened to to-night is not only premature in its character, but ought to have taken place within other four walls than those within which we speak. For, after all, to what have we been listening? We have been listening, in the first place, to a Home Rule Debate. Now, a Home Rule Debate in this Parliament is of a purely academic interest. No one who has taken part in the discussion, or has listened to it, conceives for one moment either that the Debate will end in this Parliament, or this Government bringing forward on their own account any scheme of Home Ride for any single portion of the three kingdoms, or imagines that public opinion is likely to be much informed by a desultory Debate on a Tuesday afternoon. But not only is the Debate academic, it seems in my opinion entirely misplaced. It is really not a Debate between Unionists and Home Rulers, but a Debate between two sections of Home Rulers. The controversy we have been listening to is not a controversy whether Homo Rule be desirable or not. It is a Debate between two parties, calling themselves Home Rulers, as to what should be the order of merit between the various schemes of Home Rule they are prepared to support. That is a discussion in which the House, as a whole, takes no interest whatever. It is a question purely for hon. Gentlemen opposite. We on this side of the House object both to the Resolution and to the Amendment. We object to Home Rule, whether it begins with Ireland and ends with Wales, or begins with. Wales and ends with Ireland. We object, to the whole thing; and this dispute as to whether the Irishmen are to seize the prey, or the Welshmen to seize the prey, or whether the Scotchmen are to seize the prey from both of them, is a question really of domestic party politics in which the House of Commons as a whole has no interest whatever. The main argument of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, and I think of both the mover and seconder of the original Resolution, was based upon the alleged congestion of business in the Imperial Parliament, and the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment was not content with telling us that we found it difficult to get through our work—a statement which has some foundation, but not so much as he appears to think—but he also stated that our administrative Departments are entirely overworked at the present time, and the two Departments he chose as examples of his proposition were the Education Department and the Local Government Board, two Departments in which there is already Home Rule on his plan. There is a Local Government Board for Ireland and a Local Government Board for Scotland already; an Education Department for Scotland and an Education Department for Ireland. Therefore I really think that a more singular selection than the hon. Gentleman made of instances which would prove the magnitude of the present evil and the correctness of the case which he was bringing forward could hardly have been found in the whole of our administrative system. So much for what, after all, I assume is a very minor point in the controversy—the congestion of business. The main congestion of business, it is alleged, perhaps with a modicum of truth, lies in the region of legislation. There are times when undoubtedly this House has so many Measures of first-class importance it desires to pass that we cannot make the progress we desire with many Bills which not only individual Members, but the Government of the day itself, are anxious to make progress with. But, so long as the House is fortunate enough to avoid those periods of stress and storm in which controversy is long and business is slow. I do not think that our annual crop of legislative work is really so small as some of our critics who have spoken in this Debate seem to think. We cannot pass many Bills which not only individual Members but the Government of the day itself are anxious to make progress with. But, so long as this House is fortunate enough to avoid those periods of stress and storm in which controversy is long and business is slow. I do not think that our annual output of legislation is really so small or really so unworthy as some of our critics think who have spoken in this Debate. The House of Commons is like a great steam-engine, which will have a great output so long as the working parts are cool, but as soon as, from some errors in construction or defects in oiling, or some similar cause, the working parts become warm, undoubtedly the labour is great, but the result is small. But, Sir, granted—and I am quite prepared to grant it—that there are times and seasons in which our legislative work is in serious arrear, surely a more inaccurate method of remedying that defect was never proposed than the suggestion that we should at once begin to pass Home Rule Bills for Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, as well as one for England alone, which would inevitably follow, as I shall presently point out. The most eloquent, interesting, and, I will add, the most touching part of the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman who seconded the Resolution consisted of a description of evils now arising from our failure, as he alleges, to deal with such questions as those of the housing of the working classes, old age pensions, and other questions, of social importance. I may say, parenthetically, that we have done more with regard to the housing of the working classes than the Hon. and learned Gentleman appears to bear in mind. But, without going into that, can the hon. and learned Gentleman, or any other Member of the House, suppose that the most ingenious obstructive in the world, lee most ingenious opponent of social reform, could find a better method of delaying reform for all time than the method of introducing four Homo Rule Bills in succession before any of these social reforms were taken in hand? I must say that the connection between the hon. and learned Gentleman's premises and his conclusions in the matter appears to be of the very weakest description. Now let me call attention for one moment to the wording of the Resolution. It talks of extending the powers of local self-government in the United Kingdom, and in that phrase lurks, in my opinion, a, radical confusion of thought. There are two kinds of public work which have to be pot through—legislative and administrative work. The congestion complained of here is legislative, but the work now done by local bodies is administrative, and to describe the sort of Parliaments you wish to set up in every corner of these islands as an extension of anything that can be properly described as local self-government is to make a fundamental confusion of thought upon a most; important matter. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are not asking us for an extension, but they are asking us for an absolutely new departure. They are not asking us to provide machinery by which each locality shall be able to do effectively its own administrative business; that machinery is, in my opinion, already for the most part, in existence. What they are asking for is something which has never yet been granted in these islands, and something which cannot properly be described as local government. It is setting up new elective bodies to carry out great legislative operations. And on what plan are these new bodies to be set up? The hon. and learned Gentleman who seconded the Resolution talked in an airy way of employing, in Scotland at all events, the ancient and venerable association of the Royal Burghs in Scotland—the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland. Sir, I can hardly believe that the hon. and learned Gentleman can have kept his countenance when he made that proposal. I can, at all events, tell him, although I am not in the confidence of the Home Rule Association in Scotland, that that interesting body would not be satisfied with the reform he suggests. But is it not perfectly plain that as soon as you have committed yourself to a legislative body in Ireland, the plan which you adopt in Ireland, or the plan which you say you mean to adopt in Ireland—for I do not know which of the countries is to have precedence—the plan to which you have committed yourselves in Ireland must form the model of the plan which you will adopt for every other part of the United Kingdom. I think the hon. and learned Gentleman himself admits that proposition. But if he did not, is it not obvious on the face of it? Is it practicable to suppose that when Scotchmen, Englishmen, and Welshmen, see a particular system of local government established in Ireland, they are going to submit to something less in their own country? No, Sir, if this House, or this country, ever commits itself to giving Home Rule to Ireland on any plan distantly resembling the plan of 1885, or the plan of 1893, that is the model which you will have to adopt in every other part of the United Kingdom. Now, what does that come to? Does the hon. and learned Gentleman, who cheers me, and admits that I am right—do any of the hon. Gentlemen who talked so glibly to-night of the evils of a congestion in our business—do they, for a moment, call up a clear image of the condition of these islands when they have carried out these four vast systems of Home Rule? What is the model we are to adopt for Ireland? It is that of a Parliament, independent, as I think, in everything but name; at all events, a Parliament wholly uncontrolled, except by machinery which I do not need to stop now to discuss. Depending on that Parliament is to be a Ministry, for I do not believe that a legislative assembly can get on without a Ministry. The idea that you can set a lot of able and intelligent gentlemen to work to frame Bills at large, nobody taking the lead, I believe to be wholly illusory. Wherever you establish a legislative assembly, there, from the nature of the case, you will have to get a certain body of gentlemen, call them a Ministry or anything else you like, depending on a majority of that assembly, and guiding the legislative work of that assembly. I need not argue the point, but I think it will be admitted that when Home Rule Parliaments for Ireland, Scotland, and Wales are assembled, on every one of those Parliaments will depend a Ministry, so that in this country—a great country, as we are all ready to admit, though not a very large country—you are actually going to have four legislative assemblies, besides the Imperial legislative assembly, and four Ministries besides the Imperial Ministry. Can human ingenuity conceive a more absurd plan on which to carry on the work of a great country? Well, Sir, the House will have noticed that I have not imitated my predecessors in this Debate in one respect. I have not contented myself with talking of a Home Rule Parliament for Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. I have held throughout that you must have a Home Rule Parliament for England, and that is perfectly obvious on the face of it. However disagreeable it may be to hon. Gentlemen opposite, it is a fact which they cannot disguise from themselves, because, as the hon. and learned Member for Dumfries himself has told us, in no future Home Rule Bill will you be able to exclude the Irish, Welsh, or Scotch Members from the Imperial Parliament, in which the whole of the United Kingdom must be represented. Very well, if that is so, do you for one moment suppose that England is going to allow herself to be governed by a combination of Scotchmen, Welshmen, and Irishmen, while they are to have no part themselves in the government of Ireland, Scotland, or Wales? Nobody supposes that for a moment. Then—it is admitted on all hands—the scheme we are asked to vote to-night, whether you adopt the original Resolution or the Amendment, is a form of Home Rule involving an Imperial Parliament sitting in London, an English Parliament sitting in London, with two Ministries, an Imperial Ministry and an English Ministry, both sitting in London; a Scotch Parliament, with a Scotch Ministry, sitting in Edinburgh; a Welsh Parliament and a Welsh Ministry—where is the Welsh Parliament to sit?—at all events, not at Mertbyr Tydvil; and an Irish Parliament, sitting in Dublin; and all with their respective Ministries. Can anybody talk of such a, scheme seriously?

You have seven Parliaments in Australia.

There is no Imperial Parliament there; but that remark precisely brings me to the point I was coming to. The hon. Member has shown what his idea is. The parts of the present United Kingdom are henceforth to be reduced to the degree of cohesion which exists between the various representative assemblies in Australia. That is precisely what would happen—what must happen; and it would happen after a time of envenomed controversy. Inn are going, as I understand, to give the Imperial Parliament the right of Veto, and that Parliament would, perhaps, represent a different majority from that of the Parliament of one of the countries. Of course, the immediate result of that would be that in one or two countries—whether England, Scotland, Ireland, or Wales, I care not which—you would immediately have an agitation got up which would accentuate the separatist element in that country, necessarily accentuate it, stereotype it, crystallise it, and make it ready for the first occasion on which the whole of this, at present, coherent system might be smashed up and broken into its constituent atoms. I think it is an intolerable prospect, and that we should benefit England, Wales, Scotland, or Ireland I cannot imagine. Mark the present condition of things. The separatist nationality of England, if I may so describe the nationality of an Englishman as distinct from that of a Scotchman, Welshman, or Irishman, is at present a faint one. He is quite ready to regard himself simply as a citizen of the United Kingdom. He is quite ready to see a Scotchman employed in his service, and even in an important place in the Government. But I remember distinctly that, when I was responsible for a great deal of Irish patronage, it was practically impossible in an enormous number of cases to appoint anybody but an Irishman. When I was responsible for patronage in Scotland—and I am sure my hon. and learned Friend near me will agree with me—it was always a thing to be borne in mind that one candidate for a place was a Scotchman and another an Englishman. That consideration never enters into the head of anyone responsible for appointing, to an English office; but, of course, ii would directly you create artificially and deliberately stimulate this local and separatist feeling, and you would make every Englishman feel that he stands over against four other nationalities, you would develop an antagonistic feeling, and anything more injurious to the interests of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, than the raising of such jealous feelings of separatism as I have described I cannot imagine.

Englishmen have received appointments in Scotland.

I do not say that no Englishman was ever appointed to an office in Scotland, but I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not contradict me when I say that anyone who is responsible for Scotch patronage looks to the place of birth of the person appointed—I do not say he is guided exclusively by that consideration, but he has regard to it, whereas I think that in regard to appointments in England the person responsible for making them has not to consider whether the candidates for the office were born north or south of the Tweed, or east or west of St. George's Channel. Sir, there is only one merit, that I see in this Resolution. I do think that if it, contains the accepted creed of hon. Gentlemen opposite we need never again trouble ourselves about Home Rule. I think a Resolution like this really settles Home Rule. A large party in England and Scotland were prepared, I think most unfortunately, to consider favourably the granting of Home Rule to Ireland on the very grounds so eloquently stated by the right hon. Gentleman opposite when he was arguing in favour of the Amendment against which he is going to vote. They were prepared, unfortunately and unmistakably, to give Home Rule to Ireland because, they said, the peculiar and unhappy history of Ireland, and the vehement anti-English feeling—I will put it no lower than that—of a certain section of the Irish people, and other considerations, made Ireland an absolutely exceptional case. I daresay some of them said in their hearts, "After all, if it does come to separation, England and Scotland may be able to get on even without the assistance of Ireland." But when you bring them face to face with the logical issues of their own determination—when you show them, as the hon. and learned Gentleman has shown them to-night, as the right hon. Gentleman opposite shows them, and almost every speaker on that side of the House has shown them, that you cannot give Home Rule to Ireland without extending it to Scotland, Wales, and England—when they have before them this vision of the five Parliaments and the five Ministries, then, I think, they will see that a scheme which lands us in these grotesque absurdities is a scheme to be crushed at its very inception, and they will refuse ever again to be misled by the eloquence either of hon. Gentlemen representing Ireland or their somewhat lukewarm defenders on the Front Bench opposite; they will refuse ever again to be seduced by either of these contradictory voices to committing themselves to so suicidal a policy as that which they in vain endeavoured to carry out in 1893.

The hon. Gentleman the mover of this Motion and the right hon. Gentleman who seconded it both said there was no intention, in proposing this Resolution, in any way to throw the question of Home Rule for Ireland into the background, and that it wits a mistake to suppose so, that the Resolution did not affect the question of Home Rule for Ireland at all. But the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge, in proposing this Resolution, actually made it a substitute for Home Rule for Ireland by quoting from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies, who some years ago proposed to settle the Irish question by a system of provincial Councils. If the hon. Gentleman who proposed this Resolution did not want to substitute it for a scheme of Home Rule, why did he refer to the Secretary of State for the Colonies and his attempt to deal with the Irish Question? It is perfectly plain that the whole policy of this proposal is to substitute for the policy of Home Rule for Ireland a new policy of Home Rule all round. That policy has not been ventilated in the country, but it is a policy brought forward by a section of the Liberal Party, to whom, no doubt, my hon. Friend belongs, who have for some time openly declared that, in their opinion, it would be far better for the Liberal Party to drop the policy of Home Rule for Ireland, and substitute this new policy, against which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has just delivered such a very telling attack. I attribute this to two reasons. First of all, it is the outcome of the attitude of the Liberal forwards of this country, who have abandoned Home Rule; and, secondly, I attribute it to the action of the hon. Member for Mayo, and of his friends, who, when the Bill was brought in in 1895, went into the Lobby and voted against it, and rebuked, in somewhat harsh terms, those who voted in its favour. I have no desire to refer to what is past, but if the Vote which was given by the majority of the Irish Members in favour of the Resolution proposed in 1895 had been successful this Resolution would not have been proposed to-night. Now, Sir, I also put an Amendment on the Paper which, according to your ruling, was out of order. In a few words, I can very briefly explain why I put down that Amendment to the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merthyr Tydvil, whose Amendment, so far as it goes, is, no doubt, satisfactory. The proposer of this Resolution, in asking for a scheme of Home Rule, all round, has intimated that the question of Irish Home Rule should be considered first, and, so far as it goes, that is satisfactory; but the reason I put my Amendment down was that the hon. Member, in his Amendment, was altogether too vague. It is not only necessary to say that Home Rule for Ireland should be taken first, but we must have some definite statement as to what form it should take, and as to whether it is to be given the foremost place in the programme of the Liberal Party. Now, the hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment spoke of Home Rule for Wales and for Scotland. Well, it may be desirable that they mould have Home Rule or not, but one tiling is absolutely certain, and that is that neither the Welsh nor the Scotch have ever, as a matter of fact, put forward any emphatic demand for Home Rule. On the other hand, the Irish have never ceased, to demand the restoration of their Parliament. I was amused to hear that the national feeling in Wales was superior to the national feeling in Ireland, and no doubt, judging the standard from the point of national language, that, may be so, and in that particular the Welsh may be more national than the Irish; but language is not everything in this matter, and the fact of our language having been suppressed in Ireland in the manner in which it has is one of the very strong reasons for our action at the present time. The popular desire for self-government in Ireland is based upon the sufferings of the people. Every year the Irish have struggled for this national right. They have taken the field and lost their lives and liberty in their attempts to regain it. Not a hundred years ago 20,000 people laid down their lives in its defence, and when I am told that the Welsh are superior in their national sentiments to the Irish I ask the hon. Gentleman when have they, if ever, suffered, struggled, and laid down their lives for their liberty as the Irish have done within the last 100 years. Now the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merthyr Tydvil says that Home Rule is to have the first place. What kind of Home Rule is it to be? The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil stated that my Amendment for Home Rule meant a re-establishment of Grattan's Parliament. There is nothing in my Amendment to that effect. What the Irish people desire, so far as I know, and what I have stated in my Amendment, is a Parliament supreme in the management of Irish affairs, a Parliament with an executive subservient to it to carry its Resolutions into effect. The late Mr. Parnell, speaking at Walworth, put forward a scheme for Home Rule, and said the Liberal Party asked what Ireland required. She required a Parliament supreme in the management of Irish affairs. That was the demand put forward by Mr. Parnell, and that is the demand in my Amendment, and which alone will satisfy the aspirations of the Irish people. But even more important is the omission in the Amendment of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil, that the claim for Home Rule for Ireland should not only have priority over the claims of these other countries, but it should also have priority, so far as the Liberal Party is concerned, over any reform which they intended to take into consideration. One hon. Gentleman who spoke upon the Motion said there was a diversity of opinion between the Irish Members and the Liberal Party on the question of education. I am anxious to support, so far as I can, every person who is desirous of supporting that which I believe the people I represent desire; but in this question I have from time to time tried to discover what the proposition put forward by the Liberal Party is, and what is their desire. If it is their desire that we should entirely accept their views of education, and that men like myself should become Nonconformists, then I think that it is carrying "the union of hearts" a little too far. The gentlemen who propose this scheme, this new policy of Home Rule all round, know that it is more obnoxious to this country than any scheme of Home Rule, for Ireland has ever been; but in addition to this scheme which they attempt to promulgate they say the Irish question of Home Rule should not take priority over other questions of reform, they say electoral reform should take priority of it, and that the reform of the Parliamentary procedure in this country should take priority of it. My reason for putting forward my Amendment was to get a declaration of some kind, and in order to see who are for us and who are against us, and to see how we stand on this side of the House, so far as Home Rule is concerned. We are told that until the other Chamber is reformed Home Rule cannot be passed, but I say that the other Chamber rejected other measures sent up by the Liberal Party, which eventually it was compelled to accept, and because it rejected Home Rule this House is not to be discouraged. The proper course is to keep on the agitation, and send up the Bill again. I maintain that the procedure of this House proves that every question kept to the front and agitated throughout the country, and sent to the other Chamber, more than once the other Chamber has been obliged to accept. That is the only way that Home Rule can be obtained, and to ask us seriously to wait until the other Chamber is pleased to adopt it, or until Parliaments are established in Glasgow and Cardiff, is simply to ask us to abandon Home Rule altogether. This new scheme—and I quite agree with what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury upon it—this new scheme is put forward by one section of the Liberal Party, and it will infinitely damage our chances of getting Home Rule at all. It could not be put forward by people who are seriously attached to the question of Home Rule, and my grievance against the Liberal Party is that, instead of standing manfully to this question of Home Rule, they have practically given it up, and from the very first they have been casting about to see what measure they could substitute for it. The opinions of the Welsh and Scotch upon this matter are not of much moment to me. I have been sent here to endeavour to obtain Home Rule for Ireland, and it is no part of my duty to ask the English people to break up their existing system and establish different legislative assemblies in Wales or in Scotland. I say, Mr. Speaker, that if any Irish Member in this House, either by his vote or by his voice, gives sanction to this new departure on the question of Home Rule, he will be striking one of the most fatal blows which it is possible to strike against the demand of their country, and against that demand ever being carried out. For my part I regard it as a deliberate breach of faith with the Irish Members, and I regard it as a deliberate departure from any understanding there ever was between these gentlemen and the Irish Members; and I say that if Welsh Members, or any section of the Liberal Members, ask me to abandon for Home Rule for Ireland the front place in favour of Home Rule all round, or any other such reform, I distinctly refuse to do so. The question of whether Wales requires Home Rule or not is for the Welsh people themselves to settle, but neither Wales nor Scotland have urgently demanded any reform on this matter. I say that, as far as I am concerned, it is not a matter of moment to me what the opinion of Welshmen or Scotchmen is on this matter. I am sent to this House to try and get Home Rule for the people I represent in Ireland. That is my object, and my object all the time as long as I am in this House, and it is no part of my business to ask the English people to break up their system, which has prevailed successfully for them as far as I know, and to establish in Wales and Scotland fresh legislative assemblies. What we want is to be allowed to return to our own country to manage our own affairs in Ireland, and when that is accomplished, you can settle how many Parliaments you will have in this country.

rose to continue the Debate, when

called attention to the fact that there were not 40 Members present.