moved that the Bill be read a third time that day three months. He said he was not at all forgetful of the way in which the Bill had been received by the House, nor was he at all under, estimating the opposition which his Motion was likely to receive. He was as deeply interested in the welfare of Ireland as any Member of that House, and he honestly and earnestly believed that the Bill would be injurious to the true welfare and prosperity of Ireland. He felt, therefore, that it was his duty at every legitimate opportunity, and by every legitimate means, to endeavour to prevent its becoming law. He recognised the necessity for some improvement in University education in Ireland, but there was something that might be worse than to leave it even in its present condition. He thought this Bill would make matters worse. It ignored many important matters which the Legislature ought to bear in mind in dealing with such a question. He believed that every man who was really interested in the welfare of Ireland must realise that of all the parts of His Majesty's Dominions, it was the place in which dissensions and disagreements were most accentuated, not alone in political matters, but that there was a vital difference of opinion in reference to the relations of that country to the Empire, and, above all, keenly accentuated racial and religious differences. Wise legislation should have for its object the getting rid, as far as possible, of all those differences which in any way interfered with the material prosperity of the country, and nothing should be done either to accentuate or to perpetuate them. It was of great importance that the young men of the country should be brought together as early as possible, and to respect and tolerate each others' differing views. How could they teach them those principles of toleration and mutual respect if from the very start in life they showed them that there was something so different between the different people in Ireland that they could not even receive their instruction in the same class-rooms? He thought that that was deplorable, and it was a very serious step for anyone to take in connection with Ireland to create three purely denominational institutions in Ireland. There could be no doubt about it. One body iii Ireland, who had asked for one of these Universities, had always sought a denominational University, a purely Roman Catholic University, under Roman Catholic control. The other two Universities, once that was established, would be powerless to preserve their non-sectarian character. How could they do it if they created a University which would take all the youth of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland? Could there be anything more calculated to perpetuate and accentuate the religious and other differences which existed between the different sections of His Majesty's subjects in Ireland? He deplored it. Gentlemen in that House might think that was a narrow-minded, bigoted view, held by a few Unionist Members, but he unhesitatingly dis- claimed that, and he did not think that the people who knew him would describe him as a narrow-minded bigot or as unwilling to treat fairly his fellow-countrymen. He had the advantage of being educated in a college where most of the students were Roman Catholics; he was educated in Galway, where a large body—the majority—were Roman Catholics, and they lived a pleasant and a happy life there. No questions were raised as to differences of religious opinion, or which could be regarded as being unfair to any one denomination. But was that what this Bill was going to do? Queen's College was one of the constituent colleges of the old Queen's University; it was undenominational and non-sectarian in foundation. It was a place where no tests existed, and where no questions were asked of any student or professor as to his religious views. It was at first accepted by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, but after a little while it was rejected and banned by them. And why? Because it was undenominational and non-sectarian, and because they could not have that control which they had always asserted they were entitled to in all matters connected with education. Why did they accept this Bill? They were accepting it because they knew, and every man of commonsense knew, that it was in truth and in fact what they wanted to have when they rejected the Queen's University—a purely denominational and sectarian University under ecclesiastical dogmas and control. Let men use their common-sense and draw inferences from facts. No man would venture to say that the Queen's University was not purely undenominational and a good sound teaching University, which also provided what a good many Nonconformists in this country were so anxious about. It provided that each religious body should have its own dean of residence at its own expense if it wished. Why was this Bill accepted and that banned? Those who were loud in their denunciations of denominationalism in England were forcing upon Ireland and the Irish people the most denominational system of University education that existed in the world, and they were doing it at the public expense. Let them face the issue. They were voting public money to create a University which was purely denominational and under ecclesiastical control. He thought that, apart from the inferences they could draw from the history of education in Ireland, they could see from the Bill itself that it was denominational and intended to be so. It provided for the inclusion of the students of a purely theological seminary. He thought the right hon. Gentleman was wise in creating a good teaching University, although it might inflict some hardships perhaps on some of the extern students, but what was he also doing? Let them remember that they were voting £10,000 a year of public money to endow a University. The Bill provided directly or indirectly, speaking of the University of Dublin, for the bringing in of the students of a theological seminary over which the University had no control whatever, which was purely denominational, and they were giving those students the same advantages, the same rights, and the same privileges in their teaching and undenominational University that the students in each of the constituent colleges would enjoy. That was to say, that to the extent of £10,000 a year, given to the University directly for University purposes, they were endowing the theological college at Maynooth, which had already received between £300,000 and £400,000 of public money. The right hon. Gentleman said yesterday almost in terms: "if you pass the Amendment before the House providing that the students in that theological seminary who wish to graduate in the new University should at least attend two sessions in one of the constituent colleges, it would wreck the Bill. "That was to say that from the first, and he knew it, the vital question in the Bill was that this theological seminary should have all the benefits which they were asked to give to a purely undenominational University to be created in Ireland. He did not see what answer there was to that. If that was a vital question in the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman knew it. Let them remove all these disguises and look at the naked facts. How could the right hon. Gentleman get out of it, that the £10,000 a year for the Dublin University was to be at the disposal of students educated in this theological seminary in the same way that it would be at the disposal of students educated in the constituent colleges, but that there wa, no control over them? What was more as the Bill now stood, the new college to be erected in Dublin was to be built out of public money, £150,000 being the sum. Lecture rooms would come into existence out of public money, and the right hon. Gentleman had put in a provision that this new college would have its class-rooms used for the purposes of theological education. If they wanted to have the power of granting a theological degree by the teaching of theology, it would be done at the mere expense, so far as those who wanted it were concerned, of the payment of the salary of the professor, who would have his buildings, his class rooms, and his annual expenditure all coming from the public purse, except the mere salary. which might not be a large one. That was a nice state of affairs for an institution which was regarded as being undenominational. His point was that it was not at all what soma right hon. Gentlemen opposite thought. He was dealing with what was presented in that House as an undenominational University, and why should they not have it put straight and clear? The next point was with regard to what had occurred yesterday, about which, to those who knew the facts, there was something really ludicrous. The right hon. Gentleman had put into the Bill a provision enabling chapels to be erected inside the grounds of these colleges. As he understood, a deputation of Members of that House, who apparently were getting a little bit alarmed, waited or the right hon. Gentleman, and wanted him to consider this matter. And then the Chief Secretary, with a show of reluctance, agreed, as a great concession, to strike out the provision about erecting chapels and places of worship inside the college grounds. What were the facts? Really the right hon. Gentleman had been long enough in Dublin to know the locality of this particular college; he must know that adjoining the present Catholic University college—that was its full name—was the University Chapel, which was one of the best known Roman Catholic chapels in Dublin. If it was not absolutely adjoining, it was also in the closest proximity to the new buildings of the Royal University. [NATIONALIST cries of "Oh," and MINISTERIAL laughter.] He understood his hon. friends from Ireland perhaps a little better than most Members of that House. There was no one appreciated, as he had to appreciate, when he met him as an antagonist, the great readiness of his hon. and learned friend the Member for North Louth in turning away attention from any particular point. But the point here was not the question of these places of worship being where they were. He thought it was quite right to have them near the colleges. Who could for one moment quarrel with that? The point was that the right hon. Gentleman knew that the chapel was practically part of the new college, when he made this concession. That was the true state of affairs. In every stage of the Bill, in the statement on the Second Reading, in the statements made in Committee, and in the farcical dealing with Amendments on the Paper, in every way possible it had been sought to impress upon them that this measure was unsectarian and undenominational, and that it was absolutely free from ecclesiastical control, of which no one would be so willing to see every semblance removed as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. Surely, hon. Members who sat on the other side of the House, even at that last hour, would recognise the situation they were bringing about, in view of the position they occupied when they were dealing with education in England. They should remember, when they were helping to create a denominational University for Ireland, how in this country they poured the vials of their wrath against people who were the real owners of the schools having anything to do with their management and control. He was opposed to this Bill in principle for the reasons he had given. He did not want to he misunderstood. He hoped he was a loyal enough son of Ireland to wish that if the Bill did become law his fears about it might turn out to be groundless, and that the right hon. Gentleman and those who were helping him to pass the Bill would be able to say that it had conferred the benefits which they who were on the other side of the House honestly believed that it would confer. But he implored them to say first, whether it was a wise, right, or proper thing to perpetuate those differences which unhappily existed in Ireland. Although he was met some times with jeers by friends from Ireland—he did not think that he was jeered outside—he would say honestly, that Presbyterian as he was he was as much opposed, as he had frequently stated in that House, to the establishment of a Presbyterian University as he was to the establishment of a Roman Catholic University in Ireland. To his mind the same principle applied to both, and to all denominational Universities established or sought to be established. Ho thought that they were going on wrong lines and on wrong principles, lines and principles which made for the perpetuation of dissensions and differences, and were at the same time a retrograde step in University education.

in seconding the Amendment, said his hon. and learned friend had referred to the fact that they were regarded as a narrow and bigoted section from the North of Ireland, but he thought it well to remind the House how far that was from being correct. He desired to quote the utterance of one who in the campaign of the last general election was the militant high priest of the Radical Party, now responsible for this Bill. He referred to Dr. John Clifford, who in a speech delivered in London said—

"When he turned over the pages of past history, he read some very sinister interventions in human affairs on the part of the Church. To-day in connection with the Irish Universities Bill, it was said the Bill could not pass if the Pope of Rome objected. For himself, he hoped the Pope would object, as he could not help regarding the Irish Universities Bill as a betrayal of Liberal principles, and with all the strength of his nature he was bound to protest against it."

He thought that that was an English opinion which was still of some value, though apparently the Party opposite did not hold it in such high consideration as they held the opinions of Dr. Clifford in the months preceding the last general election. The words he had read confirmed the views the Ulster Members had expressed on this Bill. [An HON. MEMBER: Dr. Clifford was not speaking of this Bill.] It was exactly this Bill that Dr. Clifford was referring to, and the speech in which Dr. Clifford made the reference he had quoted was delivered recently. If they turned to Scotland, an important public body called the Scottish Reformation Society, at a meeting they held recently, had dealt with this Bill, stating their objections in a series of Resolutions, with which he entirely agreed. They opposed this Bill—

"(1) Because the proposed university in Belfast is not desired by those for whom it is specially intended, while large numbers of the enlightened Roman Catholic laity are strongly opposed, in the interests of education itself, to the setting up of a new Roman Catholic University in Dublin. (2) Because the proposed measure would establish an extensive scheme of concurrent endowment in a very aggravated and objectionable form, wholly at variance with the spirit and purpose of former legislative enactments in the matter of Irish education. (3) Because the proposed constitution of the new university in Dublin is such that it would be speedily brought entirely under the control of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, so that it will in reality mean a further huge endowment to Roman Catholicism at the public expense. (4) Because the manifest and main design of the Bill is to satisfy the demands of the Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy, and, as experience has shown. these demands involve concessions which the Government of this Protestant country is bound, on principle, to resist in tine interests of civil and religious liberty."

He was bound to admit that their arguments in opposition to this measure had been somewhat handicapped by the fact that the Chief Secretary had secured in advance approval of the Bill by a certain section of the great city of Belfast. They knew something of the methods by which that approval in advance was secured; but they held firmly to the opinion that that approval was confined to certain academic circles, and that the great body of the people in the North of Ireland were as bitterly opposed to the Bill and all that was being done under cover of the Bill as they were to all previous attempts to endow a Roman Catholic University in Ireland. They admitted that they were handicapped by the approval of the authorities of Queen's College in Belfast having been secured in advance. They were sorry to have to say—they had said it before and they would have to say it again—that that approval had been gained by a lavish expenditure of public money. If the object in view was to be attained by a process of bribing the different authorities and institutions in Ireland, then the bribe to the city of Belfast under this measure was a very poor one indeed. Under the Bill, not-withstanding that the declared policy of the Government was against all endowments of religion, the Romish Church got a sum which capitalised meant at least £1,500,000 of public money. The total that went to Belfast was something like £18,000 per annum, as against a grant of £20,000 for the city of Cork alone. Not only was a Roman Catholic University secured in Dublin, but the Bill was so framed that in the course of a few years institutions which had a comparatively free atmosphere at the present moment would also be Romanised. Queen's Colleges in Cork and Galway would be Romanised, and there would be a denominational University at Belfast for which they had not asked and for which no important body of people in Belfast were ever likely to ask. He entirely associated himself with his colleague as regarded the Belfast University. It would, undoubtedly, be a Presbyterian University just in the same way as Trinity College, Dublin, would be more and more in the future a University for the sons of families belonging to the Church of Ireland. The policy of the Irish Presbyterians, like the policy of the vast majority of the people of England, had always been and would always be the policy of the open door. They resented most strongly the prospect of three hostile educational camps being set up in Ireland. That was what was being done under the Bill. The Irish Unionists considered it was a retrograde Bill, utterly at variance with the professed principles of the Liberal Party, and he could only regret that their numbers were so few that their opposition had been so unsatisfactory in its results so far as weakening the more pernicious proposals of the Bill were concerned.

said he did not rise for the purpose of entering into any argument as to the merits or demerits of the Bill. The time for argument had passed and the House as a whole, he assumed, had made up its mind that the Bill should pass into law. He did not feel the slightest inclination to speak bitterly about the opposition of hon. Gentlemen above the gangway. It would be most ungrateful if he did because he recognised that all through the various stages of the Bill they had done a great service to the promoters of the Bill. He regarded this as a very great measure. It was a measure which had its blots from their point of view, and if they had been called upon to draft the measure themselves, probably it would have been different in some important respects. It was one of the great blots on the Bill against which they protested and against which he must enter his protest again, that sufficient provision was not made for the creation of residential quarters so as to make sure that they would have a residential University. That blot was a serious one, but he did not regard it as a permanent disqualification of the University, because he felt certain that in the future other Governments would be willing when the scheme proved that it was going to be a success to come forward and to set an example to private philanthropists and educationists in providing sufficient funds to enable residential quarters to be built. But looking to the Bill as a whole he could not help regarding it as a very great measure indeed. It was thirty-five years since a British Government proposed seriously to deal with the question, and during those past years they had been waiting and working and hoping for some such measure as this. All during those years the young men of Ireland had been going out into the world without the advantage of a University education, and their nation, therefore, all this time had been handicapped in its competition with other nations and their people had been handicapped in every walk of life. Although the Bill might not be in all its particulars pleasing to the feelings of other Members in various parts of the House he would impress upon them the consideration that it would be indeed a serious responsibility for any man to take to do anything or to say anything which would deprive Ireland of this great boon. If she was deprived of it now, Heaven only knew when the opportunity would occur again, and therefore he desired to acknowledge—and he was sure that in saying this he was speaking the sentiments of his colleagues—most truly and most gratefully the action of those Members in various parts of the House, very many of them on the opposite side, who had put aside their own strong predilections rather than see this great opportunity lost for Ireland. He was bound to say that taking the treatment of this Bill as a whole by the House there had been exhibited not only a friendliness to Ireland but a toleration which was eminently creditable to every section in the House, which he could assure the House would not be forgotten by the people of Ireland, and which would have its effect in Ireland in promoting toleration and good feeling between different creeds in the country. It would also be unjust and ungrateful if he did not express their feeling of gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. There was nothing that the Irish people respected more than courage, and the right hon. Gentleman's attitude with reference to this question from the very moment that he went to Ireland had been characterised by the highest courage. He remembered last year when in a public speech in Ireland he declared that he considered this, after the want of Home Rule, really the greatest of all Irish grievances, and that although he was precluded from dealing with Home Rule he was not precluded from dealing with University education, that he would deal with it, and that if he did not succeed in settling it he would no longer remain Chief Secretary. That was a very unusual declaration to make, and it was a very courageous one, because he was speaking about the most thorny and difficult of all Irish problems, of that problem on which there was most difference of opinion amongst different classes of people in Ireland. He indeed then took his courage in both hands and risked everything upon the course he was going to take. He congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on the result of his courage. The appeal that he then made to Ireland was responded to in every quarter. He had not satisfied Gentlemen representing a certain part of Ireland who sat above the gangway, but with the exception of them, and those whom they represented, he had practically satisfied public opinion—Catholic, Protestant, Presbyterian—all over the country. That was a great achievement, and if the right hon. Gentleman never did anything else for Ireland, if he never did anything else as a legislator in that House—he hoped Fate would reserve for him to do many great things for Ireland, and that there might be many legislative achievements before him—his name would go down to posterity as a man who had conferred upon a long-suffering and patient people one of the greatest benefits that human power and wisdom could confer by opening to them the gates of higher education and giving them the opportunity of competing in the battle of lift. That would not be forgotten of the right hon. Gentleman. He and the Nationalist Members might have differences. No one could forecast the future. They might even have sharp differences and, as had happened so often before, even with friendly Liberal statesmen, be driven into an attitude of conflict with him. He hoped not, but whether they were or not, nothing could deprive him of the sense of gratitude that they felt to him for his courage in this matter, and, therefore, he thought he was justified in saying in the name of his colleagues that they would not forget to him the service that he had rendered to Ireland. All he had further to say was to express the fervent hope and prayer that this great measure might result in complete success in working. When measures were passing through that House critics always foretold their failure in this and that respect. Those r prophecies of evil he was convinced would be falsified by the working of this institution. He believed it would be worked in a spirit of toleration and of good fellowship between the different classes of people in Ireland. He believed it would create once more in Irish history a great central seat of learning. The history of Ireland was remarkable in nothing more than in that portion of it which dealt with the question of education and learning. Ireland in the old days was one of the centres of learning for the whole of Europe, and when the bad times came and educational institutions were struck down, when it was made even a penal offence to educate the youth of Ireland, all through that period the love of learning of the Irish people made itself manifest, as those who had read the history of the poor scholars at the hedge schools would realise. The love of learning was still there, and he was convinced that when this great institution was established and was in full working order the love of learning would spring up as brightly in Ireland as ever it did before, and he looked forward to the future when this institution created by the right hon. Gentleman would become, not only an honour to Ireland, but one of the greatest educational establishments in Europe.

said he had not opposed the Second Reading of the Bill, and he could not oppose the Third Reading, but he desired to point out the position which many Nonconformists had occupied in regard to this measure and to enter a final word of protest against one or two of its provisions. Of course they had had to listen to a considerable amount of banter from hon. Members opposite because they had not made a more determined opposition to a measure for the creation of a so-called Roman Catholic University. He thought some of the arguments and statements that had been used were justified, from their point of view, and he round some difficulty in answering them. But he would ask the House, and every hon. Member opposite, who might fitly use this opportunity for chiding them, to consider the position in which the great body of Nonconformists were situated in regard to this Bill. There was no section of the House who took a deeper interest in higher education than the Nonconformist and who would do more to further the interests of higher education in England or in Ireland. Then also they as a body were in favour of Home Rule, and a great body of them had been quite willing to let this question be dealt with by a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. Therefore they had to regard the question from these two points of view. He profoundly believed that an educated priesthood would be a great deal better for Ireland than an ignorant priesthood. He had an equal belief in an educated laity taking a more intelligent part in a body like this and its government than an uneducated laity. Therefore from these two points of view they were bound to look very kindly upon any efforts made to settle a question which had been unsettled for so many years, during which the educational interests of Ireland had been sadly neglected. These were principles which had served to make the Nonconformist party in the House less disposed to argue about first principles than they otherwise would have been. They had endeavoured to do something to amend the Bill. In the first instance they accepted the Bill on its own professions as being art undenominational measure, and so far as the clauses which referred to this side of the question were concerned they were very distinct, and apart from collateral considerations they regarded the Bill as undenominational. He had supported the Second Reading of the Bill desiring and hoping to make some changes which would have safeguarded its professed undenominational character. Very few of those changes had been accepted beyond one or two which were perhaps not altogether without sentiment and which probably would not have any very important relation to the issue. He did not intend to go into any details, but he did not agree that the objection to the erection of a chapel in the University precincts was merely one of sentiment, because they felt that whether it was a Roman Catholic or any other chapel which faced the student when he entered the University the effect would be to give it more or less a stamp of denominationalism in accordance with the religion represented by the chapel. Therefore it was not altogether a matter of sentiment. He knew that it had been said on this point that it would be difficult to erect a University anywhere without having some place Of worship close to it, but notwithstanding that they felt that the erection of this particular chapel was a step in the wrong direction. Their only desire was to help to preserve the undenominational character of the University, and they thought the erection of the chapel was a step in the other direction. He was bound to say that the concession made by the Chief Secretary for Ireland was of some value from this point of view. Having made these efforts to amend the Bill in certain directions the Nonconformists were not prepared as a body to take the responsibility of endeavouring to wreck the measure. Moreover, on the part of some of them a strong sentiment came in because they regarded this as a great effort on the part of the Chief Secretary, and one upon which he had set his heart. Even from that point of view many of them felt that if they could help to frame the Bill and amend it in certain respects they would like to save the measure and let the right hon. Gentleman have the credit, because it certainly would be to the credit of any statesman to have established a University in Ireland into which the great bulk of the youth of Ireland were able to obtain entrance. Such a University would be a standing monument to the statesmanship of the Member of the Government who had been able to carry it through. Therefore, it was partly sentiment which had led them to look as kindly as possible upon this great effort of the Chief Secretary. The chief fault he had to find with the right hon. Gentleman was that he had shown too consistent a determination to satisfy the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The right hon. Gentleman felt that unless he did so the University would be practically useless. While appreciating that motive, he thought he might have paid somewhat greater regard to the convictions of many Members who sat on the Ministerial benches, and not have yielded so much to this dominating class. The Nationalists were not unwilling to fight the clerical element in politics, and he believed the time would come—indeed, a great number of the Irish laity already recognised the fact—when they would find it necessary to fight the clerical element in education. The Nonconformists had made some attempt to help them in that House; but they must now leave the matter to he fought out in Ireland. There would undoubtedly be a struggle, if the University was to be kept on the lines which it was intended to follow. Nonconformists would watch that struggle with some doubts, but with a great many more hopes. They hoped that the two new Universities to be established would conduce to the advancement of that higher education which alone would do for Ireland what they all desired should be done, and would set her free on the path of progress, a path which she had not had the opportunity of pursuing for a great many years.

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down expressed some misgiving that we on this side of the House should taunt him and his friends with a certain inconsistency of behaviour which even the most careless observer would hardly fail to see in their comparative treatment of Irish and English education where religion is concerned. I do not mean to taunt the hon. Gentleman or any of his friends at the present moment. The only thought in my mind when I heard his speech was that if this Bill, or anything at all comparable to this Bill, had been passed by a Unionist Government his speech on the Third Reading would have been of a different character.

I think the circumstances would have been very different.

The circumstances would have been different as regards Ireland?

The relative position of the two countries.

Ireland would have been, under a Unionist Government, an island lying to the west of England, with a majority of Roman Catholics who have very little practical opportunity of obtaining University education. I fail to see how the educational problem is different, when dealt with by a distinguished member of a Radical Administration from what it would have been if dealt with by a member of a Unionist Government. The problem as regards Ireland would have been the same; the only difference would have been in the attitude of the hon. Gentleman and his friends. It is largely owing to that difference, I think, that the credit of dealing with this question has fallen to the right hon. Gentleman, when under other circumstances it might have fallen to others. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman, as I think he deserves to be congratulated. I have always been a supporter of a really serious attempt to give that form of higher University education in Ireland which can alone, as I think, satisfy the majority of those in Ireland who at present have no practical opportunity of obtaining that, higher education. I am glad to think that the particular solution adopted by the Chief Secretary is in its main outline of a character that I have always hoped to see passed. I have always hoped to see a scheme which would, in the first place, give three Universities to Ireland, I have always believed that, of the many suggested solutions of this problem, that solution was the right one, and I am glad it has been adopted by the Government. I am glad that Belfast is to have a University; that Trinity College is untouched; and that there is to be another University, which will, I hope, have in time a great academic tradition behind it. The Government have clearly expressed their preference for a residential form of University as against an examining University. Their wishes and theories have not been wholly supported by their practice, but I shall have a word to say on that directly. At all events, they have clearly expressed their idea, and it has been accepted by hon. Gentlemen below the gangway. Their idea is that higher education in Ireland should in future be carried on in the main as it is carried on in England and Scotland, in Germany, and in America—by a residential rather than an examining organisation. I suppose I could hardly allow this Third Reading to go by without expressing some of the misgivings which portions of this Bill raise in my mind I am sure the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary will not complain of any such course. The hon. Member for East Mayo yesterday, in reference to certain controversy then going on between the two sides of the House, asked us to define the word "undenominational," and I think it was a very reasonable request. The truth is that in this case, as in every case where there is a dispute about the meaning, words are used, and legitimately used, in quite different senses, and it is the confusion between those varying senses which produces all the cross-arguments and misunderstandings between controversialists on the two sides. In one sense the Bill, as distinguished from the Charter, is undoubtedly undenominational—that is to say, it plainly follows certain well-known and well-understood principles of legislation. There are all sorts of provisions laid down in Clause 3, I think it is, which broadly and clearly express the undenominational character of the Bill from the technical and legislative standpoint. There is another view, however, in which this Bill is, and in my opinion ought to be, denominational. It is intended to meet the needs of denominations, and to see that it is intended and framed for that purpose, and that it is denominational in that sense, you have only got to ask a plain and simple question. if you interchanged the governing body which you are giving to Belfast by giving it to Dublin, and if again you gave to Dublin the governing body which you are giving to Belfast, would you or would you not be altering the character of the Bill? You would be transforming it and you would be making it equally revolting to Belfast and to Dublin. You would be altering its whole character, and in what respect? You would be making it unsuitable to the religious beliefs of the persons whom you want the Universities to serve. In other words, although Clause 3 carries out all the approved legislative and formal conditions of an undenominational Bill, which this Bill is intended to be, if you look deeper, it is, and, in my opinion, ought to be, denominational in some wider and in some deeper sense. It is intended by the constitution of the governing body of Dublin to secure that it shall be different in the case of Dublin College from what it is in the case of the Belfast University, and it is idle to say in these circumstances that your new scheme is undenominational in that sense, that you are indifferent to denominational considerations, or that in each of those two places of learning you hold the balance equal between denominations. You do nothing of the kind. and you do not mean to do anything of the kind. I think it will be better on all sides to look a little below the mere drafting of Clause 3 and consider what the Government intend, what those below the gangway intend, what I, who mean to support the Third Reading, intend, and what we ourselves know will be the effect of the Bill. It is in that deeper sense undoubtedly a denominational measure. I make no complaint Of the Bill on that account. I confess, however, there is one form in which, the denominational idea has taken shape in the Bill which does give me sonic moments of really great anxiety—I mean the affiliation arrangements with regard to Maynooth. I am not sure that if the right hon. Gentleman had thoroughly explained on the Second Reading exactly what the result of that affiliation would be, he really would have been able to carry with him the great bulk of opinion in the House, and if that be so, much as I dislike the affiliation clauses, so anxious am I to see this question settled that I can hardly regret that the right hon. Gentleman did not explain that. I do not say he was uncandid. I am sure he was not, but he did not take us quite fully into his confidence, if indeed he himself at that stage of the proceedings thoroughly realised the ultimate form this measure would take. The hon. Member for East Mayo and other speakers yesterday, when this question was discussed, pointed to the Charters and the Acts constituting the new English Universities, and. said: "Why do you complain of this provision by which, Maynooth may be affiliated, considering that the provisions in the Bill and the Charter which render that transaction possible, are textually the same as, or in no substantial sense different from, the Charters and the Acts which constitute the new English Universities? "That is a perfectly good, sound, technical, legal form of argument, but we all know that no English University would ever think at this moment of affiliating to itself a seminary containing a larger body of students than the parent University and permitting the students in that seminary to have all the advantages of a University degree, all the dignity and privileges arising from being members of what is called, though it is called by courtesy, a teaching University, and at the same time giving them the power in the future government of that University which is conferred by the possession of a degree. No English University would ever think of doing it. It never was necessary to guard against a danger which never existed. Everybody knows not only that the danger, if it be a danger, exists in Ireland, but that it is absolutely certain that within a few years, it may be within a few months, Maynooth will be affiliated to the new University in Dublin, and that the students of Maynooth will get degrees without having to put in one week's residence at the University, that they will obtain the degrees of the University without ever having lived there and, having obtained degrees, they will have a large controlling influence on the future of tint college. I do not think that anybody will deny, however technically parallel may be the new Charter of this University and the Charters recently given in England—nobody will deny that, however close that parallelism may be, there is a substantial and operative difference which is almost incalculable. Looking at the reality, and not the form, I cannot believe that is otherwise than a real danger to the educational future, not for the denominational future, in the wide sense which I have indicated. I am in favour of denominationalism in that sense, but I cannot conceal from myself that this provision does constitute a real danger that the new University may actually fall under what is called clerical control. It must be remembered—and this is no criticism, hon. Gentlemen below the gangway will believe me, upon the ecclesiastical organisation of the Roman Catholic Church—that that ecclesiastical organisation is quite different from the rather looser organisation which exists in all Protestant Churches which carry with them clerical organisation. We heard in the debate yesterday a great deal about the conditions in the older English Universities of Cambridge and Oxford before the Act of 1870. I was an undergraduate of Cambridge during the three or four years which immediately preceded that Act. There were all sorts of statutes which made it difficult for Nonconformists to have what I regard as their fair share of the great educational advantages of those Universities, but although by statute the Church of England hid a position of preference and pre-eminence there, so far as the students were concerned it is ludicrous to talk of clerical control in any sense whatever. It never existed, at all events, not for many years has it existed in either Cambridge or Oxford, and the real advantage of the great Act of 1870 was not to turn a clerically managed University into a lay managed University; the advantage of that Act was not to alter the complexion or character of the teaching which an undergraduate received, but that it admitted a much larger circle of undergraduates into the Universities and allowed Nonconformists and persons of a different religion from the Church of England, or of no religion at all, to obtain the highest academic I positions. That was the advantage of the Act. I do not think that such a thing would be possible under the much more elaborate and vigorous co-ordination of authorities which obtain in the ecclesiastical system of the Roman Church. It never has. Their view has always been that their responsibility extends to spheres of education which the Protestant clergy would never touch, and would never desire to interfere in. What is the enormous advantage obtained by an undergraduate at Cambridge or at Oxford? It is not so much the coaching, the teaching, and the examining; it is the independence and the mutual education of young men brought together, absolutely free to say whit they like and to think what they like, to discuss all questions of heaven and earth and under the earth, knowing that no superior authority will concern themselves in what they are doing. That is the great and enormous advantage which existed in our older Universities even before they were thrown open to all sections and which I do not think is likely to exist to the same extent in any University which is under whit is called clerical control. I must say, considering the great number of undergraduates which Maynooth turns out every year, that those graduates belong to this vigorous and highly centralised ecclesiastical organisation, that if you are going to give them a controlling influence in the University, and if you are not going to exact from them that modifying influence which collision at the most malleable period of life with their lay fellow - countrymen would give them, I think that is a real blot on the new scheme. Do not let me be told that, after all, the graduates of the new University are only a fraction of the governing body. I am sorry of the possibility of their being brought under clerical control. In itself I regard it as an evil. I have heard it described as a democratic University. Democratic is a word which we all utter with great self-satisfaction. It either means nothing or many things, and it certainly means many different things on many different occasions. But I do not call a University democratically governed if it is governed by county councils. I regard that as the worst possible form of University government. A University is democratically governed when it is governed by its own graduates; and I am convinced that what the right hon. Gentleman has pu8/12/2007t, not in his Bill, but in his Charter, cannot permanently stand. The great Universities of this country are governed by themselves, and I cannot conceive why this University, except in a transitory period, is not to be governed by itself. Autonomy is the criterion of academic freedom, and autonomy is the last thing you are giving by this Bill. I do not wish to argue in detail the question of this intervention of the county councils. May I say, however, that the University of which I have the honour to be Chancellor—the University of Edinburgh—is probably historically and by traditions more closely connected with the town of which it is one of the ornaments than can ever be the case with a new University started in these days. In former times the town council of Edinburgh had an immense position of influence in the selection of professors and in other matters connected with the government of the University. But the whole tendency of reform in Edinburgh has been to diminish the effective control of the city over the University. I think it is now represented ex officio by the Lord Provost for the time being on the governing body. Has that had the effect of dividing the interests of the University from those of the city? Not in the least. Every successive body of governors in Edinburgh have felt equally a patriotic interest in their University, and they have been equally liberal where they can be. But they have been excluded from a function for which I venture to say a county council as such is unfit, and their exclusion has not in the least diminished, rather it has improved, the harmonious relations between the University and the city of Edinburgh. I frankly say, therefore, that I dislike the hybrid body which the right hon. Gentleman has put in to govern the new University, to govern the University through the colleges. I do not like it, and I believe that the provision is transitory and provisional; and from that point of view I regard it with satisfaction. When a true ideal of University government is upheld, when a University is really governed by its graduates, then your Maynooth, important as it is now, would become doubly important. If these evils exist now-, then they would be redoubled with every reform which makes your new University more autonomous. I confess that, compared with this ideal, I am absolutely not of the frame of mind of the hon. Member opposite who regards with satisfaction the prohibition of a chapel within the precincts of the new University. I cannot conceive why that should be so. In respect of the chapels of Oxford and Cambridge and of Trinity College, Dublin, no one can allege that they hurt the conscience of any man or do anything in the direction of proselytising those who attend. They are centres of sentiment which I think add an additional charm to the memories that have always surrounded our great Universities. How anyone who is prepared to accept the affiliation scheme of Maynooth can regard it as a triumph of undenominational Protestantism that there should not be a chapel, passes my comprehension.

I do not accept the affiliation college of Maynooth.

That is shocking !

I thought, at any rate, that I should not be doing my duty to the House if I did not make this criticism on the Bill, but I do not wish to dwell upon its dangers. It has come to pass; and I am going to support the Third Reading. That being so, I should wish to dwell in a more cheerful key than I have couched the inevitable criticisms which I felt compelled in honesty to pass on one of the provisions of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman. I think, would have a perfect right to get up and say to me: "Well, you have passed your criticisms on this Bill; you have always been in favour of higher education in Ireland; you have not passed it, but I have. It is very easy for you to criticise a Bill which is new, and as to which I have found the difficulties to be almost. insuperable; you must not complain of me because I have been obliged to make some concession to forces which in this practical world of ours had to be dealt with if the Bill was to pass at all." If the right hon. Gentleman chooses to make that criticism, think it is a perfectly fair one. I do not think, however, that I can reconcile myself to the Maynooth clause. The right hon. Gentleman has undoubtedly had immense difficulties to contend with, difficulties, indeed, which his predecessors found to he immense; and if that be so, then I am ready to accept his work as being what it is—a great and courageous effort. In dealing with what I individually have long considered to be a crying scandal of Irish education, it certainly does not beseem me to take up a superior and critical attitude towards the statesman who has himself fought the fight and brought it more or less to termination. But let me add this. I think that there are dangers to the true interests of higher education deeply embedded in this Bill; but if the laity of Ireland—by which I mean the general public opinion increasing among Irish Roman Catholics—share, as I think they will probably share, my views, I believe that they will be able either to work this Bill effectively as it stands or to get it changed. We have seen in our own time the efforts of the educated Roman Catholic laity, with no disloyalty to the Church of which they are members, to obtain in this country and in America the most absolute freedom of University training quite apart from any ecclesiastical traditions which may stand in the way of that wider University culture. I believe that in this country among the lay division at Oxford, large numbers of Roman Catholics attend a hostel under the members of their own fold. But I believe also that in America even that limitation is absolutely ignored, and ignored with the consent of the Roman Catholic ecclesiastic's in high places there. That is because, I believe, the American Roman Catholics, while perfectly loyal to their Church, insist on this absolute freedom for obtaining higher education, and in the same way the Irish lay Catholics could insist upon obtaining the same privileges without am- breach or chance of friction with their Church, and with the full consent of the ecclesiastics of their own country. But it rests with the laity of Ireland, and all of us must hope, and many must believe—and I am sanguine myself—that the movement of public thought all over the world is in the direction of free University training irrespective of ecclesiastical control of whatever kind and whatever complexion. If, and as, that condition grows in strength and extends its beneficent influence to Ireland, then whatever the particular provisions of this Bill, I am confident that the sound and educated lay public opinion in Ireland will take advantage of all that is good in this measure and will take care that everything of evil, if anything of evil there be, will be remedied in practice by your legislation. I shall support the right hon. Gentleman.

If I ever had ally desire to be disagreeable to the right hon. Gentleman—and sometimes one has a desire to be disagreeable—the speech he has just made has completely disarmed me. I think that we are all now pleased at having reached this pleasant period of our labours, and speaking on a day usually unsoiled by political work, I think that as far as I am concerned the least said the soonest mended. The right hon. Gentleman is a master of analysis, and he approached the question of whether this was a denominational or undenominational University, mid I am quite content with what he says. I think I could say in one of the senses of the word that people may assume that this University is denominational. It may be assumed, but I do not know why. We have heard Dr. O'Dwyer's name mentioned a great deal in this debate. The hon. Member for the University of Cambridge quoted him to a very great extent. Dr. O'Dwyer is a great man for breaking down barriers, and he also is a very lively writer. What does he say? My hon. friends behind me will hear with surprise that he considers that this is a Nonconformist University. A Nonconformist University founded on a Bill framed by a Nonconformist Chief Secretary in combination with, in collusion with, aid in constant discussion with, the leaders of the Free Churches, and that we have palmed off, or are palming off, upon the Irish people a rank denominational institution of a Nonconformist character, full of all the faults of Non-conformity, and that we are asking the Irish people to accept it. Well, I think that a jaundiced view. I put it forward to those persons who assert that this is a Bill that from first to last aims at giving the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Roman Catholic churches control. It is a complaint of this eminent ecclesiastic by the constitution of this Bill it is not necessary for there ever to be any clerical member upon the governing body. He says the author of the Nonconformist Education Bill of 1906 is now the author of this Non-conformist University measure, and he complains bitterly that the clergy have been excluded from what he considers to be their right, in taking any active part or official part in the higher education of the sons of Ireland. I only mention that as some excuse for myself. I think nobody will take Dr. O'Dwyer's view in this House, at all events as to the part which I have played in this Bill, but they must not too hastily assume that this measure will work out in a rank denominational form. I do not quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the Bill is framed to meet the needs of a denomination. It was framed to meet the needs of education. It was my great desire to obtain access to this University for the larger part of the people of Ireland who do undoubtedly belong to a particular denomination.

I meant to say that it was intended to meet the educational needs of the members of a denomination.

It is intended to meet the educational needs of the people of Ireland, the large majority of whom are members of a particular denomination, I gladly hail the frank recognition from the right hon. Gentleman that so far as it is possible by law we have secured that this should for all time be an undenominational University in this sense. Supposing the Protestant clergy had a great preaching tour in Ireland (they have not been very successful in that in the past) in the course of the next few years, and the majority of the people in Ireland became Protestants and members of a great Protestant community, this University would require no alteration. Nothing need be said or done, it would still remain an undenominational Universty. The great thing is that the great majority of the students who flock to the University would possibly in time alter from the character they are now likely to have. In other words, we are setting up a University which protects no one, which says that no denomination as such shall be protected, which allows free scope and free play in the governing body, and those who are for the time being the vast majority of the graduates and undergraduates are not excluded from having that proper share in the governing of the University which everybody must have if the University is to reflect the opinions of the majority of the people. Now the two things which give the right hon. Gentleman cause for anxiety are, in the first place,the affiliation proposals. When I introduced the Bill I introduced a Bill which made it perfectly plain that it was within the power of the Senate to recognise—affiliation is the better word— to affiliate institutions of a University type, subject to any conditions and limitations they chose to impose upon them. I had very little doubt that Maynooth would be affiliated, and I said so in so many words, but it was impossible for me then as it is now to say what terms the Senate may impose upon the affiliation of Maynooth. It may for a time impose none, and it may after a time if it grows stronger impose anything it likes. It may require complete residence for the whole of three years. It may require residence for one, and it may require residence for two. That was the position I took up when I introduced the Bill, and I could not do more than express my conviction that the Senate would exercise its powers in favour of Maynooth. But as to the conditions under which they would affiliate Maynooth, they were not in my mind at the time. I gave the House reasons why I thought it would be most undesirable to raise this question in the acute form in which it was raised by the Amendment yesterday. I still say it is undesirable for us here under these circumstances to say definitely and positively that the Senate should not take any power to impose what terms it chooses upon Maynooth. It would be possible for the Senate at any time to impose or change any conditions; therefore I think that on the whole we did a very wise thing yesterday in rejecting the Amendment which was moved with so much clearness and force of argument by hon. friend behind me. The other great objection of the right hon. Gentleman was as to the representation of the civic authorities on the governing body of the colleges. I perhaps ought to say that the notion that Maynooth students will overwhelm the Senate is not quite accurate. These Maynooth students will only have the power to elect eight members out of a body of thirty-five. The right hon. Gentleman rather objects to the restrictions and limitations of convocation. A nice academic distinction is raised here. Many people think that the non-residential graduates scattered all over the face of the world are not altogether the persons who keep themselves most closely in touch with the University questions of the day. I am rather of opinion, as a Nonconformist and a Liberal, that on the whole we suffer much at the University of Cambridge from the inclusion of those who have long since left the University. But it is better to leave the position as it stands, and after all I rather agree with the right hon. Gentleman that a graduate of University ought not to be cut off more than you can help from sonic influence in the governing body of his University. As the Bill stands, these Maynooth students will only have the opportunity of electing eight gentlemen out of thirty-five. Now about a civic authorities' representation on the college. They are not of course direct representatives of the University at all, and the only way they can conic in is upon the governing body of the new college at Dublin by electing six members, three of whom have to be members of the Academic Council. Consequently, the civic influence is not likely to be very large. There would be four from the Queen's College of Cork,of whom two are academic, and four from Galway, two of whom have to be academic. It is pushing the thing far too far to anticipate that on the governing bodies of the colleges, these six civic gentlemen will have very little influence. But the question is as to the part they ought to play in the governing bodies of the colleges. I agree there is a great deal to be said on both sides, and that is the reason why I could not accept the Amendment moved by the Member for Cambridge University, who wanted to put into the Bill a modified representation. I much prefer to leave the governing bodies of the colleges in the charters, where it will he easier to make alterations if necessary from time to time. There is a very strong feeling indeed, and I confess I have derived a certain amount of pleasure therefrom, particularly in the localities of Cork and Galway, that we should enlist the sympathies of the local authorities in what I may call the taxable areas of these two new colleges, so that no part of the great Province of Munster should he lets out of consideration in the working of these new colleges, and that. is the reason there is such a large proportion of the local councils in Cork and Galway. If you want these colleges to have the least foundation in the hearts of the people it is essential that you should secure local sympathy. For a considerable time the colleges must struggle with an adverse fate, and in a country like Ireland full of local feeling—and it follows almost to the same extent as local prejudices—it is most necessary if you want these colleges to be successful that they should be in sympathy with the people, and the people should take some share, some lot, in making the fortunes of these establishments. That was the reason why we adopted this course—an experiment which will be watched in Ireland by all academic persons, and I believe by all the people of Ireland generally, very carefully. And if the civil authority is excessive, well, it can be modified. Now I will not detain the House any longer. I have had to work very hard for a great cause, and I am bound to say I have received nothing but kindness and consideration from all the persons concerned. I should particularly like to refer to the frank and loyal support I have always received in this measure from the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for the University of Dublin, who has only had some small objections to find in the Bill, and who has from first to last given me his frank and loyal support, and I am all the more grateful because in other aspects of my administration he is sometimes rather harsh. Reference has been made to the fact that I have for the future left the Royal University entirely out of consideration. I have from first to last communicated with members of its Senate and have received communications from Lord Castletown, and I must say that that nobleman, although the University of which he was some time Chancellor is now disappearing, has worked most loyally with me and has afforded me every assistance, and there is no feeling whatsoever about the fact he is left out of the new institution. Such instances of self-denial and self-effacement are most peculiarly gratifying. I can only say generally that we all of us—the hon. Gentleman who moved the rejection of the Bill ended his speech by expressing the same opinion—hope that these Universities we are founding to-day, which will last long years after everyone of us has crumbled into dust, will have before them years of usefulness and pride and distinction and glory, and that they will keep a light in Ireland, a country which has ever, and in the most distressing circumstances, had the warmest feeling and respect for letters, that will play a great part in revivifying, educating, and I hope unifying, a famous race and a great people.

said he would not discuss whether the Bill was denominational or undenominational. He thought the last and the truest word on that subject had been said by his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition. The real problem was how to frame a University which should be Catholic in tone and spirit and yet academic in principles. He could not but congratulate the Chief Secretary on his adroitness in reconciling those two difficult conditions. The right hon. Gentleman had to unite in his own person the views of a Roman prelate and a Nonconformist minister, and he had performed that difficult task in a way which he believed nobody else in that House could have done. They congratulated him on the courage he had shown in the inception of the scheme, and thanked him for the courtesy he had shown in carrying it out. He would like to sum up in a general view what to his mind were the distinctive merits and, also the flaws of the Bill. The great merit of the Bill was that it sought to remove a long-standing disability; it recognised that the State had an obligation, not yet paid, to the majority of the Irish people. The Bill was an attempt not only to repair an educational defect, but to redress a wrung, unintended on the part of this country, but yet a real and national wrong. What the remote effects of the Bill would be in the sphere of politics and. in the social and administrative spheres, nobody could say. That, it would have the most far-reaching effects in every department of Irish life, he was certain. His own hope—a confident hope—was based upon the power of knowledge in the direction of emancipating and enlarging the mind and producing a spirit of toleration. The next reason why he welcomed the Bill was that it got rid of a false University ideal. It displaced an Examining Board and set up in its stead two Universities framed on the whole on academic principles. He ought to qualify that by saying that while it displaced that false ideal in the case of the laity of Ireland, it did not do so in the education of the clergy. In the case anyhow of the laity it laid down the principle that examination was to follow the lines of teaching, and not teaching to follow the lines of examination, and he rejoiced that the Chief Secretary had held out firmly against the admission of externs to the privileges of a degree. The next point was that the constitution of the governing bodies was free; there were no ex-officio clerics on any of them. There were, however, ex-officio politicians, who he wished were there in much smaller numbers. If the Universities wished to have clerics on their governing bodies—and he thought it was right there should be some—it rested with them, of their own free choice, to have them. The Bill had the merit of leaving the future of these bodies entirely in the hands of the laymen of Ireland, and it rested with the laymen to show whether they were worthy of that trust. He had no misgivings whatever as to the future of Belfast University. It was a much more compact unity than the new University at Dublin, and it would be unvexed by the highly controversial questions which they had been discussing for weeks past. It consisted of a single college with homogeneous elements. He was confident that the founding of that University in Belfast would have upon the whole of the business community in Belfast and the outlying industrial districts of the north of Ireland the same sort of effect as the founding of the new Universities in England had had upon the industrial communities here. The men who represented the commerce of the north of Ireland would take the same pride in their University as had been shown so marvellously in the case of the newer universities of England. He knew that the work done and the teaching given in the University of Belfast would be largely of a technical and professional kind, and rightly so. The great need of Ireland, not only of the north but of the south too, was that science should be applied to industry, and he believed the new University of Belfast would serve that end. But he would express the hope that all these. specialised studies might be carried on in a truly liberal way, that they might be based on scientific principles and have that larger outlook which alone could produce original research leading to discoveries in science within the walls of the University. The other hope he had was that humane learning might still continue to exist side by side with this technical teaching; that it would be the pride of that University in the midst of a commercial community to give literary and philosophic culture, and that students there might learn what the thoughts and doings of civilised man were in other regions of knowledge. The new University in Dublin raised some grave and difficult problems. It was a Federal University; it was therefore a complex structure; but the hopeful thing about it was that it was established on the only lines on which a Federal University could now be constituted. That was to say, the constituent colleges were given the largest possible freedom as regards their own courses of study, and their own government; they would have as few interferences from the Senate of the University as was compatible with maintaining uniformity of standard and general University principles. Such were the merits of the Bill. He would next turn to its blemishes. Two of them had been mentioned that afternoon, and he would not discuss them further. First there was a form of affiliation, under which it was possible for the clergy, who were to he cut off entirely from academic life, yet to have a share in the government of the University. He had had his say on that question upstairs and on Report, and he only now wished to express his cordial agreement with every word that had fallen from the Leader of the Opposition. The other flaw lay in the constitution of the federated colleges. He thought there was an undue proportion of the civic and county representation on their governing bodies, and that it would be very difficult to carry on government, to appoint professors, to regulate the University courses, in any free and academic way, if these professed politicians exercised the right given them to interfere in every detail. But there was another blot, the gravest of all, and that was that there was no provision in the Bill for the establishment of a residential college in Dublin. From various points of view that was a most serious defect. In the first place, it seemed to him a doubtful question whether parents or their spiritual advisers would recommend young men to go to Dublin from the country. They would have the prospect of going into lodgings; they would live scattered through a great metropolis without any kind of discipline or organised academic life. The argument for affiliation, too, would be immensely strengthened by the fact that there was no residential college in Dublin; in fact, the only strong argument for it that could be adduced remained so long as there was this defect. It would be said: "If you had given us a residential college to which young men could go, we should then have been content, and would have encouraged them to go to the University; but as it is, you must affiliate our provincial colleges in order to save our students from the moral dangers which beset them in the midst of a great city." Then there was another side to this question—the absence of that social life which was connected with a residential college. Hitherto Irishmen had asked for a University, and they had been given an Examining Board; they had been given something in which there was no human element, a piece of cold and impersonal mechanism. He would put it to lion. Members that if the memories of their own college days centred round examinations which they had passed or in which they had failed, what a different thing a University would mean to them from what it did to-day ! Now the Bill, it was true, gave a college, but it did not give college life. They were given lecture rooms and laboratories, but what they needed in order to make the University a reality was the human and humanising influence of college life. The Irishman was sociable and gregarious; he had an instinct for comradeship, a love of discussion, a rich capacity for friendship. He had powers which could not be fully developed by solitary study, but must be fostered in the intimacy of daily companionship. He craved the society of equals and the stimulus of kindred minds. Society he must have of one kind or another. There were some persons with whom you got at the heart through the head; others with whom you got at the head through the heart. In Ireland the heart came first, the head second. Head and heart, intellect and emotion, working together produced a finer intellectual product than intellect alone. That union could hardly be produced except in the society of friends and equals. Without all that belonged to college life and college friendships they would never be able to call out the special qualities of the Irishman, which depended upon love of friends and upon appeal to the head through the heart. The Chief Secretary had done his best to get money for college buildings. It was shortsighted and niggardly action on the part of the Treasury to spoil a great gift for lack of capital outlay. A sum of £100,000 given once and for all would probably have met the case. He thought it was a foolish bit of parsimony, but they would go on knocking at the Treasury door until they obtained a sum which would start the University under prosperous and hopeful conditions. Without a residential college it was doubtful whether the new University in Dublin could come into being. What he insisted on was that learning was not a mere abstract thing, but that it was realised through personal relations, and above all through the organised social life of fellow students. Under the Bill such social life was impossible, and it would still remain for Parliament to complete the work it had now begun by providing funds for true collegiate life.

said that before the Motion was carried he desired to say one or two words. Auspicious as the passing of this Bill was to Ireland, the circumstances and almost general consent with which it was passed constituted a still more auspicious event, not only for Ireland, but for England, because although credit was richly due to the Chief Secretary, the right hon. Gentleman would, he thought, be the first to acknowledge that the passing of the Bill was practically the work of all parties, and the result of a certain amount of sacrifice and of amicable compromise on all sides. The Nationalists had had something to sacrifice. They, in Ireland, were accustomed to positions which were not second, but only fourth or fifth in matters concerning Irish affairs. He recognised, as his hon. friend had done, that the Nonconformists in that House, for whom the hon. Baronet had spoken, had to a certain extent to do violence to their own prepossessions in order to allow this Bill to go unmolested. If they had thought more of their own preference, their own internal searchings of heart, than of the magnitude of the blessings this Bill would undoubtedly diffuse among young Irish men, and young Irish women, they might unquestionably, even a small body of them, at any moment, have cut short the career of the Bill. They had resisted the temptation, and had made themselves a party to one of the best and, he believed, most fruitful contributions to the regeneration of Ireland with which the name of the Liberal Party would be associated. He must recognise no less cordially, forgetting one or two little lapses into Party recriminations, and remembering only the generous speech made that afternoon by the Leader of the Opposition, that the fate of the Bill had to a very great extent depended upon the sincerity and policy and magnanimity of the Unionist leaders, and some of the most eminent men of the Unionist Party. Although in their active opposition they had thrown out no hint of great hostility, yet they might easily have sealed the fate of this Bill, if not in that House, in another place. But he was bound to say that both publicly, and so far as he knew privately, their co-operation in bringing about the success of the Bill had been sincere and decisive. He did not forget the struggle of the few hon. Members for Ulster. He did not wish to say one word of an uncomplimentary character about them. They had fought a dogged and gallant battle, though discountenanced to a certain extent by the Leader of the Unionist Party, and, later, by the Leader of their own Ulster Party. The Irish Party had been so often in a minority, so often in a folorn minority, that they could not fail to recognise and to honour the tenacity and courage of hon. Members above the gangway. He hoped that their experience for a couple of months in the Committee room upstairs, on both sides, had left no unkindly memories, and had helped hon. Members, even the hon. Member for East Down, to realise that they were in no immediate danger of being burned at the stake for their opinions at the hands of their Nationalist fellow-countrymen. Strongly as he approved of the Bill, he regarded the circumstances in which it had passed through the House as a matter of still higher consequence to the future relations between this country and Ireland, and for this reason: that this perplexed sectarian controversy, like the still angrier agrarian controversy, had been placed at all events on the road to a solution by, in the first place, the spirit of friendly compromise and cordial regard amongst Irishmen themselves, a spirit which had prompted eminent Irishmen like the hon. Member for Cambridge University, and the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Dublin University, although still differing from them in some things, to meet them on common ground, as sons of a common country, of which he was sure they were all, in their own way, equally proud. In the second place, that happy agreement amongst Irishmen had been sealed and endorsed by practically speaking all parties in that House. He congratulated the Chief Secretary most heartily on being the beneficent wizard, by the move of whose genial wand these magic results had been produced. He only hoped the right hon. Gentleman might be equally able in the future, by similar methods, to bring about similar results of co-operation among Irish parties and among English parties. All he could say was, that if he could only get the House to regard Irish questions, the great agrarian difficulty and the national difficulty in Ireland, in the same way as that House was willing to treat the question of the Navy or of foreign affairs, namely, as questions sacred from the mere petty momentary interests of party, and as matters in which both parties were entitled to claim a legitimate share of the credit, then he would not despair of living to see the day when they would reach and solve the final problem of the Irish difficulty in a friendly way, and when even the hon. and gallant Member for East Down might accept the situation with the same good humour with which he was sure they would now set to work to make a rattling success of the Belfast University, which they had made so gallant a semblance of rejecting in England.

said he never felt more unlike a man who was about to die in the last ditch than at that moment. He recognised that in a very short time the last stone would be put on one of the most gigantic monuments of Nonconformist hypocrisy and inconsistency which that House had ever seen. The hon. Member for Waterford had said the Nonconformist portion of the party opposite had put aside a great many of their predilections, but that was putting the case very mildly. He would say that they had swallowed one of the most nauseating draughts it was possible to conceive. Some philosopher, he forgot whether it was Shakespeare or not, said that when they told a lie they should tell a good big one. If they were going to do a thing they should do it thoroughly, and he congratulated hon. Members opposite. They had certainly done this business very thoroughly. They had thrown over in the most absolute way all the professions in which they were brought up and a good many of the professions which had secured them admission to the House of Commons, and if they felt happy in their minds after having done so it was not his business to criticise them further. His hon. friend who moved the rejection of the Bill had said that no doubt the action and speeches of himself and his friends would be looked upon simply as the narrow-minded and bigoted views of Ulster. Hon. Members opposite, when they cheered that remark, forgot for the moment that their views on this question were exactly and precisely those which they themselves held up to about three months ago, and if they were the narrow-minded and bigoted views of the Ulster Members they were also the narrow-minded and bigoted views of the Nonconformist Party up to the time the Bill was introduced. They had had so much unreal discussion on the denominational question that he was getting tired of it and had almost hoped it would be left out of the Third Reading discussion. It had frequently been asked what an undenominational University was, and he admitted it was a very difficult question to answer, but his idea of an undenominational University was the present Queen's Colleges in Ireland, had the ban which was put upon them by the Roman Catholic hierarchy never been imposed. That ban was only imposed by the narrow majority of one in a meeting of thirteen or fourteen bishops. It was a mere toss up whether the bishops forty years ago had accepted the Queen's Colleges in Ireland and allowed Roman Catholics to go to them. If they had, the Queen's Colleges in Cork and. Galway would have been as successful seats of learning as the Queen's College in Belfast had been, and they would long ago have extracted very large sums of money out of the British taxpayer and would have been very much better equipped and larger institutions. Could anybody say that this Dublin University would be undenominational? It had been set up precisely because the bishops refused to recognise these other institutions because they were not sufficiently denominational, because they were Godless. In 1871 the bishops were calling out as they had always done for a denominational University, and they passed a series of resolutions, among them one in which they pledged themselves to oppose the return of any candidate for Parliament who would not uphold the principle of denominational education for the Catholic people, and they knew perfectly well the bishops had not changed their attitude in any way. They had all along stigmatised this as a purely denominational proposal, and all the feeble attempts of hon. Members to dispose of that accusation had been futile. It was because this was a denominational proposal that hon. Members below the gangway were thanking the Chief Secretary for giving it to them. The Times, on the First Reading of the Bill said—

"The fiction that the measure is anything but denominational is too gross to deceive anybody, or to soothe any but the most adaptable consciences."

Mr. Pigott's friend.