Is it proposed that the House should sit on Friday, and, if so, what business will be taken?

We have come to the conclusion that it is wise, until we see how business proceeds, to sit on Friday; at all events on the coming Friday, when we shall continue with the Representation of the People Bill.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say how far it is proposed to go with the Bill this week, and, if sufficient progress is made, whether it will be necessary to sit on Friday?

I think that we must sit on Friday in any case.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "returning the number of members set opposite to the name of the division in that Schedule," and to insert instead thereof the words" and each such division shall return one member."

This is merely a drafting Amendment which is made necessary by the form of the Schedule. May I be allowed to take this opportunity of expressing the sense of gratitude which I think is shared by the whole Committee to the two Boundary Commissions for the manner in which they have performed their work. These Commissions undertook a difficult and a not very attractive task. They had to inquire into a large number of boundary and other questions, to adjust, so far as they could, a number of local differences and even jealousies, and to endeavour to find solutions which would be acceptable to the House and to the country as a whole. They have held in the course of their work 120 local inquiries affecting 465 constituencies. They took the view that wherever any number of voters were likely to be affected by the change it was desirable to hold a local inquiry. They heard, of course, a number of objections in those inquiries. I cannot hope—nobody could hope—that they have satisfied everybody. There must be, no doubt, observations to be made when we come to the Schedules, with their many details of boundaries or of names or matters of that kind, but, speaking generally, I think that the results they have produced have received the approval of the country. I am not going to say a word now about these small questions, of even about the wider questions which may be raised when we come to a discussion upon the Question that this Clause stand part of the Bill. I only desire to say now, what I think is in the mind of all of us, that we are very grateful to the Commissioners for the work they have done.

May I just add this: In addition to the judgment and experience of Mr. Speaker, whose public spirit and kindness in undertaking this task had added to the admiration we all of us feel for him, every member of the Commission—and they discharged their duties voluntarily—brought special knowledge and experience to the task. I would refer specially to one of them, and that for a special reason. Members who are accustomed to read Reports of this knd may have missed the usual paragraph in which a Commission is accustomed to express its gratitude to the Secretary of the Commission for his work. In this case, and in this case only in my experience, that paragraph is lacking, and for this reason: One of the Commissioners—Mr. Walter Jerred, a distinguished public servant at the Local Government Board—has been good enough to undertake not only the duties of a Commissioner, but the even more arduous duty of Secretary to the Commission. He was naturally not willing to join his colleagues in an expression of the gratitude they feel to him for his services, but it is only right that I should express now in this House the feeling which we all have that the ability and untiring devotion of Mr. Jerred have been of great service to the House and the country. He was, as the Committee knows, Secretary to Mr. Speaker's Conference—no light task in itself. He was good enough to undertake the work of Secretary to the Boundary Commission, he has done admirable work, and I am very grateful indeed to him for the assistance which he has rendered.

On a point of Order. May I ask your ruling on this Clause before we go further? This Clause has to be taken in conjunction with the Schedules circulated this morning. I want to ask you whether, if this Clause is passed by the Committee, it will be possible then to amend the Schedule if anyone wanted to increase the number of members for any given area, or whether, if this Clause is passed, with or without Amendment, it precludes members from moving any Amendment to the Schedule in the direction of increasing the number of members for a given area?

No; the acceptance of this Clause by the Committee will not preclude any relevant Amendment which may be proposed to the Schedule. The Schedule is the proper place for the moving of Amendments of that character.

Even by increasing the number of members for a given area?

Yes; there is nothing in this Clause which settles the total number of members to be returned. It only says that where a constituency is divided into divisions, then each division shall return one member. That is the purpose of the present Amendment, which is consequential on an earlier decision taken by the Committee.

I am sorry to worry you, but I want to get the matter perfectly clear. The Clause says

"Each of the areas mentioned in the first column."

It seems to me that if we pass the Clause we then fix that area as returning one or two members, as the case may be. The point I want to raise is a point in which the London County Council feel a great deal of interest, namely, the question of increasing the number of members for London. I want to know can that be done on the Schedule or must it be done on the particular Clause?

No; the Schedule is the proper place to bring up a proposal of that kind.

May I put the point in another form? In the case of the constituencies which constitute what were formerly two divisions, and now become one constituency, will the Clause we are now passing prevent the moving of Amendments to restore two members to that constituency?

That is to put it back in the position of two divisions, each returning one member?

Yes.

A proposal of that kind can be entertained on the Schedule. That is the proper place for it.

Amendment agreed to.

The Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. King), to leave out Sub-section (3), is part of an earlier proposal, and it is not now in order.

On that point, have we really had a discussion on the question whether there ought to be any university representation at all? I understand that the question of university representation has been raised on the point how the elections should be held, namely, whether by proportional representation or otherwise. The question of whether there shall be any university representation, I contend, with due respect, has not been raised, and this is the proper place to raise it by proposing to eliminate from the Schedule all university seats. On that point I hope you will agree.

I am afraid the hon. Member's memory is defective. The Committee has passed Clause 2 of this Bill, which says that a man shall be entitled to be registered as an elector for a university constituency if he has received a degree, and so on. That Clause was the proper occasion, and I think it was taken advantage of, to discuss the question whether or not there should be university representation; but, having passed that Clause, the present proposal is consequential. As regards the Amendments standing in the name of the hon. Member for the University of London, those are matters which should be raised on the Schedule, where his proposal can be brought up as an Amendment to the Government Schedule.

I should like to put one or two points which may possibly induce you to modify your decision and allow the question to be taken exceptionally at present. When I put these Amendments down the Schedules had not been filled up, and I had no official information as to the intentions of the Government in regard to the representation of universities. University members further have not had the opportunity which has been given to members occupying other seats of ascertaining what was the decision which would be brought before the Committee before the Schedules were filled in. Further, whereas opportunities have been afforded to members of county and borough constituencies to discuss with the Boundary Commissioners the decisions at which they have arrived, no such opportunity has been afforded to any member for a university constituency, and therefore no appeal has been possible prior to the putting down in the Schedule of the decision of the Government. Further, the university seats have been regarded, both by Mr. Speaker and by you, Sir, as subject to exceptional treatment. When my hon. Friend (Sir W. Collins) proposed to give instructions to the Boundary Commissioners, Mr. Speaker pointed out that they had nothing to do with the delimitation or the arrangement of the university seats, and on another occasion when an Amendment was brought forward for leaving out all question of proportional representation with regard to all constituencies you ruled that an Amendment would be in order which distinguished university from other constituencies. In these circumstances, I think you might now be pleased to regard university constituencies as exceptions, and permit this Amendment to be moved. Another reason why it might be done is that whereas the question of the borough and county constituencies raises a great many points for discussion which are very complicated, my Amendment refers only to one point, and to one constituency, which might easily be discussed in the present circumstances. University Members did not fail to avail themselves of the opportunity of communicating with the Government, which it was understood would fill up the Schedule.

I am afraid this is the speech the hon. Gentleman will give us on the Schedule, where the Amendment will come in the proper place. Those seem to be hardly points of Order for me to deal with, but points of merit.

I only wish to point out that the members of universities took the same opportunity of approaching the Government which other members took of approaching the Boundary Commissioners, and they had a deputation to the Leader of the House, who said the arguments in favour of their proposal seemed to him unanswerable. In these circumstances I ask whether it would not be possible to dispose of university representation under my Amendment instead of leaving it to be considered under the Schedule.

The hon. Gentleman has good hopes of success when we come to the Schedule, but I am afraid they cannot be entertained here or I should be obliged to admit any kind of proposal to amend the Schedule.

What would be the proper point to deal generally with the proposals of the Schedule, giving an illustration, if necessary?

I do not think it would be out of order to raise some such discussion as that on the Question that the Clause stand part of the Bill, although, of course, it can hardly be effective, but some general observations might be permissible when we come to that point.

Such a point, for example, as the question of the Instructions given by this House. That, I suppose, is a point of merit?

Yes, I think so.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (4), after the word" Britain" ["the distribution of seats in Great Britain"] to insert the words "and Ireland."

This is the first of two alternative proposals which we who represent the Unionists of Ireland submit for the consideration of the Government. In our opinion we are entitled to ask that the entire scheme of electoral reform should be applied to Ireland as it is applied to Great Britain or that Ireland should be left out of the Bill altogether. We propose that as Ireland has been treated on the same footing as Great Britain in regard to the extension of the franchise it should also be treated in the same way as regards Redistribution. In making this demand we have both reason and justice on our side.

I submit that it is not competent for the House to move this Amendment at this stage for a reason which has already been the subject of a ruling either by you or by your deputy. The hon. Baronet (Sir G. Younger) moved, with reference to the scale of sheriff's expenses, that they should have according to a Schedule which should be set out in the Bill. There was no Schedule to the Bill, and you or your deputy ruled that as the hon. Baronet had not put down a Schedule it was not competent for him to move the Amendment, as the Amendment without the Schedule would be meaningless. This whole Clause was open to that objection until we saw the Schedules of which the Government had given notice with regard to England. As the Bill was introduced there was no Schedule relating to England. That defect has now been supplied, and consequently, as regards England, we know what this Clause will mean when it is passed. We are not merely passing a skeleton Clause. We are passing a Clause which incorporates cer- tain Schedules which we have before us. What the hon. Member proposes is that, England being voted upon in flesh and blood, Ireland shall be voted upon in skeleton. There is no Schedule relating to Ireland in the Bill. Consequently the hon. Member's words as they stand have nothing to operate upon. I understood from a statement made yesterday that the Irish case was to be dealt with before these discussions were entered upon. My hon. Friend (Mr. O'Brien) raised the matter yesterday by question, and got the reply that there would be a general statement on the subject. That statement not having been made, I am compelled to raise this question by point of Order. I submit that the hon. Member is not in order when he asks the Committee to accept his Amendment in this form—"The distribution of seats in Great Britain and Ireland under this Part of this Act shall take the place of the distribution of seats existing at the time of the passing of this Act." The proposal as far as England, Scotland, and Wales is concerned is quite clear, because we know what the Government proposes to do. There is no Schedule for Ireland. Therefore to intro duce Ireland into this Clause is, I submit, out of order.

Connected with this point of Order I should like to draw attention to a supplementary point of Order. The Schedules put upon the paper by the Home Secretary follow upon the Report of the Boundary Commissioners. Letters were issued appointing the Boundary Commissioners and giving them Instructions. Those letters were before the House, and were formally approved by the House. Those Instructions related to England and Wales and Scotland, and not to Ireland. The House consequently, by its then Resolution, decided upon the exclusion of Ireland from the redistribution scheme. Is it in accordance with the Rules of Order that Ireland should now be brought within the form of the Bill for the purpose of redistribution?

It is rather a difficult point and I did not anticipate it being raised. It is clear that at some point or other the Committee ought to be in a position to deal with the question of whether or not redistribution should apply to Ireland. At the same time I think I am bound to say, on the point of Order raised by the hon. and learned Member, that, owing to the precedent which has been set, and which I have often used on previous occasions, namely, that a proposal referring to a Schedule must be in some form or other to be made effective before it can be entertained before the Committee, and so that the Committee may know what is the proposal it has to deal with, the only course which I can see consistent with that is that this Amendment should be put in the form of a Clause or Schedule giving Instructions as to how the proposal should be fully carried out. Of course, there can be some discussion on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," and that discussion may assist the Committee. But the point having been raised, I feel bound to give my ruling in favour of the hon. and learned Member's point.

Do I understand that I am not to proceed with my Amend men now owing to the point raised by the hon. and learned Member?

I feel bound to conclude that the point of Order raised by the hon. and learned Member is a sound point. Some other means must be taken of raising the point of the hon. Baronet's Amendment.

Will you suggest when the question of redistribution and its application to Ireland can be raised?

As I have said, this point has been raised without notice to me. There must be a means by which it can be raised either on this or at a subsequent stage. If the hon. Member will put down a complete proposal in the form of a supplementary Schedule which would indicate what his proposal is, then it would be complete, and I will see if I can suggest a place for its consideration.

Might the hon. Member not raise the point on the Question, "That the Clause stand part"?

As far as discussion is concerned he can. But his desire is to put an effective proposal before the Committee. I do not say the hon. Member need draw up a proposal complete in all its detail, but I think he can find a way of making his proposal so complete as to show the House what it is that his proposal amounts to.

If I move this Amendment now, and the principle of the Amendment is accepted, would it not be within the power—and, indeed, the duty—of the Government to prepare a Schedule of this kind before the Bill is finally disposed of in this House?

Would it not be more convenient if the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill would do what was promised yesterday would be done, namely, that we should have a statement whether or not the Cabinet have made up their minds for the inclusion of Ireland in the Bill? If a statement of that kind is made on behalf of the Government the whole question can be discussed and we need not be tripped up by all these points.

It was intended that a statement should be made in the discussion on this Amendment. We quite anticipated—without having considered the point of Order—that the Amendment would be put before the Committee. Then it would have been the duty of a member of the Government to make a statement on the whole matter as to inclusion or exclusion and a possible alternative.

The statement can be made in a few moments on the Question that the Clause stand part.

Would you rule that later on this Amendment might be proceeded with, and that we should have an opportunity then of hearing the views of Members from all sides in Ireland, and also an opportunity of hearing the Home Secretary's reply? It is impossible for me to say what the Home Secretary's answer would be. If it is one accepting redistribution for Ireland, there would be ample time between now and the conclusion of the Bill and its passage through Parliament to prepare a Schedule.

I cannot do that. A sound point of Order, in my view, having been raised, I feel compelled to give my decision on that point. The next Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Henry P. Harris) should be an Amendment to Schedule 5, where I observe the Government have an Amendment down dealing with the same matter.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

I suppose that the arguments which I had intended to advance in support of my Amendment can now be given in opposing the passing of the Clause. When I was interrupted by my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. M. Healy) I was about to say that the Bill was professedly based on a party compromise. It combines the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. As the House is aware, these were the respective watchwords of the Liberal and the Unionist parties before the War. But so far as Ireland is concerned, it is proposed that we shall accept the first of these principles without any of the safeguards which a fair redistribution of seats would give. There is to be a great increase in the electorate. Women, as well as men, are to be given the Parliamentary franchise. The constituencies in Ireland are to be swollen by the addition of a large number of new electors of both sexes without any rectification of the gross anomalies which now exist in the Irish representation. That is a position which we cannot possibly accept as satisfactory or just. I take it that the object of every member is to secure as far as possible a fair and equal representation of the people of the United Kingdom in this House, and I submit that it is impossible to do this without some system of redistribution being applied to Ireland. If hon. Members refer to the Report of Mr. Speaker's Conference, they will see that it is laid down in paragraph 13 that

"This Conference accepts as governing any scheme of redistribution the principle Mint each vote recorded shall, as far as possible, command an equal share of representation in the House of Commons."

In accordance with that principle we have the right to claim that if there is to be any large addition to the Irish electorate, there shall also be an equalisation of the voting power.

As between Ireland and England?

An equalisation of the voting power in Ireland.

Not in the Irish representation?

If the hon. Member will allow me to proceed I will explain. The anomalies which exist at present in the Irish representation are as great as, if not greater than, any which are to be found in Great Britain. I will give one or two examples. East Belfast, with an electorate of 19,916, returns one member. As against that, the constituencies of Kilkenny, the borough of Newry, Galway borough, Longford county, and Waterford borough return six members, though the combined electorate of those constituencies is less than that of East Belfast by more than 2,400. Take another instance. The four divisions of Belfast, with their population of 386,947, return four members. The constituencies of Waterford, Wicklow, Carlow, King's County, Longford, Kilkenny and Newry, with a total population of 368,506, return fourteen members. I will give only one more fact to illustrate the anomalies which exist at present in Ireland. The thickly populated area comprising the counties of Antrim and Down, and the city of Belfast, at present have only half as many representatives as the province of Connaught. I could easily give many more examples to illustrate what I say, but the facts which I give prove clearly the need for redistribution in Ireland.

I hope that it will be possible for Members to speak of this matter free from all party bias. I can assure the House that I have put forward this Amendment as a simple measure of justice, more especially to Ulster. There can be no doubt that the province of Ulster is under-represented in proportion to population. On any fair basis of redistribution Ulster ought to have at least thirty-six members. The present number of representatives is. Thirty-three. Therefore she is entitled to three more members. I base this conclusion both upon the Census returns and upon the scheme of redistribution proposed in the Home Rule Act. Under that measure Ireland was to get about 36½ per cent. of the whole representation of Ireland; so that she is fairly entitled to at least thirty-six members of the present number of 101. The additional members would, of course, be allotted to the northeast portion of Ulster, which is the most thickly populated portion. Besides, there would naturally be a redistribution of voting power within the province itself. For example, the borough of Newry would cease to be represented separately in this House, and the county Down would probably get an additional member. The result of these changes would be that we should get a more accurate reflection of the opinion of the majority of the people of Ulster. Anyone who takes an unprejudiced view of this matter must admit the desirability and importance of providing that membership of this House should correspond as closely as possible with the predominant view in the constituencies.

It seems to me that it is particularly important at the present time that we should get a true expression of the public opinion I of the Irish people. I do not wish to touch more than is absolutely necessary upon any controversial topic, but the fact must be present to all our minds that there are forces at work in Ireland to-day which aim at the complete separation of Ireland from Great Britain. To all appearances this revolutionary movement is growing in force every day at the expense of the Nationalist party. There is every reason to believe that an extension of the franchise without redistribution would add considerably to the strength of this unconstitutional movement. It seems to me, therefore, that all who are in favour of the constitutional movement should support this Amendment. I hope that I shall not be met by the argument that the Home Rule Act blocks the way. If there is any force in that argument at all, it applies just as much to the whole Bill as to the redistribution proposals. In fact, so far from the Home Rule Act being regarded as an obstacle to redistribution, I contend that we can claim it in support of this Amendment. That Act not only recognises the need for redistribution, but actually contains proposals for the rearrangement of constituencies, both as regards the election of the proposed Irish House of Commons and of representatives to the Imperial Parliament. So far as I can judge, the principles upon which the representation is arranged in the Home Rule Act are the same as would be adopted if redistribution were applied to Ireland under this Bill. I do not suggest that there should be any reduction in the present number of Irish representatives in this House, but a mere rearrangement of the constituencies returning those members would not in the least prejudice any future settlement of the Irish question, which may—or may not—result from the Irish Convention. It appears to me that on all grounds there is an overwhelming and unanswerable case for this Amendment, but if it is not accepted by the Government, and agreed to by the House, we can only fall back upon the Amendment which we have at a later period, that Ireland should be excluded from the Bill altogether.

I propose to say only a few words on the subject of the proposal of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. The position I take up is a very simple one. The hon. Gentle- man rightly declares that this Bill was the result of a party compromise in the Speaker's. Conference. I, for my part, stand by that party compromise. I am prepared to accept that compromise. The compromise, as far as I am concerned, is this, and it is contained in the Bill—and I support the Bill as it stands—that the franchise should be extended in Ireland, but, in view of the peculiar circumstances of the case, that there should be no demand made by this House at this stage to have redistribution within Ireland herself. The meaning of that was, first of all, that the Speaker's Conference took into account the fact that this work of redistribution in Ireland had already been dealt with in the Home Rule Act. But in addition to that, there is at the present moment, as the House is aware, a very remarkable body of Irishmen sitting in convention considering the whole of this subject, and as far as they are concerned the whole of this matter at this moment is in a state of flux. The whole question of representation in this House—the whole question of redistribution and of the representation in Ireland itself—is, at the present moment, under the purview of that Convention, and there are various schemes which have been propounded and which we are now considering, and I think it would be a most improper thing, pending the decision of the Convention, if this question of redistribution were taken out of their hands, and settled over their heads. As far as the extension of the franchise is concerned, I am strongly in favour of it.

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down claims for himself—and I am perfectly certain most sincerely—that he was not making any proposal from a narrow party point of view. He will give the same credit to me, I am sure, because he himself, in his speech, pointed out that the franchise probably would bring additional power to the party in Ireland which is opposed to my colleagues and myself. I know that perfectly well. But my object, and the object for which my colleagues and I have worked for forty years, is that a full expression of the opinion of the people ought to be elicited. We have supported every extension of the francise in this country and in our own country, and we certainly would never take up the position, when there is a great extension of the franchise being made in Great Britain, that Ireland should be cut out of it for a single day. Therefore it is that I am in favour of the very wise compromise come to by the Speaker's Conference. I think it is a serious responsibility for the House of Commons to differentiate against Ireland with reference to the Speaker's Conference. Why should Ireland be picked out as the one place which is not to get the benefit of that compromise? I claim that, the compromise should stand. I claim that the Bill which embodies that compromise should stand, and the result will be that the franchise will be extended in Ireland, when this Bill is passed, the same as in this country; but that this question of redistribution, which is at present sub judice, should be left over to this important and representative body of men sitting now in the Irish Convention.

On this question I shall have to ask for the co-operation of all those Members of the House who desire that the Bill shall pass this House, and with that view I want to tell the Committee exactly how the question appears to me. The difficulty arises entirely from the action taken by the members of the Speaker's Conference for reasons which I need not go into, but which doubtless appeared to them sufficient. The effect of their Report is, I think, this, that as regards the extension of the franchise Ireland should be included in the Bill, but as regards redistribution—I had better give the exact words of the Report—

"As regards Ireland, the Conference desires to place on record that, on the subject of redistribution, it has carried on its deliberations from the point of view of Great Britain only."

I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. John Redmond) will agree with me when I say that he puts the decision of the Speaker's Conference a little too high in saying that the Conference said that there should be no redistribution in Ireland. The Conference looked at the question and passed it by. They made no recommendation in their Report, and I think it is open to the House to come to its own decision on this important matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"]

That is the way the Government read it when they drafted the Bill.

The Government having no recommendation upon the point, put nothing in the Bill. The point is, what ought to be done? Can the Bill be accepted as it stands? I know, as far as I myself and those who have charge of the Bill are concerned, that course would avoid a good deal of trouble, and we should be glad if it could be fairly taken. But anybody, I think, who heard the argument of the hon. Member who moved the Amendment, cannot fail to be impressed by what he said. The extension of the franchise in Great Britain is to be accompanied by redistribution, and can anyone say that it is not a fair and right and just thing to do? The point is not whether you can exclude Ireland from the Bill, but whether you can make in Ireland an extension of the franchise without considering the question of the redistribution of Irish representation. There are already in Ireland a great many inequalities, very great inequalities, in representation. It is not a question as between Ulster and Co naught, or anything of that kind, but take one instance, compare Cork and Belfast. The population of Belfast is somewhat larger than the population of the county of Cork, including Cork City, yet Cork has nine members, while Belfast has four. It is plain that there are already great inequalities, which this Bill would exaggerate in some cases. The point is whether we shall make an alteration in the franchise without dealing with redistribution. I state quite frankly to the House that I want to save my Bill, but at the same time I want to be just, and I must say that it appears to me that there is a strong case, at all events, for consideration in this House of this question of redistribution in Ireland.

4.0 P.M.

If that is so, what course can we take? The first alternative is to redistribute. Nobody, I think, proposes that we should at this stage approach the old controversy as to whether Ireland is or is not over-represented. If you were to redistribute the seats in Ireland on the same basis of population as is taken for the purpose of Great Britain, you would re duce the Irish seats from 103 to, I think, sixty-three, but no one proposes to take that course now, and I certainly do not suggest it for a moment. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"] What is suggested is that we should redistribute the Irish seats more equitably on the basis of population, preserving the existing number of seats in Ireland. I say at once that is a very difficult task, and if it is desired to pass this Bill within a reasonable time, it is only with the help and co-operation of those who are interested in the matter that we could hope to frame such a scheme of redistribution in time to insert it in this measure. Still, with that help and co-operation, it is possible, and if the Committee desired it the Government would undertake the task, and would at once appoint an Irish Commission and endeavour to get a scheme framed in time to be inserted in the Schedule of this Bill. There is, so far as I can see, only one further alternative, and that is to exclude Ireland from the Bill. I know that that course has been recommended, and recommended by bodies in Ireland whose opinions we must all respect, but that course—I say it frankly—would be a departure from the recommendations of the Conference. On that point the Speaker's Conference has pronounced, and I should feel the greatest difficulty in adopting that suggestion except at the general wish of the House. There is, I know, something to be said for it. The argument that appeals to me is this, and it is the argument mentioned by the hon. and learned Gentleman just now, that the Irish Convention is sitting, and that the Convention is dealing at this moment with, among other questions, the questions of representation at Westminster, franchise, and distribution of seats, and they may report on every one of those questions There is a good deal to be said in logic for the view that while that discussion is proceeding in Ireland, it is far better we should not take a hand in the matter and possibly disturb the deliberations of the Convention. There is this further consideration: Whatever the Report of the Irish Convention may be, there must be a proposal for legislation at an early date, and that proposal when it comes will of course deal with the very questions which we are discussing to-day. Therefore I can conceive that the House as a whole might come to this conclusion: While we will set aside in this respect the decision of the Conference, we shall expect the Government to legislate as soon as the Convention has reported, and on that understanding and on that undertaking we will consent to the exclusion of Ireland altogether from the Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!" "No, no!" and an HON. MEMBER:"Shame!"] I say I can conceive that view being taken, but if that view does not appeal to the House, it may be that we must undertake a difficult and not very agreeable task and do our best so to distribute the representation among the Irish seats that justice shall be done, and that the representation of Ireland shall correspond as closely as possible with the distribution of population. That is the whole case as it appears to me. I need hardly add that in bringing in the Bill we regard ourselves as doing the work of the House as a whole. It is a very difficult question, and I ask hon. Members to give us their views on the point, and when they have done so to give us their assistance in coming to some conclusion, which I hope will be an equitable one.

The House will have heard, I think with some surprise, that at this stage the Government regard this as an "open" question. When the Bill was first brought before the House and the recommendations of the general Speaker's Conference were approved, if my recollection serves me rightly, no question was raised then of any alternative of excluding Ireland from the Bill altogether or else redistributing the Irish seats. When the Instructions to the Boundary Commissioners came before the House they were Instructions for redistributing the seats in Great Britain, and then was the time when those who held the view that has been expressed today ought to have presented their case to the House. That was not done, and the House proceeded with the consideration of the Bill on the assumption, and indeed the definite understanding, that the seats in Great Britain were to be redistributed, but that the seats in Ireland where not, and that the registration and franchise provisions of the Bill were to apply to the whole of the United Kingdom. No protest was raised at the time. All the Clauses of the Bill dealing with Franchise and Registration have now passed through the House. They have been considered by representatives from Ireland, on the assumption, of course, that they would apply to Ireland, and all our Debates have been conducted on that supposition. Now, at the last moment, when the Bill is almost through the Committee stage, it is suggested, as one possible alternative, that Ireland may be deprived of the whole benefit of those? Clauses. There are several possible alternative policies which the Home Secretary has reviewed. One possible alternative which is not now suggested is to reduce the representation of Ireland to the arith- metical figure to which her present population would entitle her. I do not propose to debate that suggestion because it is not now before the Committee. I can only say if it were to be proposed as a serious policy that many of us would find it necessary to offer the strongest opposition.

The second proposal is that the number of Irish representatives should not be reduced below the present figure of 103, but that the obvious anomalies of the present unequal distribution of seats in Ireland should be redressed, and that the 103 Members should be distributed with arithmetical equality over the whole of Ireland. What does that mean? That means that Parliament would be doing something which would have the appearance of making some permanent provision for Irish representation on a basis which would work out to a result closely approximating to this, that while every English, Scottish and Welsh seat would be represented on a basis of a member for 70,000 of the population, every Irish seat would have representation on the basis of one member to, I think, 50,000 or less—[An HON. MEMBER: "Forty thousand !"]—between forty and fifty thousand. I doubt very much whether the House of Commons is likely to sit down to pass new legislation perpetuating the inequality of the Representation of Ireland and of Great Britain in this House in any fashion such as that. We all know, it has long been commonly agreed in all quarters of the House, that the representation of Ireland in this House ought properly to be reduced. That has been admitted again and again, and in the Home Rule Act, of course, it was proposed to reduce the representation to 42. But that reduction should, in the opinion of many of us, form part of the whole settlement of the Irish question. At this particular moment, while an authoritative Convention is sitting and endeavouring to thresh out some proposals to be laid before the Parliament of the United Kingdom which the Government may be able to lay before the Parliament of the United Kingdom to settle the Irish question, is this the moment to appoint Boundary Commissioners in Ireland to review each county and each borough, and to pass legislation making provision for the representation of Ireland in this House by 103 members on a basis which departs so widely from that which has been adopted in the case of Great Britain?

The third proposal is, recognising the difficulty on the one hand of reducing Irish representation in this House to 42 or 65, or whatever the number may be, and recognising also the difficulty of saying that we will keep the 103 but redistribute them fairly in Ireland, that if neither of those two can be adopted, then exclude Ireland from the Bill altogether. I fail to see how that makes the situation any better. What advantage is gained? Granting that the redistribution arrangement is unsatisfactory, what advantage is gained by Parliament saying: "We will penalise Ireland by not allowing her to have Registration and Franchise Reform." You will merely cause among the Irish people a sense of grievance and a sense of indignation at the treatment to which they have been subjected while you do not improve the situation with regard to redistribution by one jot. The fourth alternative is that which hitherto has been before the House, and which it was generally understood had the assent of the Government, namely, that we should leave the Irish distribution of seats, as it is for the time being until the report of the Convention is received and new arrangements on a comprehensive basis can be adopted, and at the same time allow her to have the benefit of the registration and franchise reform. For my own part I sincerely hope that that is the conclusion to which the House will be willing to assent.

The speech of the right hon. Gentleman, who is in charge of the Bill, has proved how well grounded have been the anticipations as to Ireland's treatment under this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that they left it an open question as to whether they will do this wrong to Ireland. It would turn all your Home Rule professions into ridicule and contempt if you were to begin by excluding hundreds of thousands of Irish men and Irish women from the privileges which you are according to millions of people in Great Britain.

Reference has been made to the sittings of the Irish Convention. I venture to say that that makes the position of the Government in this matter all the more intolerable. Six months have already elapsed since the proposal for a Conven- tion was first dangled before the country, and we are at this moment without an atom of information from the Government, or anybody else, as to whether there is any possibility of this Convention ending in any suggestion for a practical agreement, or for the carrying into law by the Government of any of its proposals. If you are to begin, with this declaration of an open mind as to whether this shameful disability is or is not to be placed upon Ireland, all I can say is you are doubling the difficulties of the Convention from which you profess to hope so much, and doubling and exciting the darkest suspicion against any agreement which may be come to, if the optimists happily prove to be right in their prophecies that there is a likelihood that agreement should be arrived at. I have, however, only risen for the purpose of asking the right hon. Gentleman how soon he will put down his proposals upon this subject. For the moment any further discussion would be inconvenient, I think, on our side, and we shall reserve our fullest liberty of action for a time when we know exactly how the Cabinet have made up their minds—if they can ever make up their minds resolutely to anything! I can only tell the Committee that if the Government should attempt, by dropping Ireland on the pretext of non-inclusion of redistribution or otherwise, if they should attempt to drive the Irish people to a General Election while this enormous mass of new Irish electors would have no voice in the issue, that they are doubling and quadrupling the difficulties of the Irish Convention, and they would certainly do anything but serve the interest of any party, whether the Ulster party or the Nationalist party, whom they possibly desire to serve. I will only say that the Irish people, if this Bill should be lost on this pretext or on any other, will know perfectly well who is to blame—and it will not be the party above the Gangway alone.

I do not propose, in saying the few words which I intend to address to the House upon this matter, to go into details on figures in regard to the acknowledged bad representation of Ireland. I should, however, like to lay before the Committee one or two general considerations from a broader standpoint than any purely party consideration would warrant. Since he Speaker's Conference the position in Ireland has undergone a complete and radical change. At the time of the Speaker's Conference the position in Ireland was that the Home Rule Act was upon the Statute Book, and the only suggested settlement or modification of that Act was the possible exclusion of the six counties of Ulster. That, I say, was the position at the time of the Speaker's Conference. That was the only type of settlement which anybody had at all considered. Since then matters in regard to Ireland have very materially and very radically changed. We know that the Government put forward alternative means of settling the Irish question. There were two—the Prime Minister's suggestion in the first part of his letter,, and the suggestion for the assembling of a Convention in Ireland. As is well known to the House, the party to which I belong, the Ulster party, were willing to put before their own supporters in Ulster the consideration of the suggestion put forward in the first part of that letter. On the other hand, hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway could not see their way to accept that; instead, they agreed to the assembling of an Irish Convention. I think it is obvious to the House that from the moment the Irish Convention was accepted by the Nationalist party as the means of a possible settlement of the Irish question, the Home Rule Act thereby became simply a thing in the region of the might-have-beens. The Home Rule Act on the Statute Book is no longer, at this moment, considered by anybody to be a practical or reasonable settlement of the Irish question. That great change has taken place since the Speaker's Conference sat, so that whatever the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Waterford may have said to-day in regard to a desire not to depart from the conclusions of the Speaker's Conference, we must remember that when the Speaker's Conference was held the conditions in Ireland were entirely different in regard to a settlement to what they are to-day.

A good deal has been said—it was said by the Home Secretary and by another hon. Member who has spoken—and a great point was made of the fact—to the effect that we ought not to go into this matter while the Convention is sitting, that the Convention is being looked upon by all sides as possibly the means out of which may come some settlement of the Irish question, and that a time like this, when all men's eyes are turned to it, is no time to tamper with this matter, and to try to change such a big question as the Parlia- mentary representation of Ireland. I should like to say a word or two about that. I say that this ought to be done, that Ireland ought to be included in this Bill, in all parts of this Bill, because the Convention is sitting to-day and not in spite of that fact. Because the Convention is now sitting, to my mind, adds an enormous argument in favour of extending the whole scope of this Bill to Ireland. Why do I say that? I say that for this reason: First of all, if the Convention conies to an agreement, any agreement which it comes to must be put before the people of Ireland for their sanction. That, I think, is, or should be, frankly admitted, because, as we all know, the largest or, at any rate, the most virile and the most noisy party in Ireland to-day is not represented at the Convention; so that I think we may take it—any reasonable man must take it—as an undoubted fact that if the Convention comes to an agreement, that agreement will have to be put before the Irish people for their sanction or refusal. Surely, if that is going to take place, you want proper representation of the views of the different sections in Ireland! You must have the views of the people of Ireland expressed properly and proportionately to their numbers. Another point on that issue is this: Any agreement at which the Convention may arrive, even if it passes successfully and negotiates the difficult stream of Irish opinion, or approval, has still got to be put before this House; it has still got to be passed as an Act of Parliament by this Imperial Parliament of the Empire. I say that because the Convention is sitting, and not in spite of it, it is ten times more important than it ever was at the time of the Speaker's Conference that any possible agreement by the Convention should be examined by this Imperial House of Commons and that therefore there should be just representation of Ireland in regard to the different portions of the population of that country.

I maintain, therefore, that the fact that the Convention is sitting is in itself an argument which never existed at the time of the Speaker's Conference, and is an argument in favour of distributing the seats in Ireland in proportion to the population and over the various sections of that country. I was most disappointed at the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Nationalist party. I would appeal to the Nationalist party to carry out the professions which recently they have so often made. They never tire of telling us that there are no lengths to which they would not go in order to conciliate Ulster opinion. I remember—I am sure the Committee all remember; it is perhaps a painful but nevertheless it is a very happy recollection to all of us—I remember the last speech which that hon. Member and very gallant Gentleman the late Member for East Clare (Major W. Redmond) made in this House. I remember how he appealed to all parties for a settlement of the Irish question. I remember above all the words in which he appealed to hon. Members in all parts of the House to fall in with the views he was putting forward. Speaking for himself personally—he made that clear—he used the very words which I have quoted, that there were no lengths to which his party would not go in order to conciliate Ulster opinion and in order to get Ulster to come in to a settlement of the Irish question. Here, only a few months later, comes the first chance for the Nationalist party to show that in their profession of a desire to conciliate Ulster they are truly sincere. This is obviously merely a question of right, not only for Ulster, but for the whole of the people of Ireland. The facts make the argument unanswerable. Yet in spite of that, at the first opportunity for doing what they so often have professed, I am extremely sorry to say that the Nationalist party have adopted a non-possumus attitude in this matter.

I personally was very glad to hear the Home Secretary say that the matter practically lay between two alternatives—either the extension to Ireland of this Bill in its entirety, including the redistribution Clauses, or else the cutting out of Ireland from the Bill altogether. I agree entirely with what hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway have said. I do not want Ireland cut out of this Bill. Those whom I represent do not want it cut out. Just think what it would mean if Ireland were cut out of the Bill. Ireland would lose the women's vote, and, what personally appeals to me very much indeed, all the gallant soldiers of Ireland who are fighting would lose their vote, because the next General Election, of course, is bound to take place at a time when the Armies of the Empire will be away from the United Kingdom. Therefore, the soldiers would lose the vote and the women would lose the vote, and all the other advantages—because I consider they are advantages— of this Bill would be withdrawn from the people of Ireland, and that simply because the Nationalist party are unable and unwilling now to come forward and do the right thing, which is to recognise and acknowledge that the representation of Ireland is an absurd anomaly, and that it ought to be put right at the earliest possible moment. On the other hand, as the Leader of the Ulster party has said to-night, if it does come about that the Government will not do the right thing and extend the whole of this Bill to Ireland, then we have no alternative but to suggest, according to Amendments to be put down later, and to vote for the exclusion of Ireland from the Bill, because it is obvious that, as the matter stands now, great injustice is done to the Unionists and all moderate classes of opinion in Ireland. I hope, therefore, the Home Secretary will not only stick to every word he has said, but will go further, and will actually agree to the application to Ireland of the whole of this Bill as a matter of justice and right, in the same way as it has now been applied to Great Britain.

I think everybody in the Committee who is interested in the fate of this Bill will be inclined by this time to ask why was this contentious question raised at all in the course of this Debate. The course of this Debate has already made it perfectly manifest that if the Government persist in encouraging, in the way in which, to my amazement, they have encouraged the proposal of the hon. Baronet (Sir J. Lonsdale), the Irish question in all its length and breadth, and in all its bitterness, will be imparted into the discussions on this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman said "I desire to save my Bill." Is that the way he will save his Bill or expedite it, by dragging in unnecessarily, quite wantonly, in the midst of this discussion, the Irish question in all its bitterness? We have had ample proof in the speeches to which we have listened of what the character of the debates will be if this course is persisted in. No answer has been given to the arguments put forward by the right hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Front Opposition Bench. He asked why was this issue and this difficulty not raised when the Bill was introduced, or on the Second Heading of the Bill, or when the instructions were issued to the Redistribution Commissioners for England. That was the proper and the orderly occasion on which this whole question should have been raised, but it was not raised, and there was no question from any part of the House on this, point that has now become so urgent.

The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary spoke about the manifest justice which demanded either of those two alternatives to which he alluded—either that, the seats should be redistributed in Ireland, or that Ireland should be struck out of the Bill. What was the matter with the Government when they were drafting their Bill? Did this question never suggest itself to the Government? Surely the matter must have been before the Cabinet? Their attention must have been drawn to the difference in treatment of Ireland under the Bill from that of Great Britain, and if the injustice of the present treatment of Ireland under this Bill is so manifest, how was it that it never occurred to the Government, which includes a distinguished representative of the Ulster-party in its ranks, while they were drafting the Bill that this injustice was being inflicted? When, and under what influences, did the Government decide to make such a pronouncement as that to which we listened to night? Some hon. Members appear to assume that the Cabinet have come to some decision on this matter. I did not gather that from, the speech of the Home Secretary, and I hope that, although we are groaning under a Coalition Government and although now nearly one-third of the whole House has become members of the Government, there is still sufficient independence in the House to consider this question on its merits, even if the Cabinet should have come to a decision, which I hope is not true, and that the House should be at liberty, in a Bill of this character particularly, to arrive at their own judgment without being coerced by any decision of the Cabinet. I trust in this matter, at all events, if it is further pursued—I hope it will not be, because it can only lead to prolonged and angry debates—the Government will leave the House free, and not put on the Government Whips, so that the House can come to its own decision.

An appeal was made to us by the hon. and gallant Member who spoke last on behalf of the Ulster party. He spoke about declarations made by some members of the Irish party that there were no lengths to which they would not go in order to conciliate Ulster, but he knows perfectly well that we, by our endeavours to conciliate Ulster, have lost to a large extent our own people. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] There has been handed over a great part of the country to Sinn Feinism, and I think it is rather ungenerous to talk to us about having shown no spirit of conciliation. Some people in Ireland think we have shown a great deal too much spirit of conciliation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] A great many people in Ireland hold that view, and we have got a lesson on more than one occasion. We have got another lesson to-night how unthankful is the task of those who endeavour to play the part of conciliators.

What has the hon. Member or his party done to conciliate Ulster?

They handed over six counties to you.

If the hon. Baronet who does not, I think, reside in Ireland, would study the Sinn Fein newspapers he would learn a good deal. I do not believe he ever reads the Sinn Fein newspapers. The hon. Baronet who made this proposal was very eloquent on the essential justice and the immediate necessity of setting right the representation of Ireland as between Irishmen, and he calmly assumed that there is nobody in the House—a proposition against which I heard a good many protests on these benches especially—who would dream of setting right the numerical proportion as between Great Britain and Ireland. I fear, and I am confident that the hon. Baronet is wholly mistaken, and if this whole business of numerical proportion on principles of abstract justice is gone into we shall hear the English case stated. We have no objection.

I do not doubt the English sense of fair play.

Why does the hon. Baronet hold that there is a difference between the sense of fair play in the United Kingdom and in Ireland? Has he become a Home Ruler? Is he amongst the prophets, and does he think the two countries are to be differentiated in that way? He says that nobody proposes to reduce the Irish representation to sixty-two, which, I think, he said was the just numerical proportion. I can correct the hon. Baronet. I see it proposed in the English Press continually, and I have seen in the last few days statements that it is an intolerable thing that the Irish should be allowed to retain their present propor- tion in the House of Commons. Then, on what ground does the hon. Baronet confidently get up and say that nobody proposes it? He is quite mistaken; it is frequently proposed, and I notice that, in a desperate effort to redress the balance, the Government in their proposals for redistribution have added thirty or thirty-five members to the representation of Great Britain, but they have not attempted to face the problem of reducing the representation of Ireland, even although we have too many seats already in Ireland, But is the hon. Baronet quite certain of what would be the effect of his own Amendment? I am rather inclined to think that his Amendment as it stands upon the Paper would be a direction to readjust and redistribute between the two countries; and, therefore, not only was he wrong in assuming that nobody proposed to redistribute between the two countries——

The hon. Member must not misrepresent me. What I said was that it naturally followed there would be a redistribution of the voting power within the country.

I know what the hon. Baronet said. Very often a person puts an Amendment on the Paper which does not carry out his intention, and my belief is that his Amendment, as it stands on the Paper, if passed would be an Amendment for the redistribution of the whole of the United Kingdom I believe that would be the effect of it. If these discussions are entered upon it is perfectly manifest to the Government, from what has already taken place, that the whole Irish question will be dragged in, and it will be quite impossible to keep it out. That is not calculated to improve either the atmosphere of the House or to expedite the passage of the Bill But there is one question I would like to address to the hon. Baronet, and to the hon. and gallant Member, in all friendliness and fairness. What is their object? Why are they so eager, and why do they attach such great importance to this question of redistribution in Ireland at the present moment? They must know as well as I do that the proposal which was sketched out by the hon. Baronet himself to transfer members from the county of Cork and the province of Connaught to Belfast and the North-East of Ulster——

I did not say that.

The hon. Baronet pointed out that Cork County had nine members with a less population than Belfast, and if you redistribute of course you take some of the Cork members to Belfast.

The hon. Member is misrepresenting me.

I am not misrepresenting the hon. Baronet, but I am drawing the logical and inevitable conclusions from the statement made. The hon. Baronet stated that the province of Connaught and Bounty Cork were over-represented, and that North-East Ulster and Belfast were under-represented, having regard to population, and therefore if there were redistribution of course some of the Connaught members must go to Belfast. That is absolutely clear, and does any man acquainted with the condition of Ireland suppose that that is going to pass the House without opposition and prolonged and angry debate? Does any man who understands the present condition of Ireland suppose that the consequences to Ireland are going to be of an emollient and conciliatory character? I ask, then, these hon. Members what is their object? Why this extraordinary zeal and this enormous importance attached to redistribution in Ireland at the present time in this Bill, unless it be that they contemplate a continuance of the struggle against an Irish settlement? Unless that be their idea this thing has no meaning at all, and why should the House of Commons be put to all this trouble about it? Unless they are convinced that the Convention is going to fail and Ireland is going to be thrown back upon a prolonged struggle over this question of a Home Rule settlement as against the Union, I do not see what the purpose of all this is at all. When hon. Members were speaking on this matter they laid stress on the fact that the Unionists of Ireland are under-represented. In other words, they are looking forward to a prolongation of the Irish struggle.

Then the hon. Baronet appealed to us and said that one of his objects was one in which we ought to sympathise, namely, to lessen the power of the revolutionary party which is gaining ground in Ireland every day, at our expense—not at yours, I admit Of course, that is true, but I must confess that I have all my life, and I have still, the most unmitigated con- tempt for any political party that seeks to prolong its power or existence by resisting the extension of the franchise. If the revolutionary party, which is gaming ground in Ireland at our expense owing to the blunders of the Government—[Laughter]—well, are you champions of the Government? Has the Government one single champion from Ireland who will stand up now—and I challenge them—and say that he has confidence in the Irish Executive? Not one! They are all silent. The Irish Executive has no friends in Ireland. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not one!"] Not one. I have made the challenge. I come back to the point that the revolutionary party is gaining ground in Ireland at our expense. That is quite true, but for my part if the extension of the franchise in Ireland, and without redistribution, would have the effect at a General Election of enabling them to beat us and get control, then I say by all means let them come into power and get control. The people who have the confidence of the electors of Ireland ought to be the people whom the Government has to deal with, and that is a principle, I think, that every democrat in this House will support. At all events, for my part, no consideration on earth would induce me either by supporting this proposition or tolerating this proposition of a redistribution, or, on the other hand, by tolerating an attempt to get Ireland out of the Bill, to gain a temporary electoral advantage—if it would be an advantage. I do not think it would, but if we could get an electoral advantage it would be utterly contemptible, and I think the result would be in the long run an enormous lessening of our influence in that country.

For these reasons I do trust the Government will not accede to the invitation of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. W. O'Brien). He asked them to put their proposals on the Paper. Their proposals are on the Paper. Their proposals are the Bill as agreed to by the Speaker's Conference. We stand by that Bill. We accepted that Conference. Our representatives were in that Conference. It is a contract, and what right have you to break it in Ireland and to observe it in this country? I have noticed throughout the discussions on this Bill that whenever Amendments have been proposed—and there is a section in this House bitterly opposed to the Bill, and very anxious to kill it—they are always effectively met by the argument that this was a contract, an agreement, between party representatives in this Conference which was presided over by Mr. Speaker, and that the Government cannot see their way to depart from any of the main conditions of that agreement. By what right do you propose to treat Ireland on totally different lines? God knows, Ireland is in a very horrible position. We do not know what any day may bring forth in Ireland. I think it would be an act of criminal folly to import into the confusion and chaos which you have already created in Ireland a fresh element of bitterness by discriminating against Ireland and denying her the protection of the contract which you have religiously and carefully carried out in regard to Great Britain.

I do not desire to trespass upon the attention of the House for any length of time, but I do not think that the statement which my right hon. Friend (Sir G. Cave) who is in charge of this Bill made to the House has been fully appreciated. [HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up!"] As there can be no effective result of this discussion at the present time, it might be worth while that there should be an opportunity of careful consideration of what was said by my right hon. Friend before this question, which is evidently a question capable of raising very embittered debate, should be brought to anything like an issue. I should like to make two observations only upon the main question. The first is that if the Committee assume, and if hon. Members from Ireland assume, that the provisions of this Bill are going effectively to govern the representation of Ireland in the British Parliament, whether at the critical period we are approaching or for any great length of time, I cannot conceive there is any representative of an Irish constituency who would not desire that the representation of Ireland here should be made as sound and just and fair and democratic as it can be made. I cannot doubt that if this question had to be discussed and Irishmen had to approach it with this problem before them: "We have to be represented in the British Parliament for the time being; how is it to be effective, and what are the fair grounds on which it is to be done?"—that the great mass of Irishmen would cast to the winds all these technical, political, and partisan considerations which can be imported into the Debate and raise bitter elements of discussion and controversy, and that they would say: "We have to be represented at Westminster, and we will have the best representation we can have so that no one Irishman can say to another, 'You are depriving me of my fair share of representation.'" That is my view of the feeling of Irishmen about this political question. I do not believe there is a stronger influence in Ireland than the sense of justice and the consciousness of what is fair. That is the deliberate result of my experience that is lengthening from month to month, and which has been engaged with Irish affairs solely and in the most trying conditions for a considerable period. I appeal to the Committee as to whether it is necessary, now that we cannot have an effective debate, to pursue the controversy as to how Ireland will stand if she has to be represented. It is quite obvious that my right hon. Friend was well warranted in saying that this subject having been made a matter of discussion and reference having been made to the present condition of things, any precipitate dealing with this question might really imperil the progress of this Bill. I really do not think enough consideration has been given to the position of the Convention in this matter. My hope is—there are moments when I could say my belief is—that all these questions of Irish representation here upon a scheme devised in this place, in the Parliaments of the coming time, will be waste of energy, that what you are doing here is provisional and will prove to be useless. I hope from the bottom of my heart that that is the case. You cannot settle these questions satisfactorily here.

Then why waste hours of angry quarrelling?

5.0 P.M.

It is quite true that you have a Bill here on which these questions can be raised, and hon. Members cannot be prevented from raising them. No one denies who looks at it from a democratic point of view that they put themselves on an undeniable ground of justice apart from the question of the Report of the Conference; but I accept what my hon. and learned Friend says, why waste hours of controversy upon this at this time? My own feeling about this matter is that if Ireland is to be represented here on anything like the present system she ought to have the best representation we can give her, and the most generous repre- sentation. The right hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Redmond) and my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Dillon)—I do not know why I should not be at liberty to say that no man values more than I do the sacrifice he makes in the cause of his country, the labour he bestows on questions of this nature in one of the worst positions any man has ever held. The right hon. Gentleman is abominably misrepresented each day. Every device of unreasoned abuse and wickedness which can be employed is directed against him. Not that it carries away the mass of his thinking countrymen; at least, I do not think so from such opportunities as I have had for observation. But the right hon. Gentleman has told us that the Convention is engaged upon this subject, and that the highest hopes are entertained in Ireland in regard to the Convention. Aye, the expectations and prayers of the best citizens of Ireland go out for the success of the Convention, and it is not too much to hope that these expectations and prayers of theirs may be gratified by success. Why at this time should there be controversy about this question? Assume, for instance, that His Majesty's Government were in the position to say now: "The Irish Convention has produced a scheme which deals with this subject." Would the House spend hours in debate upon these topics? Would it run the risk of sacrificing a British Franchise Bill for an Irish section of it that might never take effect? I do not believe it would. I cannot imagine it would. At any rate, none of us who hold any responsibility would desire to do such a thing. What is the position as to that? My right hon. Friend said the Convention is sitting, and that His Majesty's Government would be ready to undertake that Ireland should not be prejudiced by any delay in dealing with this matter. My opinion is that the proper place to deal with the question is in the Bill—which, I hope, may result from the labours of the Convention. It is not likely that the period when that may be done will be long delayed. It is a fact, I believe, that such a Convention may bring about a settlement, and it is more desirable than that the House should proceed to deal with this subject, on a Bill which takes into consideration the whole of the circumstances in Ireland, rather than on a Bill which must deal piecemeal with the question. I speak here under some difficulty, because of the position I occupy, but I do echo what has been said in various quarters, that it is not desirable needlessly to aggravate the difficulties which exist at the present time. I hope, therefore, that this subject may be postponed until hon. Members have had an opportunity of considering the alternatives set forth in the speech of my right hon. Friend, so that when the time comes a decision may be arrived at which will be acceptable in all quarters.

There is a large body of opinion in Ireland which holds the view that the Irish Executive is deliberately encouraging delay, and there are many who feel that during the past twelve months the Irish Executive have done things which it is almost impossible for any sane Irishman, at any rate, to think could have been done unless there was some sinister motive behind. A great many believe that, and if there could be anything which would make me believe it it is the position which the Government, and especially the Chief Secretary, have taken up to-day. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the Government proposes that Ireland should be struck out of this Bill.

No.

I am delighted to hear that. I take it then that that part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech is not to be taken as an argument in favour of striking Ireland out of the Bill, but rather as an argument addressed to the hon. Gentleman opposite not to persist further with this redistribution proposal in connection with the Bill now before the Committee. If that is so, then I can understand the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and I am quite prepared to withdraw the statement I have made with regard to the language he has used.

The desire I expressed wag that, if possible, hon. Members from Ireland should endeavour to come to a conclusion which will enable them to deal in an effective way with this question, by securing for Ireland the benefits of a franchise on a proper basis.

Now I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he has not made up his mind on this question at all, but that in effect he is proposing something in the nature of another Convention to deal with this question of the franchise! Surely that is a justification for some of the wildest statements of the Sinn Feiners, as to the ability of England to govern Ireland. What are the facts? Until the year 1884 it was almost a rule of this House—a very unjust rule, I must say in passing—when dealing with the electoral franchise, that Ireland was to be differentiated against. That was done in 1,829, when the 40s. freeholder was abolished; it was done in 1832, when you gave us a different franchise from that which was given to England; it was done in 1867, when once more Ireland was not Considered worthy of having the measure of equitable justice meted out to England. In the year 1884 Parliament, under the guidance of Mr. Gladstone, deliberately abandoned that policy, and declared that there should be one electoral franchise for all parts of the United Kingdom. So far as we know that has been the policy of every Government that has sat upon that bench until the right hon. Gentleman the present Home Secretary and the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary got up to speak to-night. We hear now for the first time that it is in the contemplation of the Government to depart from that policy and to go back behind Mr. Gladstone—behind the Act of 1884—and in connection with a great measure of franchise reform to adopt one policy for Ireland and another for England. I would remind the Committee that when the Home Rule Bill was being discussed it was provided in express terms that the electoral franchise should be the same in the three kingdoms, and that it should not be in the power of an Irish Parliament to change that. Consequently there is in the Home Rule Act a formal enactment to the effect that so long as Ireland sends members into this House of Commons they are to be elected on the same franchise as members for England and Scotland, and that no Irish Parliament shall have it in its power to alter that arrangement. But in the face of that we have to-day the Chief Secretary and the Home Secretary coming here and telling us that on this important question the Government as yet have not made up their minds.

We want to know is faith to be broken with Ireland on this question? An hon. Member asks, "What faith?" I will tell him. The Government are under a solemn pledge in this matter. They have agreed to accept all the proposals of the Speaker's. Conference. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about proportional representation?"] They have agreed to accept all the proposals except one assented to by the Speaker's Conference. That is a Government pledge. It is a pledge of the Prime-Minister, and it is a pledge that should be implemented and carried into effect. Is it denied that this pledge was given? Does anyone deny there is a formal pledge by the Prime Minister of England before the country that every agreed proposal of the Speaker's Conference, except one, shall be carried into law? There was a time when the Home Secretary, who is not here at this moment I am sorry to say, showed himself very sensitive on this subject, because on one occasion during the Debates on this Bill, when a proposal was made to depart from the Speaker's Conference agreement in the matter of university representation, the right hon. Gentleman got up and treated it as almost a charge which was dishonourble to suggest that any Minister was capable of going back upon the pledge which the Prime Minister had given. He said that the Government had pledged itself to bring in a Bill to carry out the unanimous findings and recommendations of the Speaker's Conference, with one exception, and he knew of no circumstances of any sort where they had departed from it. He added that this was a matter which touched him closely. I would like to ask, Is not the right hon. Gentleman touched closely by the proposal which has been made to-night? The Amendment upon which he made those observations dealt with a most trivial matter, whereas this Amendment now under discussion affects the whole Irish settlement.

I should like to know exactly what the right hon. Gentleman meant by his references to the Convention. As I have said before, my view of his speech depends on which of the two alternatives he means to adopt. Is his speech an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to exasperate feeling by seeking to strike Ireland out of the Bill or to raise the contentious question of redistribution? If that is the case, then I am with him. But if his proposal is that, having Ireland in this Bill as a result of the Speaker's Conference and as a result of the Prime Minister's pledge, we should be foolish enough or imbecile enough to consent to have Ireland struck out of the Bill on the chance that we may get something better from the Convention, then I can only say the right hon. Gentleman must suppose that we Irishmen are very simple and innocent folk. Proverbs are all against the idea. There is one proverb which tells us that "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"; there is another which advises us not to drop the substance in order to grasp at the shadow. At any rate until I have more confidence than I have at present regarding the outcome of the Convention, I as one Irishman have not the smallest intention of dropping the advantage which this Bill gives Ireland. I do, however, join in the hope expressed by the right hon. Gentleman for a good issue from the proceedings of the Convention. But let there be no doubt about this: The question which we are now debating is not the Amendment immediately before the Committee. That is not what we are agitated about. It is not the question of redistribution with which we are concerned. It is because we know that behind this proposal there lurks a plot to strike Ireland out of this Bill.

This question of redistribution in Ireland is a small one, and, put the case as high as the hon. Member can do, it cannot affect more than half a dozen votes in this House. This question has been raised on the basis that there is going to be no Home Rule and that Irish representation is to continue here as at present, and on the basis that the relations between the three kingdoms are to remain just as they are at present. It is on that basis that the hon. Gentleman desires to have these trifling anomalies in Irish representation destroyed. He does not want this arrangement disturbed on the basis that we are going to get Home Rule, but on the basis that we are going to remain as we are. There is a great deal to be said on that assumption for the existing state of things. When the Nationalists come here they are an isolated body without allies, whereas the sixteen or seventeen Conservative Members ally themselves here with a party which is practically the dominant party in England. Consequently, the existing state of things is not at all as unjust as the Chief Secretary would suggest. We mutt take the whole question into consideration. Assuming that things are to be as they are, I would think twice before giving away any advantage which we at the present time possess.

I have commented on some of the speeches which have been made by Ulster Members, but I may say that I am not a bit more pleased with the speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), and if I had to choose I would prefer the speech of the hon. Member below the Gangway. The hon. Member for East Mayo has given away the whole Irish case. I charge that, and I will prove it. What was the pledge of the Government? It was that they would take up as a Government matter every proposition put forward unanimously by the Speaker's Conference but one, and that was the case of Ireland. What does the hon. Member for East Mayo suggest? That when that question comes on the House should be left to vote as it pleases. That is giving away the Irish case. The Government are pledged on this question not to let the House vote as it pleases, but to do for Ireland exactly what they are doing for England. The Chief Secretary said that the Conference looked at this question like a horse looking at some dangerous object—they simply looked at it and passed on. I speak here as a member of the Speaker's Conference, and I say that that was not the attitude of the Conference. They deliberately abstained from dealing with this question for the reason that they could not deal with it without dealing with the question which was being dealt with by the Irish Convention. That did not prevent them dealing with the franchise in regard to which they have proposed that Ireland should be included, and we want to know what are the influences which have induced the Government even to think it possible that Ireland should be excluded.

I mistrust the hon. Member for East Mayo. His party did not think it worth while to come up and vote for this Bill on the Second Reading or to vote for the proposals of the Speaker's Conference. Now the hon. Member for East Mayo suggests that the Government shall fight like demons for the Bill for England, Scotland and Wales, but when it comes to the Irish case he suggests that the House should be left to do what it pleases. With great respect I suggest that that is something very much like treachery, and it seems to me as if the hon. Member for East Mayo got up pretending to be very anxious for this Bill and pretending to be desperately indignant at the Government for leaving Ireland out, but at the same time, in a casual sort of way, dropping them a hint that he would not in the least quarrel with them if when the Irish case comes to be dealt with they allowed the House to do as it pleases. I would not have animadverted to these family troubles to-night if I did not view with the greatest apprehension the suggestion which has been made by the hon. Member for East Mayo. That is not my claim for the Government. I claim that the Government shall stick to their word, keep their promise and fulfil their pledges, and if they do so they will not leave Ireland in the lurch when the Division comes on, but they will put on their Whips and see that every Member who follows them is prepared to do Ireland the justice which the Prime Minister and the Speaker's Conference are pledged to.

I would like to ask one or two questions from the English point of view. I do not wish to deal with the quarrel which has taken place between the hon. Member below the Gangway and the hon. Member for East Mayo. I understood the Chief Secretary to advocate that no further discussion should take place on this matter, that under this Bill which gives an over-representation of something like thirty or forty seats, Ireland should be left in that position, but if the Conference does not come to any conclusion or any result, that then another Bill will be introduced dealing with this measure.

This question appeared to be a highly controversial matter, and we thought it might be possible to postpone it.

There are other people interested in this matter besides the Irish Members Surely if you are bringing in a Reform Bill before any decision or result has been come to by the Irish Conference, and bringing it in before we know what is going to happen in Ireland, it is only just and fair to England that the basis of redistribution and the whole scheme should be identical in all the different countries concerned. There is a strong feeling in England, Scotland, and Wales that this should be so, and redistribution should be dealt with in Ireland in the same way as in this country. That being so, we ought to deal with Ireland in this Bill, and redistribute the seats in Ireland so as to prevent the number of Members in this House being increased. As the redistribution plan stands now the number of members in this House will be increased by thirty-one. I think Ireland should be dealt with in the same way, and if that is done the number of members from Ireland will remain the same.

If the Irish Convention should result in some scheme satisfactory to England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, why would it be necessary to do anything more than introduce a Bill? I do not think it would be necessary to do anything more, because this scheme would invalidate the Act of Parliament dealing with redistribution in Ireland. Consequently there must be another Act, and in that Act you can arrange that the various seats and members in Ireland shall be dealt with afresh. In the event of there being any delay in the Irish Convention coming to an agreement, or in the event of an election taking place under the new Reform Bill before the Convention comes to an agreement, then all the different parts of the kingdom would be treated alike. I think that is a very much simpler and better way than enacting an anomaly and then under certain circumstances endeavouring to do away with it. This is a very important point from the point of view of the members for Great Britain, and I trust the House will consider whether or not at some future stage of the Bill, or on the Report stage, it would not be possible to enact that this Bill shall apply equally in every respect not only to Great Britain but to Ireland as well.

There are some matters which require some light thrown upon them. The Chief Secretary, for instance, did not make it clear whether, assuming the matter is decided now, those portions of the Bill applying to Ireland will remain in abeyance until some agreement has been come to. We on this side of the House would be very much obliged to him if he would make the position clear. We say that the Speaker's Conference came to no decision in reference to this matter at all. Will anyone say that the Speaker's Conference wished Parliament to leave matters in Ireland so that in one part of the country eight men of the artisan class, highly trailed and educated men, such as in the city of Belfast, should only be equal to one man in Galway or in the borough of Newry? This is an anomaly which surely was never considered by the Speaker's Conference, and which I am sure they expected that this House would put right. I want to call the attention of the House to the personnel of the voters. We are all aware that Belfast and the city of Dublin are under-represented. Belfast should have something like nine members, and Dublin something like six or seven members, on an equitable basis. Take the personnel of the voters in Belfast. They are largely men of the artisan class brought from all parts of Ireland, and some of them, because of their peculiar training, come from England and Scotland and are engaged in shipbuilding. They are highly educated men so far as their class is concerned, and there is no part of Ireland where labour is better organised. Will anyone say that labour from Ireland is thoroughly represented in this House? We want some fair play for the industrial parts of the country, and for these progressive centres where men converge because they get employment.

Surely this House will not leave the representation of Ireland in the condition in which it is now, and surely it will not pass a Bill with such anomalies in it as these! For this reason we bring the matter before the notice of the House so that it may see that fair play is done to all parts of Ireland and not least to the industrial portions of Ireland. We also wish to point out how congested some of our registers will be. Take, for instance, East Belfast. You are adding something like 15,000 women voters to the list, and you will have something like 35,000 voters in this one constituency, as against something like 3,000 in the borough of Newry. This state of things cannot continue. Surely the House is intelligent and courageous enough to grapple with these facts at the proper time! The unfortunate situation in Ireland has been brought about largely by a want of courage to place Ireland on equal terms with the other three parts of the Kingdom. It is because these things are shelved, for considerations political or otherwise, that we have the unfortunate situation in Ireland revealed to us to-night, and which we all so greatly deplore. I appeal to the House not to let this matter pass lightly, but to tackle the question, not for the sake of any party, but for the sake of the men and women who are going to the large places of industry, who are looking to this House for representation and protection, and who ask you to do the just and proper thing and to see that redistribution is given to Ireland the same as to the other three portions of the Kingdom.

The hon. Baronet (Sir J. Lonsdale) who introduced this discussion was listening just now when the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) intervened in the Debate. The hon. Baronet was very interesting when he painted a fairy picture of the interesting situation resulting from a redistribution scheme being carried out in Ireland upon Irish lines. My hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) pointed out subsequently that outside this House there was a large body of opinion which was endeavouring to have redistribution effected in Ireland, not on the lines suggested by the hon. Baronet, but on English lines. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London smashed to atoms the whole of the fairy picture drawn by the hon. Baronet. He said that at present under the scheme there was to be an addition of some thirty members to the House, and that there might be a reduction of Irish Members to the extent of about thirty, in which case we should have the House of Commons retaining its present numbers. It seems tome that it would be extremely valuable if the hon. Baronet could have a consultation with the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, and if they could come to some decision between them, because we on these benches see what is going to happen. If the suggestion of the hon. Baronet is carried out it will be immediately objected to by Conservative members sitting for English constituencies, and the only result will be that the Irish scheme of the hon. Baronet will be lost in the much larger scheme which will be debated on terms of pure justice by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, and all the other Conservative members sitting in the House.

I do not intend to intervene in the Irish Debate beyond saying—speaking entirely as an outsider in the matter—that I cannot conceive the justice of extending the franchise proposals of this Bill to Ireland without at the same time extending to it the redistribution proposals. I think it is a great misconception on the part of hon. Gentlemen to say that they will not press the question of the reduction of members. That question no doubt raises a serious constitutional question and might seriously prejudice the work of the Convention, which no one desires to do.

Does the hon. Baronet speak as a Whip?

No; I speak as a private Member. I have not the honour of occupying that position, otherwise, I should be sitting down there. Speaking entirely for myself and as a Scottish member looking at this question from the Scottish point of view, I say that I am not at all certain that this House is wise in extending the franchise proposals to Ireland. We know exactly what is going on there just now. I really rose to deal with the question of the Speaker's Report from the point of view of the instructions given by this House to the Boundary Commissioners. The Boundary Commissioners have on the whole done their work extremely well. There is very little fault to be found with the decisions at which they have arrived with regard to the constituencies, though there are some which will require to be reviewed. There seem to have been certain omissions to follow definite instructions given by this House, which one might illustrate by one or two examples. There is, for example, a distinct and definite Instruction which says that the Boundary Commissioners shall have regard to electorate rather than to population where it appears that the proportion of the electorate to the population is abnormal, and they say in their Report that they found no such abnormality, except in the Tower Hamlets. I cannot understand that. You find that abnormality in Glasgow, and there the Scottish Commissioners have dealt with it properly. When you get to Manchester the same abnormality is entirely ignored, and North-West Manchester is not treated in any degree in the same way as Glasgow. The treatment of Glasgow is in accordance with the directions of this House, and the treatment of North-West Manchester is not. That is one of the questions with which we shall have to deal when we come to the Schedule.

There is another curious thing. The population of 1914 is taken as the basis for regulating the number of members in county or borough areas, and in Scotland the 1914 population is applied not only to the total number of members for the area, but is also applied in mapping out the divisions. In England it is not so. In England they settle the number on the 1914 population, but the sub-dividing of the divisions is done on the 1911 population. That is distinctly and directly con- trary to the directions of this House. I do not understand how it happened, unless it be that the Registrar-General in England was not in a position to give the figures of 1914, while the Registrar-General in Scotland appears to have been able to do so. If that is the answer, it is very unfortunate, because we start with an erroneous population, and are founding the boundaries of the divisions upon a figure which is already extinct, and has been entirely changed since 1911. The only other criticism which I would offer is that the system of grouping of boroughs might very well have been carried a little further than it has been. Take the case of Renfrew. In the county of Renfrew you have five boroughs containing a population of something like 60,000. The county and borough authorities requested the Commissioners to create them into a group of boroughs. You have in the remaining county area almost exactly the same population. Obviously, there you have separate interests, rural in one case and urban in the other. If ever there were a case where those interests ought to be segregated it was in the county of Renfrew. Yet the representations of the localities have been entirely ignored, and a dividing line has been drawn across the county from east to west, mixing up rural and urban populations, and entirely ignoring the question of interests to which this House told the Commissioners they should have regard. That is a typical case. There may be one or two others in which grouping would have been more effective than the system adopted, and in which that question of interests might have been properly considered. I only mention this now in order to make it clear that when we reach the Schedule there will be one or two Amendments of that kind which might legitimately be suggested, and to which I hope my right hon. Friend will be willing to give reasonable consideration. None of them are likely in any kind of way to affect the general scheme. Any inequalities that arise can be rectified within a particular boundary without infringing upon the next boundary. Under these circumstances, no doubt the House will agree to them. With these exceptions, I think the Boundary Commissioners on the whole are to be congratulated on the work that they have done.

I should like to raise now a question which has already been discussed, namely, the position of the agricultural counties under the redistribution scheme. There was a considerable discussion in this House on the Instructions to the Boundary Commissioners and some Amendments were made. The opinion was expressed by a very large number in the House that it was necessary for the Boundary Commissioners to have regard to the Instructions which were given to them and which were expressed in the original Report of the Speaker's Conference, namely, that the agricultural areas were, as far as possible, to be segregated, and that in order to do this they should consider the advisability of grouping the disfranchised boroughs rather than that they should introduce an urban element into a purely agricultural constituency. I regret to say that, notwithstanding the great care which the Redistribution Commissioners have exercised, they do not seem to have carried out the Instructions they received on these two points. Looking somewhat cursorily at the very large mass of maps with which we have been supplied in the last few days, it is apparent that in almost every case the purely agricultural constituencies have been permeated with an urban influence by the introduction of boroughs through the Commissioners not having followed out the recommendation to keep the urban districts clear from the rural districts.

I take my own county of Kent. We happen to have a large number of disfranchised boroughs. In four cases of those disfranchised boroughs, instead of acting on what evidently was the intention of Parliament, namely, that these boroughs should not be an influencing measure upon the agricultural constituency, the Boundary Commissioners have made recommendations which really are swamping entirely agricultural constituencies in order to make up a new division which shall keep the name of the ancient borough. For instance, Dover came with counsel to the Boundary Commissioners and pleaded as strongly as possible that they should not have a rural area thrust upon their constituency. They have a population which is quite as large as many that have been passed under this Bill, yet, when the scheme comes out, it is found that a large rural area, but not sufficiently large to make a really rural representation, has been added to the borough of Dover. The same thing has happened to Canterbury, where the old division of St. Augustine's has been cut out in order to make an addendum to Canterbury. Maidstone is another case where two purely rural districts have been added to Maidstone to make it a rural district, and the same has happened with Gravesend. In several cases the Commissioners have added two rural districts in order to make up the numbers and keep the boroughs which have been disfranchised under this Bill, instead of acting on the Instructions that urban and rural districts should be kept separate. In these cases there could have been no difficulty, because these boroughs are not a very large distance from each other and a system of grouping might have been easily devised. If you look through the counties you find the same thing prevailing. Practically the grouping of boroughs—a question which came fully before the House and received the recommendation of the House—has not been followed in any sense by the Commissioners. I think there is one grouping in Kent, namely, the Medway Boroughs, but that is about the only instance in which they were contiguous boroughs. I do not know of any instance where boroughs have been taken which were not actually contiguous and grouped together in order to separate these rival interests. If the whole country is surveyed it will be seen that there is a very small number of purely agricultural constituencies left. That does seem to me, as one who has represented an agricultural constituency for twenty-five years, a very great drawback. Never has it been more important that agriculture should be amply and adequately represented in this House than at the present moment. The House only lately has taken a far greater interest in agriculture, as we know, than it has done in the past. It has now, in a sense, adopted the agricultural industry and is directing it to a large extent through some of the Departments, and it is most important that the voice of agriculture should be heard adequately in this House. Under this redistribution scheme I despair of that being the case in the future. Therefore, at this the earliest opportunity, I desire to raise my voice against the fact that so far as these particular Instructions which have been given are concerned, the Boundary Commissioners do not seem to have followed the lines which this House recommended to them.

There is another point in regard to which they were specially instructed, namely, that the number of Members of the House should remain substantially as it is at present. We now know that under this scheme the number is increased considerably—by thirty-one Members, I think. That, again, is a handicap upon the agricultural constituencies. The urban representation is larger. It always is becoming stronger, while the agricultural representation has to take a second place altogether. It appears, notwithstanding that this House desired that there should be a distinctly careful consideration given to the case of agriculture, that the Boundary Commissioners have not fulfilled their duty in that particular matter and have left us in a position which it is very difficult for us to oppose. I do not know what possible action can be taken, but I hope that the Government will seriously consider this matter, because it is a question of the greatest importance to our oldest industry. I trust that before the Schedule is discussed the Government may see their way to meet, at all events, some of the objections that will be raised to the Schedule and endeavour to modify the defects which I have pointed out in connection with this scheme.

Attention has been directed by the last speaker to the question of agriculture. It seems to me that there has been some failure on the part of the Commissioners to appreciate some of their Instructions in relation not only to agriculture but to other classes of constituencies. Where you have a large commercial element in a constituency it was obviously the intention of the Legislature that some adequate expression should be given in areas, some of them commercial, some industrial, some agricultural. If the Home Secretary could give us, before the Schedule is reached, some assurance that attention would be paid to particular cases when the right time comes, he would do a great deal to remove objections to the Bill as it stands. As an illustration, I would mention the case of cities like Manchester and Liverpool. There you have large commercial centres, with necessarily a large residential population around and about. The constituency that I myself have the honour to represent has been known for a long time as the centre of great commercial interests. It has been contested by leading Members of this House, who have aspired to represent the commercial interests of Manchester or of Lancashire. The effect of this has been to allow that particular constituency to give expression to com- mercial opinions with an emphasis and with, perhaps, an effect that would not have appertained to it as a mixed and indiscriminately populated area. The Commissioners in this particular case have introduced into the commercial area an element of some 7,000 or 8,000 people who have entirely diverse interests, a class of people who are entitled to have representation along with their own class. I am quite sure that the element introduced into the commercial area has no desire to be so introduced. It has, or may have, the effect of swamping the expression of opinion of the commercial community to which they might reasonably look forward. In the case of the City of London, and I believe also in the case of the City of Glasgow, it has been dealt with satisfactorily, but there are other areas—Liverpool, I believe, is one, and Manchester is another—in which the commercial element and the commercial vote have been swamped to a large extent by the introduction of another class of the electorate who have very little or nothing in common with them.

I believe that one of the Instructions to the Commissioners was that they should take cognisance not merely of population, but of electorate. I find in the particular case which I have in mind that in a constituency of the ordinary and average size, where there would perhaps be 20,000 to 25,000 electors, plus a commercial vote of 16,000 or thereabouts, making a very large electorate, the Commissioners have adapted themselves to the population, and seem to have ignored the Instructions as to taking into account the size of the electorate. I only mention this at the present stage because I think that the Home Secretary might be able to give such assurances of attention to particular cases, that ought properly to be raised on the Schedule, as to obviate later a considerable amount of difficulty. The hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) has indicated that there has been some lack of correctness in respect of the figures on which the boundaries have been fixed. I believe that is quite true. I believe that figures have been considered and dealt with by the Commissioners which are not accurate figures. Attention might advantageously be called to those points, and they will no doubt properly come up on the Schedule. I should like to add my protest against anything being done which will prevent the full expression of all classes of opinion, whether they be agricultural, industrial or commercial, which Parliament wished the Commissioners to secure, and which in cases that will be adduced later on ought to be remedied. I should like to protest against any mistakes being made in this way, because what is being done now is being done for a long time and will have a serious effect. It will deprive the country of certain elements of representation of the variety of interests which we desired to secure for them, and which, I am sure, the House will do all it can to ensure that they shall have.

6.0 P.M.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Ashford Division (Mr. L. Hardy) pointed out to the Committee that agricultural interests will be very hard hit under these redistribution proposals. He asked the Committee what could be done in the matter. When the proposals of Mr. Speaker's Conference were laid before us, those of us who were in favour of proportional representation were sorry to observe that it was recommended only in a very limited way. We were sorrier still when it was taken out of the Bill altogether. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that if he really wants to get agricultural interests fairly represented in this country, what he, his Friends, and we all have to do is to put back into the Bill proportional representation in the fullest possible way. Let me take Kent for the moment. Supposing Kent is going to return its members by proportional representation. It will be divided into two divisions, East and West, or North and South, each returning six or eight members, as the case may be. Is it not obvious that under those conditions the agricultural interests would get their representation? What is true of Kent is, of course, true of the whole of England, Scotland and Wales. Therefore I suggest that if the right hon. Gentleman wants an answer to his question how agriculture can be represented under the Bill, let us go back to the only fair method of election—proportional representation.

There is one other point I should like to put before the Committee. The Boundary Commissioners have done their work very well and fairly and have been given just praise, but I do not think they have paid quite enough attention to the question of areas where there is a growing population—that is to say, where the population is growing very quickly in areas in the outskirts of our big cities. In one proposed division which I have in mind they have allotted 92,000 electors to one member. That is in one of the most growing parts of Middlesex, and it is perfectly certain that in ten years from now the population of that division will be something like 120,000 or 130,000, and we shall have the very same cry for redistribution as we have had during the last few years. Under this Bill there is no automatic redistribution as there ought to be. I think the Boundary Commissioners ought to have taken the question of areas with growing populations more into their consideration. They have not given enough members to my county of Middlesex, which has a very growing population. We have been deprived of one member altogether. We have in Middlesex over 90,000 of population without a member, and in a few years the county will have increased its population by very many thousands. Therefore I suggest that this question ought to be taken into consideration, and those who have complaints of this sort ought to be allowed to put them forward and, if possible, get redress.

The hon. Baronet (Sir G. Younger) mentioned a constituency of which I happen to be one of the representatives. He took me by surprise in raising the matter just now and I therefore reserve my right, when the proper time comes on the Redistribution Schedule, to say anything that occurs to me on the matter. Up to the present I have abstained from any interference in these arrangements. I may intimate to him, and I hope the Committee will take note of it, that in this case, as in several others in Scotland, there have been renewed investigations before one of the Commissioners, and it is after those renewed investigations, at which all interests were consulted, that these decisions have been come to. I shall reserve my right, if necessary, at a later stage of the Bill to make further remarks on the matter if raised again.

At an earlier stage of these proceedings to-day I asked your ruling as regards this Clause and put it to you that the London County Council was very anxious to raise the question of the total representation of London. I take it that as other Members have been discussing other places it will not be out of order if I put the case of the London County Council. The view it takes is that the Boundary Commissioners have assigned members to provincial cities and boroughs on the total population of the whole municipal borough. The total population of Manchester or Liverpool has been taken into consideration in fixing the number of members for that area or municipal borough, while London has been dealt with on the basis of the old boroughs which existed in the county of London. The result of that is, according to their estimate, that London is entitled to four more members, and they base that on the fact that the total population of London in round figures is 4,250,000, excluding, of course, the figures for the City of London, which has two members specially given to it by the Speaker's Conference, and whose very small population of 19,000 does not come into consideration with the other part of London at all. The county council yesterday passed a unanimous resolution to ask the Home Secretary that London shall be given four extra members, to which it is entitled on the numbers of population, in the same way as provincial boroughs have been allotted members. The question will be raised on the Schedule, and those connected with the government of London will contend that on its population, as compared with the population of provincial cities and boroughs, it is entitled to the same number of members as the Boundary Commissioners have given to the large provincial towns. The county council yesterday passed the following resolution:

"That, with a view to securing that the total Parliamentary representation of London, excluding the City of London, shall be sixty-four, the council suggests that the four additional seats for which the council asks, which are not provided for in the scheme of the Boundary Commissioners, shall be assigned to London."

It is not my province to-day to mention the names of the suggested constituencies. That will probably be better done when we discuss the individual constituencies on the Schedule. But those who represent London feel keenly that London should have its proper representation and that we should not be treated worse than provincial boroughs, and I hope the Committee, when the Amendments are moved, will consider with favour the position which the London County Council will put forward, and will be gracious enough to give London four extra members.

I should like to support what has been said by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Hardy) that the Bill will seriously diminish the agricultural representation in the House of Commons. We are all in favour of one man one vote, and each vote of equal value, but that cannot be accomplished by the Bill as it stands at present. The representative of agricultural districts will probably have a great many parishes and could not possibly get in touch with his constituency unless he held some fifty or sixty meetings, and therefore would not be able to reflect in this Chamber the opinion of his constituency as effectively as would an elector resident in a borough. The representative of a borough, by making two or three speeches, could get in touch with the whole of his constituency, whereas the representative of an agricultural district would have to hold some thirty or forty meetings to get into touch with his constituency. From that point of view the elector in the rural districts would not have equal representation, for all practical purposes, with an elector in a borough, and though, in response to an appeal made in this House, the Boundary Commissioners have had some regard to the difficulty, I suggest that the Government should go further and have more regard to area as well as to population in fixing the new constituencies. We, as agriculturists, do not claim any preferential treatment. We regard our industry as one of the greatest, on which the success of the country depends as much, or perhaps more, than on any other, and we regret, in the national interest, to see agricultural representation so seriously reduced. I ask the Government even now if it is possible to meet this difficulty, and thereby remove a grievance and an incapacity of the elector in rural districts making his influence and views felt in this House as effectively as can an elector in a borough or urban district.

We have heard a good deal about one vote one value, but this Bill does not support that principle. For instance, take the borough of Blackburn. It is undivided and there are two members, and an elector in that borough would have two votes. But in Birmingham, where the city is divided into constituencies, the elector has one vote for one member, and one only. Certainly that is an anomaly, and it is an outrage on the principle of one man one vote. I cannot avoid thinking that the Government should have adopted a uniform principle and divided all these towns which have a representation of more than one member. It would have been much better. The Bill is defective in as much as it gives an elector in an undivided borough two votes, or in some cases three, whereas an elector in a divided borough only gets one vote. I submit that the Government should still further consider the claims of agricultural representation, and should be truer than it is as the Bill stands at present to the principle of one man one vote.

In regard to undivided boroughs, obviously there is a great defect in the redistribution scheme, if there is any attempt to get a true and accurate representation of population, in this House, because examination of almost all these two-member boroughs reveals the fact that the population varies considerably in different parts. The commercial interests are more or less centred in that part of the borough in which the interests represented are largely concentrated, while in another part of the borough you will find the artisan class and other voters very largely preponderating, and it will probably happen that one of these classes will get two members to represent them while the other will not be represented at all. That is what happens now in many boroughs notoriously well known to this House, and there is a defect in the Bill which certainly needs examination and remedy. I do not want to enlarge upon the borough question. I rise to offer some remarks upon the general aspect of redistribution. Undoubtedly the redistribution schemes which have been embodied in the Schedule in many instances fail to fulfil the expectations aroused in this House and outside when the Commissioners began their work. The difficulties have no doubt been enormous. In the course of redistribution the principle of one vote one value has had to go by the board. It has not been possible, nor is it under any circumstances possible, to arrange constituencies of equal size throughout the country. There must be great variation in the number of voters, and that is inevitable in any Schedule that is prepared. I think this Schedule needs most careful examination, for the reason that the whole tendency of modern politics amongst the electors tends to become more sectional. Various interests and various communities vote for a representative representing that particular interest for that particular community, upon questions that have to come up to be settled in this House. On that ground the agricultural interests have cause for grievance. No doubt improve- ment can be made in, many cases in industrial areas by more careful re-arrangement of the various interests concerned. It may be a good thing or it may be a bad thing that the vote for representation in this House should tend to be more largely dictated by interests and communities instead of the general national interest on the great questions of the day, but it will be folly to shut our eyes to that aspect of affairs, and thus to do injustice to considerable sections of the population. I hope this matter will be taken into consideration, and that a kindly spirit will be shown by the Government when cases such as I have indicated may be raised in Debate later on.

Perhaps I may be allowed to reply to the various speeches made by hon. Members which, except the last two, have been directed largely to points of detail rather than to points of principle. My hon. Friends who have just spoken have mentioned two points which are no doubt of wide importance. One is that they say—and they say quite truly—that the Schedule departs from the principle of one vote one value. It remains true now, and it will remain true when the Bill passes, that there will be a difference between the value of a vote in one constituency as against the value of a vote in another constituency. That is inseparable from the principle adopted by the House. If you are to have a system of equal electoral representation you must cut up the country into equal areas for the purpose of Parliamentary representation—a system which, I believe, nobody, or hardly anybody, to-day would recommend. The House has gone upon wholly different principles. They have gone upon the system of taking a unit of representation, and subject to that they have had regard to the principle of a territorial system of representation. They have laid down a standard unit for new divisions of 70,000 population with a minimum for old divisions of 50,000, in order to preserve the old divisions, and a maximum running up to just under 120,000. Such a system must necessarily lead to some anomalies in representation, but except as regards certain, divisions, where, under the Instructions of the House, indulgence has been shown to some small borough or some small county division, I think the Committee will find that full regard has been had to the Instructions given by the House. There will be far fewer anomalies than there are to-day. To-day there are Members representing populations of not more than 20,000—in some cases under 20,000. There are other Members who represent populations of 250,000—in one case more than 300,000. We get rid of these gross anomalies, and although we do not pretend that this scheme is perfect we get very much nearer to equal representation than we stand to-day. The other point raised by my hon. Friend who last spoke refers to the two-member boroughs. The House has deliberately adopted the principle of maintaining the existence of two-member boroughs, and the Commissioners have followed that Instruction. Of course, this is a very ancient bone of contention. Any attempt to abolish two-member boroughs to-day would lead to great controversy, and I think for that reason that the House has adopted the right course.

Leaving these more general subjects, I think I am right in saying that all the criticisms upon the Bill relate to matters of detail. It is very difficult to answer these criticisms until we get to the precise details in which hon. Members think that the Instructions have not been carried out. I venture to say on behalf of the Commissioners that they have had regard to the Instructions of the House. It appears to some of my hon. Friends that here and there they have not had regard to those Instructions. I think, however, that when we come to examine the particular cases it will be found that the Commissioners in a very difficult matter have done their very utmost to adhere closely to the desires expressed by the House.

The hon. Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) raised the point that the Commissioners in fixing the representation of counties and boroughs have used the 1914 figures so far as the numbers in the constituencies were concerned, but had used the 1911 figures in arriving at the subdivision of constituencies. I do not think the statement is correct as regards counties, because in dealing with the divisions of counties regard has been had to the population figures of 1914. In dealing with certain wards of boroughs I think the population figures of 1911 have been taken, but in cases of doubt reference has been made to the 1914 population. I do not think the hon. Member can point to a single case where taking the population figures of 1911 instead of those of 1914 will have made a difference in the representation of a borough or of a county. His second criticism was this, that the Commissioners, having been instructed to have regard to cases of abnormal population, have not had that regard. I think they have, and I think if he will look at the figures he will find that they have had regard to that consideration. They say in terms in their report that while they have given full consideration to that point they have not found a case where that particular consideration alters the representation of a constituency.

They will find one in North-West Manchester, and another, which has been properly dealt with, in Glasgow.

That is the view of the Commissioners. All I can say is that they have considered it and have come to a conclusion upon it. They may be wrong, but I cannot say. The right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. L. Hardy) also raised two points. He said he doubted whether agriculture was adequately represented under this scheme, and he made reference to the proposal to increase the number of Members of this House. Every Reform Bill has increased the number of Members in this House. It is now proposed to increase the number by thirty-one—thirty for England and Wales and one for Scotland. In considering this increased representation the Committee will not forget that since 1885 the population of England has very greatly increased. The population of England and Wales in 1885 was, I think, twenty-six millions, and to-day it is thirty-seven millions—an increase of over 40 per cent. There is this further to be said, that one reason—and I think the principal reason—why the Commissioners suggest an increase in the membership of this House is that they have had regard to the Instructions given by the House, that in an appropriate case they could depart from the strict application of the general rule. It is for the very purpose of providing a fair representation for different parts of the country, including divisions which are sparsely populated and mostly agricultural in character, that they have treated indulgently some of these cases and have given increased representation to places the representation of which was considered by some hon. Members to be insufficient. I think if hon. Members would look into the whole facts of the case they will feel that the Commissioners have been justified having regard to that Instruction in proposing an increase in the Members of this House. Let me add this about agricultural constituencies. If it be true—I do not know whether it is true or not—that the number of Members connected with agricultural areas will be less in the next House than in this House, it can only be due to the fact that the population in urban districts has increased in a larger ratio than the population in rural districts. Much consideration has been shown to these rural areas. If you look at page 13 of the Report it will be found that the average population per member in the county constituencies in England and Wales is now 77,526, while the average population in the new counties will be only 68,600; in other words, the counties are better treated in the Bill than they are to-day. I may give a further figure in reference to what I call the sparsely populated divisions. The average population in these places for one member will be only 58,100. I do not pretend that there is no ground for regret that the agricultural members may be fewer in the next House than they are in this, but all these points one remembers were discussed on the Instructions, and some of them were raised on actual Amendments which were proposed on the Instructions, and either withdrawn or defeated. I am confident that the more we test these figures the more we shall be satisfied that the Commissioners have done their best to adhere closely to the instructions of the House, and when we come to deal with criticism in reference to concrete cases I think that it will be found that the Commissioners have succeeded in the attempt.

The right hon. Gentleman has not alluded to the question of grouping of boroughs, whereon there was a distinct Instruction, which has been entirely ignored.

There are the two cases. One is where the borough will be merged and treated as part of the adjoining county and the other is the question of grouping boroughs. I would rather not try to deal with it, because my night hon. Friend himself has not given specific instances, but when we come to the question of the constituencies I am positive that we shall be able to show a good case.

In reference to the increase of membership of the House various speeches have been made by different parties asking for further representation. London, for instance, is putting in a plea for four new members. Other parts of the country no doubt will do the same if London succeeds. I hope that the Home Secretary will give us an assurance that if we submit to an increase in this House of thirty-one Members, that is the limit, and that we are not going to have further concessions during the progress of Schedules through Committee, so that instead of an increase of thirty-one there may be an increase of forty-one or fifty-one. The Home Secretary is so complaisant, so ready to give things away in order to get his Bill through—an attitude of mind which we can well understand, and in some cases appreciate when we get concessions made to ourselves—that I hope he will set his face strongly against any further increase of the membership of this House.

I would ask my right hon. Friend if he will clear up the difficulty that was raised by the point of order that was discussed at an earlier stage of the proceedings, and let us know what procedure the Government propose to adopt with regard to the question of Ireland. It would be very much to the advantage of everybody concerned if my right hon. Friend would give a little more clear indication of the course which it is proposed to adopt at a future stage of the Bill.

No decision can be taken to-day on this Clause with reference to the question raised by the hon. Baronet. All of us on both sides of the House would like to think over what has been said. It will be open to the hon. Baronet later on to put down an Amendment raising the point in some form in which the Chairman will be able to deal with it, but I have not yet made, and I am not going at this moment to make, any promise as to the action which will be taken by the Government.

In the event of the Government subsequently agreeing to a scheme of redistribution for Ireland, and in view of references of the Chair this afternoon to a Boundary Commission and a schedule and the statement made by the hon. Member for Cork, I would like, without wishing unduly to press the Government, to have some indication as to the prospect of the matter which we have raised being considered and being decided upon. As I said in opening my remarks, we propose two alternatives. The first is redistribution, the second is the exclusion of Ireland from the Bill. As far as we are concerned, or as far as we have any power in this House, the whole of our efforts will be directed towards securing one of those objects. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman, who has always shown such kindness and care in trying to meet the difficulties which have arisen, will forgive me in pressing him to let us have some announcement as to what are the intentions of the Government.

I am sure that this is not the time for the Government to make any further statement on the matter. The proper course is to let the hon. Baronet raise his point when he can. If the Government were now to make any statement facilitating his operations by stating that they were going to consent to the appoinment of Boundary Commissioners, or anything of that kind, they would be committing themselves when the question is still an open question, and the Irish party and all sections of Irish Members, except those above the Gangway, are determined to stand by the Bill as it stands and by the pledge that has been given in all its fulness. I trust that the Government will go no further to-night, and will in no way bind themselves.

I hope that the House will not consider this an open question. It is not an open question. It is a question of which the Government have pledged themselves by a pledge from which they cannot retreat without disgrace to themselves and discredit to the House.

I do not wish to make any difficulty by pressing my right hon. Friend, but difficulties will be created if we pass away from this Clause with considerable doubt as to what the position of the Government and the Committee is to be. As I understand, there are two steps which the Government have outlined for our future proceedings. One is to cut Ireland out of the Bill and the other is to include a scheme of redistribution for Ireland. As some of my hon. Friends opposite have very emphatically said, we all wish Ireland to be included in this Bill. The hon. Member for Cork this afternoon protested vehemently against what he considered to be the Government intention of cutting Ireland out of the Bill. If Ireland is cut out of the Bill it will be by the hon. Member and his friends. That must be clearly understood. Those with whom I am accustomed to act have said emphatically, "We want Ireland included in this Bill, but we want redistribution; we want the same treatment for both parts of the United Kingdom." The difficulty arises in this, that we are going to pass Clause 27, and we do not know how long it will be before we reach Clause 31. But when we reach Clause 31 my hon. Friend opposite has put down an Amendment for the purpose of excluding Ireland from the Bill as the alternative. But I do not believe that my hon. Friend would move that Amendment, and I am certain that not many of us would wish to support it except as a pis aller. We want to know whether the Government are going to extend redistribution to Ireland. If we knew that then we should be under no temptation whatever to support the Amendment of my hon. Friend, and I do not think that he would move it. But until we have some such assurance we shall be in the position of being reluctantly obliged to support my hon. Friend. To save us from that situation it would be of great assistance if the Home Secretary would tell us what the Government propose to do in the matter before we reach Clause 31.

I desire to add a word to what has been said by the hon. Member. The Ulster Members have always supported most heartily every extension of the franchise, including the extension of the franchise to women, and we are most anxious that Ireland should get the full benefit, exactly as England and Scotland are getting it, from the present Bill; but in the interests of the development of the North-East Counties and of the City of Belfast in particular, and of quite a number of urban districts in the province of Ulster, we are anxious that Ireland should have exactly the same treatment under this Bill as is proposed to be given to the great democracies of England and Scotland. We know no reason why Ireland should be placed in a different position. I do not desire to enter into controversy of any kind—as a member of the Convention I would be most anxious to avoid doing so—but I am bound to remind hon. Members below me that this is not a new question. It has been debated frequently, both at election times and in the House of Commons, and when it is suggested that some pledge has been broken, some pledge that was entered into by the Speaker's Conference——

By the Ministers.

By Ministers—then I am bound to reply that the Speaker's Conference found this a delicate question, found it an inconvenient question to tack at that particular moment, and simply passed it by. But there was no pledge which is sought to be broken by the proposal of the hon. Baronet in the Amendment which we were seeking to discuss but which was ruled out on a technical point. I want to put it to our Friends below the Gangway, What are we to say to the democracy of Belfast at a time when the spirit of conciliation is so prevalent, and when we all desire to see it fostered in the North of Ireland, if we meet with opposition when we desire to make a vote in Belfast or in the North-Eastern Counties of equal value to a vote in the county or in the city of Galway? The answer would be that it is breaking a pledge to do that. We ask seriously to-day to record the opinion of the House of Commons for placing the vote of the citizens of Belfast on exactly the same footing as in this country, and that it shall no longer be the case that six persons in Belfast should have no more voting power than one of the rural labourers in Galway and many other counties. That is a position that cannot be seriously contemplated. The grounds of equity and the spirit of the time loudly proclaim that. If there is any truth whatever in the desire of our Nationalists friends to help the critical work to which we have been putting our hands during the last ten weeks, many of us giving some of the hours to it that ought to be given to sleep, they ought to meet this small demand. There is some suggestion that there is a hidden motive in calling for this measure of equity, but are not the anomalies in electoral representation known to every Member, no matter from what part of Ireland he comes. I myself have been a county member for twelve years, representing an electorate as numerous as other rural seats of Ireland represented in this House by five Members. All we ask is that Ulster should get an equitable voice in our Imperial Council—neither more nor less. That is the amount of the request that we venture to present this afternoon, and I regret to see the spirit in which that moderate demand has been met.

I will only add that the speech of the Leader of the Irish Nationalist party was couched in a calm and temperate spirit, entirely in keeping with his record and knowledge of the facts, but from what has been said by hon. Members below the Gangway possibly he cannot control all the members of his party. We have had that with which we are so familiar reintroduced this afternoon, and reintroduced in language that I must say has the effect of making the task of many of us, great and difficult as it is, and great and difficult as it is bound to be, more difficult than we thought we had a right to expect from Members of the House of Commons sitting on those seats below the Gangway. May I add, and it is my concluding word, that notwithstanding what I hope is only a temporary forgetting of the conditions under which we are met, it is not too late for the House to grant us this reasonable—I was going to say concession, but it is not a concession—this reasonable demand—which every elector within the United Kingdom has the right, in the name of equity and justice, to claim. If it is refused, how is that great democracy in the North-East counties to view the decision called for by our Nationalist friends? Does it make for the development for peace and conciliation? I hope we shall have from the Government before we pass from this Clause a clear and definite declaration, that they feel bound to grant us either equitable redistribution or to take Ireland totally out of the Bill. I shall regret more than I can say if it becomes necessary to fall back upon the latter alternative. I want the Bill and the whole Bill, and I want it on the terms that have been stated this afternoon, and which nothing that has been said this afternoon justifies any modification of a demand so moderate.

As a member of the Speaker's Conference, I plead to-night for Ireland that she shall have the extension of franchise which the Speaker's Conference decided should be given to my country as well as to Great Britain. No Member sitting on these benches is hostile, to the efforts which the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken is making, and which, many of his colleagues in common with him are making, to promote a better understanding between the people in all parts of Ireland, North and South, in order to secure a final and satisfactory settlement of the Irish question. But I dispute with my hon. Friend that the proposition of the extension of the franchise in Ireland in the form in which it is being extended in Great Britain, presents any difficulty in the settlement of the affairs of Ireland. This is an age of democracy. The extension of the franchise in England and Scotland to men and women is meant, on very carefully considered lines, to meet the democratic demand which exists in England and Scotland, and which I venture to say to my hon. Friend is as clamant in Ireland as in Belfast, or in England and Scotland. I fail to see how my hon. Friend can urge any reason which would appeal to this House, why working men in Belfast should be deprived of the rights which by vote the House is willing to give to workmen in London, Liverpool, Manchester, or Glasgow. I challenge my hon. Friend to say whether he has a mandate from Belfast, from Derry, or from any democratic organisation in Ulster authorising him to put forward in this House, as representing the view of Ireland, that the franchise should not be extended to Ireland in the same way as it is to England and Scotland. What we on these benches stand for and demand—and this is a matter of franchise law and a matter of general reform—is that Ireland shall be treated in the same way as England and Scotland.

In regard to redistribution, I do not know that my Friends from Ulster have made up their minds as to the measure of redistribution they are prepared to accept, but, as Irishmen, I ask them, Are they prepared to say, in the present circumstances of the relationship between Ireland and Great Britain, that our country is not entitled to have that representation in this Imperial Parliament to which we have a right under the Act of Union? Everybody admits that we are entitled to have that representation. Can any right hon. or hon. Gentlemen representing Irish constituencies take their courage in their hands and say in this House that an Ulsterman, a Belfast man, an Ulster woman, or a Belfast woman has not the same rights to the franchise as the Englishman or the Scotsman or as the English woman or the Scottish woman? The whole question of Ireland's representation in the Imperial Parliament depends upon the relationship between these countries, and we all admit that the hon. Gentleman who has last spoken is anxious, and is co-operating with other good Irishmen, to bring about better relationships between all parties in Ireland in order to secure a Constitution for Ireland under which all Irishmen will join together in making it the salvation of their country. Can anyone say that in the meantime, while efforts are being made to carry out this great project, Ireland should be deprived of the opportunity of having the same extension of the franchise as is being granted to England and Scotland? I submit that hon. Members representing the North of Ireland mistake their mandate, and mistake the feeling of the country, and if they vote for such a reactionary proposal as to refuse to the workmen of Belfast and of Ulster the same privileges and franchise which are given to London, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester, they will find that they do not in this matter represent the true view of Belfast and the Northern Counties.

:Idid not intend to intervene in this Debate until I heard the remarks of the last speaker. I happen to represent a constituency which has often been mentioned, this afternoon, East Belfast, the largest and most democratic constituency in Ireland. I only rise to contravene the remarks of the last speaker. He said there was no person from Ulster or Belfast with a mandate on the question of redistribution. I distinctly state that in my own Constituency this question has been mentioned many times in the last two or three years at meetings of the committee, and they have always insisted that the question of redistribution should be borne in mind. I would also point out that if this Bill does not apply to Ireland it will not be because of the efforts of the Ulster members, because all of us are most anxious for it, and if this small request which we make is refused it will not be the Ulster members, but it will be the Nationalist party who cause that result. It is most unfortunate the spirit which has been evinced this afternoon on the Irish Benches below the Gangway; I am surprised by what we have heard, and I think it is a bad afternoon's work for the Convention, which, as my hon. Friend has said, has been working for ten weeks, night and day. I would only repeat that this is a small matter for which we ask— only a matter of a few seats and if it is not granted, then I say that a bad day's work for Ireland will have been done.

Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 28.—(Definitions.)

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—

(1) The expression "constituency" means any county, borough, or combination of places, or university or combination of universities, returning a member to serve in Parliament, and, where a county or borough is divided for the purpose of Parliamentary elections, means a division of the county or borough so divided:

(2) The expression "local government electoral area" means the area for which any county council, municipal borough council, metropolitan borough council, district council, board of guardians, parish council, or any other body elected by local government electors is elected; and the expression "local government election" means an election for any such council, board, or body:

(3) The expression "general election" means an election of members to serve in a new Parliament of the United Kingdom:

(4) The expression "university constituency" means a constituency consisting of a university or a combination of universities; and the expression "university election" means an election of a member, or members of Parliament, for a university constituency.

(5) The expression "transferable vote" means a vote—

(6) The expression "alternative vote" means a vote—

(7) The yearly value of premises shall be taken to be the rateable value where those premises are separately assessed to rates, and in any other case shall be deemed to be the amount which would in the opinion of the registration officer be the rateable value, if they were separately assessed:

(8) The expression "prescribed" means, prescribed by His Majesty by Order in Council.

Any Order in Council under the Act may be revoked or varied as occasion requires by any subsequent Order in Council.

I beg to move, after the word "requires" ["context otherwise requires"], to insert the words, "the expression 'legal incapacity' shall include aliens, infants, felons, and persons guilty of corrupt or illegal practices."

7.0 P.M.

I have put down this Amendment for the purpose of raising the question of "legal incapacity." In regard to aliens, as there is nothing in the Bill that meets the point, I maintain that the people outside this House do not desire that votes should be given to aliens. These questions have not been dealt with. For instance, a person undergoing punishment at the hands of the law should be incapable of exercising the franchise. The Amendment also deals with legal incapacity—which is a somewhat different thing. Clearly, all these points ought to be considered and dealt with. I do not suppose that the form of words which I have proposed will be accepted, but I would ask for some statement as to whether those incapacities are intended to be included in the Bill, and if they are not clearly included that words should be added in another place or on another stage of the Bill to make it clear that persons who should not be allowed to exercise the vote shall be legally incapable of doing so.

My hon. Friend has said that he does not expect that the Amend- ment will be accepted in the form in which it is moved. He mentioned the case of aliens, and he will find that dealt with by Clause 8 (2) of the Bill. Infancy is dealt with by the requirement that an elector must be "of full age." The proposal of the Amendment with regard to persons guilty of corrupt or illegal practices would make the disqualification indefinite. I think it is better to leave that matter as it is under the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act where the incapacity is only for a limited period of time. The whole object of my hon. Friend is really already secured.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move, after the word "requires," to insert "(1)'To reside' means to dwell in a residence, and 'residence' means a dwelling which the person who dwells in it regards as his home."

This Amendment is intended to elucidate the Bill. In the earlier stages it was found that the Government and most distinguished lawyers in the House were unable to say what "reside" and "residence" meant. The Home Secretary seemed to have a clear view, in his own mind, but he could not quite express it. It was, as it were, on the tip of his tongue, but whenever he came close to the subject he was unable to illumine the House on the subject. A series of possible explanations and interpretations have been put forward, but none of them have been decisively proved or disproved. It was even suggested that a person might reside in two places at one and the same time. It was also suggested that a person might reside in a place where he does not dwell and dwell in a place where he does not reside. It was even suggested that a misdemeanant in a prison or a pauper in a workhouse might qualify under the residence qualification. It might be that a person merely left a small quantity of luggage or some personal property in some place, and, nevertheless, might be held to be resident there; or, again, he might live successive days in a particular constituency, going from place to place, lodging in various common lodging houses, and might acquire a residential qualification if within a single constituency. Nobody knows whether those things are so or not. The Home Secretary is not quite clear. The vision that is vouchsafed to him of the true meaning of residence and which he is unable to put into words does not, even to his own mind, fully clear up all those doubts. We have all of us heard of ineffable mystery, but this is the first time we have been asked to found an electoral system on something that cannot be put into words and described or defined, and yet something which the registration officers are to expound and act upon.

I am not at all clear that my efforts are likely to be successful where the Home Secretary and the Member for Walthamstow (Sir J. Simon) and the Member for St. Pancras admit that their powers of vocabulary fail them altogether. The Amendment, as I propose it, embodies one of those few rays of light which the legal intelligence permitted to dawn upon our Debates. The Member for Walthamstow referred to a residence as an established home, and I have tried to incorporate that and make it part of an Act of Parliament. It is better to do so than to base the matter on an ineffable mystery. I sometimes imagine we might decorate the walls of our lobbies, as they are already partly decorated, by a fresco showing the Home Secretary as an evangelical doctor disputing with the Member for Walthamstow, both robed agreeably in red, as to the true meaning of the word "reside." The moment taken by the artist would be when the Member for Walthamstow had laid it down that a misdemeanant in prison was not residing there. Wormwood Scrubs might be shown in the background with the Member for St. Pancras coming away from visiting his constituents and looking depressed at the harsh verdict by which so many of his friends were to be disfranchised, but trusting that the more indulgent mind of the Home Secretary would include them. Around there would be a group of learned lawyers listening to what was being said, with the Member for the City and myself in the foreground wondering at the mystery which we could not understand or were incapable of understanding. That picture might convey to posterity a view of how we conducted our electoral system in the twentieth century. Even at the risk of depriving them of that artistic pleasure I should like to put in plain words, if possible, what we mean by residence.

The view that is taken by those who are dealing with the subject every day is that residence is a question of fact, and, when once the facts are ascertained, there is no difficulty in deciding where a man resides or does not reside. The Noble Lord in his Amendment proposes to define "reside" as meaning to dwell, but he gives no definition of what dwelling is, a question which would cause as less difficulty to a lawyer than the question of residence. Further, he makes it a condition of residence in a place that the occupant shall regard it as his home, a fact which could only be ascertained by looking into the man's mind and possibly into his most intimate feelings. Under those circumstances, imagine the position of the registration officer We cannot accept the Amendment.

It is impossible for me to cope with the authority of the Home Secretary on a question of this kind, but I should have thought it was quite a conception well within the law to say what you regarded as a home. If I am not mistaken, the law of domicile deals with something of that kind, and domicile is determined to be where the home is. I mean by dwelling really living in the place. I should have thought that it was a very simple conception of a place, that it is where you dwell, where you live, and the place where locally you are. I agree that all these expressions, however plain, may be made ambiguous by the use of metaphor. It has also been pointed out that a person does not locally dwell in his own body, because personality cannot be said to be anywhere, and if not in his own body still less it may be said in his own dwelling. What, however, I am most concerned about is that the Home Secretary does not deal with any of the actual points put by me. He does not say whether a man "resides" in a common lodging-house or in a workhouse or in a prison, nor deal with the absurdity of his being held to reside in a place where he does not dwell and not in the place where he does, nor does he deal with the case where a man is apparently resident in two places. These points must be of the utmost possible difficulty when you come to state where the man has to vote. All these things, says the right hon. Gentleman, can be dealt with by the Courts when they come up as concrete cases. They cannot be dealt with by the Home Secretary! I cannot see why the Courts should be more competent than the right hon. Gentleman. What is so touching is the modesty of these distinguished men who are unable to clear up these points that are put to them. I submit that we ought to try to clear them up for the Courts, and not to wait to see what the Courts will make of them. But, of course, the Home Secretary is a great lawyer and I am not, and as it is, as I say, impossible for me to contradict him on such a subject, I shall not press my Amendment.

I cannot support the Amendment of the Noble Lord for, amongst other reasons, those which have been given by the Home Secretary. But I would point out that the Home Secretary has not answered the queries as to the meaning of "residence" that we should have liked to have seen answered.

Amendment negatived.

I beg to move, after paragraph (1), to insert

"(2) The expression 'contiguous' in the case of counties means counties which at some point come within ten miles of each other, and in the case of boroughs means boroughs which are either in the same county or are not separated at the nearest points by more than ten miles."

It seems to be very important that some definition should be given as to what "contiguous" implies in this Bill. As the matter now stands in the Bill a great many of the voters living in certain counties, which are separated from other counties merely by narrow strips of land, will lose the advantages it is desired they should have. To give an example. A voter living and qualifying in Sussex, in consequence of the intervention of a few miles of Surrey, loses his qualifying period if he removes from Sussex to one of the Metropolitan boroughs. Take, again, Hertfordshire, where in respect of two specified towns, which are about eight and five miles away respectively, the intervention of another county will prevent residents in those places from completing a qualification. Instead of adopting strictly the legal definition laid down by the right hon. Gentleman I would put forward my proposal. Turning from the question of the counties which are contiguous according to the Act, may I refer specially to boroughs? There is a reference in the Act to Parliamentary boroughs which are contiguous. I should like to point out that, as a matter of fact, there are hardly any boroughs in the country which are contiguous in the sense of touching each other—at all events, there are very few. Nearly all boroughs have between them a certain amount of intervening space which prevents them being contiguous. Unless some such Amendment as I have suggested, and some such definition, is adopted, it practically means that any man moving from one borough to another, even though they are in the same county, with, it may be, only a short distance between, will lose the benefit of the qualifying period in the first borough. I should like to point out in this connection how extremely unfortunate, and how very illogical, and how artificial this is. It will limit a man in the attainment of the vote if we do not make it quite clear that the same privileges that are accorded to the county voters shall also be accorded to voters in the boroughs. As the matter now stands a man can move a hundred miles from one end of a county to another without losing his qualification, but if he is in a borough and moves to another borough only five miles distant he loses his qualification. I submit, therefore, in this definition that residents in boroughs which are in the same county should be treated in the same way as residents in the county divisions, that residents in boroughs should, like residents in counties, have the privilege of removing without losing their qualification from one borough to another in the same county, or within a county which is contiguous in the sense I have suggested, of being "near to" or "adjacent."

The object of this Amendment is under the guise of a definition to effect a very important alteration in the law. On an earlier Clause in the Bill we had a long discussion on this matter, and it was understood that the case had been covered in those debates.

I should like to put a further point to the right hon. Gentleman which I do not think was quite cleared up on the previous stage of the Bill. I see the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Advocate present. Perhaps he might give his attention to this matter. The Home Secretary has referred to the case of a river making contiguity. I understand that Liverpool is contiguous to Birkenhead. I should like to ask him as to the case of some other constituencies—in Scotland, for instance. Is the borough of Dundee "contiguous" to East Fife, where the Tay intercepts? Does the same interpretation apply in regard to the Firth of Forth? Is a constituency on the north side of the Firth of Forth contiguous to one on the south side? Does, for instance, the Forth Bridge make West Lothian contiguous to West Fife? Does an artificial bridge make the difference? Is there contiguity although it is an arm of the sea? Take another case. It has been made rather more noticeable because it is referred to in the Report of the Boundary Commissioners. The old constituency of North Ayrshire is now included in the constituency of Buteshire; these two, separated by the sea, are now the same constituency. Is Argyllshire contiguous to Bute? It is just as near—indeed, it is rather nearer than in the other cases. There are several cases, of the sort which are doubtless well-known to the Lord Advocate, and there has been no definite ruling on these questions. I know the great anxiety of the right hon. and learned Gentleman in this matter, and I shall be very glad to hear what is the view the Government take, and whether they are prepared to put into the Bill words that will make quite clear—it will be very unfortunate if it is not in the Bill—what is the actual meaning.

The question put to me is one which, I am afraid, cannot be answered otherwise satisfactorily than by taking specific cases. I think, however, it is a correct general answer, as far as a general answer can be given to a question which comprehends so many constituencies, to say that the case of two neighbouring districts, with regard to which the question was raised, as to whether they are at some point, or any point contiguous or not, depends entirely upon the actually existing boundaries for administrative purposes of the areas in question. For instance, without attempting to state the matter accurately—because I have not the details in my mind—there are certain examples in Scotland of the kind which my hon. Friend opposite has in mind, namely, where there is a navigable or a tidal river interposed between one district and another. Here the places in question would be contiguous because the boundary is in fact in law the centre of the navigable water in question. On the other hand, there are certainly other places where this is certainly not true. I think one might, in short, put it this way: that the question in each case would be, what is the administrative parish? That is always susceptible of an absolute answer. It would not do to go off with the idea that wherever there is physical severance of a kind involved by the interposition of a navigable water there is, therefore, no contiguity. In each case you want to take the actual existing boundary of the parish. I should like to mention that in the case of a borough, as a general rule the matter would be much more simply and more easily solved, because, after all, the definition of a borough boundary is always the subject-matter of a provision in a Bill, or a decision by the sheriff, according to the circumstances. Therefore, there really never could be any difficulty with regard to it. So, even in the case of two contiguous boroughs, instances could, I think, be given where there would be, or might be, a legal difficulty involved. With regard to the point as to whether there should not be some attempt in the Bill to give a definition of contiguity, am afraid, owing to the complexity and variety of cases, there would be more danger of difficulties and unfairnesses by attempting to lay down any hard and fast definition than by making in each case the determination of the boundaries of the area depend just on those legal considerations which always determine them.

I quite admit that neither of the Amendments on the Paper could be accepted. They were put down to raise a little further discussion. The point is rather important to certain localities as to whether they are contiguous or not. May I put the case of the constituencies on the Mersey? Let me take the Lancashire side from north to south. There are the Bootle division, the City of Liverpool, and another division of the county. On the Cheshire side there are the boroughs of Wallasey and Birkenhead and a county division. They are all separated by the same river. I am informed that Liverpool and Birkenhead will be contiguous, but that none of the other constituencies will be contiguous. Liverpool and Birkenhead, having extended their boundaries to the middle of the river, are contiguous, but Bootle is not contiguous with Wallasey, and none of the county divisions of Lancashire are contiguous with those of Cheshire. That is a very absurd state of affairs. I do submit that some words ought to be introduced into the Bill which will enable the constituencies that are really contiguous to be so treated, because no one can really say that two constituencies separated by a narrow arm of the sea, across which people travel daily from one place to another, and which have no constituency between the two places, are not contiguous. I would ask the Home Secretary whether he could not consider between now and Report if something cannot be done to alter the meaning so as to make it quite clear that constituencies which are separated by a narrow arm of the sea are to be regarded as contiguous for the purposes of this Act.

May I say another word in reply to what the Lord Advocate has said? I think what he has said does not really carry us very much further. I think what my hon. Friend has said is very true. It applies to a great part of the country. There is, for instance, the Bristol Channel. Take the case of Leith. Leith has no northern boundary, if what the Lord Advocate has said is true, and a man, coming to or going from Leith would lose his vote because Leith happens to abut on the Firth of Forth. That is very hard lines on the man. The same thing applies to Dundee. Could not some words be inserted so that in cases like that, where constituencies are on an arm of the sea, or on the sea itself, they should be considered as contiguous to the next place if there is no intervening land? There is the case of Clackmannan and Stirlingshire, where two bits of land are separated by a navigable river. You lump them together in one constituency, and presumably a man may pass freely from one to the other and not lose his vote; but if he goes further down the Firth of Forth he does lose it. There is a real grievance here, and whether you put it in the Bill or not, before the Bill passes the House there must be a distinct ruling on points like that, as to whether constituencies are contiguous, and whether a man may carry his vote with him. Otherwise, there will be a great feeling of injustice in the minds of voters who have to change from one constituency to another.

There are a great many difficulties about this matter, and my right hon. Friend has just indicated one of the difficulties. I understand him to propose that where there is a sea between two constituencies, and no land intervenes, the constituencies shall be considered as contiguous. The result would be that Holyhead and Kingstown would be contiguous, and therefore the constituencies of Holyhead and Kingstown would be contiguous. In the same way the Isle of Man or some of the Channel Isles would be held to be contiguous to the nearest coast in England, and, therefore, I am inclined to think that we had much better leave it as the Lord Advocate suggests, and let every case be decided upon the actual facts when the necessity arises. This is rather like the case of the definition of the word "reside." I think it would be much simpler to leave it to the Law Courts than to put something in the Bill which would lead to results no one expected.

There is a good deal in the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries Burghs (Mr. Gulland). Of course, it is quite clear that where a division between two constituencies is a river, and each extends to the middle of the channel, they are, contiguous; but the difficulty occurs when you go further down the estuary which greatly widens, and the point is at what stage should they be regarded as ceasing to be contiguous. The case mentioned in the Firth of Forth is one which, I think, could be fairly regarded as contiguous. But if we take opposite counties on the Moray Firth or go further and take the example given by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), namely, Holyhead and Kingstown, we should certainly be going too far. I venture to suggest that the difficulty might be met by providing in the Bill that, for the purposes of this Bill, the seaward limit of a county might be taken as the three-mile limit of the territorial water. If that were done, then counties would be contiguous if they were divided by the sea, the distance between the shore of one and the shore of another being not more than six miles. I venture to throw out that suggestion as a possible line of solution, because the question is a real one in various parts of the country, and particularly in some places in Scotland.