SECOND READING. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]

§ MR. STOREY (Sunderland)

said, in order to facilitate discussion, not being able to conclude his speech on the previous evening, he begged to state that he would not trouble the House further.

§ MR. CHAPLIN (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)

The question which has just been put by the hon. Member for Northampton shows that a feeling of tyranny appears to be enshrined in the heart almost of every Radical in the country. I observed something of the kind also in the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down, for, having yesterday addressed the House at considerable length, he took upon himself to threaten the House of Commons that if this Debate was to be continued much longer hon. Members should begin to consider whether the Closure ought not to be applied.

§ MR. STOREY

Will the right hon. Gentleman pardon me? I never suggested the Closure; I never voted for it in my life, and I do not believe I ever will.

§ MR. CHAPLIN

Then I have misunderstood the hon. Member, though I think if he refers to the reports of his speech this morning he will find that I am not mistaken. We are, however, indebted to the Prime Minister for relieving us of all apprehensions that there is to be any undue limitation of this Debate. Everyone of us, I think, must agree that no question of greater magnitude than the repeal of the legislative Union between Ireland and England, or one more pregnant, with results either for good or evil to the future of the Constitution, has ever been submitted to the judgment of the House of Commons. What we should naturally have expected was to have had before us from the Government some reasons of the most conclusive, convincing, and overwhelming character for the change. The exhaustive and prolonged discussion on this subject, either in the House of Commons or in the country, has lasted almost without intermission for something like six years. No one has contributed more freely to the Debate by writing and speech than the Prime Minister himself; and I have heard or road with studious attention every word that has fallen from him on the subject. Yet I solemnly declare that I have never been able to discover, either with regard to the experience of the past or the circumstances of the present or the prospects of the future, anything whatever in the nature of reasons which appear to me to be adequate or sufficient for the vast and startling changes in the Constitution which he proposes by this Bill. The hon. Member for North-East Cork (Mr. M. Davitt), in the able speech delivered by him on Tuesday evening, gave a most deplorable description of the fruits of the Union as regards the material prosperity of a large portion of Ireland, especially in the West and in the congested districts of the country. I was under the impression that no English Minister had ever done more for the congested districts of Ireland than my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. A. J. Balfour). I also thought, and still think, that his efforts 214 to promote their welfare and happiness had been warmly and gratefully recognised by the peasantry of the West. I also believe that if the hon. Member for East Cork were able to go among the people, not in pursuit of political agitation, but seeking after truth, he would find that the memory of my right hon. Friend still lingers in the hearts of a generous and warm-hearted people, who regard him among all English statesmen as, perhaps, one of the greatest and best benefactors they have had. The hon. Member tried to show the abnormal amount of relief given by the workhouses and required by the people; the vast number of miserable mud cabins which he describes as being scattered throughout the country, and the unhappy and unfortunate increase of lunatics in Ireland. The hon. Member then ox-claims, "These are the fruits of the Union between Ireland and England; and yet you complain that we have given you no reasons for this Hill." I have had no means of examining the figures of the hon. Member, but I am content to set against the statements which he made another and a very different description of that country. A very distinguished man spoke on Ireland as follows not many years ago:— I do not believe there is a labouring population in all Europe.. which in the course of the last 20 years has made a progress equal to the labouring population of Ireland. Let me look at the fanning class which constitute the great body of the nation. Forty years ago the deposits in the Irish banks, indications of their savings, were £5,000,000. Fifteen years later they had risen to £11,000,000 or £12,000,000. There are now of deposits, which represent almost wholly the honest savings of Irish farmers, £30,000,000. If I am to speak of moral progress in Ireland, I say it has been remarkable. There is one painful exception— agrarian offences. But even with that, where there were 14.000 offences committed 50 years ago, the recorded numbers had fallen from 14,000 to 3.000.… I invite the attention of the House to this point, for it is the whole case— These are indications of real progress, about which there can be no mistake. They are encouragements to persevere, to fall back upon that stock of resolution and of patience by which it is that a nation grows great, and when it has grown great keeps its greatness. When was that statement made, and who made it? It was made at Leeds in 1891 by the present Prime Minister. It shows three things: In the first place, 215 the very great and remarkable discrepancy between the statements of the hon. Member for North-East Cork; in the second place, it shows that the right hon. Gentleman's great and recent conversion can no longer be traced to those ancient causes which he has recently endeavoured so often to put before us and the country, but that it must be due to something else, because not 12 years have elapsed since he gave his glowing description of the fruits of the Union in Ireland. Whether it has been due to an immensely increased majority of the followers of Mr. Parnell in this House, or to what other cause, I must leave hon. Members to decide. I cannot help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman was not unconscious himself the other night of the poverty of the reasons which have been given in support of this Bill, when on the Second Reading of the measure he offered some suggestions which, I suppose, were intended to do duty as reasons for the Bill. The first was that the government of Ireland is wasteful and extravagant. So it may be; but retrenchment has always been a battle cry in one or other of the Political Parties in this country since I can recollect. Certainly, however, it has never hitherto been held to warrant a change, a complete revolution, in the Constitution such as that which the right hon. Gentleman proposes. I understand that even on the facts upon which the right hon. Gentleman has based his accusantion he is entirely in error. It was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen), in a speech at Glasgow, that a Treasury Minute, published within the last month, discloses this fact—that instead of the civil government of Ireland costing £1 per head of the population while in England the cost is 10s., the civil government in England costs 17s. per head, while in Ireland the cost is 22s. I cannot understand how the right hon. Gentleman could have been guilty of so gross an error, unless it be due to the recklessness which induces him to jump at anything and everything which gives him a reason for his Bill. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Irish Question was the curse of the House of Commons. It is not very flattering to the Irish Representatives, but I am not prepared 216 to say that it has been entirely devoid of all foundation. The cause of the Irish Question being so constantly before the House is the presence of a great number of Irish Members in this Assembly; and as I understand from the right hon. Gentleman that he is determined to retain the Irish Members in this House, why it seems to me that the second reason he has given for his Bill disappears at once. But then he gave us a third reason, which, I am bound to say, was more remarkable than either of the others. The right hon. Gentleman says he cannot find an author who denies the impolicy, the injustice, and the scandal of the management of Ireland by the predominating power of this country. I really can hardly believe that the right hon. Gentleman was serious when I heard him make that statement, which is exactly the opposite of the truth. ["Oh!"] I can find him almost any number. I do not want to weary the House, but when these statements of the right hon. Gentleman go forth to the country they are naturally believed by the English public unless the contradiction is made to go forth at the same time. I take the case of Mr. Lecky.

§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE,) Edinburgh, Midlothian

I spoke of foreign authors.

§ MR. CHAPLIN

I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has abandoned that position. I thought he meant English authors.

§ MR. W. E. GLADSTONE

I never abandoned it, because I never took it.

§ MR. CHAPLIN

I am afraid the position of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to foreigners has very little in it. I will pass over the statements of the authors to whom I was about to refer. But let us take foreigners; and I will take Count Beust, than whom there is no foreigner better acquainted with this country. What does he say? In his opinion— The concession of a separate Parliament would be a mistake which England would have to expiate dearly.

§ MR. W. E. GLADSTONE

My remarks were not made with respect to Count Beust's opinion on the Home Rule Bill, but with regard to the universal consensus of foreign opinion indicated by 217 foreign literature upon the past conduct of England to Ireland as a whole.

§ MR. CHAPLIN

Well, I take the right hon. Gentleman on that ground. I will quote the opinion of a foreigner, for whom he, I think, will show respect. I will give him the opinion of a very distinguished statesman—Count Cavour. He said— Putting aside the appreciation of the conduct and the merits of those who took part in the Act of Union, let us examine this measure in itself, and let us see if in fact it has been unjust and iniquitous towards Ireland, and if it deserves all the hatred which it excites even at this day, and all the vituperation which O'Connell and the orators of the day have lavished upon it without, ceasing. For myself, I declare frankly that I do not think so.… It appears at once as regards the civil and economic relations of the two Kingdoms the Act of Union is irreproachable.

§ MR. W. E. GLADSTONE

The reference, if you please.

§ MR. CHAPLIN

It is in a little book written by Count Cavour, which I was only reading this morning. I will send the right hon. Gentleman the precise reference. But, as he is so anxious for the opinions of other distinguished foreigners, I will take the opinion of Dr. Geffcken, writing in The British Empire, 1889— So far as his home policy is concerned, he has in Ireland committed a fatal blunder. I am convinced that his Irish policy will be so regarded by the future historian of England. I have another distinguished authority which I will give him.

§ MR. W. E. GLADSTONE

Will the right hon. Gentleman in all cases give me the reference, and will he say who is "he"?

§ MR. CHAPLIN

I was referring to the policy of the right hon. Gentleman himself, and I can assure him that with great satisfaction I will give him the strict reference in every case I have quoted. I think I might, perhaps, quote the opinion of another foreigner, M. De Molinari, who, I understand, is a distinguished Belgian. He said a few years ago— Those which are most vaunted are not only inefficacious but positively mischievous. In this category I would at the outset put Home Rule, whether it be taken to mean the complete separation of Ireland from England or the reestablishment of an Irish Parliament.

§ MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton):

I beg the right hon. Gentleman's 218 pardon. I did not catch the name. Was it Mr. Apollinaris?

§ MR. CHAPLIN

I am ready to give the right hon. Gentleman all these references in full; and if I had understood that his allusion was to foreign authors alone, I could have produced him almost any number that he desired. But I am bound to say, Sir, now that I understand what the right hon. Gentleman means, that if it comes to this—that the Prime Minister of England is to take his principles of government from foreign authors, who not seldom are amongst the bitterest of our foes, then I think I am entitled to say this, with all due respect, that the time has come when the right hon. Gentleman would do well to relinquish the cares of this Empire, in the interests of the Empire and of all whom it concerns. I pass from that subject, and one admission I will make to the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the reasons which have been given for this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman often points to what he calls the rooted desire of Ireland and of the Irish people for Home Rule, a desire, moreover, which has been expressed through the Constitutional medium of the vast majority of the Representatives of the people. If it were a good and sound belief I should admit at once that it was a serious matter for our consideration. But here I am at once confronted with another difficulty, and that is the question of Ulster. And surely, Mr. Speaker, it is idle and farfetched to speak of the rooted desire of a nation with 500,000 people in the streets of Belfast the other day, every one of whom was consumed with a burning hatred of your Bill, and boasted of their intention to resist it to the end, and, if it were necessary, by force. I have always had, I own, very considerable doubts as to the genuine and spontaneous character of this demand for Home Rule, and it would be very interesting if it were possible to ascertain how much of this desire is due to other causes altogether— to priestly influence, for instance, to the number of illiterate voters —and they are a large number in the community of Ireland—to intimidation and causes of that kind, and, above all, to the hope and the expectation of agrarian plunder. The right hon. Gentleman, I am sure, will not deny that the passionate desire to obtain possession of the land, 219 the hope of getting it under an Irish Parliament on infinitely easier terms, perhaps for nothing or for next to nothing, from its present owners, has always been the cardinal and dominant factor in the demand of a portion of the people for Home Rule. After the reminders which he has had from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham and others, the right hon. Gentleman, I am sure, will not forget his own expressions, used upon a memorable occasion— If you go forth upon a mission to demoralise the people by teaching them to make the property of their neighbours the object of their covetous desire, it does not require superhuman gifts to find a number of followers and adherents for a doctrine such as that. Yes, Sir, these are sentiments in which in the House of Commons I apprehend we shall all of us agree, but they apply today quite as much as they applied at the time when they were spoken, and they strengthen and confirm the doubts and suspicions I have always entertained as to the genuine and spontaneous character of this demand. But supposing that I am wrong, and supposing that in what he said on that memorable occasion the right hon. Gentleman himself traduced the Irish people—supposing there is a patriotic and real desire, quite apart from sordid motives and from sinister influences, for autonomy in Ireland, is that a reason in itself for acceding to that demand? I doubt if there is any Member in this House who would venture to say so. We can try it by a very simple test. Supposing that the demand, instead of for Home Rule, had been for separation, would you have thought it necessary and right in such a case to accede to that demand? No, Sir; you would have done nothing of the kind. You have always most positively declared that any demand for separation, however Constitutionally expressed, however large the number of Members who desired it, you would resist at all costs to the bitter end, and neither, therefore, can it be accepted in itself as a valid and sufficient reason for the concession of Home Rule. There was a reason, I admit, in 1886, which was given, of a very different character, at that time; and if it had been a true reason, and if the right hon. Gentleman had been right in his forecast and opinion, then I acknowledge it would have been very difficult to 220 answer it. The right hon. Gentleman said that the change in 1886 was proposed, not on grounds of general expediency, or with a view to its abstract importance alone—no, it was something much more serious than that. It was proposed, the right hon. Gentleman said, in order to meet the very first necessities of civilised society in Ireland, and because, he said, there was a general and universal opinion that the question required imperatively to be dealt with. That was the specific reason which the right hon. Gentleman gave in 1886 as the reason for the necessity of his heroic remedy of Home Rule. But what is the position in 1893, after seven years' experience, and although we have not had Home Rule at all from that day to this? Under the firm and courageous administration of my right hon. Friend (Mr. A. J. Balfour) the necessity for Home Rule, as far as social order is concerned, has proved to be nothing but a bugbear—nothing but moonshine. The right hon. Gentleman has been shown, not by any means for the first time in his Irish policy, to have been absolutely wrong. I remember quite well contesting his statement at the time, and pointing out—which I am afraid was rude, although undoubtedly it was true—that if we could only succeed in gelling rid of the right hon. Gentleman from the conduct of affairs, we should very shortly see the re-establishment of social order in Ireland. My words were prophetic, for not only did we very shortly afterwards get rid of the right hon. Gentleman, but his own Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. J. Morley) shall be my witness as to the effect of his resignation upon the social condition of this country. On the first night of this Session we were told that rents were never better paid than they were without the Crimes Act. The same speaker also said:— I hear from those who have the best means of knowing, that the feeling between the police and the people has never been better since 1879; and even Clare, that most troublous portion of Her Majesty's dominions, came in for a good word from the right hon. Gentleman, for he said this:— The state of Clare is satisfactory. Few of those responsible for the government of Ireland have been able to say that the condition of that county is satisfactory. 221 I ask hon. Members, on both sides of the House, can there be, or could there be, a more crushing refutation of the idle and baseless dream pressed upon us in 1886, that Home Rule was imperatively called for in order to meet the first necessities of civilised society in Ireland? The plea of social order having broken down, having been altogether exposed, and proved by experience to be utterly worthless, the right hon. Gentleman in 1893 falls back upon the parrot cry, repeated a hundred times in all parts of the country before the constituencies in order to win votes at the last General Election, that, unless we concede autonomy to Ireland, we have no possible alternative except coercion. I must say that I have never yet been able to appreciate that argument, which appears to me to be nothing but a tissue of nonsense and of fallacies from beginning to end. Coercion, in the first place—or what you call coercion— touches no one, affects no one, injures no one, except those who are dishonest, and who are breakers of the law, but it does give to the peaceable, the honest, the industrious, and law-abiding subjects of the Queen the protection which in past days I grieve to say was very sorely needed by many of the people of this country. If it be true, as I admit it is, that the exercise of exceptional powers was necessary for a time under the rule of my right hon. Friend the reason is that the supporters of the Government openly boasted that they would make the government of Ireland impossible without it. I wish to put to the House this question: supposing we conceded autonomy to Ireland to-morrow, do not let hon. Gentlemen run away with the idea that they are going to get rid of coercion. Coercion and autonomy are not alternative proposals, and by no possibility could they in any way be accurately described as such. Look at what happened when you had autonomy in Ireland. If history has taught us anything, it has taught us that coercion and autonomy have always gone hand in hand in Ireland in the past, and there is every reason to believe that if you conceded autonomy exactly the same state of things would happen in the future. My authority for that statement is a man whose knowledge of Ireland and Irish affairs no Member of the House of Commons will question or attempt to deny. 222 Mr. Parnell, who, whatever we may have thought of the latest incidents of his career, was undoubtedly the foremost statesmen and the Leader of the greatest foresight that Ireland has produced for many a long day, always said that the Land question in Ireland must be solved concurrently with the question of the establishment of an Irish Parliament, or must be left to that Parliament to solve. I do not much care" (he said) "which of those alternatives you take, but one of them must be adopted. Otherwise it will be impossible for any settled Government in existence in Ireland, whether English or Irish, whether dependent on the English Parliament or the Irish Parliament, to do without the use of stringent and strong coercion. But this Government have done neither. They have left the Land question open —a course which I observe they generally adopt when they are confronted with a difficulty. They have postponed the evil day for a period of three years, and I entirely agree with Mr. Parnell that, in such circumstances, even though you concede autonomy to Ireland to-day severe coercion will inevitably be necessary to-morrow. Well, Sir, if so, it will only be a case of history which repeats itself. Grattan's Parliament was conspicuous for the number of Coercion Acts it passed; and although the right hon. Gentleman said, across the Table, to my right hon. Friend the other night, that it was only during the last five years of that Parliament, the right hon. Gentleman was absolutely and entirely wrong, as wrong as when he said upon the introduction of the Bill, that it was only since 1886 that coercion for the first time had taken its place as a permanent institution. Grattan's Parliament, which was established in 1782, commenced in 1783 by passing two Coercion Acts. It is quite true that the three following years—1784–1786—were free from legislation of that kind; but, with the exception of those years, there never was a single year during the whole of the existence of Grattan's Parliament in which either one or more Coercion Acts were not introduced and carried into effect; and of those no fewer than three were made absolutely permanent, and five were made continuous for a period of seven years. When I hear hon. Gentlemen opposite talk so glibly of establishing a Parliament in Ireland, and 223 forecasting the excellent results which are to follow, I ask, why do not they consult the records of the history of Irish Parliaments in the past? Many people talk as if the period of Grattan's Parliament was a period of unmixed prosperity in Ireland, but that it was not was conclusively shown, I think, by the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) the other evening. The Prime Minister himself fell into the serious error when he was speaking to two deputations the other day, and, as has already been pointed out in this Debate, he cited Lord Clare in support of that assertion. When I road the speech of the right hon. Gentleman I wondered where on earth he got it, until I came across a little book on English Interference with Irish Districts, by the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Donegal; and there the hon. Member quotes an isolated passage from Lord Clare, delivered in his speech in 1798, to the following effect:— There is not a nation on the face of the habitable globe which has advanced in cultivation and in manufactures with the same rapidity, and in the same period, as Ireland. Yes, Sir, that may be true, but I would ask the House to remember why it was. The commercial restraints and restrictions which had pressed so heavily upon the industries of Ireland had been removed prior to the establishment of Grattan's Parliament. Consequently a great improvement in their position had undoubtedly already begun. With the aid of the bounties which were given at the same time, undoubtedly there was, to all appearance, for a time a period of prosperity and advancement in Ireland. But that period unhappily did not last. If the Prime Minister would go to the fountain head himself for his information, I would beg to point out to him that this is how Lord Clare continues, and how then the isolated passage in the little book would read— But her progress is now retarded" (that, is under Grattan's Parliament) "and that is a heartbreaking spectacle to every man who loves the country to see it arrested only by perversity and factions of the population, stimulated and encouraged by disappointed statesmen, English and Irish as well. The rest of Lord Clare's description of Ireland in those days of Grattan's Parliament is almost too horrible to read. I 224 will only give one passage as a sample of the rest. He said— I hold in my hand the dark and bloody catalogue; but I will not proclaim to the civilised world the state of cannibal barbarism to which my country has been brought by pestilent and cowardly traitors. Yet, the Prime Minister, quoting Lord Clare, represents the period of Grattan's Parliament as one of great advancement and prosperity. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to know the truth about that period and about the period which followed. I will tell him where to get it, Let him study a speech made in 1834 by the then Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Spring Rice— a speech which Sir Robert Peel said took six hours to deliver—a speech which is an absolute mine of information on the subject, and in which he proved to absolute demonstration that it was after the Union was established and not during the period of Grattan's Parliament that the great period of improvement in the condition of Ireland's industries occurred. I hope I have done something to show the real nature of the grounds on which this Bill has been recommended to us; but if the reasons in its favour are few, the objections to the Bill are very numerous and varied. Can the Government deny it? If they can, why do not they endeavour to meet and refute them? They cannot say that the arguments against this. Bill have not been presented with sufficient clearness, although they are not only without answer, but practically unnoticed by the Government up to now. Let me summarise a few of them. In the first place, it is charged against your Bill that it fulfils not one of the main conditions you have yourselves laid down. I take the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, not the speech made on the Second. Reading, but the one he made on the introduction of the Bill, perhaps the most powerful, effective, and damaging speech against any measure we have had delivered within these walls for many years. I cannot recapitulate his arguments. It would be neither fitting nor desirable for me to do so, but I think the right hon. Gentleman showed conclusively, in the first place, that so far from this measure being anything approaching to finality, you had only sowed the seeds of future demands, which were certain 225 to be made on you in the future. In the second place, he proved that you have not secured Imperial unity when Imperial unity is of the greatest value—namely, in the time of war, but that that would be the very moment the Irish Party would select to insist upon the completion of their unsatisfied demands. In the third place, he showed that Imperial supremacy as regards persons is a myth, and as regards matters, and especially legislation, is impossible of exercise, and that the application of the veto, if you ever tried to use it, would inevitably paralyse the whole machinery of government in Ireland, and was a weapon which would break in your hands. As to your boasted safeguards to minorities, the right hon. Gentleman simply tore them into shreds. Yet all these objections, which were so powerfully urged and argued, as I am sure the Government will admit, by a man of great, distinction in this House and of no less distinction in the country, have remained to this very hour, not only entirely unanswered by any Member of the Government, but they have passed them by as if literally they were undeserving of notice. It is of no use for the Chief Secretary to say, as he did say in reply, "I admit that the whole of those arguments were based upon the assumption that Ireland was the constant, perpetual, and irreconcilable enemy of England," and to tell us, as he did tell us, that he had a great many friends in Ireland belonging to both Parties, and that he was assured there was no nation in the world more ready to profit by free Parliamentary government than the Irish. I am very glad he thinks so. I am delighted to hear he has got so many friends in Ireland, and I am sure I hope he will keep them for many years to the mutual advantage of both; but unfortunately this has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the question before us. The question he has to meet is, are the objections of my right hon. Friend and of many others based on a solid and substantial ground or are they not? If they are not, let some Member of the Government get up and meet them like a man. If they are, let the right hon. Gentleman tell the people of the country as well as Parliament in what respect they are unsound. I must say that I do not understand the attitude of the Government. 226 I have never before known in a great Debate, about, perhaps, the most important question we have ever had before us, Ministers deliberately refuse to meet the issues placed before them. It bodes ill indeed for the future of our public life if Ministers are to rely, not on argument and reason, but on the brute force of the majority behind them. Now, I want to come for a few moments to close quarters with the Chief Secretary, or the Prime Minister, or the Home Secretary, or one and all of them if they please, with regard to these safeguards for minorities. I am going to take the case of the Irish landlords. I wish to supplement by a few words what fell the other day from the right hon. Baronet the Member for Bristol. I take the case of the Irish landlords, who, I suppose the Chief Secretary will admit, are included in what he calls the Irish people. Are they going to profit by free government in Ireland? If so, I should very much like to know how. Suppose in the future there should be some difficulties between their tenants and themselves. It is hardly possible, I suppose, to hope that there will not be. Suppose, for instance, that the Plan or Campaign should be revived; the Irish landlords will have to go to the Executive for protection and redress in the just assertion of their rights. Of whom would the Executive be composed? I do not know whether I should be justified in making any forecast on the subject, but probably I should not be very far wrong if I were to suggest that it would include such men as the Members for Louth, East Mayo, Cork, North Kerry, and, after the speech he made the other night, it would be impossible to omit the Member for East Cork, and others whom it would not be difficult to mention. We know something of the sentiments and views of some of these gentlemen in regard to land and as to the proper method of treating the landlords. It may not be out of place to recall them to the memory of the Government, and especially to the memory of the right hon. Gentleman, who always professes, what I honestly think he believes, a great love for justice. I hope I may establish in. his mind some spark of sympathy in regard to the probable future of the Irish landlords under the Bill now before the House. I will take, in the first 227 instance, the utterances of the hon. Gentleman whom the right hon. Gentleman excepted the other night from the condemnations which he lavished on Mr. Parnell and the Land League—the Member for Mayo. On the 15th of August, 1880, at Kildare—and I take this from what I believe to be a reliable source—namely, the Report of the Special Commission—the hon. Gentleman said— In the county of Mayo, where the organisation is pretty strong, we have many a farm lying idle, from which no rent can be drawn, and there they shall lie, and if the landlord shall put cattle on them the cattle won't prosper very much. Does the right hon. Gentleman, does the House know what that refers to? I am doing no injustice to the hon. Gentleman when I say that he points to some of those brutal mutilations of dumb animals which have filled the English people with so much horror in the past. I take the opinions of the hon. Member for Cork City. In September, 1884, he said— If they must have hunting at all, let them keep their hands in practice by hunting landlords. [Loud cheers.] Hunt landlordism up hill and down dale, until landlords are as scarce as the foxes. Take the Member for North Louth. He was speaking of landlords generally and Lord Granard in particular, and he said on the 9th October— I would feel no more compunction in seeking my own rights than I would in driving a rat out of a haystack. I look upon them exactly in the same light…. Very soon I hope to see the College of Maynooth squeezing him (Lord Granard) out, as you would squeeze out a lemon or an orange, and when they throw away the skin I hope to see you give it a kick and send it to its proper place. Now, take one more—the speech of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool made in America in 1882, and reported in United Ireland— I want you to understand that the reduction of rent we require is not a small, or a petty, or a legal reduction, but the total abolition of rent…. Gladstone wants a fixed rent; the Land League wants to abolish rent. These hon. Gentlemen, whom the Prime Minister would not identify the other night, were members of the Land League, and adopted the doctrines which it held. And these hon. Gentlemen are amongst those who issued the no-rent manifesto. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that under all those circumstances, and 228 seeing that he shut up these hon. Gentlemen in prison in addition to Mr. Parnell because they were conspiring to prevent the payment of all rent—does he still think that an Irish Executive composed of men such as these will be a fair or a just tribunal for the Irish landlords to go before? What sort of justice do you suppose Irish landlords are likely to get from them? Would any single landlord in England be satisfied with that position? Would the right hon. Gentleman be satisfied with it himself? Suppose the Hawardon estate, instead of being in England —as happily it is for him—was situated in Ireland, would the right hon. Gentleman be able to contemplate his handiwork with that serene complacency with which he apparently views it now? No, Sir; to be sure he would do nothing of the kind; and if he would not, why are we to mete out to our brother landlords in that country a measure of justice and of fairness which we should not be willing for a single moment to accept ourselves? The Prime Minister is perfectly well aware, or if he is not, his Colleagues are perfectly well aware, of the fate which awaits the Irish landlords under the Bill which is now before the House, for nobody has described it more vividly than the Chancellor of the Duchy himself. I wish the Chancellor of the Duchy were here to be reminded, not of his words, but of what he has deliberately written in a Review— The power of dealing with the land is the very power which the Irish most desire…. But every one knows how such a power would be used. With police under elective Boards the landlord might whistle for his rent. He would be lucky if he kept a whole skin. His property would be gone without need of confiscatory legislation…. The honour of England is pledged to their rights. At no cost can we abandon them. We could not look other nations in the face were we to throw over men whose property we confirmed so lately as 1881. I beg to remind the Chief Secretary for Ireland that statements were made in his presence at Newcastle on a celebrated occasion by another distinguished Colleague of the Prime Minister. I am referring now to the statements made by Lord Spencer, whom it has been my privilege to know personally and intimately for many years, and a man whom I have always looked upon as the embodiment of the most high and most honourable principles. He said— 229 The whole force of agitation at one time was against the Irish landlords. I do not for a moment think it would be just or honest in the British Parliament to leave unprotected and uncared for the Irish landlords. We have at different times curtailed their right by Acts of Parliament, and it would be a mean and treacherous thing if we did not defend their just rights. The Prime Minister himself has said that the two questions—namely, the Laud question and Home Rule—are inseparable.

§ MR. W.E. GLADSTONE

In 1886.

§ MR. CHAPLIN

What does it matter? Questions of honour and questions of principle do not vary and do not change between 1886 and 1893. I am amazed and astounded to hear such a supposition from the right hon. Gentleman.

§ MR. W. E. GLADSTONE

The right hon. Gentleman is astounded at my correcting his historical inaccuracy. In 1886, at that period, strictly confining myself to the circumstances of that juncture, I did think it an obligation of honour upon us to make these proposals on behalf of the landlords.

§ MR. CHAPLIN

I do not think Lord Spencer will be willing to admit that that which is a question of honour and principle in 1886 ceases to be so in 1893. The honour of England is pledged. We should be "treacherous and mean "if we did not defend them? Admirable sentiments! Truly most noble and high-minded men! But how are they going to do it? I grant you that on paper your Bill is literally loaded with safeguards and restrictions, but who is going to enforce them? Are we to rely upon the Irish Executive? "No," says the Chancellor of the Duchy, "we know how that power will be used." Then how are you going to do it? I must press you upon this point, because questions of honour, as you yourselves have described them, are not to be lightly set aside. I hope and I believe that even yet the Government are going to fulfil them, for if they refuse them we shall be entitled to declare, and we shall declare and say, that you must he content from henceforth for ever to take your place in a category which it would not be Parliamentary to mention. [Cries of" Divide!"] I pass on from the question of the landlords, and I wish to point out that there is another and vital objection to your 230 Bill. It is the most impracticable, and probable the most unworkable, measure that has ever been laid upon this Table, and, what is most curious and remarkable, you seem to know it perfectly yourselves. I am not speaking of the question of finance; although that is a matter in itself which it seems to me, so far as I am able to judge, very far from being unlikely to bring about the break up and destruction of your Bill. Nor am I referring to the loss and injury which will be inflicted on a great number of people in Ireland—small farmers and others who may desire to purchase laud or to borrow money upon easy terms, which they are able to do under the present connection with this country. Nor am I alluding to the numerous administrative questions which inevitably must arise, and which appear to mo to be destined to land you in endless and impossible conclusions. I am referring now to the proposed retention of the Irish Members in this House. It was this proposal in your Bill which I must say I heard with the most unbounded amazement, not only with regard to the matter, but, I am also compelled to add, with regard to the manner in which it was done. I am bound to say that after what was done in 1886 it really was impossible for anybody who heard the statements then made to understand the proposal. I thought myself that the most impudent thing I ever witnessed since I have been in Parliament was the spectacle of a Minister standing at that Table and unfolding on a great historic occasion as part of an organic scheme for the government of Ireland a plan which he had already proved to demonstration on a previous occasion to be hopelessly impossible, and with regard to which, so far as I was able to understand, he spent three-quarters of an hour in explaining that he remained of the same opinion still. [Cries of "Divide!"] I hope I am entitled to the courtesy of the House— courtesy which has been extended in the Debate to every other Member. I have not much to say upon this subject, but let me glance at the general effects of the Bill. In the first place, you make the Irish Members the sole and supreme authority in the management of the affairs of a Parliament in Dublin, but in the second place, you make them also the dominant and controlling power 231 in the affairs of a Parliament in England. While we are to have no voice with regard to Irish affairs, they are to be the arbiters, and ultimately to decide upon the conduct of affairs in the Parliament of this country. How many Governments are we likely to have in the future of England whose existence will not depend upon the attitude of the Irish Party in this House? How often are we likely to see a political Party in this country in the future whose existence will not depend upon the Irish votes? Look at your own position to-day. Without the Irish Members you would be in a large minority to-morrow, and this Bill which we are now discussing is the price which you are compelled to pay for their support. But this is only the commencement of the system which is to be made perpetual hereafter, and what a vista of danger and damnable intrigue it opens up for us in the time to come. I declare if this Bill were carried I should absolutely despair for the future of our public life in England, and this is the legacy which the right hon. Gentleman (the Prime Minister), in the closing years of his life, has prepared for the generations which are yet to come. It takes a long time, I admit, to bring political information down to the depths of the knowledge of the masses of our people, but sooner or later it will reach them, and the moment that they learn that the future of their Government and their country is to be under the control of Irish Members in this House, while they are not to have a word to say with regard to the affairs of Ireland, I believe you will raise such a storm of opposition, such a whirlwind of indignation, that it will sweep you and your Bill to destruction in a week. Often and often, Mr. Speaker, have we asked for information upon this subject in the years which have elapsed since 1886. I am reminded by hon. Members that it was while I was trying to seek information on this very question on the last day of the Parliament that preceded the General Election that the whole Radical Party did their best to howl me down, and tried their utmost, with a chivalry which I think, thank God, is peculiar to them, to prevent my being heard, although I was speaking in defence of a Government which was on its trial, and a 232 Government which the Leaders of the Party opposite had assailed. I think I begin to understand now what it meant, and I think we all begin to understand the meaning of the mystery and concealment which have been practised on this subject for six years. And now I think I can understand what Mr. Parnell meant when he disclosed, after his breach with the Prime Minister, something of the confidences which were given to him, when he said he was told at Hawarden that the Prime Minister and his Colleagues were entirely agreed, pending the General Election, that silence should be absolutely preserved on the question of the retention of the Irish Members in the Imperial Parliament. I do not think you are likely to make much of your concealment. Indeed, the Prime Minister himself, in the introduction of the Bill, said he was not certain what view the House of Commons would take upon this question; but, perhaps, if I remind him of what actually occurred in 1886, it may help him to come to a sound conclusion. I am not going to make a long quotation. The question he asked in 1886 was this— Is it practicable for Irish Representatives to come here for the settlement, not of English and Scotch, but of Imperial affairs? And this was his reply I arrive at the conclusion that Irish Peers and Irish Members cannot, if a domestic Legislature be given to Ireland, justly retain a seat in the Parliament at Westminster. That reply was made after an able, exhaustive, and elaborate demonstration of its absolute, hopeless impossibility. The right hon. Gentleman, I must admit, generally leaves for himself a loophole of escape on occasions of this kind, but in this case there was none; and it is therefore clear that he was either fooling the House in 1886, or he is fooling us to-day; but he cynically avowed on the introduction of the Bill that he was afraid of opening the doors to wholesale and dangerous political intrigue. When I think of the consequences that it may bring both to Ireland and to England; when I recollect what you deliberately said and recommended in 1886, and the levity with which you recommend to the House exactly the opposite to-day all the time against your own convictions, I hope the House will throw back again the pro- 233 posal of the Prime Minister as an insult to common sense, as a wanton indignity to England, and as a gross affront to the intelligence of the British House of Commons. Now, I have only one more word to say. We have been asked, if this Bill should be rejected, where and how and when is this controversy to end? Yes; but the question has two sides. Supposing the Bill were carried, what is to be the answer to the question then? It is certain that it cannot end with the measure which is now before the House. The logical and sure result was foreshadowed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland, who spoke before mo in this Debate—four Local Parliaments in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and one Imperial Parliament for the whole? That is to say, we are to have five separate Parliaments in a disunited Kingdom. And thus it is deliberately proposed to the greatest nation in the world to fritter away the fruits of the Empire she has won. Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. "Repeal the Union! Restore the Heptarchy!" said Mr. Canning; and if, unhappily, it is true that this nation is afflicted with a sudden madness, then, indeed, we may begin to restore the Heptarchy without delay. But at least let me remind you of the counsels of a statesman who in former days was held in veneration even greater than, certainly as great as, that which you feel, I have no doubt honestly, for your chief, and of a statesman at whose feet, if I remember right, in former days the right hon. Gentleman was proud to sit— The conviction in favour of the Legislative Union springs from every source from which conviction in the human mind can come. Consult your senses, consult your feelings, consult reason, history, and experience; they all concur in enforcing the same truth—opposuit natura. There is a physical necessity which forbids Repeal. Ah! Mr. Speaker, who that has ever read it, can forget the lofty and impassioned and stately eloquence of your great progenitor, when he put forth all his strength and brought his magnificent resources to maintain the legislative union when a not dissimilar proposal was made in former years to that to which we now offer our utmost resistance? With that great statesman on the one side and with the present Prime Minister on the 234 other we have come indeed to a parting of the ways. It is for Parliament to decide which path the English people shall take. But beware how you embark for the second time upon a great and a, dangerous experiment which has been already tried and has failed disastrously before. Beware, I entreat you, before you undertake, with presumptuous confidence, to disturb and to unsettle the relations for 500 years between the peoples and the races dwelling in these isles, to whom nature has decreed, and Providence has ordained, the most close and intimate connection. Together, and united by a legislative compact, they have borne the burden and they have built up the Empire of to-day. Together and united they are destined, I still believe, to share the great and glorious heritage which awaits them in the ages that are yet to come.

§ *MR. JOHNE REDMOND (Waterford City)

There was one statement in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman with which I most cordially agree. He described this as a great occasion, and spoke of the gravity of the issue at stake. But, Sir, I venture to say that no right hon. Gentleman occupying the position of ex-Cabinet Minister ever made upon a great and historic occasion upon the discussion of a great issue a speech so absolutely flat, stale, and unprofitable. That speech scarcely touched upon the great issue at stake. That issue is whether this Parliament will confer upon Ireland the management of her own affairs, whether it will entrust to the people of Ireland representative institutions— and in a speech occupying the time of the House for an hour and a half the right hon. Gentleman never did more than read stale quotations from the opinion of others on the abstract question. The right hon. Gentleman is a type of the English governors of Ireland—the men who have made Ireland disaffected, and who have made the concession of Home Rule absolutely inevitable. Was there from beginning to end of the speech a single statement to show that the right hon. Gentleman was acquainted with the government, or with the history of the country whose right to self-government he ventured to discuss? Was there one generous thought, or one spark or glimmer of hope for Ireland? The right hon. 235 Gentleman opposes the concession of Home Rule to Ireland; but what is his alternative? It is simply a continuance of the principles of government that have made the name of England a by-word and a reproach among the nations of the world. I do not desire to pursue the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. I did hope that it would not be necessary for me, in the fulfilment of a duty to myself and to those whom I represent, to take part in the Debate at this stage of the Bill. The speeches that have been made in the course of the Debate have been of two distinct classes. We have had on the one hand those who have criticised those details of the Bill which could be more properly discussed in Committee, and on the other we have those who discussed the broad principle of the Bill. This latter class of speakers have been hampered by the consideration that they have been merely repeating for the hundredth time every argument with which the country has been ringing for the last seven years. I do not desire in the observations I have to make to anticipate the Committee stage of the Bill, nor do I desire to delay the progress of the Bill by delivering a Debating Society speech on the broad principle of self-government, and I should have been content to remain silent but for the duty cast upon me by statements made in this House and out of it, misrepresenting the views of my friends and myself. It is said that we have refused to accept this measure, that we dispute the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, that we will make no compromise between what we consider the full measure of right that we are entitled to, and the concession which one of the great Parties of the State is willing to make to us. Now, Sir, that is a complete misrepresentation. Of course this Bill does not concede to Ire-land all that we ask or all that we believe we are entitled to. This Bill is a compromise between the full demands Ireland has made in the past and that which you are willing to concede to us. This Bill is offered as a compromise, and is accepted as a compromise. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham complains that we do not say this is a final and immutable Constitution. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman what right this House or what right England has to ask any such 236 guarantee from us? I say candidly that I do not believe that this measure, if passed into law, will be absolutely final or immutable, because I agree with the view expressed by the Member for West Birmingham in 1885 that a final solution of this question is to be found in the direction of Federalism. I believe this Constitution will be a success, and because I believe it will be a success I believe that it will develop. In the future, in the working of this Constitution the bonds of freedom will be made wider still for Ireland, and that with the consent of all parties in England, as a direct result of the reasonable exercise of the powers obtained under it. If Ireland shows, as she will show, a real capacity for self-government, this Constitution must develop. He would be a rash man indeed who would say that the written Constitution which you now seek to confer is for all time or is to remain a final and immutable Constitution. Let me test this matter. Suppose you put a clause into the Bill saying that it is to be a final and immutable settlement, it would not be worth the paper it would be written upon. The very fact that this Imperial Parliament is and will continue to be supreme makes it utterly impossible for any law that it may make to be a final and immutable law. And, again, suppose that every Irishman alive were to join in giving an undertaking that he would regard the Constitution as final—of what value would that guarantee be? No; we cannot bind the future—the future with its new interests, its wider needs, and its higher aspirations in the generations that are to come. In that sense I absolutely decline to give any such guarantee as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham thinks necessary from those who commend this Bill to the consideration of the country. But that was not what the right hon. Gentleman meant. He meant that we, in saying that we will accept this Bill, will do so in bad faith, and with no desire to find in the working of the measure a solution of the Irish question, and that we only accept it for the purpose of furthering designs hostile to the English connection and the Empire. That is what he means. For my part, I disclaim any such intention. It is true we decline to pledge ourselves that this must remain a final settlement. 237 It is true we regard this as a compromise and not as a full concession of all we are entitled to obtain; but we wish to accept the measure in a fair, honest, and candid spirit, and to work it for all it is worth in the hope and belief that it may put an end to the miserable chapter of English oppression and Irish resistance. But the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham says there is the question of the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. It is not necessary for me to dwell a moment longer upon that point. I challenge anyone in this House to quote a statement of mine or of any of those associated with me, that so long as we remain partners in the Empire at all the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is to be, or ought to be, abrogated. We have maintained that the concession of free institutions in Ireland means that you shall have put trust in the Irish people; and that constant or even frequent interference by this Parliament in the working of those institutions would be absolutely inconsistent. Representative institutions exist in other portions of the Empire. How many of them would exist for six months if this House took into its head to exercise its undoubted right as a supreme Legislature to constantly or frequently interfere? The concession of representative institutions to Ireland means that you have made up your minds to let us manage our own affairs free from the interference of the Imperial Parliament. It is true that hon. Gentlemen anticipate that the necessity for interference by this Parliament will arise. That may be. I think it will not be, for I am one of those who agree with Mr. Parnell's opinion that the Irish people under Home Rule will be shrewd enough to know that any violation of the Constitution or oppression proceeding in the Irish Parliament will be so many nails driven into the coffin of the Constitution, and I do not, therefore, think that the occasion for interference will arise. If it does arise, nothing we can say, nothing we can do, nothing you can put in an Act of Parliament now can deprive you of the right to prevent in the Irish Parliament, as you can prevent in the Australian and Canadian Parliaments, acts of oppression and injustice. I do not intend to dwell even for a moment on the question of finance. I have nothing 238 to add—I have not been able to add to my sources of information, and therefore I have nothing to add to what I said on the First Reading of the Bill on this point. But the longer these financial clauses have been studied the more they have been distrusted. It is right we should be perfectly candid in a matter of this kind. I have met no member of any political Party whatever in Ireland who has been able to tell me that the government of Ireland could be successfully worked under the financial clauses of the Bill as they now stand; and I would add that if the clauses are to remain in their present form the Government and their supporters in this House will have to recognise the fact that it will be a terrible responsibility for any Irish Representative to accept this Bill as a settlement unless the Bill contains in the financial portion provisions to enable the Government of Ireland to be successfully carried on. Leaving details on this head aside for discussion in Committee, I pass on to what I take to be the real issue at stake. The real issue is whether you will make up your mind to confer upon Ireland representative government—that is, government in accordance with the constitutionally expressed will of the people, by a Parliament and an Executive constitutionally responsible to those whom they rule. There are two ways in which this great and vital principle may be looked at. There is the Irish way, and then there is the English way. We look upon the principle as one we are entitled to have conceded to us as of right. We do not entirely or mainly rest our claim for free representative institutions on grievances. We rest our claim on right. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham thinks that if Mr. Pitt had been able to carry Catholic Emanacipation the Union would have been popular, and that the earlier passage of remedial measures would have had the effect of cementing the Irish and English peoples. We look at it from a different standpoint. We do not rest; our claim solely or mainly on grievances. If the government of my country by Englishmen were the best that could be devised by the wit of man I would be as strong a Home Ruler as I am to-day. Without exaggeration, I believe that Irish Nationalists would 239 rather be badly governed by their own countrymen than live under the best English Government you could give them. We say that Ireland is a distinct and separate nationality, and that in point of historic title her right stands as high as that of England. Ireland was a centre of civilisation and learning, in the far away ages of the past, when England was but a barbarous province of the Roman Empire. For 600 years Ireland had her own Parliament, although it is true that it was at different times more or less subject to England, and it is true also that it was only partially representative of the great mass of the Irish people; but during all those centuries Ireland had a Parliament, a distinct Parliament of her own, and, more than that, a Parliament which whenever the opportunity arose, claimed to have the exclusive right to legislate for the Irish people. That Parliament was robbed from Ireland by violence and corruption, and was taken from her against the will of the Irish people. In 1799 the Government of the day proposed the Union; but that proposal was defeated, and had that Parliament been dissolved the Union would never have been carried. The Catholics, who had the franchise conferred upon them in 1793, were never allowed to exercise it, and, in the words of Mr. Lecky, the Union was carried against the entire of the unbribed intellect of Ireland. From that day to this the claim of Ireland to a Parliament of its own as a right has never been waived. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham said the other night that Ireland was advancing, although slowly, to acquiescence in British rule. The right hon. Gentleman also said that no sane man now feared armed insurrection against the English Government. Well, Sir, I am bound to admit that with the advance of science armed insurrection against British rule in Ireland has become practically impossible. But if the right hon. Gentleman means that the spirit of insurrection in Ireland is extinct he is but a superficial observer, because there can be no question but that the spirit of resistance by every honourable means against the Union, and a desire to rule in Irish affairs, is as much alive to-day as it was at any period during the last century. My most earnest prayer is that 240 that spirit may not be driven into action by the hasty and ill-considered rejection of all proposals for conciliation, or by unworthy taunts like those which have been uttered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. So much for the Irish view of this subject. The next question is, what is the English view of it? There can be no doubt that the English view is not taken from the point whether Home Rule is desired by the Irish people, but whether it would be expedient for us to have it in the general interests of the Empire. What are the facts? Side by side you have two countries, closely related geographically and socially, with many connecting ties and associations, both speaking the same language, belonging to the same Empire, and composed to a certain extent of a mixture of the same races, but distinct in historical traditions, in national instincts, and in national character—too closely allied for separation, too distinct ever to be merged into one country and one people. In 1866 the present Prime Minister, long before he adopted the principle which underlies this measure, spoke these pregnant words, which seemed to me to show that as far back as that date he had the consciousness in his mind of the direction which a wise policy for Ireland must take:— We are, it is true, a United Kingdom made up of three nations, made up necessarily with many distinctions of law, usages, character, history, and religion There are common questions which must be administered on principles common to the Empire, where the interests of the whole must overbear the interests of a part; but there are other questions where the interests are purely English, or Scotch, or Irish respectively, which ought not to be administered on common principles. It has been found possible in almost every age of the world in the case of countries so united to combine Imperial union and strength with national freedom. That being so, what has been the record of the relations between England and Ireland? No one will deny that, wherever the responsibility might rest, it is a record full of shame for every man who shared the responsibility for it. It is a record of bloodshed, wasted treasure, and national dishonour. Has the English treatment of Ireland succeeded? The English Government has refused to deal with. Ireland upon the principles which have been applied to other countries 241 similarly situated. How has your government of Ireland succeeded? I will not go back further than the Act of Union. Since that Act Ireland has suffered from half-a-dozen partial or entire famines; since then there have been four more or less armed insurrections; and, more than all, during the century England has been obliged to keep in Ireland a standing Army as large as that which she had in the Crimea. During the whole of that century you have had a Coercion Act for every year. The right hon. Gentleman who addressed the House to-night spoke lightly of coercion. But coercion means the abrogation more or loss at different times of the full benefits of the British Constitution. It, therefore, means that during your 93 years' rule of Ireland you have had 80 Coercion Acts, each one of them abrogating more or less the full rights of the British Constitution. Ireland's population has diminished; her national prosperity has disappeared; your government of Ireland has become a byword amongst the nations, and finally at the end of this 19th century which has seen the blessings of liberty slowly but surely reaching every subject race in the world, at the end of that century a great English Party has been obliged to declare that the Union can only be preserved by the permanent suspension of those rights of the Constitution—such as the right of trial Injury, which it is your boast that you desire to see extended to even the Eastern races under your sway. It seems to me that all this goes to show conclusively that the old system has been tried and has failed; that it has hampered and almost destroyed this Parliament; that the whole world has called "shame on it," and whether by this Bill and by this Government, or by another Bill and another Government, I know not, but I think every far-seeing man must admit in his heart that the day is almost dawning when that system will be replaced by a system based on the affections, the will, and the confidence of the governed. I notice, Sir, that the opponents of the Bill have kept themselves clear from broad considerations and principles such as these. They have taken up rather a policy of fastening on particular difficulties, magnifying them enormously in order to frighten public opinion; but 242 they forget that if all the difficulties, probable or imaginary, which may follow Home Rule were increased a hundredfold they could not by any possibility create as bad a state of things as exist in the relations between the two countries at the present moment. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham fears that after Home Rule Ireland will be disaffected. Does he believe that Ireland is well affected now? He believes that England's difficulty will be Ireland's opportunity after Homo Rule. Does he not know that if you reject this measure of concession it will be the darling object of every Irishman to use all your difficulties as opportunities for advancing the national cause? He fears what may happen if this Bill passes. Has he over considered what will happen if this Bill is rejected? Heaven forbid that I should indulge in what might be construed by our enemies into threats and menaces! But can any man contemplate with equanimity what consequences may follow if you reject the hope of conciliation which has kept Ireland tranquil and crimeless for seven years? We are told that if this Bill passes there will be disturbances in Ulster. Can hon. Gentlemen consider the possibility of disturbances in other parts of Ireland if this Bill is rejected? Reject this Bill, wreck the hopes upon which the Irish people have been relying, reimpose coercion, and which of you will undertake the government of Ireland by any form of Constitutional Government whatever? The alternative to the policy represented by this Bill is not merely a Coercion Act, but it would inevitably be the disfranchisement of Ireland and the establishment of a military despotism. Sir, the argument about Ulster is false and misleading. The very name of the Ulster question itself is a falsehood. There is no Ulster question. [Opposition laughter.] I will explain what I moan, and we will then see that those who laugh last laugh best. There may be a Belfast question—there may be a question of a small corner of Ulster, but it is false to speak of this question as an Ulster question. The present population of Ulster, including Belfast, contains 46 per cent. of Catholics. If you take Ulster out— [Opposition laughter.] I do not want 243 to take Ulster out. I am one of those who believe, like Mr. Parnell, that Ireland cannot afford to lose a single son; but surely the intelligence of hon. Members who laughed is keen enough to follow the simple line of reasoning I was putting before the House. I said the population of Ulster, including Belfast, shows a Catholic proportion of 46 per cent. Leaving out Belfast it shows a fair majority of Catholics over Protestants. I deny altogether that every Protestant is an anti-Nationalist. I know something of the means that are used in Ireland to keep up this agitation against Home Rule. You talk of boycotting in the time of the Land League. I say that boycotting has been brought to a fine art by the Unionists of Ireland against any Protestant who is independent enough to declare himself on our side. There are in Ulster, including even Belfast, 46 per cent. of Catholics, and admittedly the Ulster Catholics are Home Rulers, and, with a margin of Protestants in favour of the Bill, I am convinced that at least one-half of the entire population of Ulster is favourable to this Bill. But suppose that there are only 46 per cent. of the population of Ulster favourable to the Bill, how false to speak of this as an Ulster question. Besides that, Ulster is not the only prosperous province in Ireland. I wish Ulster were as prosperous as Unionist Members endeavour to depict her. Belfast is prosperous, and long live her prosperity; but as Belfast has grown in prosperity Ulster has declined. There are nine counties in Ulster, and within the last 50 years, whilst the population of Belfast has increased, the population of these nine counties has diminished by 1,000,000 of people. In face of that fact, can it be pretended that the population of Ulster is the only prosperous population in Ireland? That diminution of the population of Ulster is greater than the diminution in some of the other Provinces, and the strange thing is that the decrease in the population is not greatest where the people are thriftless Catholic Nationalists—it has diminished less in the Catholic County of Donegal than in those counties which contain a large proportion of prosperous Protestants who are said to be opposed to this Bill. I say, Sir, that this agitation against the Bill is promoted by a small minority of 244 the Protestants of Ireland. Large masses of the Protestants are, no doubt, frightened by this Bill. I do not wonder at it. They have had in their hands for generations an absolute monopoly of all power and place and patronage. To be born a child of this favoured race in Ireland is to be provided for by some place or position from one's cradle. No wonder, then, that large masses of them are against a system which would distribute this patronage, power, and influence amongst the people. But whilst these feelings are prevalent amongst Protestants generally, the men who have fomented and instigated this bitter and violent agitation in Ireland against Home Rule are not the general body, but a small section comprising the Orange Society. I would recall to the House the recollection of the origin of this Society. It sprang into existence in 1795—a fateful and terrible year for Ireland. At that time the Protestant Parliament of Ireland had commenced the work of Catholic Emancipation—commenced it 30 years before your enlightened English Parliament carried it out. That Protestant Parliament of Ireland had at its back in support of Catholic Emancipation the far larger part of the Protestants of the country. Lord Fitzwilliam has declared that at the time of his recall the Protestants of Ireland generally were favourable to Emancipation. But the minority—the unreasoning and fanatical minority amongst the Protestants used their influence with England, and the beneficent policy of Lord Fitzwilliam was reversed. Lord Fitzwilliam was withdrawn. This unreasoning minority of Protestants at once formed themselves into the Orange Society, and then by their excesses, their fanaticism, they drove the Irish people to arms. I have here abundant proof of my statement. Lord Cornwallis, writing to the Duke of Portland in July, 1798, said— The principal persons are in general adverse to all acts of clemency, and, although they do not express it, and perhaps are too much heated to see the ultimate effects which their violence must produce, would pursue measures that could only terminate in the extirpation of the greater number of the inhabitants, and in the utter destruction of the country. In the same year Lord Cornwallis also wrote— The principal personages, who have long been in the habit of directing the Councils of 245 the Lord Lieutenants, are blinded by their passions and prejudices, talk of nothing but strong measures… Religious animosities increase, and I am sorry to say are encouraged by the foolish violence of all the principal persons who have been in the habit of governing these islands. I say there are abundant proofs of my statement that this unreasoning minority, comprising the Orange Society drove the people into insurrection. Mr. Goldwin Smith, who is now a Unionist, and whose voice is received as the voice of a prophet, wrote in his Irish History and Irish Character— The peasantry, although undoubtedly in a disturbed state, might have been kept quiet by lenity, but they were gratuitously scourged and tortured into open rebellion. These were the crimes, not of individual ruffians, but of a faction—a faction which must take its place in history beside that of Robespierre, Couthon, and Carrier. The murders by the Jacobins may have excited more indignation and pity, because the victims were of high rank; but in the use of torture the Orangemen seem to have reached a pitch of fiendish cruelty which was scarcely attained by the Jacobins…. The dreadful civil war of 1798 was the crime, as a candid student of its history will prove, not of the Irish people, but of the Orange terrorists, who literally goaded the people into insurrection. This is the faction who in Ireland today are the instigators and the promoters of the more violent and unreasoning features of the Protestant agitation against Home Rule. That faction instigated religious difference?—one of the greatest crimes that men could be guilty of; they invoked religious hatreds in order to destroy the Parliament of Ireland, and to-day precisely the same agencies are at work. Religious fears and differences are availed of in support of the Union by the men whose fathers' bigotry and intolerance brought about the Union. Sir, it has been said that Grattan's Parliament was a failure. I deny it. Grattan's Parliament, in 1793, admitted the Catholics to the franchise, to serve on juries, to the professions and to the Universities, and it was not till 30 years afterwards that this Imperial Parliament completed the work of Emancipation. That Protestant Parliament was willing to extend liberty to their Catholic fellow-countrymen, and it was the band of England that interposed between that Protestant Parliament and the masses of their countrymen. The minority of Protestants who opposed Catholic Emancipation in 1793; who got Lord Fitzwilliam recalled in 1795, 246 and whose bigotry and fanaticism drove the people into arms in 1798, and who sold their country in 1800—these are the men whose lineal descendants to-day are the promoters of this unreasoning and violent agitation against Home Rule. These are the men of whom Mr. John Bright, speaking in this House, used these words— These Ulstermen have stood in the way of improvement in the franchise, in the Church, and in the Land Question. They have purchased Protestant ascendency, and the price they have paid for it is the ruin and degradation of their country. What, I ask, is the meaning of this Belfast scare? Do hon. Gentlemen really think that the Irish Parliament will at once set itself to the task of destroying Belfast? Why, it is too absurd to argue. Do they really think that the Catholic majority of the Parliament will at once set about persecuting the Protestant minority? A more insulting and humiliating charge was never brought against a people. We are entitled, when the charge is made, to ask our opponents to point to a single period of Irish history when the Irish Catholics were guilty of those acts of oppression which English Catholics were undoubtedly guilty of. There were periods when the Catholics of Ireland had in their hands the power to oppress their Protestant fellow-countrymen, but these periods were marked by a spirit of tolerance displayed by the Catholics towards the Protestants. The reign of Mary was marked by the oppression of Protestants by Catholics in England—including the burning of Protestants at the stake; but we have it on the authority of the Protestant historians, Leland and Taylor, that in the reign of Mary the Dublin Corporation rented 74 houses for the shelter of refugees from the persecution of Protestants in England. Taylor said in his History of the Civil Wars, that the Catholics of Ireland— Had suffered persecution and learned mercy, as they showed in the reign of Mary, in the wars from 1641 to 1648, and during the brief triumph of James II. The Secretary for Scotland, in his speech the other night, told us that some very horrible woodcuts by George Cruickshank, depicting horrible occurrences in Ireland, were being circulated throughout England. 247 The same policy was adopted in 1886. The most atrocious falsehoods and calumnies against the people of Ireland, pictoral and otherwise, were circulated throughout the country. I hold in my hand a publication issued by a Tory candidate and a Tory Association, and I will read an extract from it to show the kind of calumny that is being palmed off on the people of England. It is in the form of a catechism with question and answer— Have the Irish ever had Home Rule, and how did they behave? They murdered every Englishman and Protestant they could lay their hands on in 1641. They were set on by the priests, who said that the Protestants were devils, and served the devil, and that the killing of them was a meritorious act. Altogether they killed in that year 150,000 Protestants-men, women, and children. That is the kind of calumny that is spread by our opponents throughout English constituencies. But what does Mr. Lecky say on this question of Catholic oppression, and surely hon. Members will listen to Mr. Lecky's words, as the words of an impartial witness. He writes— Irish history contains its full share of violence and massacre, but whoever will examine these episodes with impartiality may easily convince himself that their connection with religion has been most superficial. Religious cries have been sometimes raised, religious enthusiasm has been often appealed to in the agony of a great struggle; but the real causes have usually been the conflicts of races and classes, the struggle of nationality against annihilation. … It is a memorable fact that, not a single Protestant suffered for his religion in Ireland during all the period of the Marian persecution in England. I am conscious that all this might be met by our opponents saying, "That is not the kind of persecution that we fear. We do not fear that we shall be burned at the stake, but we do fear that there will be a Catholic clerical ascendency." The House will understand me when I say that I am likely to give impartial testimony on that matter. It is true in the public life of Ireland the Catholic priesthood wield an enormous preponderating power, but they wield it largely because of the character of the struggle the people are waging. Still, I am as convinced as I am of my own existence that the political power-the political supremacy if you like-of the Catholic clergy will not, if it is tried to be used, be successful under a free Parliament of the 248 Irish people. Surely the events of the past couple of years in Ireland, instead of giving alarm to Protestants, should give them some encouragement. The hon. Member for Londonderry said in his speech on the First Reading that I ought to be the last man in the House to say a word upon this subject. I say there is no man in this House who has a better right to speak on it. I and my comrades sit in this House as the result of defeating the unanimous opposition of the priests and bishops of Ireland. There is not one of us who was not opposed, as I was, determinedly, consistently, and unanimously by the entire priesthood of Ireland. Only a few of us have been returned, but I ask when in the past history of Ireland—even when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham was thinking of giving over education without any restriction to the people of Ireland—when, I ask, was such a spectacle afforded as 70,000 Catholic votes being recorded against the open opposition of the whole body of the priesthood of Ireland? I say that it is in that spirit of independence of clerical interference in political matters the Protestants will find in the future their best guarantee and safeguard. To the Protestants of Ireland generally I will say this—if I believed that Home Rule would mean for the Protestants of Ireland, not the oppression at the stake which, as you say, is unlikely and impossible, but if I thought it meant the abrogation of one whit of their just civil and religious liberties I would, as an Irish Nationalist, oppose Home Rule and would quit my country whose people had not learned the first elements of liberty. We Catholic Nationalists owe too much in our past history to our Protestant fellow-countrymen ever to be guilty of the baseness of betrayal. We do not forget the history of Ireland. We do not forget that it was Protestants who won the Parliament of 1782; that it was Protestants who organised the Society of United Irishmen both before and after it had become a revolutionary organisation. We do not forget that it was Protestants who gave the franchise to Catholics in 1793, that Protestants led the rebel army in '98, that Protestants gallantly but vainly defended Irish liberty in 1800, and we do not forget that every day that has passed since has witnessed 249 the efforts of Protestants to defend and promote the civil and religions liberty and the national life of Ireland. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham laid great stress upon his distrust of the present Irish Leaders. [Mr. T. W. RUSSELL: Hear, hear!] It was unnecessary for the hon. Gentleman to cheer that statement, because everybody who knew him knew that be distrusted every man in the country of his adoption. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham resented an accusation of that kind. He said he did not distrust the people of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman resented as a false accusation the statement that he had reproached the Irish people with having little of humanity except its form. No, it was not the people of Ireland the right hon. Gentleman distrusted, but their Leaders. But if be distrusted the Leaders he must distrust the people who followed them. If he distrusted the people, then he bad a right to oppose this Bill, but he asked how long was it since the right hon. Gentleman learned this distrust of the Irish Leaders? He had abstained from arguments of a tu quoque character, which had been too frequent in that Debate, but the temptation was irresistible to remind the right hon. Gentleman of some incidents in his own past career. One of the reasons for the right hon. Gentleman distrusting the Irish Leaders was that they had been denounced as marching through rapine to plunder by the Prime Minister. But in the year 1885, long-after the Prime Minister had denounced them as marching through rapine to dismemberment—long sifter the right hon. Gentleman had made himself perfectly acquainted with them, and at a time when, as a matter of fact, the right hon. Gentleman was in the closest and most confidential relations with some of these Irish Leaders, there was published an article in The Fortnightly Review, which the right hon. Gentleman admitted, when challenged in that House, that, though he had not written it, had been published with his sanction and approval, and the main lines of it could be regarded as his. In that article he said— What is the root of Irish discontent? Every one recognises the existence of the great grievances which distinguished the Government of Ireland at the commencement of the century. 250 But many of them have been removed. The tithes have been abolished; Catholic Emancipation has been granted; religious disabilities have been removed; the Irish Church has been disestablished, and last and most important, the Lund Laws have been reformed. In addition, there has been a large use of Imperial funds and credit. And now he would call the recollection of the House to the statement of the Member for West Birmingham that Ireland was improving under remedial legislation, and if only the Prime Minister had let the improvement go on and had not been in a hurry in 1885, the improvement would sooner or later have resulted in contentment. But what did the right hon. Gentleman say in 1885? The article proceeded— The Irish people are discontented still and probably there is more deep-seated disaffection with the English connection at the present time than at any previous period since the Union. These reforms have all been late. They have been the result of compulsion, not of justice; they have been proposed and carried by a Foreign Government. What is needed in Ireland is that Irish legislation should be domestic and not foreign Austria and Hungary,''— the right hon. Gentleman scoffed at Austria and Hungary as a precedent now— Austria and Hungary have long since settled their differences; yet England persists still in misgoverning Ireland, and has failed to endow her with a Constitution that will command the loyalty and affection of the people. With what a face did the right hon. Gentleman, after declarations of that kind, come down to the House and declare that the remedial legislation between 1869 and 1885 was gradually weaning the people away from disaffection, and only for the wicked meddler, the Prime Minister, in 1885, by this time he supposed the Irish Channel would have disappeared, or, at any rate, that England and Ireland as two nations would have merged into one harmonious whole. In conclusion, he would earnestly impress just one other consideration upon the House. The malady from which Ireland was admittedly suffering was a deadly malady, and the case was urgent. It was not a case that would brook of delay. While doctors woe differing the patient was dying. The very life-blood of Ireland was day by day ebbing away from her. Every specific had been tried for the cure of this malady—every specific had been tried except one, and that was that they should allow the Irish people to make an attempt, at 251 any rate, to cure themselves. Her disease was a disease alike of the mind and the body. He remembered when a very young lad listening in the Gallery of that House to a speech on this subject in the year 1876, and he remembered Mr. Isaac Butt, whose name he in common with large masses of the Irish people would ever recall with reverence and affection, he remembered Mr. Isaac Butt quoting to the House those noble words in Macbeth when "Macbeth" asks the physician— Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet, oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? And he remembered well the effect produced upon that House when Mr. Butt went, further, and recalled the answer of the physician, who said— Therein the patient must minister to herself. That was their case for Home Rule. They said that Ireland herself must minister to herself. Her malady had baffled the most skilful political physicians of this country; had baffled England's ablest administrators, her wisest legislators, her sagest counsellors and statesmen. They (the Irish Members) said that Ireland's solo remaining hope was in herself. Ireland herself must minister to herself. She must bind up her own wounds and cure her own diseases. Those who said, as Lord Salisbury said, that the Irish people, because they were mostly of the Celtic race, were unfitted for the use of representative institutions and for the enjoyment of freedom made a declaration foreign to the whole experience and history of their Empire. In the creation of the Empire, in the Government of the Empire, in the Councils of the Empire, in the exercise of those virtues and talents which were necessary for the practice of the arts of Government, be said that Irishmen had proved themselves the equal of the best of Englishmen, or Scotchmen, or Welshmen. Go round the Empire, on which they boasted the sun never set, and he defied them to find one spot where Irishmen had not made an exhibition of those talents and those virtues, except one spot—that spot being the land of their own birth and affections. He would say to the House these great 252 qualities and virtues were not yet extinct in the Irish race. Give them free scope in Ireland; throw upon Irish shoulders the sobering influence of responsibility. Give Irishmen free scope in their own land; give them the bracing influences of a free Constitution, and he was as convinced as that they were assembled in that Parliament to-day that the Irish Question, which for 100 years had been the torture and the disgrace of this united Imperial Parliament, would in a few short years trouble them no more, and Ireland—poor, depopulated, scourged, and rightly disaffected Ireland—would be transformed from what she was to-day, alike England's weakness and her shame, into a portion of the Empire which, if not as prosperous and rich as happy England, would at least be as contented, as peaceful, and as free.

§ COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY (Shropshire, Newport)

ventured to intrude in this Debate for one reason only, and that was that there were thousands and thousands of voters and electors of the United Kingdom who had no channel of communication with that House and who had no chance of making their views known to the House unless through some Member like himself, whose duty it was to express the views of those he was sent there to represent. They had heard much about, nationalities in that Debate. He would like to glance for a moment at the different nationalities who were supposed to be mixed up in the settlement of this question. There was first the nationality of Wales. They had not had the advantage of any interference in the Debate from any Member representing a Welsh constituency. It would ill become him, as a near neighbour, to say one harsh word of the Representatives of the Principality; but they seemed to be setting so extreme a value on the Disestablishment or Suspensory Bill that they were not inclined to attach sufficient weight to the importance of Home Rule or the setting up of an Irish Government. If that were so, it was hardly quite creditable to the Members from Wales that they should be willing to make such a compact, and it was hardly creditable to the Leader of the Ministry that he should care to accept their service on such terms. But he would refer for a moment to the 253 Scotch nationality, and he confessed it was to him a matter of extreme difficultly to understand how a nation with the characteristics of the Scotch could conceive that it was right to assist in conferring a separate Parliament on Ireland. The Scotch themselves, he should have thought, had benefited too much by their close union with England to sever another portion of the United Kingdom from that which must always remain its centre and its heart. They had next to consider what the Irish nationality had to say on the subject, and they should remember they had in that House one section of Irish Members which, if not numerically the strongest, represented a very important section of the Irish nation who were resolutely opposed to this Bill or anything connected with it. Again, they should remember that that section of the Irish Representatives who opposed Home Rule had been absolutely reinforced in its strength by the results of the late General Election, and apparently just in proportion as Home Rule might be supposed to be creeping nearer the opposition in Ireland to that very measure seemed to be growing. There then remained two other sections in the Irish representation, the Nationalist sections, and as far as he could gather from the speeches of Members of both sections, there was hardly one of them who was contented with the measure as it stood. Nearly every one of them who had spoken had taken shelter under the announcement that when the Hill went into Committee he would reserve his right of action as to one or other of the more important salient points. He thought they had a right to look at the credentials which these hon. Members brought to see whether they were entitled to have that measure of trust and confidence which they demanded from the House. He would refer for the character of these hon. Members, not to their speeches, but to their deeds and actions. If the present Bill passed the Irish Nationalist Members would be those who would become Members of the Irish Government, and who would be entrusted with the rights and liberties of the whole Irish people. He would ask British Members to look rather carefully into the past history and actions of those Representatives, and to see whether it entitled them to this large and far-reach- 254 ing trusteeship? They could not forget that the Members of this Party had lately been before a tribunal absolutely competent to judge thorn, and that that tribunal had put upon record the opinion it entertained not upon words or scattered speeches, but upon the actual accomplished deeds and actions of those who now demanded this vast trusteeship at their hands. It was of these very men —or, at all events, of the Party they represented—that the Special Commission reported that they had compensated people who were injured in committing crime; that they had accepted money from a known advocate of crime and dynamite; that they were concerned in a conspiracy to expel the "English garrison": that they disseminated papers inciting to sedition; that they incited to intimidation, of which the consequence was crime and outrage were committed by the persons whom they so incited; and that they persisted in that intimidation with a knowledge of its effects. He did not think that that past had been completely condoned or these crimes yet sufficiently purged. He was willing to admit that a great advance had been made, but he said that, as honest, fair-going Members of the British Parliament, they were not entitled to hand over to the men with such a past this enormous and possibly all-important trust. Perhaps one of the ablest speeches in that Debate was the speech of the hon. Member for North-East Cork (Mr. Davitt), who, by that speech and by his great ability, would be marked out for very high office in an Irish Parliament. Yet what did they find said of that hon. Member by this same competent tribunal pronouncing after patient investigation? They had reported that Mr. Davitt was a member of the Fenian organisation, and convicted as such; that he received money from a fund contributed for the purpose of outrage and crime—namely, the Skirmishing Fund; that he was in close and intimate association with the Party of violence in America for the purpose of bringing about, and was mainly instrumental in bringing about, an alliance between that Party and the Parnellite and Home Rule Party in America. Yet they wore asked by this measure to put in a position of possible power and authority—to put into the hands of an hon. Gentleman with that record—that which might mean the difference between 255 the liberty and the life of our fellow-subjects in Ireland. He could not take that responsibility, and however much he might admire the courage with which the hon. Member's career was marked, and recognising as he did that the Special Commission stated that Mr. Davitt expressed a bona âfide disapproval of crime, still he said that the hon. Member's past was marked and stained by the very crimes which should dissociate men for ever from any power of Government, and ho could not be a party to allowing such a man to have any part in the government of those subjects of the Queen in Ireland who ought to be equally well protected with ourselves. In this matter they had not only to consider the Irish Representatives in that House, but they had also to consider the Irish in Ireland. As regarded the question of Ulster, he did not know of anything that struck him more in the speech of the Prime Minister than the fact that he did not think it worth while to make any reference to that great demonstration in Ulster which, whatever else it might mean, at any rate must mean the fixed resolve and ardent desire of no inconsiderable or despicable portion of the Irish race. But supposing they were to substract Ulster altogether from Ireland, it was not possible to forget that in the other Provinces of Leinster, Minister, and Connaught there was evidence of an increasing hatred and abhorrence towards this measure, which they were told that the rest of Ireland had so unanimously accepted. In the same spirit as the Nationalist Members, Her Majesty's Government were perfectly entitled to quote and rely upon and argue upon the many proofs they received from Ireland of the desire for this Bill; but in common justice and fair play its opponents were also entitled to cite and bring forth the many proofs of dislike to the Bill that were becoming more manifest every day. The argument of quantity was a very valuable one in all matters affecting representation, and he granted at once that the argument of quantity was on the side of Her Majesty's Government, on the side of the majority of the Representatives from Ireland, but, although that ought to have full weight, at the same time he thought that on the other side some little importance should be attached to quality. That there was 256 matter for fair consideration here the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. John Morley) would admit, for he believed that the right hon. Gentleman wished this to be a just measure, and one that should honestly be for the good of Ireland. What did they find? They found the Irish majority in this House represented the vast mass of the want of education in Ireland; it represented the vast proportion of those who, inasmuch as they could neither read nor write, could hardly be regarded as the best judges of that which would be the best for the future government of their country; they found that majority represented in a great degree the illiterate portion of Ireland. In this connection he would bring another curious fact to the memory of the House. There was only one Irish Member, he believed, returned for any English constituency, and that Irish Member represented one of the Divisions of the great City of Liverpool, and he found that one in every 11 of that hon. Member's constituents could neither read nor write at the last General Election—that was to say that one out of every 11 voters was illiterate, whereas in the whole of the rest of Liverpool only one in 165 was unable to read or write. He had no wish to deny the right of the poor man to a vote because he had not had the benefit of education, but in considering a matter of such importance as this Bill they ought to attach a little weight to the quality as well as the quantity of the decision gi